Minions, NPC Stats, and Quantum Mechanics

[Dan_Hemmens]

So one of the current hot topics seems to be the Minion Rules, and the whole can o' worms that goes with it (chiefly "is it okay for NPCs to use different rules to PCs").

I'm going to use another physics analogy.

In the wonderful world of quantum mechanics there exists the concept of "uncertainty", the idea that not only are some things unknown, but that some things are *impossible* to know, and that therefore any ideas based on the assumption that they can *be* known are fundamentally flawed. Below a certain level of precision, it becomes meaningless to ask "where" an electron is, it is simply "somewhere" depending on when and how you look at it.

(I'm going to get complaints about the physics, I know, but that's the idea in a nutshell)

I think this idea of uncertainty, of some things being not only unknown but also unknowable, and of the further concept that it is meaningless to treat unknowable things as if they had a knowable value is at the heart of some people's objections to 4E.

To clarify.

Obviously, nobody is crazy enough to literally write up detailed statistics for every single person living in their gameworld. That would be, well, crazy. The furthest anybody might go is having a list of "default" NPC stats to help with on-the-fly character creation.

So far, I think, everybody is on the same page. Nobody *actually* has a character sheet for Hans the Woodcutter who lives two kingdoms over from your actual campaign setting (and again: I know somebody is *bound* to pop up saying that they totally *do* have a character sheet for Hans, well great, how about his five *hundred* counterparts? And no, having them all use his stats doesn't count). The thing is, I think that people then fall into two different camps.

Firstly, there are those who (I think) are in the majority and who (I think) tend to be the 4E skeptics. To these people, although Hans doesn't *literally* have a character sheet, he does in fact have game stats, even if those game stats are unknown, they exist on some hypothetical level, and they technically govern everything Hans does. When he cuts down a tree, the precise number of swings it takes him is worked out using the rules for breaking solid objects, even though no dice are ever rolled he is still assumed, on a fundamental level, to be using the same game mechanics.

Then there are those of us to whom the question "what are Hans' stats" is - like the question "where is the electron" - meaningless. As long as he remains offstage, it doesn't matter whether he is a zero-level NPC or a First Level Commoner. Hans is not and can not be described by the game mechanics unless he actually interacts with the PCs in a game mechanically meaningful way (which, given the way the D20 system works, will probably involve combat, since any kind of opposed skill roll could just be worked out as a static roll against an arbitrary DC). Asking what level he is, or how many HPs he has, or where he gets his experience points from is simply meaningless.

To the first mindset, I can see how things like Minion Rules are a problem. If this hypothetical Minion is assumed to live its entire life by the game mechanics, it makes no sense for it to have only one hit point. What if it stubs its toe? What if somebody (as was suggested on another thread) throws a pebble at it?

To the second mindset, though, the above objections are ludicrous. It is patently obvious that you would assign "Minion" stats only to monsters who it made sense for the PCs to be able to dispatch with a single blow. Worrying about hypothetical "Minion Dragons" is as pointless as - in 3rd edition - worrying about somebody arbitrarily sticking 27 Class Levels onto a Kobold and sending it up against a starting level party. Sure somebody could *do* it, but why would they?

If you assume that the D&D rules literally describe the physical reality of the gameworld then those rules must obviously be immutable, and can't shift about in order to make the game run smoother. If you view the D&D rules as a series of abstract systems designed to tell you what happens next in a game you're playing, it makes no sense *not* to rearrange them at your convenience.

[Starbuck_II]

Firdt, I don't think the skeptics are the majority (maybe here) but not wholefully in actual numbers. They just appear to be.

But still, I like your essay/treatise on minions and quantum physics.

I'm in model 2 of beliefs: Han would only need stats when he is actually neccesary. If he never interacts; they are unneccesary.

[Yakk]

Or, to put it another way...

Bob, the Giant Orc of Kernion, is a level 5 Elite monster.

But he's also (say) a level 10 Minion.

If the party meets up with Bob when he's the head of the local tribe of Orcs who are invading an isolated Barony, he's the level 5 Elite monster.

But if they meet up with Bob after the invasion is taken out, when he's down on his luck and working for the half-Demon Troll Forest Lord Charlie, he's nothing more than a minion.

Because in one situation, he's the tip of a long series of battles, in which he's the boss of a bunch of bad guys. In the other, he's now low enough on the power scale that he isn't worth that much pacing time.

The same NPC -- but viewed from two different vantage points, you use two different sets of rules.

In general, you shouldn't take Kobold minions and buff them up to level 10. You should instead use level 5ish elite and/or otherwise badass NPC types, reduced to being the minions of your level 10 to 15 bad guys.

Some NPC types should only be used as minions after a rather long time: Younger Dragons might be a suitable minion for a level 30 encounter, but doing it before that is an affront to Draconic dignity.

[JaxGaret]

What if somebody (as was suggested on another thread) throws a pebble at it?

Since I was the one who suggested this, I'll put in my two cents here.


So one of the current hot topics seems to be the Minion Rules, and the whole can o' worms that goes with it (chiefly "is it okay for NPCs to use different rules to PCs").

That question is quite a bit larger than the Minions question itself; the former is a subset of the latter.


I'm going to use another physics analogy.

In the wonderful world of quantum mechanics there exists the concept of "uncertainty", the idea that not only are some things unknown, but that some things are *impossible* to know, and that therefore any ideas based on the assumption that they can *be* known are fundamentally flawed. Below a certain level of precision, it becomes meaningless to ask "where" an electron is, it is simply "somewhere" depending on when and how you look at it.

(I'm going to get complaints about the physics, I know, but that's the idea in a nutshell)

I think this idea of uncertainty, of some things being not only unknown but also unknowable, and of the further concept that it is meaningless to treat unknowable things as if they had a knowable value is at the heart of some people's objections to 4E.

Wha-huh? Just kidding!


To clarify.

Obviously, nobody is crazy enough to literally write up detailed statistics for every single person living in their gameworld. That would be, well, crazy. The furthest anybody might go is having a list of "default" NPC stats to help with on-the-fly character creation.

Right.


So far, I think, everybody is on the same page.

Yep.


Nobody *actually* has a character sheet for Hans the Woodcutter who lives two kingdoms over from your actual campaign setting (and again: I know somebody is *bound* to pop up saying that they totally *do* have a character sheet for Hans, well great, how about his five *hundred* counterparts? And no, having them all use his stats doesn't count).

Correct.


The thing is, I think that people then fall into two different camps.

Firstly, there are those who (I think) are in the majority and who (I think) tend to be the 4E skeptics. To these people, although Hans doesn't *literally* have a character sheet, he does in fact have game stats, even if those game stats are unknown, they exist on some hypothetical level, and they technically govern everything Hans does. When he cuts down a tree, the precise number of swings it takes him is worked out using the rules for breaking solid objects, even though no dice are ever rolled he is still assumed, on a fundamental level, to be using the same game mechanics.

Then there are those of us to whom the question "what are Hans' stats" is - like the question "where is the electron" - meaningless. As long as he remains offstage, it doesn't matter whether he is a zero-level NPC or a First Level Commoner. Hans is not and can not be described by the game mechanics unless he actually interacts with the PCs in a game mechanically meaningful way (which, given the way the D20 system works, will probably involve combat, since any kind of opposed skill roll could just be worked out as a static roll against an arbitrary DC). Asking what level he is, or how many HPs he has, or where he gets his experience points from is simply meaningless.

Every creature has a ballpark set of game stats. If Hans is "low level Commonerish", whether that number of levels is 1 or 2, or a level of Commoner plus a level of Expert doesn't matter. But if the DM has Hans pegged in as "low level Commonerish", then that's what he is. He's not a grizzled war veteran with 10 PC levels who gave up that life to be a farmer. That is, that's true if the PCs already know who and what Hans the farmer is; if they've never heard of him, then Hans can be almost anything, or even if they do know him, it can be retconned - but he's almost certainly not a Beholder disguising himself as a farmer.

Almost certainly :smallwink:


To the first mindset, I can see how things like Minion Rules are a problem. If this hypothetical Minion is assumed to live its entire life by the game mechanics, it makes no sense for it to have only one hit point. What if it stubs its toe? What if somebody (as was suggested on another thread) throws a pebble at it?

To the second mindset, though, the above objections are ludicrous. It is patently obvious that you would assign "Minion" stats only to monsters who it made sense for the PCs to be able to dispatch with a single blow. Worrying about hypothetical "Minion Dragons" is as pointless as - in 3rd edition - worrying about somebody arbitrarily sticking 27 Class Levels onto a Kobold and sending it up against a starting level party. Sure somebody could *do* it, but why would they?

If you assume that the D&D rules literally describe the physical reality of the gameworld then those rules must obviously be immutable, and can't shift about in order to make the game run smoother. If you view the D&D rules as a series of abstract systems designed to tell you what happens next in a game you're playing, it makes no sense *not* to rearrange them at your convenience.

When a high level Minion who just moments ago had no problem felling low-level creatures left and right, not taking much appreciable damage from their attacks (which may include AoEs) when the magic Minion switch wasn't thrown on, then gets felled by a single pebble thrown by the PC's Familiar, or who gets knocked over by a single blow from a low-level creature the PC mage Summoned, or who gets blown up by a single low-level AoE that is weaker than one he earlier may have shrugged off (a high-level mage casting an At-Will AoE vs. a lower level mage casting a Daily AoE, for example) completely and utterly destroys verisimilitude. There's just too many ways that the Minion rules can simply fail in this respect when it comes to high-level Minions. What I just listed were just simple examples off the top of my head. I'm sure many more will come up during gameplay.

[Scintillatus]

I am wholly in agreement with this, it actually confirms my own suspicions. Even as a world-builder, I am solidly in the quantum camp; rules are there to facilitate the game, not to dominate my thought process.

[Prophaniti]

See, I avoid both sets of thought in that I view game mechanics and individuals in the world seperately. The mechanics are merely the (imperfect) method we use to arbitrate our interactions with an imaginary reality. The rules are NOT this world's 'physics'. They are not the fundamental guiding laws of this alternate existance. Attempting to take such a stance defies reason, as has been pointed out in many skits and comics (including our gracious host's). The world actually operating as though the game rules were invioable laws of the universe only leads to Hilarity Ensues (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HilarityEnsues) situations that cannot be taken entirely seriously.

That said, it does not make sense to me for Hans to be given a different method of interaction merely because he is not controlled by a human counter-part or because he is not as plot-significant as others might be. Nor does it follow in my mind that Bob the Giant Orc should be treated differently mechanically depending on when in the adventure the PCs interact with him. He's still the same orc, still capable of the same things (provided he hasn't been maimed or otherwise permanently injured). Why should a hit from the fighters sword, which would only have injured him before, now kill him outright when the damage is (roughly) the same? Even if Hit Points are regarded as an abstract, the only excuse I can think of is if the power level of the party is dramatically higher the second time than the first, and even then he was still a mighty orc. It simply doesn't track.

[BRC]

My opinon on the minions system is this


It's just a game, you really should relax.

I personally Like the idea behind minions. In 3.x, Everything goes up together, HP, BaB, Damage dealt, AC, Ect. This works great for alot of things, however, it turns mooks into even more of a joke than they are normally. We all know why this is, so I won't bother explaining it.


That said, people don't like that PC's and NPC's use different systems, why? Are the NPC's going to cry out "Thats unfair" and go on strike? I mean, Enemies and PC's already have different goals, the latter is supposed to win the battles (preferably by the skin of their teeth) and make the players feel awsome, and the former is supposed to die horribly, yet provide the PC's with a challenge.

But, here's what I think makes the whole argument rather silly, let's say I really don't like the minion system, I like everything else about 4e, and want to play it, but I hate the minion system with the fires of a thousand exploding suns. As it turns out, there is somthing I can do to solve my dillema! Not Use th Minion System. Last time I checked there were still enemies that used PC rules in 4e, and theres nothing stopping you from using lower level versions of them as mooks.

[Yakk]

The reason Bob is treated differently is a matter of pacing and setting.

Bob the Giant Orc Leader was a key opponent in the early fight. He was supposed to be a central part of the encounter. And he was the center of a climax-battle.

Bob the Giant Orc Minion was a minor minion that the party of level 10 to 15 characters have long outgrown as an enemy. They no longer find Orcs, even big orcs, challenging. The minion rules make the NPC a useful pacing and flavor part of the fight, but no longer the center of the fight. Instead, the big bad boss of the minion is the target that takes lots of effort to take out.

Plot wise, Bob is less important.

Pacing wise, Bob can't take a long time to kill, because that would be boring.

He isn't threatening enough to take a long time to kill.

Mechanics wise, using the level 5 elite stats would result in an NPC who did "miss, miss, hit for 10 damage, miss, miss, miss, miss". Using the level 10 minion stats results in "miss, hit for 4 damage, miss, hit for 4 damage, miss miss, hit for 4 damage, hit for 4 damage". The minion-version does less damage per hit, but it actually hits -- mechanically, minion-Bob isn't as ridiculous as Leader-bob is against these level of characters.

And yes, this is supposed to reflect the party power level being dramatically higher. But instead of throwing what would be a tough mob at level 5 at a level 10 to 15 party (if you have played 3e and tried that, you know why that doesn't work -- wiff wiff wiff), you do a mechanical transformation in order to make the creature still be much weaker, but work better mechanics and pacing wise.

The mechanics of an encounter can vary based on how and when the players interact with it.

A level 5 elite mob doesn't work, mechanically, against level 15 PCs. A level 13 minion does work, mechanically, against level 15 PCs.

[Scintillatus]

My opinon on the minions system is this


It's just a game, you really should relax.

Hooray! <3

[Prophaniti]

A valid point, Yakk. I don't think anyone has explained it like that before. It still seems counter-intuitive to me, and I think I will indeed end up not using the Minion system, but I'll reserve final judgement for after a more thorough perusal of that section of the rules.

Honestly, ever since I got a taste of the gritty and brutal combat system in the new WH40k rpg, I find I've had less and less patience for the huge hp-pool, huge damage and endless whacking of d20's system.

[SamTheCleric]

Let's try applying Occam's Razor to the Minions.

The game designers wanted the game to feel more epic, more like high-fantasy stories where the protagonist is able to wade through the "no-names". So they came up with a system to have certain creatures die in one hit. What's the best way to represent "always die in one hit"? By giving them 1 hit point. The end.

[Chronos]

Here's the problem with the quantum mechanics analogy: Before I observe the electron, I don't know its position, it's true. But if I decide I do want to know the electron's position, I can measure it, to as much precision as I like. And after I make my position measurement and find it out, that's absolutely the electron's position.

