On Puget Sound
First Post
Get flanked by 4 of them and they don't look so inconsequential.
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Minions with 1hp - Can anyone justify this?
- Thread starter Ninja-to
- Start date
cangrejoide
First Post
Oooh I am eager that my players reach epic levels, I'm soooo gonna throw them a fullblown combat with Balor minions!!!
Another Point of View: Does the minion know it's a minion?
Possible Encounter: 1 Minion tax gatherer, and 4 Brute mercenaries.
The Minion is the one in charge here. He certainly doesn't regard himself as a minion, as he has the backup of the 4 Brutes. Plus, as a villain he has the potential to make our PC's lives miserable.
Sadly, yes. D&D is a roleplaying game, right?
Possible Encounter: 1 Minion tax gatherer, and 4 Brute mercenaries.
The Minion is the one in charge here. He certainly doesn't regard himself as a minion, as he has the backup of the 4 Brutes. Plus, as a villain he has the potential to make our PC's lives miserable.
Gargoyle said:
Sadly, yes. D&D is a roleplaying game, right?
doctorhook
Legend
You understand that minions are not simply low-levelled versions of other monsters, yes? Their attacks, damage, and defenses all scale with level, which means the average Close or Area attack is no more likely to hit a minion than a normal monster of the same level. This is far cry from "tons of free XP". (And remember, you are not required to include minions in your encounters nor in your games; it's simple to convert four minions into one standard monster. This is far cry from "ramming them down [your] throat".)
It may help to envision four minions as one "monster" or "swarm"; in melee combat, attacking one enemy at a time, it will usually take four or five successful hits to drop a standard monster, and similarly, it usually takes four or five single hits to drop one group of four minions. In this manner, one warrior is matched against a single hobgoblin soldier or a group four hobgoblins grunts; variety just makes combats more interesting.
"Wouldn't it be like living a lie?" No, because I'm fighting animated skeletons, which is at least as improbable. "Wouldn't it feel better if you one-shotted those skeletons because you actually did enough damage to kill it in one blow?" Possibly; however, this experience has not been removed from the game. In this situation, enjoyment of "bringing down the big guys" is balanced against the usual disappointment when attacks fail to do "enough damage to kill" a monster. Over the course of a series of encounters, characters can alternately savour the thrill of "one-shotting" toughs and mowing through hordes of mooks.Runestar said:But wouldn't it be like living a lie? I mean - wouldn't it feel better if you one-shotted those skeletons because you actually did enough damage to kill it in one blow (eg: the skeleton has 30hp, but your fighter can deal 40+ with a single blow), and not because it has only 1 hp, and that it would be keeling over the moment you so much as sneezed on them?
It seems to appear great on the surface, your party can now mow down tons of mooks with relative ease, like LoTR. But look deeper and the underlying truth is that you KO'ed them only because the game mechanics specially made provisions to allow for this, and less so due to your own merit.
To me, it just seems like rules abstraction carried 1 step too far. I suppose the only consolation is that they stopped just short of giving us balor minions or something...
Remember, this is a game played for personal enjoyment. Beyond having a character of an appropriate level and an understanding of that character's capabilities, I don't believe "merit" should ever be more important to the game than the illusion of merit.
But wouldn't it be like living a lie? I mean - wouldn't it feel better if you one-shotted those skeletons because you actually did enough damage to kill it in one blow (eg: the skeleton has 30hp, but your fighter can deal 40+ with a single blow), and not because it has only 1 hp, and that it would be keeling over the moment you so much as sneezed on them?
It seems to appear great on the surface, your party can now mow down tons of mooks with relative ease, like LoTR. But look deeper and the underlying truth is that you KO'ed them only because the game mechanics specially made provisions to allow for this, and less so due to your own merit.
How would it be better if the game were rigged to give minions 30 hit points and let you do 40+ damage on a single blow? The outcome is the same. Bigger numbers mean nothing.
Balor minions would be... harsh... all those death bursts... ouch
As to the OP question:
If each minion is worth about 1/4 a regular creature and regular creatures are suppose to go down in 3-5 hits (depending upon whether at-will, encounter, or dailies are used), then is there really much difference between 1 hp or 8 hp (for a normally 32 hp 1st level creature) when you deal an average of 6.5 to 11 points of damage (2.5 to 7 average damage die result + 4 ability) with most at-will attacks?
What about at level 5 is there much difference between 1 hp and 14 (for a normally 56 hp 5th level creature) when you deal an average of 7.5 to 12 points of damage (assuming a +1 weapon) with most at-will attacks?
What about Level 10? Is there much difference between 1 hp and 24 (for a normally 96 hp 10th level creature) when you deal an average of 9.5 to 14 points of damage (assuming a +2 weapon; +1 damage stat increase) with most at-will attacks?
This is the first level at which there is enough of a difference to start wondering if minions should have more hit points. However, with encounter and daily powers around is it worth the added complexity to use 1/4 hp? Probably not since these will usually do enough to take down a minion even if it had 1/4 hp.
