Limners, Linkboys, and Lackeys: Hirelings for Hiring in AD&D

There has been some discourse about hirelings. I felt this discussion leaned more towards "NPCs you recruit to fight alongside you" - i.e. men-at-arms (hirelings) or henchman (different than hirelings). I've already written about henchman in AD&D (and assassins and spies, kind of, cartographers, briefly, and sages - all of whom are "expert" hirelings), so I thought I'd write something about all the other hirelings one can hire in AD&D.

Hirelings are different than henchmen. Henchmen are "character-type" NPCs. They have a class and they can gain levels. They are somewhat rare and difficult to recruit. They will siphon off some of your XP and will expect a fair share of treasure as well. They are also considerably more loyal than your typical hireling. Since they gain levels, they grow in power, just as you do. You can play as them if your character dies. They protect you from "the machinations of rival player characters", which sometimes a problem, apparently. You can only have a certain number at a time, as determined by your Charisma score.

Hirelings, on the other hand, do not (usually) have a class. They do not (usually) gain levels. They're (usually) more common, and recruiting them is (usually) not a sizeable undertaking involving advertising by way of criers and bribing every barkeep in town. They don't take your XP, and they're paid a flat rate for time served. They're not especially loyal. They're not necessarily backup characters in case you perish (though they can probably serve that role in a pinch). You can have as many of them as you can afford.

The relevant section on hirelings in the PHB is as follows:

We start with a list of typical hirelings. Soon we will see that there are many more types of hirelings than these, and that there are two broad groups of hirelings - standard hirelings and expert hirelings. Some of the hirelings included on this list are standard hirelings, while others are expert hirelings. I do not know why both man-at-arms and crossbowman specifically are included in the list. Notably absent are the assassin, spy, and sage (which in my opinion make up the quintessential trifecta of expert hirelings in D&D), but overall it's a solid list.

This section also explains that the player character will have to make some effort to locate and negotiate with whatever hirelings they desire to recruit, which sounds similar to how recruitment of henchmen works, but we will soon see that nowhere near as much detail is devoted to this process.

It is also worth noting that player characters can nominally recruit hirelings for a period of not just days or months but hours or weeks, which we will see later is not necessarily supported by the text.

Again, note that Charisma is not a limiting factor on the number of hirelings that can be recruited, and that "hirelings differ considerably from henchmen." The rules for loyalty of henchmen apply to hirelings as well, although as noted in my post on the subject, henchmen are overall more loyal.

The section on henchman emphasizes the differences between them and hirelings:

Henchmen are devoted followers of the player characters, not gig economy goons working for the weekend. They expect support and lodging and a share of earnings. Their alignment should be compatible with the player character they serve. Recruiting them is difficult and expensive. They gain XP. You know, all that stuff I already said. This section continues, but I think you get it.

For more about hirelings, we must turn to the DMG:

Here is our list of standard hirelings. In addition to some familiar faces (bearers, linkboys, teamsters, and valets), we have carpenters, leather workers, limners, masons, pack handlers, and tailors. 

Note that expert hirelings (including men-at-arms/mercenaries) are assumed to be employed only once the player character has an established stronghold (although players will likely want men-at-arms much sooner than this to aid them in early-game dungeon exploration).

Also note that standard hirelings only have daily and monthly - not hourly or weekly - rates. I suppose you could divide the daily cost by 8 (assuming an 8-hour workday) or multiply it by 7 to arrive at the latter rates. Monthly rates require that the hireling be provided with quarters, so I'm imagining you're probably only hiring these people long-term if, again, you have an established stronghold (although I guess you could put them up in whatever inn you're staying at).

In my games, I tend to vastly simplify this: standard hirelings work for 2 s.p. per day and 2 g.p. per month (the actual average, if you must know, is 3.3 s.p. per day and 36 s.p. per month, so it might be more accurate to round it off to 3 s.p. per day and 3 g.p. per month). This specific price list has its charm, but doesn't do much for me personally.

What follows is a helpful little blurb about each type of standard hireling, in case you're not sure why you might want to hire one of these:

Bearers and porters carry stuff (like equipment and treasure). Carpenters do woodwork and leather workers do leatherwork. Limners paint signs and such. Linkboys carry light sources. Masons can build your stronghold and the mazelike dungeons thereunder. Pack handlers handle beasts of burden and their loads. Tailors make clothing and such. Teamsters handle animals and carts and wagons. Valets and lackeys are personal servants and messengers.

