Minions in 5e? Thoughts, experience, and theory craft welcome.

[Sullivan]

So do y'all think that taking a 1/8CR monster, giving it 1 Hp, and that Miss/Save no damage rule will work? I'm about to run some mob's in my game next week and I think i'll be pulling the trigger on the above layout and was wondering if anyone has experience with house rules for minions in 5e?

I'll post back on this thread too after the game to let y'all know how it goes.

[Forum Explorer]

So do y'all think that taking a 1/8CR monster, giving it 1 Hp, and that Miss/Save no damage rule will work? I'm about to run some mob's in my game next week and I think i'll be pulling the trigger on the above layout and was wondering if anyone has experience with house rules for minions in 5e?

I'll post back on this thread too after the game to let y'all know how it goes.

I'm not experienced with 4e (and thus actual minions) at all. But in my experience the 1/8CR monsters tend to get obliterated by anything that manages to even so much as breath on them. So I'm not sure you need to change anything.

[calebrus]

With how bounded accuracy works in 5e, simple mobs that you see in early levels work just fine in this capacity, such as goblins, kobolds, etc.
Mobs existed as filler in 4e, designed to add more targets without a ton more difficulty. After a certain point, low levels mobs serve the same purpose in 5e, making minions redundant. Those kobolds and goblins can still hit you later, so they become a threat when facing numbers. Kind of like minions.

Now if you're talking about adding in minions during the low levels, I'd have to recommend against it. If you do, then they should not only have but a single hit point, but they should also not do enough damage to worry about. Maybe a single point there as well. Any more, and they become a factor in determining the CR/XP ratio (which minions should have no affect on).

So basically, either they aren't needed and are redundant, or they need to be so weak as to be useless, or they wouldn't be minions any longer.

[Sullivan]

i'm a little worried about keeping track of monster h.p. if I just use low CR creatures. Has anyone tried just throwing 12 goblins at a high level party before?

[Occasional Sage]

Tracking HP is simple even with mobs; the method varies slightly by how you map combat.

ALWAYS have a sheet of paper with the combatants listed down it (goblin1, goblin2, ogre, zombie1, zombie2, etc), and have a nearby list of each monster by descending initiative (Ogre 21, goblin2 17, goblin1 16, zombie1 9, zombie2 3, etc) with dead creatures struck out;

IF you use minis on the map, add a bit of stickynote to the underside of the base sticking out with the number ("1" under a goblin figure, etc);

IF you use markers on an erasable surface, simply label the enemies G1, G2, Og, Z1, Z2 etc.

IF you use both minis and an erasable surface, just note a number next to the relevant mini.

[Psikerlord]

I've found using lower level guys like cultists work fine for "minions" at level 5-6. The only thing is a single decent AoE can kill them all, even if they save. Of course this can be managed with having even more of the guys, so instead of 20 cultists, throw in 40, expecting most to be fireballed.

Works pretty well.

[Occasional Sage]

I've found using lower level guys like cultists work fine for "minions" at level 5-6. The only thing is a single decent AoE can kill them all, even if they save. Of course this can be managed with having even more of the guys, so instead of 20 cultists, throw in 40, expecting most to be fireballed.

Works pretty well.

Also, you know, they can scatter.

[Gritmonger]

Also, you know, they can scatter.

...if they know somebody has an AOE, it's very likely - I had a character who encountered a group, opened with an AOE that was centered on him. After that, encounters with this group were very often at range, with most of them spread out pretty far, and avoiding getting within his range...

[jkat718]

Page 250 of the DMG has rules for handling mobs. The advice there is to calculate the minimum roll the mobs need, and refer to this table:



MOB ATTACKS


d20 Roll Needed
Attackers Needed for One to Hit


1-5
1


6-12
2


13-14
3


15-16
4


17-18
5


19
10


20
20



If you have, say, 3 attackers that need a 15 or above to hit, then none of them do. If you have 4, or if they only need a 14 to hit, then one succeeds. Assume that the one who would deal the most damage is the one who hits, and resolve different attack bonuses separately. Keep going until you have a smaller number of mobs, then switch back to regular combat. NOTE: this system doesn't allow mobs to deal crits. If you want, I'd say you can just roll a d20 if they hit, and if you get a 20, they crit.

[MeeposFire]

4e style minions were a way to make mobs of what used to be lower level monsters into legitimate threats in packs at higher levels what with the always increasing numbers of pre-5e D&D.

