I’m fine with the mythic tier stuff being specific to the Safehold 2 and 1 owners, and the followers at Safehold 3 seem exciting, but I’d love to see tiers 5 and 4 be more party focused. I think newer players would be a lot more likely to pursue it if they could work on it together and all enjoy it. If you’re building a fortress, let everyone who occupies it benefit from having an entire settlement’s support. This would also hook in newer players in PUGs who get to benefit from a veteran noble’s land, but not give them access to mythic stuff.
If we’re trying to pull trade goods out of the community, use the Level 5 to create Villagers who buff consumables enough that people will really want to use them. Have the benefit apply to the party; a group with multiple safehold owners will be able to benefit from multiple Villagers, so there’s still reason for multiple people in a consistent group to have them, but a PUG with one noble will still see some benefit and want to start working towards it.
Don’t know the right numbers, but I’d love to see something like
Fletcher - ammunition tokens deal +3 damage
Apothecary - Potions heal +3 hp
Alchemist - alchemical weapons deal +3 damage (go spirit pets!)
Poisoner - weapon oils deal an additional +3 damage
Scrivener - scrolls deal +3 damage
Arcanist - wands deal +3 damage (I know they’re not printing any more but there are still a lot out there)
Rune carver - runestones add +1 to their effect
For the Safehold 4, tie the hirelings to the existing classes and let them fill in the gaps in the party. This helps with double downs, with groups that struggle to fill all 10 slots, or with groups that just don’t have someone for a particularly important role. If you want to go further into pulling tokens out of stockpiles, make them usable once per dungeon by default, but gold can be spent to “hire” them again for each additional use.
At level 3, people seem to like the flavor of the followers, but not the potential creep of lots of slot expansion. Perhaps these could instead be focused more on negating hindrances, so that safeholders don’t need to equip a token to avoid their least favorite effect. This would potentially free up, say, a bead for people who like to have free movement or ignore 50% miss chances, but without just straight up giving a 4th bead that could be used to pile on more stats. Options for followers might be
Free movement
Evasion
Ignore 50% miss chance for ethereal
Ignore underwater hindrances
Immune to charm and possession
See invisibility
Immune to retribution (like shirt of shielding)
Limited flight (strike a flying enemy with melee 1/room like fizzy lifting or charm of the faerie)
Sustain without air (like iridescent spindle)