4e / GSL Let's talk about minions...

[D'karr]

Originally Posted by Hussar

Just to bring another sort of minion rule into the discussion, what do people feel about the Mob template that was introduced in the DMG II? Essentially, you take a large group of mooks, turn them into one monster and they all die when they run out of that pooled hit points.

Is that a better way of dealing with mooks?

The issue with mobs is that they are much more dangerous than a single minion or even a group of minions. If you are surrounded by minions, not all of them are going to hit everytime they attack. So damage can still be minimal.

With some of the mobs the average damage can quickly escalate, they auto-hit and it takes a lot longer to take them out than a group of minions. So it is more difficult and challenging than fighting mooks.

Even though both minions and mobs are affected similarly by Area Effects, you can't effectively take out a mob without them. Which is one of the reasons minions can be more satisfying for melee combatants.

I think they are both good tools and I've used them both, for different purposes.

[Spatula]

There's a kobold "mob" creature in one of the early DDI Dragon articles.

[AllisterH]

You know, this may sound silly but this is in relation to the minion vs farmer angle.

Why do we still have the natural 20 rule in D&D?

If you get rid of this, then there's no way that a famer is taking out an epic level minion....

[EdPovi]

From what I've seen on the development of 4E, minions DID have a level based amount of HP consistent with the rest of the monsters. This was changed to make it easier for the DM to run, one of the biggest hallmarks of 4E.

It's VERY easy to houserule in standard HP for minions. Just like an Elite has 2x HP and a Solo has 5x HP, a minion has 1/4 HP. So if a Kobold has 28 HP, the Kolbold Minion has 7 HP. Your level 21 Legion Devil Minion would have about 50 HP, if you are fighting a "standard" Legion Devil he would have about 200 HP.

As with any game system, it is up to the DM to create situations that your players enjoy. If it seems silly to have a horde of titan minions, don't put them in the game.

The idea of creating a minion rule that's not as simple as "if you hit it, it dies" but still a lot less work than standard monsters is interesting. You can set a "Minion Threshold" (maybe 3 + 2/lvl). If a Minon takes damage => this value it dies, otherwise it becomes bloodied. A bloodied Minion that is hit dies. It probably wouldn't be too much extra work to keep track of bloodied minions.

[Pseudopsyche]

Originally Posted by AllisterH

You know, this may sound silly but this is in relation to the minion vs farmer angle.

Why do we still have the natural 20 rule in D&D?

If you get rid of this, then there's no way that a famer is taking out an epic level minion....

You make a very interesting point. Given the newly balanced math, a PC rolling a 20 against a level-appropriate enemy should hit even without the natural-20-is-a-hit rule. So removing the rule would have little effect in practice but would indeed make it impossible for a level 1 farmer to hit a level 21 minion.

If you asked your question outside the context of this thread, I wonder how many people would essentially respond, "Well, even a farmer should have some chance of hitting a legion devil." I guess we want the farmer to have a chance of hitting but not of killing? So he at least can boast of getting in a good blow before his grisly death?

Put another way, the rule specifying that natural 20s seems unnecessary if you assume that the rules only cover level-appropriate conflicts.

[Henry]

Originally Posted by EdPovi

It probably wouldn't be too much extra work to keep track of bloodied minions.

The question I keep coming back to in my mind is "Is it worth it?" If a minion has hit points, they can be wounded. If they can be wounded, they can be bloodied, slowed, dazed, blinded, poisoned, and a host of other status effects. Remember there are now very few spells (sleep being the only one I can think of) that merely give statuses; most damage as well as give a status. So, if 4e spells damage a minion, they kill it, and there's no need to track it.

So, you give the minion hit points, even though it's a small pool. Now, the fighter hits a minion for piddly damage, and slows him, causing a saving roll each round. Or the rogue hits the minions and blinds a few. The wizard frost-rays one and slows him. Now, you need to add die rolls for saves each round. You need to track who's blind and who's not. If it fits the sensibilities of the DM, then it's well and good, but it's worth taking all the repercussions into consideration when you make a given change.

[Charwoman Gene]

I saw a post once (Sorry I am ripping someone off here!) that proposed using minions for disorganized groups of weaklings, but using the Swarm rules for organized formation fighters.

[AllisterH]

Originally Posted by Pseudopsyche

You make a very interesting point. Given the newly balanced math, a PC rolling a 20 against a level-appropriate enemy should hit even without the natural-20-is-a-hit rule. So removing the rule would have little effect in practice but would indeed make it impossible for a level 1 farmer to hit a level 21 minion.

If you asked your question outside the context of this thread, I wonder how many people would essentially respond, "Well, even a farmer should have some chance of hitting a legion devil." I guess we want the farmer to have a chance of hitting but not of killing? So he at least can boast of getting in a good blow before his grisly death?

Put another way, the rule specifying that natural 20s seems unnecessary if you assume that the rules only cover level-appropriate conflicts.

Thanks.

Getting rid of the natural 20 rule seems to solve a LOT of the versimilitude (sp?) ssues and it doesn't affect the PCs versus the world so I'm not seeing any down

Hell, even in previous editions of D&D, I'm not sure the natural 20 rule makes any sense. Really, if you're only hitting on a 20, you're kind of screwed...

[EdPovi]

Originally Posted by Henry

The question I keep coming back to in my mind is "Is it worth it?"

Very good question, in my view probably not. Those are valid points as the best feature of the minion rules is how easy it is for the DM to run. While minions are not immune to status effects (some powers give status effect on a miss) it is uncommon.

