I call bull on this, the only way a 3e melee attacker monster/NPC has fewer options than a 4e melee attacker monster/NPC is if you disregard the application of classes, feats, prestige classes, etc. when designing it. Otherwise it becomes a matter of number of options being relatively scalable in 3e to how much effort one is willing to put into personalizing the monster.
Oh, so in 3e you custom-craft every single damn monster you use. In 4e you are mysteriously not allowed to custom-craft monsters. Great double-standards there. And in 3e you seem to want to operate above the level where many think it breaks down (see E6 for details).
You can't have it both ways: Either 4th Edition stat blocks feature more options for monsters or they feature fewer options for monsters. Make up your mind.
Or you can break 3e monsters into four groups. Physical Combat, Wizard/Sorceror, Cleric/Druid, Specials.
Physical Combat monkeys in 3e are mechanically boring. They also make up the overwhelming bulk of monsters in 3e.
CoDzillas and Wizards/Sorcerors have hordes of options. The same options as every other CoDzilla or Wizard/Sorceror in the game. And the spellcasting puts their special features in the shade
Specials have a number of Sp or Su powers or other tricks - differentiating them from both specialist casters and physical combat monkies. And from each other And they are the rarest category.
4e monsters are all either minions or specials. And far more kinetic and kinaesthetic than 3e specials.
What we're talking about is the interaction between NPCs and PCs. You, like Noonan, are apparently equating "things happening outside of combat" with "time the PCs aren't interacting with the NPCs".
The middle that you're falsely excluding is that many of us run adventures that aren't combat slogs. Stuff happens outside of combat. The actions of NPCs are not limited to 5 rounds of combat and "they're done".
The thing here is that there are three types of NPC action outside combat. Offstage they don't need stats. In opposed skill checks, there's no reason for them not to simply take 10 every time - it doesn't do much to the maths and does speed up play. And if they are going to take 10 every time, it's as sensible to simply grade their opposition as Easy, Medium, or Hard (using the Skill Challenge table). And if you're running a narrative focus, an individual skill roll of an NPC should almost never be critical.
And when you're doing that, you don't
need much other than their special and combat powers in the statblock.
Then why did you describe Noonan's claim that NPCs exist only in combat a being a "truthful statement"?
When an actor leaves the stage does the character continue to exist? There's a good argument that the answer is no.
Each round each NPC has to select an action. If there are 5 NPCs using the same stat block and 5 rounds, then 25 actions have to be selected from that stat block.
And if the monsters don't select the same action more than once they are almost incoherent.
But you seem to assume that the same action twice doesn't have different meanings. Pushing someone one square means something very different when they are (a) on the far side of the room from a pit, (b) two squares away from a pit, or (c) right next to a pit.
There might be a couple of abilities out there where two identical creatures have to cooperate to achieve a particular effect (which would be analogous to everyone in the car participating in the same activity), but they're the exception to the rule.
So flanking is now an exception to the rule? For that matter, so is pushing when there's dangerous terrain?
Let's take Keep on the Shadowfell. There are 14 encounters 5+ copies of the same monster (On the Road, A2, A3, Area 4, Area 5, Area 7, Area 9, Area 10, Interlude 3, Area 12, Area 13, Area 17, Area 18, Area 19); there are 6 encounters with 3-4 copies (A1, A4, Area 2, Area 3, Area 6, Area 14); and only 4 encounters without 3+ duplicate stat blocks (Area 1, Area 8, Area 11, Area 15).
That's a 5:1 ratio of 3+ duplicates to non-duplicate encounters.
When you know enough about 4e to know what a minion is, get back to us. For that matter, when you know enough about narrative to understand the purpose of a redshirt bad guy get back to us. Until then,
Sure. And since there's no difference in the amount of mechanical support for diverse encounters between 3rd Edition and 4th Edition, that particular issue is essentially irrelevant.
You mean other than the kinetic combat, the ease of running (due to the stripped down stat blocks), the assumption you'll be facing multiple foes, etc.?
The kinetic combat in 4e
on its own makes things far more interesting. In 3e if there's a cliff, it's easy. People don't go near it. In 4e, everyone is trying to push everyone else over as well as trying to defeat them normally. (I exaggerate slightly. But about half of all PCs in my experience have an at will that forces movement. And if there's a cliff, the NPCs are also likely to force movement. It adds entire extra dimensions to the combat.)
But what I'm talking about the tactical flexibility which comes from a single stat block. Encounter build only becomes important in pointing out one of three separate flaws in Noonan's argument, and even then the diversity of encounter build is not important -- only the presence of multiple instances of a single stat block in a single encounter (which has been amply demonstrated above).
There is nothing wrong with multiple instances of a single stat block - especially for faceless mooks. It's when there's only one stat block that's the trouble.
And you demonstrated that there were repeated minions - did you also demonstrate that all the monsters in a combat used the same stat block?
