Let's talk about minions...

[D'karr]

If it's irrelevant, why did you specifically offer up housecats that can kill adults (a phenomena almost exclusively associated with AD&D 1e) as an example of DM ineptness to boost your own argument?*

As far as arguing that the cat doesn't exist, go check a copy of the AD&D 1e DMG. The house cat in question does 1-4 damage, which is exactly how many hit points the typical 1st Level Wizard has under his belt.

It's not a guaranteed kill by any means, but hundreds of threads on dozens of message boards over nearly as many years stand testament to the fact that the house cat in question can kill a low level PC.

The fact is that the house cat in question has an entry (along with combat stats) in a book of monsters specifically meant to challenge player characters. That is specifically what the entry exists for.

Arguing that the killer house cat is purely a result of DM incompetence and, therefore, not relevent to a discussion about threats posed to low level PCs (or illustrative of a creature being used out of context) ignores a great deal of evidence to the contrary.

*That's a rhetorical question, of course.

If I was arguing anything of the sort you'd have a point. However, I was responding to another poster about something completely different and 1e was not even part of what I was discussing. Specially since the thread is specifically about minions, which is a game artifact introduced in 4e and nowhere to be found in 1e.

My point was that using a housecat (which I'm assuming is a creature) to attack a farmer (which I'm assuming is an NPC or minion in this case) is an exercise in rules manipulation just for the hell of it.

First, because I don't spend my DM time perpetuating NPC on NPC violence by using the combat rules. It is a waste of resources and time. If I need the farmer dead I just kill him. I don't need to roll the dice or see what the cat's attacks are to determine that. Second, since the discussion is about minions and therefore about 4e; adventurers in 4e are not farmers (minions or NPCs) and a housecat (minor creature at best) would be hard pressed to kill one in one hit.

My posts above all speak about the same subject. You must have missed them.

So where did you find, in 4e, a housecat that can kill an adventurer in one hit?*

*Since we are rhetorically speaking, of course.

 

[Irda Ranger]

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.

I've been saying for quite some time that Hit Points should really be called "Awesome Points", because they're a measure of just how awesome you are.

But Moxie works too.

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

And by a "sound hit" you mean if you roll 32 dmg? What if you roll a 1 and they still die? Does that make you feel like a hero?

I quoted you above just to make clear we don't disagree on what HP are. We agree on that. Where we part ways is on whether or not it's okay for some people to have an integer between 1 and <infinite> for that value and others to have a null value there. I (and Wyrmshadows, Exploder Wizard, and others) say it's not okay. It really bothers us. Creatures with apparent life, breath and the ability to attack you but no Moxie are like creatures with height and weight but no momentum or inertia. It's just weird, and it sticks out like a sore thumb to us.

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.

Dig it.

I was actually thinking about this last year, back when WotC was releasing their new cosmology and cosmological history. I was thinking "This is cool. But how do PCs fit in? What makes them PCs?" I decided, just for myself, that if Primordials are the Supreme and Free Willed agents of the Elemental Chaos, and Gods are the Supreme and Free Willed agents of the Astral Plane, then Dragons must be the Supreme and Free Willed agents of the Prime Material. They tap into the Moxie of the Prime Material like nobody's business.

But just like Astral has Angels, and the Elemental Chaos has Archons, the Prime Material has Heroes. They the mortal incarnation of the Prime Material's Moxie, and as they grow their power to tap into the Moxie of the Prime Material also grows. This is the source of both magic and magical-like martial exploits.

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

Any time.

 

[Delta]

As far as arguing that the cat doesn't exist, go check a copy of the AD&D 1e DMG. The house cat in question does 1-4 damage, which is exactly how many hit points the typical 1st Level Wizard has under his belt.

There are no house cats in the AD&D 1E DMG. Nor the Monster Manual.

 

[Logos7]

Yeah, one of the first thing's I did with my new players in 4th edition was , Hey You can say HP but think in your head Fight Points, do you loose some fight when you get whacked and cut? Oh yeah but psionic assults and other things also affect them.

As far as minions, I love them. Sometimes you just need waves upon waves of mooks, as for the people not wanting to use high level minions, that's fine but your depriving yourself of mook fights for little reason that I can see, its a matter of personal taste.

They feel very much like buffy, and I think buffy is a pretty good example of heroic fantasy. Someone really early on called it goofy But I wouldn't say it is anymore than any other visual fantasy example. Compare buffy to say the DnD movie? yeah who's goofy now. Perhaps the recent Beowulf where the dude cuts off his own arm to stab the dragon better? Yeah whos goody now.

(not really ragging on these thigns but i dislike that minions get dismissed as goofy fantasy when they are a pretty strong staple of fantasy and pulp in all kinds)

What i find really amusing is all the house rules to give minions smidgeons of Hp so that they still go down in one hit, but you know not in one hit.

