Minion Fist Fights

[Majoru Oakheart]

So, to bring it back around to minions: I can accept that, at least in a fantasy world, some guys are metaphysical losers. But I can't accept that they oscillate from "loser" to "winner" based upon their physical proximity to the PCs. A guy is either a minion, or he isn't... and if he stops being a minion, that would have to be subsequent to doing or experiencing something of comparable importance to the status he is gaining.

As a narrative technique, the idea is that they are metaphysical losers when it comes to the current storyline only. Which means they are metaphysical losers only when dealing with the Heroes(the PCs).

You can have your average Orc who makes a name for himself by surviving alone in the haunted forest as a rite of passage and comes back with the head of a dire wolf on a spear only to marry the best looking female Orc in their tribe, then saves the Chief's life one day and gets assigned as a member of his personal guard at his tent. Seems like he's rather karma-rific due to all the good things that have happened to him. It's not that he's unlucky.

However, the PCs come along, they are trying to kill the Chief due to the tribes raids on local villages. The Chief's Warleader, the Shaman of the Tribe, the Spymaster, The Chief himself, and that Orc and his 3 fellow members of the Chief's personal guard gather to stop the invaders.....when the Orc realizes...it's his time to die.

That's more of the point. These creatures are destined to die in this place at this moment, so they suddenly become Metaphysical Losers. Because from the point of view of the PCs(which is the point of view of the entire story), that Orc is simply Guard Number 3.

 

[FireLance]

Why would something "metaphysical" need to change, there isn't a big metaphysical change that happens, when by random a person trips on the stairs and falls and only gets a bump on the head and the second time when they snap their neck? The first fall the person is normal, the second they are a minion.

I think the key assumption here is that hit points are somehow a property of the person, and that they shouldn't have to change based on circumstances. Instead, what changes is the lethality of the circumstances. A character may trip and fall one day and only take one point of damage because the DM rolled low on 1d6. The second time, he may have critically fumbled a Dexterity check, or some other circumstance occured which increased the damage from the fall to 3d6, and the DM rolled three sixes. In both cases, the results are fully consistent with the fact that he had 4 hp, and will continue to have 4 hp unless there is some change to the person (say, gaining a level, or losing Constitution).

Interestingly enough, I recall an anecdote from a TSR staffer that in the early days of D&D (when a character's Hit Dice were expressed as XdY in the rules), he used to roll hit points for the PCs every session. So, a character with 5d8 Hit Dice could have 20 hit points one session and 40 hit points the next. If that approach had become the standard, it would be much easier to describe minions and paragon-level fighters dying due to falling off horses.

 

[AZRogue]

But I can't accept that they oscillate from "loser" to "winner" based upon their physical proximity to the PCs.

The thing is, how could a player ever verify that the minion "oscillated"? Once the player begins interacting with the minion the minion will be operating under the minion rules. Only the DM could "see" the minion away from the PCs and, since the DM doesn't play by himself, this has no game effect.

And, should the minion become a helper to the PCs, I would count that as a change in his fortune and give him hitpoints equal to the most common type of his race (for an orc, Brute) for his level. Making powerful friends like the PCs is a definite change in fortune.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

*Snip*

Guess I am just trying to show a different way to look at it. Where HP simply measures how far you are from that incapacitation/death. Thus why wounds, fear, bad luck, circumstances, fatigue, etc. brings down HP since it means that person is closer to incapacitation.

Also explains why things like Warlord Healing works since it motivates and collects the person, so they can fight/concentrate better thus bringing them farther away from death. Same idea goes with Healing Surges too, is your bringing yourself farther away from the brink (with the less Healing Surges you have representing it being harder to do so).

Thus when a person has entered a instance where it has been deemed that how far they are from incapacitation is extremely minor, ie: 1 HP they are a Minion in that moment. But they have no more actual health then another person with 200 HP.

 

[N0Man]

Yes. They all just die.

Also, if the PCs meet a level 29 minion and kill it by shooting it with an area of effect attack that does half damage on a miss, they all get a free level. This is why wizards are so much more powerful than everyone else, even in 4e. They kill legion devil minions for sport until they get to level 20 or so. It takes about an hour, or slightly longer if you invite one of your lower level friends to hide behind a pillar nearby and absorb experience points.

1) This is a game run by a human being, not a video game that you can easily exploit. If the DM is allowing players to "power level" off high level minions, then the whole game is a ridiculous sham anyway. The DM might as well just hand them levels, if that's what he wants as the result. There is no reason for him to make the players go through ridiculous motions.

