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

[Leatherhead]

Could someone clarify something for me please:

Aren't AoE attacks now handled with one die roll as opposed to rolling one die for every creature in the area, meaning you are either going to kill all the minions or none of the minions in a blast?

 

[Scribble]

Oddly, I'm using hit points as a complete abstraction. When something reaches 0 hit points its down/dead/whatever. I'm perfectly comfortable with that level of abstraction, so I'm comfortable with hitting a kobold 3 times before it goes 'down'. What I'm not comfortable with is the idea that is true for these kobolds, but not for those kobolds. I don't care enough to justify the abstraction, but I want it to be consistent. This isn't.

It is. Again it's nothing to do with this one take 3 hits this one doesn't. It's not 3 killing blows. Both of them take the same amunt of killing blows to die. One.

Why does the wizard stand longer then the fighter or the thief?

Moxie is Moxie.

Another weird thing that the minion rules encourage:

Hrothgar the Mighty has made his name with his great axe, Dragon-hewer. But those who follow the saga of Hrothgar the Mighty have noted a peculiar quirk that Hrothgar exhibits in battle. At times he is seen to discard the axe he values so highly, and pull out a wicked dagger that he calls Minion-Poker. When asked about this behavior by a brave bard over many cups of ale, Hrothgar said:

'What am I, an idiot? I've got an extra 10% chance to hit with this thing, and it doesn't matter how much damage I do!'

So your in game characetr uses metagame knowledge. You're already existing in an unbelievable state, why stop now?

 

[Vaeron]

Aren't AoE attacks now handled with one die roll as opposed to rolling one die for every creature in the area, meaning you are either going to kill all the minions or none of the minions in a blast?

Nope.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Could someone clarify something for me please:

Aren't AoE attacks now handled with one die roll as opposed to rolling one die for every creature in the area, meaning you are either going to kill all the minions or none of the minions in a blast?

You roll once for damage then individually for hits.

 

[keterys]

I've been looking for a mechanic to support the Hercules and Xena style combat where they 'switch things up' with other weapons for no other reason than it's "cooler"

Sold!

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Hrothgar the Mighty has made his name with his great axe, Dragon-hewer. But those who follow the saga of Hrothgar the Mighty have noted a peculiar quirk that Hrothgar exhibits in battle. At times he is seen to discard the axe he values so highly, and pull out a wicked dagger that he calls Minion-Poker. When asked about this behavior by a brave bard over many cups of ale, Hrothgar said:

'What am I, an idiot? I've got an extra 10% chance to hit with this thing, and it doesn't matter how much damage I do!'

Seems to me that if he is more well known for the axe, then he's probably using the axe more often than not. If he's using the dagger more, then he'd probably be well known for that.

So most times he uses an axe. Sometimes a dagger. I honestly don't understand what's wrong with that.

 

[theNater]

Another weird thing that the minion rules encourage:

Hrothgar the Mighty has made his name with his great axe, Dragon-hewer. But those who follow the saga of Hrothgar the Mighty have noted a peculiar quirk that Hrothgar exhibits in battle. At times he is seen to discard the axe he values so highly, and pull out a wicked dagger that he calls Minion-Poker. When asked about this behavior by a brave bard over many cups of ale, Hrothgar said:

'What am I, an idiot? I've got an extra 10% chance to hit with this thing, and it doesn't matter how much damage I do!'

So, wait, Hrothgar uses a quicker, more accurate weapon when facing a bunch of weak foes than he does when he's trying to power through a dragon's scales?

And you find this weird?

 

[Voss]

So you're arguing that the minion rules are too realistic?

Nope. Just inconsistent

It seems like that's only a problem if minion status is too obvious. Like I said before, I think there' won't be any visual difference between minions and standard monsters in my campaign (elites and solos will stand out I think). If your players start doing this just increase the percentage of regular monsters relative to the number of minions.

However if they aren't obvious, the DM is by and large being a jerk to the players, and playing a game of 'Gotcha! You wasted your encounter/daily powers, ha ha'. That doesn't strike me as satisfying either.


@Fallen Seraph- why wouldn't it? He knows that certain types of monsters go down in one hit, and others don't. Once he learns which types those are, why wouldn't he take advantage of it? On one level, I agree with you, because I dislike the fact that it encourages this sort of metagame thinking, but the system by and large encourages it.

There isn't much of a reason for players not to do it, unless the DM metagames himself and punishes them for it.

 

[drjones]

So Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are anime/action heroes with superpowerz? Wow, didn't know that. I mean, it's not like I haven't read Conan novels where Conan does something similar....

Yes but they are NPCs, PCs are not allowed to do anything interesting. That's why Big D only plays fighters with no feats in 3.5, right Derren?

 

[Blackeagle]

However if they aren't obvious, the DM is by and large being a jerk to the players, and playing a game of 'Gotcha! You wasted your encounter/daily powers, ha ha'. That doesn't strike me as satisfying either.

Some of this is going to depend on playstyle and such, but I don't think using single target encounter powers on a minion is going to be that big a waste. You get those every encounter after all. On the other hand, I think using a single target daily power even on a standard monster is going to be a waste a lot of the time. That's part of why I'll be making elites and solos distinctive (plus the fact that I want to make the elites seem badass to increase player satisfaction about beating them).

On the other hand, multi target encounter powers seem to be what minions are made for.