Minions in 5E

[Malifice]

Been tossing up this idea for a while.

5E really works best when its a larger encounter (a 'heavy' type with lots o HP, a leader/caster type to buff/ cast and several lower CR mooks) or a legendary encounter

Basically I find tracking hit points and status effects for half a dozen meaningless mooks/ minions to be tiresome. I really like systems like 4E's 'minions', Savage worlds 'extras' and similar games where non important Mook/ redhshirt types go down in one hit.

It would allow for some pretty epic fights, and save the DM a hell of a lot of recording of HP, notes, status effects and so forth (saving all that stuff for the important monsters).

I'm proposing a new monster trait at the opposite end of the Legendary monster scale: Minion

Minion. This creature has 1 HP. When it is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a saving throw to take only half damage from a spell or other effect, it instead takes no damage if it succeed on the saving throw. A minion that is stunned, incapacitated, poisoned, frightened or petrified is removed as a casualty, unless it is otherwise immune to the condition.

For encounter building I'm a little stuck. I'm thinking of the following general rule:

A minion only provides 1/5 the normal XP value for a creature of its CR when defeated. When designing encounters, treat minions as half the number of creatures present for the purposes of determining the number of creatures in an encounter (round up).

Example: Frost giant (CR 8, 3,900 xp) and 5 x Half Ogre minions (CR 1, 200 xp each).

Five minions (5/2)= 3. Total effective monsters present 1 (frost giant) + 3 (5 x minions/ 2) = 4 monsters in the encounter for difficulty purposes. Difficulty multiplier = x 2.

Adjusted Difficulty Rating: 11200 XP (Hard encounter for 5 x 10th level PCs).

XP yield for encounter = 3,900 (giant) and (200/5) 40 for each Half Ogre = 4,100 xp

Thoughts? Anything I might be missing in either the Minion trait generally, or in the rules for including them in encounters and balance?

[JackPhoenix]

Beside the whole "minions don't make any sense from in-character perspective" thing?

They go down to a single Sleep. Or Magic Missile. All of them. Always. Once the players learn minions exists, their whole contribution to the fights will be "take one action and spell slot away from a caster"

But all of this was discussed before.

[Malifice]

Beside the whole "minions don't make any sense from in-character perspective" thing?

They go down to a single Sleep. Or Magic Missile. All of them. Always. Once the players learn minions exists, their whole contribution to the fights will be "take one action and spell slot away from a caster"

I see that as a good thing. AoE effects can be placed to deal with minions, and warlocks, monks and fighters get a cool niche (gunning down multiple minions per turn). GWM and Rogues and Paladins and 'spike damage' types can focus on the main Baddies. Plus - you never know which creatures are minions and which are by the book baddies (its a trait that the DM can use if he wants to).

One fireball = make saves = no effect, fail saves = remove from board. Removes a lot of time consuming damage rolling, and recording and math.

But yes; sleep could be OP in this example seeing as it targets HP directly and has no save. Potentially removes dozens of minions with one 1st level spell.

Any other examples of spells or effects that could break this?

[Tiadoppler]

I've put "minions" in a few encounters. It's not that unrealistic for enemies that are supposed to be thoroughly untrained average peasants/conscripts. I would never pretend they're anything other than CR0 padding for an encounter. Sometimes they're useful for fleshing out a couple interesting enemies who are supposed to have a mob of brainwashed kobolds or something.


HP = 1. Saves are all +0. A minion does not have any saving throw bonuses. If they must make a saving throw for half damage, they take no damage on a successful save. The only defensive stat to track is AC. A minion has one attack per turn. A minion has the same attack roll for all attacks. A minion does fixed damage.



Example stat block:
Minion Goblin AC 13
Melee +3, 3 Slashing
Ranged 30'/60' +3, 3 Bludgeoning



I think they make a fair amount of sense in-character. An 'average' non-adventurer is supposed to have around a 10 in every stat, and probably a 1d4 hit die too. An untrained peasant or goblin would have 4 hp and maybe a simple weapon proficiency (+2 to an attack, 1d6+0 damage?). I have no problems with the idea of simplifying that, and only that kind of enemy into a one HP "target to make the players feel awesome and let the AoE blasters have some fun".

[JackPhoenix]

Snip

Sounds like "just put racial stats on commoner". And that's perfectly fine, if they are supposed to be just a padding and the characters can recognize that.

What isn't fine, to me, is when you get 4e design of "well, you're level 20 now, so ogres/giants/hezrous suddenly only have 1 hp". It just creates disconnection when one ogre (for example) eats paladin's 50 hp smite and keeps going, though wounded, and another, seemingly same ogre, dies after commoner pokes him with a stick. Or cat scratches him.

When I want to add chaff to the fight, I'll put in some guards or something. Do they contribute? A bit, thanks to bounded accuracy, but aren't really a challenge to high-level characters. But the players know they are the same guards they've fought at level 1. They don't have to read my mind or guess if the ogre they met is a challenge, or if it pops like baloon the moment they glare at it.

Minions were fine in 4e, because there was a clear and obvious disconnection between gameplay and narrative, and it weren't just minions, but the whole system that caused this effect. The disconnection is also one of reasons why I don't like 4e, and I don't think porting any of that to 5e improves anything.

[Eric Diaz]

Thoughts? Anything I might be missing in either the Minion trait generally, or in the rules for including them in encounters and balance?

Well, minions are cool... if you like this stuff.

One thing to consider is bounded accuracy: even 1 HP minions can do significant damage if they attack first. 50 goblin archers with 1 HP are not that much safer than 50 goblins with 7 HP each against 5th level PCs... the PCs should be killing one goblin per hit anyway. Kobolds are even worse; the diference between 5 and 1 HP seems really minor.

And, unlike 4e (IIRC), 50 kobolds might cause significant damage to a 5th level party.

Fighters will be a lot shorter... and more swingy.

So, it makes little sense to me, until you start adding ogre minions (not my cup of tea). But to each their own.

[Tiadoppler]

"well, you're level 20 now, so ogres/giants/hezrous suddenly only have 1 hp".

Yes, I hate that too. A mob of angry villagers, or a green squad of pikemen, or a horde of hostile halflings might have quite a few weaklings that would be best represented by minions (but they'd also have more interesting enemies amongst them worth actual XP, with real abilities).



My current campaign started in 4e, so my players got used to the minion concept, and liked being able to have simple, dumb, low-level mooks to beat up on occasion. Do I bother counting up XP for minions? No. They are narrative padding: the fourth, fifth and sixth orcs that Legolas shot at Helm's Deep before the battle really got started.


I want my players to feel confident that they are much, much more awesome and powerful than Bobsi the Average Spearman fresh out of boot camp.

[Celcey]

The only problem I can see with this is that the players would get less HP, but that's no problem for me because I use milestone anyhow.

[Malifice]

Well, minions are cool... if you like this stuff.

One thing to consider is bounded accuracy: even 1 HP minions can do significant damage if they attack first. 50 goblin archers with 1 HP are not that much safer than 50 goblins with 7 HP each against 5th level PCs... the PCs should be killing one goblin per hit anyway. Kobolds are even worse; the diference between 5 and 1 HP seems really minor.

And, unlike 4e (IIRC), 50 kobolds might cause significant damage to a 5th level party.

Fighters will be a lot shorter... and more swingy.

So, it makes little sense to me, until you start adding ogre minions (not my cup of tea). But to each their own.

Its more for high level play.

Trust me, when your minions at 20th level are CR 5's it gets very tiresome to track HP and status conditions for the lot of them.

A '[one hit/ failed save] and you're dead but survive [on a miss/ passed save]' rule would save a lot of time and math and recording of dozens of critters HP.

[johnbragg]

Its more for high level play.

Trust me, when your minions at 20th level are CR 5's it gets very tiresome to track HP and status conditions for the lot of them.

A '[one hit/ failed save] and you're dead but survive [on a miss/ passed save]' rule would save a lot of time and math and recording of dozens of critters HP.

I did this sort of thing once, in 3X, with goblins. I'd put way too many goblins in the encounter, and I'd heard third-hand about 4E minions, so I decided not to track HP--they were either at full health (5 hp I think), or they were Wounded, or they were dead. Any hit that didn't kill them made them Wounded, and any hit at all to a Wounded goblin made it dead. Much better than tracking whether 13 goblins had 4 or 3 or 1 hit points.

I think that would work okay with level 20 PCs fighting a bunch of CR 5 monsters--if they're not one-shotted, they're Wounded, so the next hit kills them.

[Eric Diaz]

Its more for high level play.

Trust me, when your minions at 20th level are CR 5's it gets very tiresome to track HP and status conditions for the lot of them.

A '[one hit/ failed save] and you're dead but survive [on a miss/ passed save]' rule would save a lot of time and math and recording of dozens of critters HP.

I believe you; I haven't played much in 20th level.

Anyway, I'm curious to know what your main goal is - i.e., do you want 10th (or 20th?) level PCs to destroy hordes of ogres with ease - or just less bookkeeping?

I don't think there is anything wrong with ' HP ogres if you like it; my issue is that this si decided but GM fiat.

One consistent way of doing minions, for example, would be something like "adjusting HP to relative CR". Maybe a bit complicated but: if you find a CR 10 dragon at level 10, it works as written, but if you're level 20 its HP is halved, and if you find one at level 5 it has double HP.

(this is just a crazy idea that popped into my head right now; sounds very strange, but it would still be CONSISTENT, i.e., the dragon has more or less HP not becasue the GM decided, but becasue level is more meaningful - accuracy "less bounded" - with this house-rule).

[Malifice]

Right maybe a redux.

Rules for the Minion trait:


A succesful weapon or spell attack roll against a minion that inflicts damage causes the minion to be removed as a casualty.
When a minion is subjected to a spell or effect that allows it to make a saving throw to take only half damage from that spell or effect, it instead takes no damage if it succeeds on the saving throw, but is automatically removed as a casualty if the saving throw fails.
A minion that is stunned, incapacitated, poisoned, frightened or petrified is also removed as a casualty, unless the minion is otherwise immune to the condition.


So HP remain the same (to avoid wonky interactions with spells like sleep and so forth that target HP directly, or spells like Vampiric touch etc), but the minion is effectively a glass cannon that goes down to a succesful attack roll, or failing a save against a damaging effect, or having one of those condtions imposed on it.

[LordEntrails]

One part of me likes the concept of minions. But the other five parts of me don't.

It's easy enough to put some lower CR rating mooks in.

I will also add that their are other ways to deal with having to track hit points and status effects on numerous monsters, use a digital tool. I use Fantasy Grounds and often my mid level (8-15) level parties take on 3 or 4 dozens monsters and I have ZERO effort involved in tracking HP and effects. The only detriment to having so many NPCs is the time it takes me to move them and have them attack (which is a ctrl-click to target, double click to attack, double click to apply damage if it's a hit). Besides, minions don't solve the problem of moving and attacking.

Not that it minions might not work for you, but overall I don't think they achieve what you really want.

[oxybe]

What isn't fine, to me, is when you get 4e design of "well, you're level 20 now, so ogres/giants/hezrous suddenly only have 1 hp". It just creates disconnection when one ogre (for example) eats paladin's 50 hp smite and keeps going, though wounded, and another, seemingly same ogre, dies after commoner pokes him with a stick. Or cat scratches him.

You'd be technically right in that there is a disconnect but it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how and when to use minions.

An Ogre minion is used when you want players to wade through standard ogres without the HP grind, but still want them to be somewhat of a threat if left to their own devices. which is why you rarely see monsters like a standard Ogre at the same difficulty level as a minion. 4e PHB standard ogres are level 8 & 11 monsters but the ogre minions are level 11 and level 16. these minions, in groups of 4, are effectively replacing a standard monster of a higher level.

So a fight for level 11 PCs would probably involve Kerhs the Ogre Warhulk sending a bunch of his weaker kin at you in hope to overwhelm you with numbers and greatclubs.

At level 16, you're probably fighting an evil archmage, his two lesser contracted demons and the 4 surviving warhulk generals he was using to terrorize the countryside in the final fight of the adventure.

Any non-minon ogre in a fight using them should clearly be a superior ogre. One that's a cut above his peers, which is why his peers are minions and he's not. Any "standard" ogre should be a minion going forward, because that's the narrative we're now going with: the PCs are now at a point in their career that an ogre without any special training or qualities simply does not match up to them.

It's a minion. if there is a lack of consistency within the ogre mooks, that's not the game's fault... it's the GM simply misusing the rules.

If you are fighting a bunch of Ogre minions and this one big Ogre, you're probably fighting Gnashmouth, the all-seer, an Ogre warlord who's blessed by visions from some ancient evil and destroying the 4 seals holding back the thing from entering our world is a byproduct of him being told to go break stuff in that general direction and given power to do so. He should clearly be pointed out as not a regular mook.

As for the cat/commoner thing, that's just you being sassy or discussing what is clearly supposed to be a narrative mechanic in bad faith. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and go with "they're being sassy".

[Kane0]

Yeah, looks good to me. Regular creatures that go down when hit by an attack or fail a save, removes the HP grind but otherwise retains all other qualities.

[Malifice]

One part of me likes the concept of minions. But the other five parts of me don't.

It's easy enough to put some lower CR rating mooks in.

Problems with that approach are at low CR's (1-3) is they are generally not getting more than +4 or +5 to hit (at best). At 11th to high levels, PC AC's of 22-25 are the norm. The other issue with Mooks of this CR range is they generally have around 50 HP (give or take).

It means to include them I now have a bunch of largely useless extras on the board that are fishing for 19-20 to hit, and that I now have to track damage and conditions for over several rounds. God help you if the miniatures all look the same.

I would very much like an easy system. Wizard casts fireball against 4 mooks/ minions. DM makes 4 saves, and for every save failed, one mook gets taken off the board. Fighter then makes 3 attacks against 3 mooks/ minions. For every succesful attack roll, one gers taken off the board (and then the Fighter gets a bonus action attack for cleave, possibly killing another).

In total 8 dice were rolled and 2 players had turns. Both turns took around 5 seconds to resolve. There was zero math and zero bookeeping required (other than the Wizard ticking off his fireball).

As opposed to normally where it would be 4 saves, then 8d6 rolled and then added for damage (and then halved for those that passed the saves - which also needs to be recorded) and then this damage applied to each monster individually, and then the 4 attacks from the fighter, with each attack generating a secondary roll for damage, and then this number then added to the onogoing damage of each mook.

Much more bookeeping. Adding, dividing, subtracting and remembering which minion has taken what damage.

[MadBear]

I also really like the idea of bring back minions. One thing I've been using as a rule of thumb for making minions in my games:"what is the point of this monster" if it's a monster whose purpose is to deal out conditions, do alot of dps, provide crowd control, then it's a good monster to make into a minion. If it's job is to be a tank, then it's a poor minion. Because I agree that a group of ogres make a fairly poor group of minions for a level 11 group (maybe a level 20 group, but by then there's way more interesting monsters to use).

Now, maybe this is controversial with some groups, but I don't tell my players "minions exist". Instead, I let them make their attacks do their thing, and they don't really notice. Then again, I let my players know that since I'm using a tablet I have each monsters hp's "rolled for". Since they don't know if the monster went down due to low hp's or what, the issue doesn't really come up. Then again, I'm not rolling with ogres as minions, since they're their specifically to deal a buttload of hp damage.

Actually now that I think about it, another reason they probably don't question it, is that since I'm using a homebrew world with homebrew monsters, they can't just look up their stats in the book.

[Malifice]

Im happy with cinematic combat, the stormtrooper effect, and the inverse law of ninjitsu, so minions going down to the heroes easy peasy doesnt bug me one iota.

It doesnt break my immersion in other games I run it in (SW, Star Wars 'non heroics', 4E) so I cant see it being a problem in 5E.

[Unoriginal]

Minions should NOT be brought back.

They worked in 4e because its combat design, but they clash with everything that 5e combat is supposed to be.

First, they make no sense from a consistancy standpoint. Why would anyone so weak be allowed to be a combatant? They'd get killed by a 130 year old blind halfling baker throwing an apple at them.

And I see you coming with your "Unoriginal, minions are only for fighting PCs", to which I respond "PCs are powerful enough as they are, they don't need more privilege".


Which brings me to my second point. Some people argue that minions help because "it's epic/awesome to waste through hordes of foes" or "they make the main foe of an encounter seem tough/elite/special". IMO, there is nothing epic or awesome in killing beings so weak you might as well be popping balloon animals with the monster's name writen on it. PC awesomeness against them is just an illusion, they provide nothing aside from "eat up one of the PCs attacks and do damage as if the boss had an AoE Legendary Action". As for the "it makes the main foe seems tougher/elite/special" argument: it doesn't, unless you're fooled by into believing the minions are an actual threat and not minions. An ogre who knows Monk martial arts is special. A kobold in half-plate with 30 HPs is tougher. A Blackguard standing in the middle of troops that are as resistant as literal toddlers doesn't make them look elite. It makes them look like a big fish in a ****ty pond. To make an enemy cool, make the enemy cool, don't give them worthless mooks.

Again, unless you're fooled and think the minions aren't minions, in which case they can provide an illusion of awesomeness, same way a boss encounter DM decided the PCs can't lose no matter what is.

I've seen several people talking about Commoners, but 5e has actually a category of being even weaker: non-combatants, which are too sick, old, young or just plain weak to even attempt to defend themselves. They die if any combatant hit them.

Minions are basically this, but with an attack score.

Yes, many low-CR enemies will go down in one hit at higher level. But what makes this epic is how they'd still be a threat if the PC was weaker. And even your basic Ogre or Berserker or Knight is still likely to resist one or two attacks before the final blow.


Furthermore, minions make AoE too strong, and by extension casters. Fireball has a lot of clear-the-battlefield power already, against minions it could clear all of them, or most, and create a zone on fire the minions would literally be unable to cross under pain of death thanks to it setting things on fire.


As for "it's less bookkeeping of HPs", well, minions add a whole set of problems. I don't think avoiding noting how much damage the mooks took is worth it.

But eh, to each their own.

[Knaight]

I have no issue with minions as a concept, but can't say I've seen them work that well in a D&D context. Having a few very distinct classes of enemies, whether this is a minions/normals/bosses distinction or a fighters/frigates/cruisers distinction tends to be something that needs to be built into a combat system early, with a lot of other design decisions made to accommodate it.

5e doesn't have that. Worse, many of the decisions made outright go against it. HP is the primary line of defense, and variation in HP is the primary way creatures get stronger, with attack/defense deliberately scaled back. 5e has really dramatic changes in character power from starting to ending characters, where they would effectively go from one of these distinct classes to another in a system that uses them, and they benefit from a gradualism that makes the distinct classes harder to impose.