Likewise, if I'm running the game, I don't have stats for the commoners two towns over. But if the PCs go there and start interacting with the townsfolks, they're going to need some stats (probably names and occupations, at least). If one of those commoners is in the blast radius of a fireball, then I'm going to need to know his HP and reflex save, too. If he survives the fireball and joins in the fight, now I also need his Strength score. Keep it up, and he might end up being the cohort of one of the PCs, in which case he needs to be statted out completely.

And I'll also agree that it makes no sense for the PCs and NPCs to be treated using different rules. Sometimes, as above, it makes sense for NPCs to not be treated according to any rules at all, but when you do need rules for them, it's just mind-boggling to not use the same rules as for the PCs. Suppose, for instance, the PCs go up against a melee-type villain, and he uses an NPC special ability to hit two characters at once. It's perfectly reasonable for the party fighter to say "Hey, that was a neat trick he pulled there. I want to figure out how to do that.". Except that, under the current rules, he can't, because it's an NPC power, and he's a PC. If Bob the Fighter (note: not his player) asks why it is that he can't learn that trick, what's the answer?

[JaxGaret]

If Bob the Fighter (note: not his player) asks why it is that he can't learn that trick, what's the answer?

Because Fighters Don't Get Nice Things, Ever™.

/humor

[Reel On, Love]

The answer is "you can", and point out a fighter power that lets you hit two people.

Serioiusly, the NPC humanoid enemies' powers are either direct copies of or based heavily on PC class powers from what we've seen so far. The NPC rogue in the town preview had Deft Strike and stuff.

[nagora]

If you assume that the D&D rules literally describe the physical reality of the gameworld then those rules must obviously be immutable, and can't shift about in order to make the game run smoother. If you view the D&D rules as a series of abstract systems designed to tell you what happens next in a game you're playing, it makes no sense *not* to rearrange them at your convenience.

The first stance is only tenable if you believe that the D&D rules (or any rules) describe the whole physical reality of the gameworld. They can't and don't. The DM is there (at least partly) to fill in the gaps. As long as s/he is fair about it and it's fun there's absolutely no reason to prevent him/her from doing their job.

If the DM says that your character can jump their own height plus 1d8 feet from a standing start, then that's what they can do. If they say that Hans the Woodcutter survives your surprise attack long enough to gasp the word "Roanoke" then that's what happens, unless that's unfair on the players in some way (say, they were careful to kill him silently - then the DM's being a cheaty git if s/he forces Hans to make a noise simply because the plot required him to).

[Charity]

I love you analagy Dan, I could take issue with the physics but I cannot even take myself seriously at the mo.

[nagora]

I mean, Enemies and PC's already have different goals, the latter is supposed to win the battles (preferably by the skin of their teeth) and make the players feel awsome, and the former is supposed to die horribly, yet provide the PC's with a challenge.

I disagree. NPCs are "supposed" to attempt to attain their own goals as determinately as the PCs. If they come into conflict (of any kind), it's up to the PCs to win under their own steam, not because the DM made sure that there was no chance of the NPCs winning the sham fights. If you do that, then there's no game and no role-play; everything is pre-ordained, like an episode of some tiresome sit-com.

Once the NPCs are just cardboard cutouts waiting for the PCs to kick them over and collect the loot/clues/artifacts behind them you might as well pack it up.

[EvilElitest]

So one of the current hot topics seems to be the Minion Rules, and the whole can o' worms that goes with it (chiefly "is it okay for NPCs to use different rules to PCs").

Just to put it out there, it is not ok for NPCs and PCs to follow different rules, because any other logic is basically metagaming. I would like to remind people that having NPCs and PCs follow the PCs doesn't suddenly make the PCs utterly weak and useless at fighting, it just means that everybody is on the same page . A powerful NPC is simply possessing of a high level, powerful race/template, niffty magic items, smart feats, good powers ect. Same with the PCs.


To clarify.

Obviously, nobody is crazy enough to literally write up detailed statistics for every single person living in their gameworld. That would be, well, crazy. The furthest anybody might go is having a list of "default" NPC stats to help with on-the-fly character creation.

So far, I think, everybody is on the same page. Nobody *actually* has a character sheet for Hans the Woodcutter who lives two kingdoms over from your actual campaign setting (and again: I know somebody is *bound* to pop up saying that they totally *do* have a character sheet for Hans, well great, how about his five *hundred* counterparts? And no, having them all use his stats doesn't count). The thing is, I think that people then fall into two different camps.
Just because you can't logically stat everybody out doesn't mean they don't have to follow the same rules. While you may not care what han's powers are, you do know that he is a human common with some skill in woodcraft. Should he actualy start effecting the world (working for or against the PCs ect) he should get some clear stats




Firstly, there are those who (I think) are in the majority and who (I think) tend to be the 4E skeptics.
A Majority? What? reading 4E threads, it seems like a 4:1 ratio on actual skeptics/haters vs. supporters/fanboys, with both being out numbered by neutral


To these people, although Hans doesn't *literally* have a character sheet, he does in fact have game stats, even if those game stats are unknown, they exist on some hypothetical level, and they technically govern everything Hans does. When he cuts down a tree, the precise number of swings it takes him is worked out using the rules for breaking solid objects, even though no dice are ever rolled he is still assumed, on a fundamental level, to be using the same game mechanics.
Alright, we just presume he is rolling high on his "to hit, to do damage" with enemy trees.


Then there are those of us to whom the question "what are Hans' stats" is - like the question "where is the electron" - meaningless. As long as he remains offstage, it doesn't matter whether he is a zero-level NPC or a First Level Commoner. Hans is not and can not be described by the game mechanics unless he actually interacts with the PCs in a game mechanically meaningful way (which, given the way the D20 system works, will probably involve combat, since any kind of opposed skill roll could just be worked out as a static roll against an arbitrary DC). Asking what level he is, or how many HPs he has, or where he gets his experience points from is simply meaningless.

Actually it isn't meanenless. WHile it most likely isn't important, we can presume that Hans is still interacting with the world. The thing that allows him to interact with the world are his stats, in this case Most likely human commoner. same with all creatures hence the need for consistency I mean if a Dretch and a lemor fight, despite being bred to fight the blood war, nether can hurt the other


To the first mindset, I can see how things like Minion Rules are a problem. If this hypothetical Minion is assumed to live its entire life by the game mechanics, it makes no sense for it to have only one hit point. What if it stubs its toe? What if somebody (as was suggested on another thread) throws a pebble at it?

Stats are how one effects the world around you. They show what you can do, what you can't do, how you can do it, how you can do it, your limits, your powers, your abilities, ect.


To the second mindset, though, the above objections are ludicrous. It is patently obvious that you would assign "Minion" stats only to monsters who it made sense for the PCs to be able to dispatch with a single blow. Worrying about hypothetical "Minion Dragons" is as pointless as - in 3rd edition - worrying about somebody arbitrarily sticking 27 Class Levels onto a Kobold and sending it up against a starting level party. Sure somebody could *do* it, but why would they?
This is a very simplistic view however, and one that relies on making the game like a video game or action movie (at best)




If you assume that the D&D rules literally describe the physical reality of the gameworld then those rules must obviously be immutable, and can't shift about in order to make the game run smoother. If you view the D&D rules as a series of abstract systems designed to tell you what happens next in a game you're playing, it makes no sense *not* to rearrange them at your convenience.

In terms of consistency, the rules do literally effect the physical reality of the game world. Otherwise, the PCs shouldn't have stats, they should rely on the drama and the storytelling to figure out their actions



As it turns out, there is somthing I can do to solve my dillema! Not Use th Minion System. Last time I checked there were still enemies that used PC rules in 4e, and theres nothing stopping you from using lower level versions of them as mooks.
I can also no use diplomacy as well actually
from
EE

[Rutee]

I disagree. NPCs are "supposed" to attempt to attain their own goals as determinately as the PCs. If they come into conflict (of any kind), it's up to the PCs to win under their own steam, not because the DM made sure that there was no chance of the NPCs winning the sham fights. If you do that, then there's no game and no role-play; everything is pre-ordained, like an episode of some tiresome sit-com.

Once the NPCs are just cardboard cutouts waiting for the PCs to kick them over and collect the loot/clues/artifacts behind them you might as well pack it up.

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, does that mean it crushed a mime?

NPCs will have goals, just as PCs do, this is true. But the goals all of them have are ultimately going to be goals that advance an agenda of the players anyway. Why? Because the characters aren't people. They exist only so that we can enjoy ourselves at the table. No matter how much thought one puts into a character, this fundamental truth is always going to hold.

So while I agree that an NPC should have a goal, we should remember that their original purpose will always have been on a meta level.

[EvilElitest]

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, does that mean it crushed a mime?

NPCs will have goals, just as PCs do, this is true. But the goals all of them have are ultimately going to be goals that advance an agenda of the players anyway. Why? Because the characters aren't people. They exist only so that we can enjoy ourselves at the table. No matter how much thought one puts into a character, this fundamental truth is always going to hold.

Correction. The PCs are the center of the game, not the center of the world. Unlike a video game, it is silly to assume that the world would exist to please the PCs withing game. This PC centric idea is a very metagaming one and hurts the consistency and quality of the game
from
EE

[nagora]

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, does that mean it crushed a mime?

NPCs will have goals, just as PCs do, this is true. But the goals all of them have are ultimately going to be goals that advance an agenda of the players anyway.

If you mean that they advance the goal of playing a role-playing game, then sure. I don't see what the insight is, though, as regards making every fight a carfully balanced sham where the player characters always survive by the "skin of their teeth".


Why? Because the characters aren't people. They exist only so that we can enjoy ourselves at the table. No matter how much thought one puts into a character, this fundamental truth is always going to hold.

So while I agree that an NPC should have a goal, we should remember that their original purpose will always have been on a meta level.

I've no idea what point you're making about whether the DM should treat NPCs and PCs the same as regards the rules. Ie, should the DM be neutral? I think s/he has to be broadly neutral in order for the PC's actions to have any meaning, and thereby make the player's experience something deeper than just a plain story-telling session.

[Rutee]

If you mean that they advance the goal of playing a role-playing game, then sure. I don't see what the insight is, though, as regards making every fight a carfully balanced sham where the player characters always survive by the "skin of their teeth".
If the characters always survive by the skin of their teeth without the NPCs holding back (Or holding back significantly, since I've never seen anyone play dragons and the like intelligently. Which is good, really, given their capabilities), what's the sham?


I've no idea what point you're making about whether the DM should treat NPCs and PCs the same as regards the rules. Ie, should the DM be neutral? I think s/he has to be broadly neutral in order for the PC's actions to have any meaning, and thereby make the player's experience something deeper than just a plain story-telling session.
...?

What meaning? They're just fictional people we're talking about. The individual players get to choose whether they have a meaning, and a 'plain storytelling session' is plenty enough for a lot of people.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Just to put it out there, it is not ok for NPCs and PCs to follow different rules, because any other logic is basically metagaming. I would like to remind people that having NPCs and PCs follow the PCs doesn't suddenly make the PCs utterly weak and useless at fighting, it just means that everybody is on the same page . A powerful NPC is simply possessing of a high level, powerful race/template, niffty magic items, smart feats, good powers ect. Same with the PCs.


Just because you can't logically stat everybody out doesn't mean they don't have to follow the same rules. While you may not care what han's powers are, you do know that he is a human common with some skill in woodcraft. Should he actualy start effecting the world (working for or against the PCs ect) he should get some clear stats
Han's stats are not there for him to interact with the world, they're there for him to interact with the PC's. This system is freeing us up to do whatever we want with him, when the PC's aren't looking. He is only bound by the rules when near the PC's. This does not mean he just stands around when the PC's aren't there. Well, if you have a crappy DM, he does, but he moves around, goes about his regular business.



Alright, we just presume he is rolling high on his "to hit, to do damage" with enemy trees.
With this system, he's hitting the enemy trees because the DM says so. He doesn't need to roll.



Actually it isn't meanenless. WHile it most likely isn't important, we can presume that Hans is still interacting with the world. The thing that allows him to interact with the world are his stats, in this case Most likely human commoner. same with all creatures hence the need for consistency I mean if a Dretch and a lemor fight, despite being bred to fight the blood war, nether can hurt the other
Actually, this made me think of another thing, but I'll get to that in a moment.
The thing that allows him to interact with the world is the DM. The stats allow him to interact with the PC's.
Another thing these rules are handy for is large battles between different groups of Minions. One problem with 3e was that it handled large battles really poorly. In this one, it will be more realistic. They will fall quickly, most knocked unconsious, and then die a little later of their wounds.



Stats are how one effects the world around you. They show what you can do, what you can't do, how you can do it, how you can do it, your limits, your powers, your abilities, ect.
Correction: stats are how PC's effect the world around you now.



This is a very simplistic view however, and one that relies on making the game like a video game or action movie (at best)
That is true.




In terms of consistency, the rules do literally effect the physical reality of the game world. Otherwise, the PCs shouldn't have stats, they should rely on the drama and the storytelling to figure out their actions
The physical reality of the game world is that the PC's are not like NPC's. They are characters played by people, not inhabitants of the world the DM created. The stats are there for them, because they need to know if they hit the orc. They don't need to know if the guy 5 miles away hit an orc.

~~Gwyn

[Cuddly]

Yakk's two posts pretty much perfectly explained both the fluff and the mechanics of what's going on.

Mechanics should NOT dictate how a world operates, but instead help play within that world. The stats&mechanics used for PCs and NPCs should make no gameplay difference, if the end result is the same.

If the wanted result is- here's one tough guy, one spellcaster, and a bunch of guys who might pose a threat if they were better trained- who cares how the mechanics arrived at such a result?

The mechanics should only matter as to how quickly that result is reached. In 3x, the DM had to stat up a bunch of low level mooks, figure out precisely what suite of abilities/feats/templates to give them so the PCs didn't have to ignore them, and then work out a whole slew of other creatures. Very time consuming. Then in battle, all those creatures, each using the same mechanics as the PCs, just slowed the game down, when their sole existence was to get killed by the PCs.

Who cares if Jerry of Jericho had a wife and child who were killed by Tim the Tyrant of Tyre and that's why he signed up with Cody the Cultist, to get revenge, or that he was a level 3 dirt farmer? Do the mechanics really have to detail all that bull****, or can we simply give him mook status, since the PCs are going to stick a sword through him anyway?

[nagora]

If the characters always survive by the skin of their teeth without the NPCs holding back (Or holding back significantly, since I've never seen anyone play dragons and the like intelligently. Which is good, really, given their capabilities), what's the sham?

