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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5942131" data-attributes="member: 87792">It might help you to get your case across if you aren't on one hand talking about levels 1-3 and on the other mentioning ogre minions.  They aren't levels 1-3.  Hell, the lowest level ogre I can think of in any monster manual is a level 7 standard.  So when you talk about ogre minions you are not talking about levels 1-3.   And an orc drudge in 4e would be statted up as an Orc Commoner 1 in 3.X.  He's a drudge.  And I've provided the actual meaning of the word Drudge.  If you think that a Drudge isn't a type of commoner then we really disagree about the use of English. Some 4e orcs are drudges.  Do 3.X orcs have no commoners?  Are they all warriors?  What do you mean that the fluff/fiction doesn't mean anything?   The fiction/fluff tells you what to use and how to use it - it just has a different relationship to the game than it does in 3.X.  Not much of one IME.  You're basically rolling once for each as the to hit roll is a formality.  And here's the hit point disconnect - if they have one hit point they are still acting at full capacity.  I see how some people could consider 4e a low powered superhero game.  What I don't see is how they can see it as more so than 3.X or AD&D.  Except that not everyone got superpowers (or crypto-superpowers like Batman) in 3.X. From memory, it worked badly.  If I wanted a gritty low level game I'd reach for GURPS or WHFRP - the two games I cut my RPG teeth on.  But if the DM chooses not to use minions at low level (a perfectly acceptable choice) then fights get very brutal.  For instance the Kobold level 1 skirmisher (quickblade I think?) does +2 damage for every square they shifted that turn before attacking, and can shift up to four squares in a turn.  I think that means that unless you've shut the kobold down they are doing d6+11 damage per attack, and with a four square shift you can get to whoever you want and flank them.  With kobolds with more than 20 hit points doing that amount of damage it can get very scary very fast.  The monsters aren't updated - they are printed as they are in the source material.  The Monster Vault monsters more or less replace the MM1 monsters for 90+% of the monsters you are ever going to use - filter your search to Monster Vault, Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, the Dark Sun Creature Catalog, and the MM 3.  And honestly there's enough awesome in the two Monster Vaults that most of the time I just use them - I've said in the past that they are the best two monster manuals produced for any edition of D&D and stand by it.  (Yes, I own the 2E Monstrous Manual). And yes it does suck.  As a rule 4e is the only edition of D&D where every book to come out (with the single exception of the PHB3) has been significantly better than the previous one in that line (not to say that I don't have a lot of time for e.g. the Bo9S).  And knowing which published monsters to use and avoid is something that shouldn't have been needed but is very useful.</blockquote>

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