Minions and Temporary HPs

[Skyscraper]

I think that minions should fall in one hit, although i respect Mr. Sim's input. My ruling would be: minions are unaffected by temporary HP additions.

Minions are alreadly weak creatures, it won't change their weakness level to have them unaffected by temporary HP improving spells or abilities. It would change their power significantly however to increase their HP by 500% with what is supposed to be a minor boosting effect. This might in effect allow them to survive a hit, increasing their survivability significantly.

As for the knock-out = destroys a minion... We're not playing a card game (M:tG) or a video game here. We're playing a RPG where some rules are used as abstractions to facilitate gameplay. The 1 HP minion is one of those. Minions remain creatures! If a rogue PC hits a minion on the head with a sap, the minion won't go up in smoke leaving a small pile of dust with a purse containing 1d4+1 gold pieces on the floor. At least not in my game they wont. The minion will fall unconscious like any other creature would. Or rather, easier than any other creature would. A single hit with the sap will knock the poor minion out.

Sky

 

[Tripgnosis]

giving them resistance instead of temp HP would be more advantageous for the minions though. You wouldn't be able to widdle away at the resistance like you could with HP.

And keep in mind also that you couldn't stack temp HP on minions anyway to make them a big deal. Temp HP doesn't stack.....

To me the rules are fairly clear. They have 1 hp and rules that affect hp are handled normally. If you wanna develop a house rule that resolves the book-keeping issue, the simplest way would be to say that they just can't get temp HP.

 

[Tripgnosis]

To be honest I don't even know why I'm still watching and posting on this thread, I'm never gonna DM, I specificaly told one of my friends taht if I ever said I was gonna dm to punch me in the throat. It's greta to come up with adventures and npsc and all that, I LOVE that part. But actually running a game is not for me. And this thread kinda exemplifies why.

I don't think giving minions temp HP is all that big a deal, expecially since you can't stack temp HP, but who knows how that can play out in various situations. On the other hand not allowing them to recieve temp HP could weaken the abilities of other creatures like the wyrmpriest. To be honest, though, I don't thik eiether of these to interpretations would really change any significantly enough to get a headache over it. however some of the other resolutions mentioned are very drastic IMO, like giving them resistance or an extra AC.

But i'm not playin in those groups, so whatever. 'To Each, his own'. I'm pretty sure our Dm is gonna just kill em in one hit no matter the circumstance. If he did want them to gain temp HP from a wyrmpriest, that's fine with me to.

 

[Tripgnosis]

And as far as knocking out a minion, i don't see the reason for such a strict and literal interpretation of the order of precendence there. If a player really had a good reason to keep the minion alive, then why not let him. Is the DM gonna say 'sorry, my hands are tied, we have to follow the rules or WotC will take our books from us'? and if teh DM allowed it and a player pulled a book out and said 'no you can't do that it says right here on page bah blah blah blah blah', well that players just bein difficult for the sake of it and would likely not be in my group anyway. The point is to have fun and be creative.

I know I'm the guy that said our group just goes by the book and doesn't use house rules, but that was in regards to actually RULES, not circumstantial situations that are part of roleplaying. If we were going to stick to an absolute, unyielding interpretation we may as well be playing a video game. Being THAT hardlined just sucks the fun out of it

 

[MindWanderer]

After reading this long-winded argument, I'm still going with my original plan:

If a minion gets temp. HP, I'm going to stick an Alea Tool under them to represent it. If they take damage <= their HP total, I remove the tool and they go back to having 1 HP. It's not difficult.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I don't think it makes sense that all minions "die in one hit" because if that is the case then my 1st level adventurer is going to run around looking for 30th level minions to ambush. I am fairly certain that higher level minions had higher numbers of hit-points, which means that although they will be usually killed in one hit thats not the same as ALWAYS killed in one hit.

I ruled that the minions had 6hp when I ran KotS. It really isn't much of a headache since just about everyone does a minimum of 6 points of damage anyway.

DS

 

[Dracollich]

The point of minions is to be cannon fodder. The point of the Wyrmpriest, and other leaders like it, is to increase the survivability of those he commands.

When I DMed it, I gave the minions the temp HP and allowed them to take damage. Almost all still got killed by 1 hit. When a player failed to kill a minion, that player got heckled by his comrades about how weak he was. "So weak, you couldn't crush a minion" to quote the fighter.

As a DM, it was a win/win. The wyrmpriest did his job and I got a laugh out of the players making fun of each other. Had it become an issue of tracking HP (although it was not), the next time a wyrmpriest and minions were encountered, I'd change the priest's power to granting a +1 to hit to all creatures until the end of the priest's next turn. Increased survivability by increasing the chance a PC may not survive for one more round.

 

[Obryn]

I don't think it makes sense that all minions "die in one hit" because if that is the case then my 1st level adventurer is going to run around looking for 30th level minions to ambush. I am fairly certain that higher level minions had higher numbers of hit-points, which means that although they will be usually killed in one hit thats not the same as ALWAYS killed in one hit.

Well, I hope you're confident in your ability to roll a 20 in order to hit their 35 AC... Otherwise, it will be a short fight.

-O

 

[Kraydak]

Well, I hope you're confident in your ability to roll a 20 in order to hit their 35 AC... Otherwise, it will be a short fight.

-O

Cloud of Daggers+Wis 12.
Flaming Sphere.

Other options exist.

 

[Tripgnosis]

yes other options do exist, but only if/when the players are playing smart and thinking tactically, which a good DM will be doing to. Sure, you're first level adventurer can be looking for 30th level minions to ambush. But the common definition of minion is "a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power." so by ambushing those 30th level minions you're risking the chance of running into that 30th level "person in power." And a good DM would use tools like that to keep players from exploiting the rules in that way.