Good Minion Classes

[Angry Bob]

In terms of bookkeeping and streamlining combat, what kind of classes or particular classes do you use to fill a particular minion roll?

And by minion I of course mean enemies that aren't unique. Unique enemies can be anything.

A single enemy that's supposed to be a credible melee threat is usually going to be a Warblade or Swordsage in my campaign. But if there are going to be a bunch of them? Fighter. Feats are easier to keep track of than maneuvers, especially if there are twenty guys.

Caster minions are either sorcerers or psions of some sort. I know I should use warlocks, but I don't like minions having to be such a high level just to scratch my PCs. The way the campaign's going, they'll be fighting a lot of psions, which is good. Only one number to keep track of, and If I set up properly, a set augmentation and pp expenditure for each power they have.

Now, do you think Lurks work well for this sort of thing? In this case, they'd focus on their Lurk Augments and buff beforehand. I know they're outclassed by the psionic rogue as a PC class, but minions just have different build goals.

tl;dr: General discussion of classes you use for minions and what build goals a minion has as opposed to a PC.

[Yora]

The main difference is if you use only one or two in a single encounter, or lots of them at the same time.
When you run into a dozen guards on your way to the throne room several times, it's easiest to just make them warriors without any special attacks.
But if you have two elite soldiers each, that guard the four magical crystals that protect a castles gate, you want each of those four fights to be interesting.

[Zaq]

Warmages make excellent minion casters. They do enough damage that the PCs have to notice them, but they don't just autowin the way a Sorcerer or Wizard would (if played intelligently). Plus, you can build one in like five or ten minutes.

Enemy Rogues can be a good time, though of course there's no real way to play them properly. Which is kind of the point, as minions.

Interesting thought: Have some minions be Crusaders, and have them all pull from the same (perhaps slightly expanded) maneuver pool. Perhaps randomly discard maneuvers from the pool as they die.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you have a lot of minions, Bard is a very powerful force multiplier. A single bard among a sea of mooks makes said mooks much more dangerous.

[Cog]

For humanoid melee minions, I'll often choose a couple of thematic ToB maneuvers. Rather than making them full Warblades or whatever, they have a very few maneuvers and alternate between them, so it's something more like a Crusader's refresh. That doesn't result is strictly by-the-book characters, of course, but minions aren't going to be around long enough for those quickly-stitched seams to show. I save the full character builds for real NPCs.

[nedz]

If you have a lot of minions, Bard is a very powerful force multiplier. A single bard among a sea of mooks makes said mooks much more dangerous.

The last few times I've tried that; guess who the party targeted first ?
The high level Sorceror ?
The high level Favoured Soul ?
Nope: They go for the medium level Bard every time.
Guess I'm just going to have to use a band next time:smallbiggrin:

I use a theamatically chosen type of Mook for each situation, and I do like to vary them.

I've had quite a lot of success with Monk-Mooks. I mean they don't do much damage, but they are quite resilient and mobile. The trick is to get the texture of the encounter right with these.

If I'm using casters then they are always spontaneous casters. I Don't need the kind of book keeping Prepped casters require, well not for mooks anyway.

[only1doug]

The last few times I've tried that; guess who the party targeted first ?
The high level Sorceror ?
The high level Favoured Soul ?
Nope: They go for the medium level Bard every time.
Guess I'm just going to have to use a band next time:smallbiggrin:

I use a theamatically chosen type of Mook for each situation, and I do like to vary them.

I've had quite a lot of success with Monk-Mooks. I mean they don't do much damage, but they are quite resilient and mobile. The trick is to get the texture of the encounter right with these.

If I'm using casters then they are always spontaneous casters. I Don't need the kind of book keeping Prepped casters require, well not for mooks anyway.

Don't forget that the Bards Song still gives a bonus for 5 rounds after it stops (or longer if he had Lingering song). So what if the party do kill him, his work is already done.

[Particle_Man]

Isn't it traditional to send in the ninjas? :)