Paper Minions - WT?

[Majoru Oakheart]

The DM throws 10 foes at the PCs. The players pretty much know that some of the foes are minions (either that, or the DM is throwing lower level oppoents at the PCs or is trying for a TPK which typically won't happen in most games).

Alright...I'm not sure why this is bad. I, personally, want the players to make tactical decisions based on this sort of information.

So, since there are 10 foes, all 5 PCs throw a dagger (or other ranged attack) at 5 different NPCs. 3 hit and 2 of the 3 foes drop. Not only do the players gain the exploit of knowing that the one foe that did not drop is not a minion and can have encounter / daily powers thrown at him (as you state), they have also gotten some fairly cheap XP and changed the odds from 10 to 5, to 8 to 5.

Again, this is exactly what the system is designed to do. Give players who think tactically the ability to gain benefit. It is also designed to give those with area of effect attacks an advantage over those without them.

The tactic should work the same regardless of number of foes, but the tactic works better against the larger group not because it is a good tactic in combat, but because the players can exploit the metagaming knowledge that minions exist in the game system and when minions are typically used in the game and how those minions are easily defeated.

Ok, you lose me here. This isn't metagaming knowledge. Most creatures die when you hit them with a dagger. Most creatures die when they get hit with a fireball. It should be a default expectation that they will die. When a creature doesn't die, they are obviously very tough, lucky, skilled, etc. They are very dangerous and should be treated as such.

The more creatures there are the more efficient using an AoE attack is. This is true whether they are minions or not. Yes, it is fairly easy to "game the system" and look at the number of enemies and decide that some of them must be minions according to rules of D&D.

But whether you know there are minions out there or not doesn't matter.

Another exploit. The player of the Fighter knows that Cleave works better when fighting 2 foes in the 10 foe case over the 4 foe case. The Fighter is still fighting 2 foes in both cases and there should be no differences, but the player knows that because of how the game is designed, his Cleave will often be more productive in that encounter type. That's an exploit.

That's not an exploit, that's tactics. An exploit is gaining more advantage than the rules intended you to have. The rules have been designed from the ground up intending for people to have this knowledge. Otherwise Cleave would be a very bad power if you had to constantly use it on everyone in the hopes that this time they'd be a minion.

Knowledge is power. In this case, knowing that there are probably minions and knowing which are not minions is a great deal of metagaming power.

But it's power they were meant to have. During my discussions with the R&D team at DDXP, I can tell you that at least a number of them told me that minions should be readily identifiable as minions immediately. They are the 4 guards dressed exactly alike, carrying the same weapons. They are non-descript orcs with axes as opposed to the one who is bigger and stronger and wearing different armor. In the same way that nearly everyone who watched Star Wars knew that the Stormtroopers were the minions, players should know which of the monsters are minions as well.

Minions have a tactical purpose in the game: Delay the PCs and provide a road block to get to the monsters with the real powers in the back. They provide that benefit whether the players know they are minions or not. Either way, they have to spend attacks getting rid of them. If players are smart and use their powers effectively, they might decide to use an AoE as opposed to taking them out individually.

However, daily powers are supposed to make a difference, they aren't supposed to be used on minions accidentally when you didn't know what they were. It ruins the entire tactical element of the game to have players guessing randomly about what a monster is.

 

[Benimoto]

I will introduce:

Weak Minions: 1 hit to kill (minions in MM)
Regular Minions: 2 hits to kill
Tough Minions: 3 hits to kill

I'm not a big fan. Minions work inconsistently with the way HP works in general, but it works when they only take one hit. When they take multiple hits, you're setting up an entire system parallel but counter to HP. Minions already destabilize the hit point concept and letting them take more than one hit where hit points aren't tracked is a step too far in my book.

I think if you want a monster to take more than one hit, then using a real monster is the answer. As others have mentioned, a monster 4 levels lower than the party is worth the same XP as 2 minions, and is usually just as dangerous. If there's a place in the system for a "tough minion", it's very narrow.

