Minions and Temporary HPs

[drjones]

Fantastic question! Minions interact normally with temporary hp rules (that's one reason why they have 1 hp). So, yes, the wyrmpriest makes the minions a little bit badder.

Thanks for the answer, I guessed wrong on this one. Good to see we are getting close to the point that questions can be resolved quickly with authority not over 30 pages of hypotheticalizing.

 

[VannATLC]

From the official excerpt at www.dndinsider.com

"A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage. Damage from an attack or from a source that doesn’t require an attack roll (such as the paladin’s divine challenge or the fighter’s cleave) also destroys a minion. However, if a minion is missed by an attack that normally deals damage on a miss, it takes no damage."

Regardless of how many hitpoints or temporary hitpoints or any other kind of hitpoints, Damage from an attack or from a srouce that doesn't require an attack roll destroys the minion. THey could have 100 hitpoints and they still get destroyed since the rule never states anything about hit points at all, only that they are destroyed.

Actually, it specifically states if they take damage.

Temporary Hit points grant temporary Resistance All of Value X, where X is reduced by damage y each time.

I have little doubt they've ruled Temporary HP act exactly like a Damage Shield... and that until that ablative hp armour is worn away, they do not take damage.

 

[Stalker0]

Or mechanically, any extra HP = one more hit to kill them. It would be easier.

I think just granting the minion a +1 to defenses is a far easier solution, and doesn't create the weirdness of a minion surviving a 30 damage attack.

 

[Tripgnosis]

I think some of the soultions to resolve this temp HP minions thing are a bit over-complicated. Our group has come to the mutual decision of abolishing all house rules and just goin by the books. If a rule is vague, I think the best option is to go with the SIMPLEST and QUICKEST interpretation, with teh decision being ultimately up to the DM. no arguments, just a quick resolution and get back to playin.

In this case it seems the designers gave minions a "single" hitpoint to ensure that they "go down in one hit"

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080519a

I don't have th MM, so for now this is all I have to go on which suggests that they simply hadn't considered temp HP and minions. Unless and until there is something official regarding this, it's left pretty much to interpretation and a DM call. But I think the only 2 resolutions that make sense are:

1) Since they have HP (1), rules that affect HP are used normally, including gaining temp HP.
-OR-
2) Doesn't matter how many HP they have, temp or otherwise, because any amount of damage destroys them.

I'm guessing our DM will go with #2, wizards DID state that the point of minions was to go down in one hit and not have to be tracked by the DM.

 

[Tripgnosis]

And BTW, that shared pool of HP idea s EXACTLY the kind of house rule that brought us to the decision of not using house rules. we were all giving ourselves and eachother massive headaches tryin to redesign a system that was designed well enough already, and most of our house rules ended up biting us further down the road when it interacted with another aspect of the game that we hadn't foreseen. This game has gone through over 30 years of redesigning based on the feedback of literally millions of players and playtesters, who are we to decide based on our own narrow and limited experience that we have a better way. I don't mean any offense, redesigning a system can be enjoyable, and my favourite motto has always been 'to each, his own'. It just turned into too much of an overcomplicated headache for our group. Even the smallest house rules tended to lead to small complications and more house rules to attempt to correct those problems and so on until we actually ended up trying to redesign the system completely, and ultimately the whole thing imploded and we sold all our books and started playing catan and similar strategy games, then we started talking about how to improve those games. with 4e, we have all promised ourselves and eachother to NOT CHANGE A THING.

 

[hong]

Heh. Given the angst that 1-hp minions have caused, I wonder if they should have just stuck with the D&DXP wording and said that minions don't have hit points.

 

[Tripgnosis]

lol, I think 'angst' is a bit strong. I just think people have a tendancy to over-complicate things. And I know from experience how that can ruin not just one session, but an entire adventure or even be the downfall of your whole group. I'm not criticizing anyone for having house rules, most groups do. I was just giving an example of what that could lead to, and how it may be better to just go with it the way it is even if and when you recognize a flaw. It's probally just not a big enough deal to give yourself a headache over it and possibly create unforeseen problems with your 'fix.'

As for this particular subject, it seems that the official rule (goin by Khur, a designer) is that minions do get temp HP. Yeah this could make em a fairly big deal coupled with their immunity to miss-conditions, but that's a situation that will only likely come up if the DM really tries hard to force it. And even then it doesn't seem to be a very good tactical choice on the part of the monsters, to give all those temp HP to a minion who will still only do 1 damage on successful hit. Those temp HP could have gone to someone who packs more of a punch, and that would've been worse for the party. It would really take alot of effort to exploit minions in this way, effort that likely would have been better spent on a non-minion.

And besides, most powers that do damage on a miss are daily or encounter powers so why would you waste that on a minion who does minimal damage anyway. Even with 30+ temp hp, a minion is still a minor threat and coudl easily be widdled down quicker than a group or even single adventurer.

 

[Kraydak]

Heh. Given the angst that 1-hp minions have caused, I wonder if they should have just stuck with the D&DXP wording and said that minions don't have hit points.

Correct. Given that minions don't have hp in any meaningful sense (no, RAW temp. hp. don't help minions) there is no reason for them to even have the one. It isn't clear to me whether Resistance is of any use to minions, either, even if it is enough to reduce taken damage to zero. Zero might count as an amount of damage, and even if it doesn't the descriptions of Resistance don't clarify whether reducing damage to zero removes the hit (a la 3e DR being able to negate some secondary effects like poison).

 

[Obryn]

I'll probably just use temp HP as damage resistance to reduce bookkeeping. Maybe. I dunno.

I'll see how it works in play.

-O

 

[Zaruthustran]

I'll probably just use temp HP as damage resistance to reduce bookkeeping. Maybe. I dunno.

I'll see how it works in play.

-O

That seems best. After the wyrmpriest does his thing, just consider all minions to have "Resist 5 all" and be done with it. Tracking hp for minions--even tracking temp hp--is counter to the whole point of the creature: to allow the DM to throw down lots of monsters without bogging the game down in bookkeeping.