Minion Fist Fights

[Scribble]

They're a completely narrativist construct from a Forge game applied to D&D. They have all the modifiers of a level appropriate monster to be a real threat to the PCs yet drop like a glass ninja when struck once because they don't have level appropriate HP. Minions stand completely outside the structure of a level-based game for so called "dramatic purposes". This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't supposed to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff. On the other hand an enemy with the modifiers to be a threat should have the level to actually be a threat instead of a speedbump.

It's not actually just for "dramatic purposes."

Sure I could just toss a bunch of low level creatures at the pcs... but then they serve no purpose other then to clutter the board with extra minis. They can't harm the PCs, the PCs know this. They ignore them an accept the AoOs and such incurred by ignoring them because it does nothing one way or the other. They're pointless.

Minions still need to be dealt with, while at the same time not overwhelming the levels.

So they have lower HP... this is a new concept to D&D??? Warriors have less HP then Fighters... Wizards even less!

It's nothing new. HPs are a numbers game. A percentage amount of time something should stay up. They do not exist in a vacume. Things like AC and attack power factor in as well.

Minions simply adjust the percentage of time the monster stays alive when dealing with an opponent by playing a numbers game with the HPs.

 

[Counterspin]

This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't supposed to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff. On the other hand an enemy with the modifiers to be a threat should have the level to actually be a threat instead of a speedbump.

I don't see why you would bother running a combat with enemies that have no chance of winning. I wouldn't run minions the way you suggest because I view it as a waste of everyone's time. I'd just narrate it. With 4e style minions, I can run large groups of expendable enemies with minimal book keeping. I don't see the benefit in using your method, which creates a pointless combat, over the 4e minion rules. I'm not really interested in what tags you attach to a concept, I just want to know if it will make things better.

 

[Alratan]

Which also indicates that unless your peasants are psycho death lovers... they will kill a minion 0% of the time. Once they see the first 95% (or more likely a lot less) die without making a scratch on the thing... I'm prettys sure they'd run.

Unless of course there's a big neon sign over the minion's head indicating that each of them has a 5% chance to kill the creature in one hit. In which case, why are we still arguing about lack of realism???

Unless they have bows and arrows and are on top of a wall, in which case they just keep on shooting until the enemy dies

 

[Lacyon]

Unless they have bows and arrows and are on top of a wall, in which case they just keep on shooting until the enemy dies

Because 20th-level monsters don't have any way of dealing with that.

 

[Counterspin]

One, the high level minion versus bunch of peasants argument is only valid if the auto hit on a 20 rule is still in. Two, minion is a relationship between PCs and NPCs, and thus does not apply to a fight between two groups of NPCs. Three, lone demons do not charge cities during broad daylight.

 

[Scribble]

Unless they have bows and arrows and are on top of a wall, in which case they just keep on shooting until the enemy dies

Yes... but instead of enemy replace it with moron just standing there getting shot instead of fighting back. And we're back to the already way out of realism anyway point.

Yes... you can determine soemthing is unrealistic by putting it into an unrealistic situation. Bravo.

I concede.

I hope WOTC removes this rule, otherwise I may one day open my MM in the future to find that in my absense an uprising of peasants has destroyed all of the minions.

 

[pemerton]

Except, it isn't a 'lucky blow', because it happens every time the PCs land a successful hit.

It is not lucky in the real world - the rules are set up deliberately to bring it about.

It is lucky in the gameworld - in the gameworld such blows only get through when minions trip, misjudge their shield usage, look the other way, etc.

If you cannot distinguish the causal mechanicsm of the gameworld (as revealed by player and GM narration) from the causal mechanicsm of the realworld (ie the game mechanics which tell us how the PCs are built and their actions resolved), you may well not enjoy 4e. Try Runequest or Classic Traveller. (Even RM, GURPS or HERO is too gamey for a die-hard simulationist, because each allows the player to build the character with no attempt to correlate the purely metagame process of character build with any ingame causal process.)

In other words, if the bad guy is important, it's NEVER possible to land a lucky blow (heck, even crits only mean you hit the same as a normal hit with a good damage roll), but everything else dies in one shot automatically?

No. It's just that against the important bad guy the lucky shot only comes after several rounds of trading blows (ie when the fatal blow is landed).

Suddenly the battle of Gondor seems less impressive when we realize that Legolas did nothing extraordinary, that Mumakil was just a Colossal Minion.

It was heroic in the gameworld. It was mechanically facilitated in the real world. For many people, the whole point of playing a fanatsy RPG is to have the character achieve heroic, fantastic or lucky outcomes wihout the player having to be heroic or get lucky.

If you really want to be as heroic as Legolas, why are you playing D&D? Go and climb Mt Everest or become a Medecins Sans Frontiere fieldworker.

