Minion Fist Fights

[smetzger]

Didn't read the whole thread.

Minions should be thought of as being 'outside' of hit points.

1 hit always kills them, a miss if it does damage will injure them but not kill them.

 

[bramadan]

I'm sorry that my thread has deteriorated to this degree. Perhaps I can help get it back on track? I think that Charwoman Gene had an excellent point earlier. It has always been the case in D&D that, whatever hit points are, a basic villager cannot have more than 6 of them. Is D&D attempting to claim, therefore, that this villager (Villager Bob) cannot sustain more than 6 actual injuries? Or that Bob's diminutive son, Villager Tim, who has 1 hit point (whatever they are, it has always been possible to have 1) cannot endure even 1 single injury?

It seems that this is not the case, if we assume that D&D has attempted to make reasonable claims about the denizens of its virtual villages. A cut is an injury. I have given myself a good gash with the old hobby knife on occasion. If, in the course of a D&D session, a character accidentally cuts himself with a hobby knife (or let's say a butter knife at the family dinner table) does that necessarily inflict at least 1 hit point of damage? I can imagine Tim cutting himself with a small knife and not flopping over dead. Would D&D have ever posited that 1/6th of the inhabitants of its virtual world flop over dead from common household accidents? We could maintain that it has done so... but why assume something ludicrous only to get upset about its implications?

Rather, if the D&D rules are applied to its virtual world consistently, we must say that not every cut or other minor injury causes the loss of hit points. If we allow the text to tell us what it is really telling us, it is saying that the loss of even 1 single hit point represents a life-threatening injury. It must, since some people can die from it. I think we can conclude 2 things from this: first, hit points must represent, at minimum, your ability (for whatever reason) to avoid dieing from life-threatening injuries; and second, not every cut, bruise and sting does hit point damage.

Since the latter point is an interesting challenge to DM narration of results, how do we account for minor cuts, bruises and other non-life threatening injuries that can crop up in combat (like getting nicked by a blade, or suffering a minor flesh wound)? Obviously, since hits do 1 point of damage or more, those must be "misses". Or at least, they can be misses... though one might also narrate hit point loss as the luck or skill that reduces what would have been life-threatening strikes to those minor and incidental wounds.

The philosophy behind hit-points the way I see it is as follows
(I believe it has not really changed ever since 1st ed. AdnD):

1. Most injuries made by lethal weapons have capacity to be incapacitating.
2. Human beings and other creatures have capacity to ignore such injuries to a certain extent.
3. Some fraction of that capacity comes from the physical bulk and stamina. This fraction is relatively high for non-human creatures such as giant bears, dragons, etc and is very small for humans and human-like creatures.
4. For (somewhat normal) humans, most of the injury ignoring capacity comes from bravery and grit - ability to just clench one's teeth and carry on...
4a. For heroes: the bravery and grit are taken to the extreme, in addition divine favor, luck and innate ability to turn greater injury into a lesser one are all at play. Gary Gygax in 1st ed DMG stated that for a 90HP fighter - only about 15HP represent the physical injury and 75 the insubstantial karma that is being slowly eroded away as the combat goes on. Those 15HP worth of injuries are the sort of cuts and blows that would have downed even a considerable normal person but our 10th level fighter manages to fight through them because of his great self discipline and pain tolerance.

In this picture - Minion is a sort of creature that has very little basic bravery and grit, they panic easily and freeze with fear as soon as they take the first hit - even if they are physically capable of continuing to fight. They will certainly not have inner reserves of fortitude and collectedness that are needed to keep on going.

In that they are similar to great majority of people in the "real world".

If Minion is in the presence of an inspiring leader or drunk or drugged or some such - they will have their natural bravery and grit supplemented which will be reflected by them having temporary hit points.

To go back to your village example, if little Tim gets a nasty knife cut he immediately drops what he is doing and bawls for his mother. If his father does likewise he is probably able to continue doing what he is doing provided it is important enough. If his father gets hit by the saber over the face - even if he survives he is not likely to seek inner fortitude to fight on (unless for example his wife and kids are at stake). He is not (necessarily) dead but he is out of combat.

