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ShadowSiege
2008-05-18, 11:59 PM
Link to original article. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080519a)

For those that can't view it normally:

Excerpts: Minions
4th Edition Monster Manual

In today’s preview, R&D’s Stephen Schubert guides us through the development of 4E’s minions. Although they may not stay in the fight for long, they now have a more useful role than ever!

The evil baron calls for his guards, the orc chieftain leads a screaming horde in a terrible charge, the necromancer animates a dozen skeletons that rise to fight the PCs. The D&D game is full exciting scenes and encounters where the PCs must face a potentially overwhelming number of foes. In previous editions of the game, these encounters might have been filled with low-level “mooks” who would be promptly ignored by the PCs, since the PCs usually possessed sufficient AC or saving throws that they could ignore attacks from dozens of CR1 goblins or skeletons.

In the 4th Edition of D&D, we wanted to capture the concept of those creatures, but provide a rules framework that let them be a relevant part of the encounter. To this end, we created the minion role as a rules construct to allow a DM to more easily include such monster hordes.
Goals of the minion:

Drop in one hit: the minion essentially does his job if it can keep a PC occupied for a turn. Depending on its level and role, a typical monster might take four to six basic attacks to knock out. To provide the same amount of challenge, a group of four to six minions should take about the same number of actions. For a while, we considered giving minions some small amount of hit points, a small enough number that they would drop in one hit. But then we ran into a few situations where the minion would take only a few points of damage, forcing the DM to track minion hit points anyway. Eventually, we realized that the best way to make sure they go down in one hit is by giving them a single hit point. (You could think of it as if you are always doing enough damage to kill it.)

Have sufficient defenses: A PC should hit a minion at about the same rate as that PC would hit a typical monster of the same level. If the PC only misses on a natural 1, then that part of the fight becomes trivial. Thus, the minion’s defenses are set using the same scale as other monsters of its level. Similarly, while minions are meant to be easily dispatched, we didn’t want it to be too easy, so we decided that minions shouldn’t die when missed by an attack roll, even if that attack would normally deal damage on a hit. Of course, they might still die if they take damage from other sources, like walking through a wall of fire or getting hit by a Cleave from a fighter.

Have a meaningful attack: Minions shouldn’t automatically fail at their attacks, or always be hoping for a natural 20. Their attack bonus should be similar to monsters of their level, though their damage is a fraction of other monsters. One minion attacking a PC is more of a nuisance, but a group of them can be as dangerous as any monster. The damage for minions is always flat instead of rolled, which again helps speed up play as the DM only needs to roll one die for each minion.
Using Minions

A cool aspect of the minion idea is the way that you can scale your encounters as PCs progress through the Heroic, Paragon, and Epic tiers, while still using similar creature types throughout the campaign. An 8th level encounter might involve battling ogres, but later in that campaign you might have an earth titan that has enslaved an ogre tribe, and thus create a 16th level encounter with an elite earth titan and a bunch of ogre bludgeoneer minions. You can create fun Paragon-level encounters using abyssal ghouls (16th level skirmishers with 156 hp), then a few levels later stock your Epic-level encounter with abyssal ghoul myrmidons (23rd level minions).

When you use minions, you should use those of a level appropriate to the encounter you’re building. The concept of minions is to provide fun filler for encounters, not to provide a way for a 1st level character to gain 1,000+ XP for defeating a 23rd-level abyssal ghoul minion by rolling a natural 20. Minions are a rules abstraction, and one of the many tools a DM has to build exciting encounters.

Also keep your party makeup in mind when using minions, as well. PCs with attacks that target more than one enemy or that target an area will love fights against minions, and it provides a nice contrast with, say, a solo monster fight where those abilities are less useful.
--Stephen Schubert





From the Monster Manual Glossary:

Minion: Minions are designed to serve as shock troops and cannon fodder for other monsters (standard, elite, or solo). Four minions are considered to be about the same as a standard monster of their level. Minions are designed to help fill out an encounter, but they go down quickly.

A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage. Damage from an attack or from a source that doesn’t require an attack roll (such as the paladin’s divine challenge or the fighter’s cleave) also destroys a minion. However, if a minion is missed by an attack that normally deals damage on a miss, it takes no damage.

* Download the Legion Devil Minion PDF (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/Minions.zip)


Be sure to return Wednesday for a look at archons!


We finally have the excerpt on minions. Love the idea or hate it, let's discuss it!

The 1hp is an abstraction of minions dying in a single blow/blast of fire/whatever. Dealing damage on a miss won't kill them, as we've already heard from other previews. It looks like it'll be a lot more worthwhile to have a load of minions than it would be in 3e, as they'll be able to damage the PCs and not die on every attack roll. The notable lack of information is in regards to area effect spells, most prominently fireball (unless my memory is serving me incorrectly, fireball has not been previewed so we don't know how it is handled).

As for the loads of attack rolls, I've had no problems when running large groups of enemies against the PCs as long as I go about it in an orderly fashion (this may be a result of me using a battle grid where I can visually go through them, perhaps not). I think the system will work out fine, and I look forward to throwing an actual horde at the PCs.

Jayngfet
2008-05-19, 12:28 AM
I hate eveything about that, I want my mooks to last one round and not be dropped by some midget with a knife like he was nothing. I want my minions to have relative attacks, a fighter who spent years traning should hit better than some corpse with a half rotted muscle structure.

AslanCross
2008-05-19, 12:29 AM
I have to admit that while I find the concept of Lv 16 1-HP monsters is iffy, I also think that PCs should still be able to fight enemies that are weak enough to kill in one shot but still pose a significant threat.

In 3.5, it doesn't make sense to have Lv 16 characters fight lots and lots of Lv 8 Fighter NPC---general weakness notwithstanding, they are still nonetheless extremely powerful when compared to the general populace, and the population laws of D&D more or less tell us that we can't have that many grunts. On the other hand, having Lv 16 PCs fight 1st level Orc warriors is pointless.

I would've preferred it if the minions had more than 1 HP or have a scaling fixed HP. (Of course, they wouldn't do that in 4E due to their general trend of streamlining.)

Reel On, Love
2008-05-19, 12:38 AM
I would've preferred it if the minions had more than 1 HP or have a scaling fixed HP. (Of course, they wouldn't do that in 4E due to their general trend of streamlining.)

Didn't the example orc minions have more than 1 HP? Given that characters get +1 damage/2 levels you could easily scale minion HP so that a character of the same level as the minion drops it in one hit no matter what, but lower-level characters might need two or tree.

Jack Zander
2008-05-19, 12:40 AM
Yeah, while I don't particularly like the idea of 6th level fighters wading through an entire army without a scratch in 3rd edition, I don't like how 4th edition is going to make it so fighters at 30th level still can't wade through an entire army either.

I need to see the actual mechanics of this before I establish a final opinion though. It seems like you can take any monster and slap a minion template on him (which is what I feared all along) to give him 1 hp and 1/4 damage (or whatever) so that you can fight multiple big baddies without dying. (Trolls with 1 hp...)

Sounds like every monster is now a ninja. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjitsu?from=Main.InverseNinjaLaw)

Rutee
2008-05-19, 12:47 AM
...Why not just make a normal monster rather then scale Minion HP? They're scenery.

Only thing I dislike is that the system treats them as distinct entities, I suppose, but I like that they're actually /using/ minions.


I hate eveything about that, I want my mooks to last one round and not be dropped by some midget with a knife like he was nothing. I want my minions to have relative attacks, a fighter who spent years traning should hit better than some corpse with a half rotted muscle structure.
If he's supposed to be a seasoned fighter, don't make him a minion. (Unless you're intentionally subverting the idea of the elite soldier).

Swordguy
2008-05-19, 12:49 AM
This works essentially the same way as 7th Sea.

It works well there; it goes a LONG way to making PCs feel like "real heroes" instead of having to keep track of lots of modifiers and statues effects on mook NPCs. It's extremely cinematic - which seems to be in keeping with the "new" feel of D&D.

Abardam
2008-05-19, 12:54 AM
I hate eveything about that, I want my mooks to last one round and not be dropped by some midget with a knife like he was nothing. I want my minions to have relative attacks, a fighter who spent years traning should hit better than some corpse with a half rotted muscle structure.A. The entire goal was for them to die in one hit.

B. It's not a challenge if you never get hit ever (e.g. mid-level adventurers vs CR 1 goons)

C. Not all minions are "corpses with half-rotted muscle structure". If you look at the legion devil excerpt, you get: legion devil grunts, hellguards, veterans, and finally legionnaires. All of which are minions.

Jack Zander
2008-05-19, 12:57 AM
If he's supposed to be a seasoned fighter, don't make him a minion. (Unless you're intentionally subverting the idea of the elite soldier).

I think the complaint is about minions being able to hit high level fighters because minions attack bonuses are still on par with PCs defenses. I could be the mistaken one though.

Trog
2008-05-19, 01:00 AM
It seems like the whole point of minions is that, as a DM, you don't send higher level minions at the PCs... you send one more close to their level. That way you do not undermine the tougher monsters. But as the characters get good enough that they begin to take down monsters in a shot or two it's about time to make them official minions according to the rules. Honestly I don't see what all the complaining is about. The system seems fine as long as the DM has half a brain, not into yoga, likes piña coladas, etc.

TheOOB
2008-05-19, 01:08 AM
Minions have been around in RPGs for years, and it's about time D&D picked them up. Minions are a simple book-keeping tool for DMs to allow them to send hoards of foes agienst the party without having to keep track of a bunch more variables. Properly leveled minions(in comparison to your own level) are still a threat it a group, they hit fairly often, and their combined damage can add up over time, but you can kill them quickly if you work on it, especially if you have area of effect spells (I imagine controllers will be quite quite useful in dealing with minions, it's almost like they're designed for it :P). Lower level minions will be very little challenge to the players, they will rarely hit the players, and the players will rarely miss, and higher level minions will still be dangerous for the opposite reasons.

Basically, think of it like this. Instead of having one zombie thats a threat, you are taking the same zombie and taking the hits it will take to kill it (and it's damage potential) and dividing it among 4 to 6 creatures.

Animefunkmaster
2008-05-19, 01:10 AM
B. It's not a challenge if you never get hit ever (e.g. mid-level adventurers vs CR 1 goons)

It might not be a challenge, but it sure makes you feel special. Remember Belkar's sexy shoe-less god of war?

Skyserpent
2008-05-19, 03:53 AM
I actually kinda like it. I want my minions going down in one hit. I don't CARE if they're the elite stormtroopers of the empire. If I hack him with a sword, I want him to STAY DOWN. They get a few good stabs in, yeah, but all in all, it's the numbers that make them a threat. Not the individual strengths, so I should be able to reap a SWATH through these ****ers...

I NEED to stop TYPING in this ridiculous MANNER.

Moak
2008-05-19, 04:52 AM
Yeah, while I don't particularly like the idea of 6th level fighters wading through an entire army without a scratch in 3rd edition, I don't like how 4th edition is going to make it so fighters at 30th level still can't wade through an entire army either.


Can't wade trough an entire army of HIS LEVEL...he can't wade trought a legion of powerful devils like they are kobolds...

But if you take that same fighter and put into an army of 5 level lower he will probably take like no-hit.

Put that hyper fighter against a standard paragorn-level army and probably those minion will explode on sight.

On a personal note,I love that an appropriate boss of a low level can easy become an appropriate standard soldier for an higher level with no troubles...

Tengu
2008-05-19, 04:54 AM
Except for the "misses don't kill minions if they deal damage" part (what's the point?) that was already discussed to death in another thread, it seems that 4e handles mooks better than Exalted. And it's a huge accomplishment for DND to do anything better than Exalted (apart from selling).

kamikasei
2008-05-19, 05:26 AM
I think I like this.


I hate eveything about that, I want my mooks to last one round and not be dropped by some midget with a knife like he was nothing. I want my minions to have relative attacks, a fighter who spent years traning should hit better than some corpse with a half rotted muscle structure.

I don't understand.

Minions will last one round generally, that's the point. They won't be dropped as if they're nothing unless the player can hit them. And I literally don't understand your second sentence at all - what are you trying to say?


If he's supposed to be a seasoned fighter, don't make him a minion. (Unless you're intentionally subverting the idea of the elite soldier).

I'm wondering is there a misconception at work where some people seem to think that anyone who is subordinate to another NPC is a minion of that NPC and therefore is of the "minion" type. I'm thinking of whoever on an earlier thread was talking about "declaring your subservience" mid-turn in order to become a minion and gain immunity to missed attacks.

xirr2000
2008-05-19, 05:31 AM
I like the minion concept, a lot. They're mooks, but not mooks you can ignore. In 3.x mooks were much lower level than the PCs, low enough to not even give xp in some cases, but sometimes tough enough to last more than a round, yet too weak to even damage the PCs. Literally all they did was suck up some resources on the part of spellcasters. If that's all you want to do, I think the minion concept is a much funner way to do it. And it just makes a little more sense from a "give a fight a good feel" point of view rather than fill a field of battle with overwhelming odds that still get beat by the higher level heroes. In the 4e playtesting I've run with my gamer buddies, the feel is that even "mookfights" you have to be on your toes cuz if you ignore them, you will get pasted. I like this, every fight require you to be on your toes.

One of the more interesting fights I'd had in 3.x was when our DM decided he wanted to give a fight that was an appropriate CR for our lvl 15 group, but do it using only creatures that were barely tough enough to give us xp. The result was a cave full of goblins with some PC levels thrown in. They came in waves, 1st wave was goblin fighters, 2nd was goblin Ninjas ( still brings a smile to my face :smallsmile: ), 3rd was the clerics and last was the goblins flying around on giant bees. Yes, giant bees. There we many of them, so many that although the fight was interesting it was also a bit ridiculous. Even though it was technically supposed to challenge us there was never any doubt about the outcome, just took a long time to play out the fight. Would have been a great place for minions.

Minions make great bodyguards, tough enough you can't ignore them and go after the BBEG or else they will wail on you until you drop the BBEG, but will suck up resources and time without stealing any thunder from more important villain characters. The perfect villainous red-shirts :smallsmile:

Abardam
2008-05-19, 05:38 AM
It might not be a challenge, but it sure makes you feel special. Remember Belkar's sexy shoe-less god of war?"So, do you want to tell him that he probably won't get any XP from them?"

(And I don't know about you, but defeating a challenge of my level makes me feel more special. Eh, maybe I'm just too metagamey.)

Morty
2008-05-19, 05:50 AM
Ugh. I mean, ewwww. Everything in this article is horrible. I utterly despise the whole concept of "PCs wading through legions of mooks killing everyone in one hit". It's stupid in books and movies and it's even dumber in a tabletop game. If I want PCs to face more weaker enemies, I'll give them bigger number of lower-level monsters or NPCs, but I certainly won't use 1HP redshirts. The only real use I see for minions are noncombatants attempting to fight(1st level minions ought to represent them quite nicely) or things like zombies.
Overall, this preview and whole minion mechanics is made of fail.

Tengu
2008-05-19, 05:55 AM
If I want PCs to face more weaker enemies, I'll give them bigger number of lower-level monsters or NPCs, but I certainly won't use 1HP redshirts.

So it's more interesting to fight one-hit mooks that can't even hurt you than one-hit mooks that can still be a viable threat? Curious.

Turcano
2008-05-19, 05:56 AM
I like the minion concept, a lot. They're mooks, but not mooks you can ignore. In 3.x mooks were much lower level than the PCs, low enough to not even give xp in some cases, but sometimes tough enough to last more than a round, yet too weak to even damage the PCs. Literally all they did was suck up some resources on the part of spellcasters.

If your groups of low-level monsters aren't giving your party a challenge, I submit that you're just not playing them right (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/).

Morty
2008-05-19, 06:04 AM
So it's more interesting to fight one-hit mooks that can't even hurt you than one-hit mooks that can still be a viable threat? Curious.

No, I prefer not fighting one-hit mooks at all. If a monster or a NPC is lower level than the PCs it doesn't mean he/she/it will die in one hit. Of course, I prefer fighting small number of serious enemies, but sometimes, circumstances force PCs to face something or someone weaker than them.

Tengu
2008-05-19, 06:12 AM
No, I prefer not fighting one-hit mooks at all. If a monster or a NPC is lower level than the PCs it doesn't mean he/she/it will die in one hit. Of course, I prefer fighting small number of serious enemies, but sometimes, circumstances force PCs to face something or someone weaker than them.

How fun is it to fight enemies who cannot do anything to you, but take several blows to kill?

Morty
2008-05-19, 06:17 AM
How fun is it to fight enemies who cannot do anything to you, but take several blows to kill?

Why can't they do anything? I don't think a monster 2 or so levels lower than PCs won't be able to do anything to them. Sure, they won't hit as often, but there are more of them, so it averages out, especially since 4ed monster levels seem to work much better than 3ed less-than-perfect CR. And beating up monsters who won't do much to you most of the time isn't really less fun than fighting redshirts who can do something to you but will die in one hit, which feels uncomfortably like an action movie.

Tengu
2008-05-19, 06:24 AM
Well, I don't mind action movies. And hacking your way through hordes of mooks is not limited to them - even Witcher in his grimdark world did it.

Although if you really don't like these rules, just don't use them. The whole system won't fall apart if the players don't fight any minions.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-19, 06:25 AM
This is (almost) the same thing used in Spycraft for "mooks"... (well, those mooks make a save based on how much damage they have taken, if they fail they die. Same principle)

I like it a lot, it makes the game more dramatic and easier on the DM.

Bender
2008-05-19, 06:28 AM
I can see this working. No more meaningless tracking of minion hit points.

My best guess about the fireball thing is that the minions that the minions you hit (int attack vs reflex or something like that) die, and the minions you miss live, where they would normally get miss damage. So you don't wipe out the entire army with one fireball, there are always some who survive, which makes sense to me.

Morty
2008-05-19, 06:28 AM
Well, I don't mind action movies. And hacking your way through hordes of mooks is not limited to them - even Witcher in his grimdark world did it.

I don't mind action movies either, neither do I mind heroes from the books hacking through weak mooks. But I don't want my games to look like that.
On a side note, I don't think Witcher is a good example, as killing people with one blow or shot worked both ways there, unlike here.


Although if you really don't like these rules, just don't use them. The whole system won't fall apart if the players don't fight any minions.

Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that I find this particular mechanics very bad.

warmachine
2008-05-19, 06:45 AM
To me, this is more evidence of a shift towards more tactical play and action adventure film logic. I like tactics, even though action adventure logic leaves a funny taste in the mouth.

I can see some clashes between tactician and butt-kicker players.

"Next time orcs run past you towards me, chase them."

"Why? I was after the big bad villian and his guards."

"I was getting my head kicked in as I could only hit one a turn with Magic Missile."

"You took care of them."

"I have better, area effect spells to cast, such as Fireball, which I can't use against closeby enemies."

"They're Minions. Just him them. Or get the Cleric to help you."

"Wizards suck at hand-to-hand and Clerics don't have Cleave. You can rip up Minions at a much faster rate."

"They're Minions. Anyone can deal with them and I was taking on the BBEG's elite guards."

"You can take down multiple Minions easily and we needed to cut down the enemy numbers so we could concentrate on the BBEG as a team effort...."

Tsotha-lanti
2008-05-19, 07:03 AM
Well, I don't mind action movies. And hacking your way through hordes of mooks is not limited to them - even Witcher in his grimdark world did it.

In fact, it's a staple of every single fantasy anything, ever. Look at R. E. Howard's Conan and Michael Moorcock's Elric stories - two powerful archetypes of 20th-century fantasy. Wading hip-deep in the blood of hapless opponents who individually cannot hope to match the hero, but en masse can still prove his undoing - it's part of the genre. D&D owes, aside from the names of the races and the party model, way more to Howard than to Tolkien. And you still get this sort of fighting in LotR and Silmarillion anyway.

Whether you're Conan, Elric, or Aragorn, hacking down hordes of inferior enemies is an essential staple of fantasy. Arguing against it while still wanting to play the most cliche-ridden - cliche-creating, in fact! - fantasy RPG there ever was is just silly.


Anyway, this is a splendid way to do it - taking a page from 7th Sea indeed. The old problem of using mooks (i.e. they cannot actually wear the PC down at all) has been solved, but they're still appropriately weak opponents.

Morty
2008-05-19, 07:16 AM
In fact, it's a staple of every single fantasy anything, ever. Look at R. E. Howard's Conan and Michael Moorcock's Elric stories - two powerful archetypes of 20th-century fantasy. Wading hip-deep in the blood of hapless opponents who individually cannot hope to match the hero, but en masse can still prove his undoing - it's part of the genre. D&D owes, aside from the names of the races and the party model, way more to Howard than to Tolkien. And you still get this sort of fighting in LotR and Silmarillion anyway.

Whether you're Conan, Elric, or Aragorn, hacking down hordes of inferior enemies is an essential staple of fantasy. Arguing against it while still wanting to play the most cliche-ridden - cliche-creating, in fact! - fantasy RPG there ever was is just silly.


In other words, people should suck it up and use cliches they don't like because, many years ago, Gygax created 1st edition D&D under their inspiration?

KIDS
2008-05-19, 07:22 AM
This is quite nice. Though I'm a bit leery of high level minions (ogre bludgeoneers, wtf?), I can see many uses for those at lower levels and adding a lot of fun to my encounters.

Charity
2008-05-19, 07:22 AM
No room for mooks in my fantasy (http://img-nex.theonering.net/images/ttt_promo/helms_deep_big.jpg)

:smallsigh:

SamTheCleric
2008-05-19, 07:24 AM
Legion Devil
The armies of the Nine Hells are largely made up of legion devils-- cruel, pitiless warriors that gather in countless numbers from the scorched plains of Avernus to the deepest chasms of Nessus. Brutally disciplined, legion devils haven't the slightest regard for their on existence and live to crush their masters' foes beneath their iron-shot heels.

Legion Devil Grunt - Level 6 Minion

Medium Immortal Humanoid (Devil) - XP 63
Initiative +4 Sense Perception +4; Darkvision
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion
AC 22; Fortitude 18, Reflex 17, Will 17; see also Squad Defense
Resist 5 fire
Speed 6, teleport 3
Longsword (standard; at-will) - Weapon
+11 vs. AC; 5 damage
Squad Defense
The legion devil grunt gains a +2 bonus to its defenses when adjacent to at least one other legion devil.
Alignment Evil Languages Supernal
Str 14 (+5) Dex 12 (+4) Wis 12 (+4)
Con 14 (+5) Int 10 (+3) Cha 12 (+4)
Equipment plate armor, heavy shield, longsword

Legion Devil Hellguard - Level 11 Minion

Medium Immortal humanoid (devil) - XP 150
Intiative +6 Senses Perceotion +6; darkvision
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion
AC 27; Fortitude 23, Reflex 22, Will 22; See also Squad Defense
Resist 10 fire
Speed 6, teleport 3
Longsword (standard; at-will) - Weapon
+16 vs AC; 6 damage
Squad Defense
The legion devil hellguard gains a +2 bonus to its defenses when adjacent to at least one other legion devil
Alignment Evil Languages Supernal
Str 14 (+7) Dex 12 (+6) Wis 12 (+6)
Con 14 (+7) Int 10 (+5) Cha 12 (+6)
Equipment Plate Armor, Heavy Shield, Longsword

Legion Devil Veteran - Level 16 Minion

Medium Immortal Humanoid (devil) - XP 350
Intiative +9 Senses Perceotion +9; darkvision
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion
AC 32; Fortitude 28, Reflex 27, Will 27; See also Squad Defense
Resist 10 fire
Speed 7, teleport 3
Longsword (standard; at-will) - Weapon
+21 vs AC; 7 damage
Squad Defense
The legion devil hellguard gains a +2 bonus to its defenses when adjacent to at least one other legion devil
Alignment Evil Languages Supernal
Str 14 (+10) Dex 12 (+9) Wis 12 (+9)
Con 14 (+10) Int 10 (+8) Cha 12 (+9)
Equipment Plate Armor, Heavy Shield, Longsword

Legion Devil Legionnaire - Level 21 Minion

Medium Immortal Humanoid (devil) - XP 800
Intiative +11 Senses Perceotion +11; darkvision
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion
AC 37; Fortitude 33, Reflex 32, Will 32; See also Squad Defense
Resist 15 fire
Speed 7, teleport 3
Longsword (standard; at-will) - Weapon
+26 vs AC; 8 damage
Squad Defense
The legion devil hellguard gains a +2 bonus to its defenses when adjacent to at least one other legion devil
Alignment Evil Languages Supernal
Str 14 (+12) Dex 12 (+11) Wis 12 (+11)
Con 14 (+12) Int 10 (+10) Cha 12 (+11)
Equipment Plate Armor, Heavy Shield, Longsword

Legion Devil Tactics
Legion devils are regimented soldiers that work together to overwhelm foes. They can teleport short distances to gain flanking or position itself adjacent to an ally in order to gain the squad defense benefit.