With bounded accuracy this is no longer so needed as they are already threats in 5e even with the minor HP.

[Sullivan]

I've found using lower level guys like cultists work fine for "minions" at level 5-6. The only thing is a single decent AoE can kill them all, even if they save. Of course this can be managed with having even more of the guys, so instead of 20 cultists, throw in 40, expecting most to be fireballed.

Works pretty well.

I think this might have to come down to play testing for me. I'll start out with 20 cultists (straight out of the book) and see how it fly's. My groups 12th level now so they should blow them away with out a problem. It's funny that is was brought up, but I usually track hp by writing it down by the monsters side on the map. My fear is this might get cluttered if there are to many mini's on the table. I totally miss that part in the DMG too. I will most likely use it in this upcoming session.

[Psikerlord]

I think this might have to come down to play testing for me. I'll start out with 20 cultists (straight out of the book) and see how it fly's. My groups 12th level now so they should blow them away with out a problem. It's funny that is was brought up, but I usually track hp by writing it down by the monsters side on the map. My fear is this might get cluttered if there are to many mini's on the table. I totally miss that part in the DMG too. I will most likely use it in this upcoming session.

I should confess I use theatre of the mind , so dont have to worry about mini's, and locations are more abstract.

[Sullivan]

I used to play a lot of 2e and if we ran into a big fight then we would "switch" into a more cinematic combat. Looking back on it, it was more of a weird skills challenge with Thac0.

[Cecidimus]

I am using minions in my camp right now, because the Players have gotten themselves involved in a war. The primary reason I included Minions was to show the two different approaches the Military forces of the day have.

The Forces of Orlena are your typical Knights, Archers, Pikemen, Line up, Meet on the field charge relay on the man next to you.

The Forces of Ash are Magical power, those who never could learn the gift or were not skilled are seen as little more than cannon fodder.

The Party was Level 4 when the war started and their first real engagement and the use of minions was used for three reasons. 1st as previously stated the Magicians of Ash see those who cant use magic as weak and pointless. So they send these Warriors in waves after waves while magical bombardment takes place. 2 it gave the players a OH **** moment when after about 3 rounds of chopping through over 50 minions using AoE etc to hit and wipe large groups of them...They encountered someone who actually stood up against them. 3. At the end really did simulate a warfare body count as they looked around at the devastation just this one battle had caused.

Now the way I worked XP was I ended up giving my Party which consist of 4 people, 5 xp each for the Group of 50 they killed. To show they weren't worth grinding on.

This also lead to a awesome scene when the Emperor of ash who was leading the bombardment was spotted by one of the PC's while cutting through the hordes, sitting atop a hill on his horse and the Bugger took a shot at the Emperor...He rolled a nat 20 and to be honest I was going to Legendary action it or something but I let it play out...and worked in the hit and that particular individual is now being hunted by the Emperor's assassin for scaring his face.

As this was sign that Maybe the Emperor wasn't a god as those of the land of ash believed.

In theory I find it works as long as the situation calls for it, and I can tell you that when they saw the circle of 50 surround them they were scared. Now something that I did, which may or may not work for you.

Combat for the minions was handled as 1 group So I rolled for iniative for all of them as one roll
When one dropped another immediately took it place, however I only ever had 8 Minions active at a 1 time. In terms of physical combat.
What I did do though was give the Remaining Spearmen from ash a bonus action attack which would progressively do less damage as the PC cut through everyone until they had cut through the Mob

The Mob 42 Would make a save as a whole..or fail as a whole. the 8 would make individual saving throws etc

Thats how I ran it, and it seems working well for me.

[MaxWilson]

i'm a little worried about keeping track of monster h.p. if I just use low CR creatures. Has anyone tried just throwing 12 goblins at a high level party before?

I near-TPKed a couple of medium-level PCs (8th-10th IIRC with a dozen or more skeleton archers as backup) using eight or nine CR 1/4 drow foot soldiers in the dark. Advantage from darkvision PLUS sleep poison was brutal. The drow took enough casualties that after the two PCs were downed by crossbow fire, the drow withdrew without making sure of the bodies**, so one of them made all of his death checks and eventually woke up, still surrounded by his skeletons--but it certainly gave drow a tough reputation in the eyes of the players!

I have used goblins to similar effect but not against a high-level party. How effective they are would depend upon the party's passive perception score and how you run stealth.

And of course I've seen PCs use minion swarms to great advantage against Frost Giants and their ilk.