If I'm a boxer and my manager always carefully pick my opponents to be just slightly weaker than I am, the fighting is a sham despite the fact that the physical hitting is real



...?
What meaning? They're just fictional people we're talking about. The individual players get to choose whether they have a meaning, and a 'plain storytelling session' is plenty enough for a lot of people.

Well, for instance, I'm writing a novel at the moment. In it, one of the characters finds something hidden near a stone circle. Now, there's no satisfaction for me in that character's actions because they have no meaning to me; I knew where that item was and I simply ordained that the character find it; the character had no choice.

If I was playing the character in a game and worked out by my own efforts where the object was hidden, then I have gone beyond simple old-fashioned story-telling and done something much more interesting and personally satisfying. My actions have objective meaning in that they determined the course of events as a matter of fact.

Likewise, if as a player in a game I felt that the DM was determined that no matter what I did, my character would find the object because it was a requirement of his/her pre-determined plot, then my contribution is nullified and rendered objectively meaningless (although perhaps not subjectively) - I literally could have stayed at home and let the DM write up what happened and email it to me; the events in the final story would have been the same.

[nagora]

Han's stats are not there for him to interact with the world, they're there for him to interact with the PC's.
What about other NPCs? I think what you mean is that Hans' stats are there for him to use when PC's might become aware of what he's doing.

If the PCs meet Hans for the first time and he has built a log cabin, that's okay. If they turn up the next day and he's made another one overnight, then something fishy is going on.


The physical reality of the game world is that the PC's are not like NPC's. They are characters played by people, not inhabitants of the world the DM created.

But NPCs are played by the DM (whos is presumably a person), and PCs are inhabitants of the world the DM created, for that matter. Major (not meaning just high-level) ones should, in the interests of fairness and letting the players have a grasp on the world, be played very like PCs.

[BRC]

I disagree. NPCs are "supposed" to attempt to attain their own goals as determinately as the PCs. If they come into conflict (of any kind), it's up to the PCs to win under their own steam, not because the DM made sure that there was no chance of the NPCs winning the sham fights. If you do that, then there's no game and no role-play; everything is pre-ordained, like an episode of some tiresome sit-com.

Once the NPCs are just cardboard cutouts waiting for the PCs to kick them over and collect the loot/clues/artifacts behind them you might as well pack it up.

I apologize.

When I said NPC's, I meant Enemies, specifically unnamed mooks. You know, the orc in the ten by ten room guarding the locked chest. The ones that the PC's are supposed to knock over without a second thought. By using NPC, I was being far too generic.

Secondly, what i said "Goals" I should have said "Purposes". Not in-game purposes, but purpose in terms of the game.

[Yakk]

Here's the problem with the quantum mechanics analogy: Before I observe the electron, I don't know its position, it's true. But if I decide I do want to know the electron's position, I can measure it, to as much precision as I like. And after I make my position measurement and find it out, that's absolutely the electron's position.
You don't know QM. First, you can't measure it to any precision you like -- the more closely you measure it, the more energy you have to throw at it. This relatively quickly gets to the point where in order to determine the location of an electron, you have to create a flurry of particles that are indistinguishable from the electron and fill up the area with them, making your original question pretty moot.

Oh, and by measuring the electron that well, you end up moving it so far that your answer is ridiculously wrong a quantum mechanical time step later. :)


If Bob the Fighter (note: not his player) asks why it is that he can't learn that trick, what's the answer?

If the NPC is an NPC-Fighter type, then the abilities will probably be worse versions of what the PCs get. Look at the preexisting "Rogue" NPC types. They are watered-down PCs, for the most part.

If, however, the NPC has some other source of power -- pact with a demon, blood of a drake, cut out his heart and sold it and his free will to a devil in exchange for power -- that NPC is likely to have other powers.

NPC races are going to have abilities that PCs don't, because those races are explicitly not designed to be played by PCs. Kobold minions, for example, have tricks -- but odds are that a mid-level rogue or other martial character will be able to replicate similar abilities.


Just to put it out there, it is not ok for NPCs and PCs to follow different rules, because any other logic is basically metagaming. I would like to remind people that having NPCs and PCs follow the PCs doesn't suddenly make the PCs utterly weak and useless at fighting, it just means that everybody is on the same page.
The rules that NPCs follow tend to make them easier to kill, strip powerful per-day abilities (which they would quite often end up using in every encounter with the PCs), or otherwise produce an interesting combat encounter with the PCs with less fuss and bother from the GM.

They exist in 4e in order to make building an encounter of level 15 opponents easier than developing a level 15 character. Each player is developing a single character -- lots of complexity and nuance makes sense. Each DM is creating 3 to 5 encounters per play session, each with 3 to 10 opponents.

Making the DM spend as much time on each opponent as a PC spends on their character is a work balance problem on the order of 10 to 50, on top of building/planning the plot!

And in each fight, the DM is managing multiple NPCs -- having fewer things to fiddle with, and simpler decisions, helps.

Making NPCs simpler makes things easier on the DM, and even makes the fights better.


If I'm a boxer and my manager always carefully pick my opponents to be just slightly weaker than I am, the fighting is a sham despite the fact that the physical hitting is real
And your manager was smart, because you now just got an undefeated record. If done right, each of your matches also taught you something.


Major (not meaning just high-level) ones should, in the interests of fairness and letting the players have a grasp on the world, be played very like PCs.

Why? The PCs might be exceptional -- there is little to no reason why the world need be full of groups of 4 to 5 people wandering around fixing the world.

All the world needs is one such group -- the PCs.

The rest of the world could be full of Wizards who learn how to be better by research, Fighters who spend all of their days practicing, Rogues who steal out of need and want, Clerics who live in their temples praying to their gods...

Your Paladin in the party could be the only Paladin in the entire world, and the game works quite well. In fact, the next time I play D&D, I'm going to do just that. There are either zero or next to zero NPCs with PC classes.

I might homebrew an NPC mage and priest class to make it work.

[EvilElitest]

Han's stats are not there for him to interact with the world, they're there for him to interact with the PC's. This system is freeing us up to do whatever we want with him, when the PC's aren't looking. He is only bound by the rules when near the PC's. This does not mean he just stands around when the PC's aren't there. Well, if you have a crappy DM, he does, but he moves around, goes about his regular business.

This falls apart when you think into it more. For example, lets look at the demons and the devils. They are sworn enemies and often fight each other in the blood war. Remember they can't actually hurt each other because of badly thought out DR


With this system, he's hitting the enemy trees because the DM says so. He doesn't need to roll.
No he doesn't need to roll, but we can assume that he is still following the same rules.


Actually, this made me think of another thing, but I'll get to that in a moment.
The thing that allows him to interact with the world is the DM. The stats allow him to interact with the PC's.
Another thing these rules are handy for is large battles between different groups of Minions. One problem with 3e was that it handled large battles really poorly. In this one, it will be more realistic. They will fall quickly, most knocked unconsious, and then die a little later of their wounds.
1) 3E large battle problem didn't come from the minion rule so much as bad organization (same with almost all of 3E's problems)
2) The stats are how the people interact with the world around them. They aren't perfect, but they try
3) you can't make the claim that one hit minions are more realistic if the PCs are extremly hard to kill and can take more sword blows than Rasputin on Steroids


Correction: stats are how PC's effect the world around you now.

Stats aren't just for the PCs, its for the entire world. And the world should logically work off of that. in 3E for example, dying people should be thrown into lakes as soon as possible to cure them


That is true.

...., well thats kinda shocking, most people who like 4E try to deny that. Well you just one my respect

Anyways, i think that is a bad thing because it rots the very spirit of teh game



The physical reality of the game world is that the PC's are not like NPC's. They are characters played by people, not inhabitants of the world the DM created. The stats are there for them, because they need to know if they hit the orc. They don't need to know if the guy 5 miles away hit an orc.

~~Gwyn
1) The PCs being played by real people should make no difference in game, and making rules based off of that is very metagaming like
2) They don't need to know, but the world should react to it non the less
from
EE

[Rutee]

If I'm a boxer and my manager always carefully pick my opponents to be just slightly weaker than I am, the fighting is a sham despite the fact that the physical hitting is real
How do you figure? You surely don't think you're always going to win just because you have a tiny advantage in strength, do you?


Well, for instance, I'm writing a novel at the moment. In it, one of the characters finds something hidden near a stone circle. Now, there's no satisfaction for me in that character's actions because they have no meaning to me; I knew where that item was and I simply ordained that the character find it; the character had no choice.
Well, first off, I think you're doing something wrong. If you're not feeling anything when you write.. well, maybe I'm the weird one, but I think most writers feel /something/ when something meaningful happens to the characters. If you felt something, it had meaning. Regardless, just because you don't feel any meaning in something because there wasn't an artificial level of risk doesn't mean the rest of us think that way.


If I was playing the character in a game and worked out by my own efforts where the object was hidden, then I have gone beyond simple old-fashioned story-telling and done something much more interesting and personally satisfying.
Personally satisfying for you, perhaps..


My actions have objective meaning in that they determined the course of events as a matter of fact.
Wait, something doesn't follow here. If all that matters is that the course of events is determined by your actions, who cares whether there's risk?


Likewise, if as a player in a game I felt that the DM was determined that no matter what I did, my character would find the object because it was a requirement of his/her pre-determined plot, then my contribution is nullified and rendered objectively meaningless (although perhaps not subjectively) - I literally could have stayed at home and let the DM write up what happened and email it to me; the events in the final story would have been the same.

Well, no. The events in the story weren't the same. I'll pick up my WotG game as an example. In this, one of the players had to duck out early of one of the sessions, so me and her wrote her out in an in character fashion, since the opportunity was good for it. The players ended up leaving town, with one character carving their destination on a rock with her sword. At the beginning of the next session, I called for a Style Roll for the missing player to find the rock that had thoughtfully been carved, a Style Roll being a system element of WotG for a roll who's success or failure has been pre-determined, and instead you roll to see how good (Or bad, as the case may be) the character looks while doing it. She rolled collossaly badly, so she found the rock.. in an 'embarrassing' (for the character) fashion, one that made us laugh, since we have an appreciation for physical humor. She then caught up with the PCs, and it was business as usual after that.

According to you, her actions had no meaning because the ending was predetermined by her. (Which conflicts with your own statement that meaning is generated when your actions alter the course of events) According to me, they had plenty of meaning because they entertained. And certainly, the session was not the same if she hadn't shown up at all, because she then proceeded to actively contribute besides that.

[Chronos]

You don't know QM. First, you can't measure it to any precision you like -- the more closely you measure it, the more energy you have to throw at it. This relatively quickly gets to the point where in order to determine the location of an electron, you have to create a flurry of particles that are indistinguishable from the electron and fill up the area with them, making your original question pretty moot.No need to use particles indistinguishable from an electron. I could measure it just as well using photons. And I'm pretty sure that I can distinguish a photon from an electron, no matter what precision I'm asking for.


Oh, and by measuring the electron that well, you end up moving it so far that your answer is ridiculously wrong a quantum mechanical time step later. :)Could you please point me in the direction of any physical theory which predicts the existence of such a thing as "quantum mechanical time steps"? So far as any known theory of physics can tell, time is a continuum, so I can restrict my interest to any arbitrarily short time interval I want.

[Alcino]

I'm quite fond of minions, but the Bob the Giant Orc example might be too much.

As a level 5 Elite, he's worth 400 XP. A better approximation of Bob as the PCs meet him again later on would be a level 9 standard creature, also worth 400 XP. Bob will put up somewhat of a fight but drop pretty fast anyway.

I figure XP is pretty much a creature's worth. I'd have Bob be a minion if I could have him at level 17, when minions are worth 400 XP each.

I'll be updating my long-running war-themed campaign to 4e. In the meantime, I'm doing an offshoot in the same world, but with a level 1 party instead.

I decided at the beginning (in 3e) that the soldier mooks that make up most of the armies would all be level 1, and I'm not changing that. In 4e, they're level 1 standard creatures, balanced against PCs near level 1 but quite overwhelming in numbers. Luckily, level 1 PCs just don't have the notoriety to get in such deep trouble.

The PCs from the main campaign, being around level 10, mostly one-shot the 3e level 1 soldiers and never really feel threatened by them. Okay, they get hit on a 20 for good damage, but so what? I've even house-ruled more even damage.

When I end the offshoot and get back to those PCs, the 100 XP level 1 standard soldiers will have become 100 XP level 9 minion soldiers. Same "worth", more relevant overall, less die rolls, guaranteed one-shots. Fun for everyone!

Anyway, to reiterate: converting monsters from one role to another is great, but keep their "XP worth" in mind.

100 XP:
Lv1 Standard
Lv9 Minion

200 XP:
Lv1 Elite
Lv5 Standard
Lv13 Minion

500 XP:
Lv1 Solo
Lv6 Elite
Lv10 Standard
Lv18 Minion

I figure I'll take a recurring character from my main campaign and use her as a Solo encounter in the offshoot. She might only be a minor annoyance for the main PCs, but she'll make a fine "console RPG boss" for the offshoot ones. She was a standard level 6 in 3e but survived PC encounters she didn't have to, gaining recognition from the PCs. I had to name her and stat her better, but she'll never be a real challenge in the main campaign. She'll get her turn in the spotlight now.

Heh, the console RPGs. They understood long ago that fun fights required different rules for statting PCs and their enemies.

[Helgraf]

Stats aren't just for the PCs, its for the entire world. And the world should logically work off of that. in 3E for example, dying people should be thrown into lakes as soon as possible to cure them


Alright, you want to walk down this road of 'as the rule is written'?

Good. Drowning is inexorable. Once the process starts _rule as written_ they go to 0, to -1, then they die. Nowhere does it actually say, if you remove them from the water between steps that the process stops.

But, this is clearly only the case in where you take the rule as a straightjacket.

[Helgraf]

And I'll also agree that it makes no sense for the PCs and NPCs to be treated using different rules. Sometimes, as above, it makes sense for NPCs to not be treated according to any rules at all, but when you do need rules for them, it's just mind-boggling to not use the same rules as for the PCs. Suppose, for instance, the PCs go up against a melee-type villain, and he uses an NPC special ability to hit two characters at once. It's perfectly reasonable for the party fighter to say "Hey, that was a neat trick he pulled there. I want to figure out how to do that.". Except that, under the current rules, he can't, because it's an NPC power, and he's a PC. If Bob the Fighter (note: not his player) asks why it is that he can't learn that trick, what's the answer?

Because the world is not fair.
Because Bob the Fighter didn't sell his soul to Orcus for the power.
Because this isn't a simulation, it's a game and the rules don't permit it.

Or alternately, you're still the DM. Rule 0 and figure out what you want Bob to pay to make it happen.

