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Talakeal
2010-08-01, 12:30 AM
Are the players supposed to be able to tell if a monster is a minion or not? The few times I have played the edition some DMs would tell you if asked, and some would refuse, and this made a HUGE difference on tactics used. Which one is the official stance?
If it is the latter, is there some way in game to tell which enemies are minions (other than attacking them and seeing if you have to roll damage of course!)

Kaje
2010-08-01, 12:32 AM
I wouldn't tell them. To the characters, they are all valid threats and targets.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-08-01, 12:40 AM
I don't usually tell my players beforehand, but once they kill one without rolling damage, they see it's a minion, and know that the others like it are probably also minions. I also tend to drop hints about the obvious weaknesses of them, or the power disparity between them and their non-minion allies.

Mando Knight
2010-08-01, 12:58 AM
When there's four or five of the same monster sticking around in one encounter, odds are it's a minion. Swarming is the only thing they're good at.

Swordgleam
2010-08-01, 01:15 AM
As you say, it makes a huge difference in tactics. So it depends on what kind of game you want. But I generally don't tell my players. I don't think there's an official stance.

NecroRebel
2010-08-01, 01:18 AM
I often just tell the players. They'll figure it out the moment they hit one anyway, and, as Mando says, they're the only enemy type likely to have more than two duplicates in any one battle.

Also, I generally feel that if something is weak enough to be a minion, the characters themselves should recognize the fact that that thing is not going to take much effort to dispatch. For instance, a mid-Paragon character is going to look at an Ogre and think, "Hey, there's a dozen holes in that thing's guard! Let's exploit them!" and promptly slaughter the thing. That's what it means to be a minion, IMO; they're so weak, fragile, or lack skill to such an extent that they're trivial to deal a fatal blow to, while non-minions it actually takes a little bit to find that fatal opening.

Swordgleam
2010-08-01, 01:57 AM
I'm curious as to what you guys mean about "if there's more than a few of the same enemy."

If you have a group of goblins facing your party, do you make it obvious that two are artillery, one is a controller, and three are soldiers? Or do you just say, "A group of goblins. Some have large axes, others have slings and bows, and one has a menacing-looking staff." Or do you just always use the exact mini for everything?

Because my party never knows for sure if two enemies are identical. They might be soldier and brute versions of the same enemy, or soldier and minion, or all the same, or maybe I modified them slightly for fun.

FoE
2010-08-01, 02:00 AM
It's an ongoing debate. You have to make up your own mind whether or not to tell your players. I think most DMs don't, but they tend to drop lots of hints that certain monsters are minions.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-01, 02:26 AM
Don't tell them they're minions. And tell them you're not saying which monsters are minions. They'll be sure to figure it out on their own soon enough - and if they know they have to check for minions, they'll act accordingly.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-01, 02:57 AM
As said above, there is no official stance that I'm aware of. In my opinion, the game is more fun if you don't tell them.

Zaydos
2010-08-01, 03:57 AM
As said above, there is no official stance that I'm aware of. In my opinion, the game is more fun if you don't tell them.

This +1.
I've only DM'd one shots for 4e and then they weren't planned so I didn't use many minions (ended up designing monsters as I went, but hey everyone had fun so it worked out) but when I'm a player I prefer it if the DM doesn't tell us. We'll learn quickly enough which enemies in this dungeon are minions, but it's less fun if we're told.

Anasazi
2010-08-01, 09:06 AM
In all honestly, that shouldn't be the question out of the players mouth and therefore you shouldnt need to answer it. The question out of the players mouth should be 'what do they look like?'
Minion's arent overly geared, they're usually pretty basic looking in comparison to their boss, and you should never use minions without some form of commander present. The weapons they're carrying alone should be dead giveaways to how powerful they are because you also have to account for the looting variable. Its your job as the gm to describe in detail what they look like, if your players have an iq over 100 they should understand the difference and know to ask that question. If they dont, its your job to teach it to them.

KillianHawkeye
2010-08-01, 09:22 AM
is there some way in game to tell which enemies are minions (other than attacking them and seeing if you have to roll damage of course!)


I don't usually tell my players beforehand, but once they kill one without rolling damage, they see it's a minion

IMO, this is a mistake. I make my players roll the damage even against minions so it takes them a little longer to figure out what's what. I haven't tried it, but if you want your minions to last a little longer, I've seen house rules giving minions hp equal to their level so they don't always die in one hit from stuff like Cleave, but still go down really easily.

