Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[jgbrowning]

My wife and I were discussing this thread, and her take was "You guys are arguing about the difference between an art gallery and an art class."

I was like, "Uh, gonna need you to explain that to me."

Her point was that, having only played in a few games, there were only a few folks she'd trust to create a full, detailed world to play in. Her exact words were, "I don't want another Lord of the Rings ripoff". That a world is insanely detailed is not in any way a selling point to her, if it doesn't provide compelling situations for play.

But, she said, there were lots of people she'd be happy to have GM if it's a smaller scope, more "let's create as we go" situation, which may very well have a specific constrained setting and situation, but the focus is not on all that detail. The focus in that kind of game is squarely on the characters, color-heavy, and usually much more about what's introduced at the table than what was pre-prepped.

So in other worlds, if she signs up for an art class, but is instead taken to an art gallery, it doesn't matter how detailed those paintings are -- it wasn't the activity she signed up for.

If you were thinking I'm an art gallery kinda guy, that would be incorrect. I'm a fan of the art class approach and prefer the players to be involved in the creation of the world by thinking about their PCs away from the table, and then bringing their thoughts to the table where the disparate desires of the players and GM are hashed-out and codified as the shared creation.

To me, thinking about playing isn't just prep work, its an integral part of gaming - without which the shared worlds and the game would that much poorer. The more the players and the gm think about the game away from the table, the better the at the table experience can become, IMO.

joe b.

 

[LostSoul]

The PCs are fighting the ogres while the NPC farmers throw rocks. According to RAW, what happens to the ogres?

I don't know if there is a RAW answer to this. I could be wrong, though.

I prefer to look at NPC-NPC conflicts as "level contests", with the higher level NPC almost always winning (save situational modifiers). Elites and Solos gain a bonus (+2 and +4-5 in my head) and minions a penalty (-5 or so).

If I was running the game, those 1st-level farmers - even if they were trained as slingers by the PCs into skirmishers - would not kill the 11th-level ogre minions on a single hit, and would drop on a single crushing blow from the ogre.

They would be quite a bit more effective against 1st level kobold minions.

Outside of combat, do minions - even low-level ones - only have 1HP? Outside of combat I'd ignore HP and just use common sense and simple level contests.

 

[ST]

I love those (Gazeteer-type sourcebooks) too, although we probably use them differently in prep. Gazeteers and such are both great for simulation and chock full of color and situation.

I don't think metaplot-heavy is a necessary outgrowth of what I was talking about, just that it was a common approach to turn a game into a continuing line. A line of Gazeteers or whatever is probably more applicable for D&D.

I realize some of the stuff I'm saying sounds like it's trying to 'diagnose' you or label you or something, that's definately not my intent. I'm just describing where following your particular trains of thought would lead me personally.

 

[Raven Crowking]

RC: Use common sense when using the minion rules. Problem solved.

Use common sense when using the rules, period. All problems solved.


RC

 

[Storm-Bringer]

This really doesn't have anything to do with the issue I'm discussing with Joe. It's an interesting point, but doesn't really have any bearing on the simulationist world-building aspects of minions.

It does if you want to simulate a world that exists on its own, rather than as a backdrop for the PCs. Minions fall somewhere between 'scenery' and 'monster', but closer to the 'scenery' side. When the PCs are looking, they are dispatched with a successful hit. When the PCs aren't looking, there is no way to determine how durable they are.

As opposed to normal monsters, even in 4e. You can do some rough calculations and figure the 60hp Ogre can survive for X number of rounds against the villagers. If they have a 60% chance of hitting the Ogre, and do 5 points of damage each, that is an effective damage of 3 per round, so they would defeat the Ogre in 20 rounds. Conversely, the Ogre will hit the villagers 80% of the time and do 5 points of damage, for an effective damage per round of 4pts. Villagers have 5hp each, so unless the Ogre can split an attack between two villagers, that would be 16 villagers before he is defeated. If the evil wizard that is behind all this is casting spells also, then you can calculate the damage based on their percentages of being able to save to get the effective damage for the spells.

Unless the villagers are minions, in which case, the numbers start getting wonky. Miss effects are canceled, so the wizard is instantly less effective against the minions than they would be against villagers with hit points. The minions are more threatening than regular peasants because of that.

Theoretical exercise, you may be thinking? What if the PCs have to defend this village? Sure, you can just pull a number out of a hat for the number of villagers that are killed. But you will have no idea how long the PCs have until the villagers are all killed or the enemies are driven off. Arbitrarily picking a number of rounds is the same as tripping a flag in a video game; ie, it has nothing to do with the PCs actions other than clearing a stage or surviving for a certain number of minutes.

