Let's talk about minions...

[AllisterH]

Show me a Caramon that dies from a fall and I'll show you an NPC that needed to die as a plot device. Show me a housecat that kills an adult and I'll show you a game in which NPCs and creatures are being used outside of their intended purpose.

Um, if thats your reasoning, why then all the worry about whether or not a high level minion can be taken out by a farmer?

 

[D'karr]

Um, if thats your reasoning, why then all the worry about whether or not a high level minion can be taken out by a farmer?

You must have mistaken me for someone that has worries about minions. I do not. If the DM decides that a farmer can take out a high-level minion that is a plot device. If a DM is actually running a combat between NPCs that is a completely different issue and IMO falls under the heading of "Not using the tools for what they were intended." The same way that a housecat killing an adult falls under the same heading.

Personally I never need to determine the outcome of NPC vs. NPC violence by using anything but plot device.

Should that farmer take out the devil for the sake of the plot? Yes, then he can. If not, he becomes devil-chow. I didn't need to know the HP of the devil or if it was a minion or a brute or anything else. Because in the long run I only need those rules artifacts to interact, in combat, against the PCs.

I don't see any discrepancy with that when compared to what the rules provide. So in essence I have no worries. I use the tools for their intended purpose and don't have a problem with verisimilitude.

 

[Oliviander]

No Minions without Solos

One general standard for DnD is that more powerful characters and monsters are basically more powerful all around. A high level enemy will usually have better defenses AND better offense than a lower level monster.

Minions and solos are all about breaking that proportional relationship.

Minions can have high level offense and armor, but don't even have the HP of low level creatures (they do, however, basically have the HP of old low level creatures). Using a large number of fully detailed low level monsters tends to make tracking HP, power uses, etc more difficult. It also means that the enemies have usually serious problems hitting higher level enemies, and the high level people have a trivial time hitting them. Using a booster monster - to use 3.x example, a bard twinked for Inspire Courage - to make the standard low level grunts more dangerous tends to increase the complexity and initiative dependence of the encounter. In some ways, you can think of a minion as someone using a berserk fighting style to temporarily increase their effective level at the expense of surviveability - that's why a normal ogre might be level 4, but the minion is level 8.

Solos are much tougher than normal and tend to have more area attacks, reaction abilities, and other tricks to spread their offense around, but they often lack the concentrated punch and high level defenses of other monsters.

To put things simply, minions are about answering "how can there be fights with lots of enemies without bogging the game down?" (minions tend to have simpler abilities, and no HP to track) and to a lesser extent: "how can I make groups of low level enemies not completely negligible threats?" (since low level guys usually become higher level minions - but not too much higher). And solos are about answering: "How do I make a boss monster that can withstand the gang beating the PCs dish out without making it so powerful that it can drop 1 or more PCs a round?"

Ahh the first post in this thread that makes sense to me.
I for myself had a much harder time to accept Solos than Minions (and so did my players)
at least until I realized their Abovementioned connection.

While in 3e there was only the Diagonal of the Hp / to Hit Diagramm filled with monsters
now we have a much larger scope of monsters.
Low Hp / hi tohit --> Minions
Hi Hp / low tohit --> Elite
Even higher HP / low to hit --> Solos

that is a very good thing, but I'm still not sure whether the implementation
couldn't have been better.

I really see the need for those possibilities from a Gamist point of view.
But I wouldn't have given up on the Simualtionists so completely.

 

[jdrakeh]

Show me a housecat that kills an adult and I'll show you a game in which NPCs and creatures are being used outside of their intended purpose.

Better yet, I'l show you an AD&D 1e Monster Manual entry for a house cat that has a very high probablilty of killing a low level adventurer. As intended (or as written and published, anyhow), this is not a case of a DM using the house cat incorrectly. Said cat is, after all, presented in the Monster Manual specifically for the purpose of allowing DMs to pit it against low level PCs.

 

[Scribble]

In the whole simulation/narriative debate, people (such as Scribble and Charwoman Gene above) seem to confuse what the simulationist types are looking for, with realism. HP are not realistic, and everyone knows that. What the sim side wants is concrete, internally consistant mechanics. The narriativist side has no versimilitude problem with ditching consistancy for a better story. That's all it comes down to.

Now... to make minions obvious to the players, or not? What are the drawbacks of each approach?

Then why call them simmulationist? guess internal consistancyists is too hard?

Aside from that the rules are consistant. The various categories (minion, standard, elite, and Solo) are consistant in how they effect the underlying mechanics.

