GLOG Class: Devoted Followers
Not everyone is cut out for adventure, but some people come along anyway. These so-called “camp followers” usually do their best to keep away from danger, but there are some adventurers blessed (or cursed?) with lackeys made of sterner stuff. These ambitious peasants, lovers, and hangers-on will throw themselves into wild dangers for even a fraction of the wealth and power that true adventurers attain, but those that survive prove that even the lowliest of folk may improve themselves and stand proud for what they’ve achieved. These are Robin Hood’s Merry Men, Aladdin’s Forty Thieves, and all the rag-tag bands of yore who flocked ‘round greater men and women and earned a name for themselves.
Starting Equipment: Each Devotee starts with a suitable set of clothes, their personal items (basic bedding and toiletries without using encumbrance), any items mentioned in their Camp Follower description, and the item from their Medieval Profession (see Starting Skill).
Starting Skill: Each Devotee rolls on the table: Medieval Professions in addition to having a skill suited to their Camp Follower roll. They are also proficient with knives and clubs.
For each template of Devoted Followers you have, get +2 Devotee limit.
A: Lackeys, Base Camp, Red Shirts
B: Experience, All Together!
C: Uncommoners
D: Mob, Mauve Shirts
Lackeys
You may only start acquiring templates of Devoted Followers with your first template.
Do not roll base statistics when creating Devoted Followers. Each of your Devotees is assumed to have a score of 10 in all stats. Devotees are typically the majority race in the local area, but you may choose to roll randomly for each Devotee’s race, and may choose the races of your first two Devotees. This decision is made on a Devotee-by-Devotee basis.
You start play with 2 Devotees. Devotees are randomly rolled camp followers you control, except for the changes noted in this class. To generate a Devotee:
- Roll a random Camp Follower. If you roll Infant, you may choose to add 1d6 to your roll, getting an urchin instead. If the Camp Follower’s description references a relationship with a particular PC, choose the PC (it may be a previous PC). No using invented relationships to slander other PCs without the player’s permission.
- Roll a random Medieval Profession.
- Give them the starting equipment indicated in the Starting Equipment section.
- Give them the starting skills indicated in the Starting Skill section.
- They have derived statistics according to your character level (attack, move, stealth, save, inventory slots, hit points, etc.), except that their maximum hit points and maximum encumbrance are halved (before adding racial modifiers).
- Give them a name. During each night’s rest in at least semi-civilized places you may acquire 1 new Devotee for free, but you may fritter away [templates]*5 gp carousing to acquire 1d6 additional Devotees in the same time. You cannot gain Devotees in excess of your limit.
If you ever run out of Devotees, the Devoted Followers break up and the character “dies”. Devotees do not check morale and always count as 1 HD creatures for the purposes of spells and abilities.
Base Camp
You are bunch of Camp Followers, so at any given time most of you are back at camp - the last safe-ish place you rested, the main body of the convoy you’re journeying with, or the entrance to whatever dangerous area the party is exploring. One Devotee drew the short straw and is with the party - you choose which when it becomes relevant in a given scene. As long as you have Devotees, you must always choose one to be present when combat starts. If the you are surprised, you must keep using the same Devotee for the next scene.
When a Devotee dies, they can be replaced by another from camp at the beginning of the next scene, but not before.
Special: When at a party’s permanent base or when established in a civilized location, Devotees can take multiple simultaneous downtime actions equal to the number of active Devotees, provided they don’t require special expertise or adventurer clout.
Red Shirts
Camp Followers who stand too close to adventurers tend to die a lot. Devotees accept this hazard for a chance at wealth and prestige far beyond their station.
- It isn’t controversial that the group of Devoted Followers is worth a share of the treasure.
- Scrounging and side gigs don’t quite cover food and light needs. You still need to expend a ration for rest and for lunch. Lunch only heals for 1d6+1/2 level, but it heals all Devotees.
