Hireling Gold when subbing as Mains

So, when Hirelings earn money it dissappears. No problem.

​What happens if you end up playing your Hireling because your main is recovering back in town? If the hireling earns gold, what happens to it when they go back to being a hireling?

You have a brief window to make them buy useful things for themselves like armor and spells before they revert to henchbrain and blow all their earnings on ale & whores :-P

 

side note: I know at least some people actually manage the money that henchman have.

Assume that he has accumulated 80% of his XP in assets, of which 80% of that (e.g. 64%) are useless for all game purposes and the remaining 20% are available in coin, etc.

 

In my campaings i consider that henchmen expend their pay in lifestyle and luxury, but their share of the treasure is used in adventuring gear and eventualy saved to build their own stronholds/labs/merchant ships. I use spreadsheets to handle gold and xp, so keeping track of how much money each hireling has is easy.

Monstly i like to play hirelings not-as-idiots... on the other hand if its reasonable that the hireling will blow all his money so be it... i woundt let players chose in what their hirelings expend their money whitout roleplaying the negotiation.

In my campaign, I assume that henchmen blow half of their savings every month living the high life. Or possibly on long-term investments, retirement savings, and sending money back to their sick families, dopending on personality. Whatever's left over after that might be used to buy an item or two of new gear, if there's something the henchman seems in want of and they've enough cash left to pay for it.

I don't follow you Alex. I'm talking about the player is playing his hireling since his normal PC is out of game recovering, but the other players want to keep going. Say the main pc is out of play for a a few weeks and you go on a few adventures...what do you do about the hireling's money?

If we assume that past expenses are a prediction of future behavior:
-He spends or saves 64% of it to no game effect
-He spends 16% of it on equipment or assets useful to adventuring
-He hangs onto 20% of it as coin.

Presumably the coin section would be spent on whatever he directly needs at the time (inns, a new sword after an encounter with a rust monster, and so on), while the 16% section represents purchases that he makes whether or not it’s urgent (refilling from 3 to 6 torches, a new more comfortable backpack, etc).