If you don't like minions - how would you do it?

[Schmoe]

I've been reading the minions thread here with some interest. Personally, I think that minions are a very promising means to creating some tense, exciting encounters. At the same time, I can see why some people might be uncomfortable using minions.

So, for those with a fundamental opposition to minions, I'd like to know how you might create a similar encounter without using the minion mechanic. How would you create an ecounter against 40 opponents without creating a bookkeeping challenge, without overwhelming the party, and without creating an encounter with no real threat (eg, 40 rats vs. a party of 10th level PCs)?

I'll be forthcoming about the question. The reason I ask is that I think the minion mechanic opens up a lot of scenarios that are very difficult to achieve otherwise, and I have a hard time imagining an alternative that doesn't come with its own set of problems that are just as discongruous, or even more so. Still, I'd love to hear other's thoughts on this and perhaps be convinced that there is a better way.

 

[KarinsDad]

The reason I ask is that I think the minion mechanic opens up a lot of scenarios that are very difficult to achieve otherwise, and I have a hard time imagining an alternative that doesn't come with its own set of problems that are just as discongruous, or even more so.

I think the concept of minions is fine. I think the implementation is a bit lacking due to it's simplicity:

1) All minions (of the same type) do the same damage. A 20 means nothing.

2) All minions are killed with one hit. There is no chance to seriously wound or bloody one of them.

3) There appears to be a trend in the 4E community that PCs should know who minions are.

Minions seem like cardboard cutouts of creatures.


An alternative system that is not that much more complex is to:

A) assign each minion 1 to 3 hits that it can take. So, a minion with 1 hit is identical defensively to the minions in the book. A minion with 2 needs 2 hits to kill it, etc.

B) roll damage for minions.


This is not that much more complicated than what currently occurs. It would make minions still mooks, still threatening, but not minions with the word "Minion" stamped on their heads. Minions with 2 or 3 hits to kill would just be worth slightly more XP.

 

[The Little Raven]

1) All minions (of the same type) do the same damage. A 20 means nothing.

Add a critical hit rider effect, then. "On a critical hit, this attack <does X>."

2) All minions are killed with one hit. There is no chance to seriously wound or bloody one of them.

That's the point. Threats to your well-being that have glass jaws, so you can mow down groups of mooks. If you gave them more hit points, you'd have to end up tracking them at various points, and it defeats the purpose behind minions being easily expendable and less work to deal with.

3) There appears to be a trend in the 4E community that PCs should know who minions are.

I see people saying that players should know when they're fighting minions, but the only people I see saying that characters know/should know about minions are those that have a problem with them.

This is not that much more complicated than what currently occurs. It would make minions still mooks, still threatening, but not minions with the word "Minion" stamped on their heads. Minions with 2 or 3 hits to kill would just be worth slightly more XP.

I think the 2-3 hit idea is a bad one, since there are standard monsters that die in 2-3 hits, and thus kinda defeat the purpose of making a minion into a 2-3 hit monster.

 

[KarinsDad]

Add a critical hit rider effect, then. "On a critical hit, this attack <does X>."



That's the point. Threats to your well-being that have glass jaws, so you can mow down groups of mooks. If you gave them more hit points, you'd have to end up tracking them at various points, and it defeats the purpose behind minions being easily expendable and less work to deal with.



I see people saying that players should know when they're fighting minions, but the only people I see saying that characters know/should know about minions are those that have a problem with them.



I think the 2-3 hit idea is a bad one, since there are standard monsters that die in 2-3 hits, and thus kinda defeat the purpose of making a minion into a 2-3 hit monster.

So, to distill your response down, you are basically saying that since it is not how the 4E designers did it, it doesn't work.

The OP wanted suggestions for something that is not what the 4E designers did.

I think thou dost protest too much.


For example, players should be making in character decisions. If they are making metagaming decisions on how to attack minions because they are minions, they are in reality giving metagaming information to the PC so the PC can decide on how to attack.

 

[Mistwell]

I'd like to know how you might create a similar encounter without using the minion mechanic. How would you create an ecounter against 40 opponents without creating a bookkeeping challenge, without overwhelming the party, and without creating an encounter with no real threat (eg, 40 rats vs. a party of 10th level PCs)?...Still, I'd love to hear other's thoughts on this and perhaps be convinced that there is a better way.

If I really wanted to get a good answer to this, I'd probably ask it over at the house rules forum.