Jarlax
2008-05-19, 07:31 AM
every thread, every supplement, every discussion, houserule or DM trick for staging large scale combat has just been solved in a core rulebook. keeping track of armies on a large scale is a huge problem, except when you can field an army of minions. each side have an single attack bonus and defense value, so i deploy my dice roll program or bucket-O-dice and you got yourself large scale combat.

every hit is a kill and every miss is a miss. throw in some standard monsters as generals (or more importantly, the party) and your battle complexity hasn't gone up by that much. each turn you roll 1 dice for every living minon on side A and every attack that hits kills and removes a minion on side B.

and like i said before, this is a situation that you can place your party into, cutting a swathe of destruction through the middle of an army to face down the general (a solo monster with maybe 2 regular monsters as lieutenants) they get XP for any minions they fight along the way and maybe a few fight back, but its a battle so not every minion in an adjacent square is automatically going to attack the party, they are heroes and even a minion knows better that to provoke a PC, it would be suicide!

Jack Mann
2008-05-19, 07:31 AM
Ugh. I mean, ewwww. Everything in this article is horrible. I utterly despise the whole concept of "PCs wading through legions of mooks killing everyone in one hit". It's stupid in books and movies and it's even dumber in a tabletop game. If I want PCs to face more weaker enemies, I'll give them bigger number of lower-level monsters or NPCs, but I certainly won't use 1HP redshirts. The only real use I see for minions are noncombatants attempting to fight(1st level minions ought to represent them quite nicely) or things like zombies.
Overall, this preview and whole minion mechanics is made of fail.

From a realism standpoint, it's more likely to take them down in one hit than to need ten to take down their boss. Granted, D&D isn't meant to be a grim-and-gritty game (especially since the same logic would apply to PCs), but not every enemy needs their own dramatic fight to the finish. This also makes the more powerful enemies seem more special.

Charity
2008-05-19, 08:10 AM
All power to the mighty mooks!

I like what they've done with minions, it makes sense to me and speaks of epic battles yet to be had.
Easy to run, heroic in feel, but still threatening enough to fear, works for me.

I'm glad they have explicitly stated that minions should be level appropriate, that was a small area of concern, one hit wonders worth a thousand xp at 1st level seemed a little wrong, I'm pleased they put that straight.

Citizen Joe
2008-05-19, 08:35 AM
You just know someone is going to invent the Transform Elite into Minion spell and ruin it for everyone.

Actually, this could be resolved by keeping minions as normal creatures but granting the ability of Slay Minion at some level. This basically one shots creatures that are X levels below you (maybe 4?) Maybe Disable Minion may be a better description. The idea would be something like renders 'minion' helpless for the duration of the encounter.

Starsinger
2008-05-19, 08:39 AM
every thread, every supplement, every discussion, houserule or DM trick for staging large scale combat has just been solved in a core rulebook.

Oh! The possibility of a DW style game with mooks just hit me! Thank you Jarlax!

On the general topic of mooks, now level one adventurers who assault gnome villages don't have to worry with numbers that don't make as much sense. "Why are there only 6 or so gnomes in this village?" "Because gnomes have as much hp as half of us and it's really a crapshoot to kill bunches of gnomes at this level." Now you can just have most of the village be filled with gnomish mooks.

Jack Mann
2008-05-19, 08:43 AM
In other words, people should just suck it up and use a chliches they don't like because, long ago, Gygax was inspired by them when creating 1st edition D&D?

The idea of mooks is used because it works. And again, if we're to be honest, the unrealistic part is how PCs and powerful monsters can take a number of hits before going down. If combat were realistic, half the time, a single hit would, at the least, take someone out of combat, even if it didn't kill them outright. We don't have it work like that because D&D is a combat-oriented game, and if we ran it that way, few characters would last more than a few sessions. However, there's no reason we can't let mooks fall down like real people do.

It also works from a dramatic standpoint. It makes the hero seem powerful. And make no mistake, D&D is a game of heroic fantasy. In D&D, you are a unique snowflake, at least in terms of the game world. You do things that most people can't do, even if you are just a fighter or a rogue. You're the guy they call in when no one else can save the day. You can do things beyond what any normal person could do. That's what you're there for, and by and large, that's why people play D&D. This is why D&D tends to shy away from the grim-and-gritty; it's not what the majority of players go to the game table for. They don't want to be just another Joe Shmoe who has to spend five minutes on the guard; he wants to fight a goddamned dragon! And that's what the game delivers. Encounters with minion types should be there purely to support the main event, to make the encounter with the villain more memorable. This system promises to model that well.

It also takes a good deal of bookkeeping off of the DM's hands. This might seem like laziness, but with a large number of minions around, it could slow combat down really fast.

And you can have a lot more minions with this system. In 3rd, you had a tendency, with large numbers of mooks, to either have no effect, or a TPK. If they couldn't hit the party, then they didn't matter. If they could, then the sheer number of hits would tend to take someone out pretty fast. This system seems to take that into account and keep it from being a concern.

This seems to be what most people want, M0rt. That's why Wizards is delivering it. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but Wizards is going to try and please as much of its fanbase as possible. And I'm pretty sure they're going to please a lot more people with this system than 3rd's clumsy system.

RS14
2008-05-19, 09:56 AM
Ugh. I mean, ewwww. Everything in this article is horrible. I utterly despise the whole concept of "PCs wading through legions of mooks killing everyone in one hit". It's stupid in books and movies and it's even dumber in a tabletop game.[My emphasis]
Agreed, though my complaint is more towards them shrugging off every hit than to killing everyone with a single hit. They're experienced; they should be able to land hits quickly and effectively, but a critical mass of enemies should also be able to land plenty of hits of their own. To those who expect a PC to be able to wade through an army, let me simply suggest that if an entire division fires crossbows at you, you will DIE. No dodging; nothing short of a few inches of steel all around will save you. This is an element of cinematic vs. realistic fantasy, however. Many people do enjoy cinematic games, and the "stormtrooper school of marksmanship" is, honesty, necessary for many dramatic scenes as the protagonist escapes under fire.

Almost a year ago, Kellus suggested Combat Awareness (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3229474&postcount=5), and I think it would be a brilliant system to implement here. I think we can agree that mooks should not be ignored by the PC's, but at the same time, at least a few of us want the occasional cinematic dodging. If the PC's get too many successful attacks made against them, it starts to strain verisimilitude as they carry on, particularly if those attacks deal little hp damage, yet are powerful weapons like bows. Here's a thought: PC's get a significant dodge bonus to AC against mooks who are their focus or peripherals. This way, the players are penalized for ignoring them completely, but aren't threatened by mooks who they focus their attention on. You might even want to count mooks as 1/2 for the purposes of limits on foci and peripherals, with the rational that they're less confident and less likely to act independently and effectively together.

Turcano, you submit Tucker's kobolds as the way to play minions right in 3.5, and I think that is a very illuminating suggestion. Essentially, I do not feel that it should be necessary to place enemies in a contrived and severely enhanced defensive environment simply to make use of them, as you seem to think is the case. 3.x fails in this respect, I believe, because it was created, more or less, to pit four characters against one. That one needs to be unfazed by four heroes surrounding him or her. As a result, 3.x makes flanking weak, unless you are a rogue, and gives no additional benefits to huge mobs of combatants. Four mooks around one are only twice as effective as two mooks around one. I suggest that this should not be. The suggestion of Combat Awareness at least ensures that mob tactics are effective, though such mobs of mooks still not need be deadly if their damage potential is kept limited.

kamikasei
2008-05-19, 10:01 AM
Agreed, though my complaint is more towards them shrugging off every hit than to killing everyone with a single hit. They're experienced; they should be able to land hits quickly and effectively, but a critical mass of enemies should also be able to land plenty of hits of their own. To those who expect a PC to be able to wade through an army, let me simply suggest that if an entire division fires crossbows at you, you will DIE. No dodging; nothing short of a few inches of steel all around will save you. This is an element of cinematic vs. realistic fantasy, however. Many people do enjoy cinematic games, and the "stormtrooper school of marksmanship" is, honesty, necessary for many dramatic scenes as the protagonist escapes under fire.

Do you see something in the article to indicate that minions won't be able to hit PCs with any accuracy or frequency? Could you point it out?

Jack Mann
2008-05-19, 10:10 AM
RS, dear eel, I don't think you've read through the article properly. Minions have just as much a chance to hit a PC as any other threat of that level. They aren't doing as much damage, true, but their accuracy (and armor class) are still up to snuff. The point is that they're doing enough damage that they're a threat to the PCs, but not so much that it's impossible to have a large number of enemies on the board without killing the PCs.

Sometimes, DMs want to have the PCs face a large contingent of foes. Sometimes, PCs want to go through a squad of enemies. We're not talking an entire army here, not really. But you can have, say, a dozen goblins or so facing the PCs. Or skeletons. Or royal guardsman. Who will be a threat due to their numbers. They won't do a lot of damage, but they will be hitting, and with their numbers, that damage will add up. They're still a threat. They're just a manageable one.

RS14
2008-05-19, 10:10 AM
Do you see something in the article to indicate that minions won't be able to hit PCs with any accuracy or frequency? Could you point it out?
No. I was simply arguing trying to illustrate that this is a step in the right direction from 3.x.

Edit (simul):


Sometimes, DMs want to have the PCs face a large contingent of foes. Sometimes, PCs want to go through a squad of enemies. We're not talking an entire army here, not really. But you can have, say, a dozen goblins or so facing the PCs. Or skeletons. Or royal guardsman. Who will be a threat due to their numbers. They won't do a lot of damage, but they will be hitting, and with their numbers, that damage will add up. They're still a threat. They're just a manageable one.
But this exasperates the difficulty a DM may have in attempting to describe hits as dealing damage. There are only so many ways you can be just scratched by an arrow. I feel it is necessary to give the PC's some way to avoid that hit to begin with while still forcing them to pay attention to mooks. 4e will do the latter, but not the former.

kamikasei
2008-05-19, 10:18 AM
No. I was simply arguing trying to illustrate that this is a step in the right direction from 3.x.

Ah, I see. The quote in your post started with "everything in this article is horrible", so you can see how I was misled when your first word of response was "agreed".

I don't really like the idea of enemies-as-scenery who literally cannot hit the players, but enemies-as-unimportant who are a credible collective threat but who don't need any great amount of "screentime" or attention in a combat do seem useful.

Crow
2008-05-19, 10:24 AM
Heck, I'll use them to give them a shot. A lot of times, I would have "minions" in 3.x go down in one hit, even if it didn't fully deplete their hitpoints. Instead of "dead", we would call it "incapacitated" (too injured to fight). It was a real pain having to keep track of mook hitpoints just because some PC's made crappy damage rolls.

I am also pleased that minions will have a decent shot at hurting the PC's and maybe even a decent chance to not get hit by them as well. It was irritating to have every redshirt need a nat20 to make a hit on the PC's.

The only bummer is that it is fun for some players go back and waste hordes of enemies which gave them difficulty on earlier levels. I hope that they have different levels of kobolds and orcs like they do for the devils.

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-19, 12:04 PM
Heck, I'll use them to give them a shot. A lot of times, I would have "minions" in 3.x go down in one hit, even if it didn't fully deplete their hitpoints. Instead of "dead", we would call it "incapacitated" (too injured to fight). It was a real pain having to keep track of mook hitpoints just because some PC's made crappy damage rolls.

I am also pleased that minions will have a decent shot at hurting the PC's and maybe even a decent chance to not get hit by them as well. It was irritating to have every redshirt need a nat20 to make a hit on the PC's.

The only bummer is that it is fun for some players go back and waste hordes of enemies which gave them difficulty on earlier levels. I hope that they have different levels of kobolds and orcs like they do for the devils.

I think the true beauty of the system will be that if there isn’t a higher level kobold mook in the book, you can simply scale up defenses and attacks so that they are the right level, You don’t even have to mess with hit die anymore, so this is really just a 5 minute job for ALL the mooks.

“Hmmmm. 5th level PC’s. Need 5th level kobold mooks…”
*Adds a small bonus to damage, attacks, defenses, maybe a little bit of weapon variety to show skill/exotic nature*
“Done.”

Whereas 3.x handled mooks just… horribly. Terribly. Not that fun for anyone. Only a 5% chance for them to hit you, and only a 5% chance for you to miss them… though they could take hit after hit sometimes.

This is something I’m definitely looking foreword to.

ShadowSiege
2008-05-19, 12:59 PM
Whether you're Conan, Elric, or Aragorn, hacking down hordes of inferior enemies is an essential staple of fantasy. Arguing against it while still wanting to play the most cliche-ridden - cliche-creating, in fact! - fantasy RPG there ever was is just silly.

Thank you so much for this inspiration. I'm going to now screw with my players in an utterly metagame way. An Elric like figure will cut through a horde of creatures (all minions, but they're indistinguishable from regular creatures in-game), each letting out an unearthly cry of pain (turns out they do that when the PCs do it to them later). Turns out it's just some albino name Alric in black dragon-styled plate armor wielding a rune-inscribed sword. He'll be a few levels lower than the party, handily defeated but not killed, and will tag along with them for a while complaining about being sunburned.

SamTheCleric: Thanks for posting the legion devil stuff. I should've thought to check if it was a true PDF that I could copy-pasta.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-19, 01:01 PM
SamTheCleric: Thanks for posting the legion devil stuff. I should've thought to check if it was a true PDF that I could copy-pasta.


I just spent the time to transcribe it into notepad while the forums were going haywire around 10am. :smallsmile:

Rutee
2008-05-19, 01:04 PM
In other words, people should suck it up and use cliches they don't like because, many years ago, Gygax created 1st edition D&D under their inspiration?

You could suck it up, let /us/ use them, and not mind them being in the book while /you/ don't use them...

Jack Mann's example of what, 12 minions? Removed some of the yuck, for me. Mostly because I kept thinking on, well, a Dynasty Warriors-ish scale, where your normal physical attack will kill 5 or 6 peons a hit, not 1, so I needed to scale my thoughts down appropriately. And yeah, Controllers seem like they'll be extra handy on minions.

Starsinger
2008-05-19, 01:10 PM
You could suck it up, let /us/ use them, and not mind them being in the book while /you/ don't use them...

Jack Mann's example of what, 12 minions? Removed some of the yuck, for me. Mostly because I kept thinking on, well, a Dynasty Warriors-ish scale, where your normal physical attack will kill 5 or 6 peons a hit, not 1, so I needed to scale my thoughts down appropriately. And yeah, Controllers seem like they'll be extra handy on minions.

I keep thinking about it on a Dynasty Warriors-ish scale, and I have to say, I'm liking what I see in my head. The PCs cut through a bunch of minions, leaving carnage and devestation in their wake. And then comes the Officers (regular monsters) and Lu Bu (an Elite) to crush them. I'm not even going to pretend to veil that either. When I first do that to my group, I'm even going to call him Lu Bu.

Morty
2008-05-19, 02:23 PM
And make no mistake, D&D is a game of heroic fantasy.

I guess I'm the only one for whom wading through minions is decidedly less heroic than fighting agains a handful of strong opponents.


You could suck it up, let /us/ use them, and not mind them being in the book while /you/ don't use them...


Sure, yeah. However, the poster I quoted seemed to imply that the dislike for "minion mechanics" itself is silly. And that's plainly not true.

Rutee
2008-05-19, 02:27 PM
Sure, yeah. However, the poster I quoted seemed to imply that the dislike for "minion mechanics" itself is silly. And that's plainly not true.

The reasons you give for them are. Realism? Disliking Cliches. While you know, all of the rest of DnD gets off with a green card on these?


I keep thinking about it on a Dynasty Warriors-ish scale, and I have to say, I'm liking what I see in my head. The PCs cut through a bunch of minions, leaving carnage and devestation in their wake. And then comes the Officers (regular monsters) and Lu Bu (an Elite) to crush them. I'm not even going to pretend to veil that either. When I first do that to my group, I'm even going to call him Lu Bu.
Mm, I dunno. The mass of peons has some helpful rules, but they're not quite as well done as others. I'm talking huge peon numbers, though, like 100.

Alyosha
2008-05-19, 02:35 PM
I like the concept of minions. If the article is correct and 6 minions = 1 elite as far as number of rounds goes, they can be a handful.

6 minions go down in one hit. In six rounds. That's 21 attacks in a six round period (if you don't have a fighter to clean them out).

Minions are easy kills, but that's not really the point. They're the swarm. Locusts are small. You can squash them underfoot. But when they all come at once, people run and there is famine in the land. Get enough of them together and they can overrun anyone.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-19, 02:36 PM
Zerg Rush!

http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Starcraft%202/Zergling%20Rush%20Small.jpg

Neon Knight
2008-05-19, 02:41 PM
You forget the "ke ke ke ke ke!"

Or the "OM NOM NOM Terrans."

fendrin
2008-05-19, 02:43 PM
I like it.

I think it will allow me to convert Red Hand of Doom into 4e and simultaneously improve it.

Starsinger
2008-05-19, 02:43 PM
Mm, I dunno. The mass of peons has some helpful rules, but they're not quite as well done as others. I'm talking huge peon numbers, though, like 100.

Ahh, I'd cheat and use squads of around 20-30 as 1 unit. Sort of like Heroes of Might and Magic does with peasants.

TSGames
2008-05-19, 02:45 PM
Minions are an interesting concept. I, however, find the mechanics to be a little off... Using a different system for minions is fine in my book, maybe even a good idea, but it seems like WotC needs a separate system for them, rather trying to adapt the abstract HP rules which were not made for this kind of scenario.

Perhaps that's a bit poorly worded... To put it better: WotC wants minions that can come in large swarms and be guaranteed to die in a certain amount of direct hits(in this case 1). Now, HP can be used to do this, but it doesn't seem optimal. In DnD, HP seems to be the amount of punishment something can take(also abstracting luck, defenses, etc...). The minions don't take punishment, or even damage really, they just take "hits." While a hit causes damage, it is not the same thing(two creatures can be hit once each and receive very different damage). It seems to me, that it would be better to have a separate system, instead of using just 1 HP; while hit points are perfect for this scenario in theory, this use doesn't fit with the practiced DnD hit points.

I suppose, if every hit does at least 1 damage(assuming they kept the "at least one" rule), and if every minion has exactly 1 HP, then there shouldn't be a problem. However, when DMs want to mix it up a little, and have minions that die in two hits, or even three, then this system is no longer really adequate. These DMs will simply end up using a HP-like system to count hits instead of punishment, and I guess what I'm really trying to say is: Wouldn't it have been easier to do that in the first place, instead of applying HP rules in an abstract way?

Drascin
2008-05-19, 02:52 PM
I guess I'm the only one for whom wading through minions is decidedly less heroic than fighting agains a handful of strong opponents.

Mostly, it's a problem that if that's the only thing they do, the PCs tend to stop feeling as accomplished. Technically and logically, everyone knows that at level 12 you're a brutal engine of destruction per the rules, but if the only things you fight is enemies in the level 11-13 range, you stop feeling... special, so to say. Minions ar a nice way to break that, and remind the characters that, yeah, they keep attracting the really dangerous people that can face them and having climactic fights with them, but there's about a 75% of the continent that they can basically obliterate in anything under platoon numbers

Hell, I have used low-HD mooks for that same purpose a couple time in my 3.5 campaign already. Last time, for example, the characters had been forced to retreat under the Dreaming Dark and then due to the guardians of a ruins in Xen'Drik, and while they weren't saying anything, for me it's not difficult to read people, and I noticed the suspension of disbelief that everything was a somewhat appropiate (or overwhelming, if the random encounter dice didn't fall in their favor) challenge was wearing really thin. So I had them have to retake their base from a criminal group who had taken it over while they were out. Suffice to say, they slaughtered them by the dozens, and I didn't even bother counting HPs. That was not the point of the exercise - the point was remind them that the reason they're fighting is because ninety percent of the lawbearers in the world were at the level of these chumps, and that even if they have had to run more than a few times, they are basically living siege engines, lean mean green fighting machines (well, more blue in the warblade's case, what with the Phazon mutation and all), and that they're part of that little 1% which has the power to even consider those challenges as even near "level appropiate".

Only, it would seem 4th bring me rules to do that, instead of me adjudicating in the fly. Well, welcome they be ^^.

I'm not saying you have to use minions or anything. I'm just explaining how, sometimes, such things are useful and dramatically appropiate. Masses of zombies/skeletons/zerglings/random braindead enemy are another perfect moment to bust out this kind of rules, too.

Rutee
2008-05-19, 02:54 PM
Ahh, I'd cheat and use squads of around 20-30 as 1 unit. Sort of like Heroes of Might and Magic does with peasants.

That's hardly cheating. It's the sensible way to handle them.

Jack Mann
2008-05-19, 03:21 PM
And keep in mind, these minions are a threat. They might fall under your blade by the dozens, but they will do damage in the meantime, and the DM can keep pouring on the oil until you're as challenged as you need to be. Yes, by himself, Kevin the Orc Minion isn't much of a threat, but with all his buddies, they make a level-appropriate encounter. When you cut one down, you've only lowered the threat a bit, but the rest are still there, hacking away at you. The PCs can still be facing danger, but it's spread out over a crowd, rather than concentrated in a single enemy. This isn't 3rd edition, where the mooks don't matter. These guys are, as a group, making a serious dint into your hit points. It can be just as harrowing an encounter as any other.

EvilElitest
2008-05-19, 03:43 PM
This works essentially the same way as 7th Sea.

It works well there; it goes a LONG way to making PCs feel like "real heroes" instead of having to keep track of lots of modifiers and statues effects on mook NPCs. It's extremely cinematic - which seems to be in keeping with the "new" feel of D&D.

This isn't heroic, its shallow and simplistic, much like all of 4E's game design ideals

This whole things seems shallow to me, it comes from this annoying idea of player entitlement, and more importantly, this i idea of drama and story telling. D&D is not, and never has been a story telling game. This concept of fitting your creatures into these roles instead of actual mechanics and simply having their existence tied to how they effect the PCs is a complete kick to hte nads about consistency. I might be bias because i alway found the parts in Kill Bill where she utterly slaughtered random people stupid and immature, but even so this concept is simply silly

now i known we've gone over hte whole "Players are one of hte kind unique and NPCs are just there to provide scenery" thing already, but lets touch this again. When i use minions in 3E (and when i used minions i didn't use them as simply battle fodder, that is boring in game and simply tenuous




You could suck it up, let /us/ use them, and not mind them being in the book while /you/ don't use them...

Same way you do for 3E?
Anyway, this is a splendid way to do it - taking a page from 7th Sea indeed. The old problem of using mooks (i.e. they cannot actually wear the PC down at all) has been solved, but they're still appropriately weak opponents.[/QUOTE]

And i remind you, those are books, not games, which are very different mediums

Also Aragorn did it once i recall. In moria there were only 13 orcs who fought them in the big tunnel.

Also that wasn't an idea of the orcs being Mooks, just in D&D terms lower level, they proved themselves nasty little buggers on their own

In the LOTRS movies yes, because that is kinda one of 4E inspirations



No room for mooks in my fantasy

now try that again, except actually try to prove a point

Through i will like to say, i totally called this nine months ago
from
EE

Citizen Joe
2008-05-19, 03:56 PM
The problem with the one HP thing is that you could wipe them all out with some low level area effect. For example, if you scattered caltrops throughout the area ahead of time, suddenly they all die before getting though the area. Or you chuck a flask of oil that does minimal damage over an area. You're not using one attack to dispense with one minion, you're using one attack to wipe them all out.

