Are minions dangerous enough?

[RangerWickett]

A GM I play with believes that four minions are not an equivalent threat to one standard monster. He likes to slightly beef up minions, typically with something like this:

Tough Minion: Attacks that miss can deal damage to this minion. If the minion takes (5 + 1/2 its level) damage in a single chunk, it dies. If it takes less damage, it becomes bloodied. Any damage dealt to a bloodied minion kills it.


This is of interest to me because I want to try running a more old-school style dungeon crawl one shot for a few friends who've never given 4e a shot. I want to be able to have a party of 1st level Essential PCs go into a dungeon where several rooms all have a couple monsters which might come in waves.

The typical wave would be one standard level 1 monster or 4 minions, with the occasional 'elite wave' of one elite, or two standard monsters, or 8 minions, or maybe even a level 5 standard monster (like a bugbear). An encounter would consist of 5 waves (or 3 normal and 1 elite wave), after which the party would have a chance to heal.

Another hope is that I'd be able to get through the fights quickly. So I want to use lots of minions, but I want them to be appropriately challenging. What do you think?

 

[Klaus]

A GM I play with believes that four minions are not an equivalent threat to one standard monster. He likes to slightly beef up minions, typically with something like this:

Tough Minion: Attacks that miss can deal damage to this minion. If the minion takes (5 + 1/2 its level) damage in a single chunk, it dies. If it takes less damage, it becomes bloodied. Any damage dealt to a bloodied minion kills it.


This is of interest to me because I want to try running a more old-school style dungeon crawl one shot for a few friends who've never given 4e a shot. I want to be able to have a party of 1st level Essential PCs go into a dungeon where several rooms all have a couple monsters which might come in waves.

The typical wave would be one standard level 1 monster or 4 minions, with the occasional 'elite wave' of one elite, or two standard monsters, or 8 minions, or maybe even a level 5 standard monster (like a bugbear). An encounter would consist of 5 waves (or 3 normal and 1 elite wave), after which the party would have a chance to heal.

Another hope is that I'd be able to get through the fights quickly. So I want to use lots of minions, but I want them to be appropriately challenging. What do you think?

The true advantage of minions is that killing them takes away one action from a PC, while the others deal damage. I have a few ideas about tweaking minions, myself.

 

[gideonpepys]

I almost always beef up minions, either numerically, or by making them 'elite', or a combination of the two.

Elite minions simply take two hits to kill.

You can vary that up with a saving throw to become 'bloodied' instead of drop.

I even had ghostly minions that could save every time they took damage, though that can get annoying for the players, and really skew a combat if you get lucky on the dice.

On the topic of the dungeon crawl you have planned, I have often thought that minions (or variations thereof) would provide a perfect way to stage such a 'classic' adventure, with standard monsters cropping up occasionally and regular encounters forming the climax of a level. I also considered limiting players to at-wills between such set-pieces.

In fact, I considered the idea compelling enough to try to work out a system of 'modes' (similar to the way in which the skill system takes over for skill challenges) in which complexity of rules scaled up. You could play out alot of a dungeon without minis, even; step up to 'dungeon crawl' mode for complex areas; and enter 'standard 4E' for the set pieces.

 

[S'mon]

5+1/2 level to kill is the formula I use, yup. But I let them take damage on a miss.

I also halve monster hit points.

Generally this works well; there is a minor issue that with these mods a level 9 minion (100 XP) is nastier than a level 1 standard monster, but that is more due to monster theat level in 4e scaling faster than monster XPV - you're always better off fighting weaker monsters.

 

[keterys]

Minions can be worth their xp - especially at low level. They can also be worth a tiny fraction of their xp.

More than any other monster, minions have sharp variation in design. One minion will get a save to avoid death, extra attacks, automatic damage, etc... while another has defenses 3 too low, no ranged attack, and crappy damage. This is true even in more modern monster manuals - compare the orc and human minions in Monster Vault, for instance.

Minions with ranged attacks are _much_ better at avoiding death. Ones with auras, death bursts, and other techniques can easily be worth the xp budget in a standard encounter.

That said, we're not really talking a standard encounter. Action economy may be a serious problem for any creature in the setup we're talking, since any normal group can easily drop a standard or 4 minions before they act. In many parties, killing the minions will actually be more difficult.

Finally, it's worth saying that the two-hit minion rule has a lot more problems from a design perspective than the damage threshold rule in OP. I'd strongly suggest using the damage threshold over using the "two hit" bit.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I think it depends a lot on party composition. If the group has a lot of area spells, then minions are not much of a problem, but if not, they can be a significant hazard. My current group has no controller or blast striker, so minions are a major problem for the party.

I have also done two hit minions before, but with my current group no changes are needed.

I do not think I would ever give minions hit points, though. Seems to destroy the idea of minions.

 

[Psikus]

I have used the following rule in my campaign to good effect:

Whenever a minion takes damage that is not the result of a hitting attack, if it is not prone, it can make a saving throw. If the saving throw succeeds, the minion is knocked prone and the damage is negated.

This makes minions resilient, but not downright immune, to most kinds of auto-damaging effects.

 

[Gort]

I made minions immune to non-attack-roll-requiring damage. So auras and other auto-damage effects don't get them.

I also like to use the minions that do something when they die, like an automatic ten damage to everyone next to them - that way even if they don't get a go they can contribute to the fight.

But to answer your question - no, minions as written are not equivalent to a quarter-monster each in threat.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, it's worth noting that certain party setups - especially at higher levels (Morninglords, slasher builds, etc) can really rip through minions.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I also use the 5 + 1/2 hp threshold and it has worked very well.

And, IIRC the recent errata have 5 minons equaling a standard monster.