And I agree with the others saying that it's difficult to see how minions work on paper, having only the experiences of previous D&D versions to guide you. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and I'm guessing that most "metagaming" strategies against minions will fare similarly. In many of the encounters in Keep on the Shadowfell, the minions quickly engaged and nearly overwhelmed the party in the first few rounds of battle, until the party was able to cut back on their numbers. Saving powers was not a winning strategy.

With the revised rules for charging in 4e as well as the looser movement costs, monsters can easily reach and attack the PCs as soon as they can act. In other words, there's no "size-up round". Instead, some of the PCs are nearly always fighting and being hurt before they even get an action.

To put it another way, in previous editions, PCs typically fought enemies only in numbers less than or equal to their own. The action economy meant that as soon as the PCs dropped a monster or two, they gained control of the encounter unless they were being disabled at equal rates. With minions, the equation changes. Instead, PCs often fight enemy forces over twice their size in number. The story value of minions is obvious, but the mechanical value to the so-called action economy is only slightly less so. Anything that means using less minions undermines their entire reason for existing in the first place.

 

[Fanaelialae]

As a player of a 3.5 character who has significant AoE powers, playing in a group where everyone else is a melee combatant, I've found that if you don't let loose with your big AoE power in round 1, chances are you're going to be hitting your allies too. Which means you don't have time to determine who is and isn't a minion, because like you said, on round 2 they are surrounding you.

Really, from an in-game perspective, if 8 size Large Cyclops are rushing at you, there is about 6 seconds until they get to you and your friends, are you going to fire of a little at will power because as a player you know they must be minions, or are you going to let loose with your Daily power in the only opportunity you'll have without blasting your party as well, hoping to at least scare off the brutes before they pound you to mush?

And, what if you thought they were minions and they weren't? The GM may have set up a very challenging fight for the party, using the assumption that the big AoE on round 1 would significantly weaken the opponents. But everyone assumed they were just minions, and so wasted a round just doing at wills! By the time they realized these were real foes, not minions, it was too late for the big guns because they'd closed to melee range. If there were some way before Epic levels to exclude allies from AoE, it would be much less of a problem (though you still basically wasted a round of attacks using the popguns instead of the big guns, which means you might as well have given them a full extra round of attacks...)

What this means is that I will not be shocked at all if a significant number of Wizards (and others) use their big Daily powers expecting a tough battle aginst numerous foes, only to have them drop like flies. And to have other instances where players guess they are minions when they aren't, and waste a round doing at wills and minor attacks instead of pulling out the big gun to soften them up before they get to melee range.

Except that, unlike 3.5, 4e characters have significant resources to set the wizard up for the kill, so to speak, such as using forced movement powers. It's much more of a team effort.

As the wizard in the example, my personal circumstances would determine my likely course of action. Giants are paragon level monsters, so if my wizard is level 5, I'd likely run. If my wizard is 15, I'd be tempted to open with an encounter, just in case. If I'm level 25, an at-will. It's a matter of relative power.

As a side-note, and I'm not saying you'd do this, but it seems a very newbish mistake to expect the wizard to balance the encounter by opening with his daily. It's reasonable to expect him to use an area effect in that situation, but not to expect that he'd use his daily because using an at-will AoE is just as legitimate a tactic (feeling the situation out rather than charging forward with blind force). Just like it would be reasonable to expect the fighter to engage the biggest, toughest looking enemy in melee, but not that he'd use Tide of Iron instead of Reaping Strike. In that respect, it's not a very good example since you shouldn't see this happening in play.

I don't expect to see many players with good tactical sense opening very often with daily powers, not even wizards. There are plenty of non-AoE wizards powers to choose from if the party doesn't feel like cooperating as well, so if you never get a chance to use AoEs because of your party don't take AoE daily powers. Daily powers are for "oh crap!" situations. If you blow them as the opener in a minor skirmish, you won't have them when you really need them. Going nova is an acceptable (and extremely effective) tactic in 3.x, but much less so in 4e, since you don't have things like the everpresent rope trick and long range teleportation to ensure that you can rest immediately after.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I can think of other exploits.