That's why I'm going back to my suggestion that at some point, adventurers get access to a special ability called 'disable minion'. With this, you can use your typical at will attack power to disable a minion for the duration of the encounter. Disabling gives the added benefit of avoiding the whole 'killing is evil' issue and allows adventurers to take prisoners.

On the flip side, a sufficiently powerful foe could 'Disable minion' on adventurers thus allowing for easy capture scenarios.

Starsinger
2008-05-19, 04:16 PM
The problem with the one HP thing is that you could wipe them all out with some low level area effect. For example, if you scattered caltrops throughout the area ahead of time, suddenly they all die before getting though the area. Or you chuck a flask of oil that does minimal damage over an area. You're not using one attack to dispense with one minion, you're using one attack to wipe them all out.

I'm thinking that Caltrops wouldn't be considered an actual attack, and thus would not kill minions.

EvilElitest
2008-05-19, 04:40 PM
I'm thinking that Caltrops wouldn't be considered an actual attack, and thus would not kill minions.

Why not? It does damage
from
EE

tyckspoon
2008-05-19, 04:53 PM
Why not? It does damage
from
EE

Assuming 4E's caltrops do damage along with whatever other effect. They might just be something like '+5 attack against Reflex. On Hit, Slow target, save ends.' Or make the area they occupy count as difficult terrain/make it impossible to Shift through them. If they do still inflict damage, they'll still have to hit against the minions to get rid of them.

Turcano
2008-05-19, 04:53 PM
Essentially, I do not feel that it should be necessary to place enemies in a contrived and severely enhanced defensive environment simply to make use of them, as you seem to think is the case.

I think you misunderstand me. The point of Tucker's Kobolds is not that you need to create contrived terrain to make low-level monsters a challenge, although exploiting the terrain is a big part of it. The point is that low-level monsters provide a challenge if you play them ruthlessly and like they have brains in their heads; hell, even by emulating the hunting behavior of non-sapient animals.* If you play mooks like, "Adventurers! I'm going to run up to you and poke you with my sharpened stic -- BLARG I AM DEAD!" then of course they're not going to pose a threat.

*A while back, someone on this board wanted to know how to play a giant octopus as a level-appropriate encounter. I based my response on how a real octopus would hunt large prey, and another poster told me that that would result in a TPK.

Starsinger
2008-05-19, 05:20 PM
Why not? It does damage
from
EE

Because Minions are immune to things that do damage but aren't attacks. Like when a fighter uses that one power which does damage even on a miss. Because Minions have to be dealt with, you don't just caltrop them away.

fendrin
2008-05-19, 05:20 PM
I think you misunderstand me. The point of Tucker's Kobolds is not that you need to create contrived terrain to make low-level monsters a challenge, although exploiting the terrain is a big part of it. The point is that low-level monsters provide a challenge if you play them ruthlessly and like they have brains in their heads; hell, even by emulating the hunting behavior of non-sapient animals.* If you play mooks like, "Adventurers! I'm going to run up to you and poke you with my sharpened stic -- BLARG I AM DEAD!" then of course they're not going to pose a threat.

Somewhere in the DMG (or at least in the 3.0 one, I didn't read the 3.5 one nearly as closely...) is a statement that a creatures' CR is an approximate, and that the DM should alter the encounter rating based on the encounter as a whole. I think the example given involved goblins with hang gliders dropping rocks on the PCs...

The point I am trying to make (in a very round-about manner) is that a group of CR 1/4 monstrous spiders[read: mindless enemies] and an equivalently sized group of CR 1/4 kobold warriors should be the same difficulty. If you then add environmental factors (flammable halls, murder holes) and increased wealth/equiptment (crossbows, metal armor, alchemist's fire/oil) to the equation, you should increase the encounter's Encounter Level.

Furthermore, there is no reason you can't run minions as having brains... Tucker's Kobolds work just as well as minions as they do as stand-alone creatures to a group of lvl 6-12 characters. Better, perhaps. If nothing else, it will be easier on the DM.

EvilElitest
2008-05-19, 05:25 PM
Assuming 4E's caltrops do damage along with whatever other effect. They might just be something like '+5 attack against Reflex. On Hit, Slow target, save ends.' Or make the area they occupy count as difficult terrain/make it impossible to Shift through them. If they do still inflict damage, they'll still have to hit against the minions to get rid of them.
We could also assume they turn the person who steps on them into bunnies. Point is, something that isn't an attack but could do damage


Because Minions are immune to things that do damage but aren't attacks. Like when a fighter uses that one power which does damage even on a miss. Because Minions have to be dealt with, you don't just caltrop them away
Ok, why? Really how does this begine to make sense. If a minion falls from a ledge, according to that he can simply get up and be fine. Inconsistent, and very very sillly
from
EE

Dervag
2008-05-19, 05:42 PM
EE, I have to say, it looks like you're stretching a bit to interpret the rules in the most negative way possible.

Is it that hard to believe that the rules could say "no, you cannot destroy a swarm of minions with a non-attack like throwing caltrops into an area" without saying "minions are immune to being pushed off a cliff?"

Crow
2008-05-19, 05:42 PM
I think you misunderstand me. The point of Tucker's Kobolds is not that you need to create contrived terrain to make low-level monsters a challenge, although exploiting the terrain is a big part of it. The point is that low-level monsters provide a challenge if you play them ruthlessly and like they have brains in their heads; hell, even by emulating the hunting behavior of non-sapient animals.* If you play mooks like, "Adventurers! I'm going to run up to you and poke you with my sharpened stic -- BLARG I AM DEAD!" then of course they're not going to pose a threat.

*A while back, someone on this board wanted to know how to play a giant octopus as a level-appropriate encounter. I based my response on how a real octopus would hunt large prey, and another poster told me that that would result in a TPK.


The problem is that when it all comes down to the end, the baddies need to be able to kill or incapacitate the PC's. In 3.x, low-level mooks usually have to pray for 20's to inflict any sort of damge or pray for 1's on a PC's save.

It's like baseball and sabermetrics. On-base percentage is great, but it doesn't mean batting average doesn't matter. Walks don't drive in runs (unless the bases are loaded). Usually, you're going to end up needing to put the ball in play.

Any enemy can use terrain and traps to it's advantage. It may as well be called "Tucker's Balors". It'd be the same.

edit: Caltrops will probably just slow down minions =)

Draz74
2008-05-19, 05:45 PM
Because Minions are immune to things that do damage but aren't attacks. Like when a fighter uses that one power which does damage even on a miss. Because Minions have to be dealt with, you don't just caltrop them away.

No ... today's excerpt specifically says that non-attacks that do damage can kill Minions. Only (missed) attacks that deal damage on a miss don't work on them.

It will indeed be interesting to see 4e stats on Caltrops for this reason. :smallamused:

BRC
2008-05-19, 05:46 PM
I like this, It allows for the PC's to feel good smashing their way through mooks, but also actually threatens the PC's. Around tenth level or so, it dosn't matter how many 1st level warriors the DM throws at you because they get a +2 to attack rolls and so can barely hit you.

EvilElitest
2008-05-19, 05:46 PM
EE, I have to say, it looks like you're stretching a bit to interpret the rules in the most negative way possible.

Is it that hard to believe that the rules could say "no, you cannot destroy a swarm of minions with a non-attack like throwing caltrops into an area" without saying "minions are immune to being pushed off a cliff?"

Not really, because i'm referring to damage that isn't relevant to an attack. Falling off a cliff, like stepping on a caltrop or drowning isn't an attack
from
EE
edit
oh it seems the've made that more clear

Turcano
2008-05-19, 06:05 PM
Somewhere in the DMG (or at least in the 3.0 one, I didn't read the 3.5 one nearly as closely...) is a statement that a creatures' CR is an approximate, and that the DM should alter the encounter rating based on the encounter as a whole. I think the example given involved goblins with hang gliders dropping rocks on the PCs...

That's the problem; the CR was calibrated for the DM playing monsters as though they're dumb as rocks. And the CR ignores not only intelligence, but predatory instinct as well (see below).


The point I am trying to make (in a very round-about manner) is that a group of CR 1/4 monstrous spiders[read: mindless enemies] and an equivalently sized group of CR 1/4 kobold warriors should be the same difficulty.

You can make monstrous spiders almost as challenging. Having a group of spiders implies some degree of sociality (and there are social spiders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider#Social_spiders) in real life), and both web spinners and hunting spiders are ambush hunters to some degree. So said group of spiders would either wait for some unsuspecting party member to wander blindly into their communal web or try to sneak up on them from behind (depending on the type) and swarm all over one individual from cover, then move on to another target once the first has been incapacitated.


Furthermore, there is no reason you can't run minions as having brains... Tucker's Kobolds work just as well as minions as they do as stand-alone creatures to a group of lvl 6-12 characters. Better, perhaps. If nothing else, it will be easier on the DM.

You very well could if you wanted to. I just fail to see the point.

Swordguy
2008-05-19, 06:58 PM
A question for those of you who think this is a terrible idea (especially, but in no way limited to, M0rt and EE).

What did you think of the Bride v the Crazy 88's in Kill Bill? Because that's basically what this is trying to do. WotC is trying to make D&D into more of an "action-movie"-feeling game. Is that such a bad thing?

If so...why?

Heck, even in gritty games like Shadowrun or CP2020, you'll run into street punks who you can absolutely clean the floor with - why does engaging enemies that are nowhere near your power level individually but may be effective in mass numbers suddenly become a bad thing?

If this is a double-post, it's because the forums are being screwy...AGAIN. I'll remove it later.

Merlin the Tuna
2008-05-19, 07:07 PM
I like it.

I think it will allow me to convert Red Hand of Doom into 4e and simultaneously improve it.This. A thousand times this.

I ran part one up to Skull Gorge Bridge for some friends this weekend, and it hit on so many sore points for the 3.5E --> 4E transition. The biggest one was having hobgoblin "veterans" missing PCs after rolling 16s on their attacks. At one point, just to try to give the players a bit more information (since they were kinda short on it throughout the entire thing -- not so big on interrogation), I had an NPC mention that the (hob)goblins seemed to be more competent and threatening than they had been in previous months. The players unanimously responded with "Uh... how? What?" It turns out that 18 extra hit points isn't very convincing when they still can't lay a finger on the PCs.

Charity
2008-05-19, 07:22 PM
I'm running the RHoD at the mo, and I agree, my guys arn't even half optimised and they are still immune the vet hobgoblins, tis most downheartening. Then I chuck a giant croc at them it crits and eats one of them before he gets a go... bad times; I really want these minions, like yesterday.

JaxGaret
2008-05-19, 07:30 PM
Two questions:

Can't you just drop a wide-area AoE to decimate these minions?

Why exactly are there high level minions running around with 1 HP each, what's the OOG justification for it? Or is there simply... none.

The last is what I'm afraid of. The more I see of 4e, the more I see attention to verisimilitude simply getting thrown out of the window in favor of streamlining mechanics.

Indon
2008-05-19, 07:31 PM
Because Minions are immune to things that do damage but aren't attacks. Like when a fighter uses that one power which does damage even on a miss. Because Minions have to be dealt with, you don't just caltrop them away.

Even if you were right, traps (such as rolling boulders, and presumably caltrops) perform attacks against their targets.

Overall, not bad. I could particularly facilitate a gunfight with minions.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-19, 07:35 PM
Two questions:

Can't you just drop a wide-area AoE to decimate these minions?

Why exactly are there high level minions running around with 1 HP each, what's the OOG justification for it? Or is there simply... none.
What? HP is abstract. What kind of justification do you want?


The last is what I'm afraid of. The more I see of 4e, the more I see attention to verisimilitude simply getting thrown out of the window in favor of streamlining mechanics.
How does a minion with 1 HP differ from just a low-level creature, verisimilitude-wise? Some things go down easy. Some things are hard to kill. Where's the problem?

Merlin the Tuna
2008-05-19, 07:44 PM
Can't you just drop a wide-area AoE to decimate these minions?Yes.
Why exactly are there high level minions running around with 1 HP each, what's the OOG justification for it? Or is there simply... none.Minion is not so much a status as it is a relation to the PCs. When the Laughing Skulls, the elite orc troopers led by the orc sorcerer Bara-Katal, steamroll the king's guards outside the throne room, they don't behave like minions. They're a much higher level threat than the king's guards, and so they aren't considered to have 1 HP in that battle.

When they come up against the PCs who stand directly in front of the throne, they are suddenly minions and, while capable of considerable damage, are minions so that they can serve as an appreciable meatwall between the PCs and Bara-Katal.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-19, 07:51 PM
yes you could just drop an AoE spell... but remember, in 4e, you roll for each target separately... so each miss on that fireball deals no damage to the minions... but you have a good chance of wiping out the majority of them in one swoop like that.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2008-05-19, 08:48 PM
Two questions:

Can't you just drop a wide-area AoE to decimate these minions?

Why exactly are there high level minions running around with 1 HP each, what's the OOG justification for it? Or is there simply... none.

The last is what I'm afraid of. The more I see of 4e, the more I see attention to verisimilitude simply getting thrown out of the window in favor of streamlining mechanics.

First question: Yes you can. It's called "stra-te-gy".
Second Question: The stats are there for the PC's. I just realised this now, and this is what WotC has been trying and failing to say for a while. They said that NPC's only exist for the PC's.

No.

NPC stats only need to exist when the PC's are present.

If, for example, the PC's meet Dude A, and fight him, and are evenly matched, and then they call of the fight in good spirits, then they feel that their power level is on par.

I would say over 9000.

Now, if they hear that Dude B has killed Dude A, they will be slightly afraid of Dude B, because he killed someone as powerful as they are. However, Dude B isn't statted out yet. That doesn't mean he doesn't exist, it just means that we do not need to know his AC, because the PC's haven't encountered him.

Now, if the PC's then hunt down Dude B and kill him, they feel at first frightened of him, and then, after they kill him, exhilerated, because they just killed someone who they think could've killed them, even though he may have actually been lower level.

Edit: Simu-ninjaed... Twice...

Dervag
2008-05-19, 08:59 PM
Which is great, as long as you provide a convincing way for B to beat A. For example, if A was an excellent swordsman who fought the entire party to a standstill... no one's going to believe it if a weaker swordsman beats him in a duel. It violates the conventions.

Whereas if a wizard does it, or an archer, or something else, t hat's OK. The trick is that you don't want the PCs thinking "if B could kill A, why couldn't B make as good a showing against us as A did?"

Unless, of course, there's a plot reason. Perhaps B cheated when he killed A. Perhaps some third party has been going around poisoning or otherwise weakening NPCs for reasons of its own. Who knows?

Thrawn183
2008-05-19, 09:38 PM
I have to jump on the bandwagon of really liking this. Its almost impossible to throw a BBEG and 10 minions at a party where the minions can actually hit the PC's without entirely slaughtering them. I really, really want guys that can dish out some damage, be somewhat challenging to hit and then go down with relative speed. No more situations where each minion has 150+ hp and everyone just gets tired rolling out the number of attacks necessary to kill each one.

Raum
2008-05-19, 09:41 PM
I like the idea of minions in RP games. I use them consistently in the Savage Worlds game I'm running.

I think the way they're described in the article is a cheesy patchwork of mismatched rules slapped together on a system not built to use the minion concept. In other words, the implementation sucks. Seriously, D&D has a combat health system built on the idea of an ablative defense. The minions rules throw that entire system out in favor of using one hit paper tigers.

The paper tigers are probably tougher. Compare that to Savage Worlds - in five months of gaming I've used three antagonists who weren't minions. One is still alive. It's the minions who have been dangerous. That doesn't appear to be possible with 4e minions.

Yahzi
2008-05-19, 09:53 PM
...Why not just make a normal monster rather then scale Minion HP? They're scenery.
I'm bleeding to death from being stabbed in the face with all that irony.

:smallbiggrin:

As for Minions... the English language does not contain the power to express how much I loathe and despise the entire concept. It's bad enough that sentient creatures are rendered helpless pawns in the face of the character's power; now the rules of the universe relegate them to occupying the PCs for one round.

In Austin Powers, Michael Caine's character at least had the decency to let the minions play dead, rather than senselessly murdering helpless people. If your heroes hack their way through creatures that die in one hit, how are they any different than Anakin slaughtering the Jedi children? Or Kneau Reeves murdering helpless, deluded police officers in "The Matrix" simply because he has super-powers and they don't?

The concept of Minions is everything that was ever wrong with D&D from the very start, magnified into unbelievable proportion. D&D is indeed becoming a video game, but not World of Warcraft; it's becoming Grand Theft Auto.

Color me sickened. :smallfurious:

(Not, mind you, that I object to playing evil characters in evil campaigns who commit all sorts of crimes. I just object to the rules of the game glossing over the fact that what you're doing is, in fact, evil.)



What did you think of the Bride v the Crazy 88's in Kill Bill?
In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess I loathed every part of both of those movies, almost as much as I hated the Matrix and Star Wars. I'm a "Seven Samurai" kind of guy.

Perhaps this puts my comments in perspective. :smallsmile:

Rutee
2008-05-19, 09:54 PM
The concept of Minions is everything that was ever wrong with D&D from the very start, magnified into unbelievable proportion. D&D is indeed becoming a video game, but not World of Warcraft; it's becoming Grand Theft Auto.

You don't watch movies, do you? Like, ever?

Draz74
2008-05-19, 09:56 PM
The more I see of 4e, the more I see attention to verisimilitude simply getting thrown out of the window in favor of streamlining mechanics.

Yup, exactly. 4e basically looks awesome, except for this one problem. Which, IMHO, will make it a good and fun casual game but not really a replacement for a good hard-core game of 3e.

FoE
2008-05-19, 10:10 PM
I think it makes sense. I like the idea. In the larger-scale battles, I've always considered keeping track of each mook's hit points as a waste of time. And really, it makes sense that, if you're facing a dozen skeletons slashing at you at the same time, one is probably going to hit you.

Somebody said this was going to ruin Belkar's "I am a sexy shoeless god of war!" moment. But I would argue that fight was conducted under those rules. Belkar took down every mook facing him with a single hit, and he suffered quite a few wounds doing so.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-05-19, 10:15 PM
I like these minion rules.


It fixes up one big glaring whole from previous editions of the rules. Namely, that armies were always useless. Try to lead a squad of men. They always seemed like dead weigth. And in battles you always wonder why the commanders would even bother with low level troops. They do nothing. Not to mention if sheer numbers don't mean anything, how would species like goblins survive. But now sheer numbers do mean something. It adds relisim to the game world, as now the ecosystem and society structure make sense.

This now leads open a lot of options. You can lead troops against enemey troops. You can help villagers defend against bandit attacks. You can be faced with more minions then you can handle , but you have to find some tactical way through them to achieve some other objective. Goblins can be dangerous right up to high levels. Fighting powerfull monster and minions at the same time can be an interesting challenge. There will no longer be such thing as, "those monsters are low level, and therefore we don't need to worry about them." This minions concept opens up a lot of options, that would otherwise take too much dicing.


I think a mistake that was made, is saying that minions only have 1 hp. It would be better to just say that they are killed in one hit. You would still assume that they have the regular number of hitpoints, but you ignore them.

fendrin
2008-05-19, 10:20 PM
In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess I loathed every part of both of those movies, almost as much as I hated the Matrix and Star Wars. I'm a "Seven Samurai" kind of guy.

Ok, ignoring the obvious tangent into film analysis, in Seven Samurai when the bandits rush into town and the [better] Samurai are cutting them down with ease? Those bandits are minions.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-19, 10:22 PM
As for Minions... the English language does not contain the power to express how much I loathe and despise the entire concept. It's bad enough that sentient creatures are rendered helpless pawns in the face of the character's power; now the rules of the universe relegate them to occupying the PCs for one round.
As opposed to before, when... the rules of the universe (their low hit dice and HP) relegated them to occupying the PCs for one round.


The concept of Minions is everything that was ever wrong with D&D from the very start, magnified into unbelievable proportion. D&D is indeed becoming a video game, but not World of Warcraft; it's becoming Grand Theft Auto.
Because it's not like minions have been a fundamental concept of D&D or fantasy forever, right?



(Not, mind you, that I object to playing evil characters in evil campaigns who commit all sorts of crimes. I just object to the rules of the game glossing over the fact that what you're doing is, in fact, evil.)
Wait, wait, what? If the minions are monsters trying to eat you, or bandits who've killed people, or cultists serving an evil god and sacrificing babies, or any of the numerous evil things PCs fight regularly, or etc, how is it evil?

What does being one-shottable minions have to do with it anyway? Would it be OK if they were tougher?

EvilElitest
2008-05-19, 10:27 PM
A question for those of you who think this is a terrible idea (especially, but in no way limited to, M0rt and EE).

[QUOTE]What did you think of the Bride v the Crazy 88's in Kill Bill? Because that's basically what this is trying to do. WotC is trying to make D&D into more of an "action-movie"-feeling game. Is that such a bad thing?

If so...why?
because it is an overrated cut scene that apart from defying logic, has no tension and is badly handled. At no point in teh fight do i feel the least bit if suspense that the bride might die (through the pycopath certainly deserves it) and only the most genre blind man in the world could figure out who will win. there isn't any tension, there isn't any fear, and the fight, apart from being illogical and extremly silly, is simply tedious as we watch the apparently totally moronic 88 allow themselves to be cut down by a women with a katana (why don't any of them have guns. And why does she use a katana like a broadsword?)

I ask you, when you play Lords of the rings for the game cube, Two towers, do you feel like killing swarms of mooks is at all interesting after the 4th time. It gets dull easily and hurts consistency and verisimilitude. It simplifies and dumbs down the game to a video game level



Heck, even in gritty games like Shadowrun or CP2020, you'll run into street punks who you can absolutely clean the floor with - why does engaging enemies that are nowhere near your power level individually but may be effective in mass numbers suddenly become a bad thing?

Being better than a bunch of guys is fine, however having the guys designed to simply be fodder is


Why exactly are there high level minions running around with 1 HP each, what's the OOG justification for it? Or is there simply... none.
4E response seems to be "who cares, they aren't hte PCs anyways"



How does a minion with 1 HP differ from just a low-level creature, verisimilitude-wise? Some things go down easy. Some things are hard to kill. Where's the problem?
because the former is designed for no purpose other than acting as one hit fodder, the latter actually seem like beings who live in the world




Minion is not so much a status as it is a relation to the PCs. When the Laughing Skulls, the elite orc troopers led by the orc sorcerer Bara-Katal, steamroll the king's guards outside the throne room, they don't behave like minions. They're a much higher level threat than the king's guards, and so they aren't considered to have 1 HP in that battle.

When they come up against the PCs who stand directly in front of the throne, they are suddenly minions and, while capable of considerable damage, are minions so that they can serve as an appreciable meatwall between the PCs and Bara-Katal.
and people told me 9 months ago that 4E would not be PC centric.


No.

NPC stats only need to exist when the PC's are present.

If, for example, the PC's meet Dude A, and fight him, and are evenly matched, and then they call of the fight in good spirits, then they feel that their power level is on par.

I would say over 9000.

Now, if they hear that Dude B has killed Dude A, they will be slightly afraid of Dude B, because he killed someone as powerful as they are. However, Dude B isn't statted out yet. That doesn't mean he doesn't exist, it just means that we do not need to know his AC, because the PC's haven't encountered him.

Now, if the PC's then hunt down Dude B and kill him, they feel at first frightened of him, and then, after they kill him, exhilerated, because they just killed someone who they think could've killed them, even though he may have actually been lower level.

