Minion Fist Fights

[Fallen Seraph]

I honestly don't see why rules have to work in perfect comparison to the game world, or need rules for every circumstance.

The rules are simply an abstract means for the players through their characters to interact with the world within their sphere of influence.

Hell, if rules were needed to create a believable fantasy world, then every fantasy novel should come with a rules section.

 

[JesterOC]

If there's no internal consistency in the game world, there isn't a game world.

I agree but I don't see how this effects the players. The DM, yes he knows what is really going on, but if the DM does his job right, the players will never get a feeling of the game world being inconsistant.

Minions exist to make the DM's job easier to make huge cinematic battles where the PCs are out numbered 2 to 1. Less tacking and die rolling help the DM handle the huge numbers. And if done right the DM will never call them minions. Rather the players will look back at the fight and remember how they held off a horde of Orcs. If they say they held off a horde of minions the DM screwed up.

JesterOC

 

[Parlan]

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.

That's my understanding.

I respect your opinion re. breaking suspension of disbelief. But the simple fix is to just not throw minions at your PCs. Just have all the enemies be brutes/controllers/etc.

For me personally, though, I think it's a great idea. It means that I can pit some (relatively) low level PCs against an orc raiding party (20 orcs) and not have a TPK due to shear weight of numbers.

Just as important, I won't drive myself crazy by feeling like I have to keep track of hitpoints for every nameless orc, just the non-minions.

 

[Mirtek]

It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.

I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.

Well, a level 1 wizard missing a bunch of level 30 minions and slaying them all shoudl be reason enough NOT to

 

[ZetaStriker]

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.

Late, late, late, late response, without having the several pages after it that probably all contained further argument on the subject. But hey, I felt a need to reply to this before I slink off to bed.

Basically, the problem you mention isn't so much exist as a gamist situation. The ability to take dozens of hits with a sword, or survive maulings from a monster the size of a skyscraper, is far more gamist than dropping with one hit. If I was stabbed with a sword, for instance, I seriously doubt I'd still be dancing around trying to fight the guy who did it. At best, I'd be running of adrenaline and trying to get away before he finished me.

The best example of this argument I can think of are old First Person Shooters(or the multiplayer of modern day FPSs). You nail a guy in the leg and it just does less damage. Absolutely no reaction on the enemy's part. In reality, that bullet would cripple them. Now, there are two things that could happen from there. Yes, the found isn't fatal, but the pain could keep the person otherwise incapacitated. Or, they could pull forth their inner strength, pump up some adrenaline and try to ignore it. To put it simply, minions are the guys who aren't strong enough to get up after suffering that wound, while the others might be able to keep going despite it.

Further examples of differences between minions and normal NPCs/monsters can come down to a very personal level. In the real world, the average person, gang member, etc. with a gun can be seen as low level minion. Police cadets, military recruits, and other trained individuals without much experience might be level appropriate minions. Experienced officers, be they military or civilian, will be normal NPCs whose differences are measured by equipment. Special Forces members might be elites, while Solos might exist solely in the realm of fiction. And even outside all these roles, some people are just tougher than others, and even a civilian with a gun might manage to occasionally just be a low level normal NPC.

Being new to a DnD board, I somewhat unfamiliar with what exactly some of these 'gamer roles' mean, but I assume that my explanations are right at home with what I understand a 'simulationist' view to be. Am I incorrect?

 

[pweent]

For those who are having cognitive dissonance issues with the minions, please tell me if it helps to think of it like this.

First, remember the golden rule: hit points are an abstraction.

"Minions do not have hit points. Instead, a minion is incapacitated by any successful hit which does damage."

I think it's due to the abstract (and fundamentally flawed) HP mechanic that I like minions so much to begin with, in that when described as above, minions sidestep HP entirely. However, at some point it was decided to bring the minions in line with the standard HP system. Maybe this was strictly for simplicity, maybe this was for the potential to create special cases like the already mentioned vampire spawn minions with 10 HP plus regeneration. Unfortunately, by phrasing it in terms of HP, we have a tendency to start treating HP as a concrete resource that are drained away of which minions have a miniscule supply, instead of as an abstraction to which minions do not subscribe.

HP are one way of abstracting injury (and morale, and luck) - you have a pool of them, and when you run out, you die. Minion rules are another way of abstracting injury - when a minion is hit, it dies. Not having HP does not mean minions exist, in the game world, in a strict binary "I'm in the pinnacle of health! / Faith and begorrah! A splinter! Tell my woman I loved her!" situation. They are BOTH abstractions. The difference is that HP is an abstraction that is intended to allow someone to be worn down by multiple attacks.

