Judicious use and description of Minions [Edit-Now asking for stat analysis]

[Jasperak]

I think the DM's guide solves the "minion hp" question explicitly when it states:

"A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage. Damage from an attack or from a source that doesn’t require an attack roll (such as the paladin’s divine challenge or the fighter’s cleave) destroys a minion. If a minion is missed by an attack that normally deals damage on a miss, however, it takes no damage."

So a minion doesn't technically have hit points; the "hp 1" seems to be merely a shorthand for indicating a minion. Thus, maybe the bolstering effect does work, but when you hit the minion, the minion is dead, regardless of its hit points.

I would allow it to look like the effect helps the minions, but they could still be killed with one hit.

Excellent point, but then do the temporary hit points create the exception to the rule. I would read that they don't and minions go down with one hit regardless of how many hit points they had.

 

[Jasperak]

I think it is useful as a change-up to suddenly have minions get boosted by an enemy leader, especially if the players are accustomed to aoe'ing a bunch or two and the minions never impacting the battlefield.

With my limited amount of experience with minions, I would say that four of them are easily equal to one regular enemy, and probably more so just because they are nearly four times as likely to hit any single character. If my character had the choice of being hit once 40% of the time for 1d8 damage (avg damage = 1.8) or four times 35% of the time for 4 points of damage (avg damage = 5.6), I think I would much rather the one time. regardless of how many hit points they had. Just based on enemy hit points, it would still take four rounds (on average) to defeat both scenarios. Doubling the amount of hits a minion can take, doubles their effectiveness. I am beginning to think that four minions are more powerful than one regular at the same level. I must be missing something here. [I think I have to look at my math again; any mathletes out there?]

 

[Lurker37]

I think the balancing factor is meant to be burst and blast attacks, which should be quite effective in thinning out minions.

 

[bardolph]

But. I have a problem. I am not sure how to describe them to the players, or even if they should be described differently than the other opponents. After reading another thread about having 25 minions and a few regular monsters in an encounter area, I began thinking about how I would describe them differently, and then wondering even if I should.

My strategy is to describe all of the non-minions.

"A horde of spear-toting Kobolds rushes out of the woods. Two of them growl at you from behind their dragonscale shields, one of them slinks around the edge, spear raised, and in the back, a colorful fiend in a dragon-bone mask yips orders to the masses."

Also, I use colored disks to represent monsters on the battle mat. It's usually pretty clear that the eight yellow disks are probably minions.

 

[Staffan]

If my character had the choice of being hit once 40% of the time for 1d8 damage (avg damage = 1.8) or four times 35% of the time for 4 points of damage (avg damage = 5.6), I think I would much rather the one time. regardless of how many hit points they had.

Of course you would. However, similar-level minions and normals don't do similar damage. For example, an Orc Berserker (level 4) does d12+5 damage with +8 to hit, while an Orc Drudge (level 4 minion) does 5 damage with +9 to hit. A Goblin Warrior (level 1) has +6/1d8+2, while a Goblin Cutter (level 1 minion) has +5/4. A Hobgoblin Soldier (level 3) has +7/1d10+4, while a Hobgoblin Grunt (level 3 minion) has +6/5. I haven't crunched numbers, but I'd estimate that a minion does a little over half the damage of a normal monster of the same level.

I am beginning to think that four minions are more powerful than one regular at the same level. I must be missing something here. [I think I have to look at my math again; any mathletes out there?]

Two things:

1. Minions are way more vulnerable to area effects. With "proper" placement, a wizard can wipe out up to nine of them with a single at-will power.
2. Unlike most monsters, a group of 4 minions will lose effectiveness with each hit. After I hit the hobgoblin soldier twice, he will still have about half his hp left, and still do 1d10+4 damage with each hit. If I'm fighting four hobgoblin grunts instead, two hits will mean I'm now only fighting two of them.

 

[Jasperak]

I was thinking the same thing. The best offense against four minions would be a wizard to use scorching blast (avg damage = 7.5.) That would likely kill two or three that were engaged with a fighter regardless of if they had 1 hp or 6 hp. Although the fighter would only be able to take down two on a successful hit with Cleave or one if they had 6 hp.

I think I am starting to understand the problem I have with minions. Setting aside the question of if the players know if they are facing minions or not, Defenders seem to be at a mechanical disadvantage against 4 minions vs. 1 regular. Time to go crunch some numbers.

 

[Jasperak]

Based on above post I figured I would try to factor in the effect of minions dying and see how it compared to a slug fest with an equivalent opponent. After doing some quick napkin math I'm not so sure that 4 minions are a greater threat than 1 skirmisher/soldier. I have no experience formating in a post so try and follow along and by all means correct me if my math and or logic is faulty.

I will start with a few conditions based on info from KotS and explain differences (marked with an asterisk) below.