As such, minion rules are likely to end up as a bit of a kludge. Your rule is an example of that - those big dangerous ogres in fiction? They're best handled by either area attacks or characters with lots of little attacks. The capable knight with the big sword who makes sense in setting taking them out in one big hit is in much worse of a position to do so than someone with a couple of daggers. Why does this happen? Mostly because of how the HP abstraction was built into the underlying combat system.

There are other systems that don't have that issue (e.g. group HP systems where you attack a group and kill a certain number of minions per amount of damage done to the group as a whole, and the group gets to collectively attack once with higher hit chance than its members would have), but then they tend to introduce their own issues, starting with area attacks.

[JackPhoenix]

Snip

It's the direct result of how 4e rules work: CR8 (I take you for your word) ogre would be next to useless against level 16 characters due to how attack and defense scaling works. The same is true about commoners and minions: CR11 minion has nothing to fear from a commoner. You don't put one against the other.

That's not true in 5e, thanks to bounded accuracy. CR2 ogre is still a threat to even level 20 character (not much of a threat compared to what they face normally, but still), and a commoner could hit and kill minion ogre easily (especially as ogres have horrible AC... default commoner has 60% chance to hit default ogre).

Popping baloon animals don't make me feel my character is awesome. One-shotting an ogre does, because I remember how tough ogres were when I first fought them 10 or so levels ago, and I know I can now one-shot them thanks to how much more skilled and powerful my character is, not because they are special ogres designed to be one-shotted. It breaks the consistency of the world. If I'm a wizard, I know how weak a single Magic Missile is: It's got 50:50 chance to kill a commoner, and I can't kill standard guard with one at all. But suddenly, I'm using them to reliably kill ogres (but only some, and the character has no idea why it works on ogre minions who should be the same as the ogre we've fought months ago as a mercenary serving in an orc warband and who took lot of effort to deal with, but not on the ogre warchief with them). And once I deal with the ogres, I get back to not being able to kill standard guards in the next encounter.

[Eric Diaz]

Furthermore, minions make AoE too strong, and by extension casters. Fireball has a lot of clear-the-battlefield power already, against minions it could clear all of them, or most, and create a zone on fire the minions would literally be unable to cross under pain of death thanks to it setting things on fire.

This is true. You don't need more reasons to make casters more impressive than fighters. If you're using minions, at least let fighters look cool too; maybe use the cleaving rules from the DMG. OTOH it might make Whirlwind Attack useless, and the ranger doesn't need any more nerfing...

In short, seems you're taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

Fireball is fairly good as it is already.

In 4e, non-casters had AoE attacks (IIRC), but in 5e this is rarer, so using minions would only make you fighters/rogues/barbs weaker in comparison to wizards etc.

[Knaight]

This is true. You don't need more reasons to make casters more impressive than fighters. If you're using minions, at least let fighters look cool too; maybe use the cleaving rules from the DMG. OTOH it might make Whirlwind Attack useless, and the ranger doesn't need any more nerfing...

This is one of the upsides of group HP minions. You're next to a group occupying five adjacent squares, and do one attack to the group collectively that does five times the individual HP? That's five minions down, and given that they're generally pretty pathetic minions it's largely plausible.

Point is, there are minion options that don't have this effect. Something janky gets through regardless, but you can at least influence what it is.

[Malifice]

Popping baloon animals don't make me feel my character is awesome. One-shotting an ogre does, because I remember how tough ogres were when I first fought them 10 or so levels ago, and I know I can now one-shot them thanks to how much more skilled and powerful my character is, not because they are special ogres designed to be one-shotted. It breaks the consistency of the world.

No it does not. It breaks your flawed assumptions.

That Ogre was able to one shot you at 1st level. Now you're 20th, he cant. You were not able to one shot the Ogre at 1st level. At 20th you can. There is variability in creature power and the ability to be (or to) one shot something. Its baked into the system.

Ditto Kobolds. I recently threw an 11th level party up against CR 5 Kobolds with 50+ HP. Not all Kobolds go down in one hit.

There is no consistency break. Moons/ Minions/ Redshirts/ Extras serve 2 purposes; they impart a cinematic vibe to your game (you can model the hero gunning down dozens of stormtroopers/ ninjas/ orcs) before facing off the BBEG who is is largely evenly matched with, and they make running the game a hell of a lot easier.

[Citan]

Been tossing up this idea for a while.

5E really works best when its a larger encounter (a 'heavy' type with lots o HP, a leader/caster type to buff/ cast and several lower CR mooks) or a legendary encounter

Basically I find tracking hit points and status effects for half a dozen meaningless mooks/ minions to be tiresome. I really like systems like 4E's 'minions', Savage worlds 'extras' and similar games where non important Mook/ redhshirt types go down in one hit.

It would allow for some pretty epic fights, and save the DM a hell of a lot of recording of HP, notes, status effects and so forth (saving all that stuff for the important monsters).

I'm proposing a new monster trait at the opposite end of the Legendary monster scale: Minion

Minion. This creature has 1 HP. When it is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a saving throw to take only half damage from a spell or other effect, it instead takes no damage if it succeed on the saving throw. A minion that is stunned, incapacitated, poisoned, frightened or petrified is removed as a casualty, unless it is otherwise immune to the condition.

For encounter building I'm a little stuck. I'm thinking of the following general rule:

A minion only provides 1/5 the normal XP value for a creature of its CR when defeated. When designing encounters, treat minions as half the number of creatures present for the purposes of determining the number of creatures in an encounter (round up).

Example: Frost giant (CR 8, 3,900 xp) and 5 x Half Ogre minions (CR 1, 200 xp each).

Five minions (5/2)= 3. Total effective monsters present 1 (frost giant) + 3 (5 x minions/ 2) = 4 monsters in the encounter for difficulty purposes. Difficulty multiplier = x 2.

Adjusted Difficulty Rating: 11200 XP (Hard encounter for 5 x 10th level PCs).

XP yield for encounter = 3,900 (giant) and (200/5) 40 for each Half Ogre = 4,100 xp

Thoughts? Anything I might be missing in either the Minion trait generally, or in the rules for including them in encounters and balance?
Hi!

I understand the need and the idea behind this, but really not the logic.

To me minions are just minions: if they have 1 HP, everything else should be on the same scale (resistance and damage). They should always have a CR between 0 and 1/4.

But having a CR5 creature that would happen to have only 1 HP instead of ~40 would be totally game-breaking for me and my players, unless you bring some serious in-game justification to explain their frailness.

You don't want to bother with micro-managing large groups, yet don't want to use the "group variant rules"?
There are simpler ways to do that.
- Simply use average stats overall.
- Make all creatures of one type particularly weak to a condition, a damage type or other things, and give enough chance for players to learn about it so they can exploit it, then you can "batch kill".
- Instead of HP system, make it a "wounds" system. I use it occasionally, works well. Set a ratio "wounds per CR" (ex 1/3 CR), make every weapon attack = 1 wound (2 on crits), define the "scale per level" of wounds for spells.

I'm actually seriously considering a full switch to such a wounds system because my players don't care much about numbers and it's indeed a pain to keep all trackers with current system... But it would require a whole lot of work to really find a "true" balance.

This works as is because I use it only for minions (and adapt the scale for each party) so the balance approximation is not too significant.

[Malifice]

This is true. You don't need more reasons to make casters more impressive than fighters.

No, it's not true at all.

Under the current rules most minion types (CR 2 or less) go down to a fireball they fail the save to anyway. There is no buff to casters here at all. In any event the minions are worth less XP, and are easily offed by other PCs.

And it doesnt hurt fighters at all. Fighters get the most attacks of any class. Ergo they get to kill the most minions.

[Knaight]

No it does not. It breaks your flawed assumptions.

That Ogre was able to one shot you at 1st level. Now you're 20th, he cant. You were not able to one shot the Ogre at 1st level. At 20th you can. There is variability in creature power and the ability to be (or to) one shot something. Its baked into the system.

There's also the matter of how it's pretty rare for HP systems defined absolutely not to break down hilariously when edge cases come up, whereas HP as a combat specific relative metric can hold better. My favorite example of this is just dialing down the size. It's pretty hard to justify a flea having more than 1 HP in a human fight, but all fleas having 1 HP for flea-on-flea combat leads to a really bizarre form of rocket tag that makes no sense. Meanwhile scaling size up can lead to a similar issue, where the numbers are just bloated and difficult.

D&D specifically has an interesting wrinkle where some creatures can hit way above their weight class, but this basically works out to the same thing. A monstrous ogre using a tree as a club needing more than one hit on Joe Peasant strains credulity, regardless of what peasant-on-peasant combat needs. A 20th level warrior that can go toe to toe with a forty thousand pound dragon not being able to put down that ogre in one good hit also strains credulity a bit, regardless of what ogre-on-peasant combat looks like.

It also has the interesting wrinkle of scale changing throughout the game, and thus the usual short cut of the rules breaking down horribly outside of the narrow scale that the entire game exists in anyways tends to collapse a little (which is also part of why vehicle rules are so often weird). Implementing combat specific relative HP is a way to try and solve this. Sadly, it's also a really good example of a system that benefits from being in core design and not added on after the fact.

[Unoriginal]

No it does not. It breaks your flawed assumptions.

That Ogre was able to one shot you at 1st level. Now you're 20th, he cant. You were not able to one shot the Ogre at 1st level. At 20th you can. There is variability in creature power and the ability to be (or to) one shot something. Its baked into the system.

Ditto Kobolds. I recently threw an 11th level party up against CR 5 Kobolds with 50+ HP. Not all Kobolds go down in one hit.

There is no consistency break..

The consistency break because you're not giving the monsters the level of power implied by their nature.

Some kobolds are CR 5 tough guys. Not most kobolds. It's ok to have tough kobolds show up, but if you decide to run Tomb of Annihilation where every single kobolds is a CR 5 tough guy, then it's going to be a very different adventure.

The common 5e Ogres are CR 2. It's not much, but it's still a certain level of power. Some will be weaker, others will be stronger, but being that level of power define, in many ways, what most Ogres are.

A "minion" Ogre can be killed by having the party's Wizard slapping them.

That's what minions are. Irrelevant details that have no business being in a fight, because they're too weak.



Moons/ Minions/ Redshirts/ Extras serve 2 purposes; they impart a cinematic vibe to your game (you can model the hero gunning down dozens of stormtroopers/ ninjas/ orcs) before facing off the BBEG who is is largely evenly matched with

Regular mooks' game purposes is to drain ressources from the party so they don't face the BBEG with all their capacities (which otherwise allows the PCs to punch way above their weight class) and help in boss fights with not letting the PCs just pile up all their actions on the one boss (who usually has less action than them) by being a threat the PCs can't ignore or utterly trivialize. Narratively, their purposes are to remind the players there is a living worl around them, and the dangers in it aren't going to just lay down and die simply because they're heroes.

Four things 1HP minions don't provide.



and they make running the game a hell of a lot easier.

How? Their contribution to the game is quasi-nule, but they still give the DM more work if they include them.




And it doesnt hurt fighters at all. Fighters get the most attacks of any class. Ergo they get to kill the most minions.

This is factually not true.

A lvl 20 Fighter, excluding their subclass capacities, feats, boosts and the like, using one of their 2 Action Surge per day, will at best be able to hit 8 foes in one round, assuming they are all in range

A lvl 1 Wizard, excluding their subclass capacities, feats, boosts and the like, using one of their 2 lvl 1 spell slots per day to cast Thunderwave, will at best be able to hit 9 foes, assuming they are all in range (note that minions would instantly die from that even if they passed their save).

It's well-known that in 5e, martials do best vs a few relatively powerful enemies while casters do best vs a lot of less powerful ones.



D&D specifically has an interesting wrinkle where some creatures can hit way above their weight class, but this basically works out to the same thing. A monstrous ogre using a tree as a club needing more than one hit on Joe Peasant strains credulity, regardless of what peasant-on-peasant combat needs. A 20th level warrior that can go toe to toe with a forty thousand pound dragon not being able to put down that ogre in one good hit also strains credulity a bit, regardless of what ogre-on-peasant combat looks like.

Why? The ogre-dragon power difference is just less than the ogre-pesant power difference. At least, if you're talkig about a dragon a PC can defeat on their own.

An Ogre will maybe be able to tank one or two hits from the lvl 20 Fighter (if we're generous), then get killed by the next hit. Same thing if the Ogre was fighting a Young Red Dragon. If the Fighter and the Dragon were fighting each others, they'd need around 10 hits to kill each others.

There is nothing wrong with them being this tough relatively to each others.
There's nothing wrong with giving them the toughness the game grants them.

[MadBear]

I really don't get the "immersion breaking" complaints against minions. It really is one of those things that comes down to style of play, and for my group, it works great, is fun for both martials and casters, and makes the hero's feel epic. But alas not every group is my group, and for whatever reason there's is a strong dislike of it by some members here. So, with that said, for people on the fence, give it a try and see how it feels. If you like it awesome. If you don't, no worries.


A lvl 1 Wizard, excluding their subclass capacities, feats, boosts and the like, using one of their 2 lvl 1 spell slots per day to cast Thunderwave, will at best be able to hit 9 foes, assuming they are all in range (note that minions would instantly die from that even if they passed their save).

Just a quick correction. Using the rules Malifice posted, anyone who saved lives using minion rules takes 0 damage. So no, they wouldn't just autodie.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've thought about this myself, and came to the following conclusions (and yes, I just finished DM'ing a campaign that ended at level 20).

1) Bounded accuracy lets the lower CR threats be a threat unless you go too gonzo with gear. I was running a high-magic-item/high-power campaign and non-proficient creatures were often unable to make their saves, even on a 20.

2) The big time sink isn't recording HP (even without an app). It's remembering all their abilities and, primarily, counting up dice (darn rogues who crit...). This might change if you had 20+ monsters on the field, but that's a case 5e doesn't handle particularly well.

3) For me, the sweet spot in monsters is 1.5x to 2x the number of players. That is, I set the numbers right and the CRs follow from the guidelines for the difficulty. Only in extreme cases do I have severely under-CR creatures (as in CR 5 or below for a level 20 party) on the field--they don't provide the appropriate resource drain for a high level/high power party (see statement #1).

4) Juggling different stat blocks annoys me.

All of these together mean that I rejected the concept for my use case.

[Malifice]

Im not here to argue if anyone else likes the idea.

Im asking for a look into any issues the rule might have.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Im not here to argue if anyone else likes the idea.

Im asking for a look into any issues the rule might have.

Is "it works as such, but won't solve the coordination/overhead/time issue" a problem with the rules?

Because that's what I see. It seems to me to be a false optimization--it saves a large percentage of the time-cost for something that didn't take very much time anyway (in my experience). And has trade-offs in other areas (that admittedly may not be important to you).

The rules themselves seem fine (no strange interactions I can see), but I don't think that it solves the underlying problem.

[Unoriginal]

Im not here to argue if anyone else likes the idea.

Im asking for a look into any issues the rule might have.

In this case, I just have one question:

If a PC uses a power such as Crown of Madness to mentally control a monster, and they happen to select a minion, will the minion still go down in one hit/failed save vs harmful effect?

[Monster Manuel]

I've been trying run "minions" without an actual Minion rule. I like the narrative element of minions, but I share a lot of the other poster's concerns with the "1HP Ogre". I haven't really come up with a houserule that I like, but I've made a start. It goes something like this:

Essentially what I do is to use the variability of a monster's hit point range as its Minion status. A standard Orc has 15 HP, averaged from 2D6+6. If I'm using a horde of "minion" orcs, they all have minimum HP (so, 8), which becomes their "Minion HP". I figure what max damage for each PC is and call that their "minion damage"; let's say they're using a rapier for 1d8+4, that gives them a 12. Essentially, anyone whose max damage on an attack beats the min hit points for a cannon-fodder monster, one-shots it without rolling. This would all be figured out ahead of time; have the PCs write down that Minion Damage number on their sheets next to their attacks. I don't use a minion trait that changes the creature into a minion, but situations can arise based on these numbers where the creature acts like one.

This means that certain creatures aren't likely to be easily "minionable"; the aforementioned ogre, for instance, has a Minion Number of 28. Not a lot of attacks that are going to do more than 28 points in one shot without putting some resources into it. A paladin smites, or a wizard drops a lightning bolt, which both pass that 28 max damage and automatically put down the ogre. I'm OK with that. If you're willing to dump real resources into a speed-bump monster to wipe it out quickly and move on, you should be able to without suffering a bad roll and wasting the action.

It also means that there are some weird edge-cases, where a sorcerer could auto-drop an orc with a 1d10+4 flame bolt, but not a 1st level magic missile. I'm OK with that too. The right tools for the right tasks.

I also rule something similar with saving throws. "Minion save" is 11+any save bonus. Any monster who is just there for set dressing automatically fails its saving throws unless it would make the save if it rolled it's "minion save". Ogre's number for a wis save is 9. Your DC 15 charm spell will succeed, don't bother rolling. Using a spell on a minion which makes its save with a lucky roll is frustrating and adds little to the narrative, so save the rolling for named NPCs. That ogre is still tough, though (Minion Con save number is 14), so the DC13 Con save on your wand might not be enough.

This all adds some extra bookkeeping above and beyond just a simple "they all have 1 HP and fail saving throws" trait, but also is a lot simpler than keeping track of HPs and rolling a lot of meaningless saves, and it sidesteps the issue of the ogre that can be one-shotted by a cat.

As a house rule, it needs cleaning up. I also want to try to make the minion-killing mechanic line up with the Destroy Undead feature of Clerics; where a lvl 5 character can use an action to kill a CR1/2 creature, lvl 8 can use an action to kill CR1, lvl 11 kills CR 2, etc. Not sure how to make that work, exactly, but it is the only RAW minion-like feature in the rules as they are. But over all, the whole "minion number" thing has been working for me.

*edit* - occurs to me that I got carried away with my stuff, and didn't really address Malefice's original question. TL;RD version, I think there's a place for minions in 5e, but I don't think the Minion Trait proposed is the best way to do it. That said, I think the rule proposed works with the caveat that it could include some guidance on when it applies and when it doesn't. Like, "The minion trait applies to characters of X level or higher, below that, treat the creature as a normal version of its' kind".

I think your XP balancing is spot-on. I'd make the Minion count as 1/4 the number of creatures in an encounter, rather than 1/2, for encounter balancing. A party of 4 is going to be dropping at least 4 of these guys per round (probably more). They'll do some damage up-front, maybe, but won't be sticking around long enough to account for .5 of a regular monster in an encounter.

[Malifice]

In this case, I just have one question:

If a PC uses a power such as Crown of Madness to mentally control a monster, and they happen to select a minion, will the minion still go down in one hit/failed save vs harmful effect?

Read the rule posted above.

Does Crown of Madness allow a save for have damage?

