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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benimoto" data-source="post: 4230839" data-attributes="member: 40093">If your point is that you can just use monsters 4 levels lower than a level-appropriate minion, and achieve about the same results, you're probably right.  The advantage to using the minions is that, by XP values, you can use twice as many (125 XP for a level 2 goblin VS 63 for a level 6 minion.)  With the minions, you'll never have to track a condition like harpooned.  And of course, you'll never have to track which creatures have taken damage and how much.Like the article said, minions are purely there for DM convenience.  They exist to allow a certain type of fight scene in a way that doesn't put too much of a drain on the DM's time and resources.  They allow you to essentially extend the useful life of monsters.  You'll notice in the article that it recommends switching a monster out with minions 7-8 levels after you've fought the original monster.  That's exactly when monsters that originally needed an 12 or so to hit now need a 19 or 20.The sacrifice comes, as you mention, in believability.  Of course, all the examples you mention that stretch belief all involve "lucky hits" or natural 20s.  It seems to me that you've discovered that when you take one effect that doesn't scale well across levels (natural 20s by weak creatures) and combine it with another (minions having 1 hp) that you run into unbelievable scenarios.  That makes sense.  You've already stretched believability twice.  How elastic do you think that stuff is?</blockquote>

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