How often do you use minions?

[Prestidigitalis]

As a player, I find that minions can add a lot of tension. Specifically, I refer to the situations where you see a wave of critters coming at you, and the first few do NOT fall to a single hit, and you shout "Holy crap, those things aren't minions!"

 

[the Jester]

By level 9 and sometimes earlier, every encounter, minions or not, for smart players costs a few dailies. At that level and higher, a group of 5 PCs has 15 dailies plus quite a few item dailies. It's worth it to have different PCs blow off 2 dailies per encounter to speed things up and to use up fewer healing surges. The number of encounters per day at that point are limited to healing surges, so it doesn't make sense to try to save dailies for a BBEG fight. Even with a 6 encounter day, that's 2 Dailies per fight for the first 5 non-BBEG fights and the group still has 5 Dailies plus item dailies left over for a BBEG fight.

It's worth it at level 5 to have a different PC blow off one Daily every encounter as well.

Minions are not a factor in this at all since most players won't waste dailies on them anyway. As for minions being super dangerous, they are not unless the DM decides to throw 50 at the group or some such. The chance to hit minions is typically greater than 50%, so it makes sense to even include the PC Defenders in large area effects and not worry about it.

Two things: this all assumes that the pcs are choosing the number of encounters in a day, and that they can identify minions on sight. Neither is always true. I've had my group run through 13 encounters in one day before, and they didn't know when it would stop. If the bad guys are attacking you instead of vice-versa, it's probably best to conserve your dailies until you feel you need them (or until you are looking at choosing between dailies and spending surges, to a lesser extent).

And yes, I've seen characters blow dailies on minions. Shrug. So it goes. I would say it might be worth waiting to see whether the bad guys stand up to a hit or two before you start shooting off your big guns.

 

[keterys]

About half of the fights.

As a general rule, minions should have one or more of the following:
* Ranged attack
* On death power
* Respawning or Death prevention mechanism
* Notable melee attack if melee only

If they are melee only, it's also useful if they do have some form of mobility.

Basically, the problem to avoid is they have to clump up to attack anyone, don't deal much damage, and are hit on 5s. Some published minions have this problem. Some minions work quite well though.

Minions are also a useful mechanic for "collateral damage" enemies, like dominated peasants, forced militia, that kinda thing. In that case, they can be ineffective gladly, as the PCs have a reason not to kill them. I once had some minions do nothing but bull rushes, because they didn't want to fight, but had to - it was actually effective against the players and they didn't want to kill them, cause they were sorta noncombatants.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

About half of the fights.

As a general rule, minions should have one or more of the following:
* Ranged attack
* On death power
* Respawning or Death prevention mechanism
* Notable melee attack if melee only

If they are melee only, it's also useful if they do have some form of mobility.

Basically, the problem to avoid is they have to clump up to attack anyone, don't deal much damage, and are hit on 5s. Some published minions have this problem. Some minions work quite well though.

Minions are also a useful mechanic for "collateral damage" enemies, like dominated peasants, forced militia, that kinda thing. In that case, they can be ineffective gladly, as the PCs have a reason not to kill them. I once had some minions do nothing but bull rushes, because they didn't want to fight, but had to - it was actually effective against the players and they didn't want to kill them, cause they were sorta noncombatants.

Yeah, that last is a good point. I definitely use minions for that sort of stuff when required. It doesn't come up TOO often, but its a handy mechanic to have in your back pocket for various oddball situations.

 

[The Human Target]

Absolutely love minions, use them in about 90% of my combats, and find them to be more than just a minor inconvenience/speed bump most of them time (and especially if the group doesn't have a dedicated AoE user.)

 

[Evilhalfling]

If you avoid using MM1 minons it helps
human rabble (l2) ac lvl+13, Nads =lvl+11 or 9
human lacky (l7) ac 12+lvl, NADs =lvl+7-10
Orcs L4 AC 12+lvl, NADS lvl+11 or +8
Orc L9 AC 12+lvl, NADS lvl+10 or +6

No wonder they get hit on a 5. Defenses lvl+10-14 would work alot better.
mm2 & 3 fix this buy giving them roles, and making sure no defenses are less than Lvl +10
Later minions are also more likely to have death effects, or cumlative benefits.

