Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[Jack99]

I agree. I was referring to explaining minions as the poster I quoted explained them. Minion's cannot be said to be the same creature "with which you struggled at lower level (you needed 4-5 hits) is very easy to kill at 9th level (1 hit)." Such an explanation places monsters in a state of uncertainty. That said, this is the most common role-playing reason that I have heard used to support the minion concept.

joe b.

Well it works quite well if you look at it that way. I will grant you that it's not RAW though. Should have been though .

Btw, are we going to see something else (for 4e) aside from Lands of Darkness from you guys, or have you lost interest in 4e? Your posts doesn't sound as if you like it much.

 

[AllisterH]

So those rampaging kobold minions can be taken out with a stick or a rock from farmer Bob, or from tripping and falling. What happened to being minions only when facing the PC's? A kid can take out a Balor minion on a natural 20.

1. You know, I don't think there's an actual "natural 20" rule in the books.

2. Again, the DM handles things off screen so I don't see why people insist on using the rules to model the world.

I mean, I really don't understand this as it leads to things like

"Wait, why aren't monsters like Wraiths and Barghests completely overrunning the world"

"A ladder is cheaper than two 10' pole? The economy is very strange".

I have always treated D&D as a way for the PCs to interact with the world because if you look too closely, you end up with way more headaches.

I learnt that all the way back in 1e when we tried to "fix" HP so that it made sense. Yeah, that lasted all of a couple of sessions before someone said "can we go back to the old method"?

 

[wedgeski]

Minions provide "bodies" for powers and movement dynamics, while offering little threat in return.

I think my guys would like to have a little word with you about how much threat minions represent. However, the designers have flat out said that minions should be worth less XP than they are now (i.e. they're not as threatening as they should be) and we're still in the Heroic Tier, which is where minions can do the most damage, so your observation will only become more true with time.

Having said all of that, the pure cinematic raison d'etre for minions is plenty good enough for me. I've seen enough roars of approval at the table when someone cuts through four or five in a round to know that it's good enough for my players too. Pure fun, an element with practically no other purpose in life (or death) than to make the players feel like heroes. I like. The fact that I've found interesting uses for minions outside of that (for example, an ad-hoc militia raised by the wizard to go and rescure her friends) is just icing on the cake.

This sandbox-perspective "what happens to a minion when a group of 1st-level spuds walks in" is so far from the fundamental note of 4E as I see it that I wouldn't even dream of asking the question. 4E is all about the players, the world is painted through their eyes. In the spirit of the OP, if there was one fact that I would try and persuade a resistant DM to embrace, it would be that.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I mean, isnt D&D supposed to simulate (heh, there's that word again) fantasy movies and books?

If it is, it only does so rather badly. Or in a mediocre (and decidedly bizarre / 'idiosyncratic') way, at best.

I always thought the designers were thinking along the following lines.

---snip---

Really? I imagine they looked at minions in other RPGs, some of them not so far removed from, say, 3e itself, and thought 'gee, that works well - let's add that!' - and no, that is not a criticism of any kind. Use what works, from wherever (legally) is probably a good policy.

That said, minions as they appear in 4e (or hey, in any other RPG, more recently published or less so) won't appeal to every gamer. So yeah, I guess whether it's paid off can only be determined by relative sales and the like. . . and I am not going there (again).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So those rampaging kobold minions can be taken out with a stick or a rock from farmer Bob, or from tripping and falling. What happened to being minions only when facing the PC's? A kid can take out a Balor minion on a natural 20.

I am just saying what the RAW is. I am not saying that you should have a kid fight a Balor Minion. (Not that a Balor Minion exists unless you create it.)

It's also noticeable that a creature doesn't have to die when reduced to 0 hit points or less. So tripping or falling might knock a Minion out. (though in case of falling, he also might get an Acrobotics Check to reduce falling damage, possibly below 0 points).

And if farmer Bob attacks kobold minion, the farmer might also be a minion. Is it really surprising that farmer Bob has a fair chance to knock him out with a stick or that the Minion has a fair chance to knock the farmer out?


It's not as if 1st level D&D 3E Commoners were without chance of knocking out a common Kobold with just one hit.

The point is that you usually won't bother to even pick stats for such a fight. We just assume either the results we want to have, or the results that seems most likely. If we're rewriting David vs Goliath, that kid kills the Balor with a lucky shot. If we go by likelihoods, the kid dies.

