Are minions dangerous enough?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, 'tough' minions at 5+1/2 level are a pretty decent solution for parties where you have characters that can just mop up with wide ranging autodamage and whatnot.

Minions definitely are more dangerous at low levels, but I think they work reasonably well up into paragon. Eventually they do just become mooks though. The ones with ranged attacks or 'bomb' mechanics being somewhat better. Another use that comes up a good bit with minions is flanking, AA, or performing Heal checks on 'real' monsters. Overall minions work well, but you do need to consider each situation and what you want to get out of them.

In terms of what the OP is looking for, I think minions can be pretty handy for this kind of thing. I generally mix in a standard monster, or make the situation "minions with a standard or two coming in later" or something like that. Each situation is unique, I don't think there's really a single formula. I had a little mini-crawl for some level 2 PCs a couple weeks ago. I started out with 3 level 1 monsters (so a really weak encounter, but the monsters got surprise, so they actually did some good damage to the rogue). The next encounter was 3 level 3 minions and a level 2 swarm. Then a couple tricks and traps and a puzzle, and then a couple slimes and an ooze, which again was IIRC a bit of an underleveled encounter. Another trap, and then a full level+1 encounter at the end. The whole thing worked pretty well. The PCs went through it all from end-to-end. A couple of them were pretty beat up by the end of it, and they had fun. It seemed to have a pretty good 'old school crawl' feel. 4e is a bit more forgiving at low levels than AD&D would be, but that seemed OK to me.

 

[KarinsDad]

I've found minions with ranged attacks very dangerous due to focus fire.

Minions do more damage per point of XP than regular monsters, at least with their at-will attacks (which means 4 artillery minions could dish out frightful damage). A 1st-level minion usually does 4 damage, while a 1st-level monster usually does 9 damage, thus 4 minions can do more damage than a monster of equal XP in one round (they would dish out 16 damage, just under twice as much), with the same attack bonuses. Of course, minions don't last as long and usually don't have encounter powers. I wonder if the relationship holds at higher levels.

This is only consistently true if the party has few or no multi-foe powers. Minion damage is ablative for a given encounter since a fraction of the XP and hence a fraction of the increased damage diminishes as each minion is killed.

It usually takes 3 non-striker hits to take a standard monster out and 2 striker hits to take a standard monster out at low level.

So with a 65% chance to hit a same level foe and 3 hits kill it, and a 50% chance of the monster hitting the PC, a first level non-striker vs. one standard monster yields: the PC kills the monster in 4.5 rounds, the monster does 20 points of damage to the PC in those same 4.5 rounds.

With a 65% chance to hit a same level foe and 4 hits kill 4 minions, and a 50% chance of each minion hitting the PC, a first level non-striker vs. 4 minions yields: the PC kills a minion every 1.5 rounds, the minions do 8 points of damage for 1.5 rounds, 6 points of damage for 1.5 rounds, etc. for a total of 30 average damage in 6 rounds.

But, even attacking 2 minions per attack (with Arc Lightning or some other multi-foe power) results in 30 average damage dropping to 15 instead (Cleave actually is better than this because it tends to drop 2 minions per successful hit). The more minions targeted by a given power, the faster they drop and the less average damage they do. This is why Hand of Radiance is such a potent minion killer power (in addition to being a semi-solid area power vs. non-minions).

For PCs prepared for minions, they are typically a nuisance at worse and that's why some DMs create their own version of tougher minions.

 

[Neonchameleon]

How dangerous minions are really depends on how many bursts/blasts the party has. One wizard with Enlarge Spell and Freezing Burst does Burst 2 (i.e. 25 squares) on an At Will - this on its own is almost enough to drive minions off the battlefield. The triple attack at wills of Hand of Radiance, Magic Stone, and the assassin's shuriken attack are bad enough.

On the other hand if the party is a purely martial party with e.g. a thief, a knight, a warlord and a hunter, minions are fine as it stands. Only the hunter's going to be killing more than two in a round and then only if they bunch up (or do silly things to provoke the knight when he can).