A few things stand out. I like that the carrying capacity of bearers and porters is made explicit (I've been assuming they have average Strength - this is slightly more generous, however). I like the implication that players will want to hire someone to draw a heraldic device for them. I love that linkboys "are often youngsters." I'm imagining 12-year-old peasant children being employed by sociopaths to hold the torch while they go into the hellhole to do extreme violence against the orc babies that live there. Also, more player characters should have lackeys.

Each of these standard hirelings "are common to most settlements of village-size and above", although not all villages will have all types:

"Towns and cities will have many available...in the appropriate section or quarter." So they are definitely more common than henchmen. It is probably easiest to say that you can find these hirelings in any village, town, or city (but not in hamlets or thorps).

This bit about only 1 in 6 accepting long term employment unless a bonus is offered is a bit of a headscratcher:

This seems to suggest that I'm supposed to know the exact number of linkboys available in any given settlement, but there's no way to determine this. You could use something like donjon's Medieval Demographics Calculator to determine the number of carpenters, leather workers, limners, masons, and tailors, but that's about it. While that information is kind of sort of useful, I'm okay with saying, "Don't worry about it." I can't imagine that the players are going to burn through the village's entire population of linkboys (though that would be hilarious).

Here's an aside about making bespoke cloaks for all your little guys, which is too cute to omit:

Moving on to expert hirelings:

This paragraph again draws the distinction between henchmen and hirelings. Hirelings are employees, while henchmen are followers. This paragraph also seems to suggest that the cost of "cooks, lackeys, stableboys, sweepers, and various servants" is folded into the cost of maintaining a stronghold, since they "are no concern of the player character." Instead, at this point in the game, we're mainly concerned with "Guards and special hirelings", which "must be located and enlisted by the PC or his or her NPC henchmen."

Unlike standard hirelings, expert hirelings are mainly found in towns and cities, and not usually in villages:

Expert hirelings can only be hired on a monthly basis, and the cost includes their salary, clothing, housing, food, and routine equipment - but not arms and armor for soldiers and mercenaries (we can assume that, like henchmen, men-at-arms are the pitiful, destitute wretches of the adventuring profession):

The table of monthly costs is lengthy, mostly because of the inclusion of many very specific varieties of mercenary soldier:

For what it's worth I typically have all men-at-arms charge 2 g.p. per day, rather than be paid by the month. I think this makes sense, as in my B1 campaign, men-at-arms are most often being recruited to go into the dungeon, which is more hazardous work than garrisoning a stronghold. The monthly rate makes sense if all that's expected of them is light guard and patrol duties. In case you're curious, the average wage for the different types is about 3 g.p. per month, so you may want to use that number instead.

I also don't typically distinguish between types - I assume that any given man-at-arms can use whatever armor, weapons, and mounts are provided to them, though your mileage may vary. 

As with standard hirelings, a blurb is provided for each of the expert hirelings. By their nature, these are a bit more involved. Let's take a look at them.

Alchemists aid in concocting potions:

They are only found in cities (since my B1 sandbox only has a town, presumably there are no alchemists). They require a signing bonus, a year's employment, and a laboratory.

Turning to the relevant section on the fabrication of potions, we find that an alchemist enables a magic-user of 7th level or higher to concoct potions, while reducing the cost (in time and money) of such endeavors by 50% if the magic-user is 11th level or higher:

Naturally, establishing the laboratory and its equipment itself requires a chunk of change and the work of masons, potters, glass blowers, and the like

Armorers, of course, make armor, but only in their spare time, as they primarily maintain the stronghold's garrison's armor (one armorer per 40 soldiers), and each armorer has a randomly determined skill level:

This also requires a workroom and forge, which will probably also involve the employment of standard hirelings in its creation.

Each type of armor requires a certain amount of time (which must be adjusted to account for time spent maintaining the garrison's armor), and may also involve the work of leatherworkers, tailors, woodworkers and blacksmiths:

Let's say your garrison includes 35 soldiers. Your armorer can only spend 12.5% of their time making armor, so any such project takes 8 times as long! If I want my armorer to make a suit of ring mail, it will take 160 days. That's almost half a year! Clearly you want at least one armorer doing nothing but making armor, if armor is what you want.