[Sebastian]

[QUOTE=Yakk;4373914]Or, to put it another way...

Bob, the Giant Orc of Kernion, is a level 5 Elite monster.

But he's also (say) a level 10 Minion.

If the party meets up with Bob when he's the head of the local tribe of Orcs who are invading an isolated Barony, he's the level 5 Elite monster.

But if they meet up with Bob after the invasion is taken out, when he's down on his luck and working for the half-Demon Troll Forest Lord Charlie, he's nothing more than a minion.

Because in one situation, he's the tip of a long series of battles, in which he's the boss of a bunch of bad guys. In the other, he's now low enough on the power scale that he isn't worth that much pacing time.

The same NPC -- but viewed from two different vantage points, you use two different sets of rules.


I'm the only one which is annoyed by the fact that as a minion he have higher defences and attacks than when he was a "real" monster while being easier to kill? Things like this make me wonder why they bothered using a level system, it seems that monsters "AC" (i.e defenses) grow at the same rate of the PC attacks and monster hit points grow almost at the same rate of PC's average damage, sure this as true even of previous editions, but never to the level of standardization of 4e. I think that when we'll have the books we'll see that 4e can be converted to a levelless system with little to no work.

That said, I agree with the OP. What really bother me is not that NPCs use different stats from PCs, there ather systems that do that and that I like (i.e. AD&D with its 0-level characters), it is that NPCs have stats only when PCs are around. The idea of a world populated BY Schrödinger's NPCs is not really to my taste.

[nagora]

How do you figure? You surely don't think you're always going to win just because you have a tiny advantage in strength, do you?
The analogy was not perfect, but the original (retracted) claim was that NPCs should always lose. Perhaps a better example would be opponents who are paid to throw the fight.


Well, first off, I think you're doing something wrong. If you're not feeling anything when you write..

I didn't say that. I said that I get no satisfaction from the character succeeding at some task, since I made it happen - they could not fail! My satisfaction is from an interesting story, not individual achievements of my imaginary people, since they are in truth not real achievements. The puppeteer gets satisfaction from their own performance, not the puppets'. Because the puppets haven't actually done anything.



If I was playing the character in a game and worked out by my own efforts where the object was hidden, then I have gone beyond simple old-fashioned story-telling and done something much more interesting and personally satisfying.

Personally satisfying for you, perhaps.
Well, the reason I role-play is to get away from just story-telling and do something more sophisticated. If that's not what you're into, then it's hardly likely to appeal.


Wait, something doesn't follow here. If all that matters is that the course of events is determined by your actions, who cares whether there's risk?

I don't think I said it was all that mattered, but it is a major difference. However, swapping the dictatorship of the author/DM for the dictatorship of the player is not enough. If I know that what I want to do will be done, then I'm still not playing a role, I'm just dictating it. The fact that my decisions change the course of events is not enough on its own. Real people face failure and bad luck and the rest of it. Without the risk of failure (random or otherwise), the role is a hollow shell existing only to serve the players' story. Four people writing a script are not role-playing in any deep sense; there's more to it than that.


Well, no. The events in the story weren't the same. I'll pick up my WotG game as an example. In this, one of the players had to duck out early of one of the sessions, so me and her wrote her out in an in character fashion, since the opportunity was good for it. The players ended up leaving town, with one character carving their destination on a rock with her sword. At the beginning of the next session, I called for a Style Roll for the missing player to find the rock that had thoughtfully been carved, a Style Roll being a system element of WotG for a roll who's success or failure has been pre-determined, and instead you roll to see how good (Or bad, as the case may be) the character looks while doing it. She rolled collossaly badly, so she found the rock.. in an 'embarrassing' (for the character) fashion, one that made us laugh, since we have an appreciation for physical humor. She then caught up with the PCs, and it was business as usual after that.

That's a good example of what I'm talking about. The outcome was pre-scripted and you just splashed a dash of paint over it. It's a sort of half-way house between role-playing and scripting. It's not really role-playing since the players get to decide what happens, something no real person ever has the luxury of and so the role is undermined for the sake of the story. But it's not totally scripted because the verbal interaction (I assume) involves improvisation of what the characters are saying and how they're reacting. It's a fun way to tell a story; I'm not arguing that it's not fun, but it's the fun of the puppeteer, not the fun of the character being played.

In a full role-playing game the story would be less important than the characters and, if the player failed to find the stone, then the story would change. That's the big difference (and yet such a small difference).


According to you, her actions had no meaning because the ending was predetermined by her.

Yes. Without free will, actions have no inherent meaning. The world you are describing has no free will beyond a very superficial level (I hate to think what it would be like being an NPC in that world!) and what happens in it has no meaning in the sense of any event being more or less significent within the world. All events are equal because they all serve the narrative in a chain.


According to me, they had plenty of meaning because they entertained.

And an episode of Star Trek does too, for the same reason. But as role-play both Star Trek and your example are lacking because the actual roles are fake - characters do things and events happen for the sake of the story. In a role-playing game the story grows organically out of the events and the characters' interactions in pursuit of their own goals. Putting the characters in charge of the narrative is no more freedom than putting the prisoners in charge of a prison - they're still in a prison. Completely freeing some characters (the PCs) from the narrative was the genius breakthrough Gygax and Arneson made back in the 70s.

The sort of limited meta-role-play you're talking about is actually much older than D&D, and has been going on (usually without the aid of dice) for as long as there have been theatre groups and acting students. It's the key final step of discarding narrative completely that made the modern role-playing game the great imaginary playground that it is today.


And certainly, the session was not the same if she hadn't shown up at all, because she then proceeded to actively contribute besides that.
Sure. Collabrative writing is hardly a new thing. If Galton had not turned up for a session, Simpson's scripts would have been different. But either way makes no odds to the characters - they have to do what they're told to by the story just as they always did in classical story-telling.

[Rutee]

The analogy was not perfect, but the original (retracted) claim was that NPCs should always lose. Perhaps a better example would be opponents who are paid to throw the fight.
In what sense is this similar, pray tell? Heck, a fight is an actual competition. A roleplaying game generallly isn't.




I didn't say that. I said that I get no satisfaction from the character succeeding at some task, since I made it happen - they could not fail! My satisfaction is from an interesting story, not individual achievements of my imaginary people, since they are in truth not real achievements. The puppeteer gets satisfaction from their own performance, not the puppets'. Because the puppets haven't actually done anything.
The character's actions lead to an interesting story, no? Incidentally, characters are puppets. They don't exist. They have no free will to speak of. Any other belief is a sham. Your character doesn't determine their own actions. You determine events as you think your character would, perhaps, but they certainly do not.


Well, the reason I role-play is to get away from just story-telling and do something more sophisticated. If that's not what you're into, then it's hardly likely to appeal.
More sophisticated? Aren't you the arrogant one, neh? What makes you think your way is better?


I don't think I said it was all that mattered, but it is a major difference. However, swapping the dictatorship of the author/DM for the dictatorship of the player is not enough. If I know that what I want to do will be done, then I'm still not playing a role, I'm just dictating it. The fact that my decisions change the course of events is not enough on its own. Real people face failure and bad luck and the rest of it. Without the risk of failure (random or otherwise), the role is a hollow shell existing only to serve the players' story. Four people writing a script are not role-playing in any deep sense; there's more to it than that.
No, you're pretty much wrong. Sorry. You're saying that it's empty. Not only do you not back this up, but it's predicated on your opinions, nothing more.


In a full role-playing game the story would be less important than the characters and, if the player failed to find the stone, then the story would change. That's the big difference (and yet such a small difference).
So Nagora is the king of roleplay, that he gets to dictate the meaning of all these words?



Yes. Without free will, actions have no inherent meaning. The world you are describing has no free will beyond a very superficial level (I hate to think what it would be like being an NPC in that world!) and what happens in it has no meaning in the sense of any event being more or less significent within the world. All events are equal because they all serve the narrative in a chain.
There was plenty of free will. The player is the one who made the choice, not I. As to characters, well, they're not people. They never have free will.

Incidentally, if your next post is as obnoxiously written as your last, and your past ones, I'll be putting you on ignore. I see no need to bother with someone driven by a need to validate a superiority complex.

[nagora]

In what sense is this similar, pray tell? Heck, a fight is an actual competition. A roleplaying game generallly isn't.
By your definition, no it's not. If I understand you correctly, all conflict within the game world is fake, just as the swordplay in Romeo and Juliette is, or even the romance between the lead characters - it is pre-arranged and all the travails they go through are literally staged for the audience's entertainment. Does that make it a bad play? No. Does that rob the story of meaning? No. Does it mean the actors are not role-playing? Yes.


The character's actions lead to an interesting story, no? Incidentally, characters are puppets. They don't exist. They have no free will to speak of.
Yes, that's why we as players have to adopt their roles. That's sort of the name of the game. If you individually or collectively as players are in control of what happens to the characters as well as their reactions to those events, then they are indeed puppets. If you are playing those characters in an active attempt to assume their roles in the imaginary world, then you are doing more than mere puppetry.


More sophisticated? Aren't you the arrogant one, neh? What makes you think your way is better?
I said it was more sophisticated. Is the Mona Lisa "better" than a cave painting because it's more sophisticated? I like the role-playing approach more than the story-telling approach, certainly. I find the story-telling systems constraining and dull in the long run due to the lack of any real challenges. However, some of the stories I have read that were generated that way are interesting. I just find the method boring and would rather just sit down and write my own.

If you want to write stories with a group of friends, a role-playing game is not, and was specifically designed not to be, the right vehicle for the job, but I'm not saying that there's anything wrong about doing that. Far from it. I'm just saying that the two activities are distinct, albeit similar in retrospect when the stories are told, which I suspect is where the confusion originated. Just because a role-playing session or campaign can be written down as a story does not mean that writing a story is a role-playing exercise.



I don't think I said it was all that mattered, but it is a major difference. However, swapping the dictatorship of the author/DM for the dictatorship of the player is not enough. If I know that what I want to do will be done, then I'm still not playing a role, I'm just dictating it. The fact that my decisions change the course of events is not enough on its own. Real people face failure and bad luck and the rest of it. Without the risk of failure (random or otherwise), the role is a hollow shell existing only to serve the players' story. Four people writing a script are not role-playing in any deep sense; there's more to it than that.
No, you're pretty much wrong. Sorry. You're saying that it's empty. Not only do you not back this up, but it's predicated on your opinions, nothing more.
In what way do the roles matter if they are totally controled? In what essential way is what you describe not simply an elaborate way to write a script? I gave several examples of why such tightly controlled meta-games are hollow from the PoV of role-playing.


So Nagora is the king of roleplay, that he gets to dictate the meaning of all these words?
I'm mearly describing to you what the purpose of a role-playing game was from a design point of view and also why that was different from another (pre-existing) activity. If I say that a role-playing game is not the same as stamp collecting, is that being arrogant? Why does it matter so much to you that what you do is called "role playing"?


There was plenty of free will. The player is the one who made the choice, not I. As to characters, well, they're not people. They never have free will.
Again, you do not grasp the principle of role-play as distinct from simply making declarations about what should happen next. Do you walk about in real life ordering things to happen and watch as it just all does so as wished? Then why would it work like that for the character you are supposedly playing?


Incidentally, if your next post is as obnoxiously written as your last, and your past ones, I'll be putting you on ignore. I see no need to bother with someone driven by a need to validate a superiority complex.
I think I gave a very clear argument about what role-playing originally achieved and why going back to narrative-driven systems is a regression to an earlier type of story-construction. If you don't like words like "regression", how about "reversion"?

You appear to be the one who is trying to gain some strange self-validation. You like story-telling games/systems? What's so wrong with that that you must paste "role-playing" over it to hide your shame?!

[Rutee]

And it looks like you didn't stop. Buh-bye.

[nagora]

And it looks like you didn't stop. Buh-bye.

Phew! I was worred for a moment that you might try making some sort of attempt at a rational argument! :smalleek:

[Charity]

Rutee can you not see how this


More sophisticated? Aren't you the arrogant one, neh? What makes you think your way is better?

No, you're pretty much wrong. Sorry. You're saying that it's empty. Not only do you not back this up, but it's predicated on your opinions, nothing more.


So Nagora is the king of roleplay, that he gets to dictate the meaning of all these words?

Incidentally, if your next post is as obnoxiously written as your last, and your past ones, I'll be putting you on ignore. I see no need to bother with someone driven by a need to validate a superiority complex.

might lead to this


And it looks like you didn't stop. Buh-bye.

Not that I agree entirely with Nagora but you should perhaps apply the same techniques to your own writing style that you would like to see from others.
I understand that you are passionate about your POV but dishing out advice you are not following yourself and announcing an ignore is not adding to the credance of what you say... which I aggree with to some degree.

We are all guilty of this from time to time, but a little less value on the winning of the debate and a little more of the interesting debate

[Rutee]

We are all guilty of this from time to time, but a little less value on the winning of the debate and a little more of the interesting debate

I do. I just don't see why I should continue to treat someone with courtesy when they're blatantly disregarding those same conventions. It's a mite hypocritical though, granted.

[nagora]

I do. I just don't see why I should continue to treat someone with courtesy when they're blatantly disregarding those same conventions. It's a mite hypocritical though, granted.

Where was I discourteous? (this question is open to the floor). I explained my understanding of what role-playing is about and explained what I saw as the distinction with story-telling. I was quite nice about it, I thought. I never once suggested that Rutee was wasting her time or doing something stupid-although I did express my lack of interest in it, which is hardly cause for an activity to be banned or there would be very little football left in the world :smallsmile:

Admittedly, I might be a bit sensitive having come from a conversation elsewhere where "Settlers of Catan" was put forward as a role-playing game, so I'm a bit tired of people claiming anything and everything is an RPG.

[Charity]

I've done exactly the same myself, hit preview and read through it is my technique for avoiding serious foot swallowing... then again I've done my fair share of late so I'm prob being as much of a hypocrite just less obviously...

[Chronos]

Because this isn't a simulation, it's a game and the rules don't permit it.Any reason it can't be both? There are plenty of games out there, and one of the reason people choose role-playing games over other games is that they are, to a greater degree than most games, simulations.

[AKA_Bait]

Alright, you want to walk down this road of 'as the rule is written'?

Good. Drowning is inexorable. Once the process starts _rule as written_ they go to 0, to -1, then they die. Nowhere does it actually say, if you remove them from the water between steps that the process stops.

But, this is clearly only the case in where you take the rule as a straightjacket.

Examples of bad rules, which need on the fly fixing, are not arguments that rulesystems should be well enough constructed not to need such adjustments.