So. If you have issue with the idea that a missed fireball can't take away that lowly minion's one hit point, does the above rephrasing of minions also make you uncomfortable?

 

[Aria Silverhands]

I find it highly amusing at the people arguing about minions breaking SOD, when hit points in general are far more disruptive.

 

[djdaidouji]

Hmm... Have we verified death at 0 HP? I'm probably missing something because everyone seems certain, but if you do 4 damage to a minion, would he not just be at -3HP? Only if you deal 11 damage does he actually die. Though I think I'm missing something, since that defeats the purpose of minions.

What I think I'll be doing is giving the minions some extra leeway. The PC fighter manages to hit, but rolls a 1 on his damage die. I'll say "You barely scrape your enemy, drawing a bit of blood, though he still stands." I don't track HP. I just think to myself "this guy is kinda hurt," if that at all. If from some amazing luck fail that all the fighter's attacks only deal 1 damage, that minion might survive for a while.

Also, I'll probably be changing the only-hit-can-kill rule on a case-by-case. A power that say, creates a surge of electricity on a miss could kill a minion, but a power that deals theoretical damage by demoralizing or scaring the enemy won't make him fall yet.

Though I have a feeling that we are -all- missing something important and we're all going to look at our DMG and go "oooooohhhhh."

 

[WhatGravitas]

Consider this. In 3x you have the ancient red wyrm. One of the most powerful creatures ever to walk the world. It can destroy buildings with its might claws.

It comes across...a lonely peasant.

The dragon wouldn't even have to attack to kill this pathetic creature, he could literally just lay his hand down upon him and crush the mortal as a human would crush an ant with its finger.

And yet, if he rolls a 1, the lonely peasant takes 0 damage from the dragon. 0, from a near godlike creature.

If your okay with that, then allowing minions to live on missed rolls should be just fine.

You're talking about the breath weapon, aren't you? Because otherwise, it's no different from 3E.

And yeah, that's a case, where the minion rule fails. Why? Because of the huge level difference - the minion rule makes sense as "average hp equal average damage of one hit" for the approximately correct level range - here, we have an example of leaving the level range.

It doesn't bother me... but I wonder: These issues could have been fixed by a simple rule:

"Minions missed by an attack of a character equal or less the minion's level, are bloodied if it would take damage from the miss. A bloodied minion dies if it takes any damage (even from a miss). If a minion takes damage from a miss from a character of a higher level than the minion, the minion dies."

With little beads for the bloodied condition, this rule would work without major tracking issues, and would alleviate simulationist concerns. *shrug*

On the other hand, the entry in the statblock is perhaps only a shorthand for a similar concept, just as the roles "artillery" or "brutes" are probably explained in-depth somewhere. Though I doubt it, as it would imply rules that are stashed far away from the statblock without page reference.

Cheers, LT.

 

[pemerton]

D&D sounds like it's becoming like Monopoly. The rules don't represent anything at all. It's just a game where you move pieces.

Why even call them "orcs"? Why not just call them "number fives"? Why name your fighter? Just call him "race car" or "green token".

If there's no internal consistency in the game world, there isn't a game world.

I don't really understand this complaint.

I do understand why you might object to the anti-simulationist mechanical approach of 4e, in which (roughly) the mechanics tell us how the narrative unfolds, rather than how the gameworld is causally governed. But I don't understand why you would infer from that that (i) the gameworld is internally inconsistent, or (ii) that there is no reason to care about the orcs, the character name etc.

In relation to (i), it is not the role of the mechanics, but rather the narrative, to ensure internal consistency. Not everyone prefers this style of play, but it is a coherent style of play which a number of existing RPGs deploy (eg the indie RPGs referred to by Rob Heinsoo as analogous in certain respects to 4e).

In relation to (ii), it is not a necessary condition of caring about the gameworld elements that the mechanics model them in a simulationist fashion. I assume the 4e designers assume that players will care because the colour, flavour and narrative of the game all matter to them.

Being new to a DnD board, I somewhat unfamiliar with what exactly some of these 'gamer roles' mean, but I assume that my explanations are right at home with what I understand a 'simulationist' view to be. Am I incorrect?

I think you are correct.