I don’t like the Adept hireling skill as written. It only benefits the two classes with my least favorite magic abilities, leveled spells. Druids, Bards, Warlocks have no use for them, which just annoys me. None of the other hireling skills are so restricted. Thus I’ve decided to tweak it. My first idea is to clone the Protector’s Sentry move, making it:
Arcane Assistance
When an Adept assists you with a magical effect, you may have them bear any ill effects to ignore one drawback of the effect, such as a 7-9 choice for Black Magic or Elemental Mastery. Each time you do this, reduce their Skill by one until they have a while to clear their head and regain their focus.
Thoughts?
I like it. It’s still useful to the Wizard and Cleric, but also useful to those other classes, as you say. The original version’s “the spell’s effects have greater range, duration, or potency” is also kind of hard to adjudicate, whereas your version would be easy to use at the table.
Yeah, the vaguest benefit to my least favorite casting mechanic, the Adept really sticks out compared to the others.