Excerpt: Minions. Go forth mine minions! Bring havoc with your 1 hp [merged]

[Stoat]

The question remains whether the minion status will be something that can be recognized.

Most of the minions in Shadowfell are recognizably different from the non-minion members of their race. They carry different weapons and wear different armor. Perceptive players will quickly learn to spot them.

Based on what I've seen, the minion mechanic adds an interesting twist to the game. The Shadowfell encounters look like they'll be a lot of fun to play through, and they look challenging to boot. I suspect that PC's will learn to treat minions with fear and respect.

As for Hrothgar, if he wants to take the time to sheath his axe and draw his dagger, more power to him. If he wants to save time by dropping his axe, even better.

Practically speaking, I suspect most RL players will continue to use the same weapon for two reasons: (1) convenience; and (2) minions will most often team up with non-minions. A canny player will want to have the best weapon in hand for dealing OA's or whatever to the non-minions in the group.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't get it. Nothing prevents him from cleaving with the dagger, no matter how absurd that sounds.

True. You shouldn't have taken a Barbarian-type Fighter, though. I can just see the image of a Barbarian, seeing all the guys attacking him. "Bring it own, cowards! I can take you all! Hah! To make it fair, I'll even throw away this big axe and pick up this old rusty Dagger! HAHAHA!"



The only weakness in the Greataxe/Dagger switching tactic is to assume that the character actually has a Dagger with a similar magical enhancement as the Greataxe. If I remember correctly, the profiency bonus ranges from something like +1 to +3 or +4. The difference really becomes marginal over time...

@Mustrum- I never had any desire to DM 3e. None, since watching paint dry seemed a much more entertaining activity. So no, I didn't.

Well, it was fun, for a while. It became a chore, after some time. But I definitely added class levels to Kobolds. Because fighting identical Kobolds over multiple encounters is almost as boring as watching paint dry. And I can't allow my players to be bored that much. I am bad enough at DMing as it is...

 

[HerntheHunted]

Minions are there for the DM's who want the fantasy equivalent of Strormtroopers.

Not quite. I actually expect Minions to HIT somebody once in a while.
But yes, methinks they could provide a nice little tool.

 

[Dausuul]

The only weakness in the Greataxe/Dagger switching tactic is to assume that the character actually has a Dagger with a similar magical enhancement as the Greataxe. If I remember correctly, the profiency bonus ranges from something like +1 to +3 or +4. The difference really becomes marginal over time...

Other weaknesses include:

a) Needing to either spend a feat on Quick Draw or use a move action to switch weapons
b) Opportunity attacks against non-minions would now use dagger damage instead of greataxe damage
c) Character may be specialized with greataxes, reducing or negating the benefit
d) Similar to c), character may have attack powers and feats that require a specific type of weapon

 

[D'karr]

Most of the minions in Shadowfell are recognizably different from the non-minion members of their race. They carry different weapons and wear different armor. Perceptive players will quickly learn to spot them.

Based on what I've seen, the minion mechanic adds an interesting twist to the game. The Shadowfell encounters look like they'll be a lot of fun to play through, and they look challenging to boot. I suspect that PC's will learn to treat minions with fear and respect.

I ran Keep on the Shadowfell as a demo at my FLGS this weekend. A good time was had by all. See below for how minions kicked ass:

[sblock=Keep on the Shadowfell butt-kicking: ]The party was all set go to Winterhaven when they encountered some Kobold Bandits. This posed no problem until the Kobold Slinger shot a gluepot at the Dwarven Fighter. Needless to say the fighter was trying to get rid of this mucky substance for the better part of the encounter.

Then the kobold minions swarmed around the group. Then the Dragonshields came around for some adventurer payback. With the fighter immobilized, the kobolds could pretty much shift to whereever they wanted. They would shift around just to gain combat advantage. But the kicker in all this was that the dragonshields were hitting just because of the Mob Attack bonuses provided by the minions.

