Let's talk about minions...

[cangrejoide]

I hesitate to speak for others, but I think when most minion-haters say "It doesn't make sense" they are not vocalizing their belief that game rules should be consistent with each other, and that having some rules that are inconsistent with the rest of the game "doesn't make sense." Minions are really inconsistent. In D&D, not having hit points is like not having height, depth or mass. It causes way more problems than it solves, for people who play D&D in a certain way. Hence, the complaint.

IIRC Hit points have a lot of different definitions in D&D (fatigue, actual wounds, health, structural integrity, wear & tear, etc.) so why assigning minions an undetermined amount of hit points so difficult to incorporate in a game? The abstraction is already there, why not go a little further?

Minions not just have 1 hit point.They have just enough to die from the hit but more than the damage done in the miss. That amount of hit points is just undetermined until it dies. Think that the 1 hit point is just a proxy to the undetermined amount it really has.

It's like when your pcs are trying to break a door ( or any other inanimate object) and you couldn't bother to look up its stats, the DM just ruled that the door will break after x amount of dmg.

 

[Engilbrand]

Irda, I was being facetious. I asked if guards roll Perception before PCs ever enter into it. Your example uses the guards after the PCs are a part of it. In that case, it definitely makes sense to roll for the guards. They might become a part of the action. Rolling before PCs are ever on the scene, though, could lead to one caught thief. How many assassination attempts do you roll to confirm before the PCs show up to the area? Probably none. The king was either assassinated, or there was an attempt. It depends on what you want to do. When it comes to the guards and the thief, guards are probably either chasing or not. I doubt people roll to see if the hypothetical guards saw the hypothetical thief before the real PCs came on the scene.
On minions: The key is to remember that everything needs to be used as it's supposed to be. You can purposely screw things up and play a dagger throwing Paladin who refuses to heal (as someone mentioned a month or so back), but then the problems aren't with the system, they're with the player. If someone says, "I don't like have classes and a d20." I wouldn't tell them to figure out some houserules. I'd tell them to play a different game. They don't want this system. I wouldn't ask a brain surgeon what's wrong with my knee. The 4th edition system is set up to work a certain way and is PURPOSELY not consistent. If you want consistency, you expect something that 4th edition isn't set up for. While minions have "1 hit point", the better rule is as it's spelled out in the book. "They die if they take damage from a successful hit." That's all that's important.

 

[cangrejoide]

A 10th level wizard couldn't one shot a 4th level brute with a staff but that same wizard could, if he wanted to, do this to a 10th level minion.

This maybe your problem, the level 4th brute is not a level 4th brute to a level 10 wizard, but a level 4th minion at least, most of the time it should only be a narrated encounter with no actual dice rolling.

You keep missing the point that opposition is relative to the players, and by the time they are level 30th most players will actually be fighting hordes of level 25 balor minions as they try to kill the BBEG who is an elite or even a solo of the relevant level.

It's all relative.

The problem with minions is that though they can certainly be used appropriately... such as a mob of mooks slaughtered by Conan...there are plenty of opportunities for D&D combats to become utter cartoons that are more silly than heroic.
Wyrmshadows

No, this all depends on the GM style. If the narration of the GM is purposely cartoonish, then you will have a silly adventure. Note that this can happen with any edition of any RPG out there. So no blaming bad GMing unto the rules.

 

[D'karr]

Without a good DM narrating them well, especially in the case of gigantic, powerful minions (an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp) would make Kill Bill scenes seem entirely believable.

What???!!!! Kill Bill is not believable?????!!!!

Heresy.

I find that minions fit their purpose perfectly. Mooks that will get run over by determined PCs. If I need a threat that will last, I don't use a minion.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Minions are really inconsistent. In D&D, not having hit points is like not having height, depth or mass. It causes way more problems than it solves, for people who play D&D in a certain way. Hence, the complaint.

This sums things up nicely. Hit points are a basic attribute in the game world. Minions really stick out like a sore thumb because the combats rules are very detailed and crunchy ( not in a simulationist way) but the minion rules are very abstract. I think the minion concept might actually work better in a system like Basic D&D where the whole rules package is more abstract. As a player the fights we have had against minions have been very unsatisfying. After using a power and downing a minion, then realizing you could have gotten the same effect by using an open handed slap across the face, I feel like the effort was almost wasted. Defeating a heap of opponents doesn't feel very heroic or exciting once you realize they each could have dropped by being coughed on.