You can also get dwarvish, gnomish, and elvish armorers, who are more expensive, but more efficient:

Dwarven armorers won't serve for more than a year, but are more skilled. Elvish armorers only make "normal chain mail...of the highest quality." Meaning what? Is this proper elven chain? No, it says right there it is normal. Weird.

Blacksmiths, like armorers, maintain the garrison and also turn out a set quantity of weaponry each month (unlike armorers, it seems, their efforts are not divided between maintenance and crafting), and there are dwarven and gnomish varieties as well:

Weird that they can't make, like...swords, but there's a different hireling for that for some reason (which we will get to later). Also not sure why one blacksmith is needed for the first 40 men or horses while the second blacksmith can maintain the arms of 160 more.

Next is the trifecta of engineers - architects, artillerists, and sappers/miners:

Architects supervise the construction of above-ground structures. Artillerists supervise the construction and use of siege engines. Sappers/miners supervise the construction of tunnels and subterranean works (dungeons, of course). Love the 75% chance that a structure built on a site not approved by an architect collapses in 1d100 months. Specialty dwarven miners are of course a possibility as well.

The jeweler-gemcutter can fashion jewelry from precious metals and increase the value of rough or poorly cut gemstones or pieces of jewelry (presumably by adding stones to the items):

The most obvious use case for a jeweler-gemcutter is to bring them all your jeweled items and gemstones so that they can (maybe) increase their value (which presumably grants you additional XP). Even the worst jeweler has a 90% chance to increase an item's value by 10%, while the best has a 60% chance to increase the value by 40%, but always increases it by at least 20%. Gemcutters, however, always have at least a 5% chance of ruining your gemstones completely, and the worst of them has a 25% chance of doing so! "Note that [they] cannot be held responsible for damage."

More interesting is the role of the jeweler-gemcutter in adding "splendor to the player character's personage by the display." Sorry, I don't care if your fighter has a stronghold and a small army to their name - if you don't have a bejeweled sword, you're still poor in my eyes!

"Players should never know the skill levels of jeweler-gemcutters." Dwarven and gnomish jeweler-gemcutters are available as well, the former adding 20% to both skill determination rolls, and the latter adding 30% to gemcutter skill only:

Next are mercenary soldiers, and it's a lot:

When the player characters go searching for mercenary soldiers, you're meant to roll on this table to determine what kind and how many are encountered (apparently, mercenary companies in AD&D have no concept of mixed arms). This is kind of weird because, again, we're given no indication as to how much it costs in time or money to locate these people or how many might be found in any given place, so it seems to me you can just keep looking until you find whatever it is you want.

There will always be a serjeant if more than five mercenaries are found, or one serjeant per ten mercenaries. Each troop type requires a captain to command it. Lieutenants will sometimes be found with groups of more than ten, and captains with groups of more than 20.

I think this makes a lot more sense if we assume the player characters are searching for soldiers to garrison their stronghold specifically. If they just want a handful of men-at-arms to bolster their party for a dungeon expedition, I would forego this entirely. 

Note that men-at-arms have 4-7 (1d4+3) hit points, which is very useful information to have.

There is a short blurb for each type of soldier. These suggest standard arms and armor for each type, but the player character is expected to provide all equipment, so the blurbs are mainly concerned with what arms and armor each type is or isn't allowed to use. 

Longbow archers can also fight as infantry, but shortbow archers will only do so in extremis. Artillerists operate large missile weapons:

Crossbowman expect to be accompanied by a light infantryman to act as a shield bearer:

Heavy footman fight in formation, while light footman are more useful in rough terrain. Hobilars ride horses but dismount to fight, while horsemen fight from horseback. Horse archers are prone to looting:

Sappers/miners are required for use of siege machinery, towers, trenches, and mines:

Slingers use slings and small shields, wear lighter armor, and fight as light infantry:

While there's obviously a lot going on here, I do wish that the specificity of information was a bit more consistent. I'd like it to just come out and say "This type uses this armor and these weapons." Instead, since the player character has to provide all weapons and armor, you end up with this weird sort of dress up game. I don't hate that, and think it can be quite fun on a small scale, but when you have hundreds of soldiers in your garrison, keeping track of who has precisely which weapons and armor seems like tedious bookkeeping.

