D&D 4E Keith Baker on 4E! (The Hellcow responds!)

[Mouseferatu]

Scroedinger's Kobold.

You know, I've been tempted to include a catfolk ninja named Schroedinger in a game--you never know if he's there or not--but not only would my players lynch me, I have a deep-seated aversion to anything resembling cat-folk in any of my games. Ever. No matter what. Ew.

(It would have fit in just fine in one of my Planescape adventures, though. Years back, in the midst of a normally serious Planescape campaign, I dumped the PCs on a world they didn't know and had a completely comic relief game. They wound up having to find the cure to a magical disease so they could aid in the, ahem, "revival" of an elven king named Credence Clearwater. They eventually found it in the lair of a crevice-dwelling demon called a crack fiend.)

 

[Lizard]

GenCon?

Hey, not to be all 'Me Too', but I started with Champions 1.0 in High School, and Steve Long was one of my players in the 4e game I ran when I lived in North Carolina. (And he was, for the record, amazingly patient as I fumbled with rules and deferred to my calls on edge issues. Running a game when one of the game's main designers is sitting there as a player can be a bit...intimidating.)

 

[Psion]

At some point this thread turned cool.

 

[catsclaw]

2) If the minion survives the first encounter with the PCs, it means by definition the PCs didn't hit him. And if that's the case, there's no need for him to have been a minion.

I'll admit I can't think about this for too long without getting a headache. But I'm beginning to see the logic in requiring a to-hit roll to kill a minion.

There was the example of a Wall of Ice which does 2d6 damage to anything attacking it, and takes 50 hit points damage to bash through. Easy way for villains to break through? Send a minion to attack it. No to-hit roll, no damage, the minion is immune to the wall.

But here's the thing--anything sent to attack it becomes dramatically relevant, and therefore is not a minion. Villains simply never send a minion to attack a Wall of Ice. It's dramatically inappropriate.

And I know that sounds goofy and will offend some GMs, but it's no stranger than the fact that the camera on a TV sitcom never swings around to show the fourth wall. Think about that--you know there are lots of walls missing on all the sets, but despite that the camera never seems to find one. It's exactly the same thing. Things just "happen" to arrange themselves specifically so they don't break the dramatic illusion.

 

[Lizard]

There was the example of a Wall of Ice which does 2d6 damage to anything attacking it, and takes 50 hit points damage to bash through. Easy way for villains to break through? Send a minion to attack it. No to-hit roll, no damage, the minion is immune to the wall.
.

But if the wall *damages* the minion, he still pops like the kobold-shaped soap bubble he is. I don't see where an attack is needed. I believe the exact text says "The minion dies if he takes *damage*".

 

[Mouseferatu]

But if the wall *damages* the minion, he still pops like the kobold-shaped soap bubble he is. I don't see where an attack is needed. I believe the exact text says "The minion dies if he takes *damage*".

Yeah. I'm not sure where the notion that "a sword can kill a minion, but a wall of ice or falling into lava can't" came from.

But I suspect it was someone who frequents the Rules forum taking something out of context.

 

[catsclaw]

Yeah. I'm not sure where the notion that "a sword can kill a minion, but a wall of ice or falling into lava can't" came from.

It comes from the designers at DDXP dithering about changing the rule so that only to-hit rolls can kill a minion.

I know I had a table where the fighter tried to cleave into a minion, and the judge said it didn't work, because there's no to-hit roll for the secondary effect. So that's where it comes from, and as far as I know it's the latest version of the rules.

 

[Lizard]

It comes from the designers at DDXP dithering about changing the rule so that only to-hit rolls can kill a minion.

I know I had a table where the fighter tried to cleave into a minion, and the judge said it didn't work, because there's no to-hit roll for the secondary effect. So that's where it comes from, and as far as I know it's the latest version of the rules.

Huh. Because cleave is *meant* for slaughtering minions. That its dramatic purpose. I'm going to say that judge was probably wrong.

 

[Mouseferatu]

It comes from the designers at DDXP dithering about changing the rule so that only to-hit rolls can kill a minion.

I know I had a table where the fighter tried to cleave into a minion, and the judge said it didn't work, because there's no to-hit roll for the secondary effect. So that's where it comes from, and as far as I know it's the latest version of the rules.

I think what you have there is a judge who misunderstood something, not a hard-and-fast rules issue.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Sorry, I was being unclear. I was referring to situations where something intended to be a disposable speedbump gets a name and a personality. If we go by the Dramatic Effect paradigm, he needs to become bigger, badder, better -- he has to be a Real Live Boy. In TV show terms, this is when the character written for a one-off guest appearance or as Background Thug #1 becomes a series regular. He was minion in his first appearence; when you see him again, he's fully statted out.

IOW, if I'm going to use Dramatic Importance==Power Level, I'm going to go all the way.

no one knows he was a minion before... (if you knew, he would be dead as proof)