Living Forgotten Realms minion variants

[Wednesday Boy]

In today's Save My Game column (Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Lie, Cheat, and Steal))
Stephen Radney-MacFarland mentions:

"I’ve often experimented with or changed the rules for minions. Living Forgotten Realms adventures feature some interesting variations on the minion rules to fit climactic encounters. I’ve found inspiration from many of them."

I've never played LFR but the idea of new ways to use minions sounds intriguing. Does anyone know what sort of minion variations he's referring to? Thanks!

 

[Reaper Steve]

I second this request!

I created a variant minion rule that I put to use in last week's Encounter. The issues I wanted to address were:
1) I feel that neglecting the damage roll and just removing the minion on a hit steals something from the experience. So, I wanted damage to matter, without having to track HP for minions.
2) I also wanted effects (dazed, etc.) to be able to affect minions.
3) I don't like to advertise minion status. I want players to figure out who the miniosn are, and not feel ripped if they use an Enc/Daily power on one/some.

Here's what I came up with:
1) The first time a minion takes damage, it becomes bloodied, with two exceptions:
a) A critical hit kills a minion
b) if the damage roll is equal to or greater than the minion's CON, it is killed.
2) The second time a minion takes damage, it is killed.

It worked well in play and all the players gave positive feedback. The only issue that wasn't fully addressed is that the damage roll on the second hit doesn't matter... but I found that that doesn't matter. The salesmanship all centers around the first hit. In some cases, they figured out it was a minion and got satisfaction killing it on the second hit. In others, they didn't figure it out and got satisfaction in presuming that their damage killed it. In still other cases, they had a real sense of reward for one-hitting minions either through lucky crits or doing enough damage to exceed CON. The latter is key as it relies primarily on the character's damage output to determine success, rather than purely whack-a-minion.

I'd love to see more approaches to minions!

 

[ggroy]

For generic minions, I sometimes used them as archers or wizards which repeatedly did ranged attacks on the players from a long distance (ie. 10 or 20 squares). Typically they would be standing behind several tougher monsters, which made these minions not so easy to reach at first.

By the time the players are able to reach these minions and kill them, the minions would have done quite a bit of damage to the players.

 

[Saracenus]

I ran the LFR Battle Interactive at last year's D&D Experience and one encounter had a series of villager minions that you where trying to save. However, instead of the binary alive or dead, they were alive, bloodied, dead. Basically the bad guys had to hit them twice to kill them.

It made it possible to save the villagers with there still being a credible threat of them dying.

As far as tracking went, either they were whole, had a bloodied token or were dead...

Thanks,

 

[Blue]

I'm been toyign with a super-minion, but haven't play-tested it yet. I was calling them mooks. Basically they follow normal monster rules (including damage on miss). If they are unharmed and take a hit higher then 3+1/2 level they die, else they are bloodied. If they take a hit when bloodied, they die.

The 3+1/2 level I'm still playing with. My goal is that standard minion control AoEs still have use with an average roll but may leave some suprises with a poor roll, but just Ability damage doesn't drop them immediately. I was originally at a higher threshold, with the idea that strikers should be able to drop them in a single hit but others (especially low AoE damage) couldn't, but I was worried about diluting the niche of controllers too much.

 

[Reaper Steve]

I used my 'bloodied minions' in the Encounter last night. The players got excited as soon as they figured out I was playing them that way. One or two went down in one hit, the others took two.

At the end, a player commented that the encounter would have been too easy if the minions didn't have the extra durability, and the other players agreed.

 

[Riastlin]

I've been toying with some ideas for minions too. There's been some discussion on twitter lately about minions and how to beef them up as well. Some of the ideas I like are:

Minions that mark and punish for violating the mark -- throws off the strikers.
Minions that create terrain effects either while alive or when they die.
Minions that explode when they die, potentially setting up cascading bursts as they take each other out -- while also targetting the PCs.

The idea of course is to give the party something to think about when they encounter minions. I think that one of the monster themes in DMG2 even had an ability that allowed the monster to dominate a creature for one round when it died, which could be awesome/ugly when minions are involved.

I like the two hit rule as well, but I'm debating as to whether or not to use it with my players. Unfortunately, there are a number of rules lawyers in my homebrew game and a couple get irritated when things don't go as "expected". Naturally, that's its own issue, but I still have to consider the extent to which it would affect their enjoyment.

All in all though, I like seeing all these ideas for making minions better. I think WotC did a decent job, but didn't quite get all the way there. By mid-high heroic, minions are not much of a threat to the party. Upping their damage helps, but I prefer the interesting effects/higher survivability myself.

 

[interwyrm]

I don't like the two hit rule at all.

The minions I've seen so far in LFR that I like are the "crazed human rabble". They slide pcs who start near them, and one they die, they deal damage equal to x times the number of rabble next to the PC.

In the last session I ran, three of them moved next to a player and aided an attack by a non-minion. On the sorcerer's turn, he killed all three of them causing each one to explode for 9 damage. (This was high tier H1).

Personally, I think minions making attacks are somewhat wasted. They should be aiding attacks for brutes or monsters with encounter powers. They remain interesting in that capacity if they have an aura or on-death effect... especially if it's something that keeps the controller from wiping them all out at once.

 

[Riastlin]

I don't like the two hit rule at all.

Please don't take this as a flame attempt, but this isn't really helpful. What about the two-hit rule don't you like?

That being said, I do like the suggestions you proposed, and frankly, the idea of Aid Another is brilliant. It is a far too little-used tactic by both DMs and players. I will definitely have to give it some thought and use it in my games.

 

[interwyrm]

Please don't take this as a flame attempt, but this isn't really helpful. What about the two-hit rule don't you like?

It goes against the spirit of what a minion is. Minions are there to fill the battlefield and make the PCs (specifically controllers) feel useful. Switching them to two hit with a thresh hold makes strikers the best to deal with them. So where do controllers shine? Also, increasing the number of hits they take increases bookkeeping and grind.

The crazed human rabble are from the DMG2, and I think there are probably other tips there on how to better use them.