one hit kills, unsatisfying?

[op1983]

So a bunch of minions (in XP amounts) is actually a fewer amount of guys. It is just they keep getting knocked away and coming back later after recovering.

FS: I hope I'm understanding you correctly. By this you will have say 10 minions, but only 5 bodies. After each is reduced to zero they will be replaced by the next? If that was your intent that is very cool. I will definately be doing that for undead minions. I can't wait to see the look on my players faces when I tell them the zombie whos body was split in half crawls toward them to bite *munch munch*

 

[Fallen Seraph]

FS: I hope I'm understanding you correctly. By this you will have say 10 minions, but only 5 bodies. After each is reduced to zero they will be replaced by the next? If that was your intent that is very cool. I will definately be doing that for undead minions. I can't wait to see the look on my players faces when I tell them the zombie whos body was split in half crawls toward them to bite *munch munch*

Yup, essentially. Probably to make it more random will have a d20 recover on 10 roll. So, one minion may be out cold for one round, another takes 2, 3, etc. rounds to recover.

I would probably also allow instant kills if combat finishes while one of the minions is recovering.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Hit points do not mean how much damage a character can take.

Once you are comfortable with that the rest is a cinch.

When I am DMing and a monster is reduced to 0 I dont automatically say ok you killed the badguy cut off his head. It could be that they disarmed the dude and he took off running or he broke an arm a leg a rib something like that and is otherwise unable to fight.

Minions are all the guys you see in the movies that get taken out with a single sword stroke or a kick to the chest.

For a tabletop combat game this works fine. In campaign play, it makes a difference to the PC's if a monster runs away or drops dead. Campaign events take priority rather than the combat itself. Handwaving away fleeing enemies has consequences beyond combat narration. Did he run and tell someone that the fort was under attack? Was he able to communicate who it was that he saw attacking to others? You can say that anyone running away due to HP loss is magically unable to interact with the world anymore, but it leads to fake situations that make no sense.

That and 1 hit point enemies beyond 1st level are just unsatisfying. Killing one or even 3 at a go doesn't feel like an accomplishment. The knowledge that you have just wiped out a specially constructed enemy designed just to make you feel like you've done something and feel less depressed about the negligible effects of your attacks on real foes leaves a bad taste to the whole thing. I am playing a wizard right now, and I get to be the #1 minion slayer for our party. I just can't get very excited by it, even knocking out 3 or 4 at a time with Thunderwave just feels empty.

 

[op1983]

When a player is reduced to 0 hitpoints they are unconcious is the same not true for NPCs? I'm not asking in a sarcastic way I really don't know.

 

[fba827]

okay, my casual use of the word kill has spun the conversation slightly. By kill, i meant to include all the 'disable' and what nots to the point of removing the minion as being a threat in combat (reduced to 0 hp).

I was just trying to get a vibe as to whether or not other people found the quicki-minion-incapacitation to be satisfying or not. In your own game groups, do you have someone who will take out dozens(!) of minions but still feel like they didn't do anything and so on. Or the side of the screen, as a DM do you get a little annoyed when a PC's primary target gets 20+ damage but his 1 splash damage to the adjacent target also takes it out?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think the big thing is context and focus (as I semi-talked about in my original post). If your context and focus is solely centred on the minion(s) the level of satisfaction probably will have more likelihood of dropping.

But, if you use minions more as a means to an end, part of the scenery, etc. I think this gets nicely circumnavigated because it no longer is viewed as a "time to face this nasty opponent", it is now just a element of the scene.

 

[FireLance]

I think combat with minions is only unsatisfying if they don't present the party with much of a challenge. The fact that they are killed with just one hit is only part of it. The broader issue is whether the minions are just bundles of constant damage attacks with one hit point, or whether they add any tactical considerations to the fight.

Kobold minions are one of my favorites, and I think they are good examples of minions done right. They are not just there to attack and be killed easily. They are also there to provide the kobold dragonshield and the kobold skirmisher with extra attack bonuses, and to soak attacks for the kobold slyblade.

When a minion is more than a minor annoyance, killing one will seem like an accomplishment.

 

[Starglim]

As a random thought, does the simplicity of minions (or any one-hit kill enemies) rob the player's sense of accomplishment when he/she kills one?

I suspect it scales by the degree of spectacle: at first level, killing an enemy in one hit is not satisfying, killing five enemies in five hits is OK, killing five enemies with one attack makes a character look pretty good.

A DM starts to lose narrative effect where the kill is difficult to credit - thus, Large or bigger minions or killing minions with secondary effects of attacks could be a problem depending on the setting assumptions in play.

 

[op1983]

Minions are like salt. If used in the right amount you won't notice them one way or another but they will add a nice flavor. If used too much it will be overpowered. If not enough there may not be enough flavor.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I think the OP is just running into the downside of minions. (I've loved the idea of minions since first encountering them in Shadowrun, where they went under the guise of rules for "Professionalism.") If there were some way to keep players from knowing that they were killing minions, minions would be awesome. Since there's no way to keep that knowledge from the players -- short of the DM rolling all combat dice -- I think it's natural that the killing of minions feel very flat.

(Lest I be mocked and scorned anew, I won't mention that this is a verisimilitude issue. D'oh!)