Which is fine, if a given group likes that kind of thing. But it demonstrates that minions are problematic for building a world, and that these 'weaker' opponents are more dangerous than regular monsters, depending on who you are. A serious problem when trying to simulate an independent world.

 

[fanboy2000]

So, in other words, your argument is not based upon the RAW, but rather upon how you would like the RAW to be interpretted.

I'm not sure how the narrow quote you preceded this comment with suggests that MrMyth isn't following the D&D 4e rules.

In the 4e DMG I, it explicitly states that most NPCs don't need stats. Most NPCs just need a name and some description. Such NPCs wouldn't do any damage to a minion because such an NPC wouldn't participate in combat, per prior decision by the DM to not stat the NPC in the first place. This is entirely consistent with the 4e game rules.

 

[Loonook]

I don't know if there is a RAW answer to this. I could be wrong, though.

I prefer to look at NPC-NPC conflicts as "level contests", with the higher level NPC almost always winning (save situational modifiers). Elites and Solos gain a bonus (+2 and +4-5 in my head) and minions a penalty (-5 or so).

If I was running the game, those 1st-level farmers - even if they were trained as slingers by the PCs into skirmishers - would not kill the 11th-level ogre minions on a single hit, and would drop on a single crushing blow from the ogre.

They would be quite a bit more effective against 1st level kobold minions.

Outside of combat, do minions - even low-level ones - only have 1HP? Outside of combat I'd ignore HP and just use common sense and simple level contests.

Honestly, I like this approach... but I would probably take it in a different direction... when we were running a scenario of a large battle in older versions of the game, my first group's DM had a brilliant tactic: 'Grunts' for either side are represented by Unit Points, and the PCs and non-grunt creatures were represented as they are. PCs could cut swathes through grunts by attacking their overall points (similar to swarm or mob rules in 3.x) and grunts would battle against other grunts based on their numbers and how they were being utilized.

PCs in a grunt 'unit' provided a bonus to the Grunts dependent on affinities... a cleric leading a group of temple initiates would give a higher benefit to them than he would give to a group of mercenary archers, and the ranger in the group would do the opposite. In your example, an 11th level Minion may have... 11 UP. Those 1st level commoners? Each at 1 UP. Now, the commoners aren't going to be able to take down that ogre on their own unless they include ranged attackers alongside (allowing the ogre to be surrounded on all sides, then pelted with stones, bolts, etc.) or they have that little bump from the PC in their 'stack' (making them effectively 2 UP or even 3 UP units if the character had specific tactics training, was a warlord/leader of the specific group, had trained the group extensively in tactics... you get the idea).

This of course was the highly simplified form... the DM loved random tables, benefits for units in their terrain, etc. But that's not too difficult to work out based on your +2/-2 sorts of modifiers which a group could receive, or the aid of a specific member of the party. We also used basic routing rules, member loss, etc. to represent the various things which could occur, but creating a system where a Minion may be worth (UP/lvl), a Solo worth (4*UP/lvl), and so on, with bonuses from any specific thing would allow for large-scale battles to be brought about without too many problems... and give the PCs assistance when they help bring the farmhands up against the wolves.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not sure how the narrow quote you preceded this comment with suggests that MrMyth isn't following the D&D 4e rules.

I asked for the RAW answer; he failed to supply it.


RC

 

[AllisterH]

I completely understand why you would use minions in this situation. The nature of the scaling level system makes using lower level monsters a very messy option. If the 1E or OSRIC rules were used those 2nd level bandits could still be decent challenge to a 7th/8th level party in sufficient numbers.

Again I call foul.

I pointed out quite easily how a 7th level heavy armoured PC is easily hitting an AC of -5 meaning you need at least 20 2nd level bandits to even hit the PCs since you are going to need a natural 20.

As an aside, Aunt Harriet might not be able to hit the minions since unless I missed something, there's no natural 20 hit rule in 4e.

EDIT: In fact, using the ogre versus the famer example, there's no way for a farmer to actually HIT an ogre. An ogre minion could have either an AC of 23 or 28 which means that the human rabble (assuming that's the appropriate stats for a human farmer) can't even hit the latter minion.

Keep in mind, even though I find the concept of minions workable, I'm personally not adverse to critiques about HOW they're implemented. For example, the minions from MM2 are much better designed than the MM1 especially the higher level ones AND I also agree that minions are valued too much (I use 4 minions per pc + 1 per half tier when doing budgeting)

 

[Fifth Element]

Use common sense when using the rules, period. All problems solved.

Indeed. Bearing in mind that the DM isn't the only one at the table.