WOIN Extras or Minions for WOIN

Taralan · Jan 22, 2019

As the title mentions, are there any rules for minion types NPCs in WOIN or perhaps mobs ? I like the system, but combats can be long, especially with a multitude of lower grade opponents. Even if they are weaker, they still have a significant amount of health, especially if they have armor.

Obviously I could reduce their Health, but that seems unsatisfying.

If they are many such « extras » maybe we could create a mob of say 5 individuals which attack with say 8d6, losing a member and an attack dice everytime they suffer X damages.

Any thoughts or ideas ?

Morrus · Jan 22, 2019

Not officially, but there are two approaches I use:

- one hit one kill minions

- pooled health minions (basically as you describe)

Both work just fine for me.

Taralan · Jan 22, 2019

Thanks Morrus.

When you say one hit kills a minion do you mean any hits or a hit that does damages above Soak ? I assume its the latter to give effect to the NPC's armor.

I think this could work but I was thinking alternatively to use the lowest possible health points per die (1) instead of the average of 3.5. So a skeleton would have 7 Health rather than 24, making it much faster to dispatch, even considering its soak of 9.

loofou · Jan 22, 2019

I usually tend to use 1 HEALTH mooks that rarely even have SOAK. They are only there to give the players something to do on their way to the actual enemy NPCs with full stats.

I also use those for something like spawned creatures or a deployed drone swarm. They are meant to be distracting or slightly annoying but not really dangerous.

Often enough they have a good DEF though, so not to just waste a player action for nothing.

Morrus · Jan 22, 2019

Taralan said:
Thanks Morrus.

When you say one hit kills a minion do you mean any hits or a hit that does damages above Soak ? I assume its the latter to give effect to the NPC's armor.

I think this could work but I was thinking alternatively to use the lowest possible health points per die (1) instead of the average of 3.5. So a skeleton would have 7 Health rather than 24, making it much faster to dispatch, even considering its soak of 9.

The advantage of a minion (IMO) isn't the speed of dispatch, but the ease of book keeping. I won't find it much different tracking 7 health or 24.

So, for me at least, yeah - one hit which exceeds SOAK dispatches a minion. That's their purpose - to be ploughed though heroically by PCs.

knikpiw · Jan 22, 2019

In WOIN starship combat the number of fighters (Let's say 4) has 4 Health and 4 damage. The number of fighters is the damage it does when in the same hex of a ship and looses a number to point defences. All of this happens without any rolls needed.

Obviously when a PC has a fighter you can micro-manage it.

With this example, you could make an equivalent for 'minions' all using the WOIN system.

No need to homebrew it if it exists under a different name already.

Taralan · Jan 22, 2019

It's an interesting idea to use fighters as a proxy for Minions but how would it work exactly ?

If you had 5 minions they would have 5 health, and automatically do 5 damage no matter the defense of the PC ? And what about soaks ? Contrary to ships PCs don't usually have shields so 4 or 5 damages would often mean 0 with soak so the minion would never do anything.

I think this could be the beginning of a system but it needs some tweaking.

The advantage of a minion (IMO) isn't the speed of dispatch, but the ease of book keeping. I won't find it much different tracking 7 health or 24.

So, for me at least, yeah - one hit which exceeds SOAK dispatches a minion. That's their purpose - to be ploughed though heroically by PCs.

While speed of dispatch is also important IMO (a 24 Health skeleton with 9 armor which is supposed to be a 4d6 minion may take 6 or more attacks even for a 6d6 character to dispatch while a 7 health such skeleton would take only 2) you can't beat 1 health for speed of dispatch and it doea have the advantage of easy book-keeping as you mention. I will try that during my next game and see how it plays.

Morrus · Jan 24, 2019

Latest EONS article is about Mooks and Bosses.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/24193358

EONS #136. One Hit Wonders: Mooks & Bosses. Rules for mooks, which allow your PCs to heroically dispatch minor foes with ease, and bosses, which are more powerful versions of regular creatures.

Taralan · Jan 26, 2019

Just what I was looking for. The timing is quite uncanny

Does the Mob exploit doing an automatic 1 damage replace the Mook attack or is that in addition to the attacks ?

Morrus · Jan 26, 2019

Taralan said:
Just what I was looking for. The timing is quite uncanny

Does the Mob exploit doing an automatic 1 damage replace the Mook attack or is that in addition to the attacks ?

"The mooks may not attack the target directly."