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

[Sir_Darien]

I wonder if someone from WOTC will pop in and clarify this topic. It seems to be relevant to the preview and won't be giving too much away.

We know from earlier sources (like the orc preview) that the RAW state that ANY missed attack deals NO damage to a minion and any hit that deals damage kills them. The people you quoted were debating a houserule, as some people think that if a party member uses a daily power that minions should be killed by it if it deals damage on a miss.

 

[AllisterH]

That means you're relying on metagame knowledge to regulate player behaviour. Not the best choice.

How so?

The player doesn't know that the enemy is a minion until they actually HIT the minion. Changing it so that a daily even on a miss takes out a minion kinda tells the players, "those are minions"

By not having the house rule, players don't know what monsters are minions or regular foes and as such, will treat every foe the same and thus should open with an at-will attack.

Remember, the bloody mechanic/threshold that many of the monsters we've seen possess mathematically work better if the PCs attack with at-will, get the monster to bloody then use the big guns rather than the reverse.

 

[Crashy75]

I wonder if someone from WOTC will pop in and clarify this topic. It seems to be relevant to the preview and won't be giving too much away.

Yes, that would be nice but I think I know what the answer will be. But if there are no (non-reliable) dailies that only do damage on a miss, I might be satisfied. Can't think of any off hand. I think acid arrow would be useless on a miss IIRC. Nope, the ongoing damage should kill it the next round at least...

 

[Rechan]

I probably will as well. However, I'll be making it a point to differentiate the minions form the others. I won't say, "this is a minion", but make it clear who are the movers and shakers. Minions could easily get mixed with the regulars, however... Yeah, I think I will make dailies kill minions outright (even if fireball is a daily).

As it was said in another thread, describe minions as 'faceless grunts' or don't give them any description. But the movers and shakers (Elites, leaders) should get descriptions that point to them.

However, putting a skirmisher or two within the minions is good business. This is especially true for zombies, where the PCs are wondering "Which one's the dangerous one? AUH THEY HAVE MY FACE!"

I sure hope there are rules that tell you how to convert regular monsters to minions (Beyond '1 hp kills'm). For instance, there are several monsters with really interesting abilities, but that would be very dangerous as minions (Chillborns for instance; they have an aura of cold, and can immobilize foes).

 

[Crashy75]

As it was said in another thread, describe minions as 'faceless grunts' or don't give them any description. But the movers and shakers (Elites, leaders) should get descriptions that point to them.

However, putting a skirmisher or two within the minions is good business. This is especially true for zombies, where the PCs are wondering "Which one's the dangerous one? AUH THEY HAVE MY FACE!"

I sure hope there are rules that tell you how to convert regular monsters to minions (Beyond '1 hp kills'm). For instance, there are several monsters with really interesting abilities, but that would be very dangerous as minions (Chillborns for instance; they have an aura of cold, and can immobilize foes).

*gets cold chill*

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I sure hope there are rules that tell you how to convert regular monsters to minions (Beyond '1 hp kills'm). For instance, there are several monsters with really interesting abilities, but that would be very dangerous as minions (Chillborns for instance; they have an aura of cold, and can immobilize foes).

Hmm... Taking the old zombies surrounding the house, mall, etc. deal and making them Chillborn... Hehehe, I can just imagine the players reaction when the house their in starts to slowly freeze

 

[shadowguidex]

Love minions...love them. Love. Minions.

I can just hear Gimli and Legolass now:

17.....18....19...20....21.....

 

[Rechan]

2) Decrease the relative value of minions for budgeting encounter exp. 4 minions that you hit 50% of the time will on average have 2 surviving an AoE spell. With the houserule, they'd all die all the time. This is going to be extremely problematic on any spell with burst 4+.

I don't forsee lots of parties unloading dailies on minions; the single target dailies that a PC mistakenly aims at a minion, I think, is fair game for a kill-on-miss. Because the PC just unfortunately pegged a minion with their once-a-day shot. So I'm willing to accommodate them there.

On an AoE, I said earlier that it depends on the situation. 1) The makeup of what is hit in the AoE. If there are regular monsters in the target area that get hit, or if there over half of the minions in the area that are hit, I'd say misses don't count. HOWEVER, if it's all minions and the person rolls crap, then I'd give it to them.

Mainly because I don't want to look at the player and say, "Sorry, your one-shot deal just failed miserably on a guy with 1 hp. NEXT!"

 

[Sojorn]

So it's interesting that the angel of valor deals far more damage than appears level appropriate, compared to the 5 levels higher giant. Or maybe this is the difference between the Brute and Soldier designations.

The angel has no ranged attack (although fly might negate this disadvantage). It has to get into melee to start dealing damage at all. The giants can pick a target and unload a bunch of rocks into a single PC and then they still have alot of hit points to be dealt with once you're in melee with them.

Also a level 8 fighter has about 70 HP, a level 13 has about 100.

 

[Crashy75]

While I totally respect the reason someone might want to houserule this, I have a feeling it would impact the game in some undesirable ways.

1) Increases the relative power of "X damage on a miss" powers compared to 100% wiff-on-a-miss powers. This will lead to players making more obvious Power choices as they level, as minions surviving a miss almost had to be a balancing factor they considered during the design stage.

2) Decrease the relative value of minions for budgeting encounter exp. 4 minions that you hit 50% of the time will on average have 2 surviving an AoE spell. With the houserule, they'd all die all the time. This is going to be extremely problematic on any spell with burst 4+.

So yea, I'm not touching that one, though I am sympathetic when a daily wiffs and fails to kill a single minion. I just think the fix is more problematic than the flaw.

These are good points. *sigh* Perhaps there are fixes built into the dailies themselves- if single target dailies do other things on a miss than damage (or are reliable) while mass targeting dailies (such as fireball) could still reliably kill at least some minions, I think I'll be fine.