Unfocused fire is not an exploit. In fact in D&D it's a bad tactic, if a single one of your opponents isn't a minion. If *all* foes are minions then it's no worse than focused fire because it ends up being identical. But does attacking until your foe goes down, then stopping, really count as a tactic or is it merely sanity?

Focused fire - Good tactic, probably the most basic in the D&D system. Not an exploit.
Cleave/AoE - Their whole purpose is to work better against multiple foes. Minionhood is irrelevant. Again, not an exploit.

 

[KarinsDad]

Actually, I just thought of a similar but even simpler mechanic that will also solve "players know he's a minion vs. know he's not a minion" line: Even attack rolls kill, odd ones do not. If the players catch on, you switch. Or don't. Or switch next round. Or switch for each attack. Or switch after a hit. Or switch when you feel like it. Or when ...
- Just remember to scribble something as you would do on a regular hit. If your players metagame like that (and you mind their metagaming), you'll have to act exactly as if they hit a non-minion.

Thanks. I like this suggestion a lot. It's easy to switch if they catch on by rolling a random D6, odd = odd and even = even. And, it makes sense to roll the D6 to make it random at the start of any combat with minions in it (and to use your switch each hit suggestion). Course, this suggestion requires that the DM is able to see the dice at a distance and this is not always feasible. So in those cases, I might roll a quick D6 secretly to determine if it killed or not.

And it's not really that my players metagame so much (although they do take advantage of rules when they can), it's that the rules allow for such metagaming that bugs me.

Personally, I'm not very concerned with metagaming players (as a 3e5 DM, I make all rolls openly) so I won't have to "switch". Unless I feel like it. Or not.
[I think it's ok for their characters to discount an enemy who misses on a 19 or be afraid of an enemy who rolls 4d10 for damage even if I only roll a 10.]

Precisely. I do the same thing.

I have a few real smart players though that do find game loopholes. As an example, one of my players about 5 years ago moved his Druid away from a Giant, took the AoO and the damage, then moved back and Cured the fallen Cleric because he knew that his odds of curing the Cleric were less than 100% if he either Cast Defensively or cast when taking damage from an AoO, but probably 100% chance of success if he did it the way he did (he also strongly suspected that Giants would not have Combat Reflexes and even if the Giant did, he was full up at the time on hit points and the worse that would happen is that he took some extra damage).

Regardless of some people saying that this was in character decision making, it's really metagaming driven player decision making. The PC would not know that this is a way to make Curing 100% safe, but the player did.

 

[xjermx]

If you want to do minions, but want them to be "tougher", but still do not want to have to keep up with paperwork, give them a d20 range that will drop them. Every time someone hits one of them, roll a d20, if its in x through y range, the minion is done. Otherwise, its still up. example: your minions are up on 1-5, so every time one takes a hit, a d20 is rolled. 1-5, the minion is still up and fighting, 6-20, its down. No bookkeeping.

 

[KarinsDad]

To put it another way, in previous editions, PCs typically fought enemies only in numbers less than or equal to their own. The action economy meant that as soon as the PCs dropped a monster or two, they gained control of the encounter unless they were being disabled at equal rates. With minions, the equation changes. Instead, PCs often fight enemy forces over twice their size in number. The story value of minions is obvious, but the mechanical value to the so-called action economy is only slightly less so. Anything that means using less minions undermines their entire reason for existing in the first place.

In our games, the PCs were outnumbered by 2 to 1 in at least 25% of all battles (as DM, I must like big battles because I do it quite often, I guess I like the fact that it appears more threatening than it might actually be and it adds an element of serious risk and challenge).

The reason that the PCs often survived is: a) many of the opponents were not spell casters in those situations (just like 4E minions with few or no special powers), b) the PCs had multiple spellcasters to heal, do crowd control, to damage multiple enemies with one attack, etc. (just like 4E), c) the mook types did not have as many magical items to assist (just like 4E), and d) the mook types were often 1 or 2 levels lower than the PCs (the slightly lower levels of 3E was replaced with 1 hit point paper targets in 4E).

