How do you determine how many minions your villans have?

[jester47]

How do you determine how many minions your villans have?

Characters have the Leadership Feat, but what makes a bunch of Orcs follow the 5th level necromancer villan that cannot raise dead? Yeah, he could use intimidation. How do you determine how many orcs are at the dragons disposal? How many storm troopers can that imperial commander have? Is it charisma? Intimidate ranks? A combination of all of the above. Perhaps we could come up with a way to come up with the number of minions a "main villan" can have.

like powelevel/hit dice + charisma bonus + intimidate ranks + diplomacy ranks + bluff ranks = the number of hit dice of followers that your villian can have.

thoiughts?

 

[Xarlen]

2 factors. How many minons the NPC would have, and how much I can challange the party without it being fodder.

For instance, in the plot my party is getting into, one of the factions is a dragon at the head of a spy network, who is also the Main Big Bad in the ENORMOUS forest they're in, thus having connections to almost all the monsters in the southern part of this forest. However, she's just a *very* smart adult Green Dragon.

However, a vampire could have maybe one or two minons. A super-powerful lich may have only one minon, or by himself.

It depends on the NPC, and what I can get away with.

 

[jgbrowning]

i always let 'em have as many as they could afford.


joe b.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

As many as it takes

 

[arwink]

I use the organisation rules that cropped up in dragon a few months ago as a guidelines, but I'll always give them other stuff if I think it's cooler.

Having a rule tends to set things in stone. Guidelines means things are flexible. Coolness is important, and flexibility is usually preferable to rules.

 

[Rel]

I partly base this decision on alignment. Lawful creatures tend to work better together than Chaotic creatures.

Also I take into consideration what it is that the "boss" has to offer to the "minions". If they are getting more food/treasure/slaves, etc because of the boss, they will stick with him and the boss will tend to attract more minions.

But it all eventually boils down to what the encounter is supposed to mean for the campaign.

 

[Nifft]

Any rules on how Leadership works with ECL bad guys? Or even ECL good guys, though it's less of an issue (ECL tends to be less than six)?

-- Nifft

 

[Ravellion]

As many as it takes

Same here. Just choose, so that it would make an interesting adventure. If one of the players says the BBEG shouldn't have that high a leadership score, kill his character on the spot.

Rav

 

[Brisk-sg]

AEG has a feat called Tyrant (I Think?) that works as an evil overlords Leadership.

You could always use this mechanic, though I personally believe it is unnecessary for NPCs and was created for Evil PCs.

-Josh

 

[Stone Angel]

I have found that usually minions work best if they the same or are one cr above the parties lvl. And a couple below the BBEG cr. Sort of depends if you want to do it Video game style and use them as a "mini-boss" or as an assistant at the final battle. But I generally agree "as many as it takes" is a good philosophy.