Not that you won't get some fine answers here as well, I just think that forum tends to have a lot of people skilled at house ruling stuff in a fairly balanced way, while this forum tends to specialize in folks who are good at interpreting the rules as written.

 

[Pickles JG]

1) All minions (of the same type) do the same damage. A 20 means nothing.
2) All minions are killed with one hit. There is no chance to seriously wound or bloody one of them.
3) There appears to be a trend in the 4E community that PCs should know who minions are.

An alternative system that is not that much more complex is to:

A) assign each minion 1 to 3 hits that it can take. So, a minion with 1 hit is identical defensively to the minions in the book. A minion with 2 needs 2 hits to kill it, etc.

B) roll damage for minions.

Rolling damage for 40 minions is a pain, I would just double crit damage.

The multiple hit thing seems OK - probably only 2 hits are needed before they are very close to normal guys.


Another solution would be to set a damage threshold (ie give them resist X all).

Mind you I like 'em & I like to know who they are - this is not a trend this is how I played Feng Shui 10 years ago

 

[robertliguori]

1: Take the advancement paths for HP, defenses, attack bonus, and damage, and normalize them. (Re-enable 1/2 level as bonus damage from Saga, say.)

2: Enable trade-offs. Defenders can boost HP, Strikers attack bonus and damage, Controllers mostly damage, and the like.

3: Grow minions as glass cannons, with high attacks, moderate damage, moderate defenses, and pitiful HP. Let's say that the PCs are level 10, with balanced level 10 bonuses across their attributes. A suitable minion-type creature might be level 6, with attack 8, damage 6, defenses 7, and HP 3.

Orcish barbarians that take Reckless Rage at their level 1 feat and have maxed Str and low Dex and Con are the canonical 3.XE example of such a character.

4: Enable the HP-pool option for minions below a certain level threshold. Assume that attacks directed to the mass of minions always hit the most injured minion, so that if each minion has 6 hp, an attack that deals 20 points of damage slays 3 minions outright and enables a 4-hp attack to kill a fourth.

Minions, as they exist now, strip from the game a great deal of the sense of advancement.

 

[KarinsDad]

Rolling damage for 40 minions is a pain, I would just double crit damage.

One has to roll a to hit for the same 40 minions. It's not really that hard to roll a D20 and a damage die at the same time.

One has to move the 40 minions.

One has to determine Combat Advantage for the 40 minions.

If the DM has 40 minions in an encounter, there is still quite a bit of overhead involved.

And 40 minions in an encounter would probably be a TPK (or at least an extremely serious fight) if they are anywhere near the PC level. A Defender could not prevent them from mugging the rest of the team.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'll move this over to House Rules.

I could see the value of making some minions "2-hit" minions, purely because then bloodied comes into the equation - whether it is allowing minions to have abilities which function when bloodied, or allowing PCs with special abilities that key off bloodied to get some use against minions (Tiefling bloodhunt?)

I'd also see a benefit of tweaking Minion damage, whether it is giving them "+1 per tier" to their damage on a crit, or giving them double damage (assuming that their minion fixed damage is equivalent to their average damage, which is about half of their max damage). Even rolling for minion damage is worthwhile (A PC recently decided to provoke an OA from the kobold skirmisher rather than the kobold minion because he only had 3 hp, and if the minion hit him it was all over, but the skirmisher might roll a 1 or 2 on his d8 damage if he hit...)

These things are just tweaks to minions though, and doesn't get around the basic issue.

Of course, in earlier editions it would have been possible to create functionally equivalent minions just by assuming that the bad guys rolled a "1" on each of their HD - giving the creatures minimum hit points.

I agree with the original proposition - minions make certain types of encounter much easier to produce. The only real alternative I've seen in 3e days was 'mob' templates, but they produced some grossly overpowered situations with the implementation which I'd seen used (in the Worlds Largest Dungeon).

Cheers

 

[MrGrenadine]

Apologies to anyone who has already read this from me in other threads, but the OP asked...

1. Minions have 1/2 the hp of a monster of the same level, (or as close to the same level as you can get, rounding down).
2. Characters who successfully hit a minion with any attack multiply damage by x10 at Heroic tier, x15 at Paragon, and x20 at Epic.

This allows for the large scale Jackie Chan-like group brawls that some folks want, but it also avoids any mental gymnastics or hand-waving to explain the 1 hp, and places the emphasis on the character making a great hit, (as opposed to making a normal hit vs a paper tiger).

MrG