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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6535145" data-attributes="member: 42582">4e minions can benefit from combat advantage.This goes to the heart of what, if anything, hit points represent in the fiction of the game.Smaug was powerful enough to deal the same amount of damage as a dragon, yet was killed by a single arrow. One way of modelling that is to say that he had a single hit point.In the book A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged defeats young dragons with single spells, and with a single rake of his claws after shapechanging into a dragon. One way of modelling that would be to treat the young dragons as minions.Furthermore, any dragon in any edition of D&amp;D can be able to deal the same amount of damage as a dragon, yet have only 1 hp - for instance, if it has been in combat for a few rounds and had its other hit points ablated.I see minion status as analogous to the creature suffering from the &quot;unluck&quot; condition - instead of having a buffer of good fortune and skill to protect it before it becomes liable to a fatal blow, any blow that is struck against it will be, without doubt, a fatal one.Others, of course, see hit points differently. They probably shouldn't use minions! (And they have to deal with the opposite oddity - that it is possible for a person to kill a dragon, giant or whatever with a sword blow, but never with the first one.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6535145, member: 42582"] 4e minions can benefit from combat advantage. This goes to the heart of what, if anything, hit points represent in the fiction of the game. Smaug was powerful enough to deal the same amount of damage as a dragon, yet was killed by a single arrow. One way of modelling that is to say that he had a single hit point. In the book A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged defeats young dragons with single spells, and with a single rake of his claws after shapechanging into a dragon. One way of modelling that would be to treat the young dragons as minions. Furthermore, any dragon in any edition of D&D can be able to deal the same amount of damage as a dragon, yet have only 1 hp - for instance, if it has been in combat for a few rounds and had its other hit points ablated. I see minion status as analogous to the creature suffering from the "unluck" condition - instead of having a buffer of good fortune and skill to protect it before it becomes liable to a fatal blow, any blow that is struck against it will be, without doubt, a fatal one. Others, of course, see hit points differently. They probably shouldn't use minions! (And they have to deal with the opposite oddity - that it is possible for a person to kill a dragon, giant or whatever with a sword blow, but never with the first one.) [/QUOTE]

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