 

[D'karr]

Better yet, I'l show you an AD&D 1e Monster Manual entry for a house cat that has a very high probablilty of killing a low level adventurer. As intended (or as written and published, anyhow), this is not a case of a DM using the house cat incorrectly. Said cat is, after all, presented in the Monster Manual specifically for the purpose of allowing DMs to pit it against low level PCs.

Since we are talking about 4e minions the reference to 1e creatures is at most tangential.

There were quite a bit of low level threats in 1e-3e that could kill 1st level adventurers in one good hit. I ran Keep of the Borderlands more than once and the kill ratio on that adventure was quite high.

In 4e, the single "good hit wonders" have been significantly reduced, much like the save or die effects. Though some traps come pretty close. According to the "rules", I can also throw an overwhelming challenge at the PCs. Is that appropriate? That is for the DM to decide. If that is the tool he needs, then that is the tool he uses.

But my point is that Adventurers are not the "run of the mill" farmers. And I still have not seen this cat that is supposed to take them on. PCs are not minions so my point about the use of the right tool, in 4e, is still the same.

 

[Grimstaff]

Minions are the strategic counter to your party's striker.

4 minions = 1 normal monster

1 normal monster is usually no problem for a striker. For instance, a rogue with combat advantage can usually take down a normal goblin in a round or two.

4 minions however, effectively nullify the striker's awesome dmg. Meanwhile, they have 4 times as many chances to hit the striker's typically weak AC.

Controllers are necessary to keep the minions from overwhelming your striker.

 

[Spatula]

Then why call them simmulationist?

I didn't invent the terms that people are using. Here's a brief overview of it though: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=284

Aside from that the rules are consistant. The various categories (minion, standard, elite, and Solo) are consistant in how they effect the underlying mechanics.

...well, if you don't get it, you don't get it. Internal consistency suggests that a thing has the same nature regardless of the context. The apple is always an apple. A narrativist approach says the apple could instead be a peach, if that makes for a better story. And by "apple" I mean "1HD orc with 10 hp."

 

[jdrakeh]

Since we are talking about 4e minions the reference to 1e creatures is at most tangential.

If it's irrelevant, why did you specifically offer up housecats that can kill adults (a phenomena almost exclusively associated with AD&D 1e) as an example of DM ineptness to boost your own argument?*

As far as arguing that the cat doesn't exist, go check a copy of the AD&D 1e DMG. The house cat in question does 1-4 damage, which is exactly how many hit points the typical 1st Level Wizard has under his belt.

It's not a guaranteed kill by any means, but hundreds of threads on dozens of message boards over nearly as many years stand testament to the fact that the house cat in question can kill a low level PC.

The fact is that the house cat in question has an entry (along with combat stats) in a book of monsters specifically meant to challenge player characters. That is specifically what the entry exists for.

Arguing that the killer house cat is purely a result of DM incompetence and, therefore, not relevent to a discussion about threats posed to low level PCs (or illustrative of a creature being used out of context) ignores a great deal of evidence to the contrary.

*That's a rhetorical question, of course.

 

[Scribble]

I didn't invent the terms that people are using. Here's a brief overview of it though: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=284

...well, if you don't get it, you don't get it. Internal consistency suggests that a thing has the same nature regardless of the context. The apple is always an apple. A narrativist approach says the apple could instead be a peach, if that makes for a better story. And by "apple" I mean "1HD orc with 10 hp."

I get it, I just don't agree with it.

A minion is always a minion. A solo is always a solo. That's consistant.

Is the problem that PC's can't be solo or elite, and therefore it's not consistant?

I'd say the whole thing feels consistant. Things are made in a way based upon their class, plus modifiers:

Minion
Standard
Elite
Solo
PC

My issue with the whole GNS thing is it largely feels kind of arbitrary. I get what it's going at, and think it can be a semi-usefull tool... But overall. Eh.

Maybe they need to add a 4th idea of the simulationist/gamist? The guy who doesn't mind if all the pieces don't work exactly the same as long as each internal group is consistant?

The Simulationist approach prefers characters of differing power because this is more realistic

So he doesn't understand what it is either?

There's that realistic thing again.

Maybe I'm biased though, because in my own experience (yes admittedly it's anecdotal) the people who seem to be "simulationist" seem to be really upset because it's something they can't "get" in the game.

Or more importantly because the game is set up so anyone can "get" soemthing, they spend their time looking for how to beat the challenge before they ever get it.

That's not really a game to me...

eh maybe there is something to the whole GNS thing at that.

Gamists = people who want to be challenged IN the game...

Simmulationists= People who want to be sure they can already defeat any challeneg before it happens... (the challenge is discovering how to beat the game.)

Narrativists= people who don't care if there's a challenge to begin with?

sorry yeah this topic is rambling.