D&D 5E 4th edition minions in 5th?

[JWO]

I've only played a little bit of 4th edition, but one of the rules that stood out for me was the idea of having "minion" enemies (monsters that only have 1hp). I really like this idea and was wondering if people thought it would port over to 5th edition easily enough. Would it work?

 

[Ahrimon]

port easy yes, but I don't know if it's really necessary. It worked well for a system to represent a high level mook. With 5E and bounded accuracy you can use a 2HD orc against a lvl 10 party and the orc can still pose a minion level of threat.

 

[Uchawi]

4E minions are a very abstract concept that takes a level of acceptance for anyone that uses it. The big benefit is a reduction in book keeping. It is very easy to implement an equivalent in 5E. But usually the concept is a love or hate topic when discussing it. So it is a topic that is better to discuss with your table. If you do implement it, I would recommend using it sparingly, and avoid some of the big gotcha's like making a giant or dragon minion (harder to accept), and stick to smaller or more numerous low level creatures.

I prefer the concept of hit point thresholds, where goblin fodder may have the standard 1 hp, but a lesser giant may have a hit point threshold of 10 or higher. You gain the book keeping benefit, but is less likely a huge creature will drop from a paper cut.

 

[Paraxis]

Minions in 4e ran the spectrum from level 1 to 30, had slightly better defenses sometimes to compensate for the 1 shot kill, and there were other things about them that I believe would be hard to incorporate well.

The idea behind them was always to simplify book keeping though for the DM, that you could use in 5e pretty easy.

Things I have done, not worry about the last few h.p of monsters, if a solid hit drops a monster to single digits and it would be fun to just have it die I let it die. Example the cleric attacks an orc that has been hit before and drops it to 7 h.p, if the cleric doesn't get many kills normally or if the combat is dragging out a bit, I just drop the orc to 0 h.p. Full disclosure I have optimizer type players so normally boost h.p a bit in the first place so it is essentially deciding to take away that extra cushion.

Another thing I have done is taken from 13th Age and their mooks (like minions), and that is for the little guys in a big fight just pool the hit points for groups of them. You have 5 goblins in a fight and they normally have 7 h.p each, the group has 35 h.p. Every time 7 damage is done a goblin dies, so if a fighter does 22 points of damage in an attack he kills 3 goblins. I don't do this often but it helps speed up large fights and gives a cinematic hero vs the horde kind of feel.

There is also an official variant on pg 272 of the DMG, cleaving through monsters.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

I've only played a little bit of 4th edition, but one of the rules that stood out for me was the idea of having "minion" enemies (monsters that only have 1hp). I really like this idea and was wondering if people thought it would port over to 5th edition easily enough. Would it work?

Sure if that floats your boat, but FYI Area effect damage is often save for half. Just read up on challenge ratings in the dmg. Start em at 4 HP, then adjust from there. Just note the system values AC, damage output and attack bonus more than HP; designing a monster with next to NO HP might make foes easier that their CR indicates if you give them high AC to try to compensate.

 

[Kikuras]

Another thing I have done is taken from 13th Age and their mooks (like minions), and that is for the little guys in a big fight just pool the hit points for groups of them. You have 5 goblins in a fight and they normally have 7 h.p each, the group has 35 h.p. Every time 7 damage is done a goblin dies, so if a fighter does 22 points of damage in an attack he kills 3 goblins. I don't do this often but it helps speed up large fights and gives a cinematic hero vs the horde kind of feel.

I think that's quite an elegant method, when applied appropriately.

 

[Minigiant]

The easy mechod is to go in DMG where the suggested stat of a CR x+1 monster is, copy everything but the HP (to hit, damage, AC, Saves), and write the HP as 1-5 HP.

 

[Leatherhead]

The DMG has what you need to make low hp monsters, but thanks to bounded accuracy you would make some crazy high damage monsters if you want to go down to the minimum Hp at a high CR. Even with some "save for no damage" resistance added on to pad it.

You may wish to consider using the "Cleaving through Creatures" attack option on DMG page 272 combined with some lower CR creatures. You can keep using stock Orcs or Kobolds for a long time, then give them very small bumps to their defenses and attack options every 5 or so levels. Like a +1 or +2, just enough to keep them relevant.

 

[Sunseeker]

Usually I've just taken an appropriately minion-like (like a skeleton or a bandit) and just gave them 1 HP and simplified their attack, ie: on hit, 5 damage.

 

[Eirikrautha]

One concern to be aware of. With bounded accuracy, numbers of attackers are more dangerous that attacker power (in general). So, despite the fact that your kobolds have 1 hp, they still do 1d4+2ish (5 points avg.) and hit pretty often (especially in packs with advantage). So they will still output a ton of damage, even though they drop in one hit (and they usually do normally, with 5hp anyway). So your minions are a viable threat to drop characters fast, sometimes before the characters can act to cut down their numbers.