Excerpt: Minions. Go forth mine minions! Bring havoc with your 1 hp [merged]

[Piratecat]

Only simulationists have a problem with the minion rules. People who outgrew that phase don't.

We do not need the gratuitous insult. If you can't disagree without insulting people, don't post.

Lizard, I love not having the very-seldom-used information on the stat block. I vastly prefer needing to look up a shield now and then, rather than have the monster's crucial information obscured by information that I don't care about one bit while running combat.

You disagree, I know, and that's cool - I'm just sharing a different perspective.

 

[drothgery]

But they *can*. Thats the problem with the whole concept.

No, they can't (at least, not unless the DM just enjoys poking at corner cases of the system). When Evil Priest Bob sends a devil to abduct the toddler Princess Jane, it's not a minion relative to the princess, so if for some crazy reason dice are involved in the fight at all, the devil's not statted as a minion for that fight. When that same devil joins the Evil Priest Bob's Devlish Hordes to attack Sir Steve the Awesome, Defender of the Light (Paladin 26), Lady Mary the Amazing (Wizard 26), and their friends, the same devil (along with lots of his mechanically identical twins) is now statted as a minion because it can't do much more than provide a speed bump to Our Heroes, so there's no point in making them more mechanically complicated than they need to be.

 

[Lacyon]

If you first encounter real kobolds, and then 7-8 levels later, they're replaced with disposable kobolds that you could one shot, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it. After 7 or 8 levels, being able to easily slaughter things that were threats
originally isn't that much of a stretch. It stretches believablility a little, but not excessively.

However, it doesn't work like that. You hit minions from the very beginning, mixed in with credible opponents. That, to me, isn't believable at all. You really could conceivably drag along a pack of children to throw rocks at the minions while you deal with the real threats. When kobold A can take 3 hits with an axe, and kobold B falls to a single pointy stick, I'm going to notice.

Except that this has nothing to do with minion rules.

Did it break versimilitude for you when Kobold Warrior died in one solid blow because he rolled a 1 on his hit die, but a totally different Kobold Warrior took additional hits to kill because he rolled better? How about the Kobold with multiple class levels?

There's always been variation of survivability within creature type; it just makes sense that they aren't all the same.

 

[AllisterH]

You can compare the level 3 Orc Raider (a skirmisher) with the level 11 Legion Devil Hellguard. They're both worth 150 XP.

The Orc has 17 HP, 17 AC and attacks at +8 vs. AC for 1d12 + 3 damage (crit 1d12 + 15).

The Hellguard has 1 HP, 27 AC (29 with squad defense) and attacks at +16 vs. AC for 6 damage.

You can see that if the hellguard had 17 HP like the orc that most of the orc's hits would be criticals that would kill it instantly. On the other hand, the Hellguard hits the orc on every attack (except a natural 1, which would hit if it wasn't an automatic miss) and needs 3 hits to kill it, or 4-5 if the orc gets off its special ability Warrior's Surge. Odds slightly favor the hellguard, even if the Orc can hit on a 19.

.

Wouldn't the proper challenge be a 11th level PC? AC of 11th level pc is base + magic armour + level bonus which for Kathra be around an AC of 26?, while her attack bonus is probably around +12?

The Orc skirmisher pretty much hits only on a 18 or higher and gets hit on a 5 or higher...Isn't this the same problem we're trying to avoid by using minions. The fact that lower level critters don't act as good minions (can't really hit the PCs and have weak defense but still require bookkeeping?)

 

[Knightlord]

But they *can*. Thats the problem with the whole concept. If you take a see/hear/do no evil approach, then yes its fine, if you refuse to look at any problems that come up. If you try to have a functional, believable world, it has all sorts of problems when you realize that Evil Priest Bob can send an devilish minion after the prince/princess/small puppy of whatever, and a lucky blow with a vase can reasonably expected to end such fiendish plots 1 time out of 20.

Now, maybe you don't have a problem with it, but I do. I can easily see doing a scenario where a village is attacked, and the village militia is shooting arrows and spears at the attackers. Having them just pop (possibly on both sides) at lucky shots from a bunch of peasants is frankly ridiculous, and isn't something I want in my games.

Friend, I think you may be looking at this whole "minion" thing way too hard. Again, Minions exist to make the heroes look cool because they can take on several of these foes at once. I do not believe they were designed with "commoners" in mind. *Minion* is a game mechanic. It doesn't have to be a Role-playing element, and honestly, it probably shouldn't. And when the town militia attacks the *Minions*, and you actually want to play it out, just don't have the minions behave as minions (ie. add extra HP or something to increase their lifespan), or just roll a d20 for each side and see who rolls lower and consequently loses a soldier. It doesn't have to be entirely accurate as long as its fun.

