Minion Fist Fights

[Scribble]

How is this being used badly, or even incorrectly? The RAW are pretty clear -- one point, minion dies. If something fifty feet tall and dripping acid from its 90 mouths is a "minion", a peasant, a pitchfork, and a Nat 20 spell its doom.

And there ARE Epic Minions, with all that implies.

Awesome... In this crazy situation that peasant managed to do that... WOOHOOO SUPER PEASANT!!! then the rest of the minions wipe the floor with the peasants... A crit is a crit. It's a lucky shot. I think the problem in that situation lies in removing the confirming roll. In either case... It doesn't make a difference to me, because:

1. None of my PCs are peasants...

2. The lucky peasant still won't live long... and if he does... he gets a cool adventure written around him... Or at least the vilagers think they actually have a local hero.

3. If I come to my game table and peaseants and epic minions have been fighting while I was not gaming... I have larger issues to deal with... like maybe jack chic was right...

 

[Wormwood]

Does it need to said that 'minions should only be used where appropriate'?

Apparently. And repeatedly.

 

[Mallus]

I still don't understand how anyone's suspension of disbelief could be broken by minions but not by hit points.

<Tevye>
Tradition!
</Tevye>

 

[Cadfan]

It should also be pointed out that design diaries have explicitly said that any monster can be a minion, when fought by sufficiently powerful PCs. Thus establishing that "minion" status is relative to who's stabbing the putative minion.

Now logically this works in reverse. If something is a minion for a level 25 party of PCs, its not necessarily a minion when fought by a party of level 1 PCs.

I believe we may have already seen a bit of this, though through a glass darkly. Legion Devil Legionnaires are epic level minions. I believe we've seen that regular Legion Devils are heroic level non minions.

 

[Andor]

Perhaps you should consider considering 'suspension of disbelief' as something you-as-a-player are also, in part, responsible for creating and maintaining, rather than treating it as something owed to you by the DM and rules system.

'suspension of disbelief' is shorthand. The full phrase is "Willing suspension of disbelief." I assumed that was common knowledge on these forums. As the full phrase implies I am already exerting my will to suspend my disbelief. There are limits to the strength of my will however. If I am playing a science fiction RPG and the GM tries to tell me Starships commonly have screen doors and no air locks, it ain't gonna work. If I am playing in a fantasy RPG and the GM tells me that an epic level Devil, a fallen angel who warred against a god and won, and who has since survived millenia in hell against endless intrigue and infighting just died because John-boy the 12 year old farm kid who's been tagging after the party just rolled a 20 to hit with the stale corn muffin he loaded into his sling, I again have a problem with it.

I will buy in to the game to the extent that I am able. I've played many, many systems over the years, and this has almost never been a problem. Although there have been a few games that were so silly we never even tried to play them. Synnibar comes to mind. And some other thing where you were supposedly an immortal god who had forgotten but was remembering his old powers as the game went on.

But just as I can't haul an 800lb safe up a flight of stairs without assistance, I can't buy in to a game world when it is too alien for me to grasp the view point of a character within that world. I can't say for certain not having seen the books, but the minions rules seem to be skirting perilously close to that edge.

 

[Scribble]

If I am playing in a fantasy RPG and the GM tells me that an epic level Devil, a fallen angel who warred against a god and won, and who has since survived millenia in hell against endless intrigue and infighting just died because John-boy the 12 year old farm kid who's been tagging after the party just rolled a 20 to hit with the stale corn muffin he loaded into his sling, I again have a problem with it.

This is like saying that you're watching the movie before it's been edited and complaining because it breaks your "willing" suspension of disbelief.

Sure... If you decide to stop the game, roll up a peasant, and then play out a fight between said peasant and an epic devil minion, and the peasant manages to roll a crit (assuming there aren't any other rules for this situation) and kills the epic minion devil, that for some reason you are assuming faught a war with god and managed to win without being hit... (I guess he was the super peasant that roleld the crit againsta minion god??? who in turn rolled a crit against a minion whatever made hima god???)

Then sure... fair enough. feel free to have your willing suspension of disbelief broken.

Mine would have faltered a while ago at the sheer insanity of the situation.

If you nit pick every little situation to its uttmost absurd level... then yeah, almost anything can be a problem. Hell just walking into certain parts of San Francisco almost are enough to break my willing suspension of disbelief about the real world...

And some other thing where you were supposedly an immortal god who had forgotten but was remembering his old powers as the game went on.

That has to do more with personal taste then anything non-sensical.

But just as I can't haul an 800lb safe up a flight of stairs without assistance

That's easy dude... Just ignore the rules for encumberance.

But seriosuly... minions seem closer to my real world state then PCs... who knows maybe I'm just an NPC in your world... but if you hit me with a sword... I die. I don't jump up and say... that al you got! It's just a flesh wound!

 

[Rex Blunder]

Rex's 4e fixes, addendum:

STALE CORN MUFFINS AND CATS DO NO DAMAGE

 

[Andor]

I still don't understand how anyone's suspension of disbelief could be broken by minions but not by hit points.

HIT POINTS.

There's no way I can kill this unarmed wizard by stabbing him with this sword. He has 40 HP, and my max damage is 20 HP!

This is not a realistic system, nor one that successfully models literature. As a simulation is is the dismalest of dismal failures!

