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Siegel
2008-10-09, 10:43 AM
Greetings

I will start playing 4e with a few friends soon. I will be the DM and we will play KotS.

We have a

Fire Genasi Mage
???? Paladin
???? Ranger
Dwarf Warlord

but thats not really the topic.

What i really like about 4e ist the high amount of tactics you can have in a fight. The only problem i have is that i can't imagine playing with a battlemap and a Minis. We have quite good minis for the Players but not for monsters. I thought about using just simple Lego stones for the Monsters.

But how do i see what stones ar Minions and what are normal kobolds ? Of course i could just use different colours for Minions, not Minions but this would encourage Metagaming wouldn't it ? And i have the same problems with keeping track of status effects. Just put different other stones on top of them ? Any ideas ?

I'm not native english speaking so sorry if something is hard to understand. I hope you can help me.

LCR
2008-10-09, 10:57 AM
You should either outright tell or heavily imply which enemies are minions and which are not (for example: "there are three kobolds, two of them wear dirty rags and rusty spears and seem to be afraid of you, while the other one seems to be eager to test his shiny new sword"), as it really sucks as a player to waste one of your precious daily or encounter powers on something you could have killed with a basic attack.

Hal
2008-10-09, 11:02 AM
I've often used dice to act as substitutes for monsters. This makes book-keeping much easier, as I can look at the dice and say, "Okay, kobold 3 has lost 12 hp, but kobold 5 and 6 are at full health."

You can then just use your own notes to know which dice are minions and which aren't, but as LCR pointed out, it's usually good to let your players know who is who. After all, most armies are going to treat or dress their leaders differently than their rank-and-file soldiers, right?

olelia
2008-10-09, 11:06 AM
http://www.dragonfiresigns.com/store.php?crn=206

Saw this company at Origins and they sell product similar to your needs.

valadil
2008-10-09, 11:08 AM
Most of the time your players will be able to tell who is a minion. If you want to do a fight where the specifically don't know, give them all unique numbers or colors and only you know which is which. If you want different types of enemies in that fight too, you can use differently shaped legos. IE, all kobolds are 2x2 and their color varies. Trolls are 2x4.

fractic
2008-10-09, 11:33 AM
The problem with numbering monsters is that there are so many. One of my players has a lot of tiny d6 (about 5mm) and we use them to number monsters. But last encounter had 5 normal goblins and 10 minions. That's just to much to number everything.

Inyssius Tor
2008-10-09, 11:37 AM
The problem with numbering monsters is that there are so many. One of my players has a lot of tiny d6 (about 5mm) and we use them to number monsters. But last encounter had 5 normal goblins and 10 minions. That's just to much to number everything.

Heh heh, I agree with you normally... but that specific encounter seems perfectly suited to numbering. Minions are "Six". I mean, they have one HP and they're all exactly the same...

Awesomologist
2008-10-09, 11:46 AM
As someone who went through all this back in June it's fairly easy to set up all your monsters. Go to any arts and crafts store and buy a bag of colored stones or glass. Mine cost me $3.00 USD and are over 100 stones in about 6 colors (i went to a Michael's but i don't know if you have something like that where you are). People usually use them to fill glass vases and put candles or whatever crap in with them. I also picked up a bag of about 25 large colored glass pieces for about $2.00 USD and use those for my large mobs.

Also don't waste your money buying dungeon tiles, they're worthless. Buy or make your own battle mat and make sure it's laminated so that you can use a dry erase marker. I had an architect friend make one for me 46"x36" which i got laminated and placed on a foam bard at the UPS store (cost too much but it's really nice). Now we just draw our maps and cleanup is a cinch.

Our plays have used folded pieces of paper with either their name or small drawings on them as well as beer caps, foreign coins, and other nicknacks that fit in a 1"sq.
There is no need what so ever to buy ugly looking miniatures that look noting like your characters or monsters. Save your money for the books and your insider account.

fractic
2008-10-09, 11:52 AM
Heh heh, I agree with you normally... but that specific encounter seems perfectly suited to numbering. Minions are "Six". I mean, they have one HP and they're all exactly the same...

Yeah but the idea was to not show what monsters where minions.

Vizen
2008-10-09, 12:11 PM
My D&D group tends to get really lazy when it comes to setting up for encounters. Usually we just rip up sheets of paper, write our character names on them, and put them where we want our people to be, within reason, whilst the DM rips up sheets of paper to setup the monsters, which he then names #1, #2, #3, etc. The numbers on the pieces of paper match another piece of paper he has where he's written down the HP and other important info on the monsters down, so he can keep track of them. If the PC aren't sure which monster they just put a status effect on, they just ask the DM which one, and he'll reply. Else things start getting complicated.

Inyssius Tor
2008-10-09, 12:13 PM
Yeah but the idea was to not show what monsters where minions.

Seriously? That's stupid.

TheElfLord
2008-10-09, 12:32 PM
The problem with numbering monsters is that there are so many. One of my players has a lot of tiny d6 (about 5mm) and we use them to number monsters. But last encounter had 5 normal goblins and 10 minions. That's just to much to number everything.

I didn't realize 15 was too big a number. I've seen fights with over 30 monsters done easily without miniatures (of course this wasn't in 4th ED, but presumably the minion rules would make it much easier to keep track of large numbers because you don't have to worry about their hitpoints)

fractic
2008-10-09, 01:23 PM
Seriously? That's stupid.

My group likes it better that way so I do what I can.



didn't realize 15 was too big a number. I've seen fights with over 30 monsters done easily without miniatures (of course this wasn't in 4th ED, but presumably the minion rules would make it much easier to keep track of large numbers because you don't have to worry about their hitpoints)


It's not that 15 monsters is to big for an encounter it's just too much to number them with dice. Some would need 3d6. I can't just glance and see what monster it is.

Mando Knight
2008-10-09, 03:20 PM
Yeah but the idea was to not show what monsters where minions.

Spot the minions.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41140000/jpg/_41140974_may_starwars.jpg

...I think that 4E's minions are based on the same idea.

skywalker
2008-10-09, 03:22 PM
When one of my groups used dice, and we wound up with more than six monsters, we would either: Use dice of a different color(we're all freaks, everybody has his own dice cube for when he needs to throw a fireball), or stacked two dice and numbered them as "one prime, two prime, etc."

I always think it's kinda lame to know whether the minions are minions or not, too(because my character can't look at that guy and know he has one hp...) but I usually either slip and call them minions, or my players realize that those guys all moving on the same initiative count are the same... Because while I'm willing to roll initiative separately for each non-minion combatant, minions all get stuck with the same initiative. Maybe I should do it differently, it would probably work out better for the players if I did, because there would be less chance of getting absolutely destroyed with 8 attacks coming at the same time.

KillianHawkeye
2008-10-09, 04:16 PM
I usually either slip and call them minions, or my players realize that those guys all moving on the same initiative count are the same... Because while I'm willing to roll initiative separately for each non-minion combatant, minions all get stuck with the same initiative. Maybe I should do it differently, it would probably work out better for the players if I did, because there would be less chance of getting absolutely destroyed with 8 attacks coming at the same time.

The way I do it is to roll a seperate initiative for each "class" of monster. So for example, all the kobold minions would go on the same initiative, while all the dragonshields would go on the same (different) initiative, and the slingers would all go on yet another initiative. This way, the most my players know about any particular group of guys going on the same turn is that they all have the same stat block.

Also, I try to avoid saying outright which enemies are minions, but I do describe which guys seem to be weak and poorly equipped and which ones are more buff or unique. This way my players know not to waste good powers on them, but they may not quite reach the point of playing the minion metagame.