My biggest problem is the fact that minions do fixed amounts of damage. That seems to be a dead giveaway when every kobold spear does exactly 4 points of damage, so I've occaisionally fudged it up or down a point to maintain the mystery. Has anybody come up with a more elegant solution to this problem?

EDIT: I agree that an experienced warrior should be able to tell if an opponent seems easily dispatched, but you don't need to tell him it's a minion.

jiriku
2010-08-01, 09:38 AM
The flat damage was just intended to minimize DM workload. You could replace it with an equivalent die roll. 4 damage could become 1d4+2 or 1d6+1 or 1d8, for example.

Sir_Elderberry
2010-08-01, 09:42 AM
No, I don't. I still make them roll damage, and then I say "it dies." The players glance at each other and guess, probably. If they don't know yet, I roll a d6 and pretend that they just happen to be hitting the same damage.

KillianHawkeye
2010-08-01, 11:52 AM
If they don't know yet, I roll a d6 and pretend that they just happen to be hitting the same damage.

Yeah, I've done that, too. But I don't like it.

nyjastul69
2010-08-01, 12:05 PM
In all honestly, that shouldn't be the question out of the players mouth and therefore you shouldnt need to answer it. The question out of the players mouth should be 'what do they look like?'
Minion's arent overly geared, they're usually pretty basic looking in comparison to their boss, and you should never use minions without some form of commander present. The weapons they're carrying alone should be dead giveaways to how powerful they are because you also have to account for the looting variable. Its your job as the gm to describe in detail what they look like, if your players have an iq over 100 they should understand the difference and know to ask that question. If they dont, its your job to teach it to them.

The equipment disparity is one of my quibbles with 4e. My players immediately noticed artillery don't come with a standard issue melee weapon, minions don't have missile weapons, etc. I changed this, but I really shouldn't have had to. The designers should have caught this.

Swordgleam
2010-08-01, 12:21 PM
Has anybody come up with a more elegant solution to this problem?

You know, I'm surprised my players didn't catch this. I didn't realize until one of them bought the MM1 in preparation for running his own 4e game, but none of them even knew what minions were. My player, upon reading the MM, said, "This really explains a lot. I'd been wondering why some enemies died so easily."

TreesOfDeath
2010-08-01, 12:25 PM
I think your not meant to tell them, but describe their armour as being shabbier and convey via flavour that their pushovers for the characthers

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-01, 12:26 PM
The equipment disparity is one of my quibbles with 4e. My players immediately noticed artillery don't come with a standard issue melee weapon, minions don't have missile weapons, etc. I changed this, but I really shouldn't have had to. The designers should have caught this.

Archers looking like Archers is a problem now?:smallconfused:

nyjastul69
2010-08-01, 12:52 PM
Archers looking like Archers is a problem now?:smallconfused:

I don't want to get in edition war here. I was just pointing out a particularly easy way to ID a monsters role. Archers have no way to fight if they get based. I found this an odd design principle. Like I said, it's a quibble. I just give them weapons that should have been in their stat block to begin with. Thank you for your insightful and constructive post.

nightwyrm
2010-08-01, 12:57 PM
I think your not meant to tell them, but describe their armour as being shabbier and convey via flavour that their pushovers for the characthers

This is pretty much what I do. But my players are savvy enough to know that if I'm plunking down a dozen or so enemies, some of them are gonna die in one hit so and they'll test the monster out for a bit to make sure they aren't blowing a daily on a minion.

Sir_Elderberry
2010-08-01, 01:59 PM
Yeah, I've done that, too. But I don't like it.

I know it won't work forever, but it buys me a few turns of player confusion. My players are pretty good at what they do and I need all the confusion I can get.

cdrcjsn
2010-08-01, 03:20 PM
If you really want to screw with your players, once they've gotten good at guessing who's a minions and who's not, throw them some minions with this ability:

Durable (No Action/Encounter Power) Ignore the damage from the first attack that hits during this encounter. Ongoing effects apply normally.

Then it'll take two hits to down a minion and they'll be really confused as to what's going on.

valadil
2010-08-01, 03:30 PM
The players are not automatically entitled to that information. A lot of the time though, it makes sense to tell them. The leader of the kobold tribe will likely have a larger stature and shinier loot than his kin. It's okay if the enemy with golden armor stands out as being more important than the rest.

I've actually been tempted to make false minions. If the players can use their game knowledge of minions, enemies should be able to do so too. Get 10 guys to dress alike. 8 of them are minions, 2 are real enemies.

