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

[Shabe]

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.

For example, if the Lord High Commander Of The Realm, known to be a great warrior, is allegedly killed by two ordinary kobolds, the PCs would be right to not accept this at face value -- it doesn't happen in D&D, period. So if I want a princess kidnapped, if she's a child or a commoner, then, yeah, a minion can do it

<snip>

OTOH, if the princess of the realm is also a powerful figure, in game terms, then I expect the kidnapping entity to be one which could reasonably defect her before she could escape, summon guards, and so on. You don't need to roll out the entire fight; you do, in my mind, need to "finger in the wind" the conflict so that it's plausible by game rule as well as storytelling logic. The thing about being a DM is, you have an unlimited toolbox -- you can send ANYTHING to kidnap the princess, so why not pick something which makes internal sense as well as driving the plot forward?

But he wasn't suggesting you would send minion to kidnapp a princess, Voss was, drothgery was just giving an example of how it could be explained.
I'm quite sure that the sensible solution is that the Evil Priest Bob of High Bobbyness instead sends out a sneaky lurker to kidnapp her, a minion just wouldn't be appropriate and it was only Voss who was suggesting such a circumstance would crop up.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Too much thread to read it all...

In general I like the idea of minions. In practice my only concern (and one that might still be addressed by the rules) is that low-cost, low-power burst effects (alchemists fire?) might be disproportionally useful against higher level minions.

 

[Korgoth]

Since D&D has always had the possibility of a grown man, even a warrior, having 1 hit point, I'm going to stick with my contention that only injuries which are potentially life-threatening do 1 or more hit points of damage. So I agree with Rex that thrown rocks, stale pastries, stubbed toes, etc. do not inflict 1 hit point of damage.

Hit points are a measure of your ability to cheat death, to turn a lethal blow into a non-lethal one. They're a mixture of luck, skill and fate.

If you want to talk about "realism", realistically a dagger is a very dangerous weapon. A dagger thrust to the heart should kill just about any organism, including alien beasts from the netherworld (assuming that they're fleshy and have analogous organs to the heart). So even a totally bad@ss creature might be susceptible to the peasant's arrow... after all, if the arrow strikes it in the neck or the eye or the heart it could expire from a single hit.

Other games, like Runequest and Rolemaster and so on have always had the possibility of men and creatures, even powerful ones, dying from 1 hit. The Minion rules are no different. The only difference is, in Rolemaster the extent to which you lead a charmed life is discovered mostly through the die rolls (as in, not getting your arm chopped off by a lucky shot). In D&D, the extent to which you live a charmed life is quantified in the rules... you have a reserve of "hit points" which you have to blow through before the arm-chopping starts.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

guess the devs decided "We need Minions", push came to shove, and rather than killing a sacred cow (BAB that advances with level), Sim got thrown under the bus.

Is that really a Sacred Cow? Before 3E, there was no BAB, if I am not mistaken.

And I think they did in function exactly that - in 3E, if you wanted attack bonus, you get hit points. In 4E, if you're a Minion, you get attack bonus, but no hit points.

Unless what you meant to say that increasing BAB and similar stuff with level or HD should also not be done for PCs, either. I might be willing to see that as a possible alternative. Though beware - with such a mechanic, advancement will feel slower.

 

[keterys]

Why?

Ripping the weapon out of a foe's hand is a CLASSIC cinematic maneuver. It's precisely the kind of swashbuckling high action 4e is supposed to simulate better than 3e. I've seen it used to great effect in the campaign I'm running currently.

If rules simplification trumps fulfilling the purpose of the rules, there's a fundamental design failure.

(In the case of minions, I admit the point is moot, since I don't think any 4e powers fails to do damage, so your disarm would kill the minion. But against other foes, disarm/sunder is very visual, very dramatic, and very useful, so it would be a shame if they didn't exist in the rules due to worship at the altar of simplicity for simplicity's sake. I guess we'll know in, oh, two weeks or so.)

It's a balance issue - D&D has weapons that swing the balance of the game so strongly that it puts the game in a poor position if you make disarming easy.