If you take into account that incapacitation =/= death then minions and their hit points start making ways more sense.

 

[LostSoul]

Do you understand? Indy shooting the swordsman was a great scene.

That's because he was obviously a minion!

If there had been a sound boom visible in the shot it would have sucked rotten eggs. If the minion rules make the existence of mooks not only visible, but distractingly obvious in the context of the game then you raise the bar for willing suspension of disbelief to levels I cannot match. The boom is in the shot, the set falls over, and the magic goes away. My character stops being a hero, and becomes a set of numbers of paper. The NPCs stop being villagers and become a set of plastic minis. I stop caring.

That sounds like a really good description of simulationism. I was talking to fusangite (who doesn't post much here any more), the biggest "simulationist" I know, and he said something like this: 'I know the gameworld is made up of cardboard props. I just want to see how much I can kick them before they fall down.'

I played in a game of his for a few sessions. I had no idea what was going on at the table, between players. It was like a different hobby, only slightly related to what I was used to.

I guess my point is that 4e doesn't look like a good fit for you. Either you can change your goals for play to get what 4e (hopefully) will deliver, or stick with 3.x, Pathfinder or some other game that's a better fit.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

That's what bothers me about Minions. They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers." Well, I don't like playing those games. Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome.

So don't use them.

Give every creature that's written to appear with 6 minions a trio of normal monsters instead. Use orc raiders instead of orc warriors. Who gives a crap?

Last night in my Rise of the Runelords game, the four 2nd-level PCs went up against 10 goblin warriors straight out of the Monster Manual - CR 1/3, 5 hit points, whatever. What on earth is the point of really, seriously, rolling that fight out?

So I basically used minion rules: any hit was a kill. As it happens, that was true anyway, but . . . seriously, I was saying at the start of the fight that I should have just cut it out, and even with one-hit-kills it was a little tedious.

 

[Rex Blunder]

Hit points are SUCH AN UNREALISTIC SYSTEM. They don't even have internal consistency. If hit points don't break your suspension of disbelief, then you have turned your suspension of disbelief off.

Minions are pretty unrealistic too. This shouldn't break the game.

 

[Scribble]

GM: "Okay. The last of the Orcs falls dead, when you loot the bodies you get..."
Minerva the Mage: "Hold on. I used my sleep spell so we could get some prisoners to interogate."
GM: "Yeah but then you killed them with a fireball."
Minerva: "Not that guy."
Borax the Fighter: "That's right, I was standing there next to him, and she dropped the fireball over a couple to miss me and catch that bloodrager dude."
GM: "Okay fine. You tie him up, he's awake now. What do you ask him?"
Rodger the rakish rogue: "Foul miscreant, who paid you tribe to attack these pilgrims?"
GM: "I ain't sayin nothin."
Borax: "I pop him one on the lip to get him to loosen up."
GM: "He dies."
Borax: "What?"
GM: "He was a minion, you made a to hit roll, he dies."
Minerva: "I'm pretty sure minion status is meant to be a narrative device and not a litteral..."
GM: "Stuff it. He had one hit point and he's dead. Now do you want your loot or not?"

Are you telling me that wouldn't interfere with your suspension of disbelief?

Sure... But as of this point we only have a vague notion of how minions are presented in the MM. We have an example of the minion, but none of the explainations that go along with it.

For all we know there could be an entry in the MM or more likely the DMG that talks about how Minions interact with PCs when PCs aren't trying to kill them. IE handle interogation through skills not damage. Assume the OPC is "roughing him up" as opposed to an actual combat situation. The Minion presents no challenge physically to the PC, only skills wise.

The same scenario could be seen around a 3e and earlier table...

Ok I rough him up.

Roll damage.

What? I'm not trying to kill him, just rough him up.

Too bad roll damage.


It's a situation better handled through skills, and I'm guessing the new DMG with it's apparent emphasis on learning proper DM fu as opposed to secret DM knowledge, will have this info.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

So don't use them.

Give every creature that's written to appear with 6 minions a trio of normal monsters instead. Use orc raiders instead of orc warriors. Who gives a crap?

