Minionizing Monsters: Death Attacks for Everybody!

[FireLance]

While mulling over the hit point thresholds mentioned in connection with solo monsters in the latest Legends and Lore, it occured to me that a similar mechanic might be able to accelerate some of the lower-level but still fairly tough monsters such as bugbears and ogres into "minion" status. Basically, what if every PC could automatically kill a monster if his attack dropped it to or below a certain hit point threshold dependent on his level? If, for example, the threshold was 1 hp/level, a 20th-level PC could automatically drop any monster he hit whose hit points were less than or equal to 20 + his minimum damage.

I must admit, this is not a new concept. It's actually a class ability (Death Attack, hence the thread title) of the Executioner Assassion from Heroes of Shadow. At 3rd level, he can automatically kill any creature he hits (with a melee or ranged attack) and deals damage to that has 10 hp or less after his attack. This increases to 20 hp or less at 13th level and 30 hp or less at 23rd level.

The advantage to this approach is that it doesn't significantly reduce the combat endurance of high hp opponents, but it quickly tips the scales against those with relatively low hp.

Some possible variations on this idea are for it to apply only to weapon attacks, to help balance them against spells, or to fighters and rogues (and other martial classes), to help balance them against spellcasters. Alternatively, certain weapons and classes could have higher death thresholds.

Thoughts?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Not sure if it is needed.

 

[keterys]

I love the way it works myself, and think it'd definitely help solve some issues.

Probably not necessary until a few levels into it, so that folks aren't thinking about it at 1st level.

 

[Libramarian]

What is the point of minions? If someone doesn't mind explaining this.

 

[FireLance]

What is the point of minions? If someone doesn't mind explaining this.

The following is all IMO, of course. Anyone who wants to add anything else can chip in.

From the gameplay perspective, they are less troublesome for the DM to manage because he doesn't have to track hit points. They are either not hit yet (and alive) or hit (and dead). 4e also gives them fixed damage (so that less dice rolling is required) but this will probably not carry on into 5e.

From the genre simulation perspective, they allow the PCs to play through scenes in which they face hordes of enemies and take them down individually with a single stroke each.

From the character development perspective, they are a tangible demonstration of growth in character power. A monster that required an entire party and several rounds to take down at level 1 can now be dispatched by a single high-level PC with a single attack.

Of course, whether specific monsters ought to ever become minions or not is a matter of taste. Some might draw the line at orcs, others at ogres, and yet others are quite happy to even have minions that are giants (for suitably powerful characters, that is - think Thor weilding Mjolnir and killing a giant with a single attack).

 

[AeroDm]

I think it might be more interesting if you reversed your formula. That is, give every monster a HP total and an auto-death total. So your 20th level monster would have, say, 98 HP but auto die if any hit dealt more than 20 dmg (obviously, 5e or any system would have to tweak these values to balance them).

Similarly, I read a variant on minions early into 4e that introduced minions with flair wherein they took two hits or one hit from fire (in the example of a fire vulnerable minion). You could do the same with the 20th level monster having 98 HP, 40 in one hit, or 20 with fire.

Personally, I think any time you can make the resolution of how monsters are defeated more interesting is a huge win. I think we too often set up combats to be "beat all targets to death." This reminds me of that shift from Warcraft 2 to Warcraft 3 where all of the sudden the different ways in which you might win a mission made the game feel so much more robust.

 

[Libramarian]

The following is all IMO, of course. Anyone who wants to add anything else can chip in.

From the gameplay perspective, they are less troublesome for the DM to manage because he doesn't have to track hit points. They are either not hit yet (and alive) or hit (and dead). 4e also gives them fixed damage (so that less dice rolling is required) but this will probably not carry on into 5e.

From the genre simulation perspective, they allow the PCs to play through scenes in which they face hordes of enemies and take them down individually with a single stroke each.

