Returning to 4e

[vagabundo]

I'm running a Nentir Vale campaign at the moment. Just started Cairn of the Winter King, previously ran Reavers of the Harkenwold and the Slaying Stone.

I do some similar houserules:
- 1d4 surges recovered in safe locations while adventuring. Otherwise nothing.
- 8 actions points when they level up. They no carry forward. May get an action point for truly heroic actions.
- I use the super minions house-rule. All minions have a hp based on level. I don't track the minion hit points. One hit bloodies them, the next kills them. Obviously you can kill them in one hit if you damage them enough. I think this fits in better with the powers/abilities that key off bloodied foes.
- I also have changed some of the rules around rituals to make them more accessible.

 

[Rolenet]

- Are you using the Threats to Nentir Vale book? Very nice for H/P campaingns.

- The minions variant I use is the "Threshold Minions". Each has a threshold of 5+1/3level. Hit that threshold and it's bloodied, or dead if it was bloodied. Hit twice the threshold and it's dead at once. It's calibrated so that everybody can bloody one, striker can kill them, but auxiliary "Ability mod" damage doesn't affect them.

 

[Igwilly]

Giving minions hp defeats the purpose. Go with the two-hit option and/or make them immune to auto-damage. IME, it's not the prevalence of AoE or multi attack powers that take the teeth out of minions. It's being able to throw down a zone or aura that just causes them to pop with no effort. If you rule that you actually need to hit a minion to pop it, survival and threat go way up.

That's an interesting idea. It would value classic area attacks more hehe.

 

[S'mon]

- Are you using the Threats to Nentir Vale book? Very nice for H/P campaingns.

Yup, I'm using it, it's very nice and makes "living world" GMing much easier. The Dragonborn PC is a Dythan's Legion scout!

I expect the campaign to run ca levels 1-14, I'm allowing the full H/P tiers though, while ruling Epic tier doesn't exist in this campaign. The vast majority of Monster Vault monsters fall within H/P, I will downscale a few Epic Tier monsters as necessary for a more classic feel. Generally looks like taking 10 levels off balors (to elite-17), pit fiends (to elite-16), marilith etc puts them in a more OD&D/1e type power frame. I'll be using the MV Elder Dragon stats as the biggest dragons, so eg Solo-22 Elder Red Dragon is the biggest red dragon, equivalent to a 1e huge ancient red.

 

[pemerton]

For reference, how many monsters (or units) do you (OP and others) typically use during an encounter?

Highly variable.

At the moment, the game is paused mid-combat - 30th level PCs vs 38th (? I think) level combat, with 3 solos (hydra, naga, Miska the Wolf-Spider), 3 elites (two colossi, a hundred-handed one) and a solo hazard (soul gem).

The previous two combat encounters were vs single solos (Osterneth, servant of Vecna; and the tarrasque - there were also several maruts present, but the PCs persuaded them not to intervene).

I've also run combats with double-digit minions plus various friends. For those, I wouldn't want to track minion hp.

 

[thanson02]

I give them level+5 hp. They die most of the time with one hit, almost always with 2 hits, and take a couple of rounds to die from zones. But it really reduces the auto-kill features of die rolls without +stat or stat without die rolls.

Easy to keep track of without basically ruling that X doesn't work.

I like that. I always thought 1 hp was too easy and if you get really high level characters, you can throw standard low-level monsters at them and they would be equivalent to a minion. This brings a nice balance to it which I think I'm going to have to try out.

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