Thats silly, stats are how you interact with the world. Thus NPcs would logically have pre made stats. Other wise we get inconsistencies, such of how demons and devils can't actually hurt each other



I have to jump on the bandwagon of really liking this. Its almost impossible to throw a BBEG and 10 minions at a party where the minions can actually hit the PC's without entirely slaughtering them. I really, really want guys that can dish out some damage, be somewhat challenging to hit and then go down with relative speed. No more situations where each minion has 150+ hp and everyone just gets tired rolling out the number of attacks necessary to kill each one.
the idea there is that fighting groups isn't suppose to be a good idea

Yahzi, the matrix at least provided a reason for hte absurd fight scenes, at least the first one



You don't watch movies, do you? Like, ever?
yeah, seven Samerai. Or the French Excalibur


Ok, ignoring the obvious tangent into film analysis, in Seven Samurai when the bandits rush into town and the [better] Samurai are cutting them down with ease? Those bandits are minions.
do you notice the actual way they are fought. the seven use hit and run tatacs, fences, defensive war fare, long range, and a mass of peasents, and even then lost four guys.



As opposed to before, when... the rules of the universe (their low hit dice and HP) relegated them to occupying the PCs for one round.
that was just them being low level, not existing for cannon fodder. i could see a small army of PCs being used in the same manner if they are low level against a major antagonist, through it woudn't be fun


Because it's not like minions have been a fundamental concept of D&D or fantasy forever, right?
not as creatures that exist soly to be slaughtered via game rules no



Wait, wait, what? If the minions are monsters trying to eat you, or bandits who've killed people, or cultists serving an evil god and sacrificing babies, or any of the numerous evil things PCs fight regularly, or etc, how is it evil?

What does being one-shottable minions have to do with it anyway? Would it be OK if they were tougher?
well if this is based upon kill bill mentality, yes
from
EE

ShadowSiege
2008-05-19, 10:35 PM
In Austin Powers, Michael Caine's character at least had the decency to let the minions play dead, rather than senselessly murdering helpless people. If your heroes hack their way through creatures that die in one hit, how are they any different than Anakin slaughtering the Jedi children? Or Kneau Reeves murdering helpless, deluded police officers in "The Matrix" simply because he has super-powers and they don't?

(Not, mind you, that I object to playing evil characters in evil campaigns who commit all sorts of crimes. I just object to the rules of the game glossing over the fact that what you're doing is, in fact, evil.)

1.) Minions aren't helpless, and are a threat to the PCs health and livelihood.
2.) Minions aren't innocent, nor are they children. Also, PCs aren't annoying, wangsty, idiotic, uncool characters. Most of the time.
3.) The police officers were active defenders of the oppressive system that Neo was trying to eliminate. Also, killing them prevented agents from possessing their bodies.
4.) Those legions of Hell wrecking the kingdom aren't going to kill themselves. Also, there's been a lot of cases where a soldier has racked up an absurd number of kills in war. Would you consider those people evil, though they are killing to preserve their own lives and those of their compatriots? Because that's what you're saying.


In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess I loathed every part of both of those movies [Kill Bill vol 1 & 2], almost as much as I hated the Matrix and Star Wars. I'm a "Seven Samurai" kind of guy.

Perhaps this puts my comments in perspective. :smallsmile:

Yes, it does put it into perspective.

Yahzi
2008-05-19, 10:43 PM
As opposed to before, when... the rules of the universe (their low hit dice and HP) relegated them to occupying the PCs for one round.
But that's different.

Low-level NPCs are low level. Well, that's the way it is. They do the best they can, and someday, maybe, they can hope to be high level.

But minions are just game mechanics. Remember when I complained that 4e wanted to replace NPCs with little bags of XP? Not only do the mooks no longer have names, they don't even have hit points.

I don't want my PCs to think about the NPCs as game mechanics.


Wait, wait, what? If the minions are monsters trying to eat you, or bandits who've killed people, or cultists serving an evil god and sacrificing babies, or any of the numerous evil things PCs fight regularly, or etc, how is it evil?
(sigh).

Yet another reason to hate D&D's simplistic morality and how it's wrecked an entire generation.


What does being one-shottable minions have to do with it anyway? Would it be OK if they were tougher?
It would be OK if they were real people instead of game mechanics.



Yes, it does put it into perspective.
Mind you, in the Seven Samurai, they blow through dozens of minions too. The kensai even has to be shot because none of the bandits can touch him.

And yet... we all know that the bandits in Seven Samurai are not minions in the same sense that Storm Troopers in Star Wars are. And it's that difference I'm referring to.

In a sense, it's the same difference between dramatic violence and gratuitous violence (or nudity).

Rutee
2008-05-19, 10:47 PM
(sigh).

Yet another reason to hate D&D's simplistic morality and how it's wrecked an entire generation.
Oh don't even start with that ****. Level 10 Hero comes in on a murder attempt being perpetrated by a level 1 guy. Level 10 dispatches the level 1. Level 10 guy is now evil to you :smallconfused:

FoE
2008-05-19, 10:56 PM
Yet another reason to hate D&D's simplistic morality and how it's wrecked an entire generation.

I'll note that most people decrying the minion rule seem to be objecting to using living beings as easily-disposable mooks (which they still were in 3.5 and at least now have a chance to hurt the heroes, but never mind, it's your soapbox and you have a right to it).

But what about unliving targets, like simple undead (zombies, skeletons, etc.)? Or unthinking targets like ... giant ants? These things are nothing but cannon fodder, guys.

Yahzi
2008-05-19, 11:17 PM
I'll note that most people decrying the minion rule seem to be objecting to using living beings as easily-disposable mooks
Aside from the moral argument, there's the silly argument.

Having 16th level minions with 1 hp reduces every game to Austin Powers.

fendrin
2008-05-19, 11:21 PM
Low-level NPCs are low level. Well, that's the way it is. They do the best they can, and someday, maybe, they can hope to be high level. No, they can't. Not unless you as the DM decide they do. If that's the case, then you the DM can decide to re-stat a minion into a non minion as appropriate.


But minions are just game mechanics. Remember when I complained that 4e wanted to replace NPCs with little bags of XP? Not only do the mooks no longer have names, they don't even have hit points.

I don't want my PCs to think about the NPCs as game mechanics.

It would be OK if they were real people instead of game mechanics.
Balderdash. Rubbish. Utter and total nonsense.
I absolutely *cannot* stand this attitude.

There is the game, and there is the game mechanics. Whether an NPC is a minion, stated out with the 3.5 warrior class or not statted in any way whatsoever is completely irrelevant to whether or not said NPC is a 'real person'. Take some responsibility! If a minion is not a 'real person' then it is because you as the DM did not make them a 'real person'.

You want to name your minions, be my guest. No one is stopping you. I doubt Mr. Kurosawa named all of the bandits, but that doesn't matter. It is as irrelevant as the fact that I don't bother to name all the mooks in my 3.5 games (and didn't in my 2e games, either).


Mind you, in the Seven Samurai, they blow through dozens of minions too. The kensai even has to be shot because none of the bandits can touch him.

And yet... we all know that the bandits in Seven Samurai are not minions in the same sense that Storm Troopers in Star Wars are. And it's that difference I'm referring to. Oh do we? How presumptive of you. I see very little difference, except that the storm troopers are intended to be utterly unidentifiable; literally faceless. Compare that to the bandits in Seven Samurai, where we see their faces but they still aren't 'real people'. A name and a face do not a 'real person' make. To be a 'real person' we the viewers have to identify with them. We have to care about them, or at least sympathize with the hard times they have had to deal with that have driven them to their banditry. Now, it's been a while since I've seen Seven Samurai, but I don't recall that happening with every single bandit.

[/rant]

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-19, 11:25 PM
(sigh).

Yet another reason to hate D&D's simplistic morality and how it's wrecked an entire generation.


It would be OK if they were real people instead of game mechanics.



That's completely silly. Seen some of these minions? Legionaire Devils. Yes, the morality is simple. They want to kill you, so you kill them first. Your an adventurer and a mercenary, not a pacifist vegetarian hippies (no offense meant to pacifists, vegetarians, hippies, or any combination of the three). They are evil hell spawn, bent on dominating the known universe, more than likely you are the poor smuck sent to fight them.

And as far as real people, I defy ANYONE whose played an RPG EVER to say they havn't thrown an encounter at the PC's just for a good scrap. You developed a back story, history, personality, and list of food allergies for every kobold, goblin, orc, or other kick around enemy? Have a lot of improv peasant NPC's giving directions who have college degrees, drug habits, or deep seated daddy issues? No. Sometimes, you have to bring it down to something is inherantly evil, preys off of those NPC peasants, and needs to be introduced to Mr. Greatsword. Is there truly more depth in the world than that? Yes. Always? HELL NO.

Note World War II. Sure, enemy troops were living, breathing people with lives and such. Didn't keep opposing troops from shooting just because they were a [blank]. Some people had issues with it. Maybe your character does. Roleplay it and mover on.

Now apply this to a fantasy world. Orcs (generally, mind you. I don't even run them like this) live off of raiding, bullying, and destruction. I'm not sitting down to interview the mook, making sure he's not the Chosen One orc of Paragon Goodness. I smack him before he smacks me, cause in my experience, orks hit people. To death. For a living. Since the beginning of my world, when it was shaped by the gods, these things have been butchering my people. Excuse my hostility.

That's simple morality. Civilized, good races want to survive and prosper. Chaotic, monster types want to hurt/maim/destroy/eat civilized and/or good types. Hundreds and up to thousands of years of human legend, folk tales, and mythology have summed it up to this. We play as the classic hero, who goes out and kicks all their butts. If you want to find something to blame for this type of thinking, blame your ancestors, not a game that takes off them.


NOTE- Mooks are a threat, and have defenses appropriate for their level. Therefore, they are not fodder- they are just a different type of encounter. It also adds realism and you know it- the vast majority of things are dead/disabled/running crying if they get hit with a sword. It's the special ones that hang around, pop off a few more shots, and still have the guts to charge into the fray. That would be PC's and the big baddies.

I know I'm not getting up if some guy obviously more skilled, more durable, and far better armed lays a slash across my middle. If I'm not dead, I'm pretending to be. Let Rambo take them on.

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-19, 11:35 PM
Aside from the moral argument, there's the silly argument.

Having 16th level minions with 1 hp reduces every game to Austin Powers.

Not. At. All. Since their defenses are just fine for their level, you can shoot and MISS, just as often as you HIT. And when you do miss, they come in and smack you. Not kill you, because you are special. But the blood running down your face reminds you these things may not be uber but they are capable.

16th Level PC- Like shooting fish in a barrel *strikes an Austin pose and fires, missing*
4 16th level minions he didn't take seriously- Kill HIM! *throw spears, hit 2 or 3 times, and the PC drops to bloodied*
16th Level PC- Hey... your fodder... you can't do that...

BUT THEY CAN PEOPLE. THEY CAN.

TheOOB
2008-05-19, 11:41 PM
Maybe it's just from playing too much 7th sea (which has brutes, which are remarkably similar to minions), but minions, I believe will be great, for a few reasons.

First, while yes the characters are fighters, wizards, clerics, rogues, and the like, there are something else first and foremost...heroes. Heroes are something special, they adventure across the world, uncovering lost treasure, fighting great evils, and becoming legends. Heroes fight in epic battles: dramatic swordfights on an old rope bridge, a magical duel over an active volcano, a deadly game of cat and mouth through a trap filled maze. When performing these dramatic acts, the heroes are facing up agienst Lith'Tan, the dread necromancer, or Baron Vestini corrupt nobleman and master swordsman, not goblin bob. No the heroes fight goblin bob and his twenty friends before they fight the villain (or perhaps along side). Goblin Bob isn't much of a threat. Sure he knows the basics of fighting, he might be able to cause some damage to the hero and maybe even dodge a few hits, but he's not going to survive a dramatic sword duel, if he gets hit, he's probably, dead, and if he's not dead, he's either knocked out, playing dead, or running away(nothing says your minions have to die with one hit, they just are removed from combat). Sure, in a group goblin bob can be dangerous, and if he has a good leader he can be nasty, but alone goblin bob is goblin bob, hardly a threat. Goblin Bob is a minion.

The next reason minions are great is because of how much it helps book keeping. You can now have an encounter with 20 zombies shambling twords the party. They don't all have to be minions, but having a majority of them be so allows you to have much larger scale battles without having to keep track of dozens of variables.

The final reason I like them is that they are entirely optional. You don't have to use them, in fact I only would use them if I was planning on out numbering the PC's 2 to 1 or more. Sure, large scale battles are nice, and give you a nice change of pace (and change which tactics are effective), but D&D is still about personal combat, so you don't need to have armies of minions.

Just an addendum, the reason missed attacks don't hurt minions is simple, so a level 1 fighter can't fight an epic level minion and kill it with a single use of their damage on miss ability 100% of the time. In addition, thinking of minions as a single monster is a problem. Think of 4 to 6 minions as a single monster. A single monster will take 4 to 6 hits to kill, so will a squad of minions. A single monster will cause a certain amount of damage, so will minions(though they will likely cause more then a single monster in the beginning, and less as they get killed, which should balance out). From a mechanical stand point they are nearly identical to a single monster, just spread out over several creatures. The only huge difference is that people with good area of effect attacks (ie controllers) will be much more efficient at dealing with them, but then again, isn't that the reason you have a controller?

Raum
2008-05-19, 11:41 PM
NOTE- Mooks are a threat, and have defenses appropriate for their level. Therefore, they are not fodder- they are just a different type of encounter. The way the article describes them, they aren't a threat. They do "a fraction of the damage" of non-minions of the same level. They drop in one successful hit. Where's the threat? Numbers? Not when they can't do significant damage. They seem to be little more than a method of extending combat...forcing PCs to spend an action or two getting rid of them.

I'm not against minions. Done right they can save the GM a lot of work and accounting. Used correctly they'll speed combat. But they must present a valid threat!

Without the threat there really isn't much reason to kill them. It's just an exercise in smashing the barrels blocking your path. Like all such arcade game tropes they'll give you a reward or two...powerups and money in the form of experience and whatever items they were using.

But all you're doing is breaking barrels.

TheOOB
2008-05-19, 11:43 PM
The way the article describes them, they aren't a threat. They do "a fraction of the damage" of non-minions of the same level. They drop in one successful hit. Where's the threat? Numbers? Not when they can't do significant damage. They seem to be little more than a method of extending combat...forcing PCs to spend an action or two getting rid of them.

I'm not against minions. Done right they can save the GM a lot of work and accounting. Used correctly they'll speed combat. But they must present a valid threat!

Without the threat there really isn't much reason to kill them. It's just an exercise in smashing the barrels blocking your path. Like all such arcade game tropes they'll give you a reward or two...powerups and money in the form of experience and whatever items they were using.

But all you're doing is breaking barrels.

Yes, a minion will do a fraction of the damage, but 6 minions who each do 1/6 the damage of a normal monster are doing about the same amount of damage. And it still takes at least 6 hits to take the minions out.

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-19, 11:49 PM
The way the article describes them, they aren't a threat. They do "a fraction of the damage" of non-minions of the same level. They drop in one successful hit. Where's the threat? Numbers? Not when they can't do significant damage. They seem to be little more than a method of extending combat...forcing PCs to spend an action or two getting rid of them.

Fraction is widely believed to be 1/4 normal. That's still significant. If 4 mooks attack, 1 hits, big deal when you take 5 damage instead of 20. When 12 Mooks and a monster of the right CR attack (which seems to be a standard 4th encounter. That's not 5 damage. That's 15. Assuming only 1/4 hit, when they all have a good chance to do so, not a 1/4 chance. If half hit, you just hit 30 damage. And it's not like they just can be waved away. You have to hit them, which, with their defenses on par, is still a task. Two bad rounds against mooks can kill a few PC's without their elite boss lifting a finger.

These arn't barrels. They are hum-drum soldiers. Sure, they arn't gonna kick your bum. But when they come at you in numbers, they can easily hurt you, and kill you if they are lucky.

Dervag
2008-05-19, 11:50 PM
(sigh).

Yet another reason to hate D&D's simplistic morality and how it's wrecked an entire generation.Umm... you DO realize that the mindset you're criticizing is the one people used almost throughout human history? In fact, it's only in this generation, and the two or three before it, that people would take the idea at all seriously that it was truly immoral to kill a large number of individuals standing between him and some laudable objective.

Medieval Europeans, and for that matter Industrial Age Europeans, would likely have applauded.



This now leads open a lot of options. You can lead troops against enemey troops. You can help villagers defend against bandit attacks. You can be faced with more minions then you can handle , but you have to find some tactical way through them to achieve some other objective."Now if only we had a wheelbarrow..."


because it is an overrated cut scene that apart from defying logic, has no tension and is badly handled. At no point in teh fight do i feel the least bit if suspense that the bride might die (through the pycopath certainly deserves it) and only the most genre blind man in the world could figure out who will win. there isn't any tension, there isn't any fear, and the fight, apart from being illogical and extremly silly, is simply tedious as we watch the apparently totally moronic 88 allow themselves to be cut down by a women with a katana (why don't any of them have guns. And why does she use a katana like a broadsword?)Eh, you'd kvetch and moan if they hung you with a gold rope. :smalltongue:

Seriously, you don't HAVE to use minions, either. However, the idea of one-shottable minions is probably the single most common trope in all of fantasy. Including stuff done to death like, say, elves. And farm boys going on quests.

So you, personally, may hate the idea of one-shottable minions. But that doesn't mean the game designers are wrong for having them, because they also have to please everyone else in the world. Which includes a lot of people who like certain kinds of stories with one-shottable minions in them.

Given the enormous and persistent popularity of one-shottable minions, which have been featuring in fantasy stories for longer than you, I, and quite probably anyone else involved in this conversation have been alive, I don't think it's fair to condemn them as being objectively bad.

Now, I do definitely see where you're coming from. Overuse of minions is bad. But used in appropriate numbers they CAN create tension. They create situations like the one in the Princess Bride where our heroes have to figure out a way to get past sixty men guarding the gate of the castle. Sure, they could kill twenty or maybe even more of them before going down. But not sixty. So they have to get clever.

Of course, you could do that with 'normal' warriors from earlier editions. But the problem is that in earlier editions, monsters strong enough to threaten the heroes individually will completely destroy them in large groups, while monsters weak enough to be no individual threat have almost no chance no matter how many of them you use.

With minions, making them one-shottable means that they aren't an individual threat. But you can crank up their attack power to high levels, which makes them a credible threat to a powerful hero in groups. They aren't irrelevant to the fight- if the hero ignores the minions he may get stabbed in the back while he's concentrating on their boss. Working in teams, the minions have a very real chance of killing him if he doesn't take them out of the action.

Not every enemy has to be an awesome badass who the heroes defeat in a desperate epic struggle that could easily go either way. In fact, most enemies shouldn't be, because if every enemy is an awesome badass then it's hard to believe that the heroes are still alive after fighting their way through several encounters.


and people told me 9 months ago that 4E would not be PC centric.What's the point of designing a game to be played by players that does not center on the players' characters?

In a MMO game I can see that working- there are thousands of players and you are only one. But around a tabletop, there aren't so many players. If the players (and their characters) aren't important to the action, the odds are that the players won't have much fun.


Thats silly, stats are how you interact with the world. Thus NPcs would logically have pre made stats. Other wise we get inconsistencies, such of how demons and devils can't actually hurt each otherStats are how the PCs interact with the world.

Outside the PCs sphere of observation, you can include stuff that bends the rules of stats without hurting the players or making the game unfair.

For example, you can have a lucky novice take down the grizzled old war hero. Even though the novice is a 1st level fighter and the war hero is 9th level. Why? Because it's dramatically appropriate. Because it's realistic- even legendary badasses sometimes die of random causes. You may not want to inflict random death on the PCs because it hurts the players' fun. But you can certainly apply it to powerful NPCs, which creates a sense of tension.

Put simply, stats take a distant second place to storyline when the PCs aren't involved. If you want to use stats and have a semi-random storyline (the dice decide which NPC noble wins the duel), fine. But you're fully within your rights to say "screw it, Lord Mondegreen wins. No, I don't want to make him 9th level. He just wins."

If the PCs aren't directly involved in the duel somehow, that's entirely fair for the DM to do. And since part of his job is to provide a nice story for the players, he has to do that.


do you notice the actual way they are fought. the seven use hit and run tatacs, fences, defensive war fare, long range, and a mass of peasents, and even then lost four guys.Yeah, because they're outnumbered about six to one (never did figure out why the bandits fought to the last bandit).

But it's not because one bandit is easily a match for one samurai- it's because forty bandits are easily a match for seven samurai. In the same way, a band of forty level-appropriate minions in 4th Edition would likely be a threat to a party of adventurers- even though individual minions will almost certainly be killed.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-19, 11:53 PM
It's 4 minions/character, IIRC, so a group of 7 should be able to take on 28 minions. 40 would really hurt them if not kill them.

TSGames
2008-05-19, 11:58 PM
because it is an overrated cut scene that apart from defying logic, has no tension and is badly handled. At no point in teh fight do i feel the least bit if suspense that the bride might die (through the pycopath certainly deserves it) and only the most genre blind man in the world could figure out who will win. there isn't any tension, there isn't any fear, and the fight, apart from being illogical and extremly silly, is simply tedious as we watch the apparently totally moronic 88 allow themselves to be cut down by a women with a katana (why don't any of them have guns. And why does she use a katana like a broadsword?)

<snip>
well if this is based upon kill bill mentality, yes
from
EE
Your apostasy hath summoned me here. The entire point of that scene from Kill Bill is not to make the viewer think "ZOMG!! she might die", nor is it even meant to create "tension." The scene is meant to do two things: 1) Show just how much of a bada$$ the main character is and 2)be funny. You have misunderstood that movie so greatly... I fear that you are beyond salvation.

RTGoodman
2008-05-20, 12:18 AM
I really like this, especially since I've run mooks like this occasionally anyway. If you're playing a high fantasy game featuring hordes of slavering foes (which is the standard for D&D, though some prefer otherwise), this works perfectly.

And thinking about it, this is even better for players who are either (1) new to the edition or (2) new to D&D/RPGs in general. I mean, if they don't know the mechanics ("Ooh, I just have to hit that Orc/Ogre/Minor Demon once and it'll drop!"), just tell them about the horde of enemies before them and give an awesome cinematic description as they hack said horde to tiny bits before coming face to face with the Elite monster, be it Orc Chieftain, Balor, or whatever. If I were a player, that would be very exciting to me. Plus it'll be hilarious when the players of older editions run away from a group of Minions because they're too scared to take on 28 little Goblins! :smalltongue:


(As an aside, I also say this'll be great for RHoD. I never got that far in the adventure, but Battle of Brindol always looked like it'd be a big hassle. With this, just make the Giants, the Dragon, and some of the other things Solo or Elite monsters, and then all the waves of enemies can just be larger groups of Minions - it'd be a big timesaver and probably wouldn't change much anyway. I guess come June or so I'll try to do my own update of it, if I can find a steady group to run it with.)


EDIT: Also, I've just realized that THIS is how they're finally going to be able to update "Against the Giants" as someone mentioned a while back. I tried to remake it for 3.5 a couple of years ago but gave up when the original module called for one encounter with something like "22 hill giants, 8 ogre servants, a visiting storm giant, 4 hill giant nobles, the hill giant chief's wife, 2 cave bears, and the hill giant chieftain." With this new system, most of those giants and ogres are just Minions and thus aren't much of a problem.

Unfortunately, this now means I have three long-term modules/adventure arcs that I want to run in 4E...

Raum
2008-05-20, 12:22 AM
Yes, a minion will do a fraction of the damage, but 6 minions who each do 1/6 the damage of a normal monster are doing about the same amount of damage. And it still takes at least 6 hits to take the minions out.


You have to hit them, which, with their defenses on par, is still a task. Two bad rounds against mooks can kill a few PC's without their elite boss lifting a finger.

These arn't barrels. They are hum-drum soldiers. Sure, they arn't gonna kick your bum. But when they come at you in numbers, they can easily hurt you, and kill you if they are lucky.So 16 - 25% of normal damage. What percentage of normal combat 'lifespan'? One hit vs. six? Well lets be generous and call it 25% of normal lifespan. So now that damage is 4 - 6.25% of normal when considered over time.

You'd need a 20:1 ratio to make them a threat. Actually it's worse than that if they're melee types...they'd need ranged attacks for all 20 to attack at once. Best add a few more. There goes the fast combat.