What about Level 15? Is there much difference between 1 hp and 34 (for a normally 136 hp 15th level creature) when you deal an average of 11.5 to 16 points of damage (assuming a +3 weapon; +2 damage stat increase) with most at-will attacks?
Its paragon level, so I could see an argument that at this point it would be nice to have something to distinguish minions of the paragon and epic tiers.
Perhaps you could change minions at paragon level to read:
HP: 2; a missed attack never damages a minion; damaging at-will powers that hit deal 1 damage; damaging encounter and daily powers that hit deal 2 damage
However, is the added complexity worth it? In WotC's eyes no and for me as a DM, probably not.
What about Level 20? Is there much difference between 1 hp and 44 (for a normally 136 hp 20th level creature) when you deal an average of 12.5 to 17 points of damage (assuming a +4 weapon; +2 damage stat increase) with most at-will attacks?
Yeah probably, but as pointed out above, how much complication do you want to add to the game for a creature that is meant to be a sideshow to the main event?
What about Level 25? Is there much difference between 1 hp and 54 (for a normally 216 hp 25th level creature) when you deal an average of 18 to 26 points of damage (assuming a +5 weapon; +3 damage stat increase, +1[W] for most at-wills) with most at-will attacks?
So here's the really interesting part... its about on par with the paragon levels average damage of at wills versus 1/4 hp, so you could still use the suggestion above for paragon minions for epic minions:
HP: 2; a missed attack never damages a minion; damaging at-will powers that hit deal 1 damage; damaging encounter and daily powers that hit deal 2 damage
However, again this might be too much of a complication for too little payoff.
Lastly, what about Level 30? Is there much difference between 1 hp and 64 (for a normally 256 hp 30th level creature) when you deal an average of 20 to 28 points of damage (assuming a +6 weapon; +4 damage stat increase, +1[W] for most at-wills) with most at-will attacks?
Note: I did not include a lot of ways you could increase damage... I just focused on base damage for at-wills assuming simple magic weapons and did not bother with special weapons, crits, feats, etc. As such the numbers given are the low estimate of damage. If you assume a minion is always critted, then you can double the base damage and add and extra damage die of damage (+3.5) to the at-will results for each +1 weapon enhancement. This will result in even the lowest damage at-will power doing enough to take down any minion with 1/4 hp at most levels (excepty high paragon and epic levels where the lowest die falls 1 to 3 hp short).
Last edited:
Henry
Autoexreginated
The reason it doesn't work very well is because the monsters by that point will have attacks and defenses so ludicrously low compared to the PCs that there would be no point to having them in the field - take that 30 hit point 1st level monster and stack 20 of him against the 25th level character doing 40 points of damage in a hit, and they're going to be hitting maybe once a round, needing a 20 to hit. It's true in all editions that I'm aware of. So, minion has an effective defense and attack range, does little damage by itself in a hit, and dies in one strike, and you have a credible threat that can be used en masse without making it pointless nor overwhelming.
On the other hand, even AD&D was written with this in mind -- a werewolf couldn't break a portcullis or even reason with another monster unless the DM said it could; the STR and CHA scores and bend bars and diplomacy chances were DM fiat anyway.
Gargoyle
Adventurer
Different issue, but I will say that I don't see anything sad. I don't see 4e's focus on combat as inhibiting roleplaying because I don't need rules to roleplay. I do need combat rules to make combat go quick and smooth so that we can roleplay more, so in fact I believe 4e encourages roleplaying, after you're familiar with the rules. To get back on topic, minions are an example of how bookkeeping is reduced.
Anyhow, I think you've got a point...minions don't know they're minions, even as elites don't know they are elite. The evil tax collector probably is a minion who thinks he's an elite.
Minion status is just a rules mechanic to make mooks fall down easy and to make bookkeeping easier on the DM.
Arakim
First Post
But wouldn't it be like living a lie? I mean - wouldn't it feel better if you one-shotted those skeletons because you actually did enough damage to kill it in one blow (eg: the skeleton has 30hp, but your fighter can deal 40+ with a single blow), and not because it has only 1 hp, and that it would be keeling over the moment you so much as sneezed on them?
It seems to appear great on the surface, your party can now mow down tons of mooks with relative ease, like LoTR. But look deeper and the underlying truth is that you KO'ed them only because the game mechanics specially made provisions to allow for this, and less so due to your own merit.
To me, it just seems like rules abstraction carried 1 step too far. I suppose the only consolation is that they stopped just short of giving us balor minions or something...
In every good fantasy movie you see, there is at least one scene where the heroes are outnumbered 3 or 4 - 1, and they are kicking butt.
The Breach:
In round two when the Minion were pushing them back, and they were going to lose the breach, minions did not seem weak.
In round 8, when everyone had used their Second Wind, both Paladins and the Fighter had been or were bloodied, and the Warlock with Armor of Agathys had just been brutalized a round or two previous, and yet the PC's were pushing forward into the breach, the minions did not seem weak.
It is quite possible when the higher levels come that due to increasingly high amounts of AOE that minions might lose something. Then again, I can always make more minion....
Minion are fun and can be a challenge, both for Player and DM. They add an epic feel to the game, even at level 1.
