OldMansBeard's Henchman System
Players' Guide
Version 1.5
2005-03-09
Introduction
This guide is for players who have read the Getting Started section in the README, tried out the system a little, and would now like to know more in depth about how to use and enjoy the OHS.
From Version 1.3 onwards, the system has been extended to incorporate the concept of Heroes and Companions. In our terminology, Companions are special henchman who accompany player-character Heroes but who can be magically converted into player character Heroes themselves. So, if you have a group of Companions (four is the traditional number) you can choose a different one to play as the Hero in different gaming sessions and still be accompanied by the other three. Information about this optional aspect of the OHS is colored like this below.
Contents
A note about Modules
Once the OHS is installed in the override folder on your machine, you can use it in whatever modules you choose to play. It is compatible with Neverwinter Nights, Shadows of Undrentide, Hordes of the Underdark and nearly every community-written module it has been tried out with.
At the time of writing, the only known exception is Act II of the The Aielund Trilogy (Defender of the Crown). The OHS is rendered harmlessly inert when that particular module is running. It functions normally with the sequel module, Act III (Return of the Iron Lord).
Single and Multiplayer Games and Persistent Worlds
The OHS adds a whole new dimension to single-player games, where the extra henchmen in some ways compensate for the lack of the extra players who might have joined your party in a multiplayer game.
It can also be used in multiplayer games and Persistent World (PW) campaigns played online. In this case, it needs to have been installed on whichever machine is acting as the server and on every client (player) machine too.
In a single-player game, the register of available henchmen will be held in database files on the player's own machine. For multiplayer and PW games, it will be held on the server. Note that there is no mechanism for moving henchman directly from one machine to another. You have to move the original player characters from one machine to the other and then register them again in-game when they get there.
PW owners who choose to install the OHS on their servers are allowed to modify it. The way that OHS henchmen can be used in their world will conform to their vision of how things should be. They may place restrictions on the importing of player characters or on their registration as henchmen. The documentation for the PW should tell you if this is so.
Registering Player Characters as Henchmen
If you have a collection of favorite, well-developed player characters, register them all. They can have fun acting as henchmen for each other (subject to the rule that, in any party the one with the most XP will have to be the PC). If you have various copies of a PC you will have to decide which one to register - the names in the Register have to be unique. Generally speaking, lower-level characters are more versatile because they can be recruited by both low and high level PCs but they may be less well equipped so you need to strike a balance.
When you register a well-developed character, you might want to drop unnecessary items from their inventory to save weight. Things that they will have no use for as a henchman. Gems, jewellery, surplus items they can't actually use but kept "just in case" or hadn't yet found a buyer for. Keep the best of everything they would normally have equipped but drop any inferior items. Keep all their potions and scrolls but lighten the load generally.
Now make up and register some first-level characters with combinations of races and classes that complement your PCs, to make up a rounded party. Those are your other henchmen. Once they enter play, they will automatically level up using their class packages. There is no need to level them up artificially before registering them unless you want to give them unusual combinations of feats and skills.
Warning: do not register "illegal" characters. They may be satisfying (to you) as player characters, but the level up mechanisms will fail once they become henchmen. Also, do not attempt to use PRC-modified characters as OHS henchmen. Things will all go terribly wrong if you do.
When you register a character, there is some theatrical business to impress upon you the enormity of what you are doing. Then you get a green warrant. Don't lose the warrant. You will need it again as evidence of identity if you ever want to re-register the character or delete it from the registry. It's a good idea to save your character immediately with the warrant in your inventory. The Registrar will offer to do this for you.
OHS henchmen are not "owned" in any sense by the player who registers them. In a multiplayer game, you will have free access to henchmen registered by other players and they will have free access to yours.
Creating Companions
Companions are not the same as ordinary henchmen. They are not registered with Tobias and they do not feature in linkboys' lists of who is publicly available. They are personal to you as a player and no other player can hire them. To make one of your player characters into a Companion, play that character in the "OHS - The Way of Heroes" module but turn right instead of left and enter the Temple of Ohum. The Priestess will lead you through what is needed. If Ohum speaks to you, pay particular attention. Your obedience is being tested. All being well, Ohum will bless your character and remember him or her as one of your personal companions. You can then exit the module.