There is your answer.

[Baptor]

I use minions. They work well.
I don't downgrade monsters to minion status, though. No 1hp ogres or hezrous, for example.
One exception, I do calculate the character's average damage per hit. If that would kill a creature in 1 hit, I just assume one hit = one kill.
My main goal with minions is to avoid tracking the hit points of like 7 creatures.
The key is - don't overuse them. Otherwise players can't help but metagame them.

[Unoriginal]

Read the rule posted above.

Does Crown of Madness allow a save for have damage?

There is your answer.

You misunderstood my question. If a player select a monster for a mind-control effect in order to get the monster to attack others, and said monster happens to be a minion, are they still under your minion rules?

Because the players have no way to know if one foe is a minion, and it dramatically reduces the use of the power if the creature has effectively 1/30th of the expected health

[KorvinStarmast]

Im not here to argue if anyone else likes the idea.

Im asking for a look into any issues the rule might have.
I'll offer a different solution to your problem, which in your OP was the grind of tracking HP as monsters take damage.
.

Delegate that task to a PC that you can trust no to meta game. We did this at numerous tables in 1e when I played, and when I DM'd, and it took a whole lot of bookkeeping stress off of the DM.

That one player only has one turn to do stuff, and has some spare time between taking turns to keep the bookkeeping going.

Depends on your group, but it worked great for us.

[Pex]

This is true. You don't need more reasons to make casters more impressive than fighters. If you're using minions, at least let fighters look cool too; maybe use the cleaving rules from the DMG. OTOH it might make Whirlwind Attack useless, and the ranger doesn't need any more nerfing...

In short, seems you're taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

Fireball is fairly good as it is already.

In 4e, non-casters had AoE attacks (IIRC), but in 5e this is rarer, so using minions would only make you fighters/rogues/barbs weaker in comparison to wizards etc.

As I see it, you'll have spellcaster players being miffed they wasted a high level spell. Why cast Fireball when Burning Hands was enough or Dissonant Whispers or spend a round or two taking pot shots with Cantrips. To be more cynical about it, while analytical players understand a BBEG having mooks means the mooks are obstacles and give the BBEG of the fight virtual actions to match action economy of the party, when they're gone from one hit it can feel like a tax. The minions are a nuisance that costs the archers arrows and a spellcaster AOE spell just to get them out of the way for the real fight.

[BeefGood]

Here's a different idea that does not reduce the minions to 1 hp.
Minion mob rules
Goal: to enable quick resolution of combats that feature high-level PCs against large numbers of relatively weak opponents.
Preparation:

Determine each party member's damage-per-round, via attack rolls, against the minions.
Determine the minion mob's damage-per-round against each party member. Perhaps divide the mob into mini-mobs, one for each party member.
Determine a rough number of minions per square/hex.

Because preparation occurs prior to table time, it can be as sophisticated/time-consuming as you wish. Or, from another perspective, it can be as simplistic as you think your players will tolerate.

The encounter:

DM announces "Minion Mob Rules"
Minion Mob Rules apply to combat between the party members and the minions.
The party members and the minions take damage per round. Use the cleaving rules for the minions and round down; if a fighter's DPR is 27 and an individual minion has 5 hp then the fighter kills 5 minions.
Instead of DPR, a party member can opt to do an area-of-effect thing against the mob. Use the minion density determined prior to table time to determine the number of minions in the area of effect; they are all killed.
On a given turn, a party member may choose to engage with a non-minion instead of engaging with the mob.
Interactions between party members and non-minions proceed via the normal rules.
Exit Minion Mob Rules when the mob has dwindled to a number of individuals for which normal rules would be fun.

Note that for the purposes of Minion Mob Rules, physical space is not relevant. There is no positioning, no distance, no terrain. There is no melee vs. ranged distinction. As soon as the encounter begins, at whatever distance the encounter begins, under whatever other circumstances the encounter begins, every entity involved in the mob encounter can do damage to every other entity involved in the mob encounter.

Forgot something--the mob does less damage as its numbers decrease. So, at the beginning of every round, reduce the mob's DPR to match the proportion of individuals remaining.

[JNAProductions]

Perhaps it might be better, for more fragile people, to give them two hits. For instance, when PCs are doing, at a minimum, 8 damage per attack, and your mooks have 15 HP, you don't need to track HP. You just need to track Wounded or Dead.

It'd be a simple process.

Unwounded mook takes a hit.
Did it deal less than 15 points of damage? They're wounded, and the next hit kills them.
Did it deal 15 or more? They're dead.

If an HP effect (such as Sleep) comes up, treat anyone wounded as having 5 HP, or some other reasonable number.

[johnbragg]

Perhaps it might be better, for more fragile people, to give them two hits. For instance, when PCs are doing, at a minimum, 8 damage per attack, and your mooks have 15 HP, you don't need to track HP. You just need to track Wounded or Dead.

It'd be a simple process.

Unwounded mook takes a hit.
Did it deal less than 15 points of damage? They're wounded, and the next hit kills them.
Did it deal 15 or more? They're dead.

If an HP effect (such as Sleep) comes up, treat anyone wounded as having 5 HP, or some other reasonable number.

That worked for me in a couple of 3rd edition large-numbers encounters.

[Baptor]

I'm not sure if I understand this mentality that a wizard who throws a fireball at minions would think it was "wasted."

Let's take the 5e goblin. It has 7 hit points.

Let's say 10 goblins attack the PCs.

Wizard throws a fireball, which deals a base of 28 fire damage if average is taken. Even on a save, that's 14 fire damage.

All those goblins are guaranteed dead.

This is good because thanks to bounded accuracy, those goblins would've dealt a lot of damage before a fighter could take them all down one by one.

That situation is precisely the same with 1hp goblins.

Is the fireball wasted in either situation? I don't think so personally. True, perhaps a 2nd level thunderwave might've done the job if they all had 1hp, but honestly I don't think it's that big of a deal.

My players don't mind minions as long as they aren't things that frankly shouldn't be minions. My players expect things like kobolds and goblins, perhaps even orcs and hobgoblins, to have 1hp now. Pretty much anything with a CR of 1/8 or maybe 1/4 in my games has 1hp so I don't have to bother.

One of my player's favorite fights was when they broke into a local thieves guild and fought the entire guild. 25 "level 1 thief" minions (plus a couple of higher level "expert rogues of levels 3-5"). It was no cakewalk, they nearly died, but they didn't and now they can boast they killed the whole guild. :)

Maybe I'm doing minions differently than anyone else?

[kingheff1]

I agree with the people putting forward the two step process for monster hp. Going from uninjured to wounded to dead seems a more satisfactory solution than the 1hp option. It still keeps combat moving, especially with a token to indicate wounded status on non theatre of the mind tables.
I'd still keep the save for no damage rule from spells.
Things like sleep and power word... spells do present a bit of a hurdle though, maybe you can cross reference their original stat block hp to determine the effect of such spells as for a"proper" version of the monster?

[Baptor]

Things like sleep and power word... spells do present a bit of a hurdle though, maybe you can cross reference their original stat block hp to determine the effect of such spells as for a"proper" version of the monster?

Sleep I don't think is a problem. That's a low level spell that's not going to affect anything of any real hit dice anyways. As far as what happens if a wizard wastes a power word on a minion - I'd handle that in one of two ways:

1) Run "open combat." I'm told this is from 13th Age, where you communicate through some kind of RP that these are minions. For example, "Five hobgoblins emerge from the burning building with swords gleaming. They don't look like the leader you're looking for, and are likely just his goons." With your players knowing that "goons" means minions.

2) Keep minions a secret, but refund powerful spells accidentally wasted on minions. "You speak the word of ancient power, snuffing out the kobold's life force. However, the spell energy hasn't been used up. You suspect the poor little monster wasn't worth its trouble, and the Weave has refunded you." If it's abused of course, you can have the slot eventually get used up.

[JackPhoenix]

No it does not. It breaks your flawed assumptions.

That Ogre was able to one shot you at 1st level. Now you're 20th, he cant. You were not able to one shot the Ogre at 1st level. At 20th you can. There is variability in creature power and the ability to be (or to) one shot something. Its baked into the system.

Ditto Kobolds. I recently threw an 11th level party up against CR 5 Kobolds with 50+ HP. Not all Kobolds go down in one hit.

There is no consistency break. Moons/ Minions/ Redshirts/ Extras serve 2 purposes; they impart a cinematic vibe to your game (you can model the hero gunning down dozens of stormtroopers/ ninjas/ orcs) before facing off the BBEG who is is largely evenly matched with, and they make running the game a hell of a lot easier.

There's a difference between "goes down in one hit because my character is that good" and "goes down to one hit because it's suddenly so pathetic". Generally, to one-shot an ogre, I must put some effort: it's easy to hit, but it's got about 60 hp. That's pretty tough, but it can be taken down in one hit. I know how tough ogre is, so let's say I put the effort, Awesome Magic WeaponTM, Divine Smite, GWM, perhaps even lucky crit... great, I've killed an ogre with one hit. But when a wizard acting after me cast cantrip and also kills the ogre in one hit, even if he rolled minimum damage, I'll justifiably feel cheated. I've spent resources and put the effort to one shot an ogre... but the GM lied to me, it was not an ogre, it was an ogre-shaped helium baloon. I could've one shoted it if I slapped it with bare hand. Yet, the next time I'll challenge a random (standard) goblin to a fist fight, the goblin will take more than one hit to put down. And what's worse, if my party has minions of their own... whether wizard's animated skeletons, druid's summoned swarm of squirrels or fighter's hired henchmen, they ALSO kill them in one hit, despite being really pathetic otherwise. Suddenly, the character isn't awesome, he's foolish for wasting resources on chaff.


Snip

Standard kobolds, goblins, guards, cultists, bandits and other CR 1/8 or so enemies pretty much already are minions... and that's perfectly fine, that's why they exist. I don't have a problem with that. I have problem with saying "Well, you're level 10, so ogres suddenly have 1 hp, so they'll go down even to your weakest attacks. In 5 levels, that happens to giants. But only when a boss is present, they'll retain their original stats when you face them on their own".

It certainly is a difference in gameplay style: I prefer CaW style games. Ogre is an ogre, no matter what level you have when you face him. The world doesn't scale to characters. If you feel your character is awesome and powerful, it is because he *is* awesome and powerful, not because I'm lying to you and cheating to make you feel that way, and I expect the GM to do the same when I play a character instead of GMing.

[Knaight]

It certainly is a difference in gameplay style: I prefer CaW style games. Ogre is an ogre, no matter what level you have when you face him. The world doesn't scale to characters. If you feel your character is awesome and powerful, it is because he *is* awesome and powerful, not because I'm lying to you and cheating to make you feel that way, and I expect the GM to do the same when I play a character instead of GMing.

That's fundamentally not how these mechanics work though. There's no lying involved, and an ogre is an ogre regardless. Level is just used as a per-encounter computational mechanic. It's a change in the reference frame of a system, not in the system itself. The world isn't scaling to the characters; CaW has nothing to do with it, and your character is powerful because your character is powerful. The mechanics are just built around a shifting reference frame instead of a static one.

I still don't think it will work that well given extant D&D mechanics, but I can say that I've seen very simulationist systems use relative reference frames effectively, directly affecting health and damage, with no scaling of the world. Fundamentally there's no reason this couldn't be done in D&D, if you're willing to make a sufficiently extensive set of house rules.

[Pex]

I'm not sure if I understand this mentality that a wizard who throws a fireball at minions would think it was "wasted."

Let's take the 5e goblin. It has 7 hit points.

Let's say 10 goblins attack the PCs.

Wizard throws a fireball, which deals a base of 28 fire damage if average is taken. Even on a save, that's 14 fire damage.

All those goblins are guaranteed dead.

This is good because thanks to bounded accuracy, those goblins would've dealt a lot of damage before a fighter could take them all down one by one.

That situation is precisely the same with 1hp goblins.

Is the fireball wasted in either situation? I don't think so personally. True, perhaps a 2nd level thunderwave might've done the job if they all had 1hp, but honestly I don't think it's that big of a deal.

My players don't mind minions as long as they aren't things that frankly shouldn't be minions. My players expect things like kobolds and goblins, perhaps even orcs and hobgoblins, to have 1hp now. Pretty much anything with a CR of 1/8 or maybe 1/4 in my games has 1hp so I don't have to bother.

One of my player's favorite fights was when they broke into a local thieves guild and fought the entire guild. 25 "level 1 thief" minions (plus a couple of higher level "expert rogues of levels 3-5"). It was no cakewalk, they nearly died, but they didn't and now they can boast they killed the whole guild. :)

Maybe I'm doing minions differently than anyone else?

When the goblin minions make the save they're still alive according to the minion rules where as in 5E proper making their save is irrelevant. It had to be a 3rd level spell to do it, making the player feel powerful. For 5E proper ogres, a Fireball may not take them out even on a failed save, but they are softened up all it takes then is a hit or two from the warriors. There's a sense of accomplishment and team work. If they were ogre minions the Fireball was 8d6 - 1 points of damage too many.

It's not just spellcasters. A paladin will be miffed smiting a demon minions. A battle master will be miffed using up a maneuver die against a minotaur minion. Even using Action Surge to plow through minions feels wasteful.


Im not here to argue if anyone else likes the idea.

Im asking for a look into any issues the rule might have.

By learning why some people aren't liking the minion concept itself you can learn how to use them to mitigate the annoyances. For example, it could be important to many players to know a monster is a minion to not waste their limited resource big guns on them. You'll need to reflect that in monster description flavor texts.

[Kane0]

Sometimes you want some baddies (like a handful instead of an army) that can effectively hit the party but also go down easy, so you need something with more attack/damage than a CR 1/8 but less HP than a CR 6. That's where these sorts of minions could be handy.

If you don't like the minion approach, that's fine. Just use the DMG rules to make glass-cannon creatures for the same result. This is just a potential shorthand.

[MadBear]

By learning why some people aren't liking the minion concept itself you can learn how to use them to mitigate the annoyances. For example, it could be important to many players to know a monster is a minion to not waste their limited resource big guns on them. You'll need to reflect that in monster description flavor texts.

No need to tell the players that the thing they're fighting is/isn't a minion. They don't have access to your monsters with the stats, so they don't have to know if their smite was wasted, or useful. I don't see a point in even telling them.

[Unoriginal]

That's fundamentally not how these mechanics work though. There's no lying involved, and an ogre is an ogre regardless. Level is just used as a per-encounter computational mechanic. It's a change in the reference frame of a system, not in the system itself. The world isn't scaling to the characters; CaW has nothing to do with it, and your character is powerful because your character is powerful. The mechanics are just built around a shifting reference frame instead of a static one.

I agree it's not a question of Combat as War (Minions don't have their place in Combat as Sport either), but you're ignoring the issue that with the Minion system, the supposed frame of reference for each monster varies wildly depending on factors such as "is there a boss with them" or the like.

An adventurer group face three Ogres at the beginning of a dungeon. The Paladin, spending his most valuable ressources, manages to one-shot one of them. Two sessions later, the group reach the Final Boss's room: a Frost Giant with three ogres and a pet giant bear.

The Paladin, having decided taking care of the Ogres who could pincer manoeuvre the PCs first is a good idea, charges, spends his most valuable ressources, and one of the Ogres dies in one hit. Then the Gnome Illusionist says "wait, I got this", goes up to one of the remaining Ogres, and does an Unarmed Strike, with no STR bonus. It hits, for 1 damage. And one of the Ogre dies in one hit, because those Ogres are minions.

Levels might be only part of a mechanical calculation, but it still has a meaning. Making enemies weaker so that the PCs can have a cinematic body count is just an *illusion* of impressiveness, a lie, when those enemies can actually be demanding otherwise.


I've got nothing about systems who have minions built into them from the begining. Yes, the game emulating a crazy martial art movie might have ninja minions who are just here to take one punch and die. It's not an issue, because that what those ninja were all along. There are tougher elite ninja, and named ninja who can face the PCs more because they're important to the plot. But if the Ninja Lieutenants are established as credible threats, and the first two times the PCs fight a pair they can fight the group pretty well, they aren't going to turn into one-hit-to-kill minions just because the PCs are facing 6 of them + the Ninja General.


No need to tell the players that the thing they're fighting is/isn't a minion. They don't have access to your monsters with the stats, so they don't have to know if their smite was wasted, or useful. I don't see a point in even telling them.

"Wait, Gom the Wizard just killed those monsters with one magic missile each?"

"Well, yes, what's the problem?"

"Last month it took my Fireball, Sir Boris's two attacks, and one sneak attack form Terry's character to kill a monster of the same species."

"and?"

"How come those three went down so fast?"

"Look, you're not getting it."

[MadBear]

But if the Ninja Lieutenants are established as credible threats, and the first two times the PCs fight a pair they can fight the group pretty well, they aren't going to turn into one-hit-to-kill minions just because the PCs are facing 6 of them + the Ninja General.

I mean, we do see that in cinema all the time though.

In Star Wars, the opening scene is storm troopers butchering the rebels. Heck, the old wise mentor even comments "And these blast points, too accurate for sand people. Only imperial storm troopers are so precise" .

And by ROTJ, little bears throwing rocks are taking them out.

[Unoriginal]

I mean, we do see that in cinema all the time though.

In Star Wars, the opening scene is storm troopers butchering the rebels. Heck, the old wise mentor even comments "And these blast points, too accurate for sand people. Only imperial storm troopers are so precise" .

And by ROTJ, little bears throwing rocks are taking them out.

And who thought that the little bears being able to do that was a good idea?

Also, as you pointed out yourself: they were butchering the rebels. Also mooks, and explicitly inferior ones.

The stormtroopers went down in one hit anytime the heroes were involved.

[kingheff1]

Sleep I don't think is a problem. That's a low level spell that's not going to affect anything of any real hit dice anyways.

I think I'm right in saying that those spells go off hit points rather than hit dice, I'm away from my books but I think that's right.

[Malifice]

And who thought that the little bears being able to do that was a good idea?


I did.

In most games set in the Star Wars universe, storm troopers are intentionally designed to go down in one hit. They usually also come with some form of inbuilt mob rule to make them more dangerous in numbers.

As I said earlier I am happy with things like the storm trooper effect, or the inverse law of ninjas.

[JNAProductions]

I think I'm right in saying that those spells go off hit points rather than hit dice, I'm away from my books but I think that's right.

That is accurate. Cast at level 1, it affects 5d8 HP worth of creatures.

[Unoriginal]

I did.

In most games set in the Star Wars universe, storm troopers are intentionally designed to go down in one hit. They usually also come with some form of inbuilt mob rule to make them more dangerous in numbers.

As I said earlier I am happy with things like the storm trooper effect, or the inverse law of ninjas.

