Followers on the battlefield (WIP)

[Amalvi]

These are rules on how to use the follower background mechanically to support the player characters better

Followers on the Battlefield

  

As a refreshment of the core rules: followers are almost always mere mortals who show exceptional devotion to the character, even willingly laying their lives for them. They require an equal amount of dots in Wealth, Backing or Holdings to be maintained.

A player may bring 1 minion squad of 5 followers per each dot of Followers they have. They are controlled by the player and always act in the same initiative order. No skill or action is ever necessary from the character to direct their minions/followers, they will always follow even their suicidal orders without question. It is assumed that the minions follow the lead of their master and that during combat the character shouts commands at them with the free action of speaking a few words.

Should their master fall unconscious, the player looses control of the minions. In this situation, they followers will drop everything they are doing to save their master through any means necessary.  In any other case the followers just never take actions, speak or pretty much do anything unless their master permits it.

Minion Attrition

If followers die during a mission, the character must do a Minion Attrition test when they return to a base afterwards:
The character rolls dice equal to the dots in the background that's being used to maintain the followers, with TN of [5 plus one for each follower who died]. If they pass the test everything remains fine, the character was able to use their assets to appease his followers or he was able to find suitable and equally loyal replacements.
If the characters fails the test they temporarily loose one dot of followers, as some of them are no longer willing to risk their lives due to fear, disdain or doubt. In this case the character may retry again this test after one week, which represents the negotiations or convincing of the unhappy or fearful followers

At the SM's discretion, the character may have to do the Minion Attrition test with a check if their master treated them with cruelty or unreasonably poorly.

Minion stats

Minions have 3 stats: Physical, Mental and Social. These range from 0 to 5. It represents their Threat Rating when doing or supporting skills of those categories.

Unless they have 0 in Physical, the minions get a melee or a ranged attack with damage rating equal to their Physical stat (maximun 3). Minions with 0 in Social are unable to communicate coherently, but they still understand their master. Minions with 0 in Mental don't have any particular penalties, but their low intelligence may be a liability when it comes to follow complex instructions in some scenarios at the SMs discretion.

Followers have 6 points to assign to these three stats.
For one point they may have both a melee and a ranged attack,  you may also increase the damage rating of all their attacks by 1 per point spent.

For one point you may make your followers into something more special than mere mortals, like undead skeletons, knowing wizards or a pack of demons. This gives them a specialty to one of the stats, which applies to their own rolls and when they are supporting a hero

Examples Followers:

Trained Soldiers
Physical 3
Mental   1
Social    1
Damage rating: Ranged 3R (Assorted laser guns) Melee 3R (Hand weapons)

Researchers
Physical 1
Mental   3
Social    2
Damage rating: Ranged 1R (las pistols)

Lawyers
Physical 0
Mental   2
Social    4
Damage rating: N/A

Maids
Physical 1
Mental 2
Social 2 (specialty: elegance)
Damage rating: Melee 1R (kitchen knives and pans)

Skeletons
Physical 3 (specialty:undead resistance)
Mental   1
Social    0
Damage Rating: Melee 3R (cursed swords)  Ranged 3R (cursed bows)

Blue Horrors of tzeentch
Physical 2
Mental   3 (specialty: magic)
Social    0
Damage rating: Ranged 2R (blue fire)

Feral Barbarians
Physical 4
Mental   0
Social    0
Damage rating: Melee 5R (brutal weapons)

Skaven slaves Laborers
Physical 3
Mental 0 (constructions and buildings)
Social 1
Damage rating: Melee 3R (Sharp and dirty weapons) Ranged 3R (Autoguns)