 

[Hussar]

Funny thing is we play D&D for exactly the same reason. Because it supports a mythic feel where level is king. That's exactly the reason I have a problem with minions. They completely short circuit the level-based design scheme. The whole point of level is that a level three monster is of little to no threat against a level 14 PC even in huge numbers. They're only going to touch the PC on a crit. Yet an appropriate level enemy IS a threat and can reliably damage the PC while soaking at least a couple rounds of damage from the PC. These minions are neither fish, nor foul, nor good red meat.

They're a completely narrativist construct from a Forge game applied to D&D. They have all the modifiers of a level appropriate monster to be a real threat to the PCs yet drop like a glass ninja when struck once because they don't have level appropriate HP. Minions stand completely outside the structure of a level-based game for so called "dramatic purposes". This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't supposed to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff. On the other hand an enemy with the modifiers to be a threat should have the level to actually be a threat instead of a speedbump.

As a player, my response would have to be, "Why are you wasting my time?" I get pretty much no xp from the encounter, the baddies are zero threat yet I have to spend half an hour or so of my valuable free time mowing through these things.

How is this even remotely good adventure design?

And, let's face it, how often was this situation even considered in an adventure? Once in a while you might see that room full of mooks in a high level adventure, but, by and large, it was a complete waste of time.

When I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, the final region that I ran was full of small armies of monsters - all at least 10 CR's below the average party level. Formian workers, derro, some deep dwarves, etc. They did nothing. Total and complete waste of time and I had to spend a significant amount of time reworking the region to make it any sort of threat. The Mob rules from the DMG 2 certainly played a large role.

But, without those mob rules, the PC's would have walked all over these encounters. Some of the worst adventure design I've ever seen. The funny thing is, the designer comments in the module detail all sorts of tactics and options for the baddies. Yet they completely ignore the fact that none of these tactics had an even remote chance of success. IIRC, it was three rounds to wipe out nearly 150 formians. Two or three Blade Barrier spells from the cleric and the problem went away in a haze of blood.

3e mechanics do not support large numbers of small creatures assaulting a high level party. Heck, they specifically state it in the DMG that this doesn't work. Once you get about 6 or 8 CR's below the PC's levels, you might as well use harsh language. The only effective tactic is to use creatures with abilities that force saving throws and hope for a 1.

I'm really, really liking these minion rules.

 

[pemerton]

I can live with almost any rules, no matter how whacked; what I can't live with is the idea the people living in the world don't understand the rules the world they live in works by and act accordingly.

Lizard, I think we've had this conversation before in one (or a dozen) other thread.

But to have another go at it: if the rules are acknowledged as a metagame construction for resolving the game (ie the actions that players announce on behalf of their PCs) then there is not the least reason to suppose that the people of the gameworld could infer to those rules via experimentation and observation. That experiment and observation would tell them what the ingame causal processes are - and ex hypothesi the rules of the game are in no fashion a model or simulation of these.

Your contrary notion only goes through if we reject my assumption and proceed from a simulationist premise. But that does not refute non-simulationism. It just shows that 4e + simulationism entails absurdity. So you've provided a reductio prove that 4e is a non-simulationist ruleset. Which we all knew anyway. Even Rob Heinsoo has said so (though I seem to be the only person on these forums whose noticed his reference to the comparison between 4e and indie RPGs).

I'll say it again: for those who want mainstream simulationist fantasy both RM and RQ are currently in print, and they're both really good games.

In any event, I think it boils down to, "Is minion a physical condition which a creature natively possesses, or is it a metagame state imposed by the DM at the point of PC contact?" The fact that the MM lists monsters as "Minions", rather than having a "minion template", tells me it's the former, and that implies a lot about the world.

There are two things I don't understand about this argument. First, why would I assume that baseline stats are simulationist models but templates are gamist devices? Second, why would I assume that the MM is a biology textbook for a fantasy world, when it is exressly written and marketed as a set of rules for playing a game.

 

[Andor]

But to have another go at it: if the rules are acknowledged as a metagame construction for resolving the game (ie the actions that players announce on behalf of their PCs) then there is not the least reason to suppose that the people of the gameworld could infer to those rules via experimentation and observation. That experiment and observation would tell them what the ingame causal processes are - and ex hypothesi the rules of the game are in no fashion a model or simulation of these.

So then what tools do we have for knowing what the causal process, as you put it, are in the game world? What does my character experience? What kind of predictions can he make based on his experience? How can I grasp the viewpoint of my character if I have not the faintest idea what it is that he is viewing?

And if your answer is "Ask the GM." what then happens when another GM takes over? When I play an RPGA living character?