I fully understand the narrative role that minions are supposed to have in the story. In a novel you can't see the mechanics behind the description of combat ( there are none) so when a hero cleaves through a dozen foes quickly its exciting. In a game with detailed combat rules the ugly clumsy mechanics hit you over the head with each roll of the die. If you were to take a favorite fight scene from a movie and write out the events as a 4E combat report it wouldn't look nearly as impressive. Oh look Aragorn took out 3 uruk-hai in a round..............meh, they were minions.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

This maybe your problem, the level 4th brute is not a level 4th brute to a level 10 wizard, but a level 4th minion at least, most of the time it should only be a narrated encounter with no actual dice rolling.

You keep missing the point that opposition is relative to the players, and by the time they are level 30th most players will actually be fighting hordes of level 25 balor minions as they try to kill the BBEG who is an elite or even a solo of the relevant level.

It's all relative.

I get it, I just think that it is fundamentally ridiculous that the game world has no actual numerical reality until the PCs encounter it. IMC the 20th level lich is a reality (numerically and narratively) whether the PCs are 1st level or 23rd level. The whole relative reality is exactly what games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion does with its dungeons. The world morphs to meet the PCs where they are. IMC and in most people's campaigns that I know, there are places that are appropriate and innappropriate to wander into because if you enter a region where powerful monsters exist and you are weak (and ignore the warnings) you die.

Personally I do a lot of narrative things in my own campaign like cut scenes and other narration to immerse my players in the game. However, the very idea of everyone of a certain level able to one shot, with spell or weapon, enemies who have historically and thematically been powerful like devils, giants, ogres, etc. getting snuffed out in the midst of a fireball that wouldn't auto-kill creatures of half that level objectively.

Of course there is no creature that would be half the PCs level within the boundaries of PC reality that would not be a minion and that every creature of lower level than the PCs is open to one-shot kills. If there are mezzodemon minions for PCs over a certain level then is it even possible that any creature of lower level isn't a minion? Anything is possible, but is is possible to make any actual sense of it outside of absolute gamism...I don't see it.

No, this all depends on the GM style. If the narration of the GM is purposely cartoonish, then you will have a silly adventure. Note that this can happen with any edition of any RPG out there. So no blaming bad GMing unto the rules.

In a world where suddenly halfling rogues can one-shot kill hill giants with a 6 inch dagger potentially one after another then I think we have crossed into a brave new world of potentially silly realities. Putting a DM into the position of having to, in order to be fair, allow the halfling to potentially do what the 6ft. 6", 250lb barbarian wielding a greatsword can do because of the minion rules is nuts. It's hard to houserule certain realities without completely hosing the players and screwing the pooch in redards to the rules.

Even where minion rules can potentially make sense such as with mighty warriors haking through squads of red shirts, 4e has it were everyone is potentially Conan, even Wizards because everyone has to be equally badass in combat even if you are a 60yr old man who spent his entire life reading tomes and writing scrolls....If a DM doesn't consider Kill Bill and Jackie Chan movies vivid portrayals of heroic action in the classic sense, these rules are a problem.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Wyrmshadows]

This sums things up nicely. Hit points are a basic attribute in the game world. Minions really stick out like a sore thumb because the combats rules are very detailed and crunchy ( not in a simulationist way) but the minion rules are very abstract. I think the minion concept might actually work better in a system like Basic D&D where the whole rules package is more abstract. As a player the fights we have had against minions have been very unsatisfying. After using a power and downing a minion, then realizing you could have gotten the same effect by using an open handed slap across the face, I feel like the effort was almost wasted. Defeating a heap of opponents doesn't feel very heroic or exciting once you realize they each could have dropped by being coughed on.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

There is no way of stopping PCs from slap killing ogres for Christ's sake. If such a thing ever reared its head in 3.5e everyone would be saying how broken slap-fights are in the rules. "OMG, Oh noooeesss111!!!! how can such a rule exist, this loophole must be plugged otherwise the 3.5e is ruined!"