From the character development perspective, they are a tangible demonstration of growth in character power. A monster that required an entire party and several rounds to take down at level 1 can now be dispatched by a single high-level PC with a single attack.

Of course, whether specific monsters ought to ever become minions or not is a matter of taste. Some might draw the line at orcs, others at ogres, and yet others are quite happy to even have minions that are giants (for suitably powerful characters, that is - think Thor weilding Mjolnir and killing a giant with a single attack).

OK thanks. I don't like the second one (sounds like weak sauce); I think minions are actually inimical to the the third one (doesn't really count as an accomplishment if the DM has weakened the monsters' stats); and while I think the first one is potentially useful, I prefer the "swarm" concept, where you make one attack roll for every 5 kobolds or whatever, as a means of reducing the handling time of lots of weak enemies.

 

[GreyICE]

Minions are excellent. They allow horde mechanics and utter hordes of enemies.

Want to face 24 Zombies? That's a good challenge for a level 1 party in 4E.

Minions also allow spellcasters to do amazing things without unbalancing the game. AoE attacks are the province of spellcasters, in general (martial classes get very few multi-target attacks, and almost no pure AoEs) which allows the spellcasters to have a very exclusive and powerful niche. ]

Also, Minions allow minion mechanics. For example, a simple one is that you take 2 damage when you start your turn next to the minion. Another would be each minion next to you lowers your defenses by 1 per minion.

These sorts of swarm mechanics make swarms of enemies that are trivial to kill very interesting encounters, and good flavor to an encounter. A necromancer raising hordes of skeletons and constantly resurrecting them? Easy.

Swarms don't allow you to have the feeling of the truly crowded battlefield, where you are surrounded on all sides. You have to assume the kobolds all move as a 2x2 block or something, for inane reasons (or have monster that mutates in size, which opens up the question of why it's not just multiple monsters).

Plus if you want to talk about martial mechanics that make no sense, the fighter swinging his sword with a single target attack and killing 6 kobolds in a swarm makes zero sense.

 

[Sunseeker]

What is the point of minions? If someone doesn't mind explaining this.

I've generally used them to represent comparatively(to the PCs) weak enemies, such as zombies, raised-on-the-spot skeletons, and things I want to throw a large number of and get rid of in a short time. They're good for mixing in about 25/75 to a force to make them seem more intimidated and scare my PCs.

 

[pemerton]

Of course, whether specific monsters ought to ever become minions or not is a matter of taste. Some might draw the line at orcs, others at ogres, and yet others are quite happy to even have minions that are giants (for suitably powerful characters, that is - think Thor weilding Mjolnir and killing a giant with a single attack).

In A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged - who at that point of the story has just taken his first posting as a wizard - kills mulitple young dragons in a series of single attacks, before then outwitting Yevaud in negotiations. So there is a literary precedent for dragon minions!

Swarms don't allow you to have the feeling of the truly crowded battlefield, where you are surrounded on all sides. You have to assume the kobolds all move as a 2x2 block or something, for inane reasons (or have monster that mutates in size, which opens up the question of why it's not just multiple monsters).

Plus if you want to talk about martial mechanics that make no sense, the fighter swinging his sword with a single target attack and killing 6 kobolds in a swarm makes zero sense.

I don't have anything to say in response to your second paragraph, other than "when they swarm they get easier to kill!" (although half damage from melee attacks preserves some semblance of verisimilitude here - like minions, swarms also favour caster AoEs).

But in response to your first paragraph, I recently ran an encounter with a hobgoblin phalanx, and anticipate running another one soon. The phalanx formation gives a rationale for the swarm shape, and when the Huge swarm overruns a PC (using the ability of swarms to enter enemy spaces) it does give that feeling of being surrounded on all sides by spear-wielding hobgoblins hiding behind their shields! (My swarm also had the ability to regenerate by absorbing an adjacent hobgoblin minion - reinforcements!)

So I like minions, but I also like swarms!