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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrMyth" data-source="post: 4504375" data-attributes="member: 61155">1) Similar Wizards This is actually a little surprising, since I feel 4E Wizards have some of the best options in terms of Paragon Paths - so I suspect this is more coincidence than anything else.  2) Laptop Usage I've run some high-level one-shots, and haven't felt the complexity factor has scaled nearly as much as it did in 3rd Edition. Some people just like using laptops to track info - and I suspect that if they are playing higher-level characters for the first few times, that extra bit of clarity may be useful. 3) Minions On this one, though, I definitely have to agree. I like the concept of minions, but there seems a few too many ways to auto-kill them without even needing to roll - or, at higher levels, effects big enough to easily target a dozen minions at once. From fighter stances that slice up those next to them, to Lightning weapons that deal a smidgen of damage to all the enemies in an area, to massive area effects like Solar Wrath that attack every enemy in a combat (or the above mentioned Stormcage, which is essentially all three), minions sometimes seem a bit too easy to get rid of - and while they should be easy to drop, it shouldn't be incidental. Now, things that can be done about this without fundamentally changing how they work: 1) Have them come in waves - skeletons rising from the grave every round, devils teleporting in, etc. This both lets you throw a lot of them at PCs without overwhelming them, and prevents any one area effect from wiping them out.  2) Provide a 'buffer', in the form of temporary hitpoints or resistance to elemental damage the party is inclined to throw around. Temporary hp can be acquired through allies (like the Kobold Wyrmpriest) while to get the resistance one wants, you can hunt down the appropriate minion (such as Legion Devils for Resist Fire) and reskin them as whatever type of minion you plan on using.  3) Spread out. Fight in a large open space with minions never clumped up enough that they can easily be dealt with at once. Choose minions with ranged attacks to let them attack the PCs without needing to close into one area - or try to divide up the PCs and have a few minions go after each one.  4) Use higher level minions. This won't protect against auto-damage effects, but will help with the massive area effects, as higher defenses will keep them alive for longer.  If those still don't work, here are some ways to directly enhance minions:  1) Instead of "minions don't take damage on a miss", change it to "minions only take damage on a hit." This prevents auto-damage effects from killing minions and means that, in order to kill them, players must be actively trying to take them out.  2) It takes two hits. The first time a minion is damaged, they go to bloodied. The second time, they die. This simply makes them tougher, and means one action won't do them in. On the other hand, enough auto-damage effects will still take them out - and this makes it much harder for those who are fighting them normally.  3) Damage Threshold. Give minion's Resist 'x' all - maybe Resist 5 at Heroic, 10 at Paragon, 15 at Epic. This prevents tiny amount of automatic damage from doing them in. And as long as the right number is chosen, pretty much all normal attacks of the right level will still do them in. You might even be able to remove the "minions aren't damaged on a miss", if the numbers are right - any miss that is small enough won't get through the Resist, while a character launching their most powerful daily won't watch in sorrow as it bounces off several minions.</blockquote>

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