Fantasy Wargaming

The Dungeoneer 24 - Dec/Jan 1980

 Mercenaries in Modules T2 - The Temple of Elemental Evil - Nulb and the Ruins  Where do you find them?   Location 1.  The Waterside Hostel So, an average of 24 people will be in the tavern room at night, 25% are bandits or mercenaries, so around 6.

 Starting Characters & Men-at-Arms A question that arises when starting a new group of PCs in any campaign is:  Can we supplement our party with Men-at-Arms? DMG 29 states clearly that the costs listed for Mercenaries does not include arms and armor, they must be furnished by the PCs over and above the employment costs.  But how does this work out for new players when starting gold is scarce.  Many times the new character has to make some choices just to equip their own PC with proper equipment, how to have enough left over to also hire a Man-at-Arms? Let's look at some examples of how GG handles this in one of the modules he wrote: B2 - The Keep on the Borderlands - The Tavern (Yes, I realize this module is marketed as for Basic D&D, but let's take a look anyway.) This particular Man-at-Arms would be classified as a Light Footman, monthly cost 1 GP, though DMG 34 informs us that Soldiers recognize hazardous duty and the cost per day is the same as per month....

 Calculating the odds of encountering each type of Mercenary Soldier: per the chart on DMG 30: Grouping them by type:

Men-at-Arms, also known as Mercenaries, are a main stay of any in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons campaign. (DMG 29)  The various types are listed in the following table in the Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) page 30: Note the hit point range for these soldiers, which lines up with them being zero level fighters. This is confirmed in the Players Handbook (PHB) on page 105: DMG 237 Non-Player Character tables give us more details about a Mercenary's Attributes: The Monster Manual (MM) page 66 confirms normal men have hit points in the 1-6 range, informing us Mercenaries are a more hardy stock. In case you were wondering, if Men-at-arms have more hit points than normal people, DMG 88 fills in that data on page 88: So it's probably fair to deduce some of the different in hit points is  from their training. So, how do they actually fair in combat? Not great considering their ability to attack is the same as any other typical human...I gues...