I'll reiterate my first post. I like minions in systems built to use them. D&D isn't such a system.

Rutee
2008-05-20, 12:31 AM
....
A 20:1 ratio? When they deal 25% normal attack damage and have normal to-hit and defenses?

WHAT!? That's 5 times normal attack damage! On each PC!

Somehow, I don't think you thought your cunning plan all the way through.

Yahzi
2008-05-20, 12:47 AM
Take some responsibility! If a minion is not a 'real person' then it is because you as the DM did not make them a 'real person'.
It's hard to be a real person when a housecat can accidentally kill you. :smallbiggrin:


How presumptive of you. I see very little difference,
I like to try and reduce arguments to empirical observations, so I presented a test case. I think the difference between the bandits in Seven Samurai and the storm troopers in Star Wars is obvious; what does everyone else think?

Yahzi
2008-05-20, 12:49 AM
Yes, the morality is simple. They want to kill you, so you kill them first.
Not if they can't hurt you.

It's not moral to kill people, no matter how evil they are, if they can't hurt you (or others). And if you can stop them from hurting others without killing them, you're kind of obliged to at least try.

Rutee
2008-05-20, 12:52 AM
Not if they can't hurt you.


...*Facepalm*
They can.


I like to try and reduce arguments to empirical observations, so I presented a test case. I think the difference between the bandits in Seven Samurai and the storm troopers in Star Wars is obvious; what does everyone else think?
That there isn't a difference at all, least of all not in this regard. The Monarch has real people serving him (Well, Henchmen numbers 21 and 24), but that doesn't mean they're not taken out in a single hit (Those two just live through it).

tyckspoon
2008-05-20, 12:54 AM
Not if they can't hurt you.

It's not moral to kill people, no matter how evil they are, if they can't hurt you (or others). And if you can stop them from hurting others without killing them, you're kind of obliged to at least try.


They have level-appropriate attack and defence values. They can hurt you. They don't roll random damage and they die in one hit, but they can hurt you just fine. Unless you're using significantly lower-level minions, in which case they'll be about as ineffective as any significantly lower-level creature.

illathid
2008-05-20, 01:04 AM
That there isn't a difference at all, least of all not in this regard. The Monarch has real people serving him (Well, Henchmen numbers 21 and 24), but that doesn't mean they're not taken out in a single hit (Those two just live through it).

Hahaha... great example.

The way I see it is that minion status is not definitive, but rather based on their relation to the PC's. If we were going to play "Venture Bros: 4e" (note to self: Awesome Idea), the Monarchs' henchmen wouldn't be minions when Hank and Dean fought them, but would be when Brock fought them. One should also take notice that there have been situations where the Monarch's Henchmen have bested Brock (and it is usually when he decides to completely ignore them).

TheOOB
2008-05-20, 01:16 AM
I think this should be brought up. Minion is a tag that is meant for book keeping only, it has nothing to do with how the character acts when not facing the heroes. A minion doesn't die every time they get a scratch, the get defeated every time they take damage. Outside of battle a minion lives their life just like everyone else (though they are probably far less exciting and important), and if two large groups of minions fight they can have an epic long drawn out battle until the heroes/villians interfere.

Minions are like stormtroopers. They can be one of the most powerful and feared forces in the galaxy, they just don't have whatever something special is unnecessary to stand up alone against an equivalently leveled hero. They don't have quite the skill and natural talent, they don't have the drive to keep fighting after they are wounded, nor the toughness/blind luck to turn a deadly wound into a grazing blow.

Basically, only use the minion rules when the players are fighting a large number of foes at once for whom they are supposed to clearly surpass. It's like the law of conservation of nijitsu. One faceless ninja who encounters the party will be a serious threat, while that same ninja, and a dozen of his identical allies, will be near useless unless they work together to gang up on their opponents or are aided by a powerful villain.

Farmer42
2008-05-20, 01:51 AM
I'm not sure the law of conservation of ninjitsu applies here, though, since minions get tougher as their numbers go up. Especially in a system that uses a standard square grid, where you can theoretically have one PC surrounded by 26 enemies. If they have more than that, any breach you make is filled. That's why these guys are so lethal in the first place. Even though they aren't hard to drop, they will hurt you, and their buddy will take his place. Replacing a BBEG with more minions in a situation actually makes it harder, not because the BBEG didn't do as much damage, but because of attrition. There is a set number of mooks you can kill in a round. At some point, you run out of swings and they get to fight back, and there are more of them than there are of you.

The forum's being wacky, if this is a DP, I'll delete it.

Rockphed
2008-05-20, 02:52 AM
It's 4 minions/character, IIRC, so a group of 7 should be able to take on 28 minions. 40 would really hurt them if not kill them.

But if you dropped the Minion's level by 1 or 2, it would probably even out. 40 minions of the PC's level would probably result in a good chunk of the party dieing. Wait, isn't this all a discussion about how 7 samurai beat 40 bandits into the ground and only 4 of the samurai died?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-05-20, 06:10 AM
In other words, people should suck it up and use cliches they don't like because, many years ago, Gygax created 1st edition D&D under their inspiration?

The game is suppose to imitate the most classic of fantasy settings.

Who's forcing you to use the minions again, though? I'm sure you can keep on using mooks who take several rounds to kill each and pose absolutely no threat to the PCs even in the hundreds.

If you don't like the cliches, why are you playing D&D? There's a hundred objectively better RPGs that don't follow them. D&D's only attraction is that it's the most D&D game there is.


I guess I'm the only one for whom wading through minions is decidedly less heroic than fighting agains a handful of strong opponents.

Yes, looking at any and all heroic fantasy, you are.

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-20, 06:51 AM
So 16 - 25% of normal damage. What percentage of normal combat 'lifespan'? One hit vs. six? Well lets be generous and call it 25% of normal lifespan. So now that damage is 4 - 6.25% of normal when considered over time.

I’m not going to try to math hammer out lifespan, but the thing to remember is these things are coming at you IN FLOCKS. They are mooks. Mooks=hoarde. 20-to-1 is a fine ratio. From what I’ve heard, 16 minions of appropriate level are a decent encounter. Let’s say you crack off a few shots and reduce that to 12 before they rush you. You seriously think that 3 to one they can’t lay some hurt? Surround the caster and have a fun time smacking him every turn. Bog the fighter down and separate him from his squishy companions. The PC’s are affected by combat rules, too, and the minions can push them around with tactics. Unless you’re a bad DM, they aren’t simply running into a wall of readied steel.


Not if they can't hurt you.


...*Facepalm*
They can.

Couldn’t of said it better myself.


The way I see it is that minion status is not definitive, but rather based on their relation to the PC's. If we were going to play "Venture Bros: 4e" (note to self: Awesome Idea), the Monarchs' henchmen wouldn't be minions when Hank and Dean fought them, but would be when Brock fought them. One should also take notice that there have been situations where the Monarch's Henchmen have bested Brock (and it is usually when he decides to completely ignore them).


Great reference. Though the minions are pretty much minions against everyone, since half the time they are their own worst enemies. BUT PERFECT EXAMPLE. The minions captured Brock Sampson. The minions, who are killed by the hundreds, still were effective. Even though they ARE WAYYYY below his level. They just needed a car to hit him with.

I can’t even wait. Those kobold minions the PC’s ignored? Push a boulder down on them. Now whose the one with one HP?

Raum
2008-05-20, 07:25 AM
....
A 20:1 ratio? When they deal 25% normal attack damage and have normal to-hit and defenses?

WHAT!? That's 5 times normal attack damage! On each PC!Hmm? Did you miss the math? If an opponent tough enough to provide a threat does X damage over Y rounds while a minion does 1/4X damage over 1/4Y rounds you'll need C minions to provide the same threat.

C*1/4X*1/4Y=X*Y
C=16

Except 16 can't all attack at once so you're losing some of that threat simply because they're waiting to move in. Worse, assuming a minion going down in one hit actually has one quarter the combat lifespan of a threatening opponent is generous. Hence my fudge factor raising the number to 20.
----------

Compare that to a game like Savage Worlds with minions built in from the start. Minions do the same damage as non-minions but have a slightly lower chance of hitting and approximately one third the health / combat lifespan. Because the damage itself isn't lower they're a valid threat. Yet I've thrown up to a 6:1 ratio at the PCs! That was a tough battle and one PC was incapacitated.

Comparatively, D&D 4e's implementation of minions do less damage and have less health. How can they possibly be a threat except in extremely large numbers?

Rutee
2008-05-20, 07:39 AM
Oh for Gods' sakes, you're overcomplicating this.

6 minions hit for 25% damage.

Turn 1: 6 minions hit for 150% damage
Turn 2: 5 minions hit for 125% damage
Turn 3: 4 minions hit for 100% damage
Turn 4: 3 minions hit for 75%
Turn 5: 2 minions hit for 50%
Turn 6: 1 minion hits for 25% damage.

If we assume it's six hits to drop an even level monster.
Turn 1: Monster hits for 100% damage
Turn 2: Monster hits for 100% damage
Turn 3: Monster hits for 100% damage
Turn 4: Monster hits for 100% damage
Turn 5: Monster hits for 100% damage
Turn 6: Monster hits for 100% damage

Do the minions hit for about 75% less damage? Yes. Yes in fact they do.

Does this leave them laughably lower threats? No, in fact it does not.



Comparatively, D&D 4e's implementation of minions do less damage and have less health. How can they possibly be a threat except in extremely large numbers?
6:1 odds are relatively large.

Jarlax
2008-05-20, 07:47 AM
Comparatively, D&D 4e's implementation of minions do less damage and have less health. How can they possibly be a threat except in extremely large numbers?

because by design they are not meant to be implemented with any concept of being single monster. but rather as an element of a battle with other creatures. taken from this article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080414a) is an example encounter involving minions

Level 21 Encounter (XP 19,750)

* 1 war devil (level 22 brute)
* 1 ice devil (level 20 soldier)
* 2 bone devils (level 17 controller)
* 12 legion devil legionnaires (level 21 minion)

in this example 12 minions have been fielded amongst 4 additional creatures. for a total of 16 monsters in the encounter, in this example the war devil can deploy besieged foe as a minor action, giving all the other monsters a +2 to hit the target of his choice.

in his next round maybe 3 of the minions are down (if the system runs on SW:SE then multiple attacks are not gained as you level like +13/+7) and the rest arrive in combat range, as a minor action he uses fiendish tactics to give two of those minions a free attack against his marked foe at +2 to attack this is separate attack to their attack action, assuming they did not expend it on movement to reach the party they have been given the chance to attack twice in one round. remembering that a minor action has not cost the war devil his movement or attack actions during his round he is doing alright for himself.

in his third round several more minions are gone, along with the weaker bone devils. but all he needs is one minion within 2 squares of a defenseless caster, and BAM Devilish Transposition lets him swap positions with that minion, the caster is now looking up at a level 22 brute with his attack action remaining, which has reach 2, who was up to 20 squares away a moment before. a 8 damage minion just turned into a 4D4+8 attack that knocks the caster prone.

all the math on damage output you want to make wont save you from tactical deployment of minions with a leader role monster in the encounter.

Raum
2008-05-20, 08:09 AM
Do the minions hit for about 75% less damage? Yes. Yes in fact they do.

Does this leave them laughably lower threats? No, in fact it does not.I think you and I define "threat" differently.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-20, 08:11 AM
I think you and I define "threat" differently.

Indeed. She probably thinks 150% damage in 25% sized portions is bigger than 100% in a single blow, and guess what, she is the rights.

Rutee
2008-05-20, 08:42 AM
I think you and I define "threat" differently.

I think you're quoting out of context; They hit for a total of 525% normal attack damage, in my example. The normal monster hits for 600% normal attack damage. 75% less.. of a normal attack. Not "75% less overall". That's more like 13% difference overall.

Holocron Coder
2008-05-20, 09:25 AM
Hmm? Did you miss the math? If an opponent tough enough to provide a threat does X damage over Y rounds while a minion does 1/4X damage over 1/4Y rounds you'll need C minions to provide the same threat.

C*1/4X*1/4Y=X*Y
C=16

Except 16 can't all attack at once so you're losing some of that threat simply because they're waiting to move in. Worse, assuming a minion going down in one hit actually has one quarter the combat lifespan of a threatening opponent is generous. Hence my fudge factor raising the number to 20.


I would like to correct your math. You read "X damage over y rounds" and ".25X damage over .25Y" rounds. "Over" reads as dividing.

I think you meant ".25X per round, for .25Y rounds", assuming 1/4 dmg and 1/4 lifespan. However, this ignores that each minion does not last only 1 round. On average, they last 1/2 the rounds of a normal opponent, doing scaling damage, depending on initial numbers.

5 minions:
125% damage
100%
75%
50%
25%
total: 375%

1 opponent: (assuming lifespan of 4 rounds)
100% x 4 = 400%

I'm seeing a ratio of about 5:1 to equal damage, not 20:1. This is, of course, assuming complete hits, every time. Minions and opponents have level-appropriate scores, so this seems possible. The only downside to minions is the fact they have to roll more attacks (15 as opposed to 4). However, each miss costs less damage lost (25% normal damage versus 100% normal damage).

Raum
2008-05-20, 09:30 AM
I think you're quoting out of context; They hit for a total of 525% normal attack damage, in my example. The normal monster hits for 600% normal attack damage. 75% less.. of a normal attack. Not "75% less overall". That's more like 13% difference overall.Ah, I see what you're saying. I didn't follow the way you were using percentages.

You seem to be basing it on what appears to be an easy encounter, is that correct? I'm not sure our numbers are all that far apart either, the 20:1 ratio I spoke of was 20 minions being equivalent to 1 tough opponent. An EL higher than the party's average level where PCs face a significant threat of dying.

Indon
2008-05-20, 09:31 AM
I think minion threat will be intricately associated with how strategically they're being played.

Situations in which you can take out more than one minion at once will trivialize them, for instance.

fendrin
2008-05-20, 10:46 AM
Also, I've just realized that THIS is how they're finally going to be able to update "Against the Giants" as someone mentioned a while back. I tried to remake it for 3.5 a couple of years ago but gave up when the original module called for one encounter with something like "22 hill giants, 8 ogre servants, a visiting storm giant, 4 hill giant nobles, the hill giant chief's wife, 2 cave bears, and the hill giant chieftain." With this new system, most of those giants and ogres are just Minions and thus aren't much of a problem.

Unfortunately, this now means I have three long-term modules/adventure arcs that I want to run in 4E...

I'll tell you what: I'll convert RHoD and share it with you, and you convert AtG and share it with me.

By the way, one of the nifty things about 4e is that scaling encounters will be a lot easier, so I figure encounters described as 'X number of Y-type minions and one Z-type brute per PC' will work well.

Also, considering the empowering of low-level characters, I'm thinking of lowering the intended character level, perhaps all the way down to 1st level.

Maybe I should start a thread on this once I get the 4e books...


It's hard to be a real person when a housecat can accidentally kill you. :smallbiggrin:

So 3.5 first level commoners aren't people? Sounds a bit hypocritical of you. :smallwink:

On a serious note; I think I see the problem here. One of the tricky concepts in 4e (well, it seems tricky for some people anyway) is that game mechanics are focused around the PCs (note I said the mechanics, not the game world). 4e assumes that the game world exists independent of the game mechanics, and the DM is expected to use common sense/plot to resolve events occurring outside the sphere of the PCs influence.

To put it another way: Cotta is a member of a Memmio's collegium (roman street gang). When he scuffles with the locals or with members of other collegia, he (essentially) has normal stats. In reality, the DM just decides how the fights are resolved, based on what makes sense and/or what makes the story work. This is what (in my experience) most DMs do anyway, regardless of edition.

Now, when Lucius and Titus (the PCs) are sent in to keep the peace (having unintentionally started the gang war in the first place), Cotta is a minion and Memmio is a standard or elite opponent.

A good example of minions in action would be when Titus Pullo (a PC) is condemned to fight in the coliseum for committing murder. First, he faces a handful of minion gladiators. He gets hurt, but eventually kills them all. Then a couple of standard gladiators rush him, and he gets bloodied, but dispatches them as well. Finally, an elite gladiator comes out, and takes on our intrepid hero with ease (as by now he has few HP left and has used most if not all of his encounter and daily powers). Now, a normal street tough would have died at the hands of the initial group, but Pullo, being a hero of the 13th legion, takes them out with ease but not without consequence. He is still hurt, and still expended resources on them.

In 3.x minions had at most a 15% chance of hitting you, and did very little damage. A trained warrior could dispatch an entire squad of them in one or two rounds and not get scratched. In 4e they still only do a little damage, but have a much better chance to hit, and are much harder to hit. Are they (as a group) likely to take out a PC? No. At least, no more so (but not much less than) a single standard enemy of the same level.


I like to try and reduce arguments to empirical observations, so I presented a test case. I think the difference between the bandits in Seven Samurai and the storm troopers in Star Wars is obvious; what does everyone else think?
If it was obvious I would have seen it. As far as being 'real people' there is little or no difference.

Now, if you are referring to the fact that the stormtroopers are lauded as highly accurate but never hit the main characters, but the bandits are actually able to hit the samurai, then you have correctly identified the difference between 3e and 4e mooks.

Stormtroopers are 3e and the bandits are 4e.

Seriously, look at the conversation above about hobgoblin veterans in Red Hand of Doom. Give them white full plate and crossbows and you can't tell the difference. :smallyuk:


Ah, I see what you're saying. I didn't follow the way you were using percentages.

You seem to be basing it on what appears to be an easy encounter, is that correct? I'm not sure our numbers are all that far apart either, the 20:1 ratio I spoke of was 20 minions being equivalent to 1 tough opponent. An EL higher than the party's average level where PCs face a significant threat of dying. Minions have a level rating such that a group (4-6, I think) of level 5 minions per PC is considered an appropriate challenge for a party, roughly equivalent to 1 standard opponent per PC. Of course, the most interesting encounters will likely mix types of opponents (say 8-12 minions, two standards and an elite for a party of 5 PCs).

Morty
2008-05-20, 12:54 PM
If you don't like the cliches, why are you playing D&D? There's a hundred objectively better RPGs that don't follow them. D&D's only attraction is that it's the most D&D game there is.

I play D&D when I want to have a bit of heroic adventure without it being too much over the top. And I see absolutely no reason why it would assume I should stick to the cliches I dislike.
Again, I can just ignore minion mechanics. But I won't ignore statements that by avoiding certain stupid cliches I'm playing the game in Wrong Way.


Yes, looking at any and all heroic fantasy, you are.

Good thing I don't care.

fendrin
2008-05-20, 01:03 PM
I see absolutely no reason why it would assume I should stick to the cliches I dislike.
You got that right.


Again, I can just ignore minion mechanics.
Yep, and thanks for being sensible about this unlike some of the other folks on this thread (the "It ruins D&D!" types of comments bother me...).


But I won't ignore statements that by avoiding certain stupid cliches I'm playing the game in Wrong Way.
Good for you. Seriously, the only 'Wrong Way' to play any game is in such a way that one or more people are not having fun.

Jack Zander
2008-05-20, 01:13 PM
What do people define as minions in 3.5? My "minions" would hit the PCs pretty often, but I'd define them as any level-appropriate encounter with 4 or more creatures.

And generally, something doesn't have a 15% chance to hit you unless you are 10 levels or higher above it (or cheesed out your AC). Minions in 4e will be even worse, because now 1st level soldiers will not only never hit, but when they do roll a 20, they'll only do 1/4 damage.

It may balance out with higher level minions, but why has the town guard suddenly gained all these nifty class abilities without more hp?

Too much broken verisimilitude for me.

Crow
2008-05-20, 01:29 PM
It helps if you just ignore the 1 hit point. Hp is such a clunky mechanic anyways. When we ran "minions" in our 3.x games, I would drop minions even if they weren't down to 0 hp and say they were incapacitated, or wounded and out of the fight.

Just ignore the 1 hp and keep the "Go down in one hit". Then you can describe the action however you want. Instead of "murdering" 100's of minions, you can knock one unconscious with the pommel of your sword, hack another's hand clean off, sending him screaming to the floor, clutching his bleeding stump, crush his leg with maul, breaking bone and crumpling him to the floor, or just plain running him through and using your foot to push him off your blade...

Seriously, if your verisimilitude is based on the hp mechanic, you've got worse problems than a new "minion" mechanic.

Charity
2008-05-20, 01:48 PM
What do people define as minions in 3.5? My "minions" would hit the PCs pretty often, but I'd define them as any level-appropriate encounter with 4 or more creatures.

And generally, something doesn't have a 15% chance to hit you unless you are 10 levels or higher above it (or cheesed out your AC). Minions in 4e will be even worse, because now 1st level soldiers will not only never hit, but when they do roll a 20, they'll only do 1/4 damage.

It may balance out with higher level minions, but why has the town guard suddenly gained all these nifty class abilities without more hp?

Too much broken verisimilitude for me.

Hobgoblin veterans lvl 4 warrior from RHoD +8 to hit (best attack) (these vet's are mooks remember)
level 7 characters, AC 26 ish = 15% chance to hit.
This is not far fetched, nobody is cheesed out, this is just how it is.
These are from a published module, EL appropriate encounters, not only that, this isn't the worst example just the one used as an illustration, the players meet plenty of lvl 1 hobbos which they decimate actually thats too kind none survive.
Also you seem to be ignoring the oft repeated statement that minions will have THE SAME attack bonus and defence as regular opponants of the same level. So for lvl 1 players use lvl 1 minions ya. they will be about as good as 1/4ish of a regular lvl 1 monster it is that simple.


I'll tell you what: I'll convert RHoD and share it with you, and you convert AtG and share it with me.


I would very much like to see your RHoD conversion also... but without any of that nasty doing stuff in return bit... if at all possible. I'm a lazy lazy man.

Citizen Joe
2008-05-20, 02:31 PM
The problem with the 1 hp minion thing is that as soon as they enter the PC's Minion Field, they have 1 hp. In theory, anything that does damage would disable them. So, if a PC had a pet housecat, that housecat could kill a minion demon with a single swipe. Or, more appropriately, if the PC's rounded up a group of their OWN minions, the minions would just slaughter each other where moments before it was some long drawn out fight.

The whole point of a minion is to take one attack away from the PC before going down. The 1 hp gimmick has side effects that will cause problems. An easier method is to give the PC's an ability to bypass hp on minions and simply disable them.

Rutee
2008-05-20, 02:34 PM
You could just rule that a housecat is not sufficiently powerful enough to take advantage of minion rules, and I doubt anyone would mind much. Except the housecats, who would then visit swift justice upon you when you next slept.

fendrin
2008-05-20, 02:34 PM
What do people define as minions in 3.5? My "minions" would hit the PCs pretty often, but I'd define them as any level-appropriate encounter with 4 or more creatures.

Ah, yeah, in 4e a standard encounter would be one standard enemy per PC. Minions would be ~4 creatures per PC. You know, when the necromancer has a horde of skeletons, or when the PCs defend the town against a horde of orcs, etc. Hmm, I described both as hordes. It's also useful for facing off against military units (above the 5-man squad, anyway). What, would an army send forth it's officers and leave th grunts behind? No. In 3.5 The grunts would either be so far below the PCs that they were not a threat at all, or they would be too tough for the PCs (when in [medieval/fantasy] military-appropriate numbers).


And generally, something doesn't have a 15% chance to hit you unless you are 10 levels or higher above it (or cheesed out your AC). 15% to hit means needing a 18. A standard hobgoblin (CR 0.5) has +2 to hit with it's longsword. That means it has a 15% chance to hit AC 20. That's full plate and a heavy shield, easily acquirable by level 2. Further, with their -1 will save, they are likely going to be dead after 1 round anyway, as they wil only have ~25% chance to save against a wizard's sleep spell (assuming int 16, totally reasonable).


Minions in 4e will be even worse, because now 1st level soldiers will not only never hit, but when they do roll a 20, they'll only do 1/4 damage.

