Retainer Rules

RETAINERS Since your character is an adventurer, it’s not at all surprising that other, less famous adventurers hear the tales of your character’s deeds and show up pledging service. These are called retainers and have their own rules. Each retainer must be of lower level than your PC. If your PC built or acquired a stronghold at an unusually low level (say, below 7th), just adjust the result of the roll downward. The Baron of Tor awards Sir Razallax the deed to Greywall Keep. Sir Razallax is a 5th-level paladin and, upon completing renovations and defending the keep, he rolls a 49 on the Paladin Followers chart and gets a 7th-level warlord. Because this follower is higher level than Sir Razallax, it is automatically lowered to 4th level. Retainers are not PCs. A skinwalker is not a druid— it’s an NPC who was taught a very narrow range of druid abilities. It cannot do most of the things a druid can. If you find yourself regularly expanding a retainer’s abilities, if you think this skinwalker should be able to heal, since druids can heal, it’s probably better to just use a druid.

Cool, but Not Too Cool! Remember, this is a lower-level follower pledging service to a regent. They shouldn’t have more or better magic items, but they can be cool. They can be neat or fun to run. Memorable. You don’t want your high-level NPCs to outshine the players and steal their thunder. But a follower who’s cool and memorable validates the player! “Obviously I am pretty awesome,” the player thinks, “if I have a follower like this.”
Followers obey their regent. They want to serve. They do not take the lead. GMs, if you find your player relying overmuch on advice or action from a follower, I recommend you have that follower defer. “Your Grace, you have seen so much more of the world than I. It would be absurd for me to advise you in this matter.” Lieutenants I think the first best use for your retainer is to act as your lieutenant who runs the show while you are away from your stronghold. Your lieutenant is a trusted advisor whom you can rely on to do your bidding and carry out your orders. Because they are yours to run, lieutenants let you take Demesne Actions even while you’re off adventuring.1 You can also play your lieutenant as a PC should your current one die or if you want to focus on two important things at once.
Troubleshooters If you attract more than one retainer, you now have a team who can travel your demesne righting wrongs, enforcing the law, and otherwise solving the lesser problems you are now too high level, and too important, to deal with personally. Between your PC, your lieutenant, and any troubleshooters you attract, you could end up with an entire party to yourself to go on adventures with!
Simpler Than Player Characters Running a PC is actually quite a lot of work compared to almost any other kind of game we play. They’re incredibly well detailed, with weapon proficiencies and skills and class abilities and six stats with modifiers, maybe spells, and, by the time they’ve got a stronghold, over 50 hit points. Fifty is a lot of anything to track, and we don’t think of it that way because we’re used to it, but it boils down to “You’re going to be doing a lot of addition and/or subtraction between now and going unconscious.” 1 Demesne Actions are another element of Kingdoms & Warfare. They are actions your barony or thieves’ guild or wizards’ college can take. But it’s our character—we want that level of detail. It reflects how important the character is to us and how complexly we view them. Do we need that same level of detail for a sidekick? For some people, yes, because with that detail comes flexibility and options, and with that comes power. And many players hate the idea that if only they’d spent more time reading what this second character could do, the second character—and maybe the rest of the party—would still be alive. This system trades power and flexibility for ease of use. Retainers have many fewer options, but they’re still pretty useful and, most of all, easy to run along with your character. Retainers are like their PC counterparts, but with simpler rules. There is one type of retainer for each class specialty, but these followers are not PCs and do not have PC stats. They sometimes have access to different skills, saving throws, or abilities.
Hard to Kill You cannot attract a follower equal to or greater than your level, so by definition your followers are always lower level than your PC. Because of this, followers need to be tougher than a PC of equivalent level, so they can survive combat alongside their higher-level buddy. To do this, retainers ignore damage (and therefore healing) below a certain threshold. In fact, retainers don’t have hit points at all!
Health Levels, Not Hit Points When the party cleric asks, “Okay, how much damage has everyone taken,” and everybody at the table looks at their character sheet, you know you’re in for a ride. Because depending on the habits of the players, they may already have to do some math. If a player keeps a running total of their current hit points, then they’ll have to subtract that from their max hit points to give the cleric an answer. Then on top of this, the cleric inevitably asks, “Well, okay, but what is that compared to your total?” Because obviously “30 damage” can mean very different things to different characters and at different levels. So the cleric wants to know what percentage of your health you have left. But no one ever asks that—that would mean even more math. In reality, both numbers are important to the cleric! You may have taken a large percentage of damage but a low amount of damage, and that will inform the cleric’s decision on whom to heal.
