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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hellcow" data-source="post: 4121635" data-attributes="member: 15800">Perhaps this has been answered already; I thought this had been addressed earlier in the thread. There's no such thing as "a first-level commoner" in 4E D&D. And as a matter of fact, when I was running an adventure on a ship recently, I DID make the majority of the crew minions (which among other things meant that when trouble started, the PCs had to work hard to save them - because they would go down if attacked by the villains). NPCs don't rely on the same rules as PCs. If you want to make an NPC who's identical to a first-level PC, go right ahead. But that's not a requirement or an expectation. As for the idea that "minions will explode when cats attack them", this is trying to apply realism to a concept that isn't supposed to be realistic. Yes, minions are defeated when they take damage. This isn't supposed to suggest that they are walking soap bubbles that pop if a 4-year-old pokes them. The same creature can have hit points when used against lower-level characters and be treated as a minion at higher levels - because when fighting epic level characters, devils that would slaughter a 1st-level character are now trivial (a principle you see in a range of media - for example, in season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when one turok-han beats the crap out of Buffy, and by the end of the season the gang is slaughtering them in droves). A minion is a dramatic category, not a physiological condition. Minions are creatures who pose little threat TO THE PCS and who can be defeated swiftly and easily by the PCs. It's not a new idea; Feng Shui did the exact same thing with mooks long ago, and I'm sure it's not the only other system with this sort of creature. If the cat attacks the minion, it's up to the DM to decide if a cat is even capable of inflicting significant harm on a human being (domestic cats don't get a write-up in the 4E MM). If the DM actually chooses to assign a damage value to a cat, then sure, the cat can defeat minions - and as a DM, if it occured in a combat scenario, I'd be sure to describe how amazing this is, because if that cat can take down a person, it's pretty good. Seeing as how things that drop to zero hit points may be rendered unconscious instead of being killed, I'd likely rule this the case in the cat attack; the cat can't just kill someone with a swipe of a paw, but it can slash at the minion's eyes, at which point he drops to the ground screaming and clutching his eyes, and is out of the fight. Minions are an example of a rule designed for cinematic effect as opposed to realism - just like the mooks of Feng Shui. The aren't supposed to be brittle-boned hemophiliacs who die from the slightest contact; they are supposed to represent foes that a PC of a particular level can quickly defeat and move on. They're in there for the Kill Bill mob scene. Sure, in the past you could just say "They have 5 hit points, almost any hit will kill them" - but if you want to run a scene with 50 of them, tracking those few times the players do roll fewer than 5 damage can be a pain. Like the mooks, the point is simplicity: if you hit them, don't worry about damage - the attack is challenge enough.First level may be the new third for PCs. This has no impact on the world at large; on the contrary, the commoner IS likely to be a minion, making the PC stand out all the more.</blockquote>

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