Rule of Three: 20/3/12

[Mattachine]

As others have said, the minion mechanic is more about making an encounter easy for DMs to run than anything else.

I had a negative vibe from each part of that Rule of Three:

1. Minions--keeping the one hit kill, but possibly not their other useful aspects
2. Alignment--suggesting that Unaligned goes away, keeping mechanical effects as a default--what happened to starting simple and adding to that?
3. Class Mechanics--multiple attacks for the fighter/rogue--cool, except for slowing down combats; didn't Mike Mearls design Iron Heroes and all that?

 

[Hassassin]

That's still miss damage. The whole Saving Throw/NAD thing is the same bloody math done in reverse for people who are easily distracted. The only possible difference is crits and fumbles.

There is a difference between attack rolls that depend on your skill (level in 4e) and saving throws that only depend on the target's skill (AD&D saves). 3e is sort of an amalgamation of the two in that (I think) the result is supposed to mostly depend on the target's skill, but in practice it works like an attack roll in reverse.

In any case, I think they should reduce unavoidable effects like "miss damage" in general. They just make combat more deterministic. Fighters can live without miss damage, so spellcasters can too.

 

[Mattachine]

4e's rolls depend on attacker attack skill and defender's skill, just as in 3e; the difference is in who is making the roll.

I agree that miss damage is not needed--I think it was an outgrowth of two things: mitigating when a magic-user attack spell failed in AD&D and providing a game mechanical way of saying "You were in the blast of a fireball, so you are going to take some damage no matter what."

What to do? Remove miss damage in general, and make some effects inflict less damage but offer no save or require no attack roll. Both would speed play. Both would also remove/reduce design space.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm already giving my "minions" evasion to everything now. Miss damage? Not in my game.

DDN Houserules begin today.

 

[BobTheNob]

Minion rules...meh. Couldn't give a rats either way.

Now, what they mentioned about fighters and rogue...ooo baby,now that is what I wanted to hear. It's funny reading some previous posts were people were saying they didn't like the idea. Just goes to show how opinions can divide.

 

[Iosue]

1. Minions--keeping the one hit kill, but possibly not their other useful aspects
2. Alignment--suggesting that Unaligned goes away, keeping mechanical effects as a default--what happened to starting simple and adding to that?

What other useful aspects to minions have that will not be present in the model suggested?

And isn't "unaligned" just another name for "neutral"? I know that one could play the true neutral alignment as pro-active for balance, but in most games I've played and seen "neutral" just meant "unaligned".

 

[Hassassin]

And isn't "unaligned" just another name for "neutral"? I know that one could play the true neutral alignment as pro-active for balance, but in most games I've played and seen "neutral" just meant "unaligned".

Yeah, and if you want to highlight that you don't care about that balance nonsense you can be CN.

 

[gweinel]

I am the only one who didn't like the minions as presented in 4e?
I always had found em a bit artificial, a bit gamey. Although i can see the merit as concept, the way that this concept was materialised didn't appeal to me. The new approach - less gamey - seems better imho.

 

[erleni]

I am the only one who didn't like the minions as presented in 4e?
I always had found em a bit artificial, a bit gamey. Although i can see the merit as concept, the way that this concept was materialised didn't appeal to me. The new approach - less gamey - seems better imho.

I'm with you (and I'm a big fan of 4e). And honestly running a standard monster in 4e is not much more difficult than running a minion.

 

[avin]

1. Minions have been used for a long time in my games, since before 4E. They may work like 4E or something else, don't care, I can change them on the fly.

2. Aligments must come back but must also be optional. I'm not a fan of spells such as Detect Evil...

3. Maneuvers probably being some of the at will stuff from 4E.