Fighter Cleave vs Minions?

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I agree. From all the words in my vast vocabulary, it's the best word I know that explains my vision of what martial powers are.

I think it'll take time to sink in for people to learn the lesser used noun definition of the word exploit much like many other games introduce other terminology that otherwise isn't mainstream in our culture, yet still exists...

Hmm, despite the vast vocabulary, you guys don't seem familiar with online gaming conventions.

"Exploit" is used as a verb to mean "to take advantage of a loophole, bug, or other unintended aspect of a game." So in World of Warcraft, if you find a monster that's stuck in a corner and gives you 100 gold every time you kill it, just standing there all day and killing it over and over is "exploiting" a game bug - in other words, cheating.

The fun part is, like so many other gaming terms, this one got "nouned." So WoW players would say that the guy killing that monster over and over "found an exploit" or "is using exploits."

 

[sukael]

Going by "the math", a minion Kobold is worth 25xp, exactly a quarter of a level 1 kobold (100xp). We've been told already that balanced encounters can be created by simply adding all the xp of the creatures you want to throw in.

Of course, if xp isn't linear (a 20th level creature's XP is worth more than 20 x a 1st level creature's XP), you might be right, in which case you would end up with even tougher minions at higher levels, and even less likely that "hit = auto-kill" for those higher levels. Which was really my point, anyway.

Given that the pit fiend shown as an example has enough of an XP value to be worth far more than 27 1st-level kobolds...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Hmm, despite the vast vocabulary, you guys don't seem familiar with online gaming conventions.

"Exploit" is used as a verb to mean "to take advantage of a loophole, bug, or other unintended aspect of a game." So in World of Warcraft, if you find a monster that's stuck in a corner and gives you 100 gold every time you kill it, just standing there all day and killing it over and over is "exploiting" a game bug - in other words, cheating.

The fun part is, like so many other gaming terms, this one got "nouned." So WoW players would say that the guy killing that monster over and over "found an exploit" or "is using exploits."

It's not just an online usage, though that probably popularized it. We were using the term "exploit" to describe ways to abuse rules loopholes playing tabletop wargames over 20 years ago.

 

[am181d]

It's not just an online usage, though that probably popularized it. We were using the term "exploit" to describe ways to abuse rules loopholes playing tabletop wargames over 20 years ago.

And indeed that's the proper English usage of the word (as a verb).

To the (only slightly) larger discussion: It's worth pointing out that the noun form has a different meaning and is generally pronounced differently, thus minimizing the confusion. (And, honestly, if there are people who are missing the word "exploit" from the vocabulary? Well, that's just another win for vocab via D&D...)

 

[hong]

However, I detest the idea of a "minion" rule on general principle anyway. If creatures are tough, they shouldn't be tough unless you want to use lots of them in which case they have 1 hp. "Oh no, this kobold has a minion tag so it only has 1 hp. It will die if it steps on a caltrop. That kobold who is otherwise indistinguishable from these ones has 27 hp and can get hit with a warhammer three times before going down." With kobolds it may not sound so bad, but when you start getting death knight minions and such at higher levels, it will be "we just fought these guys last week and they were all tough, why are they now wimpy?"

And this is different to a 3E 15th level orc barbarian leading a pack of 3rd level orc warriors, how?

 

[Valdrax]

In our game, it was my understanding that the additional cleave damage did not kill minions, because there was no attack roll.

That's a strange interpretation. All the card says is, "A minion dies when hit by an attack that deals damage." Nowhere does it state that the attack has to be rolled against the kobold nor that it even has to be rolled. Merely the that the kobold must take damage as the effect of an attack (and is not killed by attacks that do not do damage, like charm spells).

It seems pretty straightforward that Cleave would kill a kobold minion, read as written.

 

[jtrowell]

And this is different to a 3E 15th level orc barbarian leading a pack of 3rd level orc warriors, how?

The difference is that instead of using 3rd level orcs that won't be able to hit the PCs with anything else than a natural 20, and that have almost no chance of making their saves against spells of your 15th level wizrd, you use 15th level orc minions, that do less damage and have less hit points that average 15th level orcs, and can be killed with one or two attaks, while still having a good chance to hit and damage your players, or to resist (sometimes) their spells.

A horde of mooks needing 20s to hit can be boring fast, but when each of then hit with a 15+, even if it is for only a few hits points each time, you won't ignore them.