Minions and Temporary HPs

pweent · May 20, 2008

legiondevil said:
Including that all temporary hit points are lost at the end of an encounter?

So, a minion who took 4 points of damage collapses after the fight (even if their side wins), since he's takes 4 points of damage to his 1 actual hit point? Or perhaps he then graduates into becoming a non-minion monster.

I'm just extrapolating from a mixture of 3e and common sense, but no. All temporary HP go away at the end of the encounter. Innate HP do not go away. In 3e, temporary HP are spent first, I see no reason why that would change in 4e.

Our 1 HP minion gains 5 temporary HP, takes 3 HP from a cleave. That minion now has 3 HP - its own 1, plus 2 temporary. At the end of the fight, the 2 temporary HP go away, and the minion still has its 1 HP.

Edit: wow, I write way too slow for this board. That's not even ninja'd, that's just punked.

I have to say, I'm not crazy about the interaction of minion rules and temporary HP. In such a situation, I think the complaints about a minion not taking damage on a missed attack become a bit more relevant, and we're back to the situation decried in the excerpt:

Stephen Schubert said:
For a while, we considered giving minions some small amount of hit points, a small enough number that they would drop in one hit. But then we ran into a few situations where the minion would take only a few points of damage, forcing the DM to track minion hit points anyway.

We'll see. It shouldn't come up that frequently, but it is sub-optimal.

Voss · May 20, 2008

Mourn said:
Exception-based design.

Rule: Minions die when they take any damage.
Exception: Minions gain a hit point buffer when they receive temporary hit points.

No contradiction, no conflict. Completely consistent with stated design goals.

Problem is, I think it makes more sense if the exception goes the other way.
Rule: temporary hit points are lost first, and provide, essentially, a buffer
Exception: minions die when they take any damage, regardless of any temporary hit points.

Simply saying 'Exception based design!' doesn't clear up the contradiction. They aren't clearly labeled as rule and exception... both are simply rules.

Lacyon · May 20, 2008

Voss said:
Problem is, I think it makes more sense if the exception goes the other way.
Rule: temporary hit points are lost first, and provide, essentially, a buffer
Exception: minions die when they take any damage, regardless of any temporary hit points.

Simply saying 'Exception based design!' doesn't clear up the contradiction. They aren't clearly labeled as rule and exception... both are simply rules.

Minions die in one hit because they have 1 HP. Giving them more HP means they might not die in one hit.

There are no exceptions, they're both the same rule.

Voss · May 20, 2008

Lacyon said:
Minions die in one hit because they have 1 HP. Giving them more HP means they might not die in one hit.

There are no exceptions, they're both the same rule.

No, they are different rules- I'm quite certain there will be a rule defining temporary hit points. Furthermore, the glossary excerpt specifically defines minions this way:

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

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

Thats the actual definition of minions. There isn't any mention of 1 hp, just that they are destroyed when they take any amount of damage from an attack that hits (or doesn't require an attack roll). Its clarified in the individual monster entries, but that isn't how its defined.

DSRilk · May 20, 2008

Minion is an abstraction -- it is a creature that dies in one hit, being nothing more than dangerous-if-not-dealt-with fodder for PCs. If you were to treat minions as actual creatures, they'd have more than 1 hit point already - the point of a minion is that they drop in one hit. I can certainly see where a bit of rules-lawyering may lead to the conclusion that minions can gain temp hit points (just like an 18 strength allows you to carry 150 short swords), but it goes against the POINT of minions. You can think of it like this: minions REALLY have X hit points (where X is a value greater than 1), but to GUARANTEE they drop in one blow without record keeping (since that's the point of a minion) they were simply given 1 hp. If a minion was to gain 4 temp hp, he really effectively has X + 4 (a number still > 1). Again, however, the whole artificial construct called the Minion exists for the purpose of putting creatures that drop in one hit with no DM record keeping in the game while still allowing them to be a danger to the PCs if not dealt with.

Rykion · May 20, 2008

The glossary wording is unfortunate if they really mean for a minion to be completely normal except for the fact it has 1 HP and doesn't take damage on any missed attack. I hope there is a better defintion somewhere in the MM and the glossary entry is just a summary.

NMcCoy · May 20, 2008

If you want to decrease bookkeeping while having the same basic effect, just have N temporary hit points give the minion Resist N All for the next time they'd take damage. Then you can just track each minion as "shielded" or not.

tomBitonti · May 20, 2008

Voss said:
No, they are different rules- I'm quite certain there will be a rule defining temporary hit points. Furthermore, the glossary excerpt specifically defines minions this way:

Thats the actual definition of minions. There isn't any mention of 1 hp, just that they are destroyed when they take any amount of damage from an attack that hits (or doesn't require an attack roll). Its clarified in the individual monster entries, but that isn't how its defined.

So ... there is no actual contradiction ... damaging hits against minions destroy them. My read is that it doesn't matter how much damage is done or how many hit points the minion has.

What is confusing is that the minion has any hit points at all.

The hit point is meaningful, perhaps, for effects that add or remove hit points without being considered a "hit".

Scribble · May 20, 2008

Shado said:
If minions are allowed to circumvent one-hit-death via temp hit points, then they should be hurt and killable on miss condition powers.

They are hurt on missed powers. You just don't have to record it.

MindWanderer · May 20, 2008

I would probably end up ruling that attacks that deal damage on a miss deduct from the minion's temp HP, but not its actual HP (1).

Minions and Temporary HPs

pweent

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