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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4235227" data-attributes="member: 42582">Just to be clear - are you claiming that there is no difference in the play experience one would get from playing an encounter with minions in 4e, and a variant of the same encounter in HeroWars in which the minions simply lend their APs to the real protagonist?If that is what you are claiming, it is nonsense. Tactical movement is irrelevent in HeroWars. It is at the heart of the 4e play experience as far as combat is concerned. And to achieve this the minions have to be disaggregated from the boss and located on the battlemat.As to whether or not rules are needed for a story - contrast Rolemaster, in which one story outcome of a combat between a PC and NPC swordsmen can be that the PC lost an arm and yet won the fight, with AD&amp;D 1st ed, in which that is not a possible outcome (unless the NPC is wielding a sword of sharpness).Other games - especially some indie games - obviously make the connection between rules and story much more intimate.Their hit points don't &quot;waver&quot;. You might want to say that, with every missed attack that would have dealt damage to a non-minion, their hit points grow. But that is not wavering, it is unidirectional. Furthermore, given that every game session comes to an end, the hit point growth will always be to a finite amount. And given that, within 6 or so rounds it is almost certain that a fighter will cleave or otherwise kill the minion, I suggest that the upper limit to that growth will be somewhere shy of 1000 hit points (I haven't got enough examples of powers and damage in front of me to do any precise maths, but doubt that missed-attack damage is going to amount to more than 10 hits per round or so at low levels, or 50 hit points per round or so at high levels).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 4235227, member: 42582"] Just to be clear - are you claiming that there is no difference in the play experience one would get from playing an encounter with minions in 4e, and a variant of the same encounter in HeroWars in which the minions simply lend their APs to the real protagonist? If that is what you are claiming, it is nonsense. Tactical movement is irrelevent in HeroWars. It is at the heart of the 4e play experience as far as combat is concerned. And to achieve this the minions have to be disaggregated from the boss and located on the battlemat. As to whether or not rules are needed for a story - contrast Rolemaster, in which one story outcome of a combat between a PC and NPC swordsmen can be that the PC lost an arm and yet won the fight, with AD&D 1st ed, in which that is not a possible outcome (unless the NPC is wielding a sword of sharpness). Other games - especially some indie games - obviously make the connection between rules and story much more intimate. Their hit points don't "waver". You might want to say that, with every missed attack that would have dealt damage to a non-minion, their hit points grow. But that is not wavering, it is unidirectional. Furthermore, given that every game session comes to an end, the hit point growth will always be to a finite amount. And given that, within 6 or so rounds it is almost certain that a fighter will cleave or otherwise kill the minion, I suggest that the upper limit to that growth will be somewhere shy of 1000 hit points (I haven't got enough examples of powers and damage in front of me to do any precise maths, but doubt that missed-attack damage is going to amount to more than 10 hits per round or so at low levels, or 50 hit points per round or so at high levels). [/QUOTE]

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