LostSoul
Adventurer
Try making all future goblins and kobolds minions. That'll get the old feeling back.
Try making the fights important.
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11 Reasons Why I Prefer D&D 4E
- Thread starter Jürgen Hubert
- Start date
Try making all future goblins and kobolds minions. That'll get the old feeling back.
Try making the fights important.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
I think one thing that 4E is changing - there are no unimportant combats.
Where you might have considered running one encounter against two, one encounter against one, and one encounter against three monsters in earlier editions, each of them draining a few resources but none of them relevant overall, you have to re-think in 4E. These 6 monsters are actually one encounter. They do not necessarily cooperate in that encounter, but for example - one of them might be some kind of Lurker monster (maybe a Darkmantle?) stalking the PCs, looking for a moment of weakness. The two monsters might be some Goblins chatting about the recent raid while standing watch. If the PCs encounter them, they shout for help, alerting a Hobgoblin and his two goblin guards to their aid. The Lurker will use this moment to lash out at the party, looking for the most isolated foe (probably the Wizard or an Archer standing in the back).
The Keep on the Shadowfell encounters in the Kobold Cave is an interesting example. It it is a very difficult encounter that covers a wide area. The enemies are expected to arrive in two waves - the foes at the entrance behind the waterfall, and Irontooh and the Wyrmpriest as a second wave.
In 3E, you might have expanded the cave a little bit, and made the first wave one encounter, and would possibly have split the second wave into two encounters. (You certainly wouldn't be able to run 10 Kobolds against a 1st level party).
If you really want an unimportant combat in 4E, don't pick a full selection of enemies that make up an encounter of their level. Don't use 4 regular Goblins for an inconsequential encounter - use 4 Minions. No, you won't achieve tapping out the expected encounter budgets this ways, but if you were doing that, you're no longer talking about an inconsequential encounter.
Where you might have considered running one encounter against two, one encounter against one, and one encounter against three monsters in earlier editions, each of them draining a few resources but none of them relevant overall, you have to re-think in 4E. These 6 monsters are actually one encounter. They do not necessarily cooperate in that encounter, but for example - one of them might be some kind of Lurker monster (maybe a Darkmantle?) stalking the PCs, looking for a moment of weakness. The two monsters might be some Goblins chatting about the recent raid while standing watch. If the PCs encounter them, they shout for help, alerting a Hobgoblin and his two goblin guards to their aid. The Lurker will use this moment to lash out at the party, looking for the most isolated foe (probably the Wizard or an Archer standing in the back).
The Keep on the Shadowfell encounters in the Kobold Cave is an interesting example. It it is a very difficult encounter that covers a wide area. The enemies are expected to arrive in two waves - the foes at the entrance behind the waterfall, and Irontooh and the Wyrmpriest as a second wave.
In 3E, you might have expanded the cave a little bit, and made the first wave one encounter, and would possibly have split the second wave into two encounters. (You certainly wouldn't be able to run 10 Kobolds against a 1st level party).
If you really want an unimportant combat in 4E, don't pick a full selection of enemies that make up an encounter of their level. Don't use 4 regular Goblins for an inconsequential encounter - use 4 Minions. No, you won't achieve tapping out the expected encounter budgets this ways, but if you were doing that, you're no longer talking about an inconsequential encounter.
Yeah... that's a great idea... except we're running bought modules from the company that makes the game. This isn't a case of the DM assigning the wrong creatures to a combat. It's KotS played straight as it is written.
And in the battles where we have had minions (mostly in the kobold lair adventure) they were a complete let down from my perspective.
While this isn't how the conversation went, this is how it felt.
Player: I rolled a 19 to hit
DM: Ok, It's dead
Player: But I haven't worked out the damage
DM: It's dead
Player: But... I didn't get to roll my dice?!
DM: I don't care, it's dead. It's the next person's turn now.
Player: What happened to my turn?
DM: You had your turn, you killed a minion.
Player: But I didn't actually DO anything!
What's the point of having all these wonderful powers if the creature is just dead regardless? Why bother having 2W or 3W if you don't know how much damage you actually dealt, or in many cases, how much of an overkill the attack was. Determining how tough the mooks are is an important part of combat. Knowing in advance that all of the mooks have 1 HP is a serious let down. No longer do we need to wear down the first couple to determine how much power to expend on the remaining creatures.
This to me is a fault in the game. There needs to be some unimportant combats. How else does the party get to test out combinations or learn to work together prior to the really dangerous combats? How else does the DM wear down the party's resources little by little instead of lot by lot? Where are the niggling little combats that take away a few hit points and make you wonder if it's worth a cure spell or not?Mustrum_Ridcully said:
So far from what I've seen the characters are getting mashed to a pulp in every encounter. This doesn't sit right with me.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
The "toughness" of Minions is determined by their defenses, attacks and the damage they deal. If you see you hit a Minion with a roll of an 8, it's not that tough, if you need a 14, it is.