Shatteredtower
2010-08-01, 05:17 PM
Even when you're giving no clue, there are times a minion is obviously a minion. Legion devils come to mind immediately, as do medium size howlers. Mimic spawn may not be readily discernible from impersonators, but once you're facing more than one, you know most are minions right up until they attack.

I prefer to keep minion status circumstantial. The brute you drove off early in the adventure might resurface as a minion in the final encounter, or one of the cannon fodder that escaped your assault on a hidden gate returns as an elite soldier when you reach the treasury you'd come to rob. You don't even have to rewrite the stat block in some cases. Just note the familiar face among the minions or others in the latter encounter. The same thing can be done for artillery to soldier conversion, among others.

I don't see nyjastul69's problem. Monster Manual shows kobold minions with ranged attacks, while listed goblin and hobgoblin artillery had melee weapons, should they need them.

Saph
2010-08-01, 05:35 PM
The DMs I've played under usually don't mention it, and I generally play along, as identifying the monsters is one of the more fun parts of an encounter. Most players with any smarts can generally peg the minions after about one round.

I do roll my eyes a bit when the DM goes too far with the charade, though, like making us roll damage and pretending to check the minion's HP.

ninja_penguin
2010-08-01, 05:45 PM
I never announce that a monster is a minion. Most of my players will kinda get that 'I'm pretty sure X, Y, or Z is a minion because otherwise this is a TPK situation', and most of them figure it out once something dies to autodamage or a rather weak hit compared to everything else in the area.

That said, ranged minions can be very effective if they survive a few rounds.

mobdrazhar
2010-08-01, 05:56 PM
As a DM I don't tell my players which are and aren't minions as trying to work out if they are minions is half the fun. But then again I then throw my players a curve ball and they expect minions and they get non-minions (like the small "dungeon" they are in atm.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-01, 05:57 PM
IMO, this is a mistake. I make my players roll the damage even against minions so it takes them a little longer to figure out what's what. I haven't tried it, but if you want your minions to last a little longer, I've seen house rules giving minions hp equal to their level
It really depends on your players, but I figure that even with HP equal to their level, minions will always die in one hit, and non-minions will never die in one hit. Most players I know, as soon as they see a monster go down in one hit, will immediately jump to the conclusion that it was a minion.


I think your not meant to tell them, but describe their armour as being shabbier and convey via flavour that their pushovers for the characthers
If you do this, then in effect you are precisely telling your players that these are minions, just with better flavor text.

holywhippet
2010-08-01, 06:36 PM
Isn't this pretty much covered by the rules? In the PHB under the skills section it covers monster knowledge checks. I'd have thought a successful check would tell you if it was a minion or not.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-01, 06:56 PM
I don't want to get in edition war here. I was just pointing out a particularly easy way to ID a monsters role. Archers have no way to fight if they get based. I found this an odd design principle. Like I said, it's a quibble. I just give them weapons that should have been in their stat block to begin with. Thank you for your insightful and constructive post.

I just don't see it as a major problem that not every single humanoid creature has a melee weapon. As you said yourself, it's trivial to add one if the npc's in question make more sense in the context of your campaign or encounter if they do infact have one. Still, it doesn't really harm anything if occaisionally, an archer just has a bow. What do they learn from that? They learn that the archer has a bow. *shrug*

I don't really see that this is even a system specific issue, let alone an edition based one. So, yeah. Stuff.

As for creatures with no melee attack or weapon getting stuck in base contact, well, sure. That's a problem for the npc, but it's their perogative to avoid that situation, (or not, depending perhaps on their smarts). Not all artillery creatures will lack attacks that can be used close up and if some do, surely that just rewards a determined PC for putting them in that situation?

Gralamin
2010-08-01, 07:04 PM
Isn't this pretty much covered by the rules? In the PHB under the skills section it covers monster knowledge checks. I'd have thought a successful check would tell you if it was a minion or not.

Monster knowledge checks only tell you the following:
DC 15, +5 per tier - Name ("Goblin Hexer"), Type ("Humanoid"), keywords (Goblin).
DC 20, +5 per tier - Powers
DC 25, +5 per tier - Resistances and Vulnerability.

So nothing tells you the Role ("Skirmisher", or Group role "Elite" or "Minion").

Yuki Akuma
2010-08-01, 07:15 PM
I tell my players they're minions. And then give them "on death" powers like that one domination power in the Those Who Hear theme.

Muahahah!

Swordgleam
2010-08-01, 08:19 PM
I do roll my eyes a bit when the DM goes too far with the charade, though, like making us roll damage and pretending to check the minion's HP.