If you have a kid, the PCs, and the Balor Minion in the same room, things have the potential for something you might consider a "strange" result. But then, the PCs might totally miss the lucky kid because they are fighting against Balor Minions, which probably means there is also a Chthulhu and a Tarrasque in the room fighting them.

 

[jgbrowning]

Well it works quite well if you look at it that way. I will grant you that it's not RAW though. Should have been though .

Btw, are we going to see something else (for 4e) aside from Lands of Darkness from you guys, or have you lost interest in 4e? Your posts doesn't sound as if you like it much.

We're got several 4e releases in the pipeline: we're working on Freeport Companion for 4e, we have a race book called Castoffs and Crossbreeds, and we have Nevermore 4e coming along as well.

And I should state that when I talk about gaming mechanics and creator goals, I'm usually very dispassionate. I'm not a fan of the minion concept in D&D, mostly because I consider it philosophically troublesome in relation to the other design philosophies of the game. I know it bothers others, and I wonder if there would have been a better method of meeting the goal of making the PCs feel powerful (and having enough bodies on the board to push, pull, slide, and threaten) without creating an entirely different "how tough is this thing" abstraction that is in philosophic conflict with the core abstraction of "how things are hurt" in the rules set.

Minions take two different kinds of damage, unlike other creatures. Damage when the PCs are around (1 hp of which is fatal) and damage when the PCs aren't around (which they've managed to survived to live to see the PCs eventually).

As I said earlier, this type of abstraction is indicative of a change in the type of role-playing game D&D is. It's moved towards a game in which the world exists only in relation to the PCs, as opposed to what it has traditionally been, a game in which the PCs interact with a world that functions independent of them (be that at an abstracted level).

Both styles can be a lot of fun to play, but they are different styles.

joe b.

 

[Mircoles]

So those rampaging kobold minions can be taken out with a stick or a rock from farmer Bob, or from tripping and falling. What happened to being minions only when facing the PC's? A kid can take out a Balor minion on a natural 20.

There is no Balor minion. The Balor is a lvl 27 elite brute. No one is taking it out in one shot.

 

[the Jester]

As I said earlier, this type of abstraction is indicative of a change in the type of role-playing game D&D is. It's moved towards a game in which the world exists only in relation to the PCs, as opposed to what it has traditionally been, a game in which the PCs interact with a world that functions independent of them (be that at an abstracted level).

I just wanted to say that this is a fascinating insight. I am really enjoying 4e, but this sums up about 2/3 of the reservations I have about it.

On the other hand, I love minions and I love the way they're implemented. My philosophy on monsters in 4e is that the same giant lizard could be a solo 2nd level, elite 5th level, standard 6th level or minion 10th level creature. Not just the same type of monster, but the very same monster- you know, the scarred lizard with the purple patch of scales on its left side.

In a more traditional style game, that sort of monster design... just doesn't work for me.

That's an interesting juxtaposition of what I like and don't like in 4e right there.

 

[ExploderWizard]

There is no Balor minion. The Balor is a lvl 27 elite brute. No one is taking it out in one shot.

No books at work. I might have named it incorrectly. Oh well, choose any minion at level twentysomething then.

 

[vagabundo]

I just wanted to say that this is a fascinating insight. I am really enjoying 4e, but this sums up about 2/3 of the reservations I have about it.

On the other hand, I love minions and I love the way they're implemented. My philosophy on monsters in 4e is that the same giant lizard could be a solo 2nd level, elite 5th level, standard 6th level or minion 10th level creature. Not just the same type of monster, but the very same monster- you know, the scarred lizard with the purple patch of scales on its left side.

In a more traditional style game, that sort of monster design... just doesn't work for me.

That's an interesting juxtaposition of what I like and don't like in 4e right there.

This is exactly how I view the monsters in 4e - and how I think they should be thought of; I'm unsure if this is RAW though. But everything is viewed through the lens of the Player Characters. So HPs scale and distort according to their power level.

If an NPC is more than five levels higher he should should have extra damage and power; sandboxes wont work well out of the 4e tool box, but could be house-ruled easily enough.

I'm glad of this design, it allows for a linear character progression and easy maths, but makes it more difficult to get the scope of the DND "world" into mind, as the monsters to monster to NPC interactions are now non-linear and complex. If you want to create a simulationist worlds from the 4e RAW your going to have some mental problems.