More than just about anything else in 4e and the PC's choices change the effectiveness of minions - and if the DM likes minions, the PCs will adapt and pick methods of taking them out by the boatload. To pick one example, S'mon loves using them by the dozen (three dozen minions in a fight having happened several times in a campaign), meaning that Invokers, Wizards, and anything that does autodamage zones are strongly encouraged - and even when people use single target classes like Warlocks and Hexblades we do nasty things like give the Hexblade an autodamage zone around herself or have the Warlock make the minions explode. And no, I don't consider preparing yourself for the world (especially once the campaign has already started) anything other than sensible in character and out.

And for the record I definitely do not support giving minions hit points - it penalises all the wrong things. It won't really slow the Enlarged Freezing Bursts as that damage scales, but on the other hand it makes Cleave - a power designed for minion killing - an utterly useless power. On the other hand giving minions interrupts or reaction powers to get out of areas of attack (as lizardman and kobold minions to my certain knowledge do) goes some way to solving underlying problems.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Things I have done over the years to make minions more dangerous:

* You see 6 monsters, all represented by the same miniature or token. 4 of them are minions and 2 are standards. Which is which? Not even the DM knows. (The first time a monster takes damage, I roll a die to see which kind it is, until they're all accounted for.) Purpose: prevents players meta-gaming the fact that they know minions only require 1 damage to kill.

* Minions with resist all. Scale the resist to be about half of what a PC of that level can deal with a reasonable at-will attack.
Purpose: makes the minions much tougher to kill and keeps them around for multiple rounds if the PCs roll crappy damage. (Maybe too swingy, but I like it.) Gives the PCs a reason to unload Encounter or Daily powers on a group of minions, because those are generally 2[W] or 3[W] attacks that have a better chance of exceeding the resistance.

Note: minions with resist all are not the same as minions with temporary hp. I find resist all much easier to track because I only need to keep one number in mind, and I don't mark off hp for the minions.

* Minions that deal the damage of a regular attack power for a standard monster; e.g., something like 1d8+5 or 2d6+4 or whatever.
Purpose: really messes with the players' heads, because the lack of static damage generally signifies "not a minion". Also, hard-hitting minions are VERY scary, ESPECIALLY at range. (I once used a bunch of hobgoblin archer minions and had the players ready to crap their pants.)

* Infinite minions / minion generators. You see 6 minions. You kill them. Next round, 6 more arrive. You kill 3 of them. Next round, 6 more arrive, 9 total. Etc.
Purpose: keeps up the pressure on the PCs, and gets them to focus on beating the encounter (disrupt the ritual, steal the McGuffin, save the princess, flip the switch, whatever) rather than killing monsters. Also encourages use of walls/zones in strategic areas, or establishing an actual battle line to prevent minions from getting past.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

As you can see from the previous messages in this thread, there are probably as many different ways of dealing with minions as there are 4E DMs. My own house rules for minions ramp up their lethality significantly, making them a threat at all levels.

My principle for minion design is that they're exactly the same as an "ordinary" monster of their level and role, with a lot fewer hit points. What this means is:

Minions have hp equal to their level. This means that they are not automatic "insta-kills" for AoEs, auras, auto-damage etc., but a reasonably high roll on an AoE attack can still kill them. However, a minion who is hit by a melee attack is immediately reduced to 0 hit points (irrespective of how many hit points they had to start with).

Minions have a role - artillery, brute, soldier etc. This means that they have defences for a monster of the relevant role, and abilities geared towards that role.

Minions do full damage. That is, they roll for damage, using a damage expression that they would have if they were an "ordinary" monster of their particular level and role (i.e. one that results in an average damage of 8+level, with modifiers for "brutishness", AoE etc.).

Thus, for example, a 10th level ogre minion brute might have stats: 10hp (a minion hit by a melee attack is immediately reduced to 0hp); AC 22, Fort 24, Ref 22, Will 19; greatclub attack reach 2, +15 vs. AC, 2d10+12 damage and push 1 square.

