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

[frankthedm]

Rework HP and damage output from the ground up. Baseline foes {grunts] would have about half the current HP of a standard 4e foe and the default fights would be 10 foes vs. 5 PCs. Player's damage output would be enough to slay a grunt at about a 50%/50% chance.

20 Minions = 10 Grunts = 5 Toughs = 2.5 Elite = 1 Solo

 

[charlesatan]

In 3.5, I'd make them a Swarm.

I guess nothing's stopping you from converting them into a Swarm in 4E as well. That "one creature" you're attacking now? That's really four people occupying one square, trying to gang up on you.

(HP could be Con + HP/level appropriate for its role; then for damage, you could either give it iterative attacks and deal the same minion damage or simply give it one attack and give it an aura that deals minion damage to creatures adjacent to it at the start of its turn [or it gets a free basic attack against creatures that starts their turn adjacent to it]).

 

[Schmoe]

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

First, I admire your courage. I realized after posting that my topic could be seen as "Hey, post your alternative minion concept so everyone can rip it to shreds and prove you don't know diddly." For any who might think that, let me be perfectly clear: I do not want this to devolve into some contest where people put down anyone's suggested alternatives to WotC's design. Leave your agenda at the door, please.

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

I definitely see your first point. When I saw that minions all had fixed damage, my first reaction was, "How boring." In my experience, rolling a couple dice doesn't add much to bookkeeping or time. It seems like this is more a matter of preference than something fundamental to the concept.

<snip>
Minions seem like cardboard cutouts of creatures.

I'm not sure I see that as a criticism of minions. You could almost say that's the point of them.

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.

I wonder if there might be a better way to have minions that take 2 or 3 hits to kill? There's not that much difference between tracking hit points and tracking a couple of hits, whereas the difference between no bookkeeping and some bookkeeping is huge when you have a lot of opponents. What if any "hit" or point of damage had an 80% chance to kill a minion? That way a small percentage will take more than 1 hit, a vanishingly small number will take more than 2, and you still preserve no bookkeeping. It would add a roll, but you're still saving the damage roll, so it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

 

[Schmoe]

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.

True enough. I was hoping to attract some of the people from the Rules forum who are vocal critics of minions, to see what they might do differently. But you're right, this is more of a House Rule topic.

And I see the moderators agree. Thanks PlaneSailing.

 

[Anthony Jackson]

I wonder if there might be a better way to have minions that take 2 or 3 hits to kill? There's not that much difference between tracking hit points and tracking a couple of hits, whereas the difference between no bookkeeping and some bookkeeping is huge when you have a lot of opponents.

Well, bookkeeping on 'add bloodied mark' isn't horrible, which is the standard for a 2-hit minion.

 

[Schmoe]

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.

But isn't that what's been done already? Minions already have "normal" attributes for creatures of their level, except the HP. I guess I don't understand the difference.

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.

That's an interesting idea. Would you abstract this to single-target attacks as well, so that an attack doing 2 points of damage subtracts 2 from the pool? I suppose if you had minions of multiple types you could just have a pool for each type.

It still adds bookkeeping, but a very small amount. It does seem you'd be creating a lot of work for minions that aren't below your threshold, though.

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

How so? Do you mean, specifically, advancement in the realm of damage-dealing? I can think of several realms of player advancement that are challenged by minions. Care to explain?

 

[Syrsuro]

I think the greatest improvement while keeping the general spirit would be for some to survive their initial hit to become bloodied.

Using the 'bloodied' state to make them more durable retains the spirit (they are still pretty easy to mow through), while keeping them easy to keep track of (still no hit points, you just need to pop a bloodied marker on those that survive).

As for how you determine which ones die on the first hit and which ones survive to become bloodied - there are several approachs and nothing which says that you can't use different rules for different creatures.

At present I am leaning towards the following.

1) Any critical hit will kill a minion, regardless of total damage.
2) Any attack which does less than 10 points of damage on a hit or which does any amount of damage on a miss will bloody the minion. If the minion is already dead, this damage will kill it.
3) Any attack which does more than 10 points of damage will kill the minion, regardless of whether or not the minion was previously bloodied.


This retains the simplicity (no need for bookkeeping - minions have only three states (uninjured, bloodied, dead) and determining when they move from one state to another is clear and easy.

But it gives them just enough durability to make them relevant when they occur, while still allowing the players to mop them up quickly.

Of course - I haven't had the chance to test this yet, so its a purely theoretical approach at this point.

Carl

 

[Anthony Jackson]

1) Any critical hit will kill a minion, regardless of total damage.
2) Any attack which does less than 10 points of damage on a hit or which does any amount of damage on a miss will bloody the minion. If the minion is already dead, this damage will kill it.

The amount should be level-dependent, and should be set so a typical at-will is not a kill. 10+level seems like a good threshold.

 

[KarinsDad]

The amount should be level-dependent, and should be set so a typical at-will is not a kill. 10+level seems like a good threshold.

There are a lot of PCs that will not be doing 40 points of damage unless they use a Daily (and maybe not even then) at level 30.

I would suggest 10 +5 Paragon +10 Epic instead. Below the threshold, the non-bloodied foe is bloodied, the bloodied foe is killed. Equal or above the threshold, the foe is killed.


I also like the concept that I introduced some months back of "Tough Minions". For me, Tough Minions solve all of the issues I have with minions. A Tough Minion is identical to a normal minion except:

1) 2x XP of minions.
2) Dies on even damage, lives on odd damage (this gets changed randomly from encounter to encounter)
3) Dies if hit 3 times.
4) Bloodied if hit 2 times and does not die.
5) Both Tough Minions and normal minions roll damage.

#2 can be changed to other criteria so that the players do not figure it out (such as odd or even total to hit rolls, etc.).

If the DM sometimes throws Tough Minions in with regular minions, the players do not know for any given encounter whether any given opponent is a minion or not. Even gaining the name of the monster with a Monster Check will only hint to the player that the foe is a minion, it will not indicate whether it is a regular minion or a tough minion.

And, Tough Minions fill the gap between one hit minions and 4+ hit other monsters. This gives the DM more encounter options because he effectively has another monster role he can use.

 

[dragon23ca]

Elite Minions

I like the minions, but I also find too many of them and the PC's just tag them all. So in my next game I plan on running minions and elite minions, its a template I made (got the idea from someone here) that you add to a minion to make it just a little tougher. I plan on taking the 4 minions = 1 standard and instead going 2 minions, 1 elite minion and not let the PC's be able to tell them apart (eg use the same minitures for both and just pick 1 out of 3 to be the elite, maybe which ever gets hit by an attack too low to kill the elite)

Elite Minion
Humanoid or Undead XP Elite (twice normal minion)
Defenses +1 AC, +1 to any two other defense
Attacks +1
Hit Points 2 (Missed attacks never damage a tough minion, unless its bloodied.)


Tough Resolve [Con bonus] (immediate reaction, when hit by any attack; no action)
When a Tough minion is hit by an attack if the damage is less then its Tough Resovle mark the minion as bloodied with 1 hp left. Any damage taken after kills the minion. (note: con bonus = con mod + ½ level)


Desperate Strike (free action; encounter; recharge when bloodied)
When a tough minion hits with a standard attack, increase its damage by +3 normally listed. (note: use this on crits but don't make it more then 2 attacks in total)
This increases to +5 damage at 11st, and +9 damage at 21st.