Minion Fist Fights

[VannATLC]

<--- Location.

And I know we go to the same games store.

And I can get a CNC manipulator, but Strapping it to my back is going to get me accused of being a Techpriest Cosplayer.

 

[Lizard]

"When you use minions, you should use those of a level appropriate to the encounter you’re building. The concept of minions is to provide fun filler for encounters, not to provide a way for a 1st level character to gain 1,000+ XP for defeating a 23rd-level abyssal ghoul minion by rolling a natural 20. Minions are a rules abstraction, and one of the many tools a DM has to build exciting encounters." --Stephen Schubert, from the new minions article

So, mammoth minions FTW!

 

[hong]

Well, I spent the last 7 hours drinking soda, eating cheese cubes, and laughing uproariously with friends, so I think I'm having a lot of fun gaming.

There's nothing like a humanoid raven turning into a giant shark in order to bite an undead with an aura that makes people drown to drive home the importance of realistic simulation in gameplay.

Exactly.

 

[Lurker37]

Question:

Do those who dislike minions also dislike scenes in books of movies where the hero(es) defeat multiple guards/thugs/etc in rapid succession, but still taking time to parry their blows as if they were credible threats, but then when they reach a named villain it takes them several minutes of screentime/paragraphs to defeat them, usually taking a wound or more in the process?

It seems to me that these are a staple of many genres, including sword and sorcery and fantasy, and that a gaming system unable to reproduce such a scene is lacking.

By allowing the minions to have level-appropriate defences and attack bonuses, we are able to understand why they remain a credible threat, even if they lack the fortitude to take a single blow, or the luck/skill to not present an opening for a lethal blow. Furthermore it even explains why 0-level commoners were helpless against them - they needed a 20 to hit.

The only problem lies in if a minion transforms into a non-minion, or vice-versa. Again, a non-issue IMO. A minion can only survive if it never got hit. So the only way a minion can be encountered as a non-minion is if its minion status was never confirmed in the first place. *Dramatic unmasking* "HaHa! You fools! You thought you faced a common foot soldier? I think NOT!" (And the PCs attack because nobody likes a mouthy mammoth. )

The other way around ought to be reigned in by the fact that it is often poor storytelling.

Consider: any major character who has survived previous rounds of combat with the PCs needs to have a damn good reason from the DM for being killed by a single blow because it has the potential to be jarringly anti-climatic. So such characters should probably be either weakened somehow (injury, poison, illness etc) or else suffer some form of treachery if they need to be 'written out'.

So minion rules should only disrupt suspension of disbelief if they are used for reasons other than intended: to recreate scenes where the heroes fight through a large number of minor opponents to reach the real threat. This intended use is such a staple of the genres D&D handles that any gaming group ought to be able to take it in their stride.

 

[Blackeagle]

Consider: any major character who has survived previous rounds of combat with the PCs needs to have a damn good reason from the DM for being killed by a single blow because it has the potential to be jarringly anti-climatic. So such characters should probably be either weakened somehow (injury, poison, illness etc) or else suffer some form of treachery if they need to be 'written out'.

Or maybe just as a demonstration of how powerful the characters have become. I could easily see an NPC who was a name villain at the heroic tier ending up as a minion at the epic tier.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

When Hong says thinking, I assume by default he means 'thinking too much'.

I do not like "not thinking", but I'd like to stop the moment it provides no longer fun.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So, mammoth minions FTW!

Indeed. And I also declare "Mustrums Different Scale Theory" FTW, too!

 

[Blackeagle]

Oooh. How about this as a compromise: minions have HP equal to their Con +1, and are disabled (and bloodied) after taking a point of damage. So, a dagger thrust will drop a minion, but may not actually lethally injure him. This gets us transparency with other forms of HP generation, and lets us upgrade from minion to nonheroic by simply pulling off the 'disabled on any damage' flag.

I like the idea, but getting specific about whether the minion dies or is just incapacitated does bring up the killing the wounded problem. Depends how gritty you want your campaign to be I guess.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Because it will let me have scenes like this one in my game:

And any rules that let me do that? Well, gimme please.

Yeah, the DMG in previous editions was harsh the way it prevented people from doing that.

A friend of mine found an underground cyberpunk to remove the tracking device from his DMG so he could put 1hp opponents in his game. It was harrowing for a while there.

Oh, wait, that means you could have done that with any of previous editions. So, there you go. You have three previous editions of AD&D and the BECMI version to choose from.

 

[keterys]

Well, it was pretty hard to have 1 hp AC 37, +26 to hit creatures...