Really, you think that elite troops in full combat gear from an oppressive regime should be killed by moving teddy bears armed with sticks?

[MadBear]

"Wait, Gom the Wizard just killed those monsters with one magic missile each?"

"Well, yes, what's the problem?"

"Last month it took my Fireball, Sir Boris's two attacks, and one sneak attack form Terry's character to kill a monster of the same species."

"and?"

"How come those three went down so fast?"

"Look, you're not getting it."

Cool, sounds like an interesting scenario you've plotted out here. While I can't/won't speak for Malifice (especially since he's already expressly said he's not interested in debating the merits of this), I'll give you my take.

As the DM, I get to make my world make sense. Now, as I've already said, I wouldn't use something like Ogres as minions since their main purpose is too tank.

So let's pick something where I might use a higher level CR creature to act as a good minion. I'll use Shadow Demons. They're a CR4 creature with a low AC and relatively low amount of HP's (meaning that they're not really seen as tanks).

Let's pick an appropriate baddy. To make life easy let's go with a CR 18 Demi Lich.

Now let's set the scene.

As you enter the Demi Lich's lair, you see it speak a word of power as the fresh corpses surrounding it erupt with 8 shadow demons appear where there was once crown guard. Worse, the lamp near the desk it was working on erupts as an Djinni stands by it's masters side.

So now you have a very dangerous encounter for 4 20th level PC's. you have the CR18 demilich, it's Djinni lieutanant, and a bunch of shadow demon mooks.

At this point the PC don't know that I'm using mook rules, and they haven't seen a shadow demon in years (back when a pair of them was a legitimate threat).

So the chances that the wizard is going to poke them all with a single magic missile is a little absurd since that's now what player tend to do.

But even still. Lets assume that they do shoot them single magic missile each and yep they all died. And finally, we're at the point where you made this point:

"Wait, Gom the Wizard just killed those monsters with one magic missile each?"

"Well, yes, what's the problem?"

"Last month it took my Fireball, Sir Boris's two attacks, and one sneak attack form Terry's character to kill a monster of the same species."

"and?"

"How come those three went down so fast?"

"Look, you're not getting it."

Except instead of me saying "you're not getting it", I'd say "these things have just been brought forth, the magic holding them together not completely stable yet. Despite it's best efforts, the shadow demons form unravels as they're sent back to the plane from which they came.". And done.

With all that said, I get the point you're making. It's basically a reductio ad absurtum, where you're trying to show times when mooks wouldn't make sense. I agree. Not all monsters make good mooks. Not all campaigns make sense with mooks in them.

I just feel your point is besides the point though. If the argument was "mooks work perfectly, everyone here should always use them", then pointing out areas where they're flawed is a great way to prove that point wrong. But in this case, you're trying to shove a round peg through a square hole, and when it's pointed out, that this isn't where/when/how to use that peg, you're acting as if it's making a grand point, when it really isn't.



TL;DR: Yep, not every monster makes a good mook. And if you use them recklessly it can be silly. But there's a difference between arguing they don't work well in all situations, and saying they don't work well in any situation (and using a specifically bad situation as if it's representative of the whole).

[Eric Diaz]

No, it's not true at all.

Under the current rules most minion types (CR 2 or less) go down to a fireball they fail the save to anyway. There is no buff to casters here at all. In any event the minions are worth less XP, and are easily offed by other PCs.

And it doesn't hurt fighters at all. Fighters get the most attacks of any class. Ergo they get to kill the most minions.

This doesn't make sense. If they go down anyway, why use minions in the first place?

As said above, having minions with 1 HP makes things like GWM, GWF, sharpshooter, dueling, battlemaster maneuvers that deal extra damage, paladin smites, hunter's mark, barbarian crits, improved crits, etc. basically useless. It seems obvious to me that this benefits wizards to the detriment of other classes.

Are you saying only CR 2 or lower monsters should be minions? Give me some examples so I can see your point.

If you take the ankheg (first CR 2 I found, alphabetically - 39 HP), and throw 10 minions against a 5th level party, the wizard could kill them all with a single fireball (28 damage) - something he wouldn't be able to do if they weren't minions. Maybe burning hands will do the trick. Or Flaming Sphere. They are unlikely to make the save - their DEX save is 0. If the DC is 16, they will succeed 25% of the time.

Now look at the CR 1 animated armor (again, alphabetically - 33 HP). Same deal. But with armor class 18, even the 5th level fighter will miss it about half the time. A single fighter against 20 animated armor minions will have a bad time...

EDIT: you know what, forget fireball. Think of the wizard killing 3 ankhegs per round with magic missile - no save.... while the fighter gets destroyed once the ankhegs gang up on him and grapple him. The wizard OTOH can escape from the grapple but using magic missile...

[Malifice]

Really, you think that elite troops in full combat gear from an oppressive regime should be killed by moving teddy bears armed with sticks?

Yes of course I do. This is Star Wars. No Stormtrooper in any movie survives more than a single hit from anything. Despite firing literally thousands of shots at the Heroes over 3 movies, the only person they manage to hit was Leia and R2 (once each). I also dont have a problem with the Redshirt trope of Star Trek.

Mooks are one of the tropes of swashbuckling genre, space opera, action hero, and ninja films. The skill of the baddies is inversely proportionate to the numbers of them encountered.

If the heroes encounter just the one [swordsman, ninja, stormtrooper, south american mercenary, villan] then that guy can (and will) put up a fight to be nearly the equal of the PCs.

When encountered in numbers, they go down like flies.

Its a rule of the genre that is reflected in multiple games. Savage Worlds has the 'Extras' system where 90 percent of the things you encounter have two states, shaken or wounded. If you hit an extra it is shaken (and you lay the mini down), if you roll enough damage to wound it, it is removed as a casualty instead. The other 5-10 percent of baddies are 'Boss' monsters called 'Wildcards'. They run of the same rules as PCs (needing 4 wounds to drop instead of 1).

SWSE also has a similar mechanism with 'non-heroics'. Stormtroopers in that game are '4th level non-heroics'. Non heroic NPCs have 1d4 hp per Hit dice (Stormtroopers have 10hp) in a game where a Blaster Pistol does 3d6 damage. They also have the co-ordionated attack feat which means they automatically succeed in the Aid another action (meaning 5 of them can use their action to grant a 6th stormtrooper a +10 to hit).

6 x Stormtroopers = 1 attack roll at +15 to hit, or 6 attack rolls at +5. 10 HP each, and Reflex defences of 15. Quick and easy mooks. Dangerous in numbers.

4E had minions as do plenty of other games.

Heck the trope is even reflected in the CR/ XP budgeting system of 5E. If your 5 x 9th level PCs round a corner and see 1 x monster, its probably going to be a high CR/ legendary monster (presuming they are expected to fight it in a combat encounter of course). A lone Kobold would be 'Zorgabat, master of blades' and would have 18 hit dice, Mutiattack (3 attacks), the Brute trait (extra weapon damage dice) and maybe even a Legendary resistance and action or two (CR 10 Kobold). It takes the might of the entire party to bring him down.

He's the TR-8R of the Kobold world.

If the PCs instead rounded the corner and see 30 Kobolds (that they are intended to fight), they're most likely the Standard CR 1/2 ones, and they slay them easy as arrows land around them, maybe clipping a few PCs along the way.

Its literally a trope of every single genre linked to DnD from Wuxia to Space Opera to Action films to Swashbuckling fantasy to whatever. Swarms of mooks that are slaughtered by the heroes easily as they dance across the deck of the pirate ship, assault Mendozas fortified barracks, raid Endor etc, and a named bad guy that (despite being encountered alone) requires the whole party to work together just to have a chance of defeating.

We have Legendary monsters in 5E. They have thier own special rules. I see no reason not to incude minions into the game as well.

[Eric Diaz]

...

Also Malifice, lots of people have suggested good alternate minion rules in this thread that wouldn't cause the same problems; for example, using a single pool of HP for a mob of monsters and ignore fractions (okay, your fireball hit 5 goblins... roll damage... 6, multiplied by 5 goblins = 30 damage... this means you killed 4 goblins, while the fifth one is unscathed).

You may like or dislike these solutions, but if you are looking for better minion rules I think you should address them.

[Tvtyrant]

I don't think 5E is a great place for minions because of bounded accuracy, and I would implement morale rules instead.

That having been said I think minion rules are great in a lot of ways. It can make the game feel more realistic by having previously dangerous foes still do reasonable damage yet feel like extras. A young dragon at level 3 is a solo monster, at level 10 a normal member of a group and at level 15 a minion who attacks you in flights. Their damage still scales (so you never actually become superhuman and immune to sword swings) but they die in droves.

[Malifice]

This doesn't make sense. If they go down anyway, why use minions in the first place?

Look man. Ive explained myself already. But seeing as you dont seem to be able to understand, I'll go a bit slower.

Example 1. The PCs are 11th level and fight a War Troll (Refluffed Fire Giant) leading 8 x Orogs in a group of 5 and 3.

Wizards turn, he casts Fireball catching 5 Orogs. Fighters turn, he leaps among the other 3 and attacks them with his greatsword (GWM/GWS).

Normally (Core rules) I need to make 5 saves for the Orogs, then wait for the Wizard to roll 8d6 and add the results together. I then have to halve this damage for the Orogs that made the save. I then have to apply that damage to each Orog (some who took half damage, and some who took full damage), and track whick miniature/ Orog has taken what damage from that point onwards. I then have to witness 3-4 x attack rolls from the fighter, with each attack roll generating its own damage roll, and re-rolls (and wait for the fighter to apply sup dice or whatnot), and apply that damage to the Orogs (and track those numbers for the rest of the fight).

All up there is math involved, and book-keeping, for a bunch of irrelevant mooks that arent even the focus of the encounter.

Using a 'mook rule'. I instead make 5 saves for the Orog Mooks on the Wizards turn, removing the Orogs that fail as casualties, and then for each attack roll the fighter lands, I also remove an Orog. Zero book-keeping and tracking of multiple minor monsters HP over the encounter. No damage rolling is needed (unless the Boss Troll monster is caught in the blast, and even then I only need to track the one critter).

Its 10 x faster resolution under a mook rule, and has no book-keeping required.

Note the Wizard could have targeted the Boss monster with a SOS spell instead, and the Fighter could have avoided the mooks, and instead gone to the Boss and GWM smacked it down (or a bit of both).



As said above, having minions with 1 HP makes things like GWM, GWF, sharpshooter, dueling, battlemaster maneuvers that deal extra damage, paladin smites, hunter's mark, barbarian crits, improved crits, etc. basically useless[/U][/B]. It seems obvious to me that this benefits wizards to the detriment of other classes.

No it bloody well does not.

Those abilities are now best used focussed on non-mook Heavies or Boss monsters (which feature in every encounter, unlike mooks who generally dont).

Youre a battlemaster GWM Fighter or Sharpshooter Hunter Ranger. Do you target mooks (toggling GWM off and relying on your multiple attacks and cleave aspect and improved chance to hit to drop muliple mooks) or do you target the Big Bad with 100+ HP and try and weaken it, leaving the mooks for the other PCs to deal with?

It doesnt weaken those abilities at all. It actually strengthens a lot of abilities (namely the fighters extra attacks and action surge make him the king of mook clearance, along side wizards with fireball, and the Rangers volley spell, his 11th level whirlwind attack and 3rd level Hunter ability (or beast companion) suddenly make him great at taking down hordes of mooks at will also.

Alternatively either PC could instead focus fire on the BB Boss monster. And they could do so well.

It pushes Paladins and Barbarians and Rogues to go toe to toe with the (Big Bad) while the other PCs look to deal with Mooks/ or the Big Bad.

I see that as a feature, and not a bug.

[Pex]

No need to tell the players that the thing they're fighting is/isn't a minion. They don't have access to your monsters with the stats, so they don't have to know if their smite was wasted, or useful. I don't see a point in even telling them.

The wasting is the whole point of the problem. It is unfair to the players because even the minions will have abilities they can use full force on the party. The player paladin wants to smite the BBEG of the fight, not the minion but the minion is pounding on him. If he doesn't know it's a minion the smite is overkill waste. In 5E proper the mook could be worth the smite because it's needed to take him out.

Also, if the PC is so good it takes a "slap across the face" to kill a minion, it is in character knowledge the PC knows that creature is weak against his attacks so the player needs to know.

[Malifice]

Also Malifice, lots of people have suggested good alternate minion rules in this thread that wouldn't cause the same problems; for example, using a single pool of HP for a mob of monsters and ignore fractions (okay, your fireball hit 5 goblins... roll damage... 6, multiplied by 5 goblins = 30 damage... this means you killed 4 goblins, while the fifth one is unscathed).

You may like or dislike these solutions, but if you are looking for better minion rules I think you should address them.

I dont like this rule due to math and dice rolling.

I want to cut as much of that out as possible.

With a general Mook rule such as

Minion: This creature is removed as a casualty if it takes any damage from an attack or spell that it is not resistant or immune to. If the creature is subject to a spell or effect that allows half damage on a save, it instead takes no damage if it succesfully saves. If subjected to an effect that causes it to be frightened, petrified, poisoned or incapacitated, also remove it as a casualty, unless it is otherwise immune to those conditions.

I could save myself (and my players) an awful lot of pointless math, dice rolling, tracking status effects and HP totals of dozens of monsters across the battlemap and speed the game up considerably, while also imparting intresting tactical options, and bolstering many abilities (Whirwind attack, volley, extra attack, two weapon fighting etc) previously considered weak or sub-optimal.

Why treat faceless mooks/ stormtroopers/ henchmen/ minions as anything else but in any event? The game gains nothing good from it at all.

[Malifice]

The wasting is the whole point of the problem. It is unfair to the players because even the minions will have abilities they can use full force on the party.

Weakening a monster is not unfair to players at all.


The player paladin wants to smite the BBEG of the fight, not the minion but the minion is pounding on him.

Exactly. Feature, not a bug.

The Paladin (striker, Damage spike specialist) needs to get to the big bad (Ditto Rogue). He needs support from the other PCs to get there. The Fighter can action surge and TWF his way through the hordes of the big bads henchmen, letting the Paladin get there and stare down the Big bad in a toe to toe fight. Or the Mage can fireball the suckers. Or the Monk can dance around, flurrying the minions to death.


If he doesn't know it's a minion the smite is overkill waste.

If your Paladins have the resources to blow Smites on lor CR mooks in core 5E, you have bigger problems.

Note in the above minion rule, smites are still useful against mooks that are resistant to non magical weapon damage. Mooks dont die to weapon damage they are resistant to.

Encounter a Wraith mook and your sword isnt magical and you have problems. One 1st level Smite on the Wraith mook on a hit and it dies however.

[JNAProductions]

Malifice, I'd advise you to listen more to the others in this thread. I won't say the idea is entirely without merit, but there's no idea that cannot be improved. And you're not taking advice into account.

[Malifice]

Malifice, I'd advise you to listen more to the others in this thread. I won't say the idea is entirely without merit, but there's no idea that cannot be improved. And you're not taking advice into account.

Im looking for advice on the rule itself.

Not the existence of the rule. Lets presume that I like the concept of henchmen that go down easy, and solo monsters or big bad leader types that require a co-ordinated attack.

Im more looking for exploits against the rule that I may have missed.

[JackPhoenix]

If your Paladins have the resources to blow Smites on lor CR mooks in core 5E, you have bigger problems.

But the paladin's player doesn't know it's low CR mook. You, as a GM, lie to him and pretend he's facing genuine threat, while in fact, it's 1 hp "I can't believe it's not [monster]". And if you're using minions, you HAVE to lie to your players to avoid things like wizards wiping them all with level 1 spell, because the player knows the monster is fake and go down to Magic Missiles.

[Eric Diaz]

Look man. Ive explained myself already. But seeing as you dont seem to be able to understand, I'll go a bit slower.

Have a great day, man. I hope you've found the answers you were looking for in this thread.

[Kane0]

I think Mal's proposed rule functions just fine.

Is this a DM-trust issue, perhaps? Or could it be linked to knowing the MM and feeling ripped off when something is presented as a MM creature but carries different numbers?

Edit: For spells like Sleep, Magic Missile and Power Word X maybe allow them to take out a number of minions equal to spell level?

[Knaight]

Also Malifice, lots of people have suggested good alternate minion rules in this thread that wouldn't cause the same problems; for example, using a single pool of HP for a mob of monsters and ignore fractions (okay, your fireball hit 5 goblins... roll damage... 6, multiplied by 5 goblins = 30 damage... this means you killed 4 goblins, while the fifth one is unscathed).

I explicitly proposed that as a rule that solves those particular problems while introducing others, as an example - I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a replacement, particularly when trying to reduce math (it marginally increases calculations needed, what it decreases is numbers tracked).

[the secret fire]

OP's profession of love for Ewoks is the best thing to come out of this thread.

[Tiadoppler]

Im more looking for exploits against the rule that I may have missed.


Exploits against Minion enemies:
Caltrops do 1 point of piercing damage. If you're playing a comedic campaign, that could be fine (lure an army into a courtyard full of caltrops, watch them all be completely disabled by foot pain), but in a serious campaign, that'd need a different ruling.



The goal of a minion is ZERO bookkeeping (in my mind). If the minion's on the table, it can move and do it's little attack, otherwise it's off the table and completely disabled/dead. Binary status. If a minion gets Charmed or Frightened or whatever it's no longer a functional combatant.

My suggestions:
Don't use minions AT ALL from level 1-5. Low level PCs are too weak to reliably kill an enemy in one hit.
Don't scale minion attack/damage much. Scale minion quantity. They're there to represent the concept of the Elven Horde or the Army of the Dead, not be a significant individual threat to a PC.
No Large enemies should ever be a minion.
My personal preference would be limiting minion status to enemies that could logically have less than 10HP maximum


Use them in large numbers, and give the players lots of obvious hints that these are weak, untrained opponents. Don't let them waste real resources on minions by accident.


This is how I'd stat out minions: (All saves are +0, HP = 1)
(Unarmed Goblins/Kobolds, most tiny non-magical beasts): AC 11, +1 to attack, 1 non-magical weapon damage
(Individual member of a mob of angry villagers, bandits, most small non-magical beasts): AC 13, +3 to attack, 3 non-magical weapon damage
(Conscript soldier, orcish raider, most medium non-magical beasts): AC 15, +5 to attack, 5 non-magical weapon damage
(Trained professional soldier): AC 17, +7 to attack, 7 non-magical weapon damage

[Tvtyrant]

You could also just give minions damage reduction X, so if a single source doesn't deal 6+ damage they live but otherwise they die. Fixes the magic missile/caltrop issue.

[JNAProductions]

You could also just give minions damage reduction X, so if a single source doesn't deal 6+ damage they live but otherwise they die. Fixes the magic missile/caltrop issue.

