Minion House Rules

[AbdulAlhazred]

• Minions have a Damage Threshold, equal to their level + adjusted Constitution ability score modifier.
  • If damage is dealt to the minion equal or above its damage threshold, it dies.
  • If damage is dealt to the minion that is less than its damage threshold, the minion is bloodied.
  • Any damage dealt to a bloodied minion causes it to die.
  • Bloodied minions may spend a healing surge (if someone gives that ability) to remove that condition.
• Misses now effect minions normally.

I gave these rules a try, and they worked quite well at upper heroic tiers of play. (Level 6-13 minions). It worked well for allied minions as well - and depicting the chaos of a fight with more than one faction. The PCs would spend abilities to heal the bloodied minions on their side, so they could fight off the other enemies that threatened them. I suspect it may not work as well for Level 1-5 minions, as they'd probably all be one-hit kills considering level 1-5 PC damage expressions.

Yeah, well, seems to me the level 1-5 or so minions don't REALLY need to be 'tough' in general. My hobgoblin camp example is actually a bit of an oddball since it is a whole level 4 encounter made up of MOSTLY minions, but if you just have 3-4 low level minions then it really won't make much difference. As you observe though when you start getting into the high level minions, especially the ones BEYOND heroic tier, then making them tough adds a nice dimension. The trick of course being to make their MDT such that they aren't totally cleaned out by a low level AoE, but will be pretty much cleared out if the controller spends a bit better power on doing it. My thinking is a directed attack should basically kill a minion maybe 90% of the time. I'm just tired of the wizard popping them like soap bubbles en-masse.

 

[77IM]

Here's a variant on the variant:

If you don't feel like tracking "bloodied" minions (since one of the virtues of minions is that they are stateless), then when the damage is less than the minion's threshold, they make a saving throw or die (instead of becoming bloodied).

-- 77IM

 

[JackSmithIV]

I have a question.

Why is it that most people don't like how minions work to begin with? I don't mean to antagonize, it just seems that the intention in "fixing" minions is often unclear. They're very simple to use as-is, and I'd like to understand more about why these kinds of edits make minions better than they are.

 

[77IM]

stinking cloud (Wizard Daily Attack 5)

 

[cbbakke]

I had thought something like 3+ 1/2 level. If you have 5+ 1/2 level+ con modifer. Down the road minions are going to be ahrd to kill. 14th level ogere minion would have 5 +7 (1/2 leve)+3 for con mod= 15. All ofa sudden non striker classes are really going to struggle to kill a minion. Figure a figher with a 20 str, +2 long sword, would do 1-8 +7 damage, he would need a max damage to kill a minion.

 

[BlackSeven]

I am intrigued by some of these ideas, as it would make the horde of minions somewhat more frightening (and maybe I wouldn't feel quite so obliged to hide their minion status from the party for the sake of tension), but I have a question.

One of the concepts behind minions having 1 hp rather than just being "one shot kills" is that some leader monsters give temporary hit points, which would then move the minions into an area where it might take more than one hit to kill them. If a leader gives temporary hit points to a minion using any of the suggested rules regarding a threshold, how would they affect it?

 

[JackSmithIV]

stinking cloud (Wizard Daily Attack 5)

I suppose. But then, the fix is that minions should instead go down in maybe 2 hits? Or maybe 3 hits? It's that much of a departure from 1 hit? Also, are we all throwing our minions out it one mass at the beginning of the battle? Should DMs instead use waves of minions?

 

[JackSmithIV]

And wow, I also didn't realize that it's also each creature in burst. So if the minions have reached the players at all, and are intermingled with them, you're doing a fair amount of damage to your own party to kill those minions.

 

[VenezuelanWiz]

Hey,
people have been noting that the threshold falls appart for the Wizard, who is supposed to handle vast quantities of monsters. One possibility is to make the mooks be vulnerable x to blasts and bursts. Make x be 2-3 + 1/2 per level or somesuch. That way wizards will still be able to kill them. Some mooks will be tougher, others will be easier to wipe out.

Cheers
VzlanWiz

 

[keterys]

Flaming Sphere, Armor of Agathys, Rain of Steel for some other dailies.

Winter's Wrath for an encounter.

Cloud of Daggers for an at-will (though that often bothers people less)

Rod of Reaving for a minor action at-will. In some games, combined with a rod of corruption this will kill every minion in combat as a minor action at the start of combat. Even without that, two-fold curse at paragon still makes minions pretty trivially killed.