Minions are very viable and effective in 5E. It's possible to build a PC specifically to be nigh-immune to minions, but it comes at a cost. As a DM you should assume that a dozen wolves are at least as deadly as the DMG encounter guidelines or http://kobold.club/fight/ say they are for your PCs.

-Max

** In retrospect I'm a bit confused why I made this decision, instead of shooting the bodies a lot more with crossbow bolts, since drow sleep poison should basically guarantee that the drow NEED to make sure of bodies. Nevertheless for some reason both PCs ended the encounter in death save territory somehow. I don't remember the details.

P.S. Yes, HP tracking will definitely be your biggest headache if you don't have a system. But you could, for example, have a list of wolves by name or number and just put an X next to any wolf that gets hit for 11 or more points of damage in a hit (killing it instantly, or at least putting it in death save territory), whereas any wolf that gets hit for less than that gets a check, which means that it dies instantly on the next hit. For typical PC damage ranges (d8+4, 2d10, etc.) that should give about the same results as actually rolling HP and damage for each wolf.

[Stan]

If you don't want to go 1 hp minion, another option to have only 3 damage states: fine, wounded, dead. Any hit that doesn't kill them in one shot makes them wounded. A wounded minion always dies if they get hit again. They could also be wounded by any spell that they save against that does partial damage. With this, you just need markers for wounded status, not detailed tracking of hp.

I realized a while back that I had been doing this in my head when battles got hectic and I didn't take time to record hp for everyone.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's absolutely a pain to keep track of monster health during a large battle. I'd say the "one hit and you're out" rule for monsters significantly below the PCs' level is fine. Nine times out of ten you probably won't even see a difference.

[BurgerBeast]

I've been working on breaking down monster types in 5e into Minions, Mooks, Standards, elites, and Solos, inspired by 4e (but with the addition of the Mook - an idea form a 4e thread somewhere). I am doing this simply to make encounter design as a DM easier.

Solos work out to pretty much one monster of the appropriate CR. So a CR 7 monster is more or less an appropriate medium-difficulty solo for a 7th-level party. You can reverse engineer the math to find out how much the other types are, but you have to remember to also account for the multiplier when calculating encounter difficulty. I made a table that lays this all out.

It turns out that a standard level 7 monster is CR 2. Four CR 2 monsters is (450x4=1800, 1800x2=3600) 3600XP in difficulty. The level 7 medium difficulty threshold is 3000XP, so it works.

In the same way, I can figure out that a level 7 minion should be CR1/4. And I know the hp to be 1*. So what about the rest? Well, I want to have the AC and the attack bonus be basically the normal values for a standard monster of the same level, so I use the CR 2 values of AC 13 and Att +3. Using the table, this would allow me to give the minion 6-8 damage per hit.

So I have a pretty good baseline for a level 7 minion:

AC 13, hp 1, Att+3, Dmg 7.

Of course you can modify it as needed, for example, these work:

AC 15, hp 1, Att +4, Dmg 5.
Ac 17, hp 1, Att +5, Dmg 4.

I tend to spend a bit of time working out my hp and damage ranges, so my monsters tend to be low hp, high damage, which seems to be the norm based on the MM.

Additionally, I use "damage thresholds" for minions (an idea from an old 4e thread), so that attacks must do a minimum amount of damage to kill a minion. The numbers I use come from calculations that are just a symptom of my nerdy overkill approach, but they come out like this:



Minion Level
Damage Threshold
Minion Level
Damage Threshold


1-5
1
18-20
4


6-11
2
21-23
5


12-17
3
24-25
6



Hope this helps.

[Tenmujiin]

If you are worried about weak enemies dying even when they save on an AoE a simple rule would be "If you are on full health and would fall to 0hp despite succeeding a save you may instead choose to survive on 1hp or to fall to 0hp but stable."

This allows 4e minion type behavior without having to do any major redesign and also can help the PC's survive a particularly overwhelming enemy if they get lucky. Unsure how good my wording is, basically "you can't be knocked out from full hp when you pass your save unless you choose to."

[BW022]

I've always hated the idea of minions. One of the worst things in 4E.