So, a good portion of the Monster Manual won't be usable without serious modification? Great selling point. Wait, let me predict the response: "Play a different game, 4e is not for you".

Last night in my Rise of the Runelords game, the four 2nd-level PCs went up against 10 goblin warriors straight out of the Monster Manual - CR 1/3, 5 hit points, whatever. What on earth is the point of really, seriously, rolling that fight out?

So I basically used minion rules: any hit was a kill. As it happens, that was true anyway, but . . . seriously, I was saying at the start of the fight that I should have just cut it out, and even with one-hit-kills it was a little tedious.

Perhaps a more challenging fight would have been less tedious?

 

[hong]

Do you understand? Indy shooting the swordsman was a great scene. If there had been a sound boom visible in the shot it would have sucked rotten eggs. If the minion rules make the existence of mooks not only visible, but distractingly obvious in the context of the game then you raise the bar for willing suspension of disbelief to levels I cannot match. The boom is in the shot, the set falls over, and the magic goes away. My character stops being a hero, and becomes a set of numbers of paper. The NPCs stop being villagers and become a set of plastic minis. I stop caring.

Nothing about the minion rules mandates that mook status must be visible and obvious outside the context of combat.

Allow me to draw you a scene that can and will happen around the tables of poor to mediocre GMs everywhere in coming years.

See, all your problems will be solved by not playing with GMs who are apparently out to prove a point.

(dumb example)

Are you telling me that wouldn't interfere with your suspension of disbelief?

This is no different to encountering creatures with 1-2 hp when everyone can deal decent damage: IOW, an exceedingly common scenario in 3E at 1st level, especially around people with blue circles around their feet. I do not know of any DMs who habitually killed off human commoners whenever the PCs roughed them up a bit. I do not know why you think this will suddenly change in 4E.

 

[Scribble]

So, a good portion of the Monster Manual won't be usable without serious modification? Great selling point. Wait, let me predict the response: "Play a different game, 4e is not for you".


Perhaps a more challenging fight would have been less tedious?

But why give up the option to play out another type of scenario?

Minions give you the option to have a crowd of flunkies that go down quickly but still must be dealt with... Meat shields that give your BBEG time to either:

1. laugh maniacly and yell "Fools! Your end is fast approaching!" or some other dastardly evil villainesque phraze...

2. get away so he can fight later ina better situation.

3. Toss off ranged powers without the threat of the PCs in his face.

If you're just using a "higher challenge" then chances are the BBEG is going to have to be right there on the forefront slugging it out with PCs...

Which leads to less movie/book like games and more Order of The Stick like games...

"Ahahahahahahaahahahahah your end is... OUCH fast.. Ouch! Quit stabbing me in the gut dude! approach- aww crap I'm dead."

 

[JohnSnow]

It has always been the case in D&D that, whatever hit points are, a basic villager cannot have more than 6 of them. Is D&D attempting to claim, therefore, that this villager (Villager Bob) cannot sustain more than 6 actual injuries? Or that Bob's diminutive son, Villager Tim, who has 1 hit point (whatever they are, it has always been possible to have 1) cannot endure even 1 single injury?

It seems that this is not the case, if we assume that D&D has attempted to make reasonable claims about the denizens of its virtual villages. A cut is an injury. I have given myself a good gash with the old hobby knife on occasion. If, in the course of a D&D session, a character accidentally cuts himself with a hobby knife (or let's say a butter knife at the family dinner table) does that necessarily inflict at least 1 hit point of damage? I can imagine Tim cutting himself with a small knife and not flopping over dead. Would D&D have ever posited that 1/6th of the inhabitants of its virtual world flop over dead from common household accidents? We could maintain that it has done so... but why assume something ludicrous only to get upset about its implications?

Okay, now I believe we have the possibility of getting somewhere. I agree with you that it's counterproductive to make a ludicrous assumption and then get upset about its implications. So instead, let us make a decision that whenever we are confronted by the implications of an assumption that we will first question the assumption itself to see if it is, indeed, ludicrous. If it is, it is the assumption that needs revisiting, not the implications.

I also like the direction here because it lets us question ridiculous things like a housecat that can kill a commoner (or a 1st-level wizard).

