Minionizing Monsters: Death Attacks for Everybody!

[GreyICE]

Sure, but what rational can I use for the zombie swarm holding their shape? It doesn't feel right in the least. They should be going after the nearest living targets.

Swarms are cool and have their place (that application sounds awesome!) but minions are minions and swarms are swarms. One does not replace te other, and saying "you can shoehorn minions into being swarms" doesn't really cut it for me.

 

[Hussar]

Well, there's no particular reason that a swarm has to follow the standard space rules. A large swarm, forex, takes up 4 squares. Those don't really have to be 2x2. So long as they are contiguous, why not let swarms take any shape they want? Medium swarms are stuck to a single square, but, that makes sense since medium swarms are generally pretty small creatures.

But, a swarm of zombies might be a large swarm, thus, they could be 2x2 or 4x1 or L shaped or whatever.

 

[erf_beto]

Well, there's no particular reason that a swarm has to follow the standard space rules. A large swarm, forex, takes up 4 squares. Those don't really have to be 2x2. So long as they are contiguous, why not let swarms take any shape they want? Medium swarms are stuck to a single square, but, that makes sense since medium swarms are generally pretty small creatures.

But, a swarm of zombies might be a large swarm, thus, they could be 2x2 or 4x1 or L shaped or whatever.

You can probably handle that by using several smaller swarms to compose the intended swarm, otherwise some area attacks might be a little weird to grasp...

 

[Savage Wombat]

Swarm rules in 3.5 work exactly this way. As long as the four squares are contiguous, do whatever you want with them.

 

[FireLance]

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).

I'm not too keen on that approach as it could make fights with high hit point enemies too swingy. The intention is to minionize lower-level enemies more rapidly without increasing the PCs' direct damage, which would have knock-on effects on battles against opponents with higher hit points.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well, there's no particular reason that a swarm has to follow the standard space rules. A large swarm, forex, takes up 4 squares. Those don't really have to be 2x2. So long as they are contiguous, why not let swarms take any shape they want?

Although just fyi... not that it probably really matters... but since most swarms all have an Aura around them, by switching from a 2x2 square to a 1x4 line... the swarm actually gains two additional squares of space the Aura affects. So they aren't completely equivalent.

Granted, those two additional squares probably mean very little in the long run, but it might be a factor for somebody.

 

[FireLance]

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)

I think the 5e approach is that monster stats will not change; the creature will have the same number of hit points and will only die in one hit when the PCs are able to kill it in one hit. The proposed rule simply accelerates the process.

 

[Rune]

The OP fulfills one of the two major roles that minions served, but not the other.

That is, the OP's suggestion provides the PCs easy things to kill, but does not streamline the mechanics of battle any.

One of the most important aspects of minion design is that the only dice rolls needed to interact with them are to-hit rolls. Everything else is completely automatic and streamlined. This is necessary because minions are best used in larger numbers, but it also serves to emphasize how trivial they are (while still remaining dangerous--especially if ignored) in relation to the PCs by reducing the time it takes to run them (and, incidentally, also removing the possibility of getting critical hits).

This second function, to my mind, is as important as the first.

With that in mind, I think any extra calculations made at the table to turn a creature into a one-hit kill actually work against the purpose of a minion.

 

[keterys]

If you list the average damage a creature deals, it makes it a lot easier to minion-ize it.

So, maybe you'd have

Orc
10 hp
2d6 + 2 (9) damage

And now when you get high enough level, you just make them hit for 9 damage and at level X (where X is appropriate), they just die.

 

[avin]

Swarms for creatures small and larger is just... wrong, IMO. Minion is a far interesting idea, because any monster has his own actions.

Some people has been using minions for a long time... 1hp monsters with fix damage? Been using since 3.0 and even before, on other systems