In my wishlist: Minions

[Wormwood]

Minions are one of my favorite innovations 4e brought to D&D (though they've existed in many other games)..

To me, they are a nod to pre-3e D&D, where higher level parties would occasionally encounter monsters of lower level than themselves, and the PCs were able to take on multiple foes with blades and blasting spells---yet ignore them at their peril.

Like most DMs, I have a fun set of house rules to vary my minions (2 hits, damage thresholds, etc) and keep them entertaining through all three tiers.

So I'd like to throw in my vote for keeping them in the game going forward.

 

[hanez]

you may notice my occasional anti-4e mechanics opinions around the forum.

But........ I really liked minions. Very fun in combat, I completely agree

 

[Albrecht79]

I like minions as well. I hope to see them stick around and that they get some advanced rules/coverage.

 

[Mark CMG]

The idea behind minions is definitely a useful innovation. I like your ideas on it, Wormwood. They are similar to how I've dealt for years with goblins and kobolds during high level play.

 

[Pour]

Definitely want them to stay.

 

[Tehnai]

I love minions, but I feel they should be made even more generic, at least for Core, so that a given encounter with minions could be written up as such :

-Large non-minion monster (level X)
(monster blurb/stats here)

-5 level X minions

I don't think minions need special abilities, you could just reskin them as necessary.

I do agree about the possibilities of modifying them to some extent, but in my opinion, it should be possible to do it on the fly.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'd like a bit more concrete design philosophy around them. Like, minions only work once the PCs are notably more skilled in combat than the creature. It works in 4e, where level 1 PCs are kinda bad-ass, but if you have weenie level 1 PCs (like in 3e), and you don't really get 'heroic' until level 6, then maybe you shouldn't have humans as level 1 minions.

Actually, I want to base HP on size, not level. Base defenses on level.

I'd do something like:

Level 1 PC - Random guy who picks up a sword or learns a couple magic words.
Level 1 Monster - another random guy (goblin, orc, etc.)
Level 1 Elite - large non-predator critter, like a horse
Level 1 Solo - random giant commoner
Level 1 Minion? - tiny wild animals, poison snakes, cat-sized spiders, nasty bats

Level 5 PC - A person who has trained to survive combat
Level 5 monster - well-trained person
Level 5 Elite - large predator animal like lion or bear
Level 5 Solo - a typical giant warrior
Level 5 Minion - an evil magic cobra, or something small but deadly.

 

[Lord Zack]

I think monsters shouldn't be minions normally (except maybe the weakest of monsters), but it should be some kind of template or some such.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'd like a bit more concrete design philosophy around them. Like, minions only work once the PCs are notably more skilled in combat than the creature.

With a system using dials, that's also a relative position from campaign game to campaign game, and potentially from setting to setting.

 

[Thraug]

I'd rather do away with minions. They just don't make any sense, even in a non-simulation game and are either easy to manage (several AE chars in party) or a royal pain (no AE chars in party).

• Design to-hit to allow lower level creatures to have more than a 5% chance to hit
• Design the game so higher level creatures can quickly dispatch lower level creatures (no need for minions), Maybe just high damage output vs low HP (Hopefully monster HP isn't as high in 5e)

This removes the need for minions and also gives lower level creatures a chance to cause resource wear on higher level creatures, with still the chance of a large number lower level creatures being a threat. I never liked that a higher level creature, with high defenses, is essentially immune to lower level (~8+ levels lower) creatures.