You can create as many companions as you like but four is a good number to start with. Your companions will not associate with anyone less than one of your own heroes, so at least one of them has to be made up into a Hero to lead the others. There is a limit, normally set at three, of the number of companions a hero can have with them at any one time so a group of four altogether is the usual starting point.
Note: DMs and module builders have the option to vary the limit from three to suit the needs of particular worlds.
Creating Heroes
Heroes are created from companions by taking them back into the Temple and undergoing the Ritual of Ohum. You cannot do this immediately after creating a companion - you must at least exit the module and re-enter it. The Priestess will again lead you through what is necessary. The Ritual is in three parts: firstly, you must surrender all worldly possessions by casting them into a pool. Next, you must pray at the altar for the blessing of Ohum. Your character will receive some gold, equipment and a special token: a Bracelet of Companions. It is important that this token is not lost. The altar can then be opened to find the Gifts of Ohum. You should then save your character in the usual way before quitting the module. This character is now a Hero and qualified to lead a group of companions.
You can make all of your companions up into heroes if you wish; it does not prevent them being used as each other's companions.
The Registrar and Linkboy
Tobias is the same person whether you meet him in the "Way of Heroes" module or anywhere else. He teleports around to where he is needed. If you ask your linkboy to call him, he will always come unless this is a multiplayer game and he is busy talking to someone else. If he is busy, ask again a little later.
He is a bureaucrat, but quite a kindly one. His job is to look after the Register and issue warrants to registered henchmen. He takes his books with him everywhere he goes and, if nothing else, they are good for sitting on. He is interested in the player behind the character and will be mentally tallying up how many henchmen you have registered with him.
Linkboys are trained servants who are especially skilled at following their master through thick and thin while keeping out of trouble themselves. No-one in their right mind attacks a linkboy. It's a waste of time. They are too quick at dodging, for one thing. Also, like all good servants, they are adept at being unobtrusive so, just for fun, you can ask your linkboy to disguise himself to suit the surroundings or to blend in with the overall theme of your party (or not, it's up to you).
As well as being there to be spoken to, your linkboy performs various important internal programming functions. If you have any OHS henchmen with you, you need the linkboy. If you find his presence troublesome, you can always ask him to be invisible.
The Voice of Ohum
Great Ohum is the deity of Heroes and Companions. At any time in play, if your PC is a companion or hero, he or she can call upon Ohum for aid. You do this by entering the phrase HEAR US GREAT OHUM into the chat window. You can assign this to a quickslot in the usual way and you can abbreviate it to HUGO if you like. Ohum never appears to mortals in tangible form, always as a disembodied voice. He can do a number of helpful things.
"I would call for my Companions" — any companions you have in your personal database, other than ones already in play, appear nearby and can be hired. Ohum only grants this request to heroes since the companions would not work with anyone less and it would be a waste of their time to answer the call. The hero must have a Bracelet of Companions.
"Remember us as we are now" — the copies of your player character and any companions you have with you are updated in your personal database to reflect your current state. If you have any ordinary henchmen with you, they are ignored; you need to use the OHK command separately for them.
"I seek my lost Bracelet" — only applies if your hero PC has had their Bracelet of Companions stolen (as happens at the beginning of Hordes of the Underdark, for example). This is a grave situation, as without the Bracelet you cannot call for companions. Ohum will give you a hint, suggesting what area you should look in and, if you reach that area, what kind of creature or container is holding it.
Note: you must have your linkboy with you when you call upon Ohum.
Hiring and Firing Henchmen
You may come across potential henchmen standing around in a game, waiting to be hired. You will soon know, if you talk to them. Otherwise, ask your linkboy for a list of who is available and he will call one for you.
For convenience, the most recently registered characters appear first in the linkboy's list of available henchmen. The pre-registered Bioware ones come at the end, in alphabetical order. (Nothing clever. No special sort algorithms. I did them backwards).