And once you take disarm out of the equation, boy does it simplify a lot of monster mechanics. Win/Win.

So instead of 'Man in Black disarms Inigo... *roll roll* and uses his Super Disarm feat to fling the weapon 3 squares away...' 'Okay, Inigo tumbles away and retrieves his weapon. Your turn'

It'll be 'Man in Black uses his daily Swashbuckle Strike, which slides Inigo 3 squares and he can't make any attacks until the end of his turn' or he's stunned or whatever. Same effect if people describe it dramatically.

 

[Blackeagle]

Minions don't explode when small children get a lucky roll with a rock because _they don't fight small children_.

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.

This is where I have a problem with your objections. The minion article says:

When you use minions, you should use those of a level appropriate to the encounter you’re building.

A devlish minion is not a level appropriate encounter for the prince/princess/small puppy. If you want an encounter with a creature much more powerful than it's opponent, don't use a minion! For you to say "the minion rules don't work" based on a circumstance where the rules specifically say not to use minions just doesn't make any sense.

 

[Shabe]

What's so painful about this (to me), is that it's blindingly obvious that the WotC devs knew exactly what they were doing too. The only real difference between the various Minion levels is that Init, BAB, Skills and Defenses all advance the same +1/2 level that PCs advance. Am I the only one who sees this as a stupid arms race? Remove the +1/2 advancement from all parties and what you're left with is the exact same result.

Interesting idea, so the PC's experience in combat doesn't help them avoid attacks or find openings in their opponents defences, its just the magic items that they find that help them at all?

So apart from a few fancy manouvers and more hp, they are as "skillful" as bob the peasant tm. Its something to think about, but the +1/2 lvl does allow you to feel as if you are progressing, you know that if you came back to those same silly lvl 1 kobolds in 10 levels time you are going to wipe the floor with them, see i don't think minions should represent the exact same creatures you fought off x levels ago, i think minions should represent different creatures perhaps they are the better trained cousins from up north, who have relavant stats for you to fight against, but the players are still more heroic than them.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Is that really a Sacred Cow? Before 3E, there was no BAB, if I am not mistaken.

It was called THAC0, not BAB, but horse by another name and all that ...

Unless what you meant to say that increasing BAB and similar stuff with level or HD should also not be done for PCs, either. I might be willing to see that as a possible alternative.

Yes, that's what I mean. If you want the cinematic option of fighting hordes of mooks, then you need to make sure they're a credible (if individually small) threat. Removing the +1/2 advancement rate while scaling up HP and Dmg according to RAW allows "normal" monsters to serve as Minions once you're sufficiently higher level than they are.

Though beware - with such a mechanic, advancement will feel slower.

Yeah, I've thought of that. It wouldn't feel slower to me because I am painfully aware of how the +1/2 level advancement is an illusion, but for someone who finds it to be a pleasurable but nutrition-free placebo (like candy made from gum arabic and Splenda), there would be a sense of loss. I think I could sell it as "Removing needless complexity from the game", since they still get all the cool class powers and such. After all, static bonuses really aren't that interesting compared to Acid Arrow or Tide of Iron, and once you've made the mental adjustment (and seen from gameplay experience that nothing is lost), smooth sailing should follow.

 

[Rechan]

I saw updated stats for the Vampire Spawn. No regeneration. Also, I believe they don't get a bonus to attack for how many are available. They're just typical minions.

[sblock]They're in the back of Keep on the Shadowfell. No, I can't provide stats.[/sblock]

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

(In the case of minions, I admit the point is moot, since I don't think any 4e powers fails to do damage, so your disarm would kill the minion.)

Notwithstanding that ripping the shield off someone's arm must surely be at least as painful as the bite of a housecat, doing at least one hp of damage and killing the minion, there's also the fact that hit points are entirely about morale these days.

You have any idea how demoralizing it is to lose your shield or your weapon?

Seriously, unless you have someone nearby with a ready "Atta boy!" or "Get up, Rock!" to give you a quick second-wind hit point boost, you might as well just fall over dead.

4e emulates this nicely.