The 1/4 HP rule would probably give the best simulationist feel, but at the cost of more work on the DM, and slowing the game down. Even the "two-hit" minion adds the complexity of status effects as you said.

[wally]

Originally Posted by Gort

Player: I poke the dragon in my eye to kill it. I roll unarmed, I hit! I kill it!
DM: Don't be ridiculous. The dragon is annoyed and attacks you. Take 10 damage.

This sort of comes under the same heading of "the heroes always arrive just in time, assuming they actually make an effort to arrive quickly and don't try to deliberately flaunt the intention of the system."

Also, why do you sign your posts? I can see who you are from your username on the left.

I didn't think the system said anywhere that the above was ridiculous. That would be the DM saying so, therefore it would flaunt the intention of the DM not the system.

I am not commenting on the good or bad DMs out there, I am commenting on the rule as written, which is what many (as it sounds to me) will follow.

I put my name at the bottom as it is typical of all the messages I send out.

-wally

[wally]

Originally Posted by cangrejoide

Really? Is this your best example against minion use?

This has nothing to do with minions, this is just a bored player acting OOC and silly to sabotage the mood of the adventure.



If you don't trust your GM why play with him at all? And you said it correctly it's a "cooperatively playing a game" , a player doing silly stuff to break the inmersion is not cooperating with the game. A player acting like the previous example or your 'barbarian pokey stick' example is not only defeating the "intention" of the DM, but defeating the intention of the game.

I refer you to my 'sig'.

Actually, it was in response to someone else's example of how to view the minion rules in game context.

I don't think it has anything to do with bored players. If taken as written, you can attack with anything that can cause damage, and the minion will drop. This doesn't specify that the character needs to use their favored or not so favored weapon. In fact from what I have seen, and what everyone is saying, it doesn't specify whether you have to use a weapon at all. It is up to the DM, as you make it sound, on whether he wants to use the rules as written, but it didn't sound as if this thread was about what DMs should do, but whether the minion rules were good or not.

Which leads to a different discussion. Whether the DM has the authority to make changes to the minion rules or not. Okay, that isn't a path that this thread should go down, as there are many other arguments about DM authority elsewhere on this board.

-wally

[Cadfan]

Actually, the system 1) hasn't got dragon minions, and 2) doesn't say anywhere that poking someone in the eye with your fighter deals any hit point damage at all.

Criticizing the minion rules because of how they interact with hypothetical dragon minions is like criticizing the power system because of the broken nature of first level fighter powers that deal 15[W]+Str damage on a hit. Yes, that power is broken. Yes, the elder dragon minion is silly. They're also both not real.

[Stalker0]

I think Henry summarized my feelings on the subject quite well, there's a good reason the 1 hit/1 kill rule exists.

I still don't understand the argument of the farmer vs the legion devil scenario. I don't get what the big deal with saying that a monster is only really a minion when the pcs fight it.

And heck, even if you don't use it. Even if you take a hoard of farmers vs a horde of legion devils you aren't going to lose many devils.

1) the devils go first in initiative, so they get the first swing, meaning they will kill a whole lot of farmers on the first round.
2) the farmers actually have to be brave enough to stand their ground and not run screaming into the night.
3) They all still have to roll 20's, and the chances of that will quickly drop as their lines get massacred.

So out of a horde of legion devils you lose a few...go farmers. I'm sure they are all very proud as their entire force got annihilated.

[Dausuul]

Originally Posted by Cadfan

Actually, the system 1) hasn't got dragon minions, and 2) doesn't say anywhere that poking someone in the eye with your fighter deals any hit point damage at all.

Criticizing the minion rules because of how they interact with hypothetical dragon minions is like criticizing the power system because of the broken nature of first level fighter powers that deal 15[W]+Str damage on a hit. Yes, that power is broken. Yes, the elder dragon minion is silly. They're also both not real.

Well spoken.

I get really tired of hearing about the little kid who drops a legion devil by throwing a rock at it, or the minion who dies from crashing through brambles. Anything that inflicts hit point damage is by definition potentially lethal. If it isn't plausible for a given attack or effect to result in mortal injury, then that attack doesn't inflict hit point damage and can't kill minions.

A thumb-poke to the eye cannot plausibly kill anything. If you're a PC who's just been through a hellacious battle (that is, you're down to 1 hit point), and somebody walks up and pokes you in the eye, will you fall down and start bleeding out? Of course not. Therefore, a poke in the eye does not inflict hit point damage. Therefore, minions do not die from it.

(In 3.X, of course, this principle was roundly ignored. Housecats dealt lethal damage and were easily capable of killing the typical peasant. Aside from the super-magic-powered housecat that pops out of a bag of tricks, you won't find any of that garbage in 4E... and yet 4E is the one criticized for lack of verisimilitude.)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Originally Posted by AllisterH

Thanks.

Getting rid of the natural 20 rule seems to solve a LOT of the versimilitude (sp?) ssues and it doesn't affect the PCs versus the world so I'm not seeing any down

Hell, even in previous editions of D&D, I'm not sure the natural 20 rule makes any sense. Really, if you're only hitting on a 20, you're kind of screwed...

I wonder if the auto-hit part was not always some excuse for "if the math fails us, you might at least have luck". It did sometimes work that way in 3E - if all that a Rogue or Monk could hope for was a 20 to ge ta hit, he could try at least to get as much rolls as he could (flurry, two-weapon fighting, rapid shot)...