I don't get this. My players would be pissed at me if I didn't let them roll damage, even when they know that whatever it is is going down in one more hit. Rolling damage is one of the more fun parts of D&D. (And I say this as a heavy roleplayer.) Why would you ever not want to do it?

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-01, 08:23 PM
I don't get this. My players would be pissed at me if I didn't let them roll damage, even when they know that whatever it is is going down in one more hit. Rolling damage is one of the more fun parts of D&D. (And I say this as a heavy roleplayer.) Why would you ever not want to do it?
Because you just dropped a couple of dudes with one hit and the damage doesn't even matter.

It's like rolling a Fortitude save you could not pass :smalltongue:

Shatteredtower
2010-08-01, 08:33 PM
Why would you ever not want to do it?

Overkill is only fun when it's not a waste of time. That's why resignation is an option in chess, and why you're encouraged to take it when there's no realistic way to avoid losing.

"It's dead; moving on," saves a lot of time in the long run. If they want the best of both worlds, have them roll for attack and damage at the same time.

Swordgleam
2010-08-01, 08:55 PM
Overkill is only fun when it's not a waste of time. That's why resignation is an option in chess, and why you're encouraged to take it when there's no realistic way to avoid losing.

But it's only a waste of time when it's not fun. Resignation is so you don't have to spend more time losing - no winning player in chess says, "Well, I'm crushing you, I've beaten enough people already to win this tourney, so I'll just resign."

I get that not everyone's fun is the same. But it baffles me that there's people who don't find rolling damage fun. You build your character to do damage (at least most of the time). Seeing your build work is fun.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-01, 09:00 PM
But it's only a waste of time when it's not fun. Resignation is so you don't have to spend more time losing - no winning player in chess says, "Well, I'm crushing you, I've beaten enough people already to win this tourney, so I'll just resign."

I get that not everyone's fun is the same. But it baffles me that there's people who don't find rolling damage fun. You build your character to do damage (at least most of the time). Seeing your build work is fun.
It's more a question of politeness.

Even if you're having a lot of fun rolling lots of dice, you're slowing down the combat for everyone else.

Swordgleam
2010-08-01, 09:38 PM
It's more a question of politeness.

Even if you're having a lot of fun rolling lots of dice, you're slowing down the combat for everyone else.

That I can see. We have one guy who likes to add up his attack and damage bonuses one at a time, every time, even though they almost never change. Fun for him, annoying for everyone else.

But when you don't know for 100% of it's a minion, it seems ruder to say, "If it's a minion, tell me and I won't bother rolling" than to just roll damage.

Tengu_temp
2010-08-01, 09:51 PM
I outright state that some enemies are minions - my players would figure it out on their own anyway. Although in my case it's a moot point anyway, because I'm running a mecha game with clearly defined lines between minions and non-minions (if it's mecha-sized, it's not a minion, if it's human-sized, it's a minion).

On a mostly unrelated note, in Mutants and Masterminds you must tell the players which enemies are minions, because they can take 10 on attacks against them.

Swordgleam
2010-08-01, 10:21 PM
On a mostly unrelated note, in Mutants and Masterminds you must tell the players which enemies are minions, because they can take 10 on attacks against them.

If we're doing unrelated notes, I'd like to say that I love how Wushu handles mooks/minions. You don't have to roll for them at all!

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-02, 12:48 AM
If we're doing unrelated notes, I'd like to say that I love how Wushu handles mooks/minions. You don't have to roll for them at all!
Unrelated Comic Link (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100802) :smalltongue:

On a related note: since the DM usually announces hit-or-miss it is hardly rude for him to say "you hit and obliterate him." If you really like rolling damage, roll damage along with your to-hit - that way everyone wins :smallbiggrin:

Thajocoth
2010-08-02, 01:15 AM
I remember a Dragon Article that answered this question. The answer was: Sometimes.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-02, 02:45 AM
Rolling damage is one of the more fun parts of D&D. (And I say this as a heavy roleplayer.) Why would you ever not want to do it?
In my area, most DMs that do tell you what the minions are will use edible miniatures for them (i.e. candy). That means that on a hit, you either get to roll damage (if a non-minion) or you get a piece of candy.

Saph
2010-08-02, 04:51 AM
I don't get this. My players would be pissed at me if I didn't let them roll damage, even when they know that whatever it is is going down in one more hit. Rolling damage is one of the more fun parts of D&D. (And I say this as a heavy roleplayer.) Why would you ever not want to do it?

