Minion Fist Fights

[pemerton]

This creature exists solely as a narrative construct, and interacts with the world independently of rules or rulings made previously of the rest of the world.

Obviously this would not be a substitute for 4e minions, which are tightly rule governed.

 

[Shabe]

and now can we all get on the minion boat please. And I don't know about you, but I like minion boats.

Just hope to heck that a stray arrow doesn't hit the minion boat

I just waded my way through all the posts over a couple of days, unfortunately i don't have anything to add as i can see where both sides are coming from, it adds a new aspect to the core rules which means you can have heroes (not always PCs) sending monsters heads flying left, right and center, at the end of the day you could just like not use them if they break your playstyle / suspension of disbelief.

I myself will dm a game and use them mixed in with hordes of other monsters without having to write down 12 minion hp notes, as i think minions are kewl.

 

[Trevelyan]

I'm personally in awe of the skill with which the anti-4E crowd skipped so skillfully from "Minion rules make no sense in the game world" to "Minions rules are good but 4E still suks because you could house rule minions into 3E if you wanted". That and the fact that no one seems to have called them on it in spite of the fact that it's the same people involved.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

I'm personally in awe of the skill with which the anti-4E crowd skipped so skillfully from "Minion rules make no sense in the game world" to "Minions rules are good but 4E still suks because you could house rule minions into 3E if you wanted". That and the fact that no one seems to have called them on it in spite of the fact that it's the same people involved.

That is because the discussion moved towards how cool and mechanically innovative minions are.

Minions are still a method of putting rubber bumpers and training wheels on your encounters, in an effort to make players feel like they accomplished something by popping soap bubbles disguised as opponents. They are still not innovative, because it was done ad nauseum in other systems, and it amounts to really nothing more than giving monsters one hit point, which was trivial to do in previous editions.

So, there is no skipping. "Minion rules make no sense in the game world, and you could trivially make minions in previous editions."

What entirely baffles me is this fetish with following the rules so exactly. What I find puzzling is the pro-4e argument of "if you don't like it in 4e, change it!" but when it is shown that simply changing one or two items makes 3.5 (or earlier) do exactly what 4e is doing, the cry goes up "But that isn't RAW!".

Further, trying to emulate popular fiction or movies with a role playing game will ultimately lead to frustration, because they don't have the same underlying constructs. Protagonists in media don't mow through henchmen because the henchmen are fragile. They plow through because the plot requires it. The authours aren't sitting at home rolling dice to see how things turn out. If you give PCs the same total script immunity, you are no longer playing a game. If you put the PCs in danger, you won't get the outcome you want every time. Bridging that gap is tricky, but certainly possible.

Minions are a weak plank in that bridge.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What entirely baffles me is this fetish with following the rules so exactly. What I find puzzling is the pro-4e argument of "if you don't like it in 4e, change it!" but when it is shown that simply changing one or two items makes 3.5 (or earlier) do exactly what 4e is doing, the cry goes up "But that isn't RAW!".

I am not a big fan of the bolded part, either. But I think the reasoning goes something like this:
So, you prefer 3E over 4E(, and might even think the designers are not doing good work). But 3E didn't have X. You tell me I can houserule X, if I want it.
SO, if Y is something you don't like in 4E, just houserule it. See, 4E is just as great as 3E.

Off course, there is also the matter of how difficult it is to houserule something. Taking out magical +X items from 3E while preserving game balance? Very hard. Taking out magical +X items from 4E while preserving game balance? Astoundingly easy.

Further, trying to emulate popular fiction or movies with a role playing game will ultimately lead to frustration, because they don't have the same underlying constructs. Protagonists in media don't mow through henchmen because the henchmen are fragile. They plow through because the plot requires it. The authours aren't sitting at home rolling dice to see how things turn out. If you give PCs the same total script immunity, you are no longer playing a game. If you put the PCs in danger, you won't get the outcome you want every time. Bridging that gap is tricky, but certainly possible.

But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be mechanics that allow me to easily replicate certain aspects of books or movies. Mooks (lower level NPCs & monsters) in 3E are pretty pointless. You roll a lot of dice and the end result - you win - is still obvious. (The worst thing possibly is that the best way to handle mook fights is to send your melee warriors to deal with them, since this will most likely not cost you any important resources, while the quick way, a area effect spell, can hurt you in a later encounter that day)

Minion Fights in 4E are no pointless. You roll a lot of dice, but you actually risk death or at least serious resource expenditure.
The fact that you can die in combat at all is off course an important difference from books or movies. But playing smart (good teamplay, tactics, and possibly using metagame resources like action points) can minimize the risks, and leads to a satisfactory experience - just as the protagonist in the novel, you outsmarted (or at least outfought) your adversaries.

 

[Andor]

Heh, I reject your version of reality and submit my own:

QFT.

YOu have a strange sense of consensus.

Do you even recall the discussion we are having?

It's sad because there is absolutely no way to do this in 3e. If I send 30+ enemies at the PC's, even if I go a 5+APL on the EL, the mooks are going to be so low on the CR scale that they are not any challenge.