2) Minions only die from an actual hit. Misses do not damage Minions, even if you Miss them a million times with an ability that does damage on a Miss.

3) A level 29 Minion is estimated to be 3,750 xp. In a party of 4 or 5 players, that's not quite enough for 1 level, when you split the XP.

4) If you put a level 29 Minion against a party, the Minion is still going to have very high defenses and very high attack ratings, compared to the party. The party is only going to hit them on a Critical hit, which by rules, hits even if they couldn't hit with a 20 normally.

Do people just really like coming up with poorly thought out arguments with ridiculous circumstances that aren't going to happen with any reasonable party, just to try to find a flaw in 4E?

 

[Heselbine]

There seems to be a lot of this 'exception-based' thinking around minions. There was another ridiculous thread about what happens when minions fight each other.

The game is predicated on the notion of PCs fighting a balanced group of monsters, some of whom may be minions. Last week I ran a 'Night of the Living Dead' scenario with zombies attacking an inn. It worked really well, and having minions added massively to the potential of the encounter. They're the red-shirts, the stormtroopers, the peasants - they're how pretty much all action films work - what's so difficult to understand about minions?

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

they're how pretty much all action films work - what's so difficult to understand about minions?

The problem isn't understanding it's that D&D has never in previous editions really been modeling an action movie. Other more narrativist games like Feng Shui and Exalted have, and have had rules for minions. But moving the design space of the game so far from where it's always been is kind of irritating to all the people who liked it where it was before. It's like saying that if you slapped the name Ranger on a Miata it would have become a Ranger. Clearly it hasn't, no matter that it may say Ranger on the trunk you aren't going to get 800 pounds of fertilizer in it, cause a Ranger it ain't. Similarly the name may still be D&D but it doesn't support the playstyle or design philosophy that has kept us with the game through 3 or more editions in some cases.

 

[med stud]

The problem isn't understanding it's that D&D has never in previous editions really been modeling an action movie. Other more narrativist games like Feng Shui and Exalted have, and have had rules for minions. But moving the design space of the game so far from where it's always been is kind of irritating to all the people who liked it where it was before. It's like saying that if you slapped the name Ranger on a Miata it would have become a Ranger. Clearly it hasn't, no matter that it may say Ranger on the trunk you aren't going to get 800 pounds of fertilizer in it, cause a Ranger it ain't. Similarly the name may still be D&D but it doesn't support the playstyle or design philosophy that has kept us with the game through 3 or more editions in some cases.

I'm not agreeing with you. I came to D&D from Runequest (a Swedish iteration of the game). In the Swedish game I played, a dragon was essentially impossible to defeat, no matter how experienced your PC was. In the same vein, no matter how tough you were, you were in grave danger if you were cornered by town guards. A crossbow was always a lethal weapon during the entire career of a PC.

That was fun for a while, it was realistic in a way, but it missed out on the superhero-feel from Conan and Elric and the like. That's where D&D entered the picture. One fighter can stand against 50 orcs and the orcs will be toast if the fighter is high enough level. Those orcs essentially were minions, it's just that they weren't explicitly called it.

I would say that minions aren't anything new to D&D, it's just that the game is open about it this time.

 

[Lizard]

Life wasn't meant to be easy.

But 4e was.

 

[Lizard]

I




I must say I'm surprised. Given your admitted love for worldbuilding and being absolutely certain of internal consistency, your self described DMing style runs almost entirely contrary to that. Ah well, never let it be said that human beings weren't complex.

Ah. but you see, that's just it. The more I know my world, the easier it is to improvise adventures -- or specific details to fill in general regions.

There's also the fact that worldbuilding and gamerunning are, really, two different games you play with the same set of rules.

The thing is, you can still fudge it. You don't have to incorporate the length and breadth of those considerations into every session/adventure, IMO. I don't see anything about 4E that makes you beholden to that. Not every fight needs to have crazy secondary terrain effects; But it does make things more interesting now and again, and clearly the intent was to provide for the greater possibilities inherent in expansion of terrain effects/tactical options/

None of which I object to; it is always better to have more options. My complaints WRT 4e are about the things being taken away, not added.

riding a dinosaur into a heavily fortified position (well, maybe not the last one), but that doesn't mean you need to wholly abandon your way of doing things.

In the prior 3e campaign I ran, we had a PC taming a raptor and then overrunning some cowboys to escape from a fort...




I think Hong wisely realizes when he's trying to sell a blowtorch to a guy looking for a wrench, that's all.[/QUOTE]