Now, when the PC's show up, the minions *should* behave as minions when interacting with the heroes. This showcases the heroic nature of the PC's.

 

[Lacyon]

And the awesome lasts just until a PC says "I rip the shield off his arm with my telekinesis!" (Or any of a dozen other ways) and the game grinds to a halt while everyone looks up the bonus for a shield so the revised Reflex and Armor defense can be calculated, because putting them in the stat block might have made the numbers too scary.

-2 AC and Reflex. If you're having trouble remembering, ask one of the PCs who has a shield to look at their character sheet.

If the shield were magical, it would only be there because you put it there (presumably as treasure). You'd already be recalculating stats from the base creature, taking the magic threshold into account, so you'd have the numbers either fresh in your mind or possibly even have them written down in your notes.

Honestly, this is not hard.

 

[Shabe]

But they *can*. Thats the problem with the whole concept. If you take a see/hear/do no evil approach, then yes its fine, if you refuse to look at any problems that come up. If you try to have a functional, believable world, it has all sorts of problems when you realize that Evil Priest Bob can send an devilish minion after the prince/princess/small puppy of whatever, and a lucky blow with a vase can reasonably expected to end such fiendish plots 1 time out of 20.

Now, maybe you don't have a problem with it, but I do. I can easily see doing a scenario where a village is attacked, and the village militia is shooting arrows and spears at the attackers. Having them just pop (possibly on both sides) at lucky shots from a bunch of peasants is frankly ridiculous, and isn't something I want in my games.

Why can't a functional, believable world cope with minions?

A)If a PC isn't around do minions exist? If a hero turns up, *wham* the monster's head falls off, the PCs are heroic.

B)Just because Evil Priest Bob send down a minion doesn't mean it has to have the minion keyword.

C)Until or if you world has a cinematic moment where its fitting for minions to be in the encounter then there is no need to use them.

D) Why don't you rule that only heroes can kill minions in one shot and if it pleases you to have armies of soliders versus hordes of devilish minions, then why can't they both be falling dead (or as you put it popping) after one fatal blow.
Also what is wrong with a mob of peasants presenting a threat to demons attacking their village, just stat the peasants as AC 10 minions +1 to hit 1d2 damage range 10/20 with stones, they have a bad chance to hit the minion's defences and if the devils attacked back then it would be a massacre.
Remember HPs are described more along the lines of plot immunity, if the creature hardly had a chance to survive the plot its a suitable minion.

E) Sure you can have a child kill a minion, but wouldn't the minions notice and then charge over at the tasty morsel, the point of minions is they come in large groups. You could have a really cool turning point in the fight where the PCs were in control then a Kid taunts / kills a monster then the bad guys are enraged to go after the innocent kid (seeing as its a soft easy target) while the PCs try to stop them.

 

[Benimoto]

The Orc skirmisher pretty much hits only on a 18 or higher and gets hit on a 5 or higher...Isn't this the same problem we're trying to avoid by using minions. The fact that lower level critters don't act as good minions (can't really hit the PCs and have weak defense but still require bookkeeping?)

Yes, exactly. I was just responding to someone earlier in the thread that we now have enough stats to compare a minion and a regular monster at the same XP levels. You can pretty much see the mechanics at work there, like you said.

 

[Lizard]

-2 AC and Reflex. If you're having trouble remembering, ask one of the PCs who has a shield to look at their character sheet.

There's only one kind of shield in the game now?

Sheesh.

Point remains -- there's no reason to remove 3e style 'breakdowns'. You lose possibly useful information for no real gain in readability. (I'm going to have to presume there's no such thing as 'flat footed' in 4e, so that you always have your dex bonus to AC)

 

[Knightlord]

No, they can't (at least, not unless the DM just enjoys poking at corner cases of the system). When Evil Priest Bob sends a devil to abduct the toddler Princess Jane, it's not a minion relative to the princess, so if for some crazy reason dice are involved in the fight at all, the devil's not statted as a minion for that fight. When that same devil joins the Evil Priest Bob's Devlish Hordes to attack Sir Steve the Awesome, Defender of the Light (Paladin 26), Lady Mary the Amazing (Wizard 26), and their friends, the same devil (along with lots of his mechanically identical twins) is now statted as a minion because it can't do much more than provide a speed bump to Our Heroes, so there's no point in making them more mechanically complicated than they need to be.

This. Also, I must commend you on the clarity of your explaination.