Minors serve no purpose or than to try to fool players into thinking that a battle is 'epic' because they have a high body count. In fact, it almost always...

a) Makes combats feel less epic because players know that the monsters were faked.

b) It delays combat though useless rounds of initiative.

c) It makes the combat less believable as such creatures should never have joined the fight or just fled.

d) It heavily penalizes parties without area casters. 30 minions is pretty much one fireball from a sorcerer, yet 10 rounds (and likely 30 minutes) of brutally painful initiative for two rogues, a fighter, and a cleric.

e) It results in players meta-gaming. A group of 3rd-level PCs see a 50 goblins running over the hill towards them... and they stay and fight because? They must be minions... just like the last encounter?

f) The more you make them minions... the less believable or rewarding the encounter is. 1hp ogres? Everything gnoll drops with one hit... except for some of them who take six or seven?

g) You can get similar results just using normal monsters and situations within the rules. Goblins with limited ranged weapons are likely one-hit creatures against say 5th-level PCs. You can have 'waves' of say 10 attacking with some normal hobgoblins to add bulk/realm to the party. A choke point, cover, and having them flee when their hobgoblin masters drop or faces with obvious overwhelming firepower... fine. Not need to go outside the rules by giving them 1hp and useless attacks.

h) Various battle rule systems work well, along with good DM descriptions, for running larger scale battles.

There are lots of ways for a DM to make a battle 'epic' without minions... most are better. I've yet to see any encounter with minions actually fool players into thinking that they actually defeated anything worthwhile.

[BurgerBeast]

I've always hated the idea of minions. One of the worst things in 4E.

You have every right to hate minions. Good for you. Nothing in the OP suggests that expressing your hate is the purpose of this thread, though.


Minors [sic] serve no purpose or than [sic] to try to fool players into thinking that a battle is 'epic' because they have a high body count. In fact, it almost always...

Nobody has suggested that minions are meant to fool players. They are a different type of challenge, and they can be lethal in particular circumstances.


a) Makes combats feel less epic because players know that the monsters were faked.

How you feel is not important, here. Minions are not fake. They're a different type of real monster.


b) It delays combat though useless rounds of initiative.

This isn't necessarily true.


c) It makes the combat less believable as such creatures should never have joined the fight or just fled.

Again, what you believe is not something about to argue about. But the idea that something with one hotpoint should never fight completely ignores not just versimulitude, but reality. If people who had long odds never fought, then we'd have no heroes. Ever.


d) It heavily penalizes parties without area casters. 30 minions is pretty much one fireball from a sorcerer, yet 10 rounds (and likely 30 minutes) of brutally painful initiative for two rogues, a fighter, and a cleric.

This is not a convincing argument. You could just as easily argue that using solo monsters heavily punishes parties without nova-attackers. So what? Vary the encounters.


e) It results in players meta-gaming. A group of 3rd-level PCs see a 50 goblins running over the hill towards them... and they stay and fight because? They must be minions... just like the last encounter?

First of all, metagaming is not necessarily a problem to begin with. In fact, good DMs can make use of metagaming in many cases to improve versimilitude.


f) The more you make them minions... the less believable or rewarding the encounter is. 1hp ogres? Everything [sic] gnoll drops with one hit... except for some of them who take six or seven?

The first part of this claim is addressing an different point entirely. Whether minions are believable is not contingent on having 1 hit point. The reward is related to the threat, so whether the encounter is rewarding depends on the reward.

D&D has a long history of having monsters' hit points vary. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. In fact, it's almost always more realistic.


g) You can get similar results just using normal monsters and situations within the rules. Goblins with limited ranged weapons are likely one-hit creatures against say 5th-level PCs.

Again, this is oblique to the purpose of this thread. Even so: minions are different than lower-level monsters, even in the context of bounded accuracy. Minions deal higher level damage with higher attack bonuses than lower level monsters.


You can have 'waves' of say 10 attacking with some normal hobgoblins to add bulk/realm to the party. A choke point, cover, and having them flee when their hobgoblin masters drop or faces with obvious overwhelming firepower... fine. Not need to go outside the rules by giving them 1hp and useless attacks.

...still not really what this is about. And they're different.


h) Various battle rule systems work well, along with good DM descriptions, for running larger scale battles.

Yeah, but the OP is asking about this system. Not those ones.


There are lots of ways for a DM to make a battle 'epic' without minions... most are better.

Great. The OP started this thread to talk about minions, though. So... yeah.


I've yet to see any encounter with minions actually fool players into thinking that they actually defeated anything worthwhile.

Nobody is trying to fool players. Incidentally, though, these hypothetically minions would, by definition, be more worthwhile that your goblins, because they're be just as hard to kill (still one hit for the goblins, right?) but they would pose a greater threat to the PCs because of higher attack bonuses and damage. So... you're wrong. But, it's not really relevant because you aren't addressing the thread anyway.