Because minions have 1 HP. There's no difference between a hit that does 1 damage and a hit that does 100 damage; a hit is a kill. As a general rule, doing rolls is only fun if the rolls matter.

Besides, as Oracle said, it slows the game down. We know the thing's a minion and will die in one hit, the DM knows it's a minion and will die in one hit, so it's not like there's any suspense or anything.

Sir_Elderberry
2010-08-02, 08:27 AM
My players roll damage on minions, but then, they started having one of them write it all down and calculate the percentage of damage everyone does...

nyjastul69
2010-08-02, 05:51 PM
I don't see nyjastul69's problem. Monster Manual shows kobold minions with ranged attacks, while listed goblin and hobgoblin artillery had melee weapons, should they need them.

Yeah, minions do have both ranged and melee attacks. I was working off memory. I'm AFBs for several days. It was kobold dragonshields that don't have a ranged attack that I was thinking of. As said earlier it's trivial to give them weapons, but it still stuck me as odd.

BobTheDog
2010-08-02, 06:15 PM
Recipe for DM fun:

Get your players used to fighting minions. But don't tell them straight out who is who, let them learn how to identify minions on their own.

Bunch of orcs who ran in to help the shaman? Minions.
Horde of shambling skeletons? Minions.
Weird-looking wisps of electricity that dart across the room? Minions.

Basically, let them learn that in general, monsters that come in bunches will be minions, and their bosses will be standards/elites/solos.

THEN, get them in a combat with 10-12 regular monsters. No minions. Get monsters ~2 levels below them (so you stay within the XP budget but the monsters are not too easy), with maybe the "boss" being a standard of their level.

Watch in glee as they curse at the minions that won't die.

Disclaimer: Doing this means you'll have to actually keep track of 10-12 regular monsters HP and abilities. Also, if you do it like I did it, and make it an encounter of Level + 3 (using lvl -2 monsters), you're in for a LONG fight. Make sure you get a good place for the fight to happen (stuff to do, traps to trigger etc.) and use nice tactics for the monsters (to force the PCs to use smart tactics too), or it can turn into a smashfest. Anyway, if done properly, you should get at least 3 rounds of complete chaos as the PCs try to find the minions and discover they're facing a bunch of "regular" foes. :smallbiggrin:

holywhippet
2010-08-02, 06:42 PM
Monster knowledge checks only tell you the following:
DC 15, +5 per tier - Name ("Goblin Hexer"), Type ("Humanoid"), keywords (Goblin).
DC 20, +5 per tier - Powers
DC 25, +5 per tier - Resistances and Vulnerability.

So nothing tells you the Role ("Skirmisher", or Group role "Elite" or "Minion").

Yeah, but if you get the powers of the enemy you can generally work out if they are a minion since they won't have anything particularly flashy and their damage is always a set amount.

On top of that, players with an encyclopedic knowledge of the game will know which enemies are minions just by their name.

Gralamin
2010-08-02, 06:59 PM
Yeah, but if you get the powers of the enemy you can generally work out if they are a minion since they won't have anything particularly flashy and their damage is always a set amount.

On top of that, players with an encyclopedic knowledge of the game will know which enemies are minions just by their name.

It's unclear by RAW how much info on the powers you are supposed to give, though not having many is a good indication, yes.

As for Encyclopedic knowledge: There are currently 403 minions in the game. Most of those appear in the first half of the game. Thus at higher levels, it becomes easier to guess. However 3897 creatures is a lot to memorize. Not to mention if the DM makes up his own.

holywhippet
2010-08-02, 07:07 PM
True, you could fudge it though by keep an eye on what you DM is throwing at you. It would be odd for the DM to literally choose random monsters for you to fight. More likely you know you'll be fighting goblins or kobolds or whatever at the current part of your campaign.

Swordgleam
2010-08-02, 09:09 PM
In my area, most DMs that do tell you what the minions are will use edible miniatures for them (i.e. candy). That means that on a hit, you either get to roll damage (if a non-minion) or you get a piece of candy.

I find this compromise acceptable. :smallbiggrin:


Because minions have 1 HP. There's no difference between a hit that does 1 damage and a hit that does 100 damage; a hit is a kill. As a general rule, doing rolls is only fun if the rolls matter.

I think I'm on a totally different wavelength from the rest of this thread. Our Iron Heroes party keeps track of the max damage in a single (non-crit) attack for each character, and of who is currently ahead. Not because it required 55 damage in a single hit to finish off that ogre rabble, but because it was 55 damage in a single hit and how awesome is that? Overkill is the best kind of kill.