- Devotee deaths don’t meaningfully impact the party’s reputation for taking care of hirelings and camp followers. Everyone understands that these particular camp followers are different.
- Whenever you roll a Camp Follower, change a detail about their description that wouldn’t change their title. This affects the next roll of this follower, not the current roll. This shouldn’t grant new abilities but should be enough to make them distinct from the current version if you roll them again.
- Devotees die automatically if they are below 0 hit points for 3 rounds or are attacked while below 0 hit points. They are incapacitated while below 0 hit points.
Experience
Devotees learn by experience, by pushing themselves beyond their comfort zone. Whenever Devotees do something that would get awarded a stat tick, they are instead awarded an experience tick. These are tracked separately for each Devotee. When a Devotee reaches their 3rd tick, they may remove them all during their next rest to receive a minor ability about as strong as a fighter notch ability. The ability must be related to any of their camp follower type, medieval profession, or the specific ways in which they got their experience ticks.
All Together!
Camp Followers make excellent laborers in that there are a lot of them and they are all nearby. In non-combat situations they provide unskilled labor according their number, less any Devotees whose particular condition prevents them from assisting. If the situation’s danger level escalates, all but one route immediately back to camp.
It takes 10 minutes to muster Devotees from camp in most situations.
Uncommoners
They’re no adventurers, but these Devoted Followers are really starting shape up. For each current and future Devotee, choose an epithet: Strong (Str), Nimble (Dex), Hardy (Con), Clever (Int), Wise (Wis), or Fair (Cha). That Devotee has a 13 in that stats for all purposes. This choice should reflect their camp follower type or medieval profession.
Mob
Up to 2 Devotees may be present in scenarios where the Base Camp ability specified there may only be one. You control both and they act independently.
Mauve Shirts
Once each day when one of your Devotees would perish, go insane, or otherwise be permanently knocked out of commission, they instead drop to 0 hit points and are hustled away to Base Camp. Named enemies may override this ability, but if they do the next attack on them by another adventurer automatically hits and crits.
If they haven’t already, the Devotees adopt a name for themselves and some sort of insignia or iconic fashion accessory. They count as 2 HD apiece for the purposes of spells and abilities.
Design Notes
First, the "why" of the class. I wrote the Devoted Followers for myself, because I like rolling characters but am pretty good at keeping them alive. This class is designed to balance continuity and turnover by turning the player character into a community of weaker characters.
The tone of the class should be more serious than say, Skerples' Many Goblins, but it's okay if death is a little cheap. Where the Devoted Followers fall on the trope spectrum from Red Shirts to Men of Sherwood is up to the player.
Second, the obvious potential issue is the HP pool - by D template you have 4x the max hit points of a typical character, spread across 8 characters that cannot be killed at the same time. That's a lot, but it's a bit deceptive.
- Devotees have an inferior fail state - while normal characters can continue to fight until they receive a fatal wound, Devotees effectively get a fatal wound they can't remove on their own as soon as they go below 0 hit points.
- Devoted Followers can't bring more hit points to a single fight than anyone else, and less than martially inclined classes. Until D template they are actually quite fragile on a fight-by-fight basis.
- Devoted Followers can "lose" max hit points as their composing Devotees perish in the course of adventuring. These max hit points can't be recovered with a night's rest except back in town.
Third, some thoughts on various features.
- While I can imagine exceptions, I would say that Experience benefits should probably not all be combat-related. Fundamentally, the player is playing souped-up Camp Followers, so at least some of their benefits should come at camp - during rest or lunch. I encourage players to take camp-centered ability for their first or second Experience ability on each Devotee.
- The Camp Followers and Medieval Professions lists I'm using can both be found in Skerples' Many Rats on Sticks GLOG hack.
- Inventory capacity is a quiet major strength of the class. I think that's balanced by the relative fragility of those slots and the fact that they come in increments of 5, which means no individual follower can really load up.