What's the difference between henchmen and lieutenants?

[Naughtical]

Just what the title says. It seems either or both could rule a domain while the regent is away, they both are supposed to be acquired through adventuring, they both serve from loyalty, they both have jobs assigned by the regent, count against the same charisma allowance, etc. So why does the Book of Regency differentiate between the two?

[BedLlama]

The core book says that taking the Lieutenant Domain Action allows you to add a Lieutenant to your list of Henchmen. I believe that this tidbit, along with what we learn in the Book of Regency, one can assume that Lieutenants and Henchmen are interchangeable 95% of the time. Henchmen are loyal followers who the player they follow has a degree of control over, whereas Lieutenants are loyal underlings who you trust to make decisions related to their field of expertise with some degree of autonomy.

If someone is your Henchman but not your Lieutenant, it may be because they are unfit or unwilling to take Domain Actions, or perhaps they are not technically below you on the pecking order. There is less to extrapolate about someone being your Lieutenant but not your Henchman, but I would reserve this situation mostly for Vassals, who should be too busy taking care of their own Domains to hang around or go adventuring (but who would still be able to take their Lieutenant action this Domain Turn if called on).

[AndrewTall]

From recollection lieutenants could spend RP on your behalf when doing domain actions as they were formally part of the domain, whereas henchmen were "personal" so couldn't run the domain for you in the same way.

But I admit its been a looong time since I looked at the various rulesets on the henchmen rules.

[Sorontar]

I think the BRWiki has a good explanation of the conceptual distinction, even if it is talking 3ed cohorts rather than 2ed henchmen and not talking rules and numbers: http://www.birthright.net/forums/showwiki.php?title=Cohort


Cohorts are loyal servants who follow a particular character hoping to rise along with their patron to better things. Lieutenants and cohorts are very similar and a character can be both. The difference is that lieutenant is loyal to the realm while a cohort is loyal to the person. When a cohort is also a lieutenant, they are loyal to both. A cohort can be loyal to the ruler but not the realm, but given the personal nature of rule there will only be a few cases where a cohort harms the realm while being loyal to the ruler. The most notable case is where the ruler himself orders part of his realm occupied or declares an inquisition. Personal loyalty can be very useful in these circumstances.

Sorontar

[arpig2]

Too me it is simple, a Lieutenant is a henchman who has been empowered to act in your name.

[arpig2]

To put it in real world terms, think of a mob family. your henchmen are your close buddies, the guys who run your various rackets and do the hits for you, while your lieutenant is the guy you send out to Vegas to take care of your "interests" there.

[Naughtical]

So it sounds like henchmen can't spend RPs and such? That's the only difference?

[Thelandrin]

Lieutenants can take realm actions on your behalf, but cannot spend your regency. Henchmen, not being linked to you or to the land, can do neither.

[Naughtical]

Does that mean they can't do domain/realm actions that require regency, such as Agitate or Trade Route? It seems like the only actions that only require GB are free or character actions except Espionage and Create Holding. That would appear to make lieutenants pretty worthless.

Actually, I just noticed that Create Holding is a domain action. I had previously thought that the reason it cost only gold and no RP was to allow PCs to start from scratch in building their domain. But since it's a domain action, this means that non-regents/lieutenants may not take that action, correct? Does that mean that PCs are only able to start a domain through adventuring, or is it an error?

Thanks for all the replies, BTW.

[Thelandrin]

Any blooded character may attempt to create a holding, at which point he becomes a regent (however insignificant his demesne). A character who has no bloodline and is not an invested regent cannot take any actions affecting a domain.

You can spend regency to power an action that a lieutenant is overseeing, but you cannot spend extra RP to increase its success. A lieutenant cannot cast a realm spell using your holdings, though in theory he could use his own holdings to affect your realm (but then he would be an allied regent and not a lieutenant).

[AndrewTall]

I always worked on the basis that the lieutenant could spend the "basic" regency of the action (as you've told them to do the action and everybody knows it) but not spend additional RP to boost the chance of success as that's above the basic effort - it lets them do a lot more actions but not deplete the treasury much although from one perspective it doesn't make much sense.

There is a magic item (gloves of regency?) that let you store 12 or so RP that a lieutenant could then spend from recollection.

In practice though the bureaucracy isn't powerful enough to let a lieutenant do a lot, the "king" is still, well, "king" and so vital for most things. Which is good in one way as an over-powerful lieutenant could easily become a great captain or risk undermining the ruler (for an example of a lieutenant getting overly powerful in they're own right look at Muden)