We've had battles with as many as 25 or 30 opponents (I think our max was 42 or some such, but such large battles tend to come in waves over several rounds) against 5 or 6 PCs in 3E. We've often had battles where the battle spilled into a different area with more enemies or where nearby enemies were alerted and came to investigate.

All of this worked in 3E. The advantage of the minion rules in 4E is not so much that it allows large battles. Being outnumbered happened in many 3E combats. The advantage of the minion rules is that it's less bookkeeping for the DM and allows for more "same level" opponents. The offense of the mooks increased slightly, but the defense (i.e. hit points, the last bastion of defense in damaging combat) went right out the door.

 

[Doug McCrae]

We've had battles with as many as 25 or 30 opponents (I think our max was 42 or some such, but such large battles tend to come in waves over several rounds) against 5 or 6 PCs in 3E. We've often had battles where the battle spilled into a different area with more enemies or where nearby enemies were alerted and came to investigate.

All of this worked in 3E. The advantage of the minion rules in 4E is not so much that it allows large battles. Being outnumbered happened in many 3E combats. The advantage of the minion rules is that it's less bookkeeping for the DM and allows for more "same level" opponents. The offense of the mooks increased slightly, but the defense (i.e. hit points, the last bastion of defense in damaging combat) went right out the door.

You could do the exact same thing with the 4e rules if you want. A 6th level party versus 40 goblin warriors (level 1 skirmishers, not minions) in two waves of 20 would work I think though it would definitely be difficult. 20 level 1s = 2000xp, equivalent to a level 9 challenge. And it would have the added benefit of befuddling your metagaming players who would no doubt expect the horde to be minions.

Minions give you another option, they don't take anything away. Well, except space in the MM.

 

[Blackeagle]

In our games, the PCs were outnumbered by 2 to 1 in at least 25% of all battles (as DM, I must like big battles because I do it quite often, I guess I like the fact that it appears more threatening than it might actually be and it adds an element of serious risk and challenge).

I don't think you're alone in that. In fact, one of things the 4e designers talked about in one of the podcasts was that level appropriate encounters in 3e were pretty boring. An appropriate 3e encounter was one baddie of about your level, two of your level -2, or four or your level -4, etc. These encounters weren't that interesting tactically since you either outnumbered your enemies or were significantly more powerful. None of these were particularly challenging, unless this was the 4th or so encounter of the day and your resources were running low. This gives you the standard 15 minute adventuring day: three easy encounters and one hard one.

Since level appropriate encounters kind of sucked, what a lot of DMs did was to up the ante. Going for a single, more powerful creature could be kind of swingy if you get too many levels above the party level, so most DMs incresed the intrest/difficulty by adding more opponents of the character's level or slightly lower. From your description this seems to be what you were doing. This produced an encounter with a lot more tactical possibilities and difficult enough to actually challenge the players without being too swingy. The problem is that since these encounters are well above the standard difficulty level, they eat up most of a party's available resources, turning the 15 minute adventuring day into the 2 minute adventuring day.

So one of the designer's major goals with 4e was to provide interesting, challenging combats with lots of opponents that players could confront several of per day. A lot of the design features in 4e seem to be related to this: the new encounter design system of course, the way monsters are designed including minions, encounter and at-will powers, the way action points are gained and spent, healing surges and second winds, etc.

 

[Henry]

All of this worked in 3E. The advantage of the minion rules in 4E is not so much that it allows large battles. Being outnumbered happened in many 3E combats. The advantage of the minion rules is that it's less bookkeeping for the DM and allows for more "same level" opponents. The offense of the mooks increased slightly, but the defense (i.e. hit points, the last bastion of defense in damaging combat) went right out the door.

To me, it didn't work because of the DM bookeeping; I wound up resolving mooks similarly to the way 4e does now -- one hit kills them. I'm still not seeing a sufficient downside to the minion rules for me not to include them, other than for a mechanically aesthetic reason.