Because, in a multiplayer game, the Registry is shared between all players there is a built-in quota system to ensure everyone gets a fair deal. However, this system is DISABLED by default unless the DM elects to turn it on.
If the quota system is enabled by the DM, your player character will have a limit to how many new henchmen can be requested per day. There is no actual limit to the number of henchmen you can employ at the same time - you can keep going day by day until the registry list is exhausted if you like - but a larger quota is nice because it means you can collect a larger party in fewer days. In this context, a day means a day on the game calendar. Your quota is reset at midnight by the game clock. It is not reset by resting. Your quota is determined automatically; however many henchmen you, as a player, have contributed to the registry, that number is your daily quota. Subject to a minimum of 1. So if you want a bigger quota, all you have to do is contribute a few more characters. It makes it fair on everyone and the arithmetic works out that the registry is unlikely to run out of henchmen, at least on the first day. In a single-player game, you can forget about the quota system.
When you decide to hire a henchman you will need to discuss a few things with them but it should be obvious from the dialogue what this is all about. If you call a henchman and decide not to hire him, you should dismiss him properly so that other players can call him again afterwards.
From Version 1.2 onwards, DMs in multiplayer games can ask the Registrar to limit the alignment difference allowable between PCs and henchmen. A henchman who is too far removed in alignment will decline to be hired. Your DM should tell you if this is so.
If you want to dismiss an OHS henchman from your party, you must do it through dialogue. The radial menu option is disabled. In general, you have three choices of where to send them: stay where they are, go back to the start area or go home. In this context, "go home" means disappear from the game.
The "stay where you are" option is useful if you are somewhere generally accessible and you want to leave them there for another player to hire or you think you might come back later yourself to pick them up again.
The "go back to the start area" option might be useful if you intend to re-enter a multiplayer game with a different player character and you want to make your alter ego a present of the ready-made henchman. This is a way of preserving all the level-ups and extra equipment that you have already given the henchman. Or you might want to donate such a valuable henchman to a friendly co-player in this way. There is a slight risk that another player entirely might come by and grab them first, though.
Using the "go home" option releases the henchman's identity so that they can be called up again in a linkboy's menu, by you or another player. This is probably the most courteous thing to do in a multiplayer or PW environment but it can also be useful if you mess up totally and want to start again with a fresh copy of the same henchmen.
Hiring Companions
The rules about hiring companions are slightly different from hiring ordinary henchmen. Companions do not worry about experience levels or alignment differences. If your PC is a hero, that's enough of a recommendation. You are, however, limited having no more than three companions at a time.
Note: DMs and module builders can vary the limit to suit different worlds with different conventions. Built-in options for DMs (available to them when they speak to a Registrar) are any number between zero and six, or no limit at all. There is also an option to prevent heroes from taking companions who are higher level than themselves. This option is disabled by default.
Leveling Up Henchmen
Every time you rest, your henchmen's XP is topped up, if necessary, to equal yours. Then, if they have enough XP, they will automatically level up. If your henchman is multi-classed, discuss with them beforehand how you want them to balance up their classes.
If they have just one or two classes and you ask them to add another class, all of the classes for which they qualify will appear as options in a menu. They will take first level in the chosen class immediately if the rules allow. This will mean that they are one character level ahead of you for a while, until you catch up and pass them again.
If you are playing in an epic-level campaign, you may want to tell them when to take an epic or prestige class. They will not do this of their own accord.
Note that, if a Persistent World owner has embedded the OHS in their campaign, they may have customized the class options to suit the conventions of their world and may have restricted henchman levels in some way.
DM's have a game option to allow henchmen only half as many XP as a PC but this option is disabled by default. If your DM has turned on the option, your henchmen will obviously level up more slowly than you do.
When your henchmen level up or develop through play in other ways, this does not, repeat not get copied back into the Registry. The next time you or anyone else calls for that particular henchman from their linkboy's list, they will get the original, undeveloped one.
There are rumors of an ancient artifact, a miraculous device existing somewhere in the multiverse, that can turn henchmen back into player characters. There are also rumors of winged trees flying through the air.
