...I wonder, with a high Negotiation / Charismatic score, can we recruit NPCs to join our little party? It'd help us fill whole in our group. For example: even if he was weak, an archer or crossbowman would've been quite helpful in this battle. There's also the problem that, being such a small group, we may one time make a group comprised almost entirely of one type of fighter or another (e.g. all mages or all rogues) so having NPC meat shields / supports would be nice.

There's also my passing whim of "what if we can hire this silly crossbow bandit." It probably won't happen for many reasons, the two biggest being Leifr's poor charisma and negotiation score and the fact that [i]he tried killing them a few moments earlier[/i], but it made for an interesting idea.