Eh... That comes up with the issue that minions could in theory, be tankier than bosses. If they take 5 less damage from all sources, the Wizard who rolled poorly on stats and is cornered by minions does literally no damage with his piddly 1d4+1 damage.

I'd prefer what I suggested earlier (shocking, I know :P) where mooks have three stages: Healthy, Wounded, and Dead.

Haven't been hit? Healthy.
Took a hit that does less than their max HP while healthy? Wounded.
Took a hit that does their max HP or more, or take ANY hit while wounded? Dead.

[Tvtyrant]

Eh... That comes up with the issue that minions could in theory, be tankier than bosses. If they take 5 less damage from all sources, the Wizard who rolled poorly on stats and is cornered by minions does literally no damage with his piddly 1d4+1 damage.

I'd prefer what I suggested earlier (shocking, I know :P) where mooks have three stages: Healthy, Wounded, and Dead.

Haven't been hit? Healthy.
Took a hit that does less than their max HP while healthy? Wounded.
Took a hit that does their max HP or more, or take ANY hit while wounded? Dead.

You could do both too. If any minion gets hit X times it dies, or if it takes X damage in a turn.

And the amount of DR would change based on level. A low level minion might be DR 1 (so 2 damage to die) while the aforementioned young dragons helping their Mom against hogh level heroes might be DR 7.

Hogh of course being the level where heroes fight dragon mothers.

[Malifice]

But the paladin's player doesn't know it's low CR mook.

I was saying in Core 5E. If your paladin is blowing smites on CR 1/8 Hobgoblins, and not the Hobgoblin Warlord, your game has bigger problems.


You, as a GM, lie to him and pretend he's facing genuine threat

At this point Im going to thank you for your contribution to the thread, and ask you to move along seeing as youre adding nothing aside from rubbish like this.

Minions are not 'lying' to players, any more than are extras in Savage Worlds. You're arguing absurdity.

[JNAProductions]

I was saying in Core 5E. If your paladin is blowing smites on CR 1/8 Hobgoblins, and not the Hobgoblin Warlord, your game has bigger problems.

At this point Im going to thank you for your contribution to the thread, and ask you to move along seeing as youre adding nothing aside from rubbish like this.

Minions are not 'lying' to players, any more than are extras in Savage Worlds. You're arguing absurdity.

So do you tell your players about minions existence?

Because, let's say you're dealing with hobgoblins with, say, 15 HP. The Paladin goes sword and board (with Protection style), so even with Improved Divine Smite, he only deals 2d8+5 damage on a regular attack. Now, it's been established that hobgoblins have, on average, 15 HP (players were able to figure that out due to many encounters with them) so the Paladin player will usually drop a 1st level smite on them, since his average damage is 2d8+5 or 14 damage. He does have a good 43% chance of killing a hobbo in one hit, but time is of the essence, and a level 1 smite (for 4d8+5) kills them 96% of the time.

If you have minions, that ability is wasted, and the players smart thinking is actively DETRIMENTAL to them, since they're wasting resources.

Now, I did just check the MM and Hobgoblins HP is 11. So that's an 84% chance of killing with just Improved Divine Smite, a longsword, and a +5 Strength mod. But what level does a Hobgoblin become a minion? Because if it's level 10, that situation DOES ARISE, since there's only about a 38% chance of killing with a regular hit, but a 98% chance with a 1st level smite.

[Malifice]

Exploits against Minion enemies:
Caltrops do 1 point of piercing damage. If you're playing a comedic campaign, that could be fine (lure an army into a courtyard full of caltrops, watch them all be completely disabled by foot pain), but in a serious campaign, that'd need a different ruling.

Good spot.

Not sure if its a feature or bug. Id probably remove the damage from caltrops though.


The goal of a minion is ZERO bookkeeping (in my mind). If the minion's on the table, it can move and do it's little attack, otherwise it's off the table and completely disabled/dead. Binary status. If a minion gets Charmed or Frightened or whatever it's no longer a functional combatant.


Ive added frightened (the creature runs away) petrified, incapacitated and poisoned (it dies) as conditions that auto gib a minion. I'll leave stunned and charmed as ones that dont though.


Don't use minions AT ALL from level 1-5. Low level PCs are too weak to reliably kill an enemy in one hit.
Don't scale minion attack/damage much. Scale minion quantity. They're there to represent the concept of the Elven Horde or the Army of the Dead, not be a significant individual threat to a PC.
No Large enemies should ever be a minion.
My personal preference would be limiting minion status to enemies that could logically have less than 10HP maximum


Its mainly for higher level campaigns (11th+) where the PCs have ACs in the 22-25 range on average, and deal damage that requires multiple rolls (and resistance is common, as are status effects). There is a ton of pointless bookeeping at this level range with low CR (but otherwise high HP) monsters.

Under core, I find I need to adjust my monsters CR's upwards to get a Hit bonus (and Damage per round) that is reasonable for the PCs. However once I do this, Im left with a lot of HP (75-100) on a mook type monster. At that level, those HP can be reduced to 0 in around 1-2 turns from a single PC.

As an alternative to a 'minion' trait, I could simply grab any MM Monster, reduce its HD to 1 HD (lowering its defensive rating) which should bring its CR down by 2. That also kind of works. A CR 3 Knight with 1 HD becomes a CR 1. And so forth.

Under the proposed system I simply smack the 'minion' trait on a monster, and it 'counts as' 1/4 of a monster for XP and encounter building purposes.

[Malifice]

So do you tell your players about minions existence?

No. Its a secret. Muhahahaha. Im just doing it to screw my players.

No seriously, of course I tell them about them! Im proposing a particular style of game, where minions (mooks, stormtroopers, redshirts and henchmen) form a fundamental part of many encounters.

'This guy is the Big Bad. These guys are the mooks. They start X distance away from you.'

Its like in Savage Worlds and other games that use minion/extra/redshirt rules. The players know who are the faceless mooks, and who is the big bad wildcard/ solo/ legendary monster/ heroic classed PC.


Because, let's say you're dealing with hobgoblins with, say, 15 HP. The Paladin goes sword and board (with Protection style), so even with Improved Divine Smite, he only deals 2d8+5 damage on a regular attack. Now, it's been established that hobgoblins have, on average, 15 HP (players were able to figure that out due to many encounters with them) so the Paladin player will usually drop a 1st level smite on them, since his average damage is 2d8+5 or 14 damage. He does have a good 43% chance of killing a hobbo in one hit, but time is of the essence, and a level 1 smite (for 4d8+5) kills them 96% of the time.

Me as DM: 'There is no need to Smite here [Paladin player], nor is there any need to roll damage at all once you hit - they're mooks (if you havent already figured that out by now by the fact there are 20 of them on the board, and I basically told you as much 1 minute ago when setting up the encounter).'

This is something the Paladin player no doubt also notes due to the fact that I havent been asking for damage rolls from any other PC that has hit one yet either.

For the avoidance of doubt: This rule comes with the expectation that most (if not all) blobs of faceless henchmen are mooks, and many (around 50 percent) encounters feature such blobs of mooks.

Just like when you play in my SWSE campaigns. My Stormtroopers are Non-Heroic 4's with 10 HP. They are (and always will be) Mooks. On the off chance they are not mooks, I'll telegraph it to you, (like when he confidently strides towards you with an elctro tonfa, is a named character with special markings or rankings or some kind of past history with your PC, is the only one involved in the fight, and screams TRAITOR! at you on the way in while you weild a lightsabre.).

[the secret fire]

In the example you give, you're only dealing with five mooks on the field for the encounter. Is it really too hard to track HPs and status effects for five monsters?

In a higher-level encounter, like say 16th level characters facing a Hobgoblin wizard, a few lieutenants, and a horde of troops, the mechanic does you no good. 16th level characters are already going to one-shot normal hobbos, so why bother reducing their HP to 1? Also, having your mooks take zero damage on successful saves actually makes them tougher, as they're going to die to a fireball under the normal rules whether or not they make the save, but quite a few will survive under your rules.

This is a solution looking for a problem. If you really want to improve the feel of how low-level monsters work when fighting high-level PCs, re-introduce morale to the game. Don't make your mooks balloon animals; that takes away from the sense of accomplishment in defeating them. Make them living, breathing enemies who are powerful in numbers, but can be overwhelmed by fear of the PCs' awesomeness. I like to have intelligent mooks roll morale as a group DC 10 Wis save as soon as 20% of their force has been knocked out, and for each 20% increment after that (adding +2 to the DC at each increment, with a -2 for each PC that has gone down).

[Kane0]

Is it really too hard to track HPs and status effects for five monsters?

For those not inclined, yes. Especially if you don't want to put narrative focus on them.



In a higher-level encounter, like say 16th level characters facing a Hobgoblin wizard, a few lieutenants, and a horde of troops, the mechanic does you no good. 16th level characters are already going to one-shot normal hobbos, so why bother reducing their HP to 1? Also, having your mooks take zero damage on successful saves actually makes them tougher, as they're going to die to a fireball under the normal rules whether or not they make the save, but quite a few will survive under your rules.


From what I understand that's why it's not going to be applied to things that would already die regardless. It's use if for creatures with more substantial HP and attack/damage but no narrative impact.

[Malifice]

From what I understand that's why it's not going to be applied to things that would already die regardless. It's use if for creatures with more substantial HP and attack/damage but no narrative impact.

This.

I dont see the point in running 20 CR 1/8 or whatever hobgoblins for 16th+ PCs.

They have ACs in the 22-25 range (meaming Im generally only hitting the PCs on a 19-20) and the damage is so trifling they dont care if they do get hit. Plus they generally just fly over them. The damage rolling against them is time wasting. They're not relevant to the encounter (unlike the CR 12 Hobgoblin Archmage, and his 2 Hobgoblin warlord buddies.

Id rather run 8-10 Hobgoblin mooks with my proposed minion rule, upgrade attack bonus to +7 or 8 or so and give them multiattack.

The PCs then have the option of gunning down the mooks (who present an actual threat) or targetting the big bad and his heavy protectors.

And most classes can effectively deal with mooks. Heck Fighters, Rangers, Casters and so forth excell at the task. Paladins are better served going after the BBEG, as are Rogues, and to a lesser extent Barbarians.

[Malifice]

Im looking for harder hitting minion types, that give the PCs some choice (go after the minions, or take down the Boss).

Its not so much an issue at lower levels. But it becomes an issue at mid-high levels.

I might not need to implement such a rule seeing as Im probably limiting levels to 11th for the next campaign and re-jigging proficiency bonus to advance slightly faster (ending at +5 at 11th).

Im also protecting bounded accuracy a bit more by not letting + shields and armor stack (take the highest) or + bows and arrows (take the highest) or +save DC items like wands of the war mage and so forth (take the highest).

Mid to high level campaigns (featuring a lot of magic items) become a maths and bookeeping (and prepping) chore. Im looking for ways to reduce that chore.

[the secret fire]

From what I understand that's why it's not going to be applied to things that would already die regardless. It's use if for creatures with more substantial HP and attack/damage but no narrative impact.

Why do they have "no narrative impact"? Shouldn't killing a bunch of intelligent creatures have a narrative impact? Doesn't making mooks into balloon animals encourage the worst sort of murderhoboism?

My biggest objection to OP's proposed system is that it is boring. 1 HP mooks will all go down to a single AoO spell, and as OP evidently intends to inform his players when they are dealing with mooks, he can expect low-damage AoOs vs. mooks in the first round of every single encounter in his games. Rinse and repeat. Yawn...

Look...the question of how to deal with low-level creatures in high-level play is valid. OP's solution isn't an especially good one, though. There have been better suggestions in this thread, including treating mooks as a sort of swarm with a single HP pool, and re-introducing morale mechanics which make it possible to rout their forces (absent some controlling magic) without actually killing all of them.

[Pex]

I was saying in Core 5E. If your paladin is blowing smites on CR 1/8 Hobgoblins, and not the Hobgoblin Warlord, your game has bigger problems.



At this point Im going to thank you for your contribution to the thread, and ask you to move along seeing as youre adding nothing aside from rubbish like this.

Minions are not 'lying' to players, any more than are extras in Savage Worlds. You're arguing absurdity.

No, the paladin is not going to smite the common 5E hobgoblin, but he might smite the ogre, will likely smite the troll, and will smite the demon. The paladin will rightly be miffed if one of the latter three were a minion you absolutely refused to tell him.


No. Its a secret. Muhahahaha. Im just doing it to screw my players.

No seriously, of course I tell them about them! Im proposing a particular style of game, where minions (mooks, stormtroopers, redshirts and henchmen) form a fundamental part of many encounters.

'This guy is the Big Bad. These guys are the mooks. They start X distance away from you.'

Its like in Savage Worlds and other games that use minion/extra/redshirt rules. The players know who are the faceless mooks, and who is the big bad wildcard/ solo/ legendary monster/ heroic classed PC.



Me as DM: 'There is no need to Smite here [Paladin player], nor is there any need to roll damage at all once you hit - they're mooks (if you havent already figured that out by now by the fact there are 20 of them on the board, and I basically told you as much 1 minute ago when setting up the encounter).'

This is something the Paladin player no doubt also notes due to the fact that I havent been asking for damage rolls from any other PC that has hit one yet either.

For the avoidance of doubt: This rule comes with the expectation that most (if not all) blobs of faceless henchmen are mooks, and many (around 50 percent) encounters feature such blobs of mooks.

Just like when you play in my SWSE campaigns. My Stormtroopers are Non-Heroic 4's with 10 HP. They are (and always will be) Mooks. On the off chance they are not mooks, I'll telegraph it to you, (like when he confidently strides towards you with an elctro tonfa, is a named character with special markings or rankings or some kind of past history with your PC, is the only one involved in the fight, and screams TRAITOR! at you on the way in while you weild a lightsabre.).

This is what we're looking for! If you will tell the player such and such creatures are minions then the problem of wasting resources goes away.

[Malifice]

This is what we're looking for! If you will tell the player such and such creatures are minions then the problem of wasting resources goes away.

This gets back to your own past bad experiences with douche DMs.

For the avoidance of doubt, im not contemplating using this rule to 'gotcha' my players. Im considering implenting it for more cinematic combat, less bookeeping and speeding up bigger fights. With full player knowledge of the system and group consent to using it.


Why do they have "no narrative impact"? Shouldn't killing a bunch of intelligent creatures have a narrative impact? Doesn't making mooks into balloon animals encourage the worst sort of murderhoboism?

Do you shed a tear for the Orcs of Mordor who go down in one hit to the heroes, dying by the dozens?


My biggest objection to OP's proposed system is that it is boring. 1 HP mooks will all go down to a single AoO spell

Not if they make their saves they wont.


and as OP evidently intends to inform his players when they are dealing with mooks, he can expect low-damage AoOs vs. mooks in the first round of every single encounter in his games.

Feature not a bug. The PCs can save the higher level slots on bigger tougher baddies.

[Kane0]

-Snip-

Beer & pretzels dungeon crawl for tier 3-4 PCs?
Time saving measure for random encounters that are there to burn resources instead of time?
Last stand/horde scene?

Minions would be like grunts in halo. Easy to deal with, not super special and really boring on their own BUT threatening in numbers, great when mixed with other stuff and notable when they are absent.

[Malifice]

Beer & pretzels dungeon crawl for tier 3-4 PCs?
Time saving measure for random encounters that are there to burn resources instead of time?
Last stand/horde scene?

Minions would be like grunts in halo. Easy to deal with, not super special and really boring on their own BUT threatening in numbers, great when mixed with other stuff and notable when they are absent.

They work wonders in Savage Worlds (where they are called extras) and appear in many other games as well.

The point of them is ease of use so you can use a lot of them, and they become dangerous in numbers.

They also provide for intresting tactical decisions. Go after the mooks, or take down the BBEG?

If the mooks are irrelevant (only hitting on nat 20's, dealing 5-10 damage per hit, CR 1/2 or 1/4)) then they can just be ignored.

[the secret fire]

Do you shed a tear for the Orcs of Mordor who go down in one hit to the heroes, dying by the dozens?
The LoTR trilogy is fraught with moral issues, including the fact that the darker-skinned humans "from the south" sided with Sauron, and the obvious and troubling parallels between the human civilizations of Middle Earth and real-world Europe (i.e. Rohir = Germans; Numenor = Britain/Atlantis; etc.), to name a couple.

The fact that Orcs are treated as cartoon characters who are irremediably evil from birth is problematic. The "born to be bad" Tolkien Orc is set up as the perfect recipient of remorseless, junk-food violence...basically a 50's version of George Lucas' battle droids, existing only to be cut to ribbons for the audience's pleasure. Yes, I think it's pretty gross.


Feature not a bug. The PCs can save the higher level slots on bigger tougher baddies.
Repetitious game play is not a feature you should be proud of. Killing swathes of mooks with 1st round AoOs basically becomes a tax your party casters pay at the beginning of every big encounter. If your mooks serve no other function than to die quickly...wake me up when they're dead.

[the secret fire]

Beer & pretzels dungeon crawl for tier 3-4 PCs?
If you're setting the bar that low, who cares? Beer & pretzels games are neither here nor there. OP could just as well wing it with all of his monsters and not do any math if that is the setting.


Last stand/horde scene?
This implies that the mooks are actually important to the scene. Why treat them as balloon animals, then?


Minions would be like grunts in halo. Easy to deal with, not super special and really boring on their own BUT threatening in numbers, great when mixed with other stuff and notable when they are absent.

First of all, grunts in Halo are tactical and potentially lethal as enemies, carrying needlers and plasma grenades in various incarnations. They also don't go down automatically the first time they get shot, have a morale mechanic and will run away, etc. They also do not appear in straight-up hordes, but rather in groups of 4-5 usually, generally mixed with Elites or other Covenant forces. The fact that Master Chief never "levels up" in the game also makes the grunts relevant throughout without modification. Also, save for grenades (which the enemies actively try to avoid), Master Chief has no AoO attacks capable of taking down lots of grunts at once.

It's just not a good analogy.

[Drascin]

Honestly, OP, go for it. I can't really comment on the XP amount, because I haven't used actual XP instead of milestone level up since... I dunno, 15 years ago, but the combat rules look pretty reasonable to me. But then, it's not like I don't run variants of minion type enemies (generally with the "two hits and out, no actual HP" style of minion) in pretty much every game I run.

You might want to think about what to do with the stupidly designed HP-based stuff like Sleep, though.

[Kane0]

-Snip-

Why am I getting a badwrongfun vibe? Like, if you dont like minions just say so and move on, or make your own thread to discuss their merits. Mal asked if there are any mechanical issues he didn’t anticipate or suggestions for potential improvements, not opinions on the thematics and metagame involved.