Ah, but 1st level minions will typically be fighting 1st level PCs. 5th level PCs will fight 5th level minions. So the minions scale with the PCs. Make sense? Think about it this way. First level PC minions might be the local street toughs. 3rd level minions might be a a roving gang of bandits that raid caravans. 6th level minions are weak demons. So on and so forth. Really, how often are 6th level PCs going to be facing off against local street toughs? Their skills are better served dealing with the demon-summoning cult that local law enforcement can't handle.


It may balance out with higher level minions, but why has the town guard suddenly gained all these nifty class abilities without more hp?

Look at the Legion Devil info that SamTheCleric so kindly typed out for us (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4341660&postcount=34). Minions don't get all sorts of nifty abilities. They aren't part of a fight to do cool wacky things. They are part of a fight to add verisimilitude to certain types of encounters (the sorts where you expect lots of enemies).


I would very much like to see your RHoD conversion also... but without any of that nasty doing stuff in return bit... if at all possible. I'm a lazy lazy man.

Well, in the spirit of honesty, I too am a lazy man, so my conversion may be a while in the coming... it will be faster if I have a group willing to play it... honestly though I think it will be an easy conversion. Just find appropriate monsters and adjust # of monsters...


The problem with the 1 hp minion thing is that as soon as they enter the PC's Minion Field, they have 1 hp. In theory, anything that does damage would disable them. So, if a PC had a pet housecat, that housecat could kill a minion demon with a single swipe.
Ok, so say the PC pulls a Belkar and throws Mr. Fluffy at a minion. A 3.5 house cat has a ridiculous +4 to hit (that's twice as good as a hogoblin warrior!), but compared to the weakest Legion Devil's AC of 22, that's an 18 to hit, for a 15% chance... wow, those numbers sound familiar. Then the Legion Devil says 'kitty tayst gud' and skewers the feline on a roll of 3 or better (+11 vs AC 14). Net result? PC wasted a turn to eliminate a single attack by a single minion (and shifts (further?) towards evil for animal cruelty :smalltongue:), then gets stabbed by the other three Legion devils. Seems like a highly effective technique... or not.


Or, more appropriately, if the PC's rounded up a group of their OWN minions, the minions would just slaughter each other where moments before it was some long drawn out fight.
Hmm, this might work... until the PCs get the reputation for not coming back with their minions alive. Presumably, PC minions (assuming the equivalent of the 3.X leadership feat) will be at least a couple levels lower than the PCs, and the same problem will occur as with the housecat: they don't stand a chance.


The whole point of a minion is to take one attack away from the PC before going down. The 1 hp gimmick has side effects that will cause problems. An easier method is to give the PC's an ability to bypass hp on minions and simply disable them.
Well, I'm not seeing too much of a problem so far.

kc0bbq
2008-05-20, 02:47 PM
Why do people have such a hard time with abstraction? This isn't even anywhere close to, say, a Feng Shui character designed to take down minions.

And if you've done the KotSF preview, you understand that it doesn't even take too many to be a threat, especially if the DM is using intelligent tactics. The first battle uses minions and it's beautiful. Tactical type monsters that get bonuses from having same type monsters around or can use tactical powers to adjust the fight during combat make minions pretty grim. It's not like they can't flank or use racial powers.

I don't understand the need for something so formulaic.

Jerthanis
2008-05-20, 02:52 PM
*single tears* My first 4th edition houserule... My minions will never be immune to miss damage, and I don't care how unbalancing it might be.

A ranger should have the option, on his turn, to say, "I kill an orc." and have it happen that way.



because it is an overrated cut scene that apart from defying logic, has no tension and is badly handled. At no point in teh fight do i feel the least bit if suspense that the bride might die (through the pycopath certainly deserves it) and only the most genre blind man in the world could figure out who will win. there isn't any tension, there isn't any fear, and the fight, apart from being illogical and extremly silly, is simply tedious as we watch the apparently totally moronic 88 allow themselves to be cut down by a women with a katana (why don't any of them have guns. And why does she use a katana like a broadsword?)

Have you noticed that you describe almost everything you don't like as "badly handled"? It's a pretty vague term, and almost entirely subjective. The fight scene with the Crazy 88's was about a lot more than just the murders involved. As someone said, it wasn't meant to show the Bride in any real danger (the fight with Gogo previously was meant to show more vulnerability than the en-masse fight), but to show she's hardcore. It was also to show O-ren as a coldly calculating evil woman who would throw away the lives of her entire group of bodyguards to have a better chance against the supremely deadly Bride. If you went on to see Kill Bill: Volume 2, you might notice the fight scene of volume 1 was in deliberate contrast to the ones in Volume 2.

You see, at the core, you're right. The scene in volume 1 of about 40 or 50 guys getting killed was pretty silly. It's just that after seeing a 20 minute gory ballet with all its members floating and spinning in a whirlwind of brightly colored blood, the brutal, knock-down-drag-out battle with Elle in the trailer seems even more visceral and real. It's that contrast I think that will be helped in the game flow in 4th edition. It is generally the case that different battles have different degrees of emotional investment. That these different battles will have different feels both mechanically, and emotionally is a good thing to me.

Crow
2008-05-20, 04:14 PM
I honestly don't see how anybody can have a problem with this. I explained why in my previous post. "But a housecat could mow through minions!" Sweet hell, just look at the 1hp for what it is, an abstraction. Be a DM for heaven's sake.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-20, 04:19 PM
I honestly don't see how anybody can have a problem with this. I explained why in my previous post. "But a housecat could mow through minions!" Sweet hell, just look at the 1hp for what it is, an abstraction. Be a DM for heaven's sake.

Not to mention, the housecat is only going to hit minions of a level higher than 2 on a twenty. Not even the need to change something.

Swordguy
2008-05-20, 04:27 PM
I honestly don't see how anybody can have a problem with this. I explained why in my previous post. "But a housecat could mow through minions!" Sweet hell, just look at the 1hp for what it is, an abstraction. Be a DM for heaven's sake.

You're expecting people to show intelligence and maturity when they can scream and run around in panic as a reaction instead. Which do YOU think is more likely?

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 05:16 PM
I honestly don't see how anybody can have a problem with this.

Because there are high-level, supposedly fairly powerful NPCs walking around with 1 HP, that's why. I know you'll say "it's only a game, the PCs are all that matter", but that's simply not true in my games - we don't treat NPCs like cardboard cutouts. You and I have different campaign styles, plain and simple, and using Minions would detract from the verisimilitude of any 4e campaign I choose to run.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-20, 05:22 PM
Because there are high-level, supposedly fairly powerful NPCs walking around with 1 HP, that's why. I know you'll say "it's only a game, the PCs are all that matter", but that's simply not true in my games - we don't treat NPCs like cardboard cutouts. You and I have different campaign styles, plain and simple, and using Minions would detract from the verisimilitude of any 4e campaign I choose to run.

See, minions are no longer powerful NPC's. If a monster is a minion, it has reached a point where it's only a minor inconvenience for the PC's, not a powerful creature. Against a lower leveled group, though, it WOULD be dangerous and would have more than minion HP.

Crow
2008-05-20, 05:24 PM
Because there are high-level, supposedly fairly powerful NPCs walking around with 1 HP, that's why. I know you'll say "it's only a game, the PCs are all that matter", but that's simply not true in my games - we won't treat high-level NPCs like cardboard cutouts who would fall to a single sling bolt, every time. You and I have different campaign styles, plain and simple, and using Minions would detract from the verisimilitude of any 4e campaign I choose to run.

No I won't say that. I'd appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth. I'll say hp is an ABSTRACTION. The PC's are not all that matters. Just ignore the 1 hp and keep the "Go down in 1 hit" part. Going down in 1 hit does not need to mean dead.

You know what detracts from verisimilitude to me? Every single enemy the PC's face fighting to the bitter end. Enemies have families, motivation, self-preservation instinct, etc... Some enemies aren't going to keep fighting until they're killed. Some are going to go down when wounded and stay down so they don't get killed. The 1 hp is just a heavy-handed way of representing this.

I think they shouldn't have given them any hp.

Jerthanis
2008-05-20, 05:41 PM
Because there are high-level, supposedly fairly powerful NPCs walking around with 1 HP, that's why. I know you'll say "it's only a game, the PCs are all that matter", but that's simply not true in my games - we don't treat NPCs like cardboard cutouts. You and I have different campaign styles, plain and simple, and using Minions would detract from the verisimilitude of any 4e campaign I choose to run.

Fair enough, and I understand and appreciate your gaming style, but I'd like to point out that you or I could easily die if we got hit by a single sling stone. In my opinion, the capacity for an NPC being killed easily doesn't mean I'm necessarily using them as cardboard cutouts or unimportant.

If my party members had a favorite Inn/Tavern in a certain town, with a colorful NPC bartender who treats them all like family... the fact that any member of the party could murder him in an instant doesn't change the fact that he's more than a cardboard cutout.

Meanwhile, you can stat up Draconus the Dragonlord six ways from sunday, with awesome powers and defenses, and who will push the party to the brink trying to beat him... but if the PCs don't care about him, he's as bad as any faceless mooks.

This is stretching this a little far, but if the players decided to join the city guard and learned the lives and times of their fellow guardsmen, their hopes and dreams... when the big fight breaks out, they're still going down in one hit. Because in a world with this much vaunted verisimilitude, people don't get tougher by having names or characters.

Hit Points are an abstraction for combat survivability. If you think it has anything at all to do with an NPC's ability to have a character... Let me just say that I agree that we're playing a different type of D&D.

kc0bbq
2008-05-20, 05:43 PM
Because there are high-level, supposedly fairly powerful NPCs walking around with 1 HP, that's why. I know you'll say "it's only a game, the PCs are all that matter", but that's simply not true in my games - we don't treat NPCs like cardboard cutouts. You and I have different campaign styles, plain and simple, and using Minions would detract from the verisimilitude of any 4e campaign I choose to run.Do you painfully craft a ten page backstory for every dire squirrel that gets summoned by a spell? Where is the line drawn? Why can't people separate the metagame from the game? They are an abstraction handled in a pretty effective way to fill out fights and make tactical abilities worthwhile. I swear, your head is going to explode when you see the zombie special.

Why don't people understand what verisimilitude is?

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 06:24 PM
Okay, I got myself a few responses to make here. Lessee...


See, minions are no longer powerful NPC's. If a monster is a minion, it has reached a point where it's only a minor inconvenience for the PC's, not a powerful creature. Against a lower leveled group, though, it WOULD be dangerous and would have more than minion HP.

Say your party consists of one 10th level PC and two 5th level PCs. Does the minion have 1 HP when attacked by the 10th level PC, and more HP when attacked by the 5th level PCs?

What if you summon weak monsters who have a high to-hit attack that deals a handful of damage? Is there a good reason for them to knock every minion down with one hit? Or do they then not count as minions vs. your summoned creatures?

What if a rock falls out of the sky and hits the minion? Is he incapacitated, or not?

It's issues like these that IMO make it seem like the Minion mechanic just creates more problems than it solves.


No I won't say that. I'd appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth.

Sorry, I must have misinterpreted one of your previous points. I wasn't trying to put any words in your mouth. My apologies.


I'll say hp is an ABSTRACTION. The PC's are not all that matters. Just ignore the 1 hp and keep the "Go down in 1 hit" part. Going down in 1 hit does not need to mean dead.

See my above reasons for why them having 1 HP is not just an abstraction. It's the reality of the life of those NPCs.


You know what detracts from verisimilitude to me? Every single enemy the PC's face fighting to the bitter end. Enemies have families, motivation, self-preservation instinct, etc... Some enemies aren't going to keep fighting until they're killed.

I agree wholeheartedly, and I play my NPCs to their true motivations. Some do want to fight to the bitter end, others don't.


Some are going to go down when wounded and stay down so they don't get killed. The 1 hp is just a heavy-handed way of representing this.

Very heavy-handed, if that is indeed what they meant for it to represent.


I think they shouldn't have given them any hp.

That's basically the same idea, no?

When I first started reading the article, it actually seemed to me that they were going to be making Minions as some kind of Swarm-type monsters, that that was what their development ideas seemed to be leading them to - which I thought could work quite well, if implemented correctly.


Fair enough, and I understand and appreciate your gaming style, but I'd like to point out that you or I could easily die if we got hit by a single sling stone.

I won't argue with you there, though it would probably have to be a crit, not just a normal attack.


In my opinion, the capacity for an NPC being killed easily doesn't mean I'm necessarily using them as cardboard cutouts or unimportant.

I agree with that. Giving NPCs relatively low amounts of HP doesn't make them cardboard cutouts. Giving them 1 HP does, IMO. They're there to go down.

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with cardboard cutouts, in and of themselves. I just prefer not to utilize them in my campaigns.


If my party members had a favorite Inn/Tavern in a certain town, with a colorful NPC bartender who treats them all like family... the fact that any member of the party could murder him in an instant doesn't change the fact that he's more than a cardboard cutout.

Agreed in concept, except that the bartender is not a 16th level devil who could easily cut a swath through the whole inn, if no one hits him that one time it takes to knock him to the ground.


Meanwhile, you can stat up Draconus the Dragonlord six ways from sunday, with awesome powers and defenses, and who will push the party to the brink trying to beat him... but if the PCs don't care about him, he's as bad as any faceless mooks.

No arguing with that.


This is stretching this a little far, but if the players decided to join the city guard and learned the lives and times of their fellow guardsmen, their hopes and dreams... when the big fight breaks out, they're still going down in one hit. Because in a world with this much vaunted verisimilitude, people don't get tougher by having names or characters.

Again, no argument from me.


Hit Points are an abstraction for combat survivability. If you think it has anything at all to do with an NPC's ability to have a character... Let me just say that I agree that we're playing a different type of D&D.

That's not what I was saying. Perhaps this post has cleared up my position somewhat? If not, let me know.


Do you painfully craft a ten page backstory for every dire squirrel that gets summoned by a spell? Where is the line drawn? Why can't people separate the metagame from the game? They are an abstraction handled in a pretty effective way to fill out fights and make tactical abilities worthwhile. I swear, your head is going to explode when you see the zombie special.

Why don't people understand what verisimilitude is?

I understand what verisimilitude is, and it has nothing to do with writing a ten page backstory for every passing dire squirrel. It has everything to do with the world being internally consistent, which I think using the Minion mechanic impinges upon.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-05-20, 06:36 PM
I keep thinking how many great uses there can be for minions in my campaigns.


One ruling I may make at times though, is if a minion seems to be a creature type that is particualrily tough hp wise, I would say it would take 2 or 3 hits to bring it down. I wouldn't worry about which minion was hit, just after every two successfull hits against some monster in the horde, one of them will be brought down. This should add more realism without adding in that more micromanagement.

I could do the same with weapons. If some character wants to use a dagger to bring down regular minions, I would say no. They would need to do 2 hits against the horde to bring one down.

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 06:45 PM
One ruling I may make at times though, is if a minion seems to be a creature type that is particualrily tough hp wise, I would say it would take 2 or 3 hits to bring it down. I wouldn't worry about which minion was hit, just after every two successfull hits against some monster in the horde, one of them will be brought down. This should add more realism without adding in that more micromanagement.

I could do the same with weapons. If some character wants to use a dagger to bring down regular minions, I would say no. They would need to do 2 hits against the horde to bring one down.

That sounds like how WH40k deals with squads. Wounds go to the mooks before they go to the boss-types.

purepolarpanzer
2008-05-20, 06:47 PM
Because there are high-level, supposedly fairly powerful NPCs walking around with 1 HP, that's why. I know you'll say "it's only a game, the PCs are all that matter", but that's simply not true in my games - we don't treat NPCs like cardboard cutouts. You and I have different campaign styles, plain and simple, and using Minions would detract from the verisimilitude of any 4e campaign I choose to run.

These arn't even on the same level as NPC's. These are hum drum soldiers, ready to be fought by the dozens. A high level NPC has HP and class levels because he is special. Like PC's. Have you ever fought goblins or anything else as an encounter and not have each one with a back story, personality, and such? Ever? Sometimes you just need enemies, not plot elements.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-05-20, 06:49 PM
That sounds like how WH40k deals with squads. Wounds go to the mooks before they go to the boss-types.

I would still have have the pcs decide if they want to hit the boss-type or one of the mooks. These advised rules would just determine what happens when they strike at some of the mooks.Make any two hits against the 'tough' mooks, and one of these mooks will go down.

Raum
2008-05-20, 06:51 PM
There's nothing wrong or counter-immersive with the concept of minions. After all, some individuals are tougher than others. Done well, minions can add a lot to a game. They can speed combat resolution (primarily by minimizing accounting), add the sense of large combats, allow for a running battle with a BBEG using minions to harass and delay the protagonists, add a sense of danger to combats while maintaining survivability, and add more of a pulp or heroic flavor. That's minions done well.

As mentioned previously, I think 4e's implementation may miss some of the possible benefits. It's probably easy to fix though - run minions that do full damage and give them damage resistance equal to their level (maybe 2x level, not sure how the extra hit points in 4e will play out). The first makes them an offensive threat. The second means minimal damage won't bother them. And you still gain the benefit of little or no accounting.

Just an idea. Have to read the actual rules before making any such decision.

Edea
2008-05-20, 06:54 PM
I don't think the idea itself is bad at all; in fact, it's pretty convenient. But I wonder why it's being made such a big fuss over the fact that it's hardcoded into 4E. It sounds like a simple UA 3.5 variant.

My guess is that it's because now another, already-in-existence UA 3.5 variant (fixed XP per monster kill) is in official effect in 4E. With the CR system, it would've been a bit more difficult simply pulling a powerful monster out of the MM, setting its HP to 1, and cloning it 12 times, because then awarding XP for the encounter after its resolution would've been a rules-lawyering nightmare.

But, introducing the fixed XP variant as a default to 3.5 would not have taken very much effort (heck, all the hard work was done already). So, this being "AWESOME, BUY NOW" kinda leaves me feeling nonplussed.

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 06:59 PM
I would still have have the pcs decide if they want to hit the boss-type or one of the mooks. These advised rules would just determine what happens when they strike at some of the mooks.Make any two hits against the 'tough' mooks, and one of these mooks will go down.

IIRC that's also part of the WH40k system. If mooks have two or more wounds, you can't distribute single wounds out to all the mooks, you have to take a mook out first before you go on to the next.

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 07:01 PM
These are hum drum soldiers, ready to be fought by the dozens. A high level NPC has HP and class levels because he is special. Like PC's. Have you ever fought goblins or anything else as an encounter and not have each one with a back story, personality, and such? Ever? Sometimes you just need enemies, not plot elements.

There are high level Minions, they aren't all low level.

This means that there can be minions who would wipe out whole towns, if they had some kind of protective magic to help them avoid getting hit that one time needed to drop them.

Starsinger
2008-05-20, 07:27 PM
There are high level Minions, they aren't all low level.

This means that there can be minions who would wipe out whole towns, if they had some kind of protective magic to help them avoid getting hit that one time needed to drop them.

On the other hand, it also means that villagers can be capable of fighting back against a bandit invasion and killing some of the bandits, thus looking plausible.

ShadowSiege
2008-05-20, 07:38 PM
I understand what verisimilitude is, and it has nothing to do with writing a ten page backstory for every passing dire squirrel. It has everything to do with the world being internally consistent, which I think using the Minion mechanic impinges upon.

No, verisimilitude doesn't require the world to be consistent. It only requires the world not break the willing suspension of disbelief. The minion mechanics are there for when PCs encounter them. Anything the PCs don't interact with is entirely up to DM fiat. A horde of minions could certainly overrun a town. Maybe none of them are harmed, maybe a few lucky farmboys manage to impale one or two with their fathers' swords/pitchforks/whatever. The rest of the time, the peasants are futilely trying to defend themselves while the minions laugh at their blows. And then the big damn heroes shoot one from a rooftop and actually land effective blows, cutting them down handily.

Citizen Joe
2008-05-20, 07:46 PM
I think we have three camps here.
1) Don't like the idea of mooks/minions dying from one shot.
2) Like the idea of mooks/minions dying with one shot but don't like the 1 hp implementation.
3) Like the idea of mooks/minions having 1 hp.

So there is little point arguing further since everyone is already set in their opinion... of course combine that with the fact that we have no say with WotC, and we literally can't change what will be printed. So at this point we should probably just move over to homebrew.

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 07:50 PM
No, verisimilitude doesn't require the world to be consistent. It only requires the world not break the willing suspension of disbelief. The minion mechanics are there for when PCs encounter them. Anything the PCs don't interact with is entirely up to DM fiat. A horde of minions could certainly overrun a town. Maybe none of them are harmed, maybe a few lucky farmboys manage to impale one or two with their fathers' swords/pitchforks/whatever. The rest of the time, the peasants are futilely trying to defend themselves while the minions laugh at their blows. And then the big damn heroes shoot one from a rooftop and actually land effective blows, cutting them down handily.

So, say the minion horde is easily dispatching the townspeople, shrugging off their blows with barely a thought, when lo! the adventuring party happens across the scene.

Now, say that one of the adventurers summons what is effectively a group of townspeople, in terms of how individually powerful the summons are.

The question is, do those summons now one-shot the Minions, when moments earlier the exact same types of foes were barely scratching them?

This is just a simple example. There are sure to be plenty of game instances of situations where the Minion mechanic interrupts the game's versimilitude, or semblance of being an internally consistent world where what happens from moment to moment doesn't change due to game parameters.

Farmer42
2008-05-20, 07:51 PM
For the love of Gygax, people, this should never break verisimilitude. This is a rule to be utilized by the DM at the DM's discretion. If you don't want minions, don't use them, there are non-minion versions of the monsters in question. If you do use minions, good for you. And your players will never know. If they do, you've already broken verisimilitude yourself, because the game is no longer about the horde of orcs they're facing, it's about the numbers behind the orcs. Suspension of disbelief is in the hands of the DM, and how you present the monsters is how the player will react to them. If the player has a copy of the MM and they want to metagame and point out the stats of the monster, or are acting with that knowledge, hit them with a chair.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-05-20, 07:57 PM
No the players will know if you are using the minion version of the monster, because you will be telling them that they will not need to do any damage rolls. No damage rolls is one of the streamlining advantages of using minions

Farmer42
2008-05-20, 08:04 PM
I have my players roll damage with their attack rolls anyways, so that won't actually slow down things. I noticed even in 3e that helps, and in the case of 4e, it will prevent that kind of metagaming.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-20, 08:06 PM
Man, who the heck actually rolls out the events of a "townsmen fending off monsters before the PCs arrive" scene?! The townspeople can't hurt'em (maybe the guard captain fells one). The PCs can, and can even dispatch them easily. You don't need to roll the townspeople's attacks on the monster, you're the freakin' DM.

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 08:08 PM
Man, who the heck actually rolls out the events of a "townsmen fending off monsters before the PCs arrive" scene?! The townspeople can't hurt'em (maybe the guard captain fells one). The PCs can, and can even dispatch them easily. You don't need to roll the townspeople's attacks on the monster, you're the freakin' DM.

That wasn't the point of my post...

Reel On, Love
2008-05-20, 08:11 PM
That wasn't the point of my post...

It was an example of how minion rules don't break verisimilitude because they only apply when PCs are fighting minions. We don't know anything about summoning yet, so I can't help you there, but I'll bet that when it does exist, it'll do damage on par with any other power of its level, so summoning a minion to death won't be any stranger than Cleaving or Magic Missileing it to death.

JaxGaret
2008-05-20, 08:17 PM
It was an example of how minion rules don't break verisimilitude because they only apply when PCs are fighting minions. We don't know anything about summoning yet, so I can't help you there, but I'll bet that when it does exist, it'll do damage on par with any other power of its level, so summoning a minion to death won't be any stranger than Cleaving or Magic Missileing it to death.

So you think that having a summons who is just as powerful as a townsperson one-shotting a minion, while the townsperson right next to them has little to no chance to significantly damage the minion, does not break verisimilitude?

Reel On, Love
2008-05-20, 08:23 PM
So you think that having a summons who is just as powerful as a townsperson one-shotting a minion, while the townsperson right next to them has little to no chance to significantly damage the minion, does not break verisimilitude?