And, wasting time at the table while the players roll endless d20's with absolutely no threat of failure is not my idea of fun.

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Umm, no you couldn't. How do you make a creature with 2 hit dice only have 1 hp? And, while you complain about the unrealism of minions, you have no problems with hundreds of people having only 1 hp?

Let's see you create a 10 hit dice creature, with 1 hp, and a +15 attack bonus in previous editions. I'll wait.

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The mechanical solution you provided doesn't work either. You gave it 10 hit dice, but no feats, no skills and no CR. And, you cannot simply decide, in 3e, that a creature has less than 1 hp/hit die, unless you drop it's Con below 10. Which doesn't really work on a 10 hit die creature anyway.

Would you care to find me a single person in my rules forum thread that said a GM was forbidden in 3e from assigning a monster any HP or attack he pleased?

You claimed that if a gm wanted to use a mook horde for plot reasons in 3e it couldn't be done. I reitterated my dislike for minions but pointed out the absurdity of claiming a GM couldn't do anything he pleased with a monster and posted an example minion and a minion template for 3e. You claimed it was unworkable because it violated the rules. I posted a thread in the rules forum asking if anyone agreed with you. No one did. Indeed the same post you quoted also said "The DM is allowed to change the rules of the game whenever he wants. It's written in the DMG. So changing HP or HD or anything else is allowed by the Rules As Written." The closest anyone in that thread comes to agreeing with your claim that a monster in 3e cannot be lawfully adjusted to suit the plot is some cautions to be wary of CR changes and unforseen results.

So yes, I stand by my statement that the consensus is that a 3e DM can indeed make any damm monster he wants into a minion or not for plot purposes.

I also stand by my position that doing so in way that make the world seem inconsistant from the viewpoint of the characters is detrimental to the game.

 

[Hussar]

You claimed that if a gm wanted to use a mook horde for plot reasons in 3e it couldn't be done.

Citation please.

What I stated was that, using 3e RAW, a mook horde was a complete and utter waste of time, because, in order to use that many baddies, you have to go so low on the CR scale that they are no longer a threat. Sure, you can do it, but, it's boring and piss poor adventure design.

I never, not once, stated that you couldn't do it. I stated that you couldn't do it BY RAW. I even emphatically stated that you could do what you are claiming.

I'm not sure what you are arguing anymore since your points are so far removed from what I've stated that I don't think you are actually arguing with me.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You claimed that if a gm wanted to use a mook horde for plot reasons in 3e it couldn't be done. I reitterated my dislike for minions but pointed out the absurdity of claiming a GM couldn't do anything he pleased with a monster and posted an example minion and a minion template for 3e. You claimed it was unworkable because it violated the rules. I posted a thread in the rules forum asking if anyone agreed with you. No one did. Indeed the same post you quoted also said "The DM is allowed to change the rules of the game whenever he wants. It's written in the DMG. So changing HP or HD or anything else is allowed by the Rules As Written." The closest anyone in that thread comes to agreeing with your claim that a monster in 3e cannot be lawfully adjusted to suit the plot is some cautions to be wary of CR changes and unforseen results.

Seriously? That's like saying that someone could run a modern adventure with no magic, no healing, and no classes and instead only a house ruled point buy system for abilities instead. It's like saying that if you wanted to play soccer with your friends in your back yard that it would be perfectly acceptable to have one player who was able to carry the ball around and throw it whenever he wanted(who wasn't the goalie).

Sure, you can change whatever you want. But the POINT of the 3e monster rules is that you DON'T do that. The point is that monsters and players all play by the same rules. When monsters go up levels, they get hitpoints, attack bonuses, saves, skills, feats, and so on. Same thing with players. The idea being that if you have a monster who is 15th level and a player who is 15th level, their characters should be "balanced". If you break this and just make up monsters using whatever rules you want, you aren't using the 3e D&D rules any longer(at least in terms of what a monster can do).

"You can change the rules to whatever you want" isn't a rule of the game. Its simply a statement of the obvious. And it's been a tradition for a long time for DMs to change the rules. So much so that any version of D&D that simply omitted this one statement would have a portion of the community up in arms that D&D doesn't let you have house rules anymore.

However, I can assure you that my players would be up in arms if I made a creature like that. I would be yelled at for breaking the rules. Same thing would happen if I wrote that for a published adventure of any kind, including Living Greyhawk. If I got that submitted to me as an editor, I would reject it as well. Officially, WOTC considers D&D to be all of the books they have released without any rule that starts in "If you wish" or "You can, if you want". All of those are considered "optional" rules and not part of the core rule set.

Without the use of the "You can change the rules, if you want" statement in the 3e DMG, it is impossible to make a minion in 3e.

 

[hong]

"The DM is allowed to change the rules of the game whenever he wants. It's written in the DMG. So changing HP or HD or anything else is allowed by the Rules As Written."

Bertrand Russell did this better than you.

 

[Andor]

Bertrand Russell quoted Desert Gled better than I did?