Characters - Domains, regents and others.

[Cariele/EG (Thorsten)]

I've hired people as both Medoere and Avanil using those rules, and haven't had any issue at all. Of course I did write a background for my hired help, and in more than one occasion I hired from my able assistants or inner circle, rather than going out of my way to bring overly powerful strangers into my court. I also got my hands on AA's through other events, such as when Aubrae rescued the beleaguered troops in Northern Taeghas and got herself a strong (and much needed) general as a result. That was not part of any plan - just the happy fallout of a Wage War/Move troops action.

In all honesty, it sounds a bit like what you want to hire, are the regents of other domains, not advisers and/or specialists.

[Ohlaak (Alan)]

I used this action to hire Savanne (who eventually took over a large portion of the IR's domain from Tristan), but I used a ton of actions to support it, dispatches to the Imperial College, Diplomacy with the Imperial College, an Adventure Action (the person had to mesh well with Osoer), before doing the entire Hired Help action.  Further aiding my cause, was that I had already constructed an idea of how this powerful character (she was a 9th level wizard) was going to fit into the game...she was taking over a domain, I enticed the Imperial College which perhaps gaining entry to Three Brother Magi (because Jatim seriously needed instruction/tutoring), etc.  I then supported the action like crazy (though not as massively as the rules would have you believe)...

I think this is a case where the rules for this action are missing a very special DAC modifier: Special Circumstances (DM discretion).

[Oaken Grove Erik/GB (JP)]

This is all great info for a somewhat newbie like myself!  I glad it popped up on the radar today as unread!  I never had to hire help in my two turns but it looked like that had been done fro my domain in the past and I am sure it will be very useful in the future.

[Torele Anviras/TA (Niels)]

What you describe is:
1 you got aa's without using the action
2 you got a large discretionary bonus

Both cases are not strong arguments supporting the action as described in the rules.

You describe a rule that routinely is bypassed by the GM with expediency and better game experience for all involved in mind. While great, it does not make the rule as written good.

[Ohlaak (Alan)]

What you describe is:
1 you got aa's without using the action
2 you got a large discretionary bonus

Both cases are not strong arguments supporting the action as described in the rules.

You describe a rule that routinely is bypassed by the GM with expediency and better game experience for all involved in mind. While great, it does not make the rule as written good.

...I did use the Hired Help action, Niels. I also used a series of actions prior to it to help my chances and tried to ensure that the game narrative was enhanced by the action.

[Talinie & NIT/TD (Linde)]

Well, I really never felt we used the rules.(Or that description DM bonus was great)
Every time I needed to hire a person, I wrote their name, what character levels they had, what their area of expertise was, where in my organization they previously worked and how the GB / RP in effort was spent if any.

I hired 5 people in total during RoE 2 I think, and I payed from zero effort to 2 gb to 1 gb and 2 rp.
And I got chars from medium to high lvl, from skilled to master for it. Both blooded and unblooded.

I like what Bjørn did.. Sometimes you didn't get a character at the power level you asked, but you got a character.. So he couldn't cast realm magic, but hey he was still an expert assassin, skilled in subterfuge and something else.


I think the fluent rules for gm bonus for characters give advantage to those who dare ask for someone and think up a story for him and gamble a GB and perhaps a couple of RP on the GM liking the story and being nice and down scaling the character when you ask for too much.

It might be easier to gamble a couple of GB in a campaign where you're not pressed for gold and have 1-4 GB per turn to be creative with. (Disclaimer: I don't know how many GB realms will have to be creative with per turn.)


So perhaps the rules need fixing, or perhaps players need to gamble with their hard earned GB..

Either way I think we will manage.
But it would still be nice to know how Matt will run his interpretation of the hire help rules.

And this sentence in the rules need clarification:
[Special – The above DDC assumes Elite characters (experts and such); elite characters increases the DDC by 5, while heroic characters are more rare and adds 10 to the DDC (if available at all).]