Because the world is not fair.
Because Bob the Fighter didn't sell his soul to Orcus for the power.
Because this isn't a simulation, it's a game and the rules don't permit it.

Or alternately, you're still the DM. Rule 0 and figure out what you want Bob to pay to make it happen.

2, and 4 there are reasonable answers to give a player. 1 and 3 suck. The first is no explanation at all and the second is taking a sledghammer to versimilitude. If the rules don't allow you to do something perfectly reasonable within the experience of playing the game... then that ruleset has a problem.

However, regarding 4, I will remind everyone again that just because a problem can be solved with Rule 0 (i.e. houserules) does not mean that it is not a problem if the system could have accounted for it on it's own.


Any reason it can't be both? There are plenty of games out there, and one of the reason people choose role-playing games over other games is that they are, to a greater degree than most games, simulations.

Well, we shouldn't expect 4e to be simulationist. The designers have said in several places that they made conscious design choices away from simulation to get either quicker gameplay or a more 'cinematic' feel. Whether, as a consumer, we think that this shift is a good or bad thing is a different matter...

[nagora]

Examples of bad rules, which need on the fly fixing, are not arguments that rulesystems should be well enough constructed not to need such adjustments.
The drowning rule is just an example where the DM's common sense should step in; it's not a bad rule as such.


If the rules don't allow you to do something perfectly reasonable within the experience of playing the game... then that ruleset has a problem.
Again, the issue here is with the DM. If the ruleset specifically says that you can't do something reasonable then there's a problem but the DM's there for many reasons and looking after obvious details which would otherwise overwhelm a book is one of them.

Why can't a fighter learn some special trick?

Maybe for the same reason I can't learn card tricks. Because no one would train me, and if they did it would take a huge chunk of time.

Maybe the knowledge is a guarded secret and trying to learn it will result in assassins knocking on your door to offer their condolences to your widow.

Basically, DM decides but a good ruleset should be consistant and helpful in guiding the DM. The reasons for the printed rules should not be hard to fathom. Once you understand those reasons, you can break them if you want to with an understanding of what the implications are.

[Rutee]

Any reason it can't be both? There are plenty of games out there, and one of the reason people choose role-playing games over other games is that they are, to a greater degree than most games, simulations.

Well, no. Those games aren't usually games first, they're simulations first. DnD has always been a game first. You can't generally do both to a very good degree.

[AKA_Bait]

The drowning rule is just an example where the DM's common sense should step in; it's not a bad rule as such.

I honestly could not disagree more. A good rule should never rely upon the DM having the sense to break or ignore it.


Again, the issue here is with the DM. If the ruleset specifically says that you can't do something reasonable then there's a problem but the DM's there for many reasons and looking after obvious details which would otherwise overwhelm a book is one of them.

These kinds of issues only potentially become overwhelming, or even exist at all, when PCs and NPCs don't function under the same ruleset. The choice to divorce the rulesets is what creates the extra work for the DM in this case.

Now, it may less the workload for the DM in other cases. WotC certianly thinks so. I'm not so sure but time will tell.



Basically, DM decides but a good ruleset should be consistant and helpful in guiding the DM. The reasons for the printed rules should not be hard to fathom. Once you understand those reasons, you can break them if you want to with an understanding of what the implications are.

Well, if there are rules or advice for giving PCs monster abilities then you might have a point here. However, if the rulesets are utterly divorced and without transference advice then the DM isn't going to be in a position to make an informed decision about it. We will have to wait for the 4e DMG to really know if WotC provided guidence or just said 'nope, can't do that'.

[Telonius]

I'm generally viewing the "Minion" rules as an approximate power equivalence. You could take a high-level "Minion" as-is. Or, you could take a lower-level mook and level him up to get a similar result.

I look at the process in a similar way to converting between Celsius and Fahrenheit. The exact formula for C-F is [(degress celsius * 9) /5]+32 = degrees fahrenheit. That takes a while to work out, and most people couldn't do it in their head or without a calculator. The quick and dirty method is "double it and add 30." It doesn't give an exact value, but for most of the temperature ranges a person would encounter in everyday life, it gives a reasonably close answer.

Levelling up the mook is the formula. Minions are "double it and add 30." In most cases, it's probably going to be better for the DM to use Minions. It involves less bookkeeping and paperwork, and you can wrap your brain around it quickly. Yeah, the world doesn't actually work that way, and the rules would be inconsistent if it did. But it's going to be functionally easier if a DM treats it as though like the rules work that way. You can always go back and do the work of levelling up the mook if you really need/want to.

[Dan_Hemmens]

No need to use particles indistinguishable from an electron. I could measure it just as well using photons. And I'm pretty sure that I can distinguish a photon from an electron, no matter what precision I'm asking for.

What wavelength of photon do you use? I think that's actually Yaxx's point, you're only going to be able to measure to a precision roughly equal to the wavelength of the photons you use, and the shorter the wavelength the more energy you have to hit it with, and eventually you *will* get into pair-production.


Could you please point me in the direction of any physical theory which predicts the existence of such a thing as "quantum mechanical time steps"? So far as any known theory of physics can tell, time is a continuum, so I can restrict my interest to any arbitrarily short time interval I want.

I think he's talking about "Heisenberg time", which is something like 10^-34 seconds. The more accurately you measure where that electron *was* a fraction of a second ago, the less accurately you know where it is *now*.

I know I promised I wasn't going to get into the physics, but it ties in nicely to the RPG argument.

The only way to tell which rules Hans is using is to kill him. You can't just throw a pebble at him or do some other attack to deliberately inflict "one Hit Point" worth of damage, because the DM is *perfectly* at liberty to simply say "the minion rules do not work that way" and rule that he doesn't die. You'd have to make a good faith attempt to *actually* kill the guy in one blow and in that case you *obviously* don't know whether he was using the minion rules or not.

[nagora]

I honestly could not disagree more. A good rule should never rely upon the DM having the sense to break or ignore it.

You are asking the impossible. No RPG is so far along the "game axis" that every event that occurs in play is covered by a rule somewhere on p2891. The drowing example is a perfect demonstration of a good ruleset: I need drowning expressed in mechanical terms for application to the PC (and NPC)'s recorded abilities. I don't need rules for when they're rescued. Putting such rules in would expand the book hugely and never cover everything.

It's much better use of resources for the rules to establish the cases like how magic works and how much damage a sword does and leave things like how often characters eat or go to the toilet or any number of mundane things to the DM who already knows how they work. Or they can look it up. How long does a horse live? Look it up. What way does the wind blow near the sea at noon in the tropics? Look it up or make it up! There's no point filling the rule books with this level of detail.

It may be that you could have good rules for these things, but the resulting ruleset would be horrible and useless (not to mention impossible to lift).

Divorcing NPC and PC rules may make this situation worse, but not divorcing them doesn't fix it.

Generally, making NPCs approximate most of the time is fine. Shopkeepers, city guards, all those sorts of people can be a sketch. More important NPCs, IMO, should be as fully rounded as the PCs in terms of mechanics. It's a question of return for the DM's time. Spend more time/detail on those cahracters who matter and wing the rest. If the shopkeeper becomes important, then flesh him out.

The minion issue takes this approach to an extreme, but my argument would be in the degree, not with the essense of the concept.

In general, I'm against any rules which imply that the characters are aware of the rules, and I think it's easy to see how the minion rules could/would violate that "4th wall".

[Dan_Hemmens]

Every creature has a ballpark set of game stats. If Hans is "low level Commonerish", whether that number of levels is 1 or 2, or a level of Commoner plus a level of Expert doesn't matter. But if the DM has Hans pegged in as "low level Commonerish", then that's what he is. He's not a grizzled war veteran with 10 PC levels who gave up that life to be a farmer. That is, that's true if the PCs already know who and what Hans the farmer is; if they've never heard of him, then Hans can be almost anything, or even if they do know him, it can be retconned - but he's almost certainly not a Beholder disguising himself as a farmer.

Almost certainly :smallwink:

Oh absolutely, and again that's something that both mindsets can agree on.

The thing is though, within the *rules* there is nothing *stopping* Hans having 10 PC levels, just because the DM says so.

I don't think anybody would disagree that the Minion rules, improperly applied, could lead to some ludicrous situations. There'd be nothing stopping you statting up Vecna as a 25th level Lich Minion and having him taken out by a thrown pebble, just as there's nothing *stopping* you giving random minor NPCs enormous numbers of class levels.

I suppose I'm working from the assumption that you would only ever put the "Minion" template on something which the PCs could *already* plausibly take out in one hit. If a 10th level Wizard drops a fireball on a bunch of Orcs does it *really* matter whether they've got 1 HP each or 15? Either way they're pretty much toast.


When a high level Minion who just moments ago had no problem felling low-level creatures left and right, not taking much appreciable damage from their attacks (which may include AoEs) when the magic Minion switch wasn't thrown on, then gets felled by a single pebble thrown by the PC's Familiar, or who gets knocked over by a single blow from a low-level creature the PC mage Summoned, or who gets blown up by a single low-level AoE that is weaker than one he earlier may have shrugged off (a high-level mage casting an At-Will AoE vs. a lower level mage casting a Daily AoE, for example) completely and utterly destroys verisimilitude. There's just too many ways that the Minion rules can simply fail in this respect when it comes to high-level Minions. What I just listed were just simple examples off the top of my head. I'm sure many more will come up during gameplay.

Familiars and Summons are actually an interesting case I hadn't thought of, and I'll admit that they *could* be open to abuse, particularly since a 30th level character will presumably still have access to all his 1st level abilities.

Perhaps I'm just a cockeyed optimist, but I'd sort of assumed that there would be *some* provision for that in the rules (I'm pretty sure, for example, that somebody mentioned that Minions take no damage from attacks that "miss" even if the Ability description says they should, and don't forget that *all* attacks - including spells - require "to hit" rolls now, so effectively a Fireball kills only those Minions who it makes the Reflex Attack against).

I think part of the disconnect here, though, is your use of the phrase "moments ago". A minion, almost by definition, wasn't doing anything "moments ago". Minions are going to be there, en masse, acting as a mob. The moment you say "the hulking Orc lifts the villager by his throat and howls" that Orc *stops* being a minion. The Minions are the goblins who are running about at the heels of their Orcish masters.

To put it another way, if you are paying attention enough to notice how a Minion reacts to a particular attack, you probably shouldn't be using the Minion rules in the first place.

[AKA_Bait]

You are asking the impossible.

Nah, I'm just asking the very difficult.


The drowing example is a perfect demonstration of a good ruleset: I need drowning expressed in mechanical terms for application to the PC (and NPC)'s recorded abilities. I don't need rules for when they're rescued. Putting such rules in would expand the book hugely and never cover everything.

The ruleset would have to be expanded hugely if they had added the sentnce "If removed from the water, they stop drowning"?


There's no point filling the rule books with this level of detail.

By and large I agree with you there. However, you are giving extreme examples, which I didn't bother to quote.

The reason I agree with you about the extreme exampes is because most of the time that information will be irrelevant, not obvious or look-up able. It is relevant in the drowning rules 100% of the time what happens if they are pulled from the water, well 100% of the time when they don't drown. However, even in the tropics by the sea, the wind speed and direction will not be relevant nearly 100% of the time.


Divorcing NPC and PC rules may make this situation worse, but not divorcing them doesn't fix it.

Whoever said it does? Thank you for agreeing that it might make the situation worse.


Spend more time/detail on those cahracters who matter and wing the rest. If the shopkeeper becomes important, then flesh him out.

This goes without saying, but doesn't really touch the mechanical issues either.


The minion issue takes this approach to an extreme, but my argument would be in the degree, not with the essense of the concept.

We are talking about a game mechanic. The degree to which it is executed is the discussion.


In general, I'm against any rules which imply that the characters are aware of the rules, and I think it's easy to see how the minion rules could/would violate that "4th wall".

Agreed.

[Dan_Hemmens]

The ruleset would have to be expanded hugely if they had added the sentnce "If removed from the water, they stop drowning"?


No, but that sentence wouldn't make the rules any clearer than they already are. Now instead of a system in which it's impossible to stop drowning you have a system in which it's impossible to stop drowning unless you are wholly removed from the water by a third party.

I absolutely agree that rules the GM has to ignore are bad rules, but there's a difference between "rules the GM has to ignore" and "rules the GM has to avoid willfully misinterpreting".

[Rutee]

I absolutely agree that rules the GM has to ignore are bad rules, but there's a difference between "rules the GM has to ignore" and "rules the GM has to avoid willfully misinterpreting".

This is the difference between rules designed to hold up to legal scrutiny, and rules that are designed to be taken as written colloquially, yes?

[Dan_Hemmens]

This is the difference between rules designed to hold up to legal scrutiny, and rules that are designed to be taken as written colloquially, yes?

Precisely.

[AKA_Bait]

No, but that sentence wouldn't make the rules any clearer than they already are. Now instead of a system in which it's impossible to stop drowning you have a system in which it's impossible to stop drowning unless you are wholly removed from the water by a third party.

Nothing in what I wrote there says they have to be removed by a third party. But, you are right, it could be more specific. Let's say "If the conditions under which a PC began to drown change such that they would no longer be subject to the drowning rules, they cease to drown."

Actually, a broader sentence at the beginning of all the rules reading similarly would suffice for every such problem. :smallbiggrin:


I absolutely agree that rules the GM has to ignore are bad rules, but there's a difference between "rules the GM has to ignore" and "rules the GM has to avoid willfully misinterpreting".

Me too. The former are inexcusable. The latter are just a little sloppy. :smallwink:


This is the difference between rules designed to hold up to legal scrutiny, and rules that are designed to be taken as written colloquially, yes?

Perhaps it's the lawyer blood in me that thinks all rules should strive to be the former. :smallbiggrin:

[FoE]

:smallsigh: For me, NPCs are there merely to service the plot. They existed before the PCs showed up on the scene, but what they were doing prior to then is irrelevant unless it figures into the storyline. Otherwise, they're there to give directions to the nearest store/tavern/inn, whisper rumours about the spooky ruins atop the hill, scream and run when the dragon shows up, pay the heroes to get rid of it, or oppose the PCs in some way when they go about their quest.

Events may go on around the PCs — the king makes judgement, the farmer sows crops, courts hold trials, etc. — but if they don't have a bearing on the PCs' storyline, then they don't need to be mentioned. What do I care if the nation of Breland is about to sign a peace treaty with Aundair? Unless it means that the PCs have to stop an assassin, guard trade caravans or take part in a big celebration, it doesn't bear mentioning.