What makes you think there exists a summons just as powerful as a townsperson? Why would any summons be on the same level as statless NPCs?

Raum
2008-05-20, 08:26 PM
So you think that having a summons who is just as powerful as a townsperson one-shotting a minion, while the townsperson right next to them has little to no chance to significantly damage the minion, does not break verisimilitude?Not at all. The townspeople are minions too after all. And lower level. Those standing their ground instead of running will manage to kill a few of the attackers when they hit, just not enough to stop the raid. The guard may kill a few more simply because they're organized and working together but the force ratio is still on the higher level side...they simply hit more often.

ShadowSiege
2008-05-20, 08:34 PM
So you think that having a summons who is just as powerful as a townsperson one-shotting a minion, while the townsperson right next to them has little to no chance to significantly damage the minion, does not break verisimilitude?

Nope. Townspeople are full of combat suck and fail. A summoned creature is a competent combatant (theoretically). The townspeople that manage to kill a minion are more likely in the "it impaled itself on my sword" crowd. And if a summoned creature is as powerful as a peasant (lets say level 1 summon), it will most likely have a very poor chance of even hitting the minion in the first place (ye olde 5% critical hit chance).

Example:
Farmboy Ted watches as his friends are cut down by one of the legion devils. The legion devil comes at him. He closes his eyes and thrusts out his sword. The legion devil impales itself. Ted probably got a critical hit (the only thing that allowed him to hit the thing). The next legion devil spots Ted, and chops off Ted's head.
Conjuror Jasper summons his weakest ally, Fluffy the White Rabbit. Assuming Fluffy doesn't get one shotted, it harmlessly nibbles at the toes of the legion devils while hopping merrily about. Then Fluffy manages to harm the thing, also on the requisite critical hit. Fluffy just severed a legion devil's femoral artery because he nibbled mid-hop at the devil's leg instead of toe.

Of course, Reel has already pointed out that we know jack-diddley about summoning in 4e, so this was simply a thought exercise.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-05-20, 08:59 PM
I would treat townspeople as lower level minions. Depending on how dangerours the area is, some towns would have their own training militia. Though I know thats not the poitn of your argument.

But 6 completly untrained townspeople, would count I think as a level 1 minion encounter.

Yahzi
2008-05-20, 10:24 PM
The way I see it is that minion status is not definitive, but rather based on their relation to the PC's.
Which is perfectly in keeping with their idea that NPCs don't have stats or existences outside of the PCs interacting with them.


They have level-appropriate attack and defence values.
And 1 hp.

Which makes no sense at all.

Basically, D&D created a problem (AC and BAB go off the random number generator pretty quickly), and then created this nut-ball idea to fix it.

Minions probably work fine in other games, where they're designed in from the start. But here, they're just silly.

Tough_Tonka
2008-05-20, 10:24 PM
Okay, I got myself a few responses to make here. Lessee...



Say your party consists of one 10th level PC and two 5th level PCs. Does the minion have 1 HP when attacked by the 10th level PC, and more HP when attacked by the 5th level PC.

Why would there be a party with a 5 level difference? That sounds like a terrible DM screw up to me.

Tough_Tonka
2008-05-20, 10:28 PM
Okay, I got myself a few responses to make here.

See my above reasons for why them having 1 HP is not just an abstraction. It's the reality of the life of those NPCs.


So if hp was not an abstraction, wouldn't stitching up the wounds of a dying character at -9 with your threat injury skill automatically kill it instead of stabilizing it. :smallbiggrin:

Yahzi
2008-05-20, 10:32 PM
I think they shouldn't have given them any hp.
That actually makes buckets more sense.

Minions taking one hit and then going out of the fight ('cause they're smart enough to play dead) makes perfect sense. Suggesting to new DMs that any NPC hopelessly outclassed by the PCs will run away after a single hit is fine. Heck, suggesting that NPCs will ever run away would be a huge step forward for D&D.

But bastardizing the already abominable Hit Point system by making things with BAB +10 have 1 HP is just... clumsy.

TSGames
2008-05-20, 10:37 PM
You're expecting people to show intelligence and maturity when they can scream and run around in panic as a reaction instead. Which do YOU think is more likely?

SRSLY, what is this? Not the internet?

Tough_Tonka
2008-05-20, 10:54 PM
So, say the minion horde is easily dispatching the townspeople, shrugging off their blows with barely a thought, when lo! the adventuring party happens across the scene.

Now, say that one of the adventurers summons what is effectively a group of townspeople, in terms of how individually powerful the summons are.

The question is, do those summons now one-shot the Minions, when moments earlier the exact same types of foes were barely scratching them?

This is just a simple example. There are sure to be plenty of game instances of situations where the Minion mechanic interrupts the game's versimilitude, or semblance of being an internally consistent world where what happens from moment to moment doesn't change due to game parameters.



This seems like a rather hard question to answer mainly because none of us know all the 4e mechanics, here's what I can tell from what I've been told.

What I'll assume your asking is this:

Towns People=Low Level Minions
Bandits= High Level Minions
Adventurers= High Level PCs

So the towns people can't seem to do much against these bandits due to a DM fiat, or perhaps the DM bothered to roll all the dice and one rolled a natural 20.

The heroes come onto the scene and one of them summons a low level creature or even a minion (lets say a dire squirrel) perhaps: assuming 4e PCs are capable of this. Would the summoned dire squirrel be able to kill any of the bandits in one hit like the PCs?

The answer would probably be yes they could kill these bandits with one hit. Off coarse due to the fact that high level minions would have a large advantage in their defense versus the dire squirrel's atk that the squirrel would probably need to roll a natural 20 to hit the bandit.

This would be the equivalent of the dire squirrel managing to crawl up into the bandits armor and biting it in the jugular. Of coarse, that's if he managed to avoid the attack of opportunity for moving into the bandits square. Which I admit sounds silly, but that would be a product of the 20 rule (which I assume we're not arguing about in this thread).

tyckspoon
2008-05-20, 10:55 PM
That actually makes buckets more sense.

Minions taking one hit and then going out of the fight ('cause they're smart enough to play dead) makes perfect sense. Suggesting to new DMs that any NPC hopelessly outclassed by the PCs will run away after a single hit is fine. Heck, suggesting that NPCs will ever run away would be a huge step forward for D&D.

But bastardizing the already abominable Hit Point system by making things with BAB +10 have 1 HP is just... clumsy.

This I can agree with. It seems like it would be far more in line with the intent of the thing. It would also draw yet more complaining from people who want PCs and NPCs to operate identically (not using classes got enough nerdrage.. Imagine things that don't even use hit points.), but then nothing they've done with 4E has been universally approved.

wodan46
2008-05-20, 11:02 PM
They never should've listed Minions as being 1 HP, given the huge and entirely pointless hissy fits and arguments that are being held over it. They should have just declared that "Minions die when hit by attacks that deal damage" and leave it at that, rather than saying that they have 1 HP and die on a miss.

Minions will only function properly if used at appropriate levels. Instead of fighting a 4 statted out creatures that have weak defense, low HP, and rarely hit, you fight 4 unstatted creatures with standard defense and BAB but die on a hit.

Mort, your negative comments seem to have little purpose. You dislike the concept of minions. However, minions were present in the previous edition, but did not function properly, as they only hit on a 20 and thus were not threats, and were statted out with no need and thus a time waster.

This time around, minions are dangerous, as their massed numbers allows them to easily flank players and gain combat advantage, and where a standard monster makes 1 strong attack each round, minions will make 4 times as many attacks doing average damage.

Jarlax
2008-05-20, 11:20 PM
No I won't say that. I'd appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth. I'll say hp is an ABSTRACTION. The PC's are not all that matters. Just ignore the 1 hp and keep the "Go down in 1 hit" part. Going down in 1 hit does not need to mean dead.

I think they shouldn't have given them any hp.

while i agree with your position we need to think of this not from the perspective of veteran players but of new DMs and players.

incorporating an specific system of representing "life" just for minions is not practical to a new player. it is far better that they describe minions survival as an exception of the HP rules where no matter the level minions are assigned a single hit point which cannot be damaged on a miss.

for veteran players if they are discouraged with the 1HP system the they can go change it themselves. your not morons and its not such a core element of the monster design that you cannot alter it easily.

as new players grow they may come to the same conclusion, that a 1hp system doesn't work for them, and alter it as well, but when they are first starting out giving minions HP instead of their own life mechanic means one less rule for the DM to track when he starts out.

TheOOB
2008-05-20, 11:40 PM
A good DM will treat the minion template as a book keeping aide and not a creature type. That level 20 devil foot soldier isn't a minion when it attacks the small village, slaughtering the town guard, he may not even be a minion when he fights the level 20 heros in battle. But when a dozen of those devils and their master fight the heroes at the same time, then yes the devil is a minion.

Basically, think of it like this: when you want one side of an encounter to significantly outnumber the other, use minions for the weaker creatures on that side. If both sides are close to the same side, don't use minions.

I will admit though, giving them 1 hp is most likely a mistake, they should instead just be noted that they die in one hit.

Jarlax
2008-05-21, 12:01 AM
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what is or is not a minion, so its back to the MM excerpt on minions


Minion: Minions are designed to serve as shock troops and cannon fodder for other monsters (standard, elite, or solo). Four minions are considered to be about the same as a standard monster of their level. Minions are designed to help fill out an encounter, but they go down quickly.

These are not NPCs, they are not villagers, farmers or townsfolk, who are individuals who have names and jobs and probably are represented by several levels in the commoner class or something equal to this in 4e. Minions have no role outside of combat and are designed as cannon fodder for OTHER monsters, by design they are not supposed to be encountered as a group of 16 minions but rather as 4-12 backed by 1-3 standard monsters, 1-2 elite monsters or a single solo monster.

You want Minion vs NPC then here it is (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0472.html) two sapphire guards lvl 6ish minions defending their lord and master amongst the thousands of identical sapphire guards that died that day. One stab and he is down, except that he says his name, suddenly he is a 3-4th level npc with levels in fighter or warrior depending on his plot value. He has a hit dice pool giving him a certain number of hp instead of a single point.

Raum
2008-05-21, 06:25 AM
A good DM will treat the minion template as a book keeping aide and not a creature type. That level 20 devil foot soldier isn't a minion when it attacks the small village, slaughtering the town guard, he may not even be a minion when he fights the level 20 heros in battle. But when a dozen of those devils and their master fight the heroes at the same time, then yes the devil is a minion.

Basically, think of it like this: when you want one side of an encounter to significantly outnumber the other, use minions for the weaker creatures on that side. If both sides are close to the same side, don't use minions.Not sure how it will end up working in 4e but in most games utilizing a minion mechanic, minion status is the default. Everything and everyone is a minion unless there's some reason for it to be special. The heroes, major NPCs, and villains are the only non-minions.

hewhosaysfish
2008-05-21, 11:56 AM
Not sure how it will end up working in 4e but in most games utilizing a minion mechanic, minion status is the default. Everything and everyone is a minion unless there's some reason for it to be special. The heroes, major NPCs, and villains are the only non-minions.

OTOH, DnD has just came out of an edition where everyone has a level (Including animals! What are racial hit dice but a levels by a different name?) and the minion mechanics are a new amendment to the thought-patterns.

Also, aren't the separate new mechanics for commoners and stuff? A "level zero" concept?

AKA_Bait
2008-05-21, 01:05 PM
Why don't people understand what verisimilitude is?

Gee... that wasn't insulting at all. I'd get into this more but frankly, I'm tired of going round in circles with people about how having consistant mechanics helps the DM preserve suspension of disbelief and how having inconsistant mechanincs forces DM fiat more and makes it harder.


Why would there be a party with a 5 level difference? That sounds like a terrible DM screw up to me.

Depends upon the game. Don't judge a DM unless you know the circumstances. It's certianly a possibility under the mechanics so even if you think it's unlikley it's still a worthwhile topic discussion when parsing out a game mechanic.



You know what detracts from verisimilitude to me? Every single enemy the PC's face fighting to the bitter end. Enemies have families, motivation, self-preservation instinct, etc... Some enemies aren't going to keep fighting until they're killed. Some are going to go down when wounded and stay down so they don't get killed. The 1 hp is just a heavy-handed way of representing this.


I think you missed this:


A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage.

Destroyed. Not incapacitated. Not playing possum. Not fleeing for their lives. Destroyed. This mechanic actually does the opposite of what you are claiming.


Minions have no role outside of combat and are designed as cannon fodder for OTHER monsters, by design they are not supposed to be encountered as a group of 16 minions but rather as 4-12 backed by 1-3 standard monsters, 1-2 elite monsters or a single solo monster.

You clearly don't play with the same kinds of people I do. In my group the mooks are fequently left alive, even healed, to be questioned or redeemed. Faceless NPC cannon fodder, who under 4e mechanics would be 1hp minions and die from a single blow, can be given a role outside of combat by PC actions. A mechanic as above takes that option out of the PC's hands without a houserule (like ruling that after one hit they run away rather than being destroyed).

Crow
2008-05-21, 01:21 PM
Destroyed. Not incapacitated. Not playing possum. Not fleeing for their lives. Destroyed. This mechanic actually does the opposite of what you are claiming.

I take that to mean that they are effectively destroyed as far as the encounter and PC's are concerned. But then, I'm not a slave to the RAW like some people around here, and have no problem interpriting it in a way that makes more sense. Also don't forget, destroy can be defined as "rendering ineffective or useless, nullify, neutralize, or invalidate".

Either way, minions are an improvement over underlings that need to always roll twenties. If you don't like them, don't use them.

kc0bbq
2008-05-21, 02:00 PM
Gee... that wasn't insulting at all.You are being incredibly obtuse, so if you were insulted that's your problem.

It's an abstraction. If you can't handle an abstraction, go ahead and only use the rules that fit within your rigid gameplay. Nothing is stopping your PCs from doing anything they want after combat except your intentionally poisoned reading of the rules.

TheOOB
2008-05-21, 02:10 PM
Keep in mind rule 0; the DMs always has the final say. Minions will require you to use quite a bit of DM fiat. What does and does not kill them, how they are role played, and when happens when they get hit. When used right, they will allow you to quickly construct large battles without a huge amount of book keeping, if used wrong they will be silly, much like the entire system.

AKA_Bait
2008-05-21, 02:54 PM
I take that to mean that they are effectively destroyed as far as the encounter and PC's are concerned. But then, I'm not a slave to the RAW like some people around here, and have no problem interpriting it in a way that makes more sense. Also don't forget, destroy can be defined as "rendering ineffective or useless, nullify, neutralize, or invalidate".


We really won't know until we see the definitions in the rulebook. The general 3.5 usage until now has not included those alternate definitions as far as I can tell glancing through the SRD. I don't have a PBH or DMG in front of me to check the glossary though.


Either way, minions are an improvement over underlings that need to always roll twenties. If you don't like them, don't use them.

They could be useful, in some circumstances and probably with some house ruiling/DM fiat. I'm just pointing out that because something can be fixed with houserules or DM fiat is not a defense of the mechanic. It's a way to work around a flawed mechanic.


You are being incredibly obtuse, so if you were insulted that's your problem.

Obviously. Differences of opinion are always caused by one side or the other being purposefully slow and always best discussed and resolved with insults. I bow to your wisdom sir.


It's an abstraction. If you can't handle an abstraction, go ahead and only use the rules that fit within your rigid gameplay. Nothing is stopping your PCs from doing anything they want after combat except your intentionally poisoned reading of the rules.

We are discussing the system as we see it, as it is. That requires looking at the rules as they are written. Sure, it may be fixable, useable, or even awesome with individual tweaks and alterations to the rules as they are written but that doesn't make it a well written and well thought out mechanic.

BTW the definition of death in 3.5 to which you refer is universally regarded as a horribly written rule. It is mocked and ignored in gameplay accordingly. It should be. As should any rule in 4e that is also poorly written/thought out.


Keep in mind rule 0; the DMs always has the final say. Minions will require you to use quite a bit of DM fiat. What does and does not kill them, how they are role played, and when happens when they get hit.

Well, there are two kinds of DM fiat we seem to be discussing here. There is the DM fiat of "x happens off screen because the DM says so. He/she doesn't need to roll it out" or "there is no rule for this so it happens this way right now" or "In this one instance, not universally, this rule doesn't apply for reasons of plot etc" and the DM fiat of "This rule works a slightly different way than it is written, universally throughout the game, because that makes more sense". I commonly refer to the latter as 'houserules' rather than DM fiat, and that's how I will continue to thus far.

A mechanic that requires houseruling to work well, or is vague enough to require DM fiat frequently, is a badly executed mechanic. That it can be fixed only serves as additional evidence that it was broken in the first place.


When used right, they will allow you to quickly construct large battles without a huge amount of book keeping, if used wrong they will be silly, much like the entire system.

Possibly, I'm curious to see it in real play. What will be the real test of the mechanic is if the times it is used right signifigantly outnumber the times it is used wrong. A mechanic that consistantly gets results that are both poor and not the aim of the mechanic is also a bad mechanic.

MartinHarper
2008-05-21, 03:52 PM
With the CR system, it would've been a bit more difficult simply pulling a powerful monster out of the MM, setting its HP to 1, and cloning it 12 times, because then awarding XP for the encounter after its resolution would've been a rules-lawyering nightmare.

But, introducing the fixed XP variant as a default to 3.5 would not have taken very much effort (heck, all the hard work was done already). So, this being "AWESOME, BUY NOW" kinda leaves me feeling nonplussed.

I expect there will be "creating your own minions" guidelines in the DMG, just as there are guidelines for creating other kinds of monsters (which have been previewed). It's not quite as simple as setting the hp to 1 and cloning it: you also need to simplify its powers so they are all at-will.

Rutee
2008-05-21, 04:43 PM
Not sure how it will end up working in 4e but in most games utilizing a minion mechanic, minion status is the default. Everything and everyone is a minion unless there's some reason for it to be special. The heroes, major NPCs, and villains are the only non-minions.

On the other hand, I've only seen two systems where minions are a legitimate threat to people past opening level, and those are Weapons of the Gods and Mutants and Masterminds. The latter works villains exactly like here, and the former works minions as a group (20 soldiers get /one/ combat action).

AKA_Bait
2008-05-21, 04:53 PM
the former works minions as a group (20 soldiers get /one/ combat action).

That actually seems a lot better to me. I frequently in 3.x make a uniform roll for a bunch of minions or housrule them into a swarm.

Oh, and I like the new avatar btw.

Rutee
2008-05-21, 05:03 PM
It's probably the best minion setup I've seen. Minions' sets are capped based on their quality (The DnD analogy would be that bad minions could only hit up to AC 20, with better ones allowed to hit higher and higher ACs.), Minion damage is based on the group's size and quality, and when a group takes a hit, you kill off as many as you roll damage for. AoE, rather then incinerating every minion present, dealt triple damage.

And thanks!

Jerthanis
2008-05-21, 05:03 PM
Agreed in concept, except that the bartender is not a 16th level devil who could easily cut a swath through the whole inn, if no one hits him that one time it takes to knock him to the ground.

Upon reflection, I was arguing poorly. You weren't really saying anything about a person being complex and tough, but being powerful and tough. All I can say about the idea of a 21st level demon minion in a 3rd level town is that the DM shouldn't be doing that, and that minions are to be used against the PCs as a tool for expanding the battle without expanding the likelyhood of TPKs.

So I watched a movie about pirates last night.

Not like a pirate documentary or anything, what I mean is, I watched a movie about Flynning and sailing and rum. In it there was a scene where the main character needed to board the other boat and get to the enemy captain for a duel. I thought of how such a situation would play out in D&D 3rd edition.

Assuming this character was more than mundane, and was maybe 6-8th level or so, and that the enemy pirates were a group of level 2 characters, with a level 8ish captain. In such a scenario, the protagonist can't really afford to cut through the 15 or so pirates standing in his way, because they don't pose a significant threat, even en masse, and the potential exists for this character to hit and not kill one, dragging the battle out immensely... so in 3rd edition, the character's only real option in dealing with large groups of enemies is to wade into their midst, ignoring them completely in favor of the real threats. This means the character is taking real real world tactical blunders and not really paying for them. It draws a very real problem with verisimilitude (to me) that this character is basically running through a thicket of blades because those with those swords aren't awesome enough to pierce his or her level of hero shield.

Meanwhile, in 4th edition, I can easily see a similar situation playing out where the hero desperately cuts through the pirates, shifting and tumbling about trying to reach the captain, but unable to ignore the enemy pirates, creating a scene like you might see in your average Swashbuckling movie... a hero beset from all sides and fighting for his or her life, even if each mook goes down in one hit, the fight is desperate and tactical in some way. This is the position (In my mind) that doesn't treat minions as cardboard cutouts to be ignored and dealt with later (maybe, if they're not forgotten for non-importance).

If the DM reads and interprets "Minions are destroyed in one hit" literally, I think that's his problem if he also thinks it breaks verisimilitude.

Going back to the single sling stone, I might not die to the sling stone, but if my collarbone is broken, you'd better believe I'm going to be running away if I can't lift my sword. If my hip is broken, I'm definitely going down, and going to start praying no one notices I'm still alive, because I'm not getting away.

InaVegt
2008-05-21, 05:08 PM
We already did something like this in 3.5. Basically, we gave people with NPC classes DR X/- and Resistance X to all, X being dependent on their level (at low levels you'd have X at, say 2, and at high levels at, say 10, the exact amount was determined by the DM), and if they gained damage, they were dead.

So, that 15th level kobold warriors would be even less of a threat, but they allowed the heroes to shine and cut through hordes of enemies, who were able to do something.

It's the same principle.

Raum
2008-05-21, 05:18 PM
On the other hand, I've only seen two systems where minions are a legitimate threat to people past opening level, and those are Weapons of the Gods and Mutants and Masterminds. The latter works villains exactly like here, and the former works minions as a group (20 soldiers get /one/ combat action).Add Savage Worlds (SW) to the list of systems where minions can be threats. Interestingly enough, SW gives you the option to roll individual attacks or use a mass battle set of rules. The mass battle subsystem is almost too dangerous for PCs. But it does let you play out combat between armies.

SW also uses the default where everything is a minion unless there's a reason for the GM to make a particular individual even tougher.
----
A question regarding 4e combat rules - is there a bonus for multiple attackers ganging up on a single defender? If there is, it may go a long way towards making the minions more of a threat.

fendrin
2008-05-21, 05:27 PM
A question regarding 4e combat rules - is there a bonus for multiple attackers ganging up on a single defender? If there is, it may go a long way towards making the minions more of a threat.

From the KoS quickstart rules, there is a +1 attack (plus combat advantage) bonus for flanking. Also, some creatures have extra bonuses if there are nearby creatures of their type, for instance it seems that many kobolds have a 'mob attack' bonus.

Jerthanis
2008-05-21, 05:44 PM
A question regarding 4e combat rules - is there a bonus for multiple attackers ganging up on a single defender? If there is, it may go a long way towards making the minions more of a threat.

b...but they already have the same attack bonus as a similar monster of their level... The only difference between a minion and a normal foe is a minion deals less damage and dies in one hit. In fact, from playing a little of the KotS preview module I'm pretty sure the Kobold minions did a flat 4 damage per attack, and the non minion Kobolds did 1d6+something damage, so I'm not even clear minions will even do all THAT much less damage than a similar monster of the same level... depending. The concept of minions isn't that they're paper dolls, they are dangerous in groups already. The fact that they can use tactics, ganging up, and benefit greatly from leader monsters doesn't make worthless things INTO a threat... it makes them MORE of a threat.

And you do gain combat advantage for flanking a foe, and combat advantage gives a bonus to hit.

Raum
2008-05-21, 05:59 PM
b...but they already have the same attack bonus as a similar monster of their level... Good, they should. Nor do I believe I ever said they didn't.


The only difference between a minion and a normal foe is a minion deals less damage and dies in one hit. Yep. Essentially they've lowered two of three factors (hit chance, damage caused, and staying power - reducing the last two) in how much damage an opponent can cause during combat. I'd really rather not get into what constitutes a threat and what doesn't again. Suffice it to say I prefer a model where only staying power / health is reduced by minion status.


