My party contains a bard and a paladin with a 19 and 18 charisma, respectively, so this group makes a lot of friends. That being said, they only have one permanent NPC: Krylscar Endercott. I was really lucky with his rolls in the Malachite Hold after they rescued him, so they found him extremely helpful. When they stumbled across Gryffon Malek in the kitchen, there was a tense argument between the two former friends, with Krylscar calling him a traitor, etc...
When they got back to town, the bard PC would occasionally go to the Tankard and see him there, drinking and staring at Gryffon. She put two and two together and offered him a job as her bodyguard at 3 gp a day (3 times more than average) plus free room, board and 3 drinks a day on her tab at the Drunken Morkoth. Given his reputation in town and his parent's growing distrust of him, he readily agreed. Now he's almost invaluable.
They have a lot of temporary help, though. My group consists of an Aasimar paladin, a human swashbuckler/rogue going for the dread pirate prestige class, an elven ranger/wizard going for the arcane archer prestige class, a dwarven cleric of Marthammor Duin going for the hierophant prestige class and a human bard/cleric of Sune going for the heartwarder prestige class. If they feel they need extra healing, they ask Rufus Laro to tag along. Extra muscle? They hit up the Striders of Shaundakul for a tag-along, et cetera.
They tried to get Coryston Pike to join them permanently, but I thought that she wouldn't go along with that being semi-retired and all. Still, they keep in touch with her quite a bit, and the paladin has started a semi-romantic relationship with her. All very fun!
