(4e) How often do minions appear in your game?

[Crothian]

I think I use them too much. I like to have the fights were the PCs take out dozens of foes like in the old Bruce Lee movies. When the combants are humaniods there are more then likely mionions with them. But for the purely monster encounters I rarely seem to use minions. That's when I create the encounter on my own, if I'm using something published I stick to what they have.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I love me some minions but I don't think my players really understand them


I'll make a minion fight becuase it looks cool to have a whole horde, and the players will come in, and I'll describe how this one looks less armored, or this one looks weaker, or these are minions, doesn't matter, their like 16 enemies! run!

 

[chaotix42]

I'd say that 1 in 4 encounters I run feature minions in them.

 

[Grand_Director]

I use Minions in about a third of my encounters. It rewards the characters that are focused on clearing minions and also keeps some doubt about what is a minion or not. I don't identify minions out of the gate, I let my players figures that out for themselves in the course of the fight. I love it when the players jump into the thick of it with an area attack and nothing goes down..."uh oh".

 

[Dausuul]

As a DM, I love minions. They're a brilliant idea and I love being able to throw hordes of monsters at my PCs. I use them quite regularly.

I do think the minion rules need some work, mainly because they're not well integrated into the rest of the system - it's way too easy to nuke a dozen minions (using wall of fire, etc.) without even making an attack roll. Also, minion damage past the mid-heroic tier is seriously sub-par, so I generally crank it up by a factor of two or even three.

In general, though, I'm a big fan of minions. I'd say that at least 50% of my encounters involve them.

 

[Jack99]

I use minions in about 2 or 3 out of 4 fights.

 

[alleynbard]

I use minions fairly often. Currently I am running the H series of modules and have made a point to re-design encounters to include more minions to satisfy my controller. But I don't have any great love for them overall.

Interestingly, the wizard player was absolutely enthralled with Arcane Power and she asked me about a total rebuild so she could take some of the new stuff. These powers, and how she chooses to use them, seem more useful against traditional opponents, so now I am re-thinking how I handle encounters.

Most notably, her current favorite tactic is to summon storm pillars to reduce movement options for the enemies and then make more focused attacks against tough opponents. She also seems to enjoy powers like Force Orb that only grant a secondary attack as opposed to burst or blast effects.

I am not entirely sure why this shift happened, to be honest. What I do like about this change is the fact the team seems to be working more in concert with her powers (forced movement into the pillar, for instance).

There are some definite builds that will make you more effective in combats without minions. In fact, a lot of the summoning spells seem more inclined towards that kind of action. But I haven't examined the entire suite of powers to see if that impression holds up over the long term. There are also other spells in Arcane Power that inflict conditions and modifiers as opposed to sheer damage, and those are always helpful against standard opponents. So if your DM is leaning that way, and that sounds good to you, I would talk with him about working together towards that goal. That way you can get a good idea of what kind of build you need to remain effective.

 

[Obryn]

At least one out of every four fights or so. Not every fight, but it's not exactly rare, either.

-O

 

[Squizzle]

I apply minions with a shotgun. Almost every fightin' encounter includes them, and includes a lot of them. They're such a non-entity that I don't especially consider them in my encounter budget, though I do give players the benefit of their XP. I might change strategy with MM2-style minions, with higher damage and more significant nondamage effects, but I'll likely continuing including buckets of MM1-style minions in most encounters.

 

[Ktulu]

100% DM here, and I'd say probably about 80% of my encounters have minions in them. I think they're the perfect thug, zealot, and guard characters. It allows for a lot more enemies in a fight while beefing up the overall combat without making it too complicated.