Minion Fist Fights

[hong]

So how does that reduce my prep time?

If you do not know your players well enough to predict with confidence which red circles around creatures' feet they are liable to turn into blue circles, perhaps your DMing skills are not as good as you thought.

 

[ShinRyuuBR]

If you are willing to deal with some extra bookkeeping, you might put a wounded marker next to a minion that has taken damage on a miss. A wounded minion that is wounded again dies.

As Celebrim most excellently put, if I care if it is intact, wounded or dead, by definition it is not a minion.

I don't think you're entirely correct... we know for a fact that the monsters wont be used as is when their level is tripled and they're made into a minion. The math just wouldn't work, nor would they function the way a minion is supposed to. Their attack bonus would need to rise, as well as their defenses, their damage would need to become a set amount(which seems level, and not ability, dependent, judging from the orcs), and in all likelihood, their HP would drop to 1.

Well, I don't know where the triple level formula came from, but I agree that there is probably a minion template to scale at the very least the attack bonus so minions can be an actual threat (however small).

So, really this is just the DMG saying to the DM "So, you want a Boromir at the Falls of Rauros momemnt? Here you go."? That's nice, thematically, but I still have the problem of thinking "Why are all these dudes glass ninjas?" I feel like there should be a solution that isn't so blatant about the fact that "This world is a game; it doesn't exist." I want to feel that the world does exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while. Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.

I don't see what the big deal is. What I have read is that a monster is a minion to a group of PCs if their HP is as low as a single average hit from the PCs, which is supposed to be in a certain range by level exactly as are monster stats by role and level. Being so, there is no point in keeping record of their HP, because if anything is left after a blow, it will be perhaps 1 to 5 HP and not make any difference, game or story-wise. As ZetaStriker pointed, it is likely that such a monster in the raw would not even be able to hit the PCs, so most likely tehre is a template to scale them up and that's it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

"This world is a game; it doesn't exist." I want to feel that the world does exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while. Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.

I can understand why. For me, it helps to think of it like this:

Minions don't really have 1 hp. They really have as many hp as they'd have. Their HP totals are just so low that, as a simplification, we're saying 1 hit from the PC's of about the same level kills them. The game is just telling me "the HP is just too low to worry about."

If I really wanted to, I could, perhaps, give them hp. 1/level, or equal to their CON score or whatever, they could have it.

They'll still die in one hit from a PC.

If I'm using a minion outside of their intended use, I think I'll translate that 1 hp into an actual total, but 90% of the time, "one hit kills them" is going to be true no matter how much hp they have.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

1 HP, also doesn't necessarily represent their actual physical "health". If we go look at movies, a minion has the same actual physical health as the main villain (assuming they are ordinary humans) it is simply circumstances and the story dictates that the minion dies in one hit.

So take that and apply it to D&D, it isn't that a minion is physically weaker or has less health, it is simply that orc minion (who in every way is the same as that orc skirmisher) is the unlucky one who misses blocking the blow and is beheaded in one hit.

Thus minions have 1 HP, your essentially applying story elements to combat.

 

[hong]

I can understand why. For me, it helps to think of it like this:

Minions don't really have 1 hp. They really have as many hp as they'd have. Their HP totals are just so low that, as a simplification, we're saying 1 hit from the PC's of about the same level kills them. The game is just telling me "the HP is just too low to worry about."

If I really wanted to, I could, perhaps, give them hp. 1/level, or equal to their CON score or whatever, they could have it.

They'll still die in one hit from a PC.

If I'm using a minion outside of their intended use, I think I'll translate that 1 hp into an actual total, but 90% of the time, "one hit kills them" is going to be true no matter how much hp they have.

Exactly. I think I mentioned it in here before, but I even used minion-ish rules in my last 3E game because I didn't want to track hit points for a huge mob of crappy monsters.

 

[Mad Mac]

I don't know if it was a fan-made Minion or a previewd one, but I certainly saw a minion with higher HP at a higher level. If this isn't the case, It's badly designed.

Vampire Spawn from the last DDM set were minions with 10 HP. They also had regeneration, which would be a little pointless with 1 HP. A lot of the DDM monster stats seem outdated though, so who knows, really.

 

[Khaim]

Well, I don't know where the triple level formula came from, but I agree that there is probably a minion template to scale at the very least the attack bonus so minions can be an actual threat (however small).

There is: the legionnaire template. There might be more. The name is kind of unfortunate for the legion devils, though.

 

[Irda Ranger]

It seems to me that some people are going to have a very very hard time with some aspects of 4E. This is a perfect example.

To me this is a good example of the differences between 3.x and 4.0.

Good explanation, but .... ugh.

I want to play in Middle Earth, not a movie set of Middle Earth.

 

[hong]

Good explanation, but .... ugh.

I want to play in Middle Earth, not a movie set of Middle Earth.

You're playing in a movie set in Middle Earth. Does that help?

 

[Irda Ranger]

Exactly. I think I mentioned it in here before, but I even used minion-ish rules in my last 3E game because I didn't want to track hit points for a huge mob of crappy monsters.

The thing is, I get this. But the corner case rules (like not taking damage from an AoE spell "miss") just really rub it in my face in the wrong way.

I'm not going to not play 4E because of this, but I think this is my least favorite part about it so far.