D&D 3E/3.5 Converting 4E Minion Concept to 3.5E ???

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Has anyone considered this? Are there any threads on it?

Not looking for specific creature conversions, just the how-to.

 

[szilard]

Reduce hit points to 1.
Reduce CR by 2.


-Stuart

 

[Nifft]

Also, add Evasion and Mettle.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Corsair]

Reduce hit points to 1.
Reduce CR by 2.


-Stuart

Of course something like Acid Fog, or even magic missile will mow through them.

 

[Dragonwriter]

Of course something like Acid Fog, or even magic missile will mow through them.

That doesn't matter. If you read the excerpt from WotC, you see that they just want minions to occupy the PCs a little bit and make the characters expend resources. So what if they die? Anyway, isn't that what most villains do - throw servants at the PCs to mess with them and take time?

 

[Nail]

That doesn't matter. If you read the excerpt from WotC, you see that they just want minions to occupy the PCs a little bit and make the characters expend resources. So what if they die? Anyway, isn't that what most villains do - throw servants at the PCs to mess with them and take time?

Exactly.

I suspect many of us do something like this already.

For example, when the PCs hit 13th level, I hit 'em with a few major demons and a horde of dretches. The dretches didn't each roll to hit; I treated it as "environmental damage" to the PCs, and any damage directed at a detch took it out of combat. It worked well, I think.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think one 3E issue that needs addressing is that multiple attacks based on high BAB enable minions to be dealt with that much quicker in 3E vs. 4E.

In 4E, one successful attack kills one minion. Most people will have one attack per round (usually). But in 3E you can quickly get to the point where people have 2 or 3 attacks per round and are therefore able to get rid of minions that much quicker.

I'm thinking of giving 3E minions "hits", where a minion needs to be struck more than once by people with multiple attacks from BAB. One hit per BAB of the attacker sounds good, but since iterative attacks are at a lower bonus it may not be the perfect solution. Or maybe just use the creature's BAB and for every 5 points give it an extra "hit."

Thoughts?

 

[phindar]

I think the "hit" method penalizes people with high damage output. Power Attack/Great Cleave is designed to mow down unimportant minions, but would be useless against a 2 hit minion.

 

[hornedturtle]

If they are killing the minions too quickly you just need more minions!

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think the "hit" method penalizes people with high damage output. Power Attack/Great Cleave is designed to mow down unimportant minions, but would be useless against a 2 hit minion.

Damage output is irrelevant since any damage kills a minion.

You could say that a Cleave attack can kill a minion in one shot. But still, if you can cleave off iterative attacks it's the same problem.