Logos

 

[Toras]

I find myself in a wierd place. As a rule, I am not against minions in games like Feng Shui and the like. But given the detail of 4e's combat system, it feels unnatural and outplace like a guy wearing a parka in the Gobi Desert.

While I can understand the idea of mowing through humanoids like you where a human threshing machine is very much conan. But this idea goes wonky when you start to introducing Friendly NPCs into the combat. Which is something we will frequently do. Either they are people we have recruited to aid us, enemies of our enemies, former advisaries that we have shown mercy on, or perhaps simply grateful townsfolk.

While I will admit rping out every npc v npc encounter is a special sort of insanity, when they are both for and against in a given combat it causes problems. Which kind of cuts down on a lot of what I liked to do in D&D./

 

[pemerton]

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.

For the historical record: Hong was saying the same thing on Usenet back in 2000 when 3E was coming out. Only he called it "badness", I think, rather than "moxie".

 

[pemerton]

In the whole simulation/narriative debate, people (such as Scribble and Charwoman Gene above) seem to confuse what the simulationist types are looking for, with realism. HP are not realistic, and everyone knows that. What the sim side wants is concrete, internally consistant mechanics. The narriativist side has no versimilitude problem with ditching consistancy for a better story. That's all it comes down to.

That's not the sense in which I'm using the words, nor (as far as I know) Mustrum Ridcully.

HeroWars is a narrativist game, not a simulationist one. It has far more consistent mechanics than any pre-3E version of D&D.

Purist-for-system simulationist play, in the Forge sense, is play in which the mechanics model the causal processes of the gameworld. Traveller, Runequest and Rolemaster are classic examples.

Narrativist play, in the Forge sense, is play in which the mechanics facilitate the distribution of narrativist control between the players of the game (including GM) and leave the question of ingame causality to be narrated by the appropriate person once the result of the dice is known. Minions, healing surges and martial encounter powers are all examples of narrativist mechanics.

Maybe I'm biased though, because in my own experience (yes admittedly it's anecdotal) the people who seem to be "simulationist" seem to be really upset because it's something they can't "get" in the game.

Ie they are complaining that the mechanics have no ingame meaning.

Gamists = people who want to be challenged IN the game...

In the Forge sense, gamist play is that in which the goal of play is for the players to overcome challenges in the real world (whether by luck or skill). Tunnels and Trolls is an example - it emphasises luck, like gambling. 1st ed AD&D is another - it emphasises skill, like wargaming.

Simmulationists= People who want to be sure they can already defeat any challeneg before it happens... (the challenge is discovering how to beat the game.)

This is not connected in any way to the Forge notion. What you are describing sounds like a gamist player who wants to use character build rules rather than action resolution rules. Neither T&T nor AD&D would be good for this person, but 3E D&D might be.

Narrativists= people who don't care if there's a challenge to begin with?

Narrativists have, as the goal of play, the construction of a thematically meaningful story (ie not just a sequence of events) by the participants in the game. Challenges or conflicts of some sort are likely to be significant in narrativist RPGing for the same reasons that they are in literature, film etc.

 

[pemerton]

There are no house cats in the AD&D 1E DMG. Nor the Monster Manual.

They are in the 1st ed AD&D MMII. From memory, the cat entry has both domestic cats and wild cats.

 

[Hypersmurf]

For the historical record: Hong was saying the same thing on Usenet back in 2000 when 3E was coming out. Only he called it "badness", I think, rather than "moxie".

I've seen it described as the "Dude Factor" before.

-Hyp.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I was actually thinking about this last year, back when WotC was releasing their new cosmology and cosmological history. I was thinking "This is cool. But how do PCs fit in? What makes them PCs?" I decided, just for myself, that if Primordials are the Supreme and Free Willed agents of the Elemental Chaos, and Gods are the Supreme and Free Willed agents of the Astral Plane, then Dragons must be the Supreme and Free Willed agents of the Prime Material. They tap into the Moxie of the Prime Material like nobody's business.

But just like Astral has Angels, and the Elemental Chaos has Archons, the Prime Material has Heroes. They the mortal incarnation of the Prime Material's Moxie, and as they grow their power to tap into the Moxie of the Prime Material also grows. This is the source of both magic and magical-like martial exploits.

I love this idea.

And what hit points are or represent? Awesome points? Moxie? I used "protection from nastiness" once, which isn't as catchy, but represents well what they do in D&D - Maybe it's helpful, because there are other kinds of "awesome points" or moxie. In Torg, Possibilities are used to reduce damage, but they also work like action points (d20 Modern style, but way better) or like Shadowrun Karma (3E) or Edge (4E).

Minions don't have any protection from nastiness. If they end up in a cloud of daggers, they get dismembered. If someone connects with his sword, he lops of an arm or the head. If they don't get out of the way of the fire, they just burn to death...