Well I think many of you will understand the "henchman issues" we have had to deal with since getting this game. First one that smacked us was the "only one" deal, and you gotta pay for him up front as well! Next came "shite, I can't equip him with weapons or armor or anything but a potion" deal. Then, "well hell I have only a few commands to give him!" Forget having a mage-henchman and telling him what spell to cast and when, nope forget it. Then there of course is the "henchman going freak and running ahead into crowds of monsters and dying" deal.

I swear I will command "stand your ground" when encountering monsters and it will only work for a few seconds! Ah well, go ahead and be a hero, I ain't wasting my expensive potions on your retarded ass, see ya in the temple! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

But I have to wonder, is this a flaw or is it something made on purpose? In other words, maybe the game developers wanted to make things like henchman more realistic? I.E., nobody risks their lives for free (meaning you have to pay to hire henchmen), and you can tell someone to do something in a battle scenario, but that is your opinion, not LOL necessarily your henchman's opinion. You have no choice but to deal with a person who has his/her own power, and makes his/her own decisions. So while playing you have to keep that in mind.

What I do, is just leave my henchman way behind "Stand your ground damn you!" before I am in any battle,just walking around. When I encounter monsters alone it usually is far enough away from my henchman to notice, so I can fight the battle on my own to keep him from killing himself LOL. If times get desparate, then I hit the "follow" command and let him come in and finish them off.

I've only ever used Tomi and have had no problems with him at all. Told him to stay back and used ranged weapons as I wade in with my double axe and let fly. He uses potions when he needs them and always seems to have enough potions and arrows.
He unlocks doors and disarms traps when found with no problems.
Personally I think this is a great system. Loyalty only goes so far after all.

That is the way BioWare scripted the henchmen. If the PC is being attacked/damaged, the henchmen will hekp out..

The only way to keep them from doing things you do not want them to do, is to go into the toolset and rewrite the scripting for the henchmen actions...

That's why Tomi stayed back Animal, cause you were also staying back and using ranged weapons. Again, as long as you can keep a certain distance from your henchman and the enemy, you can control your henchman with "Stand your ground", but if they get too close to eachother, seems all bets are off LOL [img]tongue.gif[/img] :D

Yeah, but also if you keep your henchman, like, down a hallway around a corner behind you, you can fight all you want, take damage, even die, and your henchman will just stay put, until you tell him otherwise. Again, it's what I do mostly now with my henchman, plus not only does it keep him from getting killed, it saves his spells for bigger and better battles (he will use up all his spells on little stuff if I just let him follow me near everywhere which annoys the heck out of me!)

Henchman in NWN acts pretty much the same as hirelings in D2 LOD. so that's not a suprise for me.

Well first off the henchmen were only put into the game to simulate another player ala multi-player, to help you in your quest. You aren't supposed to have total control/full access of him because he isn't your character, he's/she's his/her own person. In the pen and paper version of DnD you could hire hirelings and even gain henchmen when you reached certain levels. Even then, the DM controlled them, but they would do what you said because you either paid them or they were in awe of you and begged to serve.... or something.

Anyway, this henchmen deal seems to be a recurring issue with most people so let me spell it out for those that don't have the time or patience to figure it out through reading or experimenting.

If you left click on your henchman you can talk to him/her and issue orders. You can issue even more orders if you right click and check out the spiral menu. Everything is there to help you control your henchmen from running off to the other end of the dungeon or heal you when you need them to.

The following is what you can do (this isn't complete as I've only used a few of the henchmen and I'm sure the others might have special commands that I haven't listed below, but this is the basic jist of it):

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LEFT CLICK (TALK)
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CHANGE TACTICS - Choose between fighting with melee (close combat) weapons or ranged weapons. I'm pretty sure all henchmen have both to chose from, though they are probably better at one then the other.

CHANGE DISTANCE - Choose the distance you want the henchman to be when they are FOLLOW-ing you around. You have the choice of close/medium/far.

CHANGE WHEN TO HEAL ME - This only applies to henchmen who have the ability to heal, you can change how often you want them to auto-heal you. This also depends on how much healing power they have, so if they aren't healing you, chances are they need to rest to recoup their healing powers.

ASSIST AT PICKLOCKING/TRAP DISARMING - This only applies to henchmen who can pick locks and/or disarm traps. You can choose to have them auto-help you or not. I think that henchmen who cannot do so, help you bash it open instead.

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RIGHT CLICK (RADIAL MENU)
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GUARD ME - When anyone attacks you, they will attack them.

STAND YOUR GROUND - They stay put and only attack when they are attacked.

FOLLOW - This is the default mode unless you tell them to do something else or an enemy is sighted. Also, you will have to hit this a couple of times if you are running past the enemy and you want to escape because your henchmen will try to attack the enemy instead of keep following you. Hitting the FOLLOW every couple of seconds will remind them who is boss.

ATTACK NEAREST - They attack nearest enemy, handy when you don't want them running far away and you don't want them to change to ranged weapons... that is as long as their nearest enemy isn't far away to begin with.

HEAL ME - This only applies if they have the ability to do so. If they do, then they will heal you.

SPECIAL NOTE : Use the <SPACE BAR> just like you did in the BG/IwD series so you have time to control your henchmen in the heat of combat. You can even assign their commands to your quick menu (I think so anyway, I remember reading that someone has done so).

Your henchmen will get bigger and better stuff everytime they level up. You can even check it out AND their stats/feats/skills when you RIGHT CLICK on them and choose MORE OPTIONS (or something like that) and pick EXAMINE. What they get is pretty much as good as you would give them anyway, plus you don't have to worry about their equipment and yours.

[ 07-10-2002, 11:40 PM: Message edited by: Medieval Dead ]

Me too... but then same thing happens... profanity's in the air everytime they do something stupid... D2 or NWN or whatever [img]smile.gif[/img]

Anyways LadyZ, I have Sharwyn (ever since) as my henchman... and I never had any problems with her! What I don't like is that they cast hell over a ghoul... when we have a boss to battle in the next room... but other than that, she stays back, never pesters me, but then what pesters me is that she gets attacked by my opponents! At times she hits more than me, and if that opponent gets pissed, well... Sharwyn's toast. :( Back to the temple we go [img]smile.gif[/img]

Make sure you talk to your Henchman and all that... I am sure it'll help

oddly enough all henchman have a ranged atack (yes even redtiger). so if you want to do all the melee and keep them back go for it. cause when an enemy gets to close to them they will switch to melee weapons so it makes them versatile. i think once you have figured out the whole henchman issue you will realize how easy it was. some people just take a little longer than others to get ahold of the whole henchman concept... [img]tongue.gif[/img] dont worry we all learn soon enough

just remember the emphasis, the henchman is only minor help hes not like a npc in BG2

No to mention Fallout 2. First time I played through the game most reloads were caused by one of the followers killing another: Sulik toasting Cassidy, Marcus toasting im both and so on... Second time through I played solo and it went much better.

Arcanum same thing, I was disgusted when my spellcasting follower wasted rats with top notch spells and attacked powerfull opponents with his mundane staff. I ended up soloing through the game too.

Same thing in NWN, a good henchman is a dead henchman. Bioware should had changed their tip to: "... the game may prove to difficult _with_ a henchman"

//End rant