Another awesome scenario made feasible by minions

[Irda Ranger]

Actually, that's not true. They have special abilities keyed off their minion status that are level-appropriate to PCs of the level they'll be facing, and plenty of other goodies.

The Minions I've seen got a +1 damage every 5 level bump.

Plus, it's Occam's razor. Far better rules design to take a CR 12 monster with interesting capabilities and simply knock its hp down than do scale up a CR 1/4 monster's AC, BAB, defenses, checks, etc.

But that's the only difference between CR 12 and CR 1/2 - dmg, HP, AC, Saves, etc.

Plus CR 1/4 monsters in 3x generally don't have abilities that people playing 12th-level campaigns would find interesting, which is not the case with 12th-level minions.

This is true. They'd just Fly over him.

Have you done it, though? Has anyone ever done it in 3E?!

Something like it. It's occurred to me, I'm pretty sure my DM in my Iron Heroes group has done it, and it seems RSKEnnon has.

It is a "after-market add-on", and anyone that would have created it before 4E would probably have been dog-piled on by hundreds of angry 3E fans, including me.

Huh? I don't need EN World's approval or really care what the Rule Forum thinks. The only dog-piling I'd need to worry about is at my gaming table.

Aside from the fact that there are serious practical limitations. Do you know your PCs attack bonus and ACs? Do you really want to look at their sheets for that? I don't like much doing it for Spot and Listen modifiers, though at least I know that I am comparing their values against a set DC or modifier that I didn't change based on what they have.

You don't keep a crib sheet of all the values of your PCs? I thought everyone did that, if only so you don't have to ask "What's your Spot check?" every 10 minutes.

Oh, and off course, what's the CR? Character Level -4? If I was still in 3E mind-set, *shudder* is what I'd do.

Honestly, I hadn't given it any thought. CR is so wonky anyway I don't worry about it often. That's one of the reasons Quest XP is so useful.

 

[Blackeagle]

If the creature is unaware of you at the time you attack, it's a minion.

The moment the creature become aware of you, it's a standard monster.

Schrodinger's Minion?

Seriously though, that seems like a good idea.

 

[Saitou]

I've thought of implenting this as a Skill Encounter to succesfully assassinate an enemy. Fail the challenge, and it turns into a combat encounter.

Although Schrödinger's Minion, as mentioned above, is also very nice.

 

[Blackeagle]

3E philosophy: the rules are a framework for building the world. Where this conflicts with gaming needs, houserule or handwave.

4E philosophy: the rules are a framework for running the game. Where this conflicts with world building needs, houserule or handwave.

If you spend more time running a game than world building, this is a net gain.

I love world building, but I'm really looking forward to 4e. I think it'll be much better for my kind of world building than 3e because it seems like it's going to be much easier to adjust the rules to the kind of world I want. If I want to ditch magic items or the divine power source, it's easy. In 3e everything was so interrelated that removing subsystems or changing major rules had all sorts of unintended consequences.

3e World Building Philosophy: Fixing discrepancies between the rules and the world you want is a major headache, so the world ends up flowing from the rules.

4e World Building Philosophy: Fixing discrepancies between the rules and the world you want is easy, so the rules end up flowing from the world.

I prefer the latter.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The Minions I've seen got a +1 damage every 5 level bump.



But that's the only difference between CR 12 and CR 1/2 - dmg, HP, AC, Saves, etc.



This is true. They'd just Fly over him.



Something like it. It's occurred to me, I'm pretty sure my DM in my Iron Heroes group has done it, and it seems RSKEnnon has.



Huh? I don't need EN World's approval or really care what the Rule Forum thinks. The only dog-piling I'd need to worry about is at my gaming table.

Probably not. But if a lot of players wouldn't like it in a sourcebook, how would they accept it of their DM?

You don't keep a crib sheet of all the values of your PCs? I thought everyone did that, if only so you don't have to ask "What's your Spot check?" every 10 minutes.

Honestly, I often do not do it, and let them just roll. There are only few situations where it changes much. Usually it doesn't really matter if the players see my rolling or roll themselves. (Ambush/Surprise? Just because the players are not surprised doesn't mean I cut their characters some slack )
But I also wrote values down, from time to time. I actually think with passive Perception checks, I might do it more often.

Honestly, I hadn't given it any thought. CR is so wonky anyway I don't worry about it often. That's one of the reasons Quest XP is so useful.

CR is wonky, yes. But it wasn't supposed to be. I am fine with handling XP by Quest XP or possibly even arbitrarily leveling (don't know about my players, though ). But I want to use a measurement guideline to know if what I send at my players is too tough or too easy, or where in between!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I've thought of implenting this as a Skill Encounter to succesfully assassinate an enemy. Fail the challenge, and it turns into a combat encounter.

Although Schrödinger's Minion, as mentioned above, is also very nice.

I like both approaches. Use the skill challenge to cover the difference in XP between Minion and regular monster.

 

[Scribble]

The "Minion Template" is "Set HP to 1; Set AC high enough PC's need to roll a 10 or better to hit; Set BAB high enough it can hit the PC on a 10 or better." You can apply this Template to any monster in 3E.

And things like feats and spells? What's the standard modifier number?

Again, I'm not saying you "can't" achieve the same idea in 3e, but making a template that effects all monsters the same would be tough if not impossible. (Things like BAB being different per level based on the monster, or power level being keyed off of extra goodies like spells and such... ) you wouldn't be able to take one number like +12 to all attacks etc, because it's different based on creature type.

One of the reasons they had prerequisites for templates... They were designed based on certain numbers coming from certain monsters.

Which is what I meant by the class/race being seperated is what makes minion special. Things like BAB are based off of the minion class and not the creature type which makes turning pretty much ANYTHING into a minion if you need it possible without a lot of wiggling.

I guess. It just seems like some people are excited that they "can do" something now when they could always do it (and quite easily). The only difference is it's a standard feature now rather than a really simple after-market add-on.

Well, it's built into the rules now, and therefore easier to use, and will get used more. This means more options. More options means more tastes catered too... Which means better for D&D.

The parts of 4E I'm excited about are the things that the devs have done which are really, really hard. I can tell you the single chart I am looking forward to the most: the one which spells out the BAB, Defenses, HP and Dmg for every possible monster, organized by Level and Role. There's no way I could design that chart myself, or write up 60+ fun and balanced powers for each class in the game. Minions are easy; that is hard.

oh hellz yeah. Designer Transparency is something I'm REALLY liking about 4e. 3e always peeved me off ebcause for a lot of the stuff I could see there was an underlying system, yet my math foo couldn't always figure out what it was.

I think this is almost directly responsible for the flood of crummy products that came out. People just didn't see or couldn't figure out the systems, so they didn't use them.

Since the designers seem to be pretty transparent about their methods and systems.. I think we'll see a lot more well made product out of the door this time around.

Agreeing with this, but with one nit-pick: they've recognized that the class/race needs of the monsters are DIFFERENT than that of the PCs, in order to make the game run easier. 3.X had the race/class for monsters thing, but it was the exact same class structure as the PCs had, which caused extra headaches.

Eh I agree to the first part... Which is as it should be in my opinion.

As for the 3.5 part... I disagree. A monster in 3e with a class on it was essentially a multiclass thing. Like you had levels of abomination + levels of whatever class you wanted to tack on...