Leveling Up Companions
Companions top up their XP during rest periods just like ordinary henchmen although if they already have more than the PC hero they are working with, they do not get any more until the hero overtakes them.
To suit the conventions of their particular worlds, DMs and module builders have an option to limit the XP awarded to companions such that they lag by the equivalent of 1,2 or 3 levels behind the PC. By default, no lag is imposed.
When you discuss level-up strategy with a companion you have an additional option - to not level up automatically at all. This is useful if you want to save up the XP and level the character up later as a PC so that you can select feats, spells and skills yourself rather than accepting the ones in the standard packages. This option is not available for ordinary henchmen because they cannot be converted back to PCs to do this.
From Companion to Player Character
The Ritual of Ohum in the Temple in the Way of Heroes module has a second use that is central to the whole Heroes and Companions concept.
Let us suppose that you have made one of your player characters into a companion and, through play in the company of one of your heroes, this companion has gained gold, equipment, XP and perhaps some additional levels granting extra feats, skills, spells and so on. Before leaving play, ask the Voice of Ohum to remember your characters as they now are.
Now, take the player character from which that companion was originally made, and play it through the Ritual in the Temple. If you have already taken it through to make it into a hero, it doesn't matter. Do it again. Ohum will perform Treehawk's Miracle. Not only will the PC become a Hero (if it wasn't already) but Ohum will grant it all the XP, level advancements, feats, skills, spells, gold and equipment that he remembers that character gaining as a companion.
Remember to save your character as you leave the Temple.
Equipping Your Henchmen
New henchman, chosen from the linkboy's list of who is available, come with whatever equipment they had with them when they registered, less any special plot items and gold. You can't get free gold by recruiting a rich henchman! That equipment is their own, and you can't steal it from them. After that, it is up to you, the player, to give them better equipment as and when you can obtain it for them.
Note that, unlike the henchmen in Neverwinter Nights, they do not automatically get better equipment when they level up.
If you bring a low-level henchman into a high-level game, they won't stand a chance unless you equip them suitably almost immediately. If you don't have a good set of spare equipment already and you do not have ready access to a merchant, it might be prudent to delay calling for another henchman until you do.
OHS Henchmen choose their favorite armor, shields, melee weapons and ranged weapons from the things they have available in their inventories. They tend to choose the most valuable, not necessarily the most effective. If you give them something better and they don't seem to be using it, try discussing it with them.
If you give a henchman better armor and they agree to adopt it, you can take the lesser armor by way of exchange. It will be released so that you can remove it from their inventory. This is regarded as a fair exchange and helps to avoid encumbering the henchman with unwanted heavy equipment. The same applies to weapons and shields but not to anything else.
A piece of advice - do not treat OHS henchmen like walking bags of holding and load them up with your spare treasure to save yourself encumbrance. You may just discover that they don't let go of it when you want to sell it, in which case you might as well not have bothered picking it up in the first place.
Companions are less possessive of their equipment than henchmen. Since they are made from your own player characters, everything they have is yours anyway and there is no reason you can't re-allocate their items freely. The only items they will not part with willingly are their Bracelets. These are personal items given by Ohum and are individually marked.
Flirting with Henchmen
If your PC has henchmen of the opposite sex and the same race (strictly speaking, the same appearance type, with half-elves counting as human) you can flirt with them if you like. Be honest about it and don't say the wrong thing. If you ply them with gifts, you will be rewarded with suitable affection, which is nice. Appropriate gifts are gems, rings, amulets and belts. This is just for fun and has no real effect on the game except that thereafter they will be on pet-name terms with your player character.
Don't mistake flirting for true romance. If you are going to develop a romantic attachment to a special henchman, that is the prerogative of the story writer and nothing to do with me.
Heroes do not flirt with their lady companions. It is just not the done thing. However, by popular request of lady players, Heroines are allowed to flirt with their male companions. Apparently this has something to do with "twisting" and "little fingers". Far be it from me to understand. I only write the scripts.
Henchmen Tactics
You should discuss combat tactics with each henchman individually to balance your party and make the most of their combined abilities.