I don't have a problem with divorcing PCs from NPCs because to me, the PCs are the ones who stand out in this world. They're the Indiana Jones of your campaign. They're special. What do I care if it's not fair to the NPCs? They're just an abstraction. They're fiction. They stop existing the moment I stop thinking about them.

Similarly, I don't have a problem with Minions, because they allow for the big fights with hordes of foes and because they're mooks. I like the idea of standing atop a big pile of hobgoblin bodies and shouting ... well, you know how this goes. And I don't think it's inconsistent with the rules: I think it's updating the low-level Mooks so that they're viable in battles with PCs who hopelessly outclass them. They go down in one shot, but they also might do some damage before they go down.

Maybe it's more unrealistic, but it's a lot more fun as well. At least for me.

[Rutee]

Perhaps it's the lawyer blood in me that thinks all rules should strive to be the former. :smallbiggrin:

Funny, but I wouldn't want to bring my work home with me :smallyuk:

[Talya]

The title of this thread alone killed some catgirls.

[AKA_Bait]

Funny, but I wouldn't want to bring my work home with me :smallyuk:

Ah but you see, lawyerly things are home to me. Both of my parents are ones as is my wife to be.

[Rutee]

Ah but you see, lawyerly things are home to me. Both of my parents are ones as is my wife to be.

I see. Well, to each their own. I just have no intention of treating my play the same way I do my work :P

[nagora]

Perhaps it's the lawyer blood in me that thinks all rules should strive to be the former. :smallbiggrin:
To be serious for a moment, this philosophy of Law is responsible for massive amounts of human misery and injustice. In the UK we used to have a notion (and still do in theory) of the "reasonable person", which is sort of the DM: if a reasonable person would know, for example, that sticking your hand into a flame would hurt then nobody can sue because their gas cooker did not come with a warning "Flames are dangerous".

Sadly, this philosophy is being eroded by lawyers who go on to become judges and who realise that such an approach, while very sensible and fair and even just, is not a great way to generate loads and loads of legal suits and therefore piles of cash to pay for their big cars.

The two approaches match the debate on this topic surprisingly well. The reasonable DM not only should be happy to apply common sense to questions like drowning or how many kobolds can fit into a rowing boat or what dead wizards can and can't do in the afterlife but see it as their job to do so, and also to overrule errors in the rules.

Attempting to ignore reason and instead trying to pin everything down to a consistant set of rules is not only impossible by Godel's Theorem (except for systems far simpler than any simulist role-playing game) but is unfair because it allows the clever player to find loopholes and then hold the DM to ransom by appealing to the rules as written even when those rules are manifestly in error or simply lacking.

An RPG is not a simulation of every thing a character can do and trying to make it so is worse than futile.

[Yakk]

No need to use particles indistinguishable from an electron. I could measure it just as well using photons. And I'm pretty sure that I can distinguish a photon from an electron, no matter what precision I'm asking for.

You didn't use an electron -- your high-frequency, low-wavelength probe has such an energy density at the point of collision that it spews out a massive amount of particles. This slurry of particles is what particle physcists look at in supercollider experiments.

If you pump the energy density up enough, stuff boils out of the fabric of reality, effectively.


Could you please point me in the direction of any physical theory which predicts the existence of such a thing as "quantum mechanical time steps"? So far as any known theory of physics can tell, time is a continuum, so I can restrict my interest to any arbitrarily short time interval I want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity

In general, when things drop below a Planck time or a Planck distance, wierd **** happens in quantum mechanics -- very much like wierd **** happens when you try using Newtonian mechanics on quantum mechanical scales.

Various interpretations have been put foward, including the idea that space itself is quantized. And once space is quantized, so is time, thanks to the speed of light speed limit. LQG is one of those approaches.

[AKA_Bait]

Attempting to ignore reason and instead trying to pin everything down to a consistant set of rules is not only impossible by Godel's Theorem (except for systems far simpler than any simulist role-playing game) but is unfair because it allows the clever player to find loopholes and then hold the DM to ransom by appealing to the rules as written even when those rules are manifestly in error or simply lacking.

An RPG is not a simulation of every thing a character can do and trying to make it so is worse than futile.

Nagora, I really do feel like we are two ships passing in the night without seeing eachother here. Let me be clear:

I'm not arguing that a rule system can be complete in the Godelian sense. Which, I'll point out, is a silly thing to argue since Godel's Theorem applies to provability of true/false propositions in mathematical systems, not systems in general. Godel has as much to say about completeness as it applies D&D systems as he does about the completeness of the New York City Sewer System: nothing.

I'm not arguing that DM's should use no common sense when interpreting the rules in play.

I'm not arguing that a DM cannot or should not use rule 0 to reign in players abusing the inevitable loopholes in the rules.

I am arguing that within a roleplaying system assumptions are better off stated than not in any given rule.

I am arguing that rules should be as complete and unified as is practical given the space in the rulebook and target market.

I am arguing that rules should be as explicit as practically possible given the space in the rulebook and target market.

I am arguing that having parallel systems in 4e for PCs and NPCs can make a needlessly divided and complicated system.

I am arguing that minion mechanics may have problems with versimilitude at higher levels. Also, that this problem is related to what I'm arguing for above.

I am arguing that although a DM should be happy to apply interpretation to a rule, that a well written rule does not require him or her to do so as often as a poorly written rule does.

Now then, can we proceed without my being accused of wanting to reject the 'Reasonable Man' underpinnings of most of British and American Law simply because I think rules in RPGs should be explicitally stated?

[Skyserpent]

Minion rules again, eh?


Okay then!

I myself find the minion rules interesting in that they can keep a game exciting for high-octane fights where not a round goes by without at least one or two murders. Wading through baddies becomes far more interesting when they can ACTUALLY DO DAMAGE to the players.

Someone made some point about having characters who have absolutely no chance against the PCs is silly. I agree, but considering 3.5 and 4e, it appears that 4e Minions actually have a HIGHER chance of killing PCs than 3.5 mooks. a 4e minion can hit a player on a decent roll, 3.5 can hit a player on a 20 and ONLY a 20.

Yes I understand that using different rules for NPCs and PCs may seem odd, and in fact does, in theory sound like a bad idea. There is this unspoken agreement among some parties that the game should be able to completely operate on it's own power without any PCs. I find that idea interesting, and cool, but fundamentally strange, considering that D&D is a game not MEANT to be played alone.

One gripe I noticed a lot was about the idea that high-level minions are just plain silly. I can agree with the idea, the enemy is tough, powerful and shouldn't be able to be killed by a single PC at a low level.

But the point of the Tier system in 4e is to avoid that! From what I can tell: being a baddie, or being a minion, relate to the relative level of the PCs, so, in a way, the World's Mechanics change in relation to the PCs, the world wouldn't but the mechanics DO. You can't have the players without the mechanics. It's like observation Dependant Reality.

The Legion Devil is a scary enemy for Paragon Tier characters. One Legion Devil is about as powerful as a PC who has honed his own skills over a long period of adventuring... however, once that PC hits Epic tier, the Legion devil is not nearly as significant. At this point, the PC has acquired enough skill that he can dispatch what many would consider extremely powerful foes in a single blow. So the same Legion Devil is now a minion, but only to the Epic PC. A lot of people are complaining about how this "breaks flow" but I think you're giving humans too little credit. The system is a TINY bit more complicated to understand, but overall it's more fun. I don't think I've encountered anyone who has read the minion rules and did not understand the mechanics.

[JaxGaret]

Oh absolutely, and again that's something that both mindsets can agree on.

Woohoo!


The thing is though, within the *rules* there is nothing *stopping* Hans having 10 PC levels, just because the DM says so.

Correct.


I don't think anybody would disagree that the Minion rules, improperly applied, could lead to some ludicrous situations. There'd be nothing stopping you statting up Vecna as a 25th level Lich Minion and having him taken out by a thrown pebble, just as there's nothing *stopping* you giving random minor NPCs enormous numbers of class levels.

I suppose I'm working from the assumption that you would only ever put the "Minion" template on something which the PCs could *already* plausibly take out in one hit. If a 10th level Wizard drops a fireball on a bunch of Orcs does it *really* matter whether they've got 1 HP each or 15? Either way they're pretty much toast.

Right, but on to the next point...


Familiars and Summons are actually an interesting case I hadn't thought of, and I'll admit that they *could* be open to abuse, particularly since a 30th level character will presumably still have access to all his 1st level abilities.

Precisely. I am almost certain that more issues such as those two will crop up during play.


Perhaps I'm just a cockeyed optimist

That's the best kind :smallsmile:


, but I'd sort of assumed that there would be *some* provision for that in the rules (I'm pretty sure, for example, that somebody mentioned that Minions take no damage from attacks that "miss" even if the Ability description says they should, and don't forget that *all* attacks - including spells - require "to hit" rolls now, so effectively a Fireball kills only those Minions who it makes the Reflex Attack against).

That is a small provision, yes. But without even getting into specific power/feat/class feature combinations (True Strike + Widened Fireball, perhaps), there are plenty of basic things, such as what I outlined above, that may prove difficult to deal with as the DM.


I think part of the disconnect here, though, is your use of the phrase "moments ago". A minion, almost by definition, wasn't doing anything "moments ago". Minions are going to be there, en masse, acting as a mob. The moment you say "the hulking Orc lifts the villager by his throat and howls" that Orc *stops* being a minion. The Minions are the goblins who are running about at the heels of their Orcish masters.

Epic Minions are Paragon Elites. They're powerful monsters in their own right.


To put it another way, if you are paying attention enough to notice how a Minion reacts to a particular attack, you probably shouldn't be using the Minion rules in the first place.

Perhaps.

[Prophaniti]

See, that's where this new system loses me. The Legion Devil is still the same creature. Still just as tough, still just as resilient. The character is still human, still swinging a sword (or whatever). Ok, so the swords a little more magical now, and the character knows some more tricks of how to wield it well. That doesn't mean the Legion Devil will now fall from a single thrust, where before he wouldn't (outside magical excuses such as bane or banishing enchants). The idea is that these creatures are far more difficult to kill than normal ones and a sword through the gut does not perturb them like it would a human or orc. So why now does the character dispatch it in a single blow? It simply doesn't make sense to me, at least with higher-level monsters. Perhaps it will work ok at lower levels, though again I probably won't use these rules.

[RukiTanuki]

*sidesteps discussion*

Count me in as a Quantum DM. The world exists in my mind, and in the minds an expectations of the players. The rules are a tool to interact with that world, primarily in the ways that I don't wish to directly judge success or failure. The rules help the player lay the framework of what their character can do.

The NPCs exists, and are as real within the world as the players. They do not require presence in the rules to be acknowledge in the world (or even, to be important in the world). I do not believe that the NPC must be statted out because he is important, nor do I think that since he is not statted out, that he is unimportant.

If I require stats for an NPC, I appreciate any method which generates 90% of the stats I need in 10% of the time. Given those stats, I can estimate the remainder in a way that does not break my players' sense of immersion in the game world.

The rules are a tool, nothing more. I find the most important goal is not to apply them wherever possible but to apply them consistently, and to never let them get in the way of what my players should expect.

[Yahzi]

I'm going to use another physics analogy.
To extend your analogy to its logical conclusion, consider that when someone observes Hans the Woodcutter, they collapse the wave function, and the electron now has a precise position (although you don't know it's velocity anymore, but that's a problem for another time).

The problem we skeptics are objecting to is that the 4e rules explicitly state that the wave function of an NPC cannot be collapsed to classical terms.


Asking what level he is, or how many HPs he has, or where he gets his experience points from is simply meaningless.
If a commoner had 40 bajillion gold pieces piled up in his barn, don't you think the players would ask where he got it from? More to the point, don't you think the players are entitled to ask? And if they meet 27 more commoners, each of whom has gold-filled barns, wouldn't they find buying Trail Rations for a gold piece to be silly?

The world is supposed to make sense, so players can make sensible choices. If the world doesn't exist outside of the encounter, then the game feels a lot more like a series of encounters and a lot less like a world.


it makes no sense *not* to rearrange them at your convenience.
As Rutee pointed out, a game is a contract between the DM and the players. If the DM rearranges the rules (and indeed the entire universe) to suit his convenience, that rather inconveniences the players (unless they like riding the railroad).

[Yahzi]

It's the key final step of discarding narrative completely that made the modern role-playing game the great imaginary playground that it is today.
Quoted because it's brilliant.

Narrative was replaced with rules and dice, which allowed the story to grow in a semi-controlled direction while still freeing the players (who, after all, are trying to narrate their player's stories) from determinism.

For example, in a story, the hero always escapes at the end, because that's what the story requires. But in D&D sometimes the heroes just die, even when they weren't supposed to. Thus everyone is freed from the tyranny of dramatic narrative by the actions of a few glorious martyrs. Martyrs, I say, for the cause of freedom!

:smallbiggrin:

[Skyserpent]

See, that's where this new system loses me. The Legion Devil is still the same creature. Still just as tough, still just as resilient. The character is still human, still swinging a sword (or whatever). Ok, so the swords a little more magical now, and the character knows some more tricks of how to wield it well. That doesn't mean the Legion Devil will now fall from a single thrust, where before he wouldn't (outside magical excuses such as bane or banishing enchants). The idea is that these creatures are far more difficult to kill than normal ones and a sword through the gut does not perturb them like it would a human or orc. So why now does the character dispatch it in a single blow? It simply doesn't make sense to me, at least with higher-level monsters. Perhaps it will work ok at lower levels, though again I probably won't use these rules.

The thing is: The people AREN'T "just human" because the whole power scale has been amped up to a, shall we say, epic degree. When you're Epic all characters are ridiculously powerful, they're heroes, performing superhuman feats. They aren't your everyday swordsman, they are among the greatest and most skilled warriors in the world. Epic characters can challenge GODS, it's not unlikely that their sheer gumption can handle the minions of evil, they've got much bigger fish to fry.

I can understand the sentiment, you're just having trouble thinking on the scale that the new system seems to deem appropriate. Being an epic character isn't COMMON, most people, even highly skilled people, aren't going to be taking on Legion Devils.

I suppose this could be easier to swallow if the Mage is blasting these high-level minions by the drove with their epic magicks. I myself find that easier to believe, however, since the system is made to be more fun than frustrating/boring, the Fighter has just as much head-bashing power as our friendly reality-altering arcanist. That's a whole other discussion, but still, Minion rules work at high levels, you just have to understand that our heroes have gone WAAAAAY beyond what could be considered a normal power level to get to that point.

[Helgraf]

In general, I'm against any rules which imply that the characters are aware of the rules, and I think it's easy to see how the minion rules could/would violate that "4th wall".