Kylarra
2010-08-02, 09:42 PM
In my area, most DMs that do tell you what the minions are will use edible miniatures for them (i.e. candy). That means that on a hit, you either get to roll damage (if a non-minion) or you get a piece of candy.I support this. We've actually taken to using that in general, so if you get a kill, you eat the monster.

Saph
2010-08-03, 04:51 AM
I think I'm on a totally different wavelength from the rest of this thread. Our Iron Heroes party keeps track of the max damage in a single (non-crit) attack for each character, and of who is currently ahead. Not because it required 55 damage in a single hit to finish off that ogre rabble, but because it was 55 damage in a single hit and how awesome is that? Overkill is the best kind of kill.

Yeah, I think your group is just odd. :smallwink: We might pay a bit of attention to overkill on normal monsters, but minions effectively don't have a HP score, so it seems a bit pointless.

Level8Mudcrab
2010-08-03, 06:40 AM
I don't usually tell my players if something is a minion. If they do a check i'll describe it as being weaker or something. They usually pick up on whats a minion quickly anyway.

Dogmantra
2010-08-03, 07:11 AM
I tell my players they're minions. And then give them "on death" powers like that one domination power in the Those Who Hear theme.

Muahahah!

To be fair, the former's because on Gametable it's stupidly easy to work out, and the latter's because you hate fun. :smalltongue:

hewhosaysfish
2010-08-03, 07:50 AM
I remember my DM once game me quite a nasty shock with some minions...

The party was attacking a kobold cave (it was actually the Irontooth encounter in KotSF) we'd fought through the first few guards but not a big block of reinforcements had arrived.

What I didn't realise was that the the shaman had taken the opportunity of a couple of rounds warning to buff his mates. Every kobold in the group - including the minions - was carrying 3 temporary hp.

So there I am, looking over the enemies attacking us and I guess (based on
previous encounters) that the kobolds being represented by kobold miniatures were full enemies of various kinds while the 5 being represented by ninja-squirrel minis (because we didn't have enough kobolds) must be minions.

My dwarf fighter boldy steps forwards and whallops a kobold-kobold and cleaves into the ninja-squirrel-kobold for 3 damage. Ninja-squirrel-kobold does not die*. His 3 temp hp are gone but he still has his single minion hit point.

I don't know this at the time, though. I reason that he must be a standard enemy. As are the four just like him. The (perceived) situation has just gone from "equal number of enemies, plus some chaff" to "outnumbered 2 to 1".

Me: :smalleek:


tl;dr: There are generally enough clues around to spot a minion without being told. If you're not told outright, though, it does create, a little bit of uncertainty and tension. Which is nice.



*As I type this phrase, it strikes me as very funny: "Ninja-squirrel-kobold does not die! NINJA-SQUIRREL KOBOLD WILL LIVE FOREVER!"**

**I hope this footnote will confuse and frighten those who didn't read the spoiler and skipped straight to the tl;dr.

BlckDv
2010-08-03, 08:45 AM
I don't tell my players, although I do try and use the same minis for mobs that look the same (may not BE the same) so often the players get a fix once they drop the first minion of a fight. If the party fights the same class of minions several times, I do say that they look like those other guys. But not knowing for sure from the scouting definitely changes how they plan.

I do also love to throw in some surprises; like a fight with three duergar melee, two "wolves" (barghests), a duergar caster, and two ogres (large). The ogres were the minions, but the size fooled the party and they focused on the melee duergar, and the barghests shifting shape out of sight left them very confused about the number of enemies. Other fun ones are putting minions near aura allies or enviro effects that give them DR or an ability to negate a hit.

TheEmerged
2010-08-03, 11:25 AM
Isn't this pretty much covered by the rules? In the PHB under the skills section it covers monster knowledge checks. I'd have thought a successful check would tell you if it was a minion or not.

Interesting, I've been doing this as Insight & Perception checks.

nightwyrm
2010-08-03, 12:18 PM
It's unclear by RAW how much info on the powers you are supposed to give, though not having many is a good indication, yes.

As for Encyclopedic knowledge: There are currently 403 minions in the game. Most of those appear in the first half of the game. Thus at higher levels, it becomes easier to guess. However 3897 creatures is a lot to memorize. Not to mention if the DM makes up his own.

Well, MM minions tend to have weakass sounding names like kobold minion or human lackey.