Having to also do all that same nonsense for your follower is more work than we should need to do just to have a cool buddy. We’re busy people. So, retainers do not track hit points, but rather health levels. A retainer has health levels equal in number to their level. Each time a retainer is hit by an attack, they make a Constitution saving throw. The DC is the average damage from the attack. 2 If they succeed, they take no damage. If they fail, they lose one health level per die of damage from the attack. If they lose their final health level, they drop unconscious and use the normal rules for dying. Our 5th-level exarch is with her 7th-level PC and the rest of the party. They’re fighting two earth elementals, which is a reasonable battle for five 7th-level PCs. The elemental hits our exarch with a slam attack. Its average damage is 14 points, so our exarch makes a Constitution saving throw against DC 14. She succeeds, so nothing happens. Notionally, she’s taken some damage, but not enough to worry anyone. If she had failed, she loses two health levels and has 3 remaining. Pretty simple. One roll, check off a health level box if you fail. Move on.
Healing Retainers regain a health level after each short rest, and each die of healing used on them recovers one health level. We can imagine that any attack that hits a retainer does some damage, just not enough to matter— likewise, the presence of abilities like lay on hands can recover some damage, just not enough to move the needle. So save that healing for your PC friends. Retainers regain all health levels on a long rest.
Initiative Retainers act on your initiative.
Armor Class A retainer has light, medium, or heavy armor. The specific armor they’re wearing is a detail below this system’s level of abstraction. • Light armor is AC 13. • Medium armor is AC 15. • Heavy Armor is AC 18. 2 This is usually listed in their stat block, but I’m not sure most people use it. Now we have a use for it! 3 This greatly reduces the complexity of running your follower, but they retain their versatility and you’re not joined at the hip. If you hit, they hit, but if you miss or don’t attack, they still get their shot
Abilities and Skills A retainer has a primary ability and various skills. Normally, they roll ability checks with a +3 bonus. They gain an extra +1 bonus to ability checks made with their primary ability, and an extra +2 bonus to ability checks made with their primary skills.
Saving Throws Normally, a retainer rolls saving throws with a +3 bonus, and they gain an extra +3 bonus on saves made with the abilities listed on their card. They save against spells just like PCs do, but if they succeed on a save, they lose health levels equal to half the spell level. If they fail they lose heath levels equal to the spell level. So a retainer who saves against a fireball (3rd-level spell) loses 1 health level (3 rounded down).
Ancestry, Senses, and Speed The GM chooses the ancestry (elf, dwarf, human, etc.) of the retainer, which determines their Perception, movement, and special abilities.
Actions Retainers get all the regular actions PCs do. They can move and act, and they get reactions and bonus actions and opportunity attacks. Additionally, all retainers begin with a signature attack they can make each round. If granted extra attacks, these are always their signature attack. As they gain levels, they unlock special actions (usually spells for spellcasters). Each special action can only be used once per 10 minutes, and each is limited in the number of times per day it can be used. The DCs of these are listed in their descriptions. At 7th level, retainers can make two signature attacks per round.
Attacking Making an attack roll for your follower is just going to slow everything down, and if you want to do that, you don’t need these rules—you can just run your follower using PC stats and rules. If your PC hits an enemy, your follower hits with their signature attack, even if you and your follower are attacking different targets. Your success inspired your follower. If you miss, or if you simply don’t attack on your turn, then you make an attack roll for your follower.3 For these purposes, a spell that deals damage or prompts an enemy to make a saving throw counts as an attack. Retainers get +6 to hit with their attacks. This doesn’t change. At the GM’s discretion, you could improve this bonus by 1 at 5th and 7th level. Spells and DCs Retainers’ spells and actions that require a saving throw start with DC 13 at 3rd level, improve to DC 14 at 5th level, and finally improve to DC 15 at 7th level. If a retainer makes a spell attack, it uses the same +6 that retainers get to all attacks.
Gear Unless provisions are specifically made otherwise, a retainer has the same gear as a starting PC of their class. For example, a reaver has the same gear you would expect to find on a 3rd-level PC barbarian.
Experience Your retainers level up once every two times your PC levels up, capping out at 7th level. They gain special actions at 5th and 7th level.
Magic Retainers can use magic items like anyone else! A +1 longsword increases their attack and damage by 1, and +1 armor increases their AC by 1. One happy side effect of having followers is you can always pass your obsolete items on to them. Low-level items, once useless as treasure for high-level characters, now have a use!
Leaders The character who recruited the retainer is called their leader. This term is referenced in various actions and abilities.