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

[Crashy75]

I realize that my post was an extreme example but I have read that encounter design is made to be flexible. IF i want a large group of enemies to fight a party but I want it to be a very difficult fight why not use minions a few levels higher?

It should be quite difficult if you just use minions of the same level. They have a sort of glass sword quality that makes them deadly to pc's.

 

[Kordeth]

I realize that my post was an extreme example but I have read that encounter design is made to be flexible. IF i want a large group of enemies to fight a party but I want it to be a very difficult fight why not use minions a few levels higher?

"A few levels higher" is not "twenty-nine levels higher." All that paragraph is saying is that the minions you use should generally be within the same level range as other monsters the PCs fight--so for first-level PCs, you might build a hard encounter as a level 4 or 5 encounter made up of, say, five level four monsters or fifteen level four minions and a level four leader, for example.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Does teleporting provoke an opportunity attack? If not then a cool tactic that came to mind was a charge and then a teleport in order to attack and then disengage right away. This causes the PC to either move to engage the target, which if the PC fails to kill could then just teleport away again, or would have have to just ignore it and take the dammage with no retaliation, and leaving the PC open to more hit and run.

Sort of like: charge attack, port away, charge attack, port away, etc. or charge attack, port away, PC engages, attack, port away, PC engages, attack, port away, etc.

 

[Blackeagle]

Does teleporting provoke an opportunity attack? If not then a cool tactic that came to mind was a charge and then a teleport in order to attack and then disengage right away.

Since it's listed alongside speed, my guess is teleporting may take a move action. In that case it wouldn't be possible to move, attack, and teleport on the same turn.

 

[small pumpkin man]

How so?

Minions having 1 hp but not taking damage on a miss is a metagame concept designed to simulate them having very low hp with as little effort on the GMs part as possible. If they did just have, say, 15 hp at level 10, throwing a fireball out would kill them even on a miss, if you rely on the difference between these two to change player behavour you are relying on metagame information.

The player doesn't know that the enemy is a minion until they actually HIT the minion. Changing it so that a daily even on a miss takes out a minion kinda tells the players, "those are minions"

By not having the house rule, players don't know what monsters are minions or regular foes and as such, will treat every foe the same and thus should open with an at-will attack.

If you did have such a rule, players would decide on whether to use a daily or not based on how tough the combat is, not "is it a minion or not".

Remember, the bloody mechanic/threshold that many of the monsters we've seen possess mathematically work better if the PCs attack with at-will, get the monster to bloody then use the big guns rather than the reverse.

The who and the what now? The bloodied mechanic does nothing in and of itself, it's just a descriptor. Yes, there are a lot of abilities which tie into it, but I'd like an explaination of why pinging monsters like that is the best idea.

 

[Korgoth]

A DM's house rules are his own business, but I wouldn't rule that "a Daily that misses can still kill a Minion". That makes it too easy to get insta-kill "minion snipes" with your dailies. If you want to kill the minion, you have to hit him one time. That's easy enough!

 

[ncc4781]

It should be quite difficult if you just use minions of the same level. They have a sort of glass sword quality that makes them deadly to pc's.

I do agree with that. Hoards of minions could tpk if not done carefully.

I also get the image of a rouge sneaking into a keep and just demolishing all the minions before they even begin to use their glass swords

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Since it's listed alongside speed, my guess is teleporting may take a move action. In that case it wouldn't be possible to move, attack, and teleport on the same turn.

But you could charge. As I understand it a charge is a move and a basic attack in one standard action with a +1 to hit. So it would be move, move and attack.

EDIT: However I did find this in the PrRC

After a charge you can't take any further actions unless you spend an action point. (Scalegloom Rules Appendix)

So I guess you cant charge then port, but I cant find anything about attacking and then porting away so that should be ok.

 

[Valamyr]

Hmm, nice concept. But, attacks and powers that deal damage to many monsters at once, like i suppose, a basic fireball, will wipe out many or most or all minions from the battlefield in one hit, no?

 

[tombowings]

But you could charge. As I understand it a charge is a move and a basic attack in one standard action with a +1 to hit. So it would be move. move and attack.

I think your on to something here.