FireLance
Legend
In this thread, Celtavian highlighted some grievances he had with with 4e. This got me thinking about whether it was possible to come up with simple fixes to the D&D rules to address the issues he had. Although Celtavian himself is unlikely to ever read this thread, these fixes may be useful to gamers who do want to keep playing 4e, but have similar issues with the game.
First off, minions. Celtavian had this to say:
[SBLOCK]Is there anything less satisfying (save perhaps a missed attack, especially a missed encounter power or daily) than killing a minion? This has to be one of the most unsatisfying combat acts in the game.
It doesn’t matter if it is a human rabble, an ogre minion, a lvl 9 orc warrior minion, a demon minion, or any other kind of minion in the game, they die with one hit of anything.
Here’s what I see when I see a minion:
Wizard casts a scorching blast leveling five demon minions. Oh, he feels powerful.
Fighter cleaves with his +6 great axe and kills two demon minions. Boy, what a hit. He feels tough.
Rogue decides to punch a minion with his fist (just for kicks) and he kills a demon minion. That was some punch of the fist. Good job rogue. You just had the same effect as a +6 great axe and that uber wizard Scorching blast.
Small boy picks up a rock and tosses it at a demon minion. He gets a lucky hit and kills the minion. Wow, he one upped even the rogue.
On top of that, it is more efficient, and I see no reason why the players wouldn’t eventually surmise this with wizards having a 20 intel and warlords being tactical masters on the battlefield, to have wizards drop at will AoE directly on top of defenders when wiping out minions as they get higher level. Scorching blast does pittance damage even with a powerful implement compared to the hit points a player will have as he levels. For that one scorching blast you eliminate a ton of potential damage as well as extra abilities based on the number of allies from the battlefield, and do minimal damage to your own ally. Heck, why not carry a +1 implement on you just to make sure you don’t hit your ally too hard. When it becomes a better option to drop that oh so powerful scorching blast directly on top of the defender to wipe out all those fearsome demon or ogre minions while doing pittance damage to your defender, that is just wrong.
I will never wrap my head around the idea of this. It makes wizard AoE look like a friggin joke. A pathetic joke with very little sting.
This is a class that used to be able to destroy armies of giants or demons, not soft one hit point minions, but fairly sizeable hit point giants and demons that were formidable in their own right. Minions are the ultimate trash mob. A total waste of time and barely any waste of resources other than a few rounds of weak, wizard at will AoE.
I understand the concept of minions. I utterly hate the actual feel of them as a DM and feel ultimately unsatisfied killing them as a player.[/SBLOCK]The 1 hp minion is a bookkeeping simplification so that DMs don't have to keep track of how many hit points each individual minion has. A minion basically exists in a binary state: either it is alive, or it is dead. Still, this simplification can cause gameplay issues as indicated above.
For DMs that don't like the idea of basic attacks killing 1 hp minions and aren't too concerned about the additional bookkeeping, I wonder if the following house rule would work:
First off, minions. Celtavian had this to say:
[SBLOCK]Is there anything less satisfying (save perhaps a missed attack, especially a missed encounter power or daily) than killing a minion? This has to be one of the most unsatisfying combat acts in the game.
It doesn’t matter if it is a human rabble, an ogre minion, a lvl 9 orc warrior minion, a demon minion, or any other kind of minion in the game, they die with one hit of anything.
Here’s what I see when I see a minion:
Wizard casts a scorching blast leveling five demon minions. Oh, he feels powerful.
Fighter cleaves with his +6 great axe and kills two demon minions. Boy, what a hit. He feels tough.
Rogue decides to punch a minion with his fist (just for kicks) and he kills a demon minion. That was some punch of the fist. Good job rogue. You just had the same effect as a +6 great axe and that uber wizard Scorching blast.
Small boy picks up a rock and tosses it at a demon minion. He gets a lucky hit and kills the minion. Wow, he one upped even the rogue.
On top of that, it is more efficient, and I see no reason why the players wouldn’t eventually surmise this with wizards having a 20 intel and warlords being tactical masters on the battlefield, to have wizards drop at will AoE directly on top of defenders when wiping out minions as they get higher level. Scorching blast does pittance damage even with a powerful implement compared to the hit points a player will have as he levels. For that one scorching blast you eliminate a ton of potential damage as well as extra abilities based on the number of allies from the battlefield, and do minimal damage to your own ally. Heck, why not carry a +1 implement on you just to make sure you don’t hit your ally too hard. When it becomes a better option to drop that oh so powerful scorching blast directly on top of the defender to wipe out all those fearsome demon or ogre minions while doing pittance damage to your defender, that is just wrong.
I will never wrap my head around the idea of this. It makes wizard AoE look like a friggin joke. A pathetic joke with very little sting.
This is a class that used to be able to destroy armies of giants or demons, not soft one hit point minions, but fairly sizeable hit point giants and demons that were formidable in their own right. Minions are the ultimate trash mob. A total waste of time and barely any waste of resources other than a few rounds of weak, wizard at will AoE.
I understand the concept of minions. I utterly hate the actual feel of them as a DM and feel ultimately unsatisfied killing them as a player.[/SBLOCK]The 1 hp minion is a bookkeeping simplification so that DMs don't have to keep track of how many hit points each individual minion has. A minion basically exists in a binary state: either it is alive, or it is dead. Still, this simplification can cause gameplay issues as indicated above.
For DMs that don't like the idea of basic attacks killing 1 hp minions and aren't too concerned about the additional bookkeeping, I wonder if the following house rule would work:
HP: A minion has hp equal to 1/4 Constitution score + 2 x (Level + 1); see also minion weakness
Minion Weakness
A minion that is hit by a power higher than its level is reduced to 0 hp instantly.
This gives minions basic hit points equal to one quarter that of a standard monster, and requires the PCs to use higher-level powers to instantly kill them. It does shift the balance of minions slightly, but not game-breakingly so, I think.Minion Weakness
A minion that is hit by a power higher than its level is reduced to 0 hp instantly.