[Unoriginal]

Have you considered just removing the minions' stats entirely and just give the big boss a pool of HPs shared with those extras, and simply treat their actions as Legendary actions from the boss?

[johnbragg]

This doesn't make sense. If they go down anyway, why use minions in the first place?



AFAIK, simplicity and streamlining. Minions (in my definition, anyway) don't have to have 1 HP, just a streamlined bookkeeping process. Let's take your Bugbears, run-of-the-mill CR1 beatsticks. Their standard hit points are 27. Convert that to 3 Minion Points, any attack that does less than 10 damage knocks off 1 MP, 11-20 damage 2 MP, 20+ and it goes down.
Ogres, 59 hp, maybe 4 Minion points and 15 HP per MP.

But 1 HP Minions were one of the things about 4E that triggered my nerdrage in the first place when it came out, so maybe I'm Minioning wrong.

[Baptor]

Standard kobolds, goblins, guards, cultists, bandits and other CR 1/8 or so enemies pretty much already are minions... and that's perfectly fine, that's why they exist. I don't have a problem with that. I have problem with saying "Well, you're level 10, so ogres suddenly have 1 hp, so they'll go down even to your weakest attacks. In 5 levels, that happens to giants. But only when a boss is present, they'll retain their original stats when you face them on their own".

It certainly is a difference in gameplay style: I prefer CaW style games. Ogre is an ogre, no matter what level you have when you face him. The world doesn't scale to characters. If you feel your character is awesome and powerful, it is because he *is* awesome and powerful, not because I'm lying to you and cheating to make you feel that way, and I expect the GM to do the same when I play a character instead of GMing.

90% of the time that's how I run minions. Basically I just assume once the players hit a certain level that CR 0-1/4 monsters die in 1-hit. The only reason I'd lump ogres in there is if the PCs ever got powerful enough to 1-hit those as well, but that never happens in my games because I don't run past 10th level. (That's a long story in and of itself.)

As for lying to the players - I don't. I tell them about minions and usually use some kind of thematic way to warn them that the 6 guys with maces are "goons" and "won't be much trouble." They know that means minion.

THAT SAID - It's the rare GM who always plays it straight and never lies to their players. The key is to never lie against them (the lie is always in their favor) and to not overuse it. Like fudging dice. Some never do it - and that's cool. I have done it before, though it's always when I screw up. For example: One time I built an encounter and screwed up the math. I put 3 trolls up against 2 players who simply weren't ready for that kind of encounter. After several rounds only 1 troll was down - the other 2 were full hp and the players near death. Realizing I'd messed up the encounter budget - I halved the remaining troll's hp and reduced their APR to 1. I didn't announce this, I just quietly made the change. Most GMs lie to the players - but they do so to preserve the fun.


When the goblin minions make the save they're still alive according to the minion rules where as in 5E proper making their save is irrelevant. It had to be a 3rd level spell to do it, making the player feel powerful. For 5E proper ogres, a Fireball may not take them out even on a failed save, but they are softened up all it takes then is a hit or two from the warriors. There's a sense of accomplishment and team work. If they were ogre minions the Fireball was 8d6 - 1 points of damage too many.

Yeah, I don't run mine that way. My minions really are there just to avoid tedious bookkeeping on things like Kobolds. So yeah they still die on a failed save. In my books minions aren't really a super important part of the encounter - so it's OK if they are all killed off fast or easy.


By learning why some people aren't liking the minion concept itself you can learn how to use them to mitigate the annoyances. For example, it could be important to many players to know a monster is a minion to not waste their limited resource big guns on them. You'll need to reflect that in monster description flavor texts.

Agreed 100%. This is why I tell my players if a creature's a minion. I also have learned a lot more reading everyone's responses here.


No need to tell the players that the thing they're fighting is/isn't a minion. They don't have access to your monsters with the stats, so they don't have to know if their smite was wasted, or useful. I don't see a point in even telling them.

It's true that keeping some things from the players can be helpful (see my bit about GM lying above), but I found that lying about minions isn't one of them. It took just one encounter of being sneaky about minions to learn that it's not very fair to the PCs at my table.


I think I'm right in saying that those spells go off hit points rather than hit dice, I'm away from my books but I think that's right.

I think you're right. That's my AD&D age showing a little. :smallbiggrin:

Oddly it brings up another point - why does the Monster Manual even bother with hit dice anymore when it's hit points that govern everything. I may be wrong, but I think everything now works off of hit points, not dice. Nothing calls for dice. As a GM I never have to know how many hit dice a creature has. The monster-creator rules in the DMG's table uses hit points - and YET so much space is devoted to helping you know how many hit dice a creature should have and what size creatures get which kind of hit dice. It sounds like a sacred cow. The whispers about Pathfinder 2nd Edition hint that monster hp may be done differently - I'll be curious to know if hit dice are eliminated.

[EvilAnagram]

Why am I getting a badwrongfun vibe? Like, if you dont like minions just say so and move on, or make your own thread to discuss their merits. Mal asked if there are any mechanical issues he didn’t anticipate or suggestions for potential improvements, not opinions on the thematics and metagame involved.

Yeah, I don't understand why so much hate is getting tossed around.

In my experience, minions work fine. They made it much easier to work more engaging characters into a large-scale battle, while cutting down on the book keeping and speeding the pace. I used them extensively in a recent siege my players went through (that ended up being the end of the campaign), and it worked phenomenally. All creatures of CR 1 and below were minions.

I haven't run into any problems with them.

[Unoriginal]

Oddly it brings up another point - why does the Monster Manual even bother with hit dice anymore when it's hit points that govern everything. I may be wrong, but I think everything now works off of hit points, not dice. Nothing calls for dice. As a GM I never have to know how many hit dice a creature has. The monster-creator rules in the DMG's table uses hit points - and YET so much space is devoted to helping you know how many hit dice a creature should have and what size creatures get which kind of hit dice. It sounds like a sacred cow.

It's not a sacred cow. Some people like to roll for how much HPs the monsters have, and it also gives indication for how much HPs this particular kind of monster can have without the CR being too affected (at least in theory).

For example, an Ogre can have a minimum of 28 HPs and a maximum of 91 HPs, thanks to 7d10+21, so any number between those two extremes shouldn't affect the Ogre's CR.

[Malifice]

It's not a sacred cow. Some people like to roll for how much HPs the monsters have, and it also gives indication for how much HPs this particular kind of monster can have without the CR being too affected (at least in theory).

For example, an Ogre can have a minimum of 28 HPs and a maximum of 91 HPs, thanks to 7d10+21, so any number between those two extremes shouldn't affect the Ogre's CR.

Not according to the dungeon Masters guide.

[Tvtyrant]

Another way you could simplify it is to take normal monsters, kick up their to-hit and damage, and then give them Cowardly.

Cowardly trait means they flee if hit or effected by spells. If all none-Cowards have died or fled the remaining cowards automatically flee.

This also gives you the option of making Bullies, who prevent Cowards fleeing. Either using whips or by chomping one.

[Pex]

Yeah, I don't understand why so much hate is getting tossed around.

In my experience, minions work fine. They made it much easier to work more engaging characters into a large-scale battle, while cutting down on the book keeping and speeding the pace. I used them extensively in a recent siege my players went through (that ended up being the end of the campaign), and it worked phenomenally. All creatures of CR 1 and below were minions.

I haven't run into any problems with them.

I'm not saying don't do it. It's not my game, but it helps to know why those who don't like don't like it. Hypothetical players might have those same concerns to be accommodated. It's not necessary for those who have concerns to be told not to play. It's a solution but not always the best solution.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm not saying don't do it. It's not my game, but it helps to know why those who don't like don't like it. Hypothetical players might have those same concerns to be accommodated. It's not necessary for those who have concerns to be told not to play. It's a solution but not always the best solution.

It is also important to note that while minions slightly hurt Paladins and Fighters they massively buff the Ranger, who is the king of at will AoE effects. In fact as the Ranger and Wizard would both likely go before the Paladin this isn't going to be a common scenario, as the first wave of minions is going to be cleared before he actually takes a turn.

[Unoriginal]

Not according to the dungeon Masters guide.


Yes, according to the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Ogre with Minimum HPs: ((Offensive CR= 3) + (Defensive CR = 1/8))/2 = Average CR of 1.56. " Round the average up or down to the nearest challenge rating to determine your monster's final challenge rating." (DMG p. 275) = CR of 2.

Ogre with Maximum HPs: ((Offensive CR= 3) + (Defensive CR = 1/2))/2 = Average CR of 1.75 . " Round the average up or down to the nearest challenge rating to determine your monster's final challenge rating." (DMG p. 275) = CR of 2.

[Citan]

This gets back to your own past bad experiences with douche DMs.

For the avoidance of doubt, im not contemplating using this rule to 'gotcha' my players. Im considering implenting it for more cinematic combat, less bookeeping and speeding up bigger fights. With full player knowledge of the system and group consent to using it.



Do you shed a tear for the Orcs of Mordor who go down in one hit to the heroes, dying by the dozens?



Not if they make their saves they wont.



Feature not a bug. The PCs can save the higher level slots on bigger tougher baddies.
Well, as long as your players have an easy way to identify whichever is mook and whichever isn't, I guess whatever works for you will work fine for your players.

But honestly, I still don't see any advantage in doing this instead of other things people proposed in the thread.

If I were in your party as a Ranger, I'd sure be glad because I'd finally have a chance to use Volley on a regular basis and build myself a worldwise reputation of Goblin/Orc/whatever Genocider.
Besides that?

To take one of your example of one big guy and 7-9 small fries around.

BEFORE (Core Rules), players had to use their in-game knowledge (past experiences or studies) to evaluate the potential threat of each and every monster, how resilient they probably are, what kind of stunts or tactics they could pull on the players.
Deciding whether to...
- Risk keeping resources for the big guy and be overrun in a few turns,
- Unleash a very powerful AOE spell "just to be sure",
- Try to keep them contained another way through battlefield or mass debuff control?
- Or delegate that part to one or several half/third caster to coordinate?
- Or ask if someone could act as a scapegoat and try to lure/aggro them to keep the others free?
Things like splitting battlefield, using lure/aggro/kiting tactics were a thing, as well as coordinating blows.
Because even if lower monsters are not dangerous individually, once engaged in close combat, they could still prove a pain in the ass (completely shutting off a caster that would like to use a concentration spell, proning a Sharpshooter to make him half as good, grappling/surrounding a Monk to force him to use resources on escaping instead of rush-Stunning, etc).

AFTER:
a) Mooks are clustered: "hey 4E Monk/EK/AT/Ranger, could you please use one of your lowest level abilities to clean up the trash before we start the fight?"
b) Mooks are apart: "hey Warlock/Sharpshooter Fighter, would you mind astonishing us once again with your pinpoint accuracy? They are nice big targets that move just enough to make it a mild challenge". "Hey GWM EK, you still got that Magic Missile right? Since you cannot reach anybody that turn, mind spending a slot to erase those sad faces?" "Hey Druid, could you please remove those stains in the environment? Be lazy and use a Sleet/Ice Storm, be conservative and cast a Flaming Sphere". "Hey Cleric, would you mind going to shake hands with that two people there? I'm sure they'll like the feel of your Guardians".
c) Mooks are not even hitting hard individually or having any defining feature, or not grouped enough to be any power: players will just ignore them until they have a chance to kill them bit by bit using non-resource features to that effect (one weapon attack during Extra Attack, GreenFlame Blade rider, just moving a Moonbeam or Spirit Guardians).

You say above that, quoting...


I could save myself (and my players) an awful lot of pointless math, dice rolling, tracking status effects and HP totals of dozens of monsters across the battlemap and speed the game up considerably, while also imparting intresting tactical options, and bolstering many abilities (Whirwind attack, volley, extra attack, two weapon fighting etc) previously considered weak or sub-optimal.
Yeah, it's true, you're making those much better but in such an artificial way that it actually disservices them. Why?

Quoting again...

Why treat faceless mooks/ stormtroopers/ henchmen/ minions as anything else but in any event? The game gains nothing good from it at all.
And...

All up there is math involved, and book-keeping, for a bunch of irrelevant mooks that arent even the focus of the encounter.
That is what YOU and you ONLY decide, arbitrarily, unilateraly, and imposing that choice on your players without any legitimate reason (because as people tried to explain to you, there are more efficient ways to reduce bookkeeping without reducing player freedom). Which is a red, blood red, flag in my DM book.

You don't "take them by surprise" since you identify Mooks for them, but as soon as it's 1 HP...
- Players won't see any legitimate reason to not metagame, meaning that they will always use the lowest level tactic.
- Consequence: it will always fall down onto the same people in the group that has low-level AOE, whether they are full casters or not, using abilities or spells.
- Worse: because everyone knows they are killing 1HP creatures, there is absolutely no sense of accomplishment, nor any feeling of power. Just that they had to spend an action and *some* resource. They may actually still feel a bit cheated for that reason.

Basically with your system, in every encounter one guy will be getting the chore of making space exactly like in some countries's schools a few people are designated to clean the room every week.
You will be wasting much less of your time, but much more of your player's time, and risk immersion-break.

You want more cinematic feeling and still legitimately want to cut down "management time" (which is the first reason of immersion-break for sure)?
Drop the idea of bookkeeping entirely. When you want to make those grand scale encounters, just...
- Describe the situation in a way that gives your players a good idea of how to get rid of them. Give them 30 real-life seconds to take a decision (basically, who will take care of them and how).
- When the chosen tactic and corresponding amount of resources seem reasonably high enough to kill all mooks, just describe with emphasis how that player pulled an awesome stunt to avoid a lethal risk of being overrun by a horde. Otherwise, decide yourself how many would survive or use a roll. Then resume fight normally, using either a wounds system or a group system for remaining "mooks", or rewarding bravery/creativity by describing an insta-kill without asking for attack/damage roll. Since you're an experienced DM (well, I guess anyways), I'm sure you don't need more than a second or half to imagine a nice description fitting player's choice and your own agenda, and 20 seconds of such speech will always be faster than assessing the results of action against a set of rules, how light may its be...

That way...
a) You don't need any bull****ty pre-encounter metagamey/immersion-breaking description.
b) You let players decide how much importance they want to put on this kind of threat.
c) Encounter is even more fluid than before.
d) You can freely move from "total arbitrary" to "pure PHB" as needed as the situation evolves.

I mean, you're the DM, and the players seem to trust you. So as soon as you decide to break free from the official rules, why bother with any rule at all? Decides what happens with your guts when inspiration is clear, use (secrets?) rolls otherwise to let some influence to fate, and just have fun. :)

[MaxWilson]

GURPS: Black Ops has an interesting take on the mook rule. In S. John Ross's (the author of Black Ops IIRC) rules addendum, you have the chance to buy a cinematic advantage which gives you abilities like this:



Important to many facets of the truly [dangerous] is the "Scrub" -- any character with no real identity, unworthy as foes. Nameless thugs are scrubs. Generic congressmen wandering through a crowd scene are scrubs. Almost all security guards are scrubs. If the GM has assigned the character a motive that extends beyond a single scene, he probably isn't a scrub.

If it isn't important, you can just kill it: That's without a die- roll of any kind. By taking a one-second Attack maneuver, any Scrub becomes dead. Or they can become unconscious or maimed, if you feel like it. They must be within reach (or yards equal to your DX, for ranged weapons). Characters or foes of signifigance (GMs discretion) are immune to this. If you have multiple attacks you can make multiple kills.

If it's weaker than you, it's scared: Crowds of Scrubs will part to let you pass. Furthermore, they must make a Will roll in order to attack you. When they do attack you, rules such as Buck Fever (p.CII65) are appropriate, if the GM enjoys them.

If it's recognizable, you recognize it: If you have Driving skill, you can identify a model of sports car by the purr of the engine. If you have Guns skill, you can identify a model of pistol by the sound of the safety releasing. If you have Savoir-Faire skill, you know an Armani on sight, and so on. This requires an IQ roll.

If you want to be there, you are: In an action scene, when nobody is looking, you seem to move like a ghost, appearing out of nowhere. You may use a Move maneuver to get anywhere in a single turn (into an air-vent, on top of an elevator, beneath a stairway), silent and undetected, provided it is within [Move] yards, and you are unobserved. No die-roll is needed (see the opening scenes of The Professional for this).

If you want to be noticed, you will be: When you decide to be conspicuous, you are. Crowded rooms will hush slightly when you enter, and people will pay attention. Nobody will forget you.

If it's mechanical, it likes you: Your motorcycle can explode, but it never breaks down. Your gun can run out of ammo, but it never jams. Your laptop can be fragged by an antitank weapon fired through the window, but you don't experience irritating system-crashes. You take great care of your equipment, and it never fails you in any mundane way. This doesn't protect you from the failures of experimental equipment.

If you play, you win: You can never lose a Quick Contest with a scrub -- the dice need not be rolled. You just win. Likewise, any skill roll made against a scrub will succeed -- you will automatically Fast-Talk them, seduce them, Intimidate them, and so on.

Note that while this advantage is useful for sweeping aside the rabble (and speeding play), it should be used to enhance roleplaying, not to sidestep it. Saying "I kill the twerp with the Beretta pointed at me" isn't enough; the player must always describe his [awesome] exploits for the amusement of those at the gaming table. "I flip the Beretta's muzzle back into his gawping mouth and squeeze his hand on the trigger" is much more amusing.

If you really want scrubs and mooks to be cinematic flavoring instead of actual threats, follow rules like these and remove all the die-rolling.

[PopeLinus1]

Ah the age old argument.

I think this part of 4e is good. I think this part of 4e is baaad.

This argument has been going on since the beginning of time.

[Sigreid]

Just skimmed the thread but it appears that you could achieve your goal with moral. A good hit or bad status effect and the minion runs, coders, begs for mercy as he she or it realises how screwed they are. Party still gets the satisfaction of a solid hit actually dropping one.

Just a thought.

[Coidzor]

AFAIK, simplicity and streamlining. Minions (in my definition, anyway) don't have to have 1 HP, just a streamlined bookkeeping process. Let's take your Bugbears, run-of-the-mill CR1 beatsticks. Their standard hit points are 27. Convert that to 3 Minion Points, any attack that does less than 10 damage knocks off 1 MP, 11-20 damage 2 MP, 20+ and it goes down.
Ogres, 59 hp, maybe 4 Minion points and 15 HP per MP.

I would say that adding in a conversion process to the bookkeeping is definitely not going to make things simpler or more streamlined. Having different conversion rates would also be an extra step to remember and implement.

[Malifice]

Ah the age old argument.

I think this part of 4e is good. I think this part of 4e is baaad.

This argument has been going on since the beginning of time.

Its only related to 4E tangentally. Minions/ mooks/ extras etc are in use in dozens of very popular RPG systems.