4 Kobold minions: AC 17*, attack +5 vs. AC (4 damage), XP 25
1 Kobold soldier/skirmisher: HP 27, AC 17*, attack +6 vs. AC (1d8+2 damage*), XP 100
1 Dwarven Fighter: HP 31, AC 17, attack +6 vs. AC (2d6+5 damage*), Cleave At-will attack
All attacks will occur simultaneously.
I will work with averages as much as possible, though this is where I am most concerned with my logic.

I changed the ACs of both the minions and soldier so the fighter would hit 50% of the time. They are listed in KOTS as both having AC 15. While I am aware that this will skew the results, I don't believe it will be that much to show the effect.

I added +2 to damage for the soldier to equal the damage from a goblin soldier (or gave extra +4 to strength).
I changed the fighter's Power Attack feat to Dwarven Weapon training (+2 to damage).

First Scenario-Minions
----------- Fighter HP --- Damage Potential of 4 minions
-------------------------- (45% to hit vs. AC 17, 4 damage)
Round 1 -- 31 ----------- 1.8 - 1.8 - 1.8 - 1.8 = 7.2
Round 2 -- 23.8 --------- 0.9 - 0.9 - 1.8 - 1.8 = 5.4
Round 3 -- 18.4 --------- 0.0 - 0.0 - 1.8 - 1.8 = 3.6
Round 4 -- 14.8 --------- 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.9 - 0.9 = 1.8
Round 5 -- 13.0 --------- 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.0 - 0.0 = All Dead

Some Notes: With Cleave and a 50% hit rate, after 2 rounds two minions should be dead so I figured that by round 3 there would only be two but they would do half damage in the second round because there would be a 50% chance that they were still around.

Second Scenario-Skirmisher/Soldier

----------- Fighter HP ----------- Soldier HP
----------- Avg Damage = 12 --- Average Damage = 6.5
Round 1 -- 31 ------------------ 27
Round 2 -- 27.75 --------------- 21
Round 3 -- 24.5 ---------------- 15
Round 4 -- 21.25 --------------- 9
Round 5 -- 18 ------------------ 3
Round 6 -- 14.75 -------------- -3

If we figure the second scenario with the fighter against a skirmisher that only does 1d8 points of damage, he will survive with 19.75 HP.

It the first scenario the fighter could win in two rounds taking an average of 10.8 damage to put his HP at 20.2.

Conclusions
1: The fighter will take on average one round longer to klll the soldier vs the minions. That one round is could be crucial depending on what ever else is going on in the battle.
2: The fighter will be more prone to suffering critical hits from the soldier, but if he scores a critical, it will matter.
3: If the minions are granted extra hit points, they will last almost twice as long. I think the second line of potential damage would read 0.9 1.35 1.8 1.8 because you would have 50% chance to hit the first opponent, but would have to hit another opponent to kill the second with your cleave.

I hope this doesn't make me look like a tard

 

[MeMeMeMe]

Whether four kobold minions are more or less powerful than four kobold skirmishers, I can't say.
However, 4 level 21 legion devils are definitely less powerful than 4 equivalent non-minion devils. At higher level, minions are much weaker than standard creatures - because those standard creatures will have well over a hundred hit points.
So I'd say the gulf between minions and standard monsters probably widens as you rise in level.

 

[Jasperak]

Whether four kobold minions are more or less powerful than four kobold skirmishers, I can't say.
However, 4 level 21 legion devils are definitely less powerful than 4 equivalent non-minion devils. At higher level, minions are much weaker than standard creatures - because those standard creatures will have well over a hundred hit points.
So I'd say the gulf between minions and standard monsters probably widens as you rise in level.

I might not have been clear. I mean to question if 4 kobold minions are equivalent to 1 kobold skirmisher/soldier.

As for level 20+ level opponents i could only imagine. It would be interesting to see if the way I figured the math would show a 20th-level fighter would need 5-6 rounds to take down an equivalent level devil.

I also wonder how a combat would go with 16 kobold minions and 1 kobold skirmisher/soldier against 5 1st-level characters.

 

[Dausuul]

At first glance, the large or huge monsters feel off-putting as minions. I know the feeling. Then I just read some Conan comics to reset that expectation.

As far as I know, there are no Huge minions, and only a couple of Large ones. The vast majority are Medium or smaller.

Conclusions
1: The fighter will take on average one round longer to klll the soldier vs the minions. That one round is could be crucial depending on what ever else is going on in the battle.
2: The fighter will be more prone to suffering critical hits from the soldier, but if he scores a critical, it will matter.
3: If the minions are granted extra hit points, they will last almost twice as long. I think the second line of potential damage would read 0.9 1.35 1.8 1.8 because you would have 50% chance to hit the first opponent, but would have to hit another opponent to kill the second with your cleave.

I hope this doesn't make me look like a tard

Remember, however, that the minions can flank, both for each other and for their bigger allies. They also clog up the battlefield quite effectively, and it's easier for them to swarm past the fighter and get to the squishy characters in the back. The tactical value of minions makes up for their slight inferiority in terms of raw damage output.