I disagree. It's not like the _characters_ can see hit point meters. The fighter moves in, engages in a sophisticated manuever that ends with his weapon going through something vital in the enemy. Enemy goes down. Six seconds. That is the validation of the fighter's long pursuit of the art of <swordsmanship/killing people/bash it with a club/Escoterian Pirahna Weapon School/insert name here> that monsters that once were difficult for him to overcome can now often be slain in less time than it takes to read this paragraph. But he also realizes that the calibre of his enemies _overall_ has improved. The ogre shieldbreakers may no longer be a challenge to a man of his skill, but that Fire Giant in full platemail is very likely not to go down so easily without the use of more limited resources in the fighter's arsenal - techiques he isn't going to bother wasting on the ogres.

Call it arrogance if you will. But the fighter in this case also realizes that though he can gut one of the ogres quickly, a group of them is still a threat - their size and power means they can still hinder, stall and wear him down by numbers. And right there is the difference between the minion and the old mook. The old mook of 3.x couldn't do that - the natural 20 to hit rules simply made them irrelevant.

And further down the road, when the fighter is becoming some sort of avatar of whirling steel, his techniques may well have advanced to the point where he can take down fire giants, but titans and dragons still command and demand his respect, focus, and the use of his greatest techniques.

So, in short, I disagree. The _players_ may have some suspension of disbelief moments if they spend too much time meta-gaming the situation. But the characters, as long as a DM is using minions properly, should not.

[Dan_Hemmens]

See, that's where this new system loses me. The Legion Devil is still the same creature. Still just as tough, still just as resilient. The character is still human, still swinging a sword (or whatever). Ok, so the swords a little more magical now, and the character knows some more tricks of how to wield it well. That doesn't mean the Legion Devil will now fall from a single thrust, where before he wouldn't (outside magical excuses such as bane or banishing enchants). The idea is that these creatures are far more difficult to kill than normal ones and a sword through the gut does not perturb them like it would a human or orc. So why now does the character dispatch it in a single blow? It simply doesn't make sense to me, at least with higher-level monsters. Perhaps it will work ok at lower levels, though again I probably won't use these rules.

I know this is probably my misinterpretation, but I fail to understand how that particular objection to the Minion rules doesn't just become a general objection to the whole concept of leveling up.

Consider.

A high level fighter is, as you say, still human. Sure his armour is a little more magical, he's got better at enduring physical pain, but why at high enough level does it become impossible for him to be killed with a single blow? He still has a skull that could be cracked, a heart that could be pierced, yet he has enough hit points that a regular sword blow is literally incapable of killing him (not only of killing him, in fact, but of inconveniencing him in any way).

Furthermore, by the time you get to the point where a given creature is considered a Minion you are almost *certainly* at the point where you are *already* capable of killing them with one blow. How is it implausible for you to kill a Legion Devil in one blow "because he's a Minion" if it isn't implausible to do it simply "because you got a critical"?

[Dan_Hemmens]

Precisely. I am almost certain that more issues such as those two will crop up during play.

Fair enough, I'd be very much surprised if the designers hadn't thought of them though. Worst case scenario, there could just be a rule insisting that it takes a level X power to auto-kill a Minion.


That is a small provision, yes. But without even getting into specific power/feat/class feature combinations (True Strike + Widened Fireball, perhaps), there are plenty of basic things, such as what I outlined above, that may prove difficult to deal with as the DM.

I sincerely doubt that True Strike will remain in its unmodified form, because that would make it an absolutely *horrific* spell. It'd be the equivalent to having a first level spell in 3.5 that gave the enemy -20 on their next saving throw.

I still think you might be worrying about nothing. A Widened Fireball *should* take out a large number of low-level enemies, that's what Fireballs are *for* after all.


Epic Minions are Paragon Elites. They're powerful monsters in their own right.

Powerful, yes. In their own right, no.

To put this in 3.5 terms, a first level party might go up against a mob of Goblins and their Orcish master. To a first level party an Orc in decent armour is a worthy foe, and since it's the boss of the first adventure the DM is likely to go to some lengths to individualize that Orc, he might even have lines of dialogue about how he will crush the party, crush them to goo. The DM will probably describe him as powerful, intimidating, and imposing, as his goblin lackeys scurry about doing his bidding.

A dozen or so sessions down the line and the party are now fourth level, and they're hacking down Orcs left and right without a thought.

That's how the minion rules work as well, it's just that it frees you from having to track HP for things which you expect the PCs to just hack down without a thought.

[FlyMolo]

If you simplify some things in the world, it makes a problem. 4e is a video game, not DnD. It really is, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Minion stats make higher level combat easier, but you're now using two different rules for the same thing.

I want one set of rules for advancement that works all the time. Monster classes are stupid, pointless, and retarded. An ECL 15 CR 9 illithid player? Stupid. QED. Something that by definition has a 50-50 chance of beating a creature 6 cr levels lower?

Monsters, NPCs, and PCs should all follow the same basic rules. If only NPCs take npc classes, that's fine. The problem arises if you have minion rules and PC rules, and one decides to become the other. what now?

If one of the players decides to kill himself off because he wants to play the woodcutter, and the other players convince the woodcutter to join the party, and he has one hit point, he's toast.

If different people follow different sets of rules, the players can and will try their damndest to cross the line. And what happens then? If they all follow the same rules, you're fine.

[Dan_Hemmens]

If one of the players decides to kill himself off because he wants to play the woodcutter, and the other players convince the woodcutter to join the party, and he has one hit point, he's toast.


Whereas if he was a first level Commoner with d4 Hit Points he'd be a powerhouse.

[Rutee]

Whereas if he was a first level Commoner with d4 Hit Points he'd be a powerhouse.
Didn't you see Aquillion's guide, Dan? Commoners are, um, the shiznit for riznit. Or something.

[RukiTanuki]

Some enemies (minions) may be as tough as their commanders, but they lack the (skill/experience/training/combat instinct/take whatever you want) that readily turns potentially lethal blows into less threatening injuries. If you get past their defenses, they go down hard. A lot like you'd expect the average person to, really. This lack of skill says a lot about why they're not in charge of the operation.

There. Completely fluff answer for a fluff "dilemma." Created off the top of my head, and something my players (at least) would accept at face value.

[Prophaniti]

I know this is probably my misinterpretation, but I fail to understand how that particular objection to the Minion rules doesn't just become a general objection to the whole concept of leveling up.

Consider.

A high level fighter is, as you say, still human. Sure his armour is a little more magical, he's got better at enduring physical pain, but why at high enough level does it become impossible for him to be killed with a single blow? He still has a skull that could be cracked, a heart that could be pierced, yet he has enough hit points that a regular sword blow is literally incapable of killing him (not only of killing him, in fact, but of inconveniencing him in any way).

Furthermore, by the time you get to the point where a given creature is considered a Minion you are almost *certainly* at the point where you are *already* capable of killing them with one blow. How is it implausible for you to kill a Legion Devil in one blow "because he's a Minion" if it isn't implausible to do it simply "because you got a critical"?

A good point. I have always had a problem with the ridiculous amount of hp characters start to get up toward epic level. Even regarding them as an abstract doesn't resolve the ridiculousness of an epic barbarian surviving a coup de grace from a giant with an axe, which with epic hp and fort save, he certainly could. It's something I've simply come to accept about D&D as a game and find ways to work around it when it becomes a truly game-breaking issue, which thankfully isn't often.

After listening to some of the arguments for the minion system, I can at least see why it would be considered mechanically useful, even if I don't buy any of the 'in-game' explanations. Still not a fan, it still seems illogical and silly to me, but I can see how it could make for some interesting encounters if used carefully.

[Skyserpent]

A good point. I have always had a problem with the ridiculous amount of hp characters start to get up toward epic level. Even regarding them as an abstract doesn't resolve the ridiculousness of an epic barbarian surviving a coup de grace from a giant with an axe, which with epic hp and fort save, he certainly could. It's something I've simply come to accept about D&D as a game and find ways to work around it when it becomes a truly game-breaking issue, which thankfully isn't often.

After listening to some of the arguments for the minion system, I can at least see why it would be considered mechanically useful, even if I don't buy any of the 'in-game' explanations. Still not a fan, it still seems illogical and silly to me, but I can see how it could make for some interesting encounters if used carefully.

I'm glad we are a community that can at least yield a little bit when someone makes a good argument.

I respect your logic, sir, and I will continue sending hordes of legion devils into the skewering blades of my players nonetheless, and simultaneously salute your right to make them not-quite-so-made-of-Fabergé-egg

[FlyMolo]

Whereas if he was a first level Commoner with d4 Hit Points he'd be a powerhouse.

he has a 75 percent of being able to take a hit from a shuriken an inch long without immediately being removed from the fight. Seriously, a PC with 1 hp? IT's a joke. Literally.

d4 hp plus con bonus is just seriously in trouble. You could do it. Almost.

[nagora]

Godel has as much to say about completeness as it applies D&D systems as he does about the completeness of the New York City Sewer System: nothing.

I'm off to bed but I'll pause to say this: any RPG with rules and dice can be viewed as a very complex exercise in graph theory and Godel very definately applies to that. A decent DM will raise it above that. Which was my point, I think.


Now then, can we proceed without my being accused of wanting to reject the 'Reasonable Man' underpinnings of most of British and American Law simply because I think rules in RPGs should be explicitally stated?

Oh...all right. But just this once.:smallwink:

[AKA_Bait]

I'm off to bed but I'll pause to say this: any RPG with rules and dice can be viewed as a very complex exercise in graph theory and Godel very definately applies to that. A decent DM will raise it above that. Which was my point, I think.

Kind of a stretch. I think that would only be the case of the rules of the system only related to/adjusted the results of the outcomes of the dice and/or vice versa. D&D rule systems are much more expansive than that. I suppose you could attempt to also assign ordiante values to all PC and DM actions which are not governed by die rolling but at that point we really are far far off into silly land.


Oh...all right. But just this once.:smallwink:

Next time I'm going to start calling you an anarchist in reprisal. :smallwink:

[Prophaniti]

You know, I haven't actually read the Minion rules myself, mostly just basing all discussion and opinion off this '1hp' thing. Tell me, those who are not at work right now and have access to more material than I do, does the system take any consideration to the fact that any area effect attack will level the whole room of Minions in a single round? Even just a 2-damage fireball (or mundane equivilant using black powder or alchemists fire) would kill every Minion regardless of what the creature actually is.

So, we had earlier (might've been in another thread) an example of Bob the Giant Orc. His Minion status was explained from the perspective of a fighter, who is now much more skilled and can easily penetrate his defenses and gut him. Ok, fine. I can pretend to believe that. But what about this theoretical mini-fireball? It wouldn't have singed him before and it's exactly the same fireball (ie it's not any more skilled or able to slip past his defenses). Why now does it kill him? Or is there a clause that protects from such munchkinery?

[FoE]

WotC seems to recognize that AoE attacks will be terrific against minions:


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.

But I can't say that this system is open to abuse, ie. using really weak spells to take down higher-level Minions. I just don't know enough about the system yet. Presumably they would have tested for that, however.

I do note that spells seem to use attack rolls, so that may play into this discussion.

[Reel On, Love]

You know, I haven't actually read the Minion rules myself, mostly just basing all discussion and opinion off this '1hp' thing. Tell me, those who are not at work right now and have access to more material than I do, does the system take any consideration to the fact that any area effect attack will level the whole room of Minions in a single round? Even just a 2-damage fireball (or mundane equivilant using black powder or alchemists fire) would kill every Minion regardless of what the creature actually is.
All atacks, including AoEs that do half on a miss, have to roll to hit.
Minions don't take damage from missed attacks (like fireball).
So a Fireball would fry about half the minions it catches, but not all of them.


So, we had earlier (might've been in another thread) an example of Bob the Giant Orc. His Minion status was explained from the perspective of a fighter, who is now much more skilled and can easily penetrate his defenses and gut him. Ok, fine. I can pretend to believe that. But what about this theoretical mini-fireball? It wouldn't have singed him before and it's exactly the same fireball (ie it's not any more skilled or able to slip past his defenses). Why now does it kill him? Or is there a clause that protects from such munchkinery?
It actually isn't the same fireball. The wizard throwing it is better and his spells do more damage.

[Skyserpent]

You know, I haven't actually read the Minion rules myself, mostly just basing all discussion and opinion off this '1hp' thing. Tell me, those who are not at work right now and have access to more material than I do, does the system take any consideration to the fact that any area effect attack will level the whole room of Minions in a single round? Even just a 2-damage fireball (or mundane equivilant using black powder or alchemists fire) would kill every Minion regardless of what the creature actually is.

So, we had earlier (might've been in another thread) an example of Bob the Giant Orc. His Minion status was explained from the perspective of a fighter, who is now much more skilled and can easily penetrate his defenses and gut him. Ok, fine. I can pretend to believe that. But what about this theoretical mini-fireball? It wouldn't have singed him before and it's exactly the same fireball (ie it's not any more skilled or able to slip past his defenses). Why now does it kill him? Or is there a clause that protects from such munchkinery?

There is exactly that clause: Any effect that would deal partial damage to a minion: i.e. that fighter ability that allows him to deal STR damage on a miss, or succeeding a save against a Wizard's Fireball, instead causes no damage. In effect: You need one solid hit on a minion to take him out.

Unlike a 3.5 mook, a 4e Minion has standard defense and attacks, so the Player still needs to roll decently, and he can still take damage from one. ignoring mooks like you do in 3.5 because they only hit 5% of the time won't work here. they're an actual THREAT now. Which is why the encounters are now more interesting.

So yes, the rules allow minions to survive fireballs and such, so long as the minion doesn't take a full and clean hit he lives!

[Prophaniti]

Ok, so in 4E instead of everything in an area effect getting a save for half, you roll to hit for half? Guess that'd work out ok...

Part of my example was also mundane explosions, btw, which don't 'level up'. So, again, why would a small explosion of black powder (or a splash of acid) which wouldn't hurt Bob at all before, no matter how squarely or cleanly it 'hit', now kill him outright? It may make sense with some smaller, weaker enemies, but I really see this falling apart completely once you turn something bigger into a Minion.

[Reel On, Love]

Ok, so in 4E instead of everything in an area effect getting a save for half, you roll to hit for half? Guess that'd work out ok...
It's exactly the same, except the player rolls.


Part of my example was also mundane explosions, btw, which don't 'level up'. So, again, why would a small explosion of black powder (or a splash of acid) which wouldn't hurt Bob at all before, even on a 'hit', now kill him outright?
I didn't see black powder or acid flasks in the PHB. If you're going to house-rule them in, you can house-rule how they interact with minions.

(Although killing someone by shoving a small explosive into their mouth should be possible.)