Henchmen may be quicker to spot lurking enemies than you are but it can be inconvenient if they all suddenly charge off into the distance leaving you wondering why. One strategy is to tell those with a preference for ranged weapons to attack on sight while those with melee weapons wait for you. That way, you are alerted to danger when they suddenly start shooting but the party stays reasonably together while you work out what to do.
The PC radial commands Follow, Guard, Stand and Attack affect the whole party and are so useful in combat that it's worth assigning them to quickslots. Follow is especially good for canceling whatever henchmen have taken it into their minds to do and bring them to heel.
Assuming you have one or more rogues in your party who are good at locks and traps, it is worthwhile asking everyone else not to interfere. It can be slightly annoying to watch as your nimble-fingered thief proudly announces the successful unlocking of an interesting-looking chest only for your horny-handed but slow-witted barbarian to lumber up behind them a moment later and smash it to pieces with one blow of his axe. Bashing has its place, but give subtlety a chance first.
Henchmen with traps skills will move forward and disarm traps of their own accord, unless you have told them not to. They may take a few rounds to see them, however, so don't blunder forward too fast down that suspiciously easy corridor! If you see a trap turn red and no-one seems to do anything about it, use a radial command.
Death of a Henchman
If a henchman is unfortunate enough to get killed, what happens may depend on which module you are playing and what the module author has decided should occur. The normal thing for OHS henchman is to fall down, call for help (once) and lie on the ground indefinitely waiting for someone to come to their aid. They do not need resurrection, but they do need healing. Dragging a healing potion onto them in the usual way will do, or you can target them with a healing spell, lay on hands or something like that.
It is a good idea to have a Cleric henchman in your party because they will automatically go around aiding fallen comrades if they can. You can also ask them to cast healing spells on wounded companions. Thanks to a Bioware bug (as of 1.65, at least) cleric spells cast on request in this way can be used an unlimited number of times a day. You need a few potions too, though, in case the cleric gets killed ...
A henchman who is so seriously injured that they are beyond mortal aid will normally disappear and respawn somewhere else. This might be the special place where dead players respawn, if there is one in the story, or it might be back at the place they started. If, as is quite likely, this is a place you cannot get back to, you have lost your henchman. The moral is, look after your henchmen and don't let them get killed.
Going Solo
In some stories, there will be times and places where you do not want to take your OHS henchmen with you. If your halfling rogue is about to sneak into Smaug's lair and steal a few valuables, the last thing you want is your bodyguard of three ranks of heavily armored Dwarven Defenders clanking along close behind. You can use the "stand ground" command, but they will follow you through area transitions regardless. What you need, is a quick way to un-hire all your OHS henchmen and leave the linkboy behind with them as well. This is what the OHS DROP ALL command is for. It does precisely that. The abbreviation for this command is OHDA.
Only use the OHDA command in a quiet place that you can be reasonably sure of being able to get back to. Otherwise you will lose your henchmen. If you are in a story that provides a device like the Stone of Recall in Neverwinter Nights, a good trick is to stone to the temple, drop all your henchmen and portal back to where you just came from. Then later, you can always stone back and collect them.
Moving between Modules
If you are playing a campaign in a series of chapters, or just taking your player character from one story to another, you will want to take your well-developed henchmen with you from chapter to chapter and story to story. One of the strengths of the OHS is that it gives you an easy way of doing it.
In the transition between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Hordes of The Underdark, your OHS henchmen will automatically appear behind you in the Temple of Lolth after a short delay. This is the only place this will happen, though. In all other campaigns and all other module transitions, you have to do it deliberately.
You can use the OHS KEEP command (or its abbreviation, OHK) any time you have a linkboy in your party and within earshot. This command stores a copy of the current state of each of your OHS henchmen into a database file that is personal to your player character. It is worth doing this as a matter of routine every time your party improves in some significant way - adding another henchman, leveling them up, giving them better equipment and so on. Each time you use the command, it overwrites the file. Do this as you sense you are nearing the end of a chapter or module to ensure that it is up to date when you leave.
Your player character's KEEP file is the only place outside the game where your developed henchmen can continue to exist. You can't store them back into the Registry and you can't save them as you would a player character. There is nowhere else.