Compare that to this bit earlier in the DMG about what kind of followers a fighter with a stronghold will attract:

This is so much easier to use! Each type of soldier has this armor and these weapons. Simple!

See also this bit from Appendix C:

This section pertains specifically to parties of rival adventurers encountered in dungeons. Men-at-arms accompanying such groups are assumed to have studded leather, crossbow, and dagger, or sometimes scale mail, shield, spear, and long sword. So if you want to forego the whole buying equipment for men-at-arms thing, you could simply assume that a standard man-at-arms has studded leather, crossbow, and dagger, with maybe 1 in 3 having better equipment, and player characters can supplement their equipment as they see fit.

See also this bit from earlier in the same section:

Again, this is in regards to parties of rival adventurers encountered in the dungeon, but I think we can generalize it to: men-at-arms will only accompany the party on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level of the dungeon. Beyond that, it's too dangerous to be worth it to them. This fits neatly into the "basic" tier of D&D play, and prevents wealthy player characters from absolutely abusing your deeper dungeons with armies of mercenary expendables. Beyond the 3rd level, the players will need to rely on their own wiles or play the cost-benefit game of recruiting henchmen to fill out their ranks.

Let's jump ahead to this bit about daily employment of expert hirelings (but specifically men-at-arms):

First, you can hire men-at-arms for daily duties, but they charge the same rate per day as per month due to assumed hazardous conditions. Since captains, lieutenants, and serjeants can't be hired this way, and it is assumed that a serjeant is present in a body of 6-10 soldiers, it stands to reason that you can have at most five men-at-arms to accompany you into the dungeon. That seems pretty reasonable.

"The supply of such men-at-arms willing to work day-to-day is strictly limited", though no limit is actually suggested. We could maybe say that 10% of a settlement's population are available to hire as men-at-arms, and we can invert the previous limitation on standard hirelings willing to work on a monthly basis and say that 1 in 6 men-at-arms are willing to accept daily employment, or 3 in 6 if a hefty bonus is offered. 

A standard town of 4,000 people (remember that expert hirelings are not usually found in settlements smaller than towns) would have 400 men-at-arms overall, with about 67 willing to accept daily employment (or 200 with bonuses). Doesn't really seem like there's any risk of running out, so perhaps that's too many, but it's all I really have to go on. I doubt that it's actually worth it to keep track of this sort of thing.

Here are the entries pertaining to captains, lieutenants, and serjeants:

There's not much to say about this, except that each of these types is an NPC with fighter levels who cannot advance in level, and you need a certain number of each to command your soldiers. Assuming I'm reading this correctly, if you have an 8th level captain, they can command 160 soldiers themselves, plus eight lieutenants (let's say they are all 2nd level), each of which can command 20 soldiers ("A lieutenant serving under a captain extends the number of troops of the captain can effectively command and control") and an additional two serjeants, each of which can command another 10 soldiers (340 soldiers total, including 34 total serjeants). This would cost 3,400 g.p. per month (assuming an average rate of 3 g.p. per month per soldier and 30 g.p. per month per serjeant).

Non-human soldiers are also an option, but are tricky to handle:

"The less intelligent non-humans" are cheaper, but "will certainly expect to loot, pillage, and [REDACTED] freely at every chance, and kill (and probably eat) captives." The less said about [REDACTED] is probably the better, but the rest is kind of fun. Monstrous humanoids are complicated bedfellows.

Dwarves and elves are more expensive or will serve for a cause or against hated foes, while gnomes and halflings will only serve in the latter case.

A lengthy section on sages follows, but thankfully I've already written about them at length. 

Scribes can record normal things (and cartographers can make maps, which I've also written about), and specialist scribes can use codes and ciphers or read and write in other languages, but are rarer and cost ten times as much:

You will of course need a crew to man a vessel, which can be sailors, oarsmen, or marines under the command of one or several mates:

Not sure what to make of the assumption that all sailors and oarsmen are also soldiers. I'm guessing this is intended for like, naval combat as part of domain play, and would disregard it if the players simply wished to book passage aboard a vessel to carry them to and fro (as in my B1 campaign).