[FoE]

Any resistances Bob possessed as a regular NPC would still be in effect, plus his defence is better in lieu of him having many hit points.

[Prophaniti]

I didn't see black powder or acid flasks in the PHB. If you're going to house-rule them in, you can house-rule how they interact with minions.

(Although killing someone by shoving a small explosive into their mouth should be possible.)

Ok, let's set up the scenario here: You're fighting Jim the Demon Lord and his Orc Chief guards. The guards are Minions and consist of Bob and his peers. Orcs that are pretty tough and would have been a big threat when the party was lower level. Now someone tosses a mundane explosive or acid into Bob and his friends. This is an area attack, and thus rolls to hit are made. Three of Bob's friends are hit. Now, if they were normal NPCs they would take the (let's say) 5 full damage and laugh at the PCs pathetic little noisemaker. But now they are Minions, and the three 'hit' by the full blast collapse and wither in the face of this, apparently, now devestating ploy. Exact same explosion, exact same monsters, different game status and so they all die... doesn't seem right to me.

Now, this is a pretty specific scenario, and I know all rules will have flaws... to me it just seems a pretty glaring one that breaks immersion and gameplay.

[Reel On, Love]

Presumably that's why they didn't include mundane explosives (that, and flavor). Mundane "acid" that does a bunch of damage isn't anywhere in there, either.

If you really wanted to include such things without breaking immersion with minions, you could easily say that minions are immune to "mundane" damage, like acid, explosives, stairs, etc--the 1 HP is for when the PCs hit them.

[Skyserpent]

Ok, let's set up the scenario here: You're fighting Jim the Demon Lord and his Orc Chief guards. The guards are Minions and consist of Bob and his peers. Orcs that are pretty tough and would have been a big threat when the party was lower level. Now someone tosses a mundane explosive or acid into Bob and his friends. This is an area attack, and thus rolls to hit are made. Three of Bob's friends are hit. Now, if they were normal NPCs they would take the (let's say) 5 full damage and laugh at the PCs pathetic little noisemaker. But now they are Minions, and the three 'hit' by the full blast collapse and wither in the face of this, apparently, now devestating ploy. Exact same explosion, exact same monsters, different game status and so they all die... doesn't seem right to me.

Now, this is a pretty specific scenario, and I know all rules will have flaws... to me it just seems a pretty glaring one that breaks immersion and gameplay.

My best guess would be that the attack bonus on the mundane explosive or acid is so piss-low that it would basically not effect them at all. If it somehow managed to roll really high against each of their defenses, well, that is a bit odd, but I can imagine the PC would then have aimed the explosive so perfectly that the shrapnel or what-have you perfectly struck them in their respective temple/necks, thus fulfilling an equally improbably level of convenience for the PC.

Either that or the system is silly. Both are equally likely imho, but then again, I might have some kind of bias considering I LIKE the minion system and will now seek excuses for it...

[TheDarkOne]

How uncertainty actually works, for those who are interested: In quantum mechanics there are certain quantities called "observables " these are basically probability distributions(everything in quantum is probability distribution) of actual physical things, like position, momentum, angular momentum, etc. For any two observables a measure of the accuracy of your knowledge about them(precisely the standard deviation of their pdfs) multiplied together must be always larger or equal to some constant(specifically, the commutator of the two observables). This constant can be zero, but in several important cases, like position and momentum, it is not.

What this all comes down to is you have pairs of physical quantities that, when you measure one to great accuracy, it becomes impossible for you to know anything about the other one. Some examples of such pairings are position and momentum, energy and time, and the angular momentums about any two linearly independent axes.

If you're really interested in quantum mechanics I'd highly suggest you read "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" by David J. Griffiths. It's good mathematically, but it's also pretty easy to just read the book(something that I find rare, in most books it's trade off. You're either got no math at all, and so are not really learning anything about the subject, or the books is incredibly difficult to follow).

[Prophaniti]

Either that or the system is silly. Both are equally likely imho, but then again, I might have some kind of bias considering I LIKE the minion system and will now seek excuses for it...

That's what I think. It's kind of a silly system and my example is one of the holes that exploits that problem. All systems have issues like that, though, and it just comes down to whether you like the system or dislike the hole more.

Also, quantum physics is awesome. I know I don't really get more than half of it (I need more math, I'm not even to basic calculus) but I love reading about it and trying to wrap my head around its strange and counter-intuitive concepts.

[JaxGaret]

From perusing the 4e Wizard Power list, I have come to the conclusion that Storm Cage & Frostburn are the two best Minion-killing Wizard spells, with Winter's Wrath & Chain Lightning also quite good at it.

The reason for this is mostly that Storm Cage, Frostburn, and Winter's Wrath all auto-deal damage to any enemy that starts their turn within its their Burst radius. For Frostburn and WW that is Burst 2, for Storm Cage it is Burst 4 with a small "eye" in the center that is safe, but it also has a possibly damaging wall effect if they try to cross it.

I haven't checked the other classes' Power lists yet.

[FlyMolo]

4e stands to be really interesting, but I'm going to stick with 3.5. It just represents the real world better. (In some places worse, but hey.) A 3.75 would be nice. All one handed or light weapons get +1 to hit, because they're lighter. Something done about alertness and other useless feats would be cool too. All the borked casters fixed somehow, or the melee guys brought up to speed.

But so far, these minion rules make my brain hurt. High level characters would treat them as having 1 hp, while characters the same level wouldn't? This usually wouldn't be a problem, unless the PCs are storming a fort or something, aided by mooks of their own. If they are, you're totally screwed. It's all quantum from there. Both a minion and monster at the same time, until you kill it. Then it's dead.

3.5 is just more flexible, at the cost of more bookkeeping.

[Starbuck_II]

But so far, these minion rules make my brain hurt. High level characters would treat them as having 1 hp, while characters the same level wouldn't? This usually wouldn't be a problem, unless the PCs are storming a fort or something, aided by mooks of their own. If they are, you're totally screwed. It's all quantum from there. Both a minion and monster at the same time, until you kill it. Then it's dead.

3.5 is just more flexible, at the cost of more bookkeeping.

No. The work around makes your head hurt.

If you don't care that Bob is used a minion now but not before: it doesn't hur at all. Too much thinking/over thinking hurts.

If I use mooks. Than they are minion when required at start of encounter. They don't change during a encounter. They only change prior to a battle. So no quantum required.

We are changing the experiment before we measure their minioness: thus we have to expect a different result.

[Rutee]

3.5 is just more flexible, at the cost of more bookkeeping.

Waaaaait. How does that even follow? "Well, 4e has an option I don't like the realism of, but 3e doesn't. Therefore, 3e is more flexible"

Where is Step 2 in this?

[JaxGaret]

I think that FlyMolo's point was that in the same battle, high level PCs treat Minions as Minions, but lower level compatriots of the PCs don't treat those same monsters as Minions, so they are both Minion & not-Minion at the same time.

That is the quantum state of the Minion that Fly was referring to.

[Rutee]

I don't know why those lower level compatriots wouldn't treat them as minions. IF they're low level, they'll have a hard time hitting them, and if they're minions.. well minions OHKOing each other's fine.

Incidental note, Warlords do some disgusting things with NPC Minion support.

[JaxGaret]

I don't know why those lower level compatriots wouldn't treat them as minions. IF they're low level, they'll have a hard time hitting them, and if they're minions.. well minions OHKOing each other's fine.


Well that's the question. Who exactly treats Minions as Minions. Is it everyone, no one, where is the cutoff line?


Incidental note, Warlords do some disgusting things with NPC Minion support.

As well they should. Warlords look pretty awesome to me. I can easily see a party using two Warlords in the Leader/Defender roles, or being a great 5th wheel.

Hell, all the classes look pretty good :smallbiggrin:

[Rutee]

Well that's the question. Who exactly treats Minions as Minions. Is it everyone, no one, where is the cutoff line?
It's squishy in general, but if the PCs or Villains 'should' be treating someone as a minion, then everyone does.




As well they should. Warlords look pretty awesome to me. I can easily see a party using two Warlords in the Leader/Defender roles, or being a great 5th wheel.
Warlords can surplant a Cleric without a second one, even, they just dno't heal as well. They make up for it by buffing damage output XD

[Reel On, Love]

Warlords can surplant a Cleric without a second one, even, they just dno't heal as well. They make up for it by buffing damage output XD

Warlord/Paladin: synergy!

[JaxGaret]

It's squishy in general, but if the PCs or Villains 'should' be treating someone as a minion, then everyone does.

So you don't agree with the Quantum Minion Theory? A Minion is a Minion is a Minion, fin?

[FlyMolo]

So, if you have two level 5 characters bashing at each other in an empty room, they're PCs.

If there's a pair of level 25 characters in the same room, they're minions, and combat changes, even if they don't interfere.

Whut.

4e cuts down on bookkeeping. don't keep track of the mook health, it doesn't even matter, they're a ohko anyway. Give them special minion status to make more fun, makes sense.

3e, you might have to keep track of the mook health but only if you want to. I don't keep track of individual orc healths either. A hit is enough to kill one (almost always) or not. If so, subtract one from the number of orcs. There's a lot, they won't miss one. And best of all, 3e makes me do this bookkeeping only if it's important. If it's not, I'm not going to. Simple. And if it is important, I can have mook allies of the PCs come along and contribute, without changing the battle.

That's why 3e is more flexible. It can handle different power levels better.

[Rutee]

So you don't agree with the Quantum Minion Theory? A Minion is a Minion is a Minion, fin?

That seems improbable. Wouldn't Quantum Minion be that it's in a state of superposition until such a time as you examine it? The cat is neither dead nor alive until you open the box? With the box, in this case, being "How do the PCs or Villains treat it".



So, if you have two level 5 characters bashing at each other in an empty room, they're PCs.

If there's a pair of level 25 characters in the same room, they're minions, and combat changes, even if they don't interfere.

How do you figure? If the level 25 characters aren't interfering, then they're not relevant to the situation at all.


That's why 3e is more flexible. It can handle different power levels better.
Please don't lie to us. We actually played 3rd ed. It doesn't handle different power levels better. It can't, by default, because the option to treat things that way remains in 4e. The minion option does not exist in 3rd ed. God almighty, you are not thinking this cunning plan of yours all the way through.

[JaxGaret]

How do you figure? If the level 25 characters aren't interfering, then they're not relevant to the situation at all.

Say one of the 25th level character leveled a skill check at one of the 5th level characters. It would then be a Minion, no?

[Reel On, Love]

So, if you have two level 5 characters bashing at each other in an empty room, they're PCs.

If there's a pair of level 25 characters in the same room, they're minions, and combat changes, even if they don't interfere..

What? No, not unless they were minions. They're level 5 characters, with defenses and attacks and HP appropriate thereto. The level 25 characters would casually slaughter them.

[FlyMolo]

The fact that a pair of 5th level characters fighting is changed by their having a 25th level ally in the room, even if they barely interfere, bothers the snot out of me.

the 4e option of having minions is a flying stab at a good idea.

4e is better than 3.5e in several places, and also worse. Worse: divide all distances by 5 and rename stuff Commander and Controller and such. Better: short weapons get +1 to hit, and wizards get some cool abilities.

I'll miss the vancian casting concept, but not the implementation.

[Rutee]

Say one of the 25th level character leveled a skill check at one of the 5th level characters. It would then be a Minion, no?

Well, not necessarily. PCs are never minions. And if they're all NPCs then this all goes out the window because it's not important to stat out.

[Reel On, Love]

The fact that a pair of 5th level characters fighting is changed by their having a 25th level ally in the room, even if they barely interfere, bothers the snot out of me.
Where are you getting this? Minionhood isn't level-dependent. Either something is a minion or it is not. If the two level 5 characters are a standard monster vs. a PC, the presence of the 25th-level character and a 25th-level monster (which could be a minion, or it could not) will not change anything.

[JaxGaret]

Where are you getting this? Minionhood isn't level-dependent. Either something is a minion or it is not. If the two level 5 characters are a standard monster vs. a PC, the presence of the 25th-level character and a 25th-level monster (which could be a minion, or it could not) will not change anything.

He's talking about Minions. To wit, if Minions fight each other, do they still follow the Minion mechanic of each having 1 HP, or do they treat each other as normal non-Minions?

[Reel On, Love]

He's talking about Minions. To wit, if Minions fight each other, do they still follow the Minion mechanic of each having 1 HP, or do they treat each other as normal non-Minions?

They treat each other as Minions. Like soldiers, they rush at each other, the masses clashes and many falling dead.

Of course, Minions don't fight each other, they fight the PCs, who aren't minions and don't have minions. If they're fighting each other offscreen, then just decide what you want to have happen.

[FlyMolo]

I'm sorry, this minion mechanic bothers me deeply and to the core.

But they only treat each other as minions if they are minions, and they have to be minions to something. If there's no something, they're not minions, and they're different. Grr.

I hate to get my story in my mechanics.

[Merlin the Tuna]

But they only treat each other as minions if they are minions, and they have to be minions to something. If there's no something, they're not minions, and they're different. Grr.Stop thinking about who the minions are. Minions are not whos, they're whats. In the closing credits to your campaign, they are listed not as Perry Protagonist or Stan "I actually had a last name that maybe got mentioned once" Supportingcharacter. They are Tall Man At Bus Stop, Swearing Man, key grip, and caterer.

I think that ultimately you're really just overthinking this. Minions exist to get punted. If you don't want them punted, don't include minions.

[Reel On, Love]

I'm sorry, this minion mechanic bothers me deeply and to the core.

But they only treat each other as minions if they are minions, and they have to be minions to something. If there's no something, they're not minions, and they're different. Grr.

I hate to get my story in my mechanics.

"Minion" is not an IC tag. "Minion" does not mean they have to serve something (although it usually will, but that's because they're weaker). You can have a group of roving minions (and 16 Zombie Rotters can make for a fun encounter).

[JaxGaret]

You can have a group of roving minions (and 16 Zombie Rotters can make for a fun encounter).

IIRC there is indeed a single encounter in the Quickstart module that is made up entirely of two types of Minions.

[nagora]

Kind of a stretch. I think that would only be the case of the rules of the system only related to/adjusted the results of the outcomes of the dice and/or vice versa. D&D rule systems are much more expansive than that. I suppose you could attempt to also assign ordiante values to all PC and DM actions which are not governed by die rolling but at that point we really are far far off into silly land.
The various actions under the rules also change the state of the characters and monsters, don't forget, so again we're in Godel and Turing territory. But, yes, quite silly. Almost as silly as bringing QM into it!


Next time I'm going to start calling you an anarchist in reprisal. :smallwink:
CN and proud of it!