So, I would agree with the point that little Tim might cut himself with a knife without inflicting a lethal injury. Or skin his knees while playing, or anything similar. Clearly, for our 1 hit point commoner, he seems to have the ability to take some degree of non-lethal damage.

Rather, if the D&D rules are applied to its virtual world consistently, we must say that not every cut or other minor injury causes the loss of hit points. If we allow the text to tell us what it is really telling us, it is saying that the loss of even 1 single hit point represents a life-threatening injury. It must, since some people can die from it. I think we can conclude 2 things from this: first, hit points must represent, at minimum, your ability (for whatever reason) to avoid dieing from life-threatening injuries; and second, not every cut, bruise and sting does hit point damage.

Again, I would mostly agree with this (with a proviso I'll get to). At least so far as it concerns low-level commoners. When we're talking about characters with many, many hit points, we can get into some different interpretations. I'll get back to that in a minute, but I want to address another point first.

Your first point is the one that I want to dwell on briefly. You said "Hit points represent your ability to avoid dying from life-threatening injuries." I would argue that that's only "sort of true." Rather, I would argue that "hit points represent your ability to avoid dying from potentially life-threatening injuries." That may sound like nitpicking, but hear me out.

By inserting "potentially," we can argue that a 1 hp wound is a wound that can be inflicted by a serious knife, a shuriken or even a lesser injury from a sword or axe. This can kill anyone, but is less than what all these weapons are capable of. Similarly, a knife wielded with lethal intent is capable of inflicting an injury that's sufficient to kill some people (anybody with less than 4 hp) in a single blow.

But what does this 1 hp mean to a character who has 10? Further, has villager Bob (who has 6 hp) taken an injury equivalent to the one received by his 1 hp neighbor? Perhaps. But this only makes sense up to a certain point.

Since the latter point is an interesting challenge to DM narration of results, how do we account for minor cuts, bruises and other non-life threatening injuries that can crop up in combat (like getting nicked by a blade, or suffering a minor flesh wound)? Obviously, since hits do 1 point of damage or more, those must be "misses". Or at least, they can be misses... though one might also narrate hit point loss as the luck or skill that reduces what would have been life-threatening strikes to those minor and incidental wounds.

Emphasis mine. That is actually my preferred interpretation of what hit points, and the loss thereof, represent. Yes, characters can, to a degree, have minor injuries without losing hit points. But they can also (and this is especially true of experienced adventurer types) lose hit points but have only minor injuries. Basically, that minor injury is a tiny fraction of the character's resistance to injury. At first level, it's 1/8th of a hit point, or less, and we just fudge it as not relevant. By the time we're dealing with characters that have 80 hp, they can react to a sword blow that would split a normal man in half (10 hp!) and end up with nothing more than a slight cut. It was the same strike, but a different result, because the target made it different.

Moreover, this interpretation allows characters who we have established are not going to die from their injuries to still be "injured" (in the sense of having nicks, scabs, bruises and flesh wounds) but be at full hit points. It also allows things like the Warlord's inspirational healing, the Second Wind ability, and similar to make a lot more sense.

The way I see them, hit points represent your ability to turn a potentially lethal (or disabling) injury into one that is non-lethal. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, wear you out, or potentially leave you bruised, cut, or bleeding. It just means that you aren't in danger of death. Now, I also hold to the theory that a "hit" doesn't even have to hit, as long as it wears down your ability to avoid future injury.

Now, there are some corner case things here. Poisoned attacks have to be described as "hits" that draw blood for the condition of "poisoned" to make any kind of sense, even if they do only one point of damage to a character possessing hundreds. Similarly, if I was, for example, running a duel with the characters playing to "first blood from the torso" (or somesuch), I would probably rule that the character had only been pinked when they hit the "bloodied" condition. Anything before that might be a cut to the arm, or a bruise, or a near miss, but it isn't "first blood."

Now, first touch? That's the first attack that does hit point damage. My interpretation.

By the way, it has been confirmed that when your blow would drop an opponent to negative hit points, you can choose to "pull the blow," knocking them out rather than killing them. I believe it was in Rodney's blog, but I'm not sure.