A ship should have a master and lieutenant in addition to the mates and crew:

A ship's crew is "entitled to a share of any prize or treasure taken at sea or on land in their presence." In my campaign, I let the players get around this by outright buying off the entire ship and crew, meaning that they would also be responsible for its routine maintenance and any needed repairs, which felt fair. The section of the DMG on WATERBORNE ADVENTURES details the different sorts of ships and what size crew they must have.

The spy follows after this, but I have already discussed them at length, so onto stewards and castellans, who manage your stronghold for you if you are away for a long time or if you are not a fighter or cleric, and command troops as a captain would, albeit with double capacity and at twice the monthly cost:

I like that stewards/castellans do not serve in the field, and are offended at the mere suggestion. I also like the note that the player character will want to ensure the loyalty of this individual (presumably above all others), or else!

Lastly, we have weapon makers, which are apparently meaningfully different from blacksmiths:

It sounds as if you need both a blacksmith and a weapon maker in your stronghold (blacksmiths doing all the non-weapon making stuff as well like making horseshoes and nails). Weapon makers, compared to blacksmiths, are crazy productive, so it's well worth having one if you're intending to arm an entire stronghold, and this is also presumably why they are meant to be difficult to locate (again, how difficult is not made explicit at all).

And that's every kind of hireling in AD&D I think! Of course, it's well worth it to give these people some sort of personality and interiority. Have them chip in occasionally with what they think the party should do. You can generate entire personalities for them or just roll up their alignment if you like. A Chaotic Evil linkboy is funny. A Lawful Good man-at-arms who goes above and beyond the call of duty is interesting.

This doesn't scale well, so when and if you get to domain play, don't try to assign identities to every single soldier garrisoning the player character's stronghold. Like with a town or city or a war band of 300 orcs, focus on the important people - the steward/castellan, the captains, the alchemist, the sage, the spy, the blacksmith, the gemcutter, or whatever. The captain of the ship and their lieutenant and mates are interesting, not necessarily the individual crew members.

Remember that hirelings are a force multiplier. A bearer/porter lets the party carry more equipment and retrieve more treasure. A linkboy lets them use their hands for things besides light sources. A pack handler or teamster frees them from the need to manage their mounts and vehicles. A valet saves them valuable time running errands in a settlement. Alchemists let them make potions earlier and more quickly. Sages and spies gather information. A big damn army allows them to project power.

All of that should come with a cost, and not just time and money spent recruiting them. Remember, always, that dealing with NPCs should be expensive and irritating. The more the party relies on hired help, the more they have to deal with underlings who shirk their responsibilities and push back against requests, ask for more money, expect gifts, question their actions, disobey, steal from them, flee in life or death situations, betray them to their enemies, or whatever. 

Be careful not to overdo it, but remember to think about potential complications once in a while. The following section on henchmen is relevant to this approach:

And the corresponding section on hirelings:

Hirelings and henchmen are an important resource for the player characters at all levels of the game. If they are "superior" players, they will want to make good use of them. How do you balance things out when the characters bring a full company of men-at-arms into the dungeon? How do you make recovering treasure challenging when the characters have a train of wagons and mules supported by pack handlers, porters, and teamsters who handle all that for them?

I don't know about you, but I am not a devoted follower. I'm a hireling. I'm blogging on the clock right now. I'll figure out how long I can put something off and will send that email when I'm good and ready, thank you very much, and I will expect the exact same salary as I'm entitled to every pay period regardless of how much work I did.

Think about your job. Maybe you do it because you like it, and maybe you do it for the money. Probably, it is some combination of both, but the money is usually the main thing. Do you like being asked to do more than is technically required of you? Do you always put your best effort forward? Do you always take initiative without being asked? Do you always like or agree with your boss? 

Imagine that one of your player characters is your boss. They've sent you to deliver a message to a wizard with a reputation for polymorphing peasants into chickens. They've tasked you with carrying a giant chest of ancient gold coins out of a dark hole in the ground, all of which they will keep for themselves. They've goaded you into sipping from an unlabeled container of magical liquid. They're ordering you to move forward with your torch because the slavering owlbear is just beyond the radius of its light. You are paid two silver pieces per day.

What do you do?