why do oathtakers cost so much?

[Mr.l]

i could hire a mercenary with similar stats and give him equal armor for 4.000 gold, while some oathtakers cost up to 14.000...

[Heron]

Their armor is slightly better than equivalents. Hence it's expensive.

[turtle225]

Most of hiring cost for bros is from their gear rather than their background. Oathtaker armor is expensive, generally better than similar armor in their weightclass, and the only way to get it is from hiring Oathtakers.

You are buying the armor, more than you are buying the bro.

A Full Helm + Coat of Scales will cost you around 12-13k to buy in an armory. So spending 14k for an Oathtaker who has better armor than that is not really a "bad deal" assuming you actually want the armor.

If you already have plenty of good armor then yeah, they are super expensive, and your best bet is to try and find the ones that have the lightest/cheapest armor to hire.

[𝔊ᛁLᚩᚺ𝔘ᚢᛏEᚱ]

You can get the armor also from a random event where you have to pay not many coins.

[Tlewnipla]

Originally posted by 𝔊ᛁLᚩᚺ𝔘ᚢᛏEᚱ:

You can get the armor also from a random event where you have to pay not many coins.

It is 9000 crowns. Depending on the state of your treasure box, that still is a hefty sum.

[Estieukua]

It's generally normal for slightly more durable, slightly more efficient armours to be a lot more expensive than slightly less durable/efficient options (e.g. 240 scale armour is twice as expensive as a reinforced mail hauberk). Since having a high pool of fatigue in heavy armour is less "meta" nowadays, it's generally not worth the extra expense.