When you start the next campaign/story/chapter/module, after any initial cutscenes and other introductory events, find a suitably quiet place to take your first rest. Your linkboy will appear and you can then use the OHS RECALL command (or its abbreviation, OHR). This will bring all your henchmen back to you, all leveled-up and equipped just as they were when you last did a KEEP. You will then need to speak to them individually to re-hire them.
Note that KEEP files are quite separate from the Register. When you do an OHK, it does not change the copy of the henchman that is stored in the Register and supplied when a player asks the linkboy for a new henchman of that name. It only changes the personal copy that is linked to your player character. Indeed, it is perfectly possible to RECALL henchmen who have long since been deleted from the Register.
Note that, as from Version 1.1.11 of the system, OHR can be used to recover henchmen who are stranded somewhere else in the game. The system will not create a duplicate of a character in the same area, only if they are in different areas.
If, in a multiplayer game, one or more of your previous henchmen do not seem to come when you do an OHR it probably means that another player is already playing with a henchman of that name somewhere nearby. If this happens, refrain from doing any more OHS KEEP commands until you get them back, or you will lose them permanently. Henchmen who are no longer in your party when you do an OHK will be gone from the file when it is overwritten.
The OHK and OHR commands only operate on ordinary henchmen. They ignore companions. To save and recall companions, you must invoke the Voice of Ohum with the HUGO command and ask Ohum to do it for you.
The database files used by OHK/OHR are keyed to your player character's name so if you have several PCs they can each have their own sets of henchmen. By contrast, the database used to represent "the memory of Ohum" is keyed to your player name and the same file is used\cf1\f1 with\cf0\f0 whatever PC you are currently playing. Another difference is that the OHK command overwrites any pre-existing file for your PC and any previous henchmen no longer in your party are lost whereas the Ohum database updates the images of your PC and present companions but leaves absent ones unchanged. The only way a character can be "lost" from the memory of Ohum is if that character goes back to the temple and asks to be retired.
Backing up the Databases
As you might guess, all the OHS database files are kept in the NWN\database directory. It is a good idea to back up them up occasionally. They do not "bloat" and there is no need to use DataPack on them.
All NWN database files come in three parts (like Gaul), with the same filename but three different extensions: .CDX, .DBF and .FPT. When you are backing up, you must back up all three parts of each file as a consistent group.
The register itself consists of an index file called OHS_ROLL_CALL and a separate file for each registered character that has the filename OHS_HENCHMAN_ followed by the name of the character. If you look in your database directory, you will soon spot them. To back up the register, you must back up all the OHS_ROLL_CALL and all the OHS_HENCHMAN_ files that you find there, together, as a package. Conversely, to restore the register from a backup, you must restore them all together. If you try to do it piecemeal, you are quite likely to get an inconsistent register that will not work correctly.
Note that copying OHS_HENCHMAN_ files individually from another machine, say, will not give you a way of adding registered henchmen to your installation. If they are not in the index file, they cannot be accessed in play. In practice, only the Registrar can maintain index files.
Files created as a result of an OHS KEEP command are separate from the register ones. They have the name OHS_PARTY_ followed by the PCs name. As long as you back up and restore the three parts of each file together, you can do these individually. There is no index file for these, so you can successfully move them between machines if you wish.
As of Version 1.1.9 of the OHS, if the quota system is enabled, the Registrar's tally of contributions by each player is held in database files with the name OHS_TALLY_ followed by the player's name. If a player indulges in a great deal of registration activity these will eventually become "bloated" and it may then be worth using NWN\utils\DataPack.exe on them. There is no index file for these.
The files used for storing heroes and companions have the name OHS_PLAYER_ followed by your player name. They are indexed internally, so as long as you move all three together you can transfer them successfully between machines. They do suffer from database "bloat" (the .FPT file grows each time characters are saved in it) and you may wish to run the Datapack utility on them occasionally.
Final Advice
Have fun. Be nice to my henchmen and they will serve you well in all your adventures.
©OldMansBeard 2005-01-17. Last revised 2005-03-09 with editorial corrections by vkaryl.