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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 5386420" data-attributes="member: 35909">Kinda busy today, so I'll just comment on two things.1st: 3E advances in "quartiles"; every 5 levels or so, the power level of the game has gradually changed into new areas.  Generally, 1-5 or 1-6 is considered the LotR, "realistic," or "gritty" levels, then the game feels more like heoric fantasy, then wuxia/wire-fu, and finally as you near epic, you're basically superheroes or even demi-gods in terms of power level.  So yeah, 4E is playable at level 20 or 30 and 3E often is not.  But that's only because they flattened out the advancement and cut a god chunk off of each end, limiting your play options.  I'm just not that impressed with it, you could accomplish the same thing for the most part in 3E by just starting at level X and slowing down the xp and treasure gains to make the game end before the PCs reach a power level you don't want them to.Minions: I HATED minion rules when I first saw them!  Especially insulting to my intelligence was that you could only kill them on a hit, even if on a miss you dealt damage.  That was a really needess distinction and prevented some nice synergy for powers like Reaping Strike when facing minions.  I mean, they're so easy to kill, why's it matter if a player has a power to auto-kill one, or the wizard can auto-kill a 20 ft area of them?  If the PCs have those kinds of abilities, let them shine...  getting back on track...Nowadays, I stil think they're abominable as used in 4E, but I have used similar rules for 3E games.  I found one singular use to justify minions: In a lot of videogames and movies, there are scenes where the enemies just continuously spawn and are insanely large in number.  They drop easily enough, but slaughtering them isn't the goal.  They're more of an added danger and annoyance, "background" to the actual goal.  Whether it's to kill an important NPC or evacuate someone, etc...  Once the goal is completed, the minions run away or surrender (think like how bashing a swarm in doesn't actually mean killing all the creatures in it, but merely dispersing them), or the PCs otherwise evade them, as appropriate to the encounter.  So, I use "minions" except instead of just 1 hp, I use a threshold, usually 5.  If you do 5 or more damage (regardless of if they saved, you missed, etc...), minion dies.  If you do less, it effectively gains a "wound point" and instantly dies the next time it takes damage, no matter the amount.  The minions as a whole add a set amount of XP/CR to a fight, it doesn't matter how they're dealt with by the PCs, they always will yield the pre-determined amount.  Dispatching them in droves just helps reduce the attacks the PCs recieve; accomplishing the goal faster likewise simply keeps the PCs from being beaten up as much.  I think it's pure absolute folly to actually assign minions individual xp values like they're normal monsters.  But as an encounter hazard for the entire lot of them, it's acceptable to me.</blockquote>

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