They're also a staple of the [action movie/ fantasy/ sci fi/ swashbuckler/ space opera/ wuxia/ ninja movie] genre.

Henchmen, ninjas, Stormtroopers, terrorists, faceless mooks, Nazis or whatever that get creamed by the heroes by the dozens. It's only their leader, or a dude encountered on his own, that presents any threat.

Otherwise known as the 'Inverse law of Ninjas':


The inverse ninja law is a media trope regarding not only ninjas, but any character type that is shown to attack in massed numbers, such as soldiers, robots, daleks, or vampires (but not zombies). It states that the threat level of any number of ninjas or other henchmen or mook, is inversely proportionate to their numbers.

When the Heroes round the corner and see 30 ninjas, you know they are going to chew through them like chaff.

When the Heroes round the corner, and only 1 ninja is present, they have a fight on their hands for their very survival.

When the Heroes round the corner, and there are 30 ninjas, lead by 'a mysterious looking ninja in a crimson ninja gi with dragon markings, and twirling a spiked chain over his head and embarking on a threatening monologue', combine the above two statements.

Its relevant to 5E also due to being baked into the CR/ encounter design system.

Im just looking for an elegant way of including mooks and minions that keeps them relevant at all levels, and reduces the bookeeping and dice rolling and time wasting effect of tracking and resolving half a dozen different pools of HP and actions.

[Knaight]

That is what YOU and you ONLY decide, arbitrarily, unilateraly, and imposing that choice on your players without any legitimate reason (because as people tried to explain to you, there are more efficient ways to reduce bookkeeping without reducing player freedom). Which is a red, blood red, flag in my DM book.
Really? Introducing some crappy mooks is arbitrarily imposing a choice on your players now? Out of curiosity, if I state that there is a weather event in the game without consulting the players first, is that also arbitarily and unilaterally imposing a choice on the players without any legitimate reason?

Player freedom isn't reduced here. The GM is just presenting a situation.


I mean, you're the DM, and the players seem to trust you. So as soon as you decide to break free from the official rules, why bother with any rule at all?[/U] Decides what happens with your guts when inspiration is clear, use (secrets?) rolls otherwise to let some influence to fate, and just have fun. :)
The official rules don't have a monopoly on all useful rules, and minimal book keeping is a pretty key to having swarms of mooks.


Ah the age old argument.

I think this part of 4e is good. I think this part of 4e is baaad.

This argument has been going on since the beginning of time.
4e didn't introduce this concept. As is usually the case when a "new" mechanic crops up in D&D, it's been floating around the broader industry for about twenty years, and D&D's implementation is thoroughly mediocre.

[Citan]

Really? Introducing some crappy mooks is arbitrarily imposing a choice on your players now? Out of curiosity, if I state that there is a weather event in the game without consulting the players first, is that also arbitarily and unilaterally imposing a choice on the players without any legitimate reason?

Player freedom isn't reduced here. The GM is just presenting a situation.

Please don't do like you didn't understand what I meant.

Yeah it is, because the DM arbitrarily decides that monsters that should normally be a threat are no more because of being so easily killable, yet still expect the players to treat them like normal because they *may* still be a threat provided they mange to get in range. And in addition to that will introduce strong discrepancy in mechanics from one encounter with anoter because of the "save = no damage" rule. So you arbitrarily cut down players's ways of resolving a situation, unless they just don't care about being efficient.
This is ludicrous.

If you present mooks that are supposed to be one-shotted, then go to the end of your concept and drop the stats. Just presents them, tell what will happen to the party if they do nothing, ask them to describe verbally what they choose to do then resolve it, no rolls involved.

Exactly like a "weather event" that you give as an example: describe a challenge, wait for player actions, resolve, go to next, keeping the use of the whole tactical game rules to the portion that really has a use for it.

=== Quick example ===
A 4-man classic party (Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard), lvl 7, has to defend a village against a necromander that raid the region to increase his undead army.
In spite of their preparation efforts, they couldn't assess exactly when and from where troops would be coming. They can determine that there is a first wave of 60 undead skeletons coming, while another group of 10 people including the necromancer and personal guards follow 100 feet behind.

Let's say in all cases party relies on...
a) Fireball.
b) Earth Tremor
c) repeated weapon attacks.
d) other.

Normal situation.
DM: "you can see enemy troops from 700 feet apart, you are now aware of each other, roll Initiative".
>>> Resolve the turns of all creatures, yeah \o/ Even with group roll, it will still take an awfully long time.
High chance party will use Fireball to be sure to insta-kill because they know that once the horde can easily overrun them once they are at the doors.
And using mundane offensive will not be sure enough (only Rogue and Fighter are sure to one-shot a skeleton with their Attack, provided they hit, nearly all cantrips don't have "damage on save" and would need a great roll to one-shot a skeleton).
Unless the Wizard has another spell that is concentration and could work better overall, like working together with martials by using Web to regoup some creatures so they are easier picks, then finishing by an "AOE" by setting it on fire with Firebolt.
Or party creating a "champion" that will strive an heroic fight to soften the horde before if comes too close: Cleric buffing Fighter with Aid and Shield of Faith, Wizard with Longstrider and upcast Dragon Breath (so good chance of insta-kill on failed save), then Fighter running around exhaling while others cover him as needed by killing (try to ^^) OA-threatening creatures.
Or Cleric dediding to take heat by combining upcast Spirit Guardians (again high chance of insta-kill) and Sanctuary, while a Wizard's Familiar holds a Darkness spell to bring mobile cover and limit ranged threat falling upon him.
Time to resolve this aspect of encounter: 1 hour?
Player's freedom to decide how to use their abilities: high.


Malifice's rule
>>> Once creatures are in range of AOE, you cut down time. You still have several turns in which the Rogue will be the only one to act.
Or because the party knows they are insta-kill anyways, they can just use cantrips and weapon attacks to soften up the crowd: Fighter can kill up to 2 creatures per Attack, Rogue 1, Wizard 2 (Acid Splash), Cleric 1 later (Sacred Flame), maybe Wizard will also use a few Magic Missiles (3 insta-kills).
If Rogue and Fighter are AT/EK, they will also keep Magic Missile for these occasions.


There is no sense of urgency or risk though: effective range of Skeletons is 80 feet, while party's range is rather 120 feet to 300 feet (only Cleric is useless until late).
With Skeletons having 60 effective speed (no reason why they wouldn't Dash until being in effective range) party has somewhere around 8 rounds of action before they become an effective threat.
Unless DM decides they are smart enough (or were given direct order to by enemy Wizard) to Ready actions to shoot mass arrows on any visible PC, even if they are at disadvantage (a few ought to hit, probability and all that).
Anwyays, whatever happens, you still have to resolve the rolls and advancement every single round.
Time to resolve this aspect of encounter: 20mn?
Player's freedom to decide how to use their abilities: low: really effective ways to deal with it are few.
If players are lucky, instead of killing around 20, maybe they'll kill 25, or 30. Was it worth all that time? I say no.



Descriptive
"From the shadows, you finally perceive a troop of around 60 skeletons with swords and bows coming fast. Behind, you manage to identify a smaller group, probably the Wizard.
They are still at 700 feet. Chances are they will try to rain arrows on you as soon as they come into shortbow range, unless they just rush at the walls and doors, or a mix of both. If you let them come close without doing anythings, it will be much much harder to contain.
What do you decide to do?
- Wizard: I'll wait for a chance to drop a Fireball onto the tightest pack.
- Rogue&Fighter: we'll pick off the lone targets to reduce the horde as much as possible before they come close.
- Cleric: I'll go warn the local milice and people to prepare then come back at the ready.

DM: either arbitrarily describes how the party used wits to strip down the horde to X enemies, using the declared resources in the process.
Or asks players to each make one roll with a chosen die size to indicate how many creatures they manage to kill before horde breach the chosen distance threshold, then declare Initiative rolls and fall back on normal.
Time to resolve this aspect of encounter: 3 minutes?
Player's freedom to decide how to use their abilities: high.

THAT is the difference.

[Knaight]

Yeah it is, because the DM arbitrarily decides that monsters that should normally be a threat are no more because of being so easily killable, yet still expect the players to treat them like normal because they *may* still be a threat provided they mange to get in range. And in addition to that will introduce strong discrepancy in mechanics from one encounter with anoter because of the "save = no damage" rule. So you arbitrarily cut down players's ways of resolving a situation, unless they just don't care about being efficient.

They are actually threats - they're glass cannons. As for special mechanics that cut down ways of resolving a situation, a) given the efficiency restriction basically any defense does this, and b) spending one action and one low level spell slot to deal with a decent fraction of a large group of enemies is still a pretty good option.

Coming back to point a: High AC cuts down on player's ways of efficiently resolving a situation, elemental resistances do this, cover does this, difficult terrain does this, enemies with mobility do this, etc. Variability in enemies and situations pretty much comes with variability in effective tactics. This just opens up one more avenue for that.

[EvilAnagram]

Citan's post is interesting because it suggests that asking players to engage in combat (in which they can do whatever they like) is much more restrictive than letting them each pick one thing and then narrating the entire battle, which apparently gives them a feeling of agency and ownership of the character.

Interesting.

[Citan]

Im just looking for an elegant way of including mooks and minions that keeps them relevant at all levels, and reduces the bookeeping and dice rolling and time wasting effect of tracking and resolving half a dozen different pools of HP and actions.
Then I'm sorry but I really think your approach is very, very far away of reaching that goal.

As a lvl 9 characters, one-shotting goblins feels natural and would happen anyways. One-shotting Ghosts, Beared Devils is world-breaking. Taking about several Mummies with a single Magic Missile is absolutely ridiculous.
Killing Hill Giants by pushing them into a Spike Growth feels like you just won over air balloons.
One-shotting Minotaurs just because they attacked you (Armor of Agathys, Fire Shield, Storm Herald Barbarian, etc) makes one wonder why bother even fighting.

Basically you don't just make some abilities that are often overlooked better, you make them directly overpowered, even if it is only for a few encounters (in fact worse: the same "effort" you put is near useless in one encounter, and solo-win another. I cannot find in my head any existing spell/ability that would be that wild in effectiveness variation).

I think it would be better to use a wounds system along with all your other "settings". With 1 weapon attack = 1 wound (2 critical), AOE spell deal 1 wound per spell level, direct damage spell deals 2 wounds per spell level. Or something like that.

Then just define 3 "mook levels".

Basic
Wounds to death: 1
Damage: minimum roll
Chance to hit: "roll 5".

Average
Wounds to death:1/4 of party level, rounded down (ex: lvl 10 party? 2 wounds)
Damage: average.
Chance to hit: "roll 8"

High
Wounds to death: 1/2 (ex lvl 10? so 5 wounds).
Damage: average +5.
Chance to hit: "roll 12".

Something like that (this is a system I thought on the fly, so obviously the different "scales" have to be adjusted).


Citan's post is interesting because it suggests that asking players to engage in combat (in which they can do whatever they like) is much more restrictive than letting them each pick one thing and then narrating the entire battle, which apparently gives them a feeling of agency and ownership of the character.

Interesting.
Wow. If that is your understanding of my post then I must have expressed myself in a horribly confusing way, because my point was kinda the opposite (or rather something else entirely). ^^

I'll try again as a short paragraph, maybe I'll be better ;)
Even if players are not taken by surprise, reducing normal monster's HP to 1 shoehorn them in either...
a) Just ignoring them if they are not (or until they become) a real threat, so basically making them exists "tactically" was useless in the first place.
b) Or using the same low-resources tactics that ensures party wipes them off as quick as possible if they are a real threat (because they your life is in danger, so obviously you goes with the most efficient way).

Because you know that with these monsters, outright killing them will *always* be the fastest, easiest and reliablest way.
And if you wouldn't tell them, then they'd waste high-level resources for nothing, which would be also annoying for them.

Either case in the end does not help imo in creating the kind of immersion Malifice is hoping to make.

[Malifice]

Can we just presume that one shotting monster mooks is something I and my group are ok with?

Seriously. Cut out telling me they and I aren't cool with it.

I'm just looking for a way to do it simply and elegantly without weird rules interactions.

[EvilAnagram]

Can we just presume that one shotting monster mooks is something I and my group are ok with?

Seriously. Cut out telling me they and I aren't cool with it.

I'm just looking for a way to do it simply and elegantly without weird rules interactions.

What level range are you dealing with?

[Citan]

Can we just presume that one shotting monster mooks is something I and my group are ok with?

Seriously. Cut out telling me they and I aren't cool with it.

I'm just looking for a way to do it simply and elegantly without weird rules interactions.
Then I gave it to you already: ask them what resources they spend and resolve it on the fly.

Or decide uniquely for each and every encounter that features mooks the "degree" of resources required to remove one from the fight ("1 action", "a 1st level spell or higher", "inflict stun/frightened", "deal particular kind of damage" etc) and let your players decide how they act based on this particular condition(s).

I don't see how you can otherwise create a system that would cover any and every situation for your players from A to Z in campaign, that would be based on the idea of one-shotting them through the HP metric. The whole system is too bent on the idea that higher threat comes with higher HP.

[CharonsHelper]

One thing that you might consider when converting minions to 5e is to give all minions DR/resistance equal to their CR. Or maybe half that.

So that level 12 ogre minion only has 1hp, but if you poke him for 5 damage he ignores it. For one thing - it keeps Magic Missile from being as dominant against them. :P

That way you keep the low bookkeeping value of minions, but it keeps the world more internally consistent with the mechanics.

Just my $0.02.

[Citan]

One thing that you might consider when converting minions to 5e is to give all minions DR/resistance equal to their CR. Or maybe half that.

So that level 12 ogre minion only has 1hp, but if you poke him for 5 damage he ignores it. For one thing - it keeps Magic Missile from being as dominant against them. :P

That way you keep the low bookkeeping value of minions, but it keeps the world more internally consistent with the mechanics.

Just my $0.02.
Wow.

That is actually a great lead to keep Malifice's initial idea, simple and elegant. :)
No time left to think about it for now, of course there is some value tweaking to do, but it may indeed be close to the working solution for the "glass creature that can be brushed off without any effort" flaw. ;=)

GG!

[EvilAnagram]

Wow. If that is your understanding of my post then I must have expressed myself in a horribly confusing way, because my point was kinda the opposite (or rather something else entirely). ^^

I'll try again as a short paragraph, maybe I'll be better ;)
Even if players are not taken by surprise, reducing normal monster's HP to 1 shoehorn them in either...
a) Just ignoring them if they are not (or until they become) a real threat, so basically making them exists "tactically" was useless in the first place.
b) Or using the same low-resources tactics that ensures party wipes them off as quick as possible if they are a real threat (because they your life is in danger, so obviously you goes with the most efficient way).

Because you know that with these monsters, outright killing them will *always* be the fastest, easiest and reliablest way.
And if you wouldn't tell them, then they'd waste high-level resources for nothing, which would be also annoying for them.

Either case in the end does not help imo in creating the kind of immersion Malifice is hoping to make.

In my experience, neither of those situations happens. Let's use an example combat from a real-world session I ran.

Three level 13 characters. The party was storming a hobgoblin fortress that was serving as a forward operating base. The hobgoblin army had just attacked, so the lion's share of the army was not present. There were still a few hundred hobs inside, plus goblin camp followers. They made their way into the camp secretly, setting fires everywhere and causing a ruckus before storming a tower that had a gateway to reinforcements. They faced the following:


1 Hobgoblin Warlord
2 Hobgoblin Captains
1 Hobgoblin Devastator
2 Warlocks of the Great Old One
1 Troll
18 Hobgoblin minions (each with a +2 to hit and damage compared to base)
12 Goblin minions


When I described the scene and revealed the game board, they recognized through past experience the warlocks and the devastator. I pointed out the rank insignias on the captains, and I noted that the warlord was an enormous hobgoblin with a glowing sword (they already knew that the hobgoblin warlords had magic swords).

They now know (because I obviously discussed minions with them long before we got to this point) who is a minion and who isn't. They recognize that the minions pose a significant threat in the damage they can inflict (especially on the bard), but also that the bigger threats will be the casters and commanders. This provided them with all the information they needed to make meaningful tactical decisions, and one mentioned to me that the liked these larger combats after the game. It was a simple alteration that provided them with meaningful options they found fun.


Then I gave it to you already: ask them what resources they spend and resolve it on the fly.

Or decide uniquely for each and every encounter that features mooks the "degree" of resources required to remove one from the fight ("1 action", "a 1st level spell or higher", "inflict stun/frightened", "deal particular kind of damage" etc) and let your players decide how they act based on this particular condition(s).

I don't see how you can otherwise create a system that would cover any and every situation for your players from A to Z in campaign, that would be based on the idea of one-shotting them through the HP metric. The whole system is too bent on the idea that higher threat comes with higher HP.
He is obviously not interested in your idea and wishes to use minions. Let it go.

[MadBear]

To the XP they give, I can't really help since I usually use the milestone level up system, and therefore can't really give informed advice on the proper way to use it, let alone, a modified way.



A minion only provides 1/5 the normal XP value for a creature of its CR when defeated. When designing encounters, treat minions as half the number of creatures present for the purposes of determining the number of creatures in an encounter (round up).

However, for the second half, I think you're on to something. With them counting as 1/2 the numbers for present, you'll be able to throw a lot more of them in any given encounter. The only issue I foresee with this, is if all the monsters get to go, prior to any players, a bad situation can go to deadly in a heartbeat.

For example if a group of 4 level 15 characters were to encounter let's say a Death Slaad and his 6 banshee's that he keeps as a cohort, and they all went before the players. You could potentially have the players rolling 6 DC 13 saves or dropping to 0 HP's, and if they're all successful they'd be taking 18d6 damage each, and then the Death Slaad would go.

Now, had the players had a chance to go, they'd like take out 3-4 banshee's first, and be in a much better situation.

So I guess the thing to be wary of with minions would be that if they have special abilties like the Banshee, you do greatly increase the swingyness of that battle. To be fair, even with 3 banshee's, if they all go first it'd be bad, and this isn't necessarily just a minion issue. If you made a whole bunch of intellect devourers as minions, you could easily cause a TPK based on how deadly their abilities already are.

edit: I should mention the 6 banshee's and 1 death slaad would count only as a hard encounter by CR weight. (because it'd calculate out as 3 CR 4's and 1 CR 10).

[Malifice]

One thing that you might consider when converting minions to 5e is to give all minions DR/resistance equal to their CR. Or maybe half that.

So that level 12 ogre minion only has 1hp, but if you poke him for 5 damage he ignores it. For one thing - it keeps Magic Missile from being as dominant against them. :P

That way you keep the low bookkeeping value of minions, but it keeps the world more internally consistent with the mechanics.

Just my $0.02.

Hey man, that's not a bad idea!