[Cariele/EG (Thorsten)]

What you describe is:
1 you got aa's without using the action
2 you got a large discretionary bonus

Both cases are not strong arguments supporting the action as described in the rules.

You describe a rule that routinely is bypassed by the GM with expediency and better game experience for all involved in mind. While great, it does not make the rule as written good.

Yes, one indecent out of many hire help actions. And the reason I chose to post it, was to tell you, that it is possible to gain assistants through other means as well, and that some of the best or most loyal assistants are gained like this (saving a man's life makes him very grateful, y'know).

As for discretionary bonuses, I wrote several longer pieces about men I wanted to hire, to help bring about their inclusion in my domains. I also wrote them, well knowing that I might just be wasting hours of my time making up a detailed background about someone I might never get. Like any RoE-action where you write a longer description and/or IC fluff to go with it, it's a calculated risk you take. But it's still perfectly valid to do so. Especially seeing as how the rules specify that writing good descriptions might grant you bonuses (even more so in this case as your own rules extract states; "Modifiers: Special – In addition to the usual description, supportive etc. bonuses the DM may give you an additional bonus if the character description is very nice or if your turning an existing character into an AA).

I like what Bjørn did.. Sometimes you didn't get a character at the power level you asked, but you got a character.. So he couldn't cast realm magic, but hey he was still an expert assassin, skilled in subterfuge and something else.

Without knowing, I have a theory that what Bjørn did, was roll a die for your hire help action, and then downgrade/upgrade the AA you sought, until his stats/level/ability DC matched the result of the die + modifiers. That would explain why sometimes you got something below what you wanted, and sometimes you got something better.

[Talinie & NIT/TD (Linde)]

Without knowing, I have a theory that what Bjørn did, was roll a die for your hire help action, and then downgrade/upgrade the AA you sought, until his stats/level/ability DC matched the result of the die + modifiers. That would explain why sometimes you got something below what you wanted, and sometimes you got something better.

I've aimed high, so I only think he has downgraded.
And I am pretty sure you are right in your assessment of what Bjørn did... Either that or he always assumed a 10 on the roll. That doesn't matter much to me.

What matter to me is that I like that approach! That you always get the best the dice allows when you hire help.
Instead of getting nothing if you need a 14 but rolled 12. Or if he thinks bonus from description lowers your MOS to -3 on a take ten, then he lowers the characters abilities to reflect 3 points of DDC so take ten is possible.
You always end up with a character. The action is never wasted. That is nice.

[Torele Anviras/TA (Niels)]

I like what Linde suggest, about the action never failing. Cool mechanic.

There are, off the top of my head, these kinds of characters:
Fluff the player makes
Friends made
Advisors
Able Assistants
Lieutenants
Heir

listed loosely by rank/value to the domain.

I would not mind if it was simply impossible to pull a super lieutenant out of thin air in one action, but the rule  could use clarification on how to use it to "nuture" an NPC into position over several uses of the action.

Also, it is beneficial to reduce the amount of work placed on the GM to add new people.

[Cariele/EG (Thorsten)]

Whatever the case you will likely never be able to pull a "super lieutenant" out of thin air. You might be able to hire a somewhat capable guy with one action, and name him a lieutenant with another (Hire Help gives you "advisers and specialists" as the action states, you need a Grant action to promote him, and the DC for that increases if he's someone new and unknown to you). It will take time and effort, as such things should.

Hire Help is not, I believe, made for regents to buff their domains by adding tons of powerful characters of a level equal to or higher than the actual regent to it, but more a means to acquire assistants you can turn to with certain issues or questions, or delegate certain assignments to, so your regent is freed up for something else. For the weak and/or careful regents it is also a means to participate in things they would otherwise be capable of doing, but at the cost of sending someone less competent than the regent itself along.

[Aeric (DM Matt)]

Examining the viability of a game action by taking the best possible outcome and deciding on the relative merit of the features design by how likely/achievable it is is foolhardy at best.