I fully understand the narrative role that minions are supposed to have in the story. In a novel you can't see the mechanics behind the description of combat ( there are none) so when a hero cleaves through a dozen foes quickly its exciting. In a game with detailed combat rules the ugly clumsy mechanics hit you over the head with each roll of the die. If you were to take a favorite fight scene from a movie and write out the events as a 4E combat report it wouldn't look nearly as impressive. Oh look Aragorn took out 3 uruk-hai in a round..............meh, they were minions.

Oz's wizard wasn't so impressive once we got behind the curtain. Minions make heroes out of individuals who are little better than the mooks they are fighting except via a rule fiat that makes them more special, not by their actions, but via vast mechanical advantage.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Scribble]

The whole idea of simmulationist gamist et al just rubs me the wrong way. If you're into it, cool, but for me. Eh I find it's people arbvitrarily defining what simulates reality based on personal tastes and what side of an argument they want to be on.

The idea of HP simulating how tough something is seems the most wonky thing in the world to me...

Nothing breaks my "emersion" more then the fighter or barbarian looking at a horde of archers and saying... "Eh... I have enough hit points. Even if they all do max damage I'll be able to get over there and take em out."

WTF???

I like to watch boxing... Those guys are tough, and they know a lot about how to put the hurtin on someone. I'd never want to go up against them in a fist fight, but I'm pretty sure if I shoot then, stab them, or drop a grenade down their pants they're going to DIE!

Hit point representing the amount of times you can take an axe to the gut just seems... silly. Especially when it also correlates to how skileld you are at fighting or casting spells...

I much preffer to see it as simulating something called Moxie.

Moxie is kind of like the force. It's everywhere, and a part of all things. It's the supreme energy of the world.

Some people can even tap into moxie to do things like survive an attack or a blast that should have kileld them. Moxie allows them to at the last moment turn just the right way to avoid a blow, or just to luckily have been in the right spot to deflect the attack... This is represented by hit points. Hit points are a representation of how much moxie you can use or are able to channel.

Moxie is indifferent. It doesn't care about your ability to fight, your training in how to sell undead war weasles to adventurers, or even if you're good or evil... Moxie just is.

In fact, no one really knows how or why certain people have access to moxie... It could be a god given gift, maybe a force of will thing, or just a gene you're born with. But they do know certain people got it... certain people don't, and the number of people without the ability far exceeds the number of people WITH the ability... (hence 4 no moxie minions for every 1 moxie hero...)

The fonz? He had Moxie... Captain James T Kirk? He had Moxie. Ensign Steve? he didn't have Moxie.

When two people with Moxie go head to head, they're not always cutting eachother or burning eachother... they're reducing eachother's ability to continue tapping into Moxie.

There are also different levels of Moxie.

Minions, and the average person don't have any. You get a sound huit off on these people.. they die.

Going from there we have a standard level of Moxie. The majority of people who can tap into Moxie are at the standard level.

Then we have the elite level. Eletie moxie people can tap into Moxie more then standard people can, but not as much as the next level...

Solo... People in the solo moxie level are the real badasses of the world... Who knows how or why but they can tap into an unbelieveable amount of Moxie at once... (interestingly though, some people theorize that tapping into that level of Moxie at such a quick rate tends to be harmful to a person's psyche... This is why a lot of these people tend to find plans like enslaving entire planets with the help of idiots, or writing your name on the moon with a giant laser to be good plans...)

There's also another category, but it's not really a level. It's called Hero. People in this category are called heros. Heros are generally of the standard level, but they have this unique ability to continuously improve their ability to tap into Moxie the more times they do "cool stuff." Most people can only improve their status occasionaly. Like sometimes they just get better at it, but usually only a few times per lifetime. Heros though- these guys continuosly improve.

So uh... yeah. Simmulate away.

Can we all be friends again and go kill some orcs?

 

[Engilbrand]

I'm fairly certain that Scribble just won this thread with the best explanation of hit points and general character/monster ability that I have ever seen. It is, for lack of a better word, perfect.

 

[AllisterH]

Um, if you're using HP = model of the world, doesn't that bring up a huge list of problems?

I mean, Caramon from DL died from a broken neck after missing a step in his house and you of course, have the silliness that is a housecat that can kill an adult.

Using HP=model of the world brings up a whole swath of problems....