A fun time was had by all as the wizard and the dragonborn used Area of Effect spells and Breath Weapons to great advantage. When they hit... The slow effect of sleep came in very handy.

But whoever thinks that minions are pushovers has another thing coming. Just because minions die when hit, does not make them easy to hit or any less dangerous when they do hit. And when you have 5 or 10 minions storming on you, the suffering is legendary. Just ask the Dragonborn paladin that was taken out twice by swarming tactics. Two dragonshields flanking and 6 additional minions adds up to a + to hit bonus. Add in their +7 with a short sword and these suckers are hitting on anything above a 4 on a d20. Then the minions can start the dance of pain by continuing to shift into flanking position.
[/sblock]

After that little ordeal the party had much more pain to suffer through. Fear and respect is an understatement for what this party learned through the school of hard-knocks. My unit of kobold minions are now called the Pain Tenders...

 

[AllisterH]

Unfortunately D&D also does LotR fairly well: the party does something inconsequential while the DM NPCs do the actual quest and solve the setting. Again the magic level is a bit high, and spellcaster PCs are out of place, though you can have a couple 'magic' weapons and things, if you're important enough.

Hey, Eberron doesn't do that...Now, GH and FR, you may have a point.

 

[Wolv0rine]

Huh? I have been very vocal here over the years that to me "It is ALL D&D."

I guess I could have been clearer and said ". . . D&D to me."

I said only "D&D is D&D" I only meant that I am not looking for D&D to emulate any other form of fantasy-based entertainment.

So yeah, I was not trying to say that 4E is not D&D, or that having minions makes something not D&D.

See, it would have been so much cooler if you'd said "Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound, funny, but it's still D&D to me" With respect to Billy Joel.

 

[Wolv0rine]

One alternate solution for those who want it - set a damage threshold for minions. Below that threshold, minion shrugs off the hit. Over that threshold, they die.

You might want to change how Cleave works, though. And presumably any daily at all would kill minions then.

I agree about Cleave. My personal preference would be that Cleave function in that if you do damage to your first target, you may then continue your strike to attempt to do damage to another adjacent target instead of having to outright kill the first target in order to continue your cleave. That way you could injure a swath of foes instead of the kill/null way it's worked to date.
Still doesn't matter for minions, of course, because you've done damage so they die. But I kind of like the idea of say 1 hp/lvl of the minion instead of the flat 1 hp minion. It kind of scales minions all by itself, instead of having tiers of minions or somesuch. Sure, it may put a pea under the mattress of WotC's "But then DMs have to track minion HPs!!!" issue, but I don't think it's that bad. I mean really, even at that, how many HPs could a minion have? Or maybe that's too much even, and you need some kind of mitigating factor taking the PC's level into account. I don't know off the top of my head, but I think the flat 1 hp minion is a bit too oversimplified. And while I generally dislike 4E, the concept of minions I do like. I'm just not at all sure I like how they did it. Which, oddly, tends to be my reaction to a lot of 4E so far. "Interesting idea, but I think they did it all wrong". :/

 

[Blackeagle]

I agree about Cleave. My personal preference would be that Cleave function in that if you do damage to your first target, you may then continue your strike to attempt to do damage to another adjacent target instead of having to outright kill the first target in order to continue your cleave. That way you could injure a swath of foes instead of the kill/null way it's worked to date.

Well, according to what we've seen so far, that's the way it works.

Cleave Fighter Attack 1
You hit one enemy, then cleave into another.
At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Str vs. AC
Hit: 1[W]+ Str damage, and an enemy adjacent to the target
takes Str damage.

Nothing in there says you have to drop the first enemy.

 

[Wolv0rine]

Well, according to what we've seen so far, that's the way it works.



Nothing in there says you have to drop the first enemy.

Good deal, I hope an actual look at the rules in the books themselves don't invalidate that implication. Although it also looks like you can only cleave into One additional foe, which it unfortunate.

On minions.. another thought... if a minion dies on any successful hit, does that mean that if the Fighter backhands a minion, it dies? I mean that's just... too much for me to swallow right there.