I know there's a game idea board/wish list, but I think if I posted my idea here it'd see more discussion.

My idea is relatively simple: Having henchmen that the heroes can hire in town. These would be "one shot" lackeys, with a profile similar to that of monsters. Fixed attacks, special abilities, etc. They would be relatively weak, but would provide some useful support before they're hosed by the monsters (they don't come back from being dead) You could even have one henchman that's simply a porter... Sort of a variant of Mata and Kata, where he can run around the dungeon carrying a couple items to be handed off to the heroes.

I can already see several potential problems with introducing this concept, but I'd like to get your thoughs.

This has been done before, years ago of course, with HeroQuest, in the 4th Expension "Morcar's Magier" (in germany) maybe "Morcar's Magicians" or somehting like that.

At first, we liked the idea, but later on, we where more than happy to leave those one-life-point buddies behind and carry on as a heroes-only party

.

Much like Runebound or Diablo II shows us, the henchmen are not hirelings, they are slaves; what else would you call paying gold to a third party for a person who gets no wage and fights and dies on your behalf?

Henchmen are, if you ask me, a bad idea for descent >thematically<. The game should be a team of heroes versus hordes of monsters, not an army marching into a dungeon. With familiars and stuff, the board can actually get quite cluttered; the henchmen could make this only worse.