[Malifice]

What level range are you dealing with?

High level at present is where the problems have started to rear their head.

But ideally I'd like a system that I could plug and play from first level onwards.

[EvilAnagram]

High level at present is where the problems have started to rear their head.

But ideally I'd like a system that I could plug and play from first level onwards.

So, I typically use a x6 rule after level 8. If the CR×6 is less than or equal to the average PC level, then I minionize them.

When an enemy becomes a minion, i give it a +2 or +3 to attacks, +1 die damage, and 1HP. This keeps them dangerous, but manageable.

I like the idea of DR5 for minions of CR 2+ mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but I also give bigger creatures (an inexact group, but basically big brutes) the Relentless Endurance feature. This way, the bigger creatures still feel like they take a bit of effort to bring down, but the PCs still feel badass doing it.

[Baptor]

Can we just presume that one shotting monster mooks is something I and my group are ok with?

Seriously. Cut out telling me they and I aren't cool with it.

I'm just looking for a way to do it simply and elegantly without weird rules interactions.

This seems to be a recurring problem on this board. There was another thread on here where I explained that I and my players were unsatisfied with magic items and the rules for making them in the DMG. The general response we got was, "No you're not. You're completely satisfied," as if 5e were so sacrosanct and without flaw that we weren't permitted to have feelings or opinions that were contrary to it.


One thing that you might consider when converting minions to 5e is to give all minions DR/resistance equal to their CR. Or maybe half that.

So that level 12 ogre minion only has 1hp, but if you poke him for 5 damage he ignores it. For one thing - it keeps Magic Missile from being as dominant against them. :P

That way you keep the low bookkeeping value of minions, but it keeps the world more internally consistent with the mechanics.

Just my $0.02.

This is really good. Although for me and my house, we'd probably use the proficiency bonus and not challenge rating as I create a lot of my own monsters and I don't usually bother with challenge rating since I know the game well enough to balance encounters without it. Plus I love the proficiency mechanic. :)

[Citan]

In my experience, neither of those situations happens. Let's use an example combat from a real-world session I ran.
I'm sorry but...
1) I never doubted how fun can be large-scale games, I make a few sometimes too when I play with warring players.

2) Taking one particular example, in which it seems the party came in full-strength and making a low-risk bet that this will be the only fight of the day, does not make a case.
Obviously if you know there will be a long-rest after an encounter you don't care about being overkill in what you do.

3) Technically when dealing against such large groups, party will have to rely on AOE anyways, either to block mobility, ways or action, or simply batch kill, whichever is easier...
And a lvl 13 party definitely has some spells that sure-kill creatures with less than 20 HP.
Which is the case of the creatures you chose as base for minions -hobgoblins-. Which in addition don't have anything particular beyond having a slightly better damage with close allies, they "just attack".
So if for whatever reason mass-killing wasn't an option, just a Wind Wall / Wall of Fire / Sleet Storm or similar would have been enough to deter them.
So in that particular case its being minions or not (having 1 or 11 HP) probably didn't make any difference about what the most efficient way to go was with party's current abilities and available resources.

For characters of that level, most creatures with less than CR1 can be already considered "minion" anyways.

Mal was talking about reducing to 1 HP creatures that would otherwise require single-target full focus from one or several martials, or single-target debuff, or mid/high level direct damage spell, because they boast impressive HP and defense or dangerous special abilities.

Which is a completely different thing.



He is obviously not interested in your idea and wishes to use minions. Let it go.
It's not your problem, don't be an ass about it please. Also, if you actually paid attention, you would have realized that I strongly plussed CharonsHelper's idea because I feel this would resolve the 1 HP problem breaking balance and immersion.
So I daresay I'm being open and constructive here. Check yourself.

[EvilAnagram]

2) Taking one particular example, in which it seems the party came in full-strength and making a low-risk bet that this will be the only fight of the day, does not make a case. Obviously if you know there will be a long-rest after an encounter you don't care about being overkill in what you do.
They actually had already had a minor encounter, saw the enemy alerting their main force of the attack, and knew the central tower housed a cloud giant with an unknown level of support. On dealing with that, they expected the main force to try to retake this camp, while they held it and waited for reinforcements. As we closed that session, the party met up with some allies, and an advanced force of wyvern-riders arrived. One of them True-Polymorphed into an adult red dragon.

Your assumptions are incorrect.


3) Technically when dealing against such large groups, party will have to rely on AOE anyways, and lvl 13 party definitely has some that sure-kill creatures with less than 20 HP, so in that particular case your goblins having 1 or 11 HP didn't make any difference.
The hobgoblins have 22 HP standard.


It's not your problem, don't be an ass about it please. Also, if you actually paid attention, you would have realized that I strongly plussed CharonsHelper's idea because I feel this would resolve the 1 HP problem.
So I daresay I'm being open and constructive here. Check yourself.
I genuinely don't believe that asking you to stop bothering someone who has repeatedly expressed disinterest in what you're selling is being an ass, especially if you refuse to do so.

[MaxWilson]

The hobgoblins have 22 HP standard.

Standard Hobgoblins have 11 HP in the 5E MM.

[Unoriginal]

Have you considered making the mooks and the Boss share the same health pool and make the mooks die as the pool is depleted

[EvilAnagram]

Standard Hobgoblins have 11 HP in the 5E MM.
You are correct. I was thinking of the gnoll horde they'd faced in an earlier arc.

I used similar minion rules for that one.

[Segev]

It might be worthwhile to consider re-exploring mass combat minis games if we want to really examine minion mechanics. If you have massed minions of the same stats, might it not be easier to simply assume a statistical average of minions making/failing saves, calculating percent of total unit hit points lost, and ...no, I take that back, the considerations are becoming more cumbersome as I go.

Drat.

What I was going to suggest would involve calculating unit damage and hit point totals as blobs, and removing numbers of individual minions from the whole as damage accumulates. Then assume statistical averages for to-hit rolls to determine how many minions hit a target they're all focusing on, and average damage for each one of those that do.

I like playing minionmancers. This means that having rules which streamline their use so I'm not taking umpteen turns to my fellow players' one each is desirable to me.

[Knaight]

I'm just looking for a way to do it simply and elegantly without weird rules interactions.

That ship sailed a long time ago, specifically when the rest of the system was built around minion-excluding to minion-hostile mechanics.

With that said - CR based DR could work, as could similar mechanics. For instance, you could introduce a kill threshold (KT), where you need to deal KT to a minion in a single turn to bring it down. This helps obviate problems where attackers relying on more of a death of a thousand cuts approach (e.g. fighters using two weapons) aren't disadvantaged compared to attackers relying on one big strike (e.g. cantrips).

KT also replaces HP, so instead of HP and DR you have KT, and if the monster has DR anyways it can stick around and represent whatever it's representing. The extra tracking is also all player side, they have to total their damage and you just do the one comparison.

I'd also shy away from using CR alone to determine KT. CR+Size Modifier+Con Modifier is a bit more complex, but it's a one time calculation made ahead of time and it intuitively fits a bit better.

[Pex]

That ship sailed a long time ago, specifically when the rest of the system was built around minion-excluding to minion-hostile mechanics.

With that said - CR based DR could work, as could similar mechanics. For instance, you could introduce a kill threshold (KT), where you need to deal KT to a minion in a single turn to bring it down. This helps obviate problems where attackers relying on more of a death of a thousand cuts approach (e.g. fighters using two weapons) aren't disadvantaged compared to attackers relying on one big strike (e.g. cantrips).

KT also replaces HP, so instead of HP and DR you have KT, and if the monster has DR anyways it can stick around and represent whatever it's representing. The extra tracking is also all player side, they have to total their damage and you just do the one comparison.

I'd also shy away from using CR alone to determine KT. CR+Size Modifier+Con Modifier is a bit more complex, but it's a one time calculation made ahead of time and it intuitively fits a bit better.

If you're abandoning the one hit point and that's it original model, then you're reinventing the wheel. At this point you might as well avoid the busy work and use the monsters as they already are in 5E proper. I've never played 4E. I'll take it for granted the minion idea worked. At this point I'm thinking it worked because the abilities 4E PCs have were created within the same framework as minions. An Encounter ability could exist where the whole point or effective use of it is to take out the minions. 5E PC abilities were created with the framework of 5E monsters, without minions. Trying to bring minions back is disrupting things, ergo the feel of need of DR, Wound System, and now this Kill Threshold.

I'm not meaning here don't do it how dare you. This perspective point is to think whether all this work is really worth it. You liked 4E minions. Great. But now you're adding in complications when you wanted simplicity. Maybe the game mechanics just won't work or at least not efficient or elegant enough to be worth the difference than what already exists. It's the parable of what looks good on paper isn't so good in practice.

If you really don't mind this extra work and the difference is significant enough for you to be worth it, very well.

[Knaight]

If you're abandoning the one hit point and that's it original model, then you're reinventing the wheel. At this point you might as well avoid the busy work and use the monsters as they already are in 5E proper. I've never played 4E. I'll take it for granted the minion idea worked. At this point I'm thinking it worked because the abilities 4E PCs have were created within the same framework as minions. An Encounter ability could exist where the whole point or effective use of it is to take out the minions. 5E PC abilities were created with the framework of 5E monsters, without minions. Trying to bring minions back is disrupting things, ergo the feel of need of DR, Wound System, and now this Kill Threshold.

Bingo. The same thing applies to Savage Worlds, Chronica Feudalis, REIGN, and basically any other game with minions.

[CharonsHelper]

Wow.

That is actually a great lead to keep Malifice's initial idea, simple and elegant. :)
No time left to think about it for now, of course there is some value tweaking to do, but it may indeed be close to the working solution for the "glass creature that can be brushed off without any effort" flaw. ;=)

GG!


Hey man, that's not a bad idea!


This is really good. Although for me and my house, we'd probably use the proficiency bonus and not challenge rating as I create a lot of my own monsters and I don't usually bother with challenge rating since I know the game well enough to balance encounters without it. Plus I love the proficiency mechanic. :)

Aww - thanks. :redface:

I took the 4e minion thing as an inspiration for something in my own game. Armor is damage reduction in my system, so the total mooks (nothing as official as minons due to limited AOEs etc. not needing special rules) mostly still have a few points of damage reduction. So - I just spit-balled using that for 5e.

[Coidzor]

It might be worthwhile to consider re-exploring mass combat minis games if we want to really examine minion mechanics. If you have massed minions of the same stats, might it not be easier to simply assume a statistical average of minions making/failing saves, calculating percent of total unit hit points lost, and ...no, I take that back, the considerations are becoming more cumbersome as I go.

Drat.

What I was going to suggest would involve calculating unit damage and hit point totals as blobs, and removing numbers of individual minions from the whole as damage accumulates. Then assume statistical averages for to-hit rolls to determine how many minions hit a target they're all focusing on, and average damage for each one of those that do.

I like playing minionmancers. This means that having rules which streamline their use so I'm not taking umpteen turns to my fellow players' one each is desirable to me.

So basically updating the idea of a unit or mob of creatures to 5e?

The only real issue there is that you have to invent an entirely new creature each time.

[MaxWilson]

It might be worthwhile to consider re-exploring mass combat minis games if we want to really examine minion mechanics. If you have massed minions of the same stats, might it not be easier to simply assume a statistical average of minions making/failing saves, calculating percent of total unit hit points lost, and ...no, I take that back, the considerations are becoming more cumbersome as I go.

Drat.

What I was going to suggest would involve calculating unit damage and hit point totals as blobs, and removing numbers of individual minions from the whole as damage accumulates. Then assume statistical averages for to-hit rolls to determine how many minions hit a target they're all focusing on, and average damage for each one of those that do.

I like playing minionmancers. This means that having rules which streamline their use so I'm not taking umpteen turns to my fellow players' one each is desirable to me.

It's not really difficult to manage a couple of dozen minions through standard 5E rules. This is true whether it's two dozen skeletons from the PC Necromancer, or two dozen Enkidu or orcs who are fighting the PCs. The worst part is just the HP tracking, but IME players are pretty amenable to the DM simplifying on the fly, e.g. saying, "I'm always just going to assume that you're attacking the most-damaged creature." Then you track the HP of the currenly-most-damaged creature, and scratch off numbers on a tally every time it reaches zero. This method means that you can still accidentally "overkill" creatures (28 damage against a 4 HP creature still only kills one creature) and in some ways it's even easier than the "group blob of HP" method.

The actual mechanics of rolling 20 attacks or saves at once are not that hard as long as you just buy a lot of dice. Roll 20 d20s, count how many of them are >= the target number, multiply by average damage, done. Easy peasy.

(As an aside, this is the scenario where THAC0-type calculation shines. Subtracting to-hit from AC once, and then looking to see how many d20s meet or exceed that number, is a lot more efficient than adding to-hit to twenty d20s and comparing all twenty results to the AC.)

[the secret fire]

It's not really difficult to manage a couple of dozen minions through standard 5E rules. This is true whether it's two dozen skeletons from the PC Necromancer, or two dozen Enkidu or orcs who are fighting the PCs...The actual mechanics of rolling 20 attacks or saves at once are not that hard as long as you just buy a lot of dice. Roll 20 d20s, count how many of them are >= the target number, multiply by average damage, done. Easy peasy.

Yep. This is why I called OP's idea "a solution that is looking for a problem". While I am sympathetic to anything that makes a DM's life easier, I simply do not see what is so hard about dealing with large numbers of weak monsters within the published rules of 5e. The drawbacks of OP's suggestion far outweigh the benefits, imo.

When dealing with the sort of monsters for which a "minion mechanic" might be appropriate, the mechanic is unnecessary, as they will go down in one blow, anyway. When dealing with more powerful monsters (like Ogres), a mechanic which makes them artificially weak for "cinematic purposes" breaks far more than it fixes, including verisimilitude, and will inevitably lead to "gamey" behavior on the part of the players.

One of the best things about 5e is that bounded accuracy has restored the dignity (read: danger) of large numbers of weak enemies. Hordes of angry small folk can pose a real challenge in 5e, and that is awesome. OP wants to throw this all away because something something ninjas. Do whatever is fun for you, but I wouldn't want any part of a table where Ogres are tough one day and weak the next because of which theme music is playing in the background.

[JackPhoenix]

(As an aside, this is the scenario where THAC0-type calculation shines. Subtracting to-hit from AC once, and then looking to see how many d20s meet or exceed that number, is a lot more efficient than adding to-hit to twenty d20s and comparing all twenty results to the AC.)

It's exactly the same. Substract the creatures' attack bonus from AC, and you'll get the minimum number that must be rolled to hit. Then just look how many rolls met or exceeded that number.

[Kane0]

Sidethought, these minion rules would be fantastic if the PCs were dropped into the Abyss or a Blood War battlefield. Literally countless fiends just lining up to have a go at the PCs, just a matter of time before they are overrun no matter how many you slaughter (and don't forget their resistances).

[Asmotherion]

I see that as a good thing. AoE effects can be placed to deal with minions, and warlocks, monks and fighters get a cool niche (gunning down multiple minions per turn). GWM and Rogues and Paladins and 'spike damage' types can focus on the main Baddies. Plus - you never know which creatures are minions and which are by the book baddies (its a trait that the DM can use if he wants to).

One fireball = make saves = no effect, fail saves = remove from board. Removes a lot of time consuming damage rolling, and recording and math.

But yes; sleep could be OP in this example seeing as it targets HP directly and has no save. Potentially removes dozens of minions with one 1st level spell.

Any other examples of spells or effects that could break this?

Like Sleep, Colour Spray also deals in "xDiceSize" formula, wich is devastating in such an encounter.

Overall, I believe that, with Bounded Accuracy and CR 1/8, 1/4 and latter even 1 monsters, you can make minions challenging yet not too devastating, without limiting them to 1hp.

[MaxWilson]

It's exactly the same. Substract the creatures' attack bonus from AC, and you'll get the minimum number that must be rolled to hit. Then just look how many rolls met or exceeded that number.

We are saying the same thing: it's more efficient to do it THAC0-style by subtracting once (ac - tohit), instead of by adding twenty times (roll + tohit), but the two systems are isomorphic and can be freely converted into each other.

This has always been true, since AD&D days. Some people did (roll + tohit) back then as well, if the DM didn't want to tell what the monster's AC was. Player: "I rolled 9! That means I hit AC 5!" DM: "You hit!"

[Pex]

Like Sleep, Colour Spray also deals in "xDiceSize" formula, wich is devastating in such an encounter.

Overall, I believe that, with Bounded Accuracy and CR 1/8, 1/4 and latter even 1 monsters, you can make minions challenging yet not too devastating, without limiting them to 1hp.

Yes, but the OP doesn't want to limit minions to being those creatures. He wants tougher monsters like ogres and trolls eventually to be killed in one hit by weapon or cantrip to represent the PC being just that good these tough monsters aren't so tough anymore. Perhaps a more elegant solution is already at hand. The hit points in the Monster Manual are the averages. For a monster minion use the minimum. An ogre minion would be an ogre in every way except having only 28 hit points. A good roll on Fireball damage and a failed save wipes out a bunch. Since it still took a 3rd level spell and a bit of luck it's a sense of accomplishment even though a Fireball would not have done the trick X levels ago against normal ogres who were not minions to the party at that lower level. Two hits from a Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter warrior takes one out, such as sentry guards. The paladin lets the fighter/barbarian/ranger do that as he saves his smites for the BBEG. Rogues can get in on that action as well due to sneak attack. They have the sense of awesomeness of one action kills and their abilities matter to make that happen instead of because the monster only had one hit point.

Edit: Added missing "not"

[the secret fire]

Yes, but the OP doesn't want to limit minions to being those creatures. He wants tougher monsters like ogres and trolls eventually to be killed in one hit by weapon or cantrip to represent the PC being just that good these tough monsters aren't so tough anymore. Perhaps a more elegant solution is already at hand. The hit points in the Monster Manual are the averages. For a monster minion use the minimum. An ogre minion would be an ogre in every way except having only 28 hit points. A good roll on Fireball damage and a failed save wipes out a bunch. Since it still took a 3rd level spell and a bit of luck it's a sense of accomplishment even though a Fireball would not have done the trick X levels ago against normal ogres who were minions to the party at that lower level. Two hits from a Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter warrior takes one out, such as sentry guards. The paladin lets the fighter/barbarian/ranger do that as he saves his smites for the BBEG. Rogues can get in on that action as well due to sneak attack. They have the sense of awesomeness of one action kills and their abilities matter to make that happen instead of because the monster only had one hit point.

Yeah, using the minimum HP for a given monster is a good way of creating "minions" without making them into balloon animals. Not sure this will satisfy the OP, who seems pretty convinced that 1 HP minions on any type is a good idea, but I like this solution as a sensible middle ground.