Wearing down is reserved for regular monsters.
The encounters of the parties level should not be encounters that mash them to a pulp. Assuming they still survive them, they should figure out what was going wrong. Sometimes you have to learn stuff in important combats.
Important doesn't have to mean "deadly". It mostly means that it should deserve the time spent on it, because it brings people one tenth to their next level.
D'karr
Adventurer
If I had been introduced to the "Minion Mechanic" in that fashion I probably would be disappointed too. I see your point and it makes great sense. However, I think that DMs do a great disservice to the players with poor presentation. IMO the example you provide is simply a DM giving a poor presentation.
The minions are there to make the bookkeeping easier on the DM and make the combat more exciting. So it is the DMs job to use the tool (minion) to make the combat more exciting. If the DM presents it as a run of the mill, "it doesn't matter what your great tactics were, you splat him." Of course the encounter with minions is going to be unexciting.
I think the DM's guide or the Monster Manual should include a section on running combats with minions. It should include the pros and cons of letting the players know ahead of time which combatants are minions. It should probably include a section on the "philosophy" of minions. And it should definitely include a section on how to describe an exciting combat with minions.
If the DMs descriptions of combat devolve to "you hit it, it dies" then no matter what you are fighting, minion or solo, those combats are going to be crappy and unexciting. Is that a fault of the system? Not really, but I think that a little more guidance should be included so that DMs know what to avoid in their combats, and boring descriptions would top my list.
Jack99
Adventurer
One trick I have learned as a DM of 4e, is to always let players roll damage, and then announce afterwards if the monster died. Try it.
Ginnel
Explorer
Don't know what other peoples experiences are, but from playing through KotS we've had around 5-6 really challenging fights out of 20 encounters and are now 4th level, we've had the chance to try out all our moves and its taken 12 sessions so far, one thing which I will express is that it doesn't do 10ft corridor fights very well they come off as boring and I can't wait to get another open fight again.
Minions are fine and I think used quite well in the adventure, I think the problem with people saying the monsters are tough is that your thinking in old edition terms if it helps make all the kobolds with hit points into orcs and hobgoblins and have minions as actual kobolds or just pretend that these kobolds have class levels.
The way 4th edition works is that it balances each fight against a party that has all it's encounter powers and full hit points and a healing surge or two to spend, to really make it life or death pump up the challenge rating to party level + 3 or 4.
Another thing is our group's defenders regularly run out of healing surges which I've seen loads of people saying doesn't happen, we keep going until theres either an in character plot reason for us to, if someone goes down to 0 hit points they retreat to the back and start with the ranged basics, if someone goes unconcious or a fight is overwhelming or its night time then we'll retreat or rest.
Minions are fine and I think used quite well in the adventure, I think the problem with people saying the monsters are tough is that your thinking in old edition terms if it helps make all the kobolds with hit points into orcs and hobgoblins and have minions as actual kobolds or just pretend that these kobolds have class levels.
The way 4th edition works is that it balances each fight against a party that has all it's encounter powers and full hit points and a healing surge or two to spend, to really make it life or death pump up the challenge rating to party level + 3 or 4.
Another thing is our group's defenders regularly run out of healing surges which I've seen loads of people saying doesn't happen, we keep going until theres either an in character plot reason for us to, if someone goes down to 0 hit points they retreat to the back and start with the ranged basics, if someone goes unconcious or a fight is overwhelming or its night time then we'll retreat or rest.
Fifth Element
Legend
The post you were attempting to refute referred to what the rules assume. The rules assume you use CR/EL as intended. You may not use them, but the rules assume you do. Your choice to ignore them is irrelevant to the point.
Fifth Element
Legend
I haven't DMed 4E yet, but I have used minions in 3E. It should be bloody obvious me that you don't tell the players which monsters are the minions. You should be rolling damage with each hit...in fact, isn't there advice to players to roll damage dice at the same time as the attack?
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
In my test one-shots, I made clear which enemies the minions were from the start. And the PCs really enjoyed cutting them down. And it wasn't unimportant - after all, every minion increased the odds of the enemies being able to flank the PCs, increased their changes of dealing attacks of opportunities, and so on.
It also allowed the PCs to do something important without wasting their daily and encounter powers. Perhaps that's where all the complaints about "slugfests" come from - if there are no minions in a fight, then it's understandable why the PCs use up these powers much quicker.
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