To answer the question, I use them about 1 in 3 fights: and usually give them 2 hits to kill them.

 

[KarinsDad]

Two things: this all assumes that the pcs are choosing the number of encounters in a day, and that they can identify minions on sight. Neither is always true. I've had my group run through 13 encounters in one day before, and they didn't know when it would stop. If the bad guys are attacking you instead of vice-versa, it's probably best to conserve your dailies until you feel you need them (or until you are looking at choosing between dailies and spending surges, to a lesser extent).

And yes, I've seen characters blow dailies on minions. Shrug. So it goes. I would say it might be worth waiting to see whether the bad guys stand up to a hit or two before you start shooting off your big guns.

It's not about blowing dailies on minions.

It's about blowing a daily or two on most semi-challenging encounters.

In your 13 encounter day scenario, the encounters were not challenging. Otherwise, the PCs would have run out of healing surges way before getting to encounter 13. I think most players are smart enough to recognize the difference between challenging encounters and non-challenging ones within the first round or two. No need to blow dailies in the non-challenging case. Encounter powers are good enough for those.

The point is, most people save most of their dailes unless they are positive that the encounter is n+2 or harder. It's not the best strategy most of the time. Check out page 110 and 111 of the Player's Strategy Guide. Even the designers of the game think people shouldn't hoard dailies, not just because dailies can shorten encounters and save healing surges, but also because using a daily allow a player to shine. It's all about fun, not total resource management.

And, a group that uses at least one or two daily powers (level dependent) in every semi-challenging encounter will save healing surges so that they can go beyond 6 reasonably challenging encounters in a day and not have to hole up instead.

 

[the Jester]

In your 13 encounter day scenario, the encounters were not challenging. Otherwise, the PCs would have run out of healing surges way before getting to encounter 13.

Actually, the encounters were challenging- most were about lvl + 1. What makes you think they had a bunch of surges left at the end? They were sweating it.

My point is, the pcs don't always get to set the pace. Or at least, they shouldn't.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Actually, the encounters were challenging- most were about lvl + 1. What makes you think they had a bunch of surges left at the end? They were sweating it.

My point is, the pcs don't always get to set the pace. Or at least, they shouldn't.

Still 13 by standard 4E, as I understand and have played it, is a massive number. There must have been something unusual going on that made those fights not much of a challenge individually. Most characters have an average of roughly 10 surges, so on average, the players were not spending even one surge in every fight. That is not much of a challenge.

 

[KarinsDad]

Actually, the encounters were challenging- most were about lvl + 1. What makes you think they had a bunch of surges left at the end? They were sweating it.

The math doesn't add up.

Even with the healing surges being equally used, your PCs were averaging what? 75% of one healing surge per encounter each? That means that the bad guys were averaging about 30% of any given PC's hit point per encounter.

That's a pretty low average amount of damage considering level+1 encounters. That's a pretty low average amount of damage considering level-1 encounters.

I've never seen an adventuring day go beyond 7 combat encounters. I'm sure it can go slightly higher than that, but 13 seems way out of the statistical ballpark without many of the encounters being walks in the park for one reason or another.

In any case, I would consider this an extreme example that a vast majority of gaming groups never encounters. Hence, the point about using one or more Dailies per encounter once the group gets to level 5 and especially level 9 for more typical groups and scenarios still stands.

No, the group doesn't get to decide on how many encounters per day, but only a dick DM would force them to continue on when most of the group is out of healing surges.

PS. 13 encounters is a lot of sessions as well. 3 or 4? Are you sure your group was keeping accurate count of their resources from each session to the next? Something had to be happening here. Maybe the players put weights into your D20s to make them roll low.