D&D 4E 4e Hourse Rule: Surprised minions -> Full warrior combat

[Hellzon]

But I would personally make a non-combat scene out of it, since you can rule there everything much freer and simpler then in the codified combat way (Hitpoints, Damge, etc.). Just make a Skill Challenge or a simple Skill/Attack Check and if they are successful then they manage to sneak by or cut their throats ...

This. If they're minions anyway, it doesn't invalidate the Rogue's Striker abilities, since everyone can kill those guys in one hit. Yay, Conan the Barbarian can infiltrate!

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I use a similar house rule, with exception that instead of outright killing those you surprise, you inflict maximum damage if you successfully hit. This works both for foes and player characters, and keeps the rules aligned equally for both parties.

 

[drjones]

I don't think any such rule is necessary. If you are setting up encounters where the pcs might be sneaking in you can decide at any moment weather the monster should drop in one hit or spin around ninja style and stick it to the thief.

The HP totals are there to balance combat. If combat is not what the narrative/fun demands then one shot the hell out of em but sometimes you will want combat to happen, because it is fun.

Otherwise the rule runs the show and any half smart group would walk into every encounter invisible and suddenly there is no combat anymore in your campaign, just coup-de-gras.

 

[Harshax]

Someone casually mentioned this idea in passing, and I thought it was a such a brilliant and elegant idea I wanted a thread to expand on it.

The idea is this, if a creature is surprised, it is treated like a minion (ie one shot one kill). However, when the creature is not surprised, it has the full hit points of a regular monster.

This is a great way to do stealth adventures in dnd. A party can go on assassinating missions, knowing they can easily whatever they attack. But they have to be constantly weary, because once the surprise wears off, 30 minions becomes 30 regular guys.

When I suggested the idea, I was specifically thinking of un-named foes. The guard in the tower (even the elite one), the thug in the warehouse, these characters would be viable for this kind of ruling. Farax the bodyguard, who has defended his liege against countless assassination attempts, would not be susceptible to 'minion deflation' because he was surprised. (call it prenatural instinct from his long years of experience)

I agree with other posters that it should be a secret rule, and it should primarily be used to tell a good story, and not let botched sneak attack rolls, or poor application of rules in published adventure modules wreck a good scene.

I do think the guideline is necessary. If the DM has presented a scene where stealth is a viable option, and sneak attack is a viable execution, then by all means treat the monsters as mooks. If the players decide that they want to charge into things and brute strength there way through, suddenly this scene presents them with an opportunity to reach a milestone (get an action point back) against unworthy foes.

 

[Rex Blunder]

Turning someone into a minion has other effects besides letting them be killed in 1 shot.

It changes their damage, which is unnecessary since unaware NPCs won't be attacking you.

It also reduces the XP award. This may or may not be desireable. I'd say it probably is unintended, since the idea is not to make stealth 1/4 as appealing as regular combat.

Therefore I'd say the "minion" thing is overkill, since all you care about is allowing oblivious NPCs to be one-shotted. Just decree that oblivious NPCs can be one-shotted.

Or use the "assassination success table" from the 1e PHB. It's time that table got some love.

 

[kennew142]

If this kind of rule suits your campaign style, I say go for it. IMC I wouldn't use it. I like there to be some chance of the PCs not being able to one shot just anyone. I like the chance that they could try to one shot a guard and find out that he's not so easily killed. And I should point out that all of my guards usually have names, just in case the party decides to talk to them.

The situation probably wouldn't arise IMC anyway. Most every guard the characters meet will likely be a minion, for the same reason that I use war 2 guards in my 13th level FR campaign. Most of the folks the party encounters aren't in their league. They can mow through common guards with relative ease. From a plot point, their presence just serves to slow the party down until a real response can be mustered.

I'm expecting 4e to handle this better than 3e does. A higher level minion can still have a reasonable chance to hit and damage the party than a low level warrior does, but he's much more easily defeated.

I guess my point is that I like to place minions where I want them and standard opponents where I want them, and I don't want a rule that changes this for me. Even if its a rule only I know about, I would be likely to follow it. Maybe we're talking semantics here, but if it were a guiding principal of GMing I would probably react better to it. I'm not opposed to altering an encounter to better fit the story, but calling it a rule (at least in my mind) implies that it is the standard, and not just something I can do to improve the story as it plays out.

I hope this rambling discourse makes sense.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Turning someone into a minion has other effects besides letting them be killed in 1 shot.

It changes their damage, which is unnecessary since unaware NPCs won't be attacking you.

It also reduces the XP award. This may or may not be desireable. I'd say it probably is unintended, since the idea is not to make stealth 1/4 as appealing as regular combat.

Therefore I'd say the "minion" thing is overkill, since all you care about is allowing oblivious NPCs to be one-shotted. Just decree that oblivious NPCs can be one-shotted.

Or use the "assassination success table" from the 1e PHB. It's time that table got some love.

Ideally, i would like to turn a stealth or fight scenario into a skill challenge that can "devolve" into a combat. I presume skill challenges are worth XP, too. If you miss to many of your skill rolls, enemies are alerted, and don't die in one hit: But it just happens that your enemies are worth exactly the same XP as the skill challenge... Or something like that (should there be a penalty if you want to try a skill challenge, but fail and fight?)

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Ideally, i would like to turn a stealth or fight scenario into a skill challenge that can "devolve" into a combat. I presume skill challenges are worth XP, too. If you miss to many of your skill rolls, enemies are alerted, and don't die in one hit: But it just happens that your enemies are worth exactly the same XP as the skill challenge... Or something like that (should there be a penalty if you want to try a skill challenge, but fail and fight?)

In most cases, the reward for stealth is saving yourself the resource expenditure of having to engage in pitched battle. I'd probably award progress towards a milestone, as well, just to make sure that cleverness is well rewarded. The exception to this would be a very-consciously-stealth centric mission, and even then only because being found would likely cause other elements of the plan to fall apart.

 

[MatrexsVigil]

For some monsters, I would allow it. However, if you killed them as a minion, you get the XP of a minion. Named monsters, Elite monsters, Solo monsters, and named/important NPCs would never be treated this way if I used this option. =)

-P.C.