Is this a meta commentary on the series? Because thinking about it now, Sanji is way too lucky and way too strong, even before the 2 year point.

Don't get a share of the party XP. They gain on a separate track that let's them level up, but always keeps them lower them at a lower level than the person they are following.

Depends on the GM. some will rule that they share exp to limit the number you take, so you dont hire an entire village of npc's for like 10gp a head, and clear a dungeon like it was a game of lemmings. at least not without the leadership feat.

That's a poor way to handle that. Hirelings are specifically called as not taking up xp, at least in 3.5e, because they take up a different resource. They are also not mindless. They won't stick around for gold if they are sent to their deaths, unless they are fanatics, and that has little to do with gold.

It also doesn't work to give them a share of the xp, since only those that survive get a share of the xp, and that's something that is easy to manipulate with accidental fireballs and whatnot.

If your dungeon can be solved by a village of level 1 commoners, then let the party pay the gold to solve it. It's probably not that hard of a dungeon anyway.

If they aren't the hirelings you got with the leadership feat (which gets less effective the more of your followers you let die) then they aren't actually part of the party, and anything they solve on their own wouldn't necessarily give the party XP.

Unless it's story XP for creatively solving the problem. n.n

I was going to say "no, they do" but then I looked it up (3.5 text):

Cohorts earn XP as follows:

The cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party’s XP.

(Then a whole bunch of stuff talking about how they advance and stuff)

If they *did* get a share of the xp, people would probably wonder why they spent a feat to get a weaker party member instead of just adding another party member...

I think, that could be more like a party in a RPG, if they defeat someone they could share the EXP, but all depend of the Mod