Let's talk about minions...

[Obryn]

Back when you couldn't toss a fireball into a crowd to subdue. " Roast the dark one and the giant but leave the third alive for questioning"

I know it's hardly relevant, but this exact situation came up in my game, and much like the 4e DMG encourages me to do and as I've done for two decades, I made a ruling. In this case, "No, that's dumb."

-O

 

[The Little Raven]

What it really comes down to is a social question- if players have the right to describe their character's acts, what should be done if a player chooses to describe their character's acts in such a way as to create a mismatch between the description and the underlying game mechanics?

Any situation in which "Damn, that's cool!" comes into conflict with anything else, including previous DM rulings and official rules, "Damn, that's cool!" wins.

YMMV, of course.

 

[S'mon]

I share your view exactly!

What may be initially difficult to grasp is that minions only have 1hp when pcs of the appropriate level are around. Once you've grasped that, all of the criticism I've seen so far simply evaporates. It's a great concept.

Yes, this clears up a lot of difficulties. What's an appropriate level, though? 4 under minion level? 2 under? Minion level? At what point are we in farmer vs pit fiend territory?

 

[Obryn]

Yes, this clears up a lot of difficulties. What's an appropriate level, though? 4 under minion level? 2 under? Minion level? At what point are we in farmer vs pit fiend territory?

The proper number is what is right for your group, not a hard and fast rule.

It's the zen of minions.

-O

 

[S'mon]

The proper number is what is right for your group, not a hard and fast rule.

It's the zen of minions.

-O

Yeah, but I have zero experience running 4e, so others' experiences are handy to know about.

 

[El Mahdi]

. . . meditate upon a hypothetical player who declares that he is using his giant two handed scythe to hook an orc's underwear and give it a wedgie. . .

(I can now hear Beavis and Butthead in my head)

Heh heh, heh heh. He said "wedgie".

Yeah, hunh hunh, hunh hunh. That was cool.



P.S.: What name would you give this power?

 

[Fifth Element]

Of all the suspension of disbelief issues with minions, magic voltron peasants that combine to fight like a single really tough monster have to be worse.

An "attack" and "damage" are abstract. If you don't want to picture peasants grouping together to make a single, powerful attack, don't. That's not what it's intended to represent anyway. Imagine it differently.

 

[Fifth Element]

If you feel this is incorrect, meditate upon a hypothetical player who declares that he is using his giant two handed scythe to hook an orc's underwear and give it a wedgie. 'Tis an attack with a scythe, and 'tis unpleasant, should it deal regular scythe damage? Should it kill a minion? Should it kill a monster that has been beaten down to one hit point? If repeated two dozen times, should it kill a first level wizard?

That's a really bad example, because everyone knows that the scythe would totally slice through the underwear. It might work once, but a second attack on the same target just couldn't work.

 

[Spatula]

If your argument falls into the following form, it is silly:

1. Imagine a hypothetical monster that wouldn't make sense as a minion.
2. Now imagine that it IS a minion!
3. Oh my gosh!

So why do dragons not make sense as minions, but giants do? The whole point that the dragon example was making was that giants don't make sense as minions, to them.

And dragons would make sense as minions in a "War of the Lance"-style setting, so I don't see how it's some absurd example.

 

[Deep Blue 9000]

I think the problem people are having with minions stems from the anti-simulationist nature of 4e (as compared to 3.5). The Monster Manul does not have an entry for the legion devil: it merely has an entry that describes how a legion devil interacts with appropriate level PCs.

When the monster entries are used in places they were not meant to be applied, such as a human peasant fighting the legion devil, there will be inconsistencies.