In fact, from playing a little of the KotS preview module I'm pretty sure the Kobold minions did a flat 4 damage per attack, and the non minion Kobolds did 1d6+something damage, so I'm not even clear minions will even do all THAT much less damage than a similar monster of the same level... depending. The concept of minions isn't that they're paper dolls, they are dangerous in groups already. The fact that they can use tactics, ganging up, and benefit greatly from leader monsters doesn't make worthless things INTO a threat... it makes them MORE of a threat.

And you do gain combat advantage for flanking a foe, and combat advantage gives a bonus to hit.Haven't played or seen the rules so I have another question for you - how does 4e define "combat advantage"? How large a bonus does it give?

SamTheCleric
2008-05-21, 06:02 PM
Haven't played or seen the rules so I have another question for you - how does 4e define "combat advantage"? How large a bonus does it give?


Combat Advantage

When a defender can't give full attention to defense, it grants combat advantage to its attacker. This usually occures when the defender is flanked, stunned or otherwise caught off guard.

+2 Bonus to Attack Rolls. You gain this bonus when you have combat advantage against the target of your attack.

Able to see target. You must be able to see a target to gain combat advantage against it.

There you go.

fendrin
2008-05-21, 06:14 PM
Haven't played or seen the rules so I have another question for you - how does 4e define "combat advantage"? How large a bonus does it give?

Combat advantage triggers certain effects, from what I've seen so far it is mostly for Sneak Attack type stuff, but I've also seen at least one monster 'spell' that only works on someone that the monster has combat advantage against.

wodan46
2008-05-21, 07:58 PM
check http://www.ucalgary.ca/~amwhit/4e_PrRC_v2_6.pdf

Combat advantage is a +2 bonus to attack rolls, given when you are flanking a target, or the target is under 1 of many effects (dazed, surprised, immobilized, etc.). Once per round, a rogue can deal sneak attack bonus damage to a target it has Combat advantage on.

The rogue's sneak attack damage is by far the most important effect associated with Combat advantage, as it makes the rogue super effective at killing things. All of the rogue's shifting abilities are oriented towards either moving an opponent to where they can be flanked, advantaged, and backstabbed, or shoving them away after you have done so.

Yahzi
2008-05-21, 08:03 PM
These are not NPCs, they are not villagers, farmers or townsfolk, who are individuals who have names and jobs and probably are represented by several levels in the commoner class or something equal to this in 4e. Minions have no role outside of combat and are designed as cannon fodder
Exactly.

These are not just low-level soldiers; they're game mechanics created for combat. They have no other justification for existance. Should your players ask, "Where do little minions come from?", or "How can I get a BAB vastly higher than my hit-dice allow?" or anything else other than "What's it's AC and how much damage does it do," the rules don't have answer.

Instead, it's "rule-0." Make up an excuse for why you've decided to simplify combat by not tracking hps for minions, but without simply saying, "I'm not gonna track hps for minions."


he says his name, suddenly he is a 3-4th level npc
That's a joke. Rich is telling a joke. It's a parody of how stupid some D&D games get.

And then WotC goes and writes the joke into the rules.

:smallsigh:

Oslecamo
2008-05-21, 08:15 PM
It's probably the best minion setup I've seen. Minions' sets are capped based on their quality (The DnD analogy would be that bad minions could only hit up to AC 20, with better ones allowed to hit higher and higher ACs.), Minion damage is based on the group's size and quality, and when a group takes a hit, you kill off as many as you roll damage for. AoE, rather then incinerating every minion present, dealt triple damage.

And thanks!

This reminds me, DMG II from 3.5 has Mob rules. Those are somewhat similar to the swarm rules, except that Mob is applied to a group of small or bigger creatures, making them count as a single bigger creature.

Like a swarm they can move over a character, automatically dealing damage at the end of each turn based on the creature, plus trying to grapple or trample. This is all they can however. No special attacks or other actions, since the mob can't really coordinate itself that well.

They take extra damage from area spells, and unlike normal swarms, mobs get weaker as you kill the members that constitute it, since it's composed of only an handfull of creatures. Creatures get killed either by damage or by effects that kill creatures.

If I remember well the mob has HD based on the number of creatures that compose it. As the members die, the mob loses HD, untill it loses two thirds of it's original strenght, at wich point it breacks up and the unwounded ones flee for their lifes, one third is dead and the other third is still alive but too wounded to escape or keep fighting.

Seems very similar to those minion rules you described.

Rutee
2008-05-21, 08:16 PM
That's a joke. Rich is telling a joke. It's a parody of how stupid some D&D games get.

....
What the. That's a joke of action movie and fiction tropes. Nothing specific to DnD. Lord and Tailor, I know you want to twist things into your advantage, but not every joke in OotS has anything to do with a DnD trope. Again, the Sexy Shoeless God of War scene is what a minion system allows (Because without a system like that, you end up with a scene where either literally no enemy has a chance to hit him, or they just ginsu him). And again, you can have a name and be a minion (Though I'll grant that Henchmen Numbers 21 and 24 are to an extent parody themselves.)

Azerian Kelimon
2008-05-21, 08:19 PM
....
What the. That's a joke of action movie tropes. Nothing specific to DnD. Lord and Tailor.

Actually, that's as likely to be a follow up to a Chainmail bikini strip which discussed what happens to NPC's. Or even the inspiration, if it went first.

fendrin
2008-05-21, 08:40 PM
Combat advantage is a +2 bonus to attack rolls

Er, yeah, +2. I said +1 before, but I was thinking of charging.

Charging has been reduced to a +1 bonus, but there is no longer a defense penalty. Further, in keeping with the elimination of full-round actions, it is a standard action, but you can only move up to your speed (min 2 squares). Also, you cannot take any actions after charging (so no charge-then-retreat).

Khanderas
2008-05-22, 07:36 AM
I like it.

Minions here get alittle re-definition in 4e. Minon used to be pretty much the same as employee, but here it is a term that says they are too weak to bother keeping check on their current HP.
And it is Good.

Because when you are fighting 12 goblins, led by an elete goblin cheiftain shaman, why should you keep track of all their HP's ? Generally they die in one hit anyway, and that is what the 1 HP rule come from. You have to actually connect a hit with them though, (the approximation that HP is a combination of luck, dodging from combat experience, turning slashes to nicks and so on dont apply) and that is why the ability to lose HP even when missed do not apply.
Makes great sense, mechanically.

Only fear I got is when spells that deals 1 HP damage to everyone pops up. Frankly they would not apply since this is an approximation system. Instead of tracking 15 Hp on mooks vs 2d10 + 14 damage from you (on 5-20 mooks), simplify it to 1 HP, and down in 1 hit (with exceptions).

Yahzi
2008-05-22, 10:41 PM
not every joke in OotS has anything to do with a DnD trope.
Um.

Anyway, the point remains: the notion that a name suddenly warps the laws of physics is a joke. In 4e it's now the normal state of affairs.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-22, 10:53 PM
Um.

Anyway, the point remains: the notion that a name suddenly warps the laws of physics is a joke. In 4e it's now the normal state of affairs.

If you can't tell the difference between the crunch you're using and the guidelines of physics in your game world, I really don't know what to tell you.

Jerthanis
2008-05-23, 06:40 AM
Um.

Anyway, the point remains: the notion that a name suddenly warps the laws of physics is a joke. In 4e it's now the normal state of affairs.

Remember my post where I talked about a scenario where the high level PCs join a town guard and learn all their names, ambitions, secret phobias, and so forth? I submitted that they'd still be minions in that case. If a tentacle demon from the stars arises from the town sewers, and it is seriously dangerous, it will kill or disable the town guardsmen in one hit each, but if the DM wants to run the rest of the town guard as beneficial NPCs in the battle without having to say, "How exactly has this town been troubled by gnolls in the past with a 12th level fighter on its guard payroll? How did he GET to 12th level?" and without having the guard NPCs take half the time rolling out hits, misses, damage and defenses just to prove meaningless to the conflict, and thus prolong combat unnecessarily, he can run them as minions.

Minions don't have to be faceless or nameless. It doesn't say anything to that effect in their statblock. If the players feel like Minions are nonentities that are beneath interaction, it's as much the DM's fault as if the DM runs any other monster encounter that way. The number of hit points a villain has should have absolutely zero effect on how it's treated by the DM as a villain.

It's just that... at level 18, a fighter probably has a couple notches on his Dragon-killing sword, and he needs to fight a tribe of ogres for storyline reasons. He and the DM can roll out 12 rounds of combat where he kills them all in one hit, except where he rolls low on damage and has to take a second swing... all the while the Ogres hitting maybe 10% of the time if they're lucky. If the DM wants to make it more interesting, he can give the ogres Fighter levels and minor magic items to boost their attack and AC, but then there's the questions, "Why are these ogres two or three times more powerful than their neighbors, and where did they get a half dozen large sized +2 Greatclubs?" Alternatively, the Ogres can be considered minions, and will still harry the fighter, while still being dispatched about as easily. It's a matter of choice, but at its core seems to just be a tool for DMs to model groups of weaker monsters as still being a credible, interesting threat to higher level PCs without wasting everyone's time including his or her own and without undermining the feeling of power and prestige the player might feel he or she has earned by attaining high level.

Starsinger
2008-05-23, 06:52 AM
Being a minion is not some magical disease you get which exists in the game world. You don't say "I'm a minion" in character any more than you say "I'm level 17."! A minion is a monster that's there in the encounter because it makes sense that it would be there. For example when you fight the Goblin Shaman and the band of Goblin warriors at level 7, you're done with Goblin warriors. Their 1d6 HD is nothing compared to what you can do, but they're not worth experience. So you have a bunch of level 7 Goblin minions. Conceptually they are the same Goblin warriors that a level 1 person would fight. Except these have a chance to hit you, and hurt you, and are worth your time. So there's the Goblin shaman and his group of minions.

It's an abstraction. Which admittedly seems to be the concept that heads won't wrap around.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-05-23, 08:38 AM
Being a minion is not some magical disease you get which exists in the game world. You don't say "I'm a minion" in character any more than you say "I'm level 17."! A minion is a monster that's there in the encounter because it makes sense that it would be there. For example when you fight the Goblin Shaman and the band of Goblin warriors at level 7, you're done with Goblin warriors. Their 1d6 HD is nothing compared to what you can do, but they're not worth experience. So you have a bunch of level 7 Goblin minions. Conceptually they are the same Goblin warriors that a level 1 person would fight. Except these have a chance to hit you, and hurt you, and are worth your time. So there's the Goblin shaman and his group of minions.

This is how I've always DM'd D&D anyway. At level 1, the town guards are level 1-3, because they will mess you up, even individually. At level 6, they're probably level 3, because they will mess you up when multiple squads using long-drilled tactics come at you. At level 12, they're probably levels 5-6, because they're kinda irrelevant but I'd still like them to be able to hit you. Similarly, at level 12, the orc horde consists of higher-level orcs than it would at level 6.

Levels (and hit points) are gameplay abstractions that represent the importance of the creature or NPC as a challenge or a story element. They don't represent anything that could be quantified in the real world - number of kills, years of training, number of battles fought in, liters of blood in your body, inches of muscle or gristle protecting your vital organs. None of that. They represent the significance of the creature or NPC to the adventure.

The minion system just streamlines it so much. Now I can really throw dozens of these guys at the PCs, they actually have comparable attacks and defenses - that is, they can actually damage the PCs, even if they have little hope of killing them before they're all wiped out. Mooks are there to wear out PCs, after all, not be a real threat in themselves.

And it really isn't very revolutionary at all. 7th Sea used it. In several games (hazy here - I think L5R and WoD, maybe the recent LotR?), NPCs have fewer "health levels" than PCs. In Twilight 2000, it's actually taken much farther - NPCs only have one actual statistic, aside from equipment: Green, Experienced, Veteran, or Elite. (All Veterans have the same Initiative, combat skill, etc.) They also don't track hit location hit points, or calculate hit points based on their ability scores - they just have 40 hit points. And this is a RPG that features highly realistic modern tactical combat. It just doesn't make sense to track more information about every mook.

EvilElitest
2008-05-26, 09:55 PM
1.) Minions aren't helpless, and are a threat to the PCs health and livelihood.
2.) Minions aren't innocent, nor are they children. Also, PCs aren't annoying, wangsty, idiotic, uncool characters. Most of the time.
3.) The police officers were active defenders of the oppressive system that Neo was trying to eliminate. Also, killing them prevented agents from possessing their bodies.
4.) Those legions of Hell wrecking the kingdom aren't going to kill themselves. Also, there's been a lot of cases where a soldier has racked up an absurd number of kills in war. Would you consider those people evil, though they are killing to preserve their own lives and those of their compatriots? Because that's what you're saying.

1) Actually, they are made for the sole purpose of a whole shed slaughter of them, they kinda are
2) Minions being made as beings whose purpose is to die at an adventure's sword as fodder via game mechanics. I mean if your fighting good people, due to misunderstanding or reckless PCs or whatever, and before things calm down, oh gods i've slaughtered 20 dudes. Hell, why these people with themselves
3) Actually they were just normal people doing their jobs unaware of the nature of the matrix, so they actually were innocent. ends justifies the means in the matrix films, so it doesn't matter how many innocents you kill if it allows the main character to look cool, i mean save the world
4) As i said, you can have lots of easily killable minions. Its called low level people. That way, you can still have minions, while still maintaining the feeling that stuff actually happens in this world that doesn't focus on making the PCs feel like there the main characters from Dynisty Warriors



Yes, it does put it into perspective.

well seven Samerai and French Excalibur were actually good, while Kill Bill and 300 are simply over blow immoral time wasters that glorify muder, foul play, and slaughter of the helpless, while having crap fights and bad directing




I'll note that most people decrying the minion rule seem to be objecting to using living beings as easily-disposable mooks (which they still were in 3.5 and at least now have a chance to hurt the heroes, but never mind, it's your soapbox and you have a right to it).

No i'm generally decrying the rule because it is simplistic, PC centric, inconsistent, shoddy, video game like, shallow and promote the idea of PC entitlement video game style game play


But what about unliving targets, like simple undead (zombies, skeletons, etc.)? Or unthinking targets like ... giant ants? These things are nothing but cannon fodder, guys.
Sure, just make their stat block and fight them, don't make them creatures who's sole purpose mechanically is a gruesome death



No, they can't. Not unless you as the DM decide they do. If that's the case, then you the DM can decide to re-stat a minion into a non minion as appropriate.
You can't use rule zero to defend a bad decision. The minion rule will only give validity that D&D is nothing more than a glorified hack fest/dungeon crawl



Balderdash. Rubbish. Utter and total nonsense.
I absolutely *cannot* stand this attitude.
So we should all be content with shallow video game styled gaming that reminds you of Dynsaty Warriors at best? Thanks for that




There is the game, and there is the game mechanics. Whether an NPC is a minion, stated out with the 3.5 warrior class or not statted in any way whatsoever is completely irrelevant to whether or not said NPC is a 'real person'. Take some responsibility! If a minion is not a 'real person' then it is because you as the DM did not make them a 'real person'.
wrong. If the NPC is simply a low level warrior, or a weak creature, that still makes perfect sense from an in world in game perspective, with consistency and all that. They are simply weaker dudes, who haven't been able to gain the power that hte PCs did. In theory, they could eventually become as powerful as the PCs, as it is perfectly possible for these minion guys to live through a fight, come back more powerful, or join the PCs and gain levels. in the new case, they literally have no point in game other than being horribly slaughtered as living fodder. They aren't people, they are mindless drones, like the random troops in Dynasty warriors. No matter how many times they say stuff, in the end they are still fodder



Oh do we? How presumptive of you. I see very little difference, except that the storm troopers are intended to be utterly unidentifiable; literally faceless. Compare that to the bandits in Seven Samurai, where we see their faces but they still aren't 'real people'. A name and a face do not a 'real person' make. To be a 'real person' we the viewers have to identify with them. We have to care about them, or at least sympathize with the hard times they have had to deal with that have driven them to their banditry. Now, it's been a while since I've seen Seven Samurai, but I don't recall that happening with every single bandit.

[/rant]
actually, yes there is a difference. While the bandits weren't expert fighters, they were still extremly dangerous, and the seven, in order to win, had to play very smart, using night attacks, defensive, ambushes, hit and run tactics, armies of peasents, and discipline to win, and even then they lost 4 men and plenty of peasents, while suffering a very hard fight. the Seven win yes, but they don't win simply by standing in front of the bandits and using the power of their "oh so cool" fighting skills to sweep the enemies away, they actually play smart. THe bandits also don't go down in one hit, but in fact actually put up a pretty good fight. Remember the two who seemed to be ex samurai themselves, you know, one with a spear and one with a bow, who broke into the village on their own. They killed maybe 15 peasents i think before they were tore down but masses or knocked off their horse. They are actually very dangerous, and not simply dynasty warrior fodder


And as far as real people, I defy ANYONE whose played an RPG EVER to say they havn't thrown an encounter at the PC's just for a good scrap. You developed a back story, history, personality, and list of food allergies for every kobold, goblin, orc, or other kick around enemy? Have a lot of improv peasant NPC's giving directions who have college degrees, drug habits, or deep seated daddy issues? No. Sometimes, you have to bring it down to something is inherantly evil, preys off of those NPC peasants, and needs to be introduced to Mr. Greatsword. Is there truly more depth in the world than that? Yes. Always? HELL NO.

I'm not against using fodder or minions, i'm against this mechanic. Lots of low level warriors? Fine. A hoard of weak creatures? Fine. Weak beings with the lowest possible stats that are exactly the same, but still logically possible? Fair enough. In all of those examples, the beings actually seem to have some sort of point other than acting as fodder, they just happen to be weak people, or weak beings, or low level, and the PCs happen to be better.
in this case minions literally are mechanically made to die


Note World War II. Sure, enemy troops were living, breathing people with lives and such. Didn't keep opposing troops from shooting just because they were a [blank]. Some people had issues with it. Maybe your character does. Roleplay it and mover on.
1) In WWII was there a small group of people who had super human powers and were the other troops created simply to act as fodder? No? I thought not
2) Ok, i'm sorry, using real life WWII situations to prove a point, about how it is somehow logical that half a dozen dudes are given unique god given powers and everybody else apparently goes down in one hit as they are made to be fodder is possible the most absurd thing i have seen on this thread. What?



Now apply this to a fantasy world. Orcs (generally, mind you. I don't even run them like this) live off of raiding, bullying, and destruction. I'm not sitting down to interview the mook, making sure he's not the Chosen One orc of Paragon Goodness. I smack him before he smacks me, cause in my experience, orks hit people. To death. For a living. Since the beginning of my world, when it was shaped by the gods, these things have been butchering my people. Excuse my hostility.
I don't mind orcs being raiding crude little bastards, however i do object to them being meant to be fodder. If you don't want to talk to fodder that is your choice, but there should be a choice. If i want to take the fodder alive or talk to them, or have them on my side, i want that option
Also, orcs being crude raiders doesn't stop them from being consistent. A low level orc band would just be low level wariors, or fighters if your feeling elite, with some adepts or low level wizards thrown in. Weaklings compared to your PCs maybe, but still nasty and more importantly, still logical. However when the orcs seem to exist as mindless fodder you just have an inconsistent bad game



That's simple morality. Civilized, good races want to survive and prosper. Chaotic, monster types want to hurt/maim/destroy/eat civilized and/or good types. Hundreds and up to thousands of years of human legend, folk tales, and mythology have summed it up to this. We play as the classic hero, who goes out and kicks all their butts. If you want to find something to blame for this type of thinking, blame your ancestors, not a game that takes off them.

Sure, but don't see the need for a mechanic that makes groups literally one shot fodder. You want organized people to defeat chaotic, fine, i applaud that, but do that through mechanics, not through annoying PC entitlement, which leads to a shallow and simplistic game



Mostly i hate this pitiful attempt of WotC to imitate a style that their game has always been against, that of the storytelling mechic RPG elements that can be found in White Wolf's games. If you like storying telling games, where the actual story elements are in fact mechanics, like main characters and minor characters being mechanical differences, such as the former having a point, with hte latter being nothing but mindless drones, (or if i want to be less jaded and point out a good example, situational bonuses) kudos for you, but D&D isn't that sort of system, and its attempts to imitate one are going to fail because it lacks what storytelling RPGs normally use to make up from those mechanics, and that is a strong centralized story plot and great fluff. Since 4E's fluff has been getting generally more and more shallow, with 4E's being about as deep and emotionally engaging as Eargon, and making the game seem like a video game, and i don't mean that in a good way (Torment, BBII, and NWN) but like FF, Fable, or other "RPG" that are utterly linar. Which could be ok if it was video game, but D&D is suppose to be a table top RPG, something that isn't limited in the same way Video games are and as of such should be taking advantage of its ability to be more complex, not less so.

from
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Abardam
2008-05-27, 07:59 AM
What? Minions aren't there just to die.


4) As i said, you can have lots of easily killable minions. Its called low level people. That way, you can still have minions, while still maintaining the feeling that stuff actually happens in this world that doesn't focus on making the PCs feel like there the main characters from Dynisty WarriorsWhat.

If anything, low-level characters will make the PCs feel more like unstoppable gods of combat, because they can't do anything. The only difference between low-level guys and minions is that minions have better attacks and defenses.


wrong. If the NPC is simply a low level warrior, or a weak creature, that still makes perfect sense from an in world in game perspective, with consistency and all that. They are simply weaker dudes, who haven't been able to gain the power that hte PCs did. In theory, they could eventually become as powerful as the PCs, as it is perfectly possible for these minion guys to live through a fight, come back more powerful, or join the PCs and gain levels. in the new case, they literally have no point in game other than being horribly slaughtered as living fodder. They aren't people, they are mindless drones, like the random troops in Dynasty warriors. No matter how many times they say stuff, in the end they are still fodderExcept that, hey, low-level guys can't become as powerful as the PCs, except when the DM says so. Similarly, nothing is stopping the DM from promoting a minion into an NPC with class levels.


Remember the two who seemed to be ex samurai themselves, you know, one with a spear and one with a bow, who broke into the village on their own. They killed maybe 15 peasents i think before they were tore down but masses or knocked off their horse. They are actually very dangerous, and not simply dynasty warrior fodderI haven't seen Seven Samurai, but maybe those two guys, I don't know, weren't minions? Nothing's stopping you from having a mix, anyway.


I'm not against using fodder or minions, i'm against this mechanic. Lots of low level warriors? Fine. A hoard of weak creatures? Fine. Weak beings with the lowest possible stats that are exactly the same, but still logically possible? Fair enough. In all of those examples, the beings actually seem to have some sort of point other than acting as fodder, they just happen to be weak people, or weak beings, or low level, and the PCs happen to be better.
in this case minions literally are mechanically made to dieLike what?


1) In WWII was there a small group of people who had super human powers and were the other troops created simply to act as fodder? No? I thought not
2) Ok, i'm sorry, using real life WWII situations to prove a point, about how it is somehow logical that half a dozen dudes are given unique god given powers and everybody else apparently goes down in one hit as they are made to be fodder is possible the most absurd thing i have seen on this thread. What?PCs. D&D is a PC-centric game. (Not to say that real life doesn't have it's own heroes, for example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4).)


I don't mind orcs being raiding crude little bastards, however i do object to them being meant to be fodder. If you don't want to talk to fodder that is your choice, but there should be a choice. If i want to take the fodder alive or talk to them, or have them on my side, i want that optionYou do have that option. Minions aren't brainless robots.


Sure, but don't see the need for a mechanic that makes groups literally one shot fodder. You want organized people to defeat chaotic, fine, i applaud that, but do that through mechanics, not through annoying PC entitlement, which leads to a shallow and simplistic game So, you don't like minions. Don't use them.

Indon
2008-05-27, 09:15 AM
I posted this on another thread, but I'll post it here too because here it's more on-topic:

If you want tougher minions, just have them take 2 or 3 hits each. Rebalance the number of minions per real mob accordingly (Mind that a real mob takes 5-6 hits).

Now you have a sliding scale of toughness, and the lower end is easy to track at that.