Hireling and APL

[Vaahama]

Like the title says should i take into account the hirelings into the effective APL when i design encounters?

The group is composed of four level 9, one level 8 and 2 level 6 hirelings.
It's basicaly like there's 2 more players sitting around the table!

[EWHM]

Vaahama wrote:

Like the title says should i take into account the hirelings into the effective APL when i design encounters?

The group is composed of four level 9, one level 8 and 2 level 6 hirelings.
It's basicaly like there's 2 more players sitting around the table!

You're a gamist in inclination, correct? 2 level 6 hirelings are about the equivalent of 1 level 8 character (using the estimation that 2 of something is 2 CR higher than 1 of that something if it isn't below CR2 or so). So your party is about the equivalent of 6 8th-9th level characters. This assumes that the hirelings are similarly optimized to the players.

[Starbuck_II]

Vaahama wrote:

Like the title says should i take into account the hirelings into the effective APL when i design encounters?

The group is composed of four level 9, one level 8 and 2 level 6 hirelings.
It's basicaly like there's 2 more players sitting around the table!

Hirelings are NPC built so lower Point buy, less WLB gear, etc.

Remember they aren't worth lv 6, they are worth lv 5 (going by CR).
So 2 are worth lv 7 PC. A Lv 8 and a Lv 7 are about lv 9.
So you have basically 5 lv 9 PCs for APL.

Remember Hirelings won't get any stronger (don't get a share of Exp/gear), they do get paid an amount of money/period though.

[KrispyXIV]

Hirelings, or Cohorts?

There is a pretty major difference there; I dont know that hirelings should really be a adventure-combat consideration; anyone comparable enough to the PC's to be effective should either be a Cohort, or should be ambitious enough/motivated enough to be acting toward their own ends, and not on the PC's payroll.

If you've got NPC's though who are effectively part of the party, difficulty should be determind accordingly (IE, adjust the APL) and the PC's should 'lose' the experience the NPC's would be gaining.

[Vaahama]

KrispyXIV wrote:

Hirelings, or Cohorts?

There is a pretty major difference there....

Yes i'm talking about cohorts i'm sorry for the misleading here!

Technicaly one is a young "padawan" or level 6 monk maxed out the best possible for disarm/trip. The other cohort is a level 6 dwarven cleric build as nothing more then a "healbot".

The PC gained them through feat of fame so i let them build their own cohort the way they like them and most importantly i let them play their cohort the way they want, having the final word in any occasion i would deem "unapropriate or simply ouright wrong"

[Starglim]

Vaahama wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Hirelings, or Cohorts?

There is a pretty major difference there....

Yes i'm talking about cohorts i'm sorry for the misleading here!

Technicaly one is a young "padawan" or level 6 monk maxed out the best possible for disarm/trip. The other cohort is a level 6 dwarven cleric build as nothing more then a "healbot".

The PC gained them through feat of fame so i let them build their own cohort the way they like them and most importantly i let them play their cohort the way they want, having the final word in any occasion i would deem "unapropriate or simply ouright wrong"

The difference is that the PC gained his cohort at the cost of a feat, so if you think the designers have costed that feat correctly, it shouldn't add to the party's effective levels any more than a different feat choice. A GM should count hirelings, who only cost gold or treasure shares, as PCs in the fashion described above.