What is your favorite Minion house rule

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Mar 17, 2017

• #1

I have been using bloodiable minions but I have come to think maybe minions without some support might always be treated as bloodied (A use of intimidate will be able to subdue or send them running from the battle and a Blood Demand can affect them with the severest of afflictions. An attack that normally damages on a miss will make it bloodied and they may be bloodied in some other ways, for instance forced marches and if half their allies are downed).

I am now thinking Majestic Aura of Deva always inhibits minion attacks regardless of their status, and may do the same for some other effects.

A minion might have a "bold in numbers" trait that as long as 3 others of its allegiance supporting it no longer counts as bloodied.

 

Last edited: Mar 17, 2017

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Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Mar 17, 2017

• #2

I like minions a lot BUT they do not entirely fullfill the conventions of Sword and Sorcery being slightly too dangerous (4 to 1 isnt going to stop a hero in Conan's or Cu Cuhlain's and Elric's genre) and given martial types too few minion caliber lawn mower abilities (just watch someone will bring one or two up).

Some of the martial controller ideas might help the above... but wondering if there are any S&S adjustments people can think of?

 

RedSiegfried

First Post

• Mar 17, 2017

• #3

I transplanted the mook mob rules from 13A into 4e so we used those sometimes. Instead of having 1 hp minions, you have a pack of them that each have a certain number of hit points, say 15, but all damage is done to the mob and for every 15 points you do, you drop one mook and the excess carries over and accrues on another mook so there's no wasted damage. And yeah, that means if you do an AoE attack on a mob and hit, say 3 of them, you do your damage to the first enemy, then any excess spills over to the 2nd, then you damage the 2nd, and any excess spills over to the third, etc. So AoE attacks are brutally effective against mobs.

It's just a different way to handle tons of enemies, and the fun comes in when you get to describe how your sword blow managed to slay three enemies at once that might not all be standing right next to each other ... fun.

And if you want to make them extra dangerous, have any effects or ongoing damage they do stack, so that if you get nailed by two dazes and three instances of 5 ongoing damage, you take 15 each round and it requires five successful saves to get rid of all those effects.

 

M

MwaO

Adventurer

• Mar 17, 2017

• #4

I give them 5+level hp instead of 1.

Basically, any real hit takes them down most of the time, but stat damage won't and often just a die roll won't either.

 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Mar 17, 2017

• #5

MwaO said:

I give them 5+level hp instead of 1.

Click to expand...

Then they take damage on a miss?

 

S

S'mon

Legend

• Mar 17, 2017

• #6

I like minions to feel more real. In my new game I give them 1/4 standard hp, which fits their XPV quite nicely (a 100 XP min-9 is much nastier than a 100 XP standard-1 but that is already true for other monster types, 4e XP does not scale well).

 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Mar 17, 2017

• #7

To me hit points do not make something feel real it means they feel like they have either obnoxious ability to take a wound like some monster OR like they have wierdly reliable luck like some hero .

The lack of a bloodied state for something that should be a joe blow potentially even meek character did feel "unreal"

 

Last edited: Mar 17, 2017

M

MwaO

Adventurer

• Mar 17, 2017

• #8

Garthanos said:

Then they take damage on a miss?

Click to expand...

Nope. Otherwise Daily powers tend to do things they're not supposed to do.

 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

• Mar 17, 2017

• #9

MwaO said:

Nope. Otherwise Daily powers tend to do things they're not supposed to do.

Click to expand...

so my bloodied on a miss ends up working better in that regards.. but results in them dying on other effects yours might bloody.

 

AbdulAlhazred

Legend

• Mar 17, 2017

• #10

Garthanos said:

I have been using bloodiable minions but I have come to think maybe minions without some support might always be treated as bloodied (A use of intimidate will be able to subdue or send them running from the battle and a Blood Demand can affect them with the severest of afflictions. An attack that normally damages on a miss will make it bloodied and they may be bloodied in some other ways, for instance forced marches and if half their allies are downed).

I am now thinking Majestic Aura of Deva always inhibits minion attacks regardless of their status, and may do the same for some other effects.

A minion might have a "bold in numbers" trait that as long as 3 others of its allegiance supporting it no longer counts as bloodied.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I handled minions as 'bloodied when they take any amount of non-targeted damage', so instead of all the auto-damage stuff killing them, it leaves them bloodied, or kills them if they're already bloodied. It doesn't make a HUGE difference, but it does remove the most egregious of minion-clearing stuff, particularly at higher levels where getting a zone of auto-damage is VERY trivial.

Another (non-mutually-exclusive) option is to give minions a 'damage threshold' of 1/2 their level. Any damage under that bloodies, anything over that kills. You can then ignore the 'no damage on a miss' rule, so even a miss with an AoE will bloody every minion within it. This actually makes it easier in some ways to kill them off, but overall they're harder to gank, or at least you MUST use something non-trivial to be sure you'll off them.

You can of course still use some auto-damage to bloody minions and then finish them the next round, it just makes it more of a trade-off and more interesting tactics. Do you blast the minions with a fireball and SURELY crisp them all, or do you use some at-will with an effect that does a couple points of damage in their area, bloody them, and then repeat it next round and save the daily stuff for later?