Minion fun! What do you plan to do with them?

[Mephistopheles]

I think you're describing the 4e Pit Fiend.

Not even a little bit. I'm not a fan of the Irresistable Command power.

What I had in mind was more like the leader ripping the life force from its minions to power its abilities.

 

[erf_beto]

Two ideas:

1st
An encounter with lots of minions and some entity wich jumps from one minion's body to another "empowering" it and "healing" himself. So you fiht him and when he is at 0hp he jumps to the next minion. So players have to figure it out or fight him for... well... 10-12 times at least...

/snip

Hey, I just played that! In Neverwinter Nights pc game, just last week
The intelect devourer was jumping from guard to guard and every time I droped one, he'd jump out into another, healing up and all. So, I let my henchmen and familiar keep him busy, while I persuaded all the other confused guards to run away. Gotta tell you, memorable fight!

 

[Storminator]

Not even a little bit. I'm not a fan of the Irresistable Command power.

What I had in mind was more like the leader ripping the life force from its minions to power its abilities.

Just change the PF's flavor text. Instead of sliding his exploding minions he kills them where they are, sucks up their life force, and uses it to set off explosions right where his exploding minions would have been.

PS

 

[Mephistopheles]

Just change the PF's flavor text. Instead of sliding his exploding minions he kills them where they are, sucks up their life force, and uses it to set off explosions right where his exploding minions would have been.

PS

If I started tinkering with the 4E Pit Fiend I'd go a lot further than that.

 

[Cadfan]

What else can you do with Minion Rules? Stat up Non-Adventurers. A Level 10 Master Half Elven Diplomat has level and skills to diplomance his way out of anything, but a well aimed sword blow, and he is dead.

I'm not the only one who noticed this!

I remember a while back when a bunch of friends were sitting around and talking about D&D, and we realized that if an NPC was built according to the rules, in order to have enough skill points to function as even the most basic of characters, perhaps a farmer in a hamlet in the middle of nowhere, he'd have to be relatively high level. And even if he was a Commoner class character, that would give him more hit points and a better attack bonus than the heroes he was begging to protect him from goblin raiders.

Of course we all learned to handwave stuff like that years ago, but its nice that the mechanics support it.

 

[KrazyHades]

I definitely like the idea of having skilled non-adventurers being minions! For my part, I instantly thought of having minion-consuming abilities too. I can't wait to see what we of EnWorld make once 4E comes out.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Mind you I'm looking at this from a Star Wars RPG perspective...

Waves upon waves upon waves of stormtroopers. They pretty much are one-hit wonders in Saga Edition as is (especially to higher level heroes), but still...

Though the zombie idea does have its own merits

 

[lbporter]

I can't believe I'm the first to say this.

Night of 1000 Ninja!


Luke

 

[Novem5er]

I had an idea last night:

Run ALL encounters as minions.

Seriously, why does every battle need to be a tactical chess match? Fantasy film and literature are full of battles where the heroes are just hacking through a swarm of bad guys. Also, if you WANT a more video game feel to your RP, this can simulate all those action sequences, be it from Zelda, Prince of Persia, or God of War.

Taking the OPPOSITE approach, if you like a more RP oriented game, where combat is more of a plot device than anything else, then all-minion battles can speed things a long.

Now, I don't mean that these kind of games should only include the "minions" listed in the MM. I mean that one could turn all the monsters into minions by implementing a new rule:

All stats stay the same, but HP is lowered so that each creature can only absorb 1, 2, or 3 hits.

Obviously, there would be "Boss" fights where monsters are left pretty much unchanged.

Whatever the motivation, an "all-minion" campaign would have the effect of speeding up combat, which can mean A) more time RPing, B) battles with even MORE monsters, or C) more frequent battles.

Note: I'm not an advocate for turning D&D into a video game, but this could make for an interesting change of pace.