This has certainly made for some interesting fights!

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[S'mon]

More than just about anything else in 4e and the PC's choices change the effectiveness of minions - and if the DM likes minions, the PCs will adapt and pick methods of taking them out by the boatload. To pick one example, S'mon loves using them by the dozen (three dozen minions in a fight having happened several times in a campaign), meaning that Invokers, Wizards, and anything that does autodamage zones are strongly encouraged - and even when people use single target classes like Warlocks and Hexblades we do nasty things like give the Hexblade an autodamage zone around herself or have the Warlock make the minions explode. And no, I don't consider preparing yourself for the world (especially once the campaign has already started) anything other than sensible in character and out.

Personally I love seeing the PCs incinerate hordes of minions. What I don't like is crappy area-effect spell design where you roll to hit vs umpteen minions, but then the survivors all auto-die anyway at start of turn - what was the effin point of wasting all that time on attacks rolls, then?

I think Neonchameleon thought my Damage Threshold rule was because I didn't like seeing minions die so fast, but really it was for versimilitude - and when I tried to go back to 1 hp minions the other 'Southlands' players revolted. A DT does hurt Cleave, but since I also allowed damage-on-miss it boosted Reaping Strike, a greatsword Fighter could (and did) auto-kill a 1st level minion with RS and Bloody higher level ones.

 

[S'mon]

* Infinite minions / minion generators. You see 6 minions. You kill them. Next round, 6 more arrive. You kill 3 of them. Next round, 6 more arrive, 9 total. Etc.
Purpose: keeps up the pressure on the PCs, and gets them to focus on beating the encounter (disrupt the ritual, steal the McGuffin, save the princess, flip the switch, whatever) rather than killing monsters. Also encourages use of walls/zones in strategic areas, or establishing an actual battle line to prevent minions from getting past.

My one experience as a player of the infinite minion generator was an appallingly tedious grind. I recommend against it.

 

[Joshua Randall]

My one experience as a player of the infinite minion generator was an appallingly tedious grind. I recommend against it.

Diff'rent strokes, then. I find it enjoyably stressful as both a player and a DM.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Personally I love seeing the PCs incinerate hordes of minions. What I don't like is crappy area-effect spell design where you roll to hit vs umpteen minions, but then the survivors all auto-die anyway at start of turn - what was the effin point of wasting all that time on attacks rolls, then?

I think Neonchameleon thought my Damage Threshold rule was because I didn't like seeing minions die so fast, but really it was for versimilitude - and when I tried to go back to 1 hp minions the other 'Southlands' players revolted. A DT does hurt Cleave, but since I also allowed damage-on-miss it boosted Reaping Strike, a greatsword Fighter could (and did) auto-kill a 1st level minion with RS and Bloody higher level ones.

I did think it was put in for that reason. But then I see little wrong with mook rules with 1hp as long as they are presented as mooks. Hmm... on thinking about it most of my objection would be fixed if you replaced the side effect on certain powers like cleave as instead of "Stat modifier damage" as "Bloodies a minion or kills an already bloodied one".

My one experience as a player of the infinite minion generator was an appallingly tedious grind. I recommend against it.

My experiences of running it have done well - as long as there were ways of stopping it. One of my big bosses was a living fire who had three modes. The first mode he left small sentient fires wherever he passed (solution: defender and slow powers). Second mode didn't create minions. Third mode was a raging inferno which spread in any direction no one was beating it back, creating a minion each turn on each unoccupied side of him (solution: surround and stamp out the minions before they formed - of course that had issues of its own).

It took a long time to run that fight - but it was a capstone.

 

[Ryujin]

My one experience as a player of the infinite minion generator was an appallingly tedious grind. I recommend against it.

It's not that bad if your minion generator is a creature, rather than an object. It didn't take long for my players to figure out that it was the undead leader type who was summoning the dead from the surrounding graves, at which point focus fire dropped him like a rock.