The action is clearly skewed to limit the access of the regent to blooded characters as your advisors/helpers/hirelings. And that is fine; those blooded individuals are the focus of the PC game - they are your direct competition in the setting and should not be easily recruited to power your business through these troubled times.

I think most of those rules are pretty clear tbh - you are recruiting able advisors and henchmen and above are promoted up through... it is all written there in actuality. We will set up a section of the forums for the discussion of actions though so we can try to capture thoughts and do some proper analysis and discussion - I think Bobby may already have volunteered to do just that (without knowing )

[Torele Anviras/TA (Niels)]

I believe my position has been made clear...
1. The rules as written could support the intended application better. A simple rephrasing a few places would take care of that.

2. I believe the "bottom" heavy DDC penalties could be reworked to allow greater variety in character types while not impacting actual game balance. Restricting the total number of blooded characters will always be up to GM approval ofc, but as is, it has no game mechanical value to have a blooded AA so NONE of them typically are. This too is unlikely IC.

Whether there is merit in adjusting the rules on this foundation is of course ultimately not up to me.

[Silver House/ClDh (Bobby)]

Wait.... volunteer?  This isn't a paid position?       

What I'm hearing here is partly a debate about the DCs involved in Hire Help, but mostly one about how you ACHIEVE those DCs.  That says to me that not everyone is on the same page with how actions interact, or that not everyone agrees with how a process of actions does/should work.  And that doesn't surprise me, because those were things I learned about Bjorn's style from play, not from reading the RG.  Most of the information is in there, but the emphasis in the writing hasn't always been in the same places as the emphasis during gameplay. 

I think we need to have a little more clarity about the results of using Regent actions, such as Diplomacy, Espionage, and Adventure, as Supportive Actions.  I think we also need to discuss expectations of player knowledge (how much a player needs to know about his action's odds of success) - a player needs to know enough to have a chance at figuring out the best way to do things, but not so much that he expects to have total control over how things run.

Past that, Niels does have a point that there's several things in Hire Help that could be adjusted.  What is the impact of a non-heroic character vs. a heroic one?  Is that a distinction worth making in this game, or should we let go of the differences between 'NPC' and 'PC' classes and just worry about character levels?  Is the bonus provided by being a Master of a skill (particularly Administration or Warcraft) equivalent to a +5 DC?  I know I tended to go for those Masters on the majority of my Hire Helps, even at the cost of a lower character level. 

Matt, are you saying you want to open a new forum section for threads like this?  Sounds fine to me if so, and I'll kick things off in there and try to guide discussions to keep them productive, but I don't have the permissions in the forum to create areas.  Do we want to just put this stuff in the Regent Guide section?

[Torele Anviras/TA (Niels)]

Precisely Bobby!

[Cariele/EG (Thorsten)]

What is the impact of a non-heroic character vs. a heroic one?  Is that a distinction worth making in this game, or should we let go of the differences between 'NPC' and 'PC' classes and just worry about character levels?  Is the bonus provided by being a Master of a skill (particularly Administration or Warcraft) equivalent to a +5 DC?  I know I tended to go for those Masters on the majority of my Hire Helps, even at the cost of a lower character level. 

If I recall correctly a heroic character has PC class levels, while a non-heroic character has NPC class levels. Wizards and Priests tend to need spellcasting capability (making them heroic).

That said, and going by what is in the latest RG, characters are grouped into one of four tiers of heroism; heroes, elites, professionals, and commoners. Hirelings (ie. people hired using the Hire Help action) are either professionals or elites. The groupings are described as follows:

Heroes: Regents, lieutenants, and real adventurers. Truly exceptional individuals. May reach any level. Can have multiple proficiencies. Example: Your lieutenant who is also your best general.
Elites: Characters with heroic class levels; a cut above the rabble. Rarely go above medium level. Sometimes have more than one proficiency. Example: Guard captain.
Professionals: Typical members of non-heroic classes; nothing special really. Will rarely have more than one proficiency. Example: Infantryman.
Commoner: Members of the commoner class. Not exceptional in any way. No proficiencies. Example: Peasant Levy