That's because you're mis-applying the test, at least as I see it. I usually get labeled as a simulationist in these things so let's assume I am. As a simulationist, I don't care in the least if the game models our reality well. I care about whether or not it consistently models it's own reality well.

HP may be toughness, "Meat points" as someone put it. It may show the supernatural strength of will that Wizard has aquired over the years which allow him to function when suffering a wound that would kill a lesser man. They may be a learnt ability to keep body and spirit together when they should have parted. They may be something else.

But whatever they are, they are. Inside that game world they are an absolute and inconrovertible fact of life. Indeed it would be pretty easy for anyone to find out exactly how many HP they have by simply letting someone pelt them with blowgun darts until they pass out. Count the darts and you know your HP total.

When HP start to be contextual, it as though you were to say that a bridge might be made of concrete one day when it's being used by humans, but somehow became a bridge of papiermache the very next day when some centaurs tried to cross it.

Note that the problem a lot of non-simulationists have is when they try to insist, for whatever reason, that things which appear concretely in the rules are not actually there. That a sword in the game should be capable of doing the exact same thing it does in our world. Really? Should they also frequently break, as they do in our world? Bend? Roman accounts are full of gauls and celts haveing to stomp their blades back into shape in mid-battle. A person in our world can die from a single cut it is true. On the other hand the chinese had a torture technique called the "Death of a thousand cuts" where the victem isn't supposed to die till the last cut. Should we then assume that all people have 1000 hp?

I don't want or need a game that models our reality exactly. My house has doors for that very reason. I do want a game where my character can reasonably expect things to work the same way twice running.

 

[robertliguori]

I still don't understand how anyone's suspension of disbelief could be broken by minions but not by hit points.

HIT POINTS.

There's no way I can kill this unarmed wizard by stabbing him with this sword. He has 40 HP, and my max damage is 20 HP!

This is not a realistic system, nor one that successfully models literature. As a simulation is is the dismalest of dismal failures!

However, it makes for good gameplay.

Minions are no worse. Better, I suspect.

Lots of literature features characters who go through an improbable number of combats if their ability to survive was merely skill-based, even with superlative or superhuman levels of skill. However, when enough mundane force is applied in a short enough period of time, these characters can fall. Hit points represents this adequately.

Minions represent a universe in which certain characters are utterly cursed by fate, and are utterly incapable of enduring the level of damage one would expect from creatures of their build, size, and specific anatomy. If I attack a pig with a dagger, out of the blue, I do not expect to inflict an instantly-debilitating injury 100% of the time I connect. Why should I assume any differently about an orc? The minion rules assume that given creatures have totally avoided any form of potentially-disabling injury until they encounter the PCs, at which point any at all* direct damage will slay them.

Of course, there's also the fact that some minions don't take damage from missed attacks. This means that not only does the universe hate these creatures, but it hates them selectively; it will keep them alive until someone takes a swing at them and connects. An attack that blankets the area in deadly fire (and thus does not produce an attack roll) does not and cannot hurt a minion.

Really, the problem stems from the fact that minions were created to represent dramatic set pieces, and not to represent an element in a fantasy world. And the problem with this is that without representing the element thereof, there is minimal (if any) drama. It is much easier for me to get excited about defending a castle from a horde of 3.5E orc warrior1s (some with a few interesting feat selections to keep things lively) than from the 4E minions, because the 4E orcs don't seem to represent anything other than playing pieces which you need to hit to remove from the game board.

Also, in terms of realism, the minion/hero dichotomy leaves worlds to be desired. In 3.5E, the average person in a Western country would be represented by a character with one d6 or d4 HD, a low or nonexistent Con bonus, and no armor. An average sword swing from a person with average strength will instantly drop such a person slightly better than two-thirds of the times it connects.

 

[Mallus]

'suspension of disbelief' is shorthand.

I know.

The full phrase is "Willing suspension of disbelief."

I believe the original was 'willful suspension of disbelief'. It's Coleridge.

I assumed that was common knowledge on these forums.

It is.

As the full phrase implies I am already exerting my will to suspend my disbelief.

Not hard enough .

There are limits to the strength of my will however.

Apparently.

If I am playing a science fiction RPG and the GM tries to tell me Starships commonly have screen doors and no air locks, it ain't gonna work.

Yet starships the size of minivans and FTL travel that doesn't automatically = time travel are par for the course. Genre fans are a funny lot.

If I am playing in a fantasy RPG and the GM tells me that an epic level Devil, a fallen angel who warred against a god and won, and who has since survived millenia in hell against endless intrigue and infighting just died because John-boy the 12 year old farm kid who's been tagging after the party just rolled a 20 to hit with the stale corn muffin he loaded into his sling, I again have a problem with it.

For the last time, you don't designate Lucifer as a 'minion'. As for one of Lucifer's own minions, well, what sadder fate for a second-string member of the Host of Heaven than to pitchforked to death by an angry farmer or his muffin-slinging son? That would be cool. The farmer could start a Church based on the righteousness-conferring power of corn meal... see, I spend my creative energy trying to make things interesting, not looking for and/or engineering deal-breakers.

I will buy in to the game to the extent that I am able.

"From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". That's not Coleridge.

I can't say for certain not having seen the books, but the minions rules seem to be skirting perilously close to that edge.

Well, we'll all see how this pans out in a few weeks...