Minions and fixed damage

[AllisterH]

Using the same logic that says a low-level character can get in a lucky shot (crit.) against a vastly superior foe, so should a minion be able to get in a crit. against a PC. Makes no sense otherwise...

Lanefan

Er, Lanefan I'm pretty sure he's referring to the fact that if a minion gets a CRIT, there's no dice to maximize. Thus, minions CAN"T crit as a side effect of not having damage dice.

Seriously, do you guys just jump in at WOTC and twist their words for the worse possible interpretation?

 

[ZappoHisbane]

Using the same logic that says a low-level character can get in a lucky shot (crit.) against a vastly superior foe, so should a minion be able to get in a crit. against a PC. Makes no sense otherwise...

Lanefan

Sure it does, once you remember that minions and monsters (not to mention monsters and PCs) use different rules in 4E. This is the big paradigm shift in 4E.

From a balance perspective, it also makes sense. In general, you'll be facing 4x as many minions as you would normal opponents. That means 4x the number of d20 rolls, and thus 4x the chance of a crit. They don't want to nerf the damage of the minions too much (they still need to be a credible threat), so they remove the ability to crit. Thus we avoid the situation where an unlucky PC gets hit with 3-4 crits in one round by ankle-biters.

 

[Lanefan]

Er, Lanefan I'm pretty sure he's referring to the fact that if a minion gets a CRIT, there's no dice to maximize. Thus, minions CAN"T crit as a side effect of not having damage dice.

Ah...I'd forgotten that 4e crit's don't double the damage, just maximize it. Still, easy enough to just say that a minion crit. adds 50% or 100% or whatever % you like to the flat damage amount for that hit.

Seriously, do you guys just jump in at WOTC and twist their words for the worse possible interpretation?

No, "us guys" just sometimes wonder how and why the designers come up with these things.

Lanefan

 

[AllisterH]

Ah...I'd forgotten that 4e crit's don't double the damage, just maximize it. Still, easy enough to just say that a minion crit. adds 50% or 100% or whatever % you like to the flat damage amount for that hit.No, "us guys" just sometimes wonder how and why the designers come up with these things.

Lanefan

Ok, but t did seem like you were thinking the worse. My apologies for jumping to conclusions...

 

[Kordeth]

Using the same logic that says a low-level character can get in a lucky shot (crit.) against a vastly superior foe, so should a minion be able to get in a crit. against a PC. Makes no sense otherwise...

Lanefan

Err--generally speaking a low-level character can't get in a lucky shot (crit.) against a vastly superior foe. A natural 20 is an aut-hit, but you only crit if your attack roll was high enough to hit anyways.

 

[Lanefan]

From a balance perspective, it also makes sense. In general, you'll be facing 4x as many minions as you would normal opponents. That means 4x the number of d20 rolls, and thus 4x the chance of a crit. They don't want to nerf the damage of the minions too much (they still need to be a credible threat), so they remove the ability to crit. Thus we avoid the situation where an unlucky PC gets hit with 3-4 crits in one round by ankle-biters.

This smacks of the same exceedingly poor logic (not yours ZH, but the overarching logic you're explaining) that made some monsters arbitrarily immune to crits in 3e. Simply put, if you want game-world balance and believability, crits (and many other things) have to work both ways equally. A minion can be critted against, and there's no good reason it can't give a crit right back...and if a PC gets unlucky and eats a few crits from some minions, tough. It's the price you might pay for wading in to a sea of red shirts.

Lanefan

 

[FireLance]

This smacks of the same exceedingly poor logic (not yours ZH, but the overarching logic you're explaining) that made some monsters arbitrarily immune to crits in 3e. Simply put, if you want game-world balance and believability, crits (and many other things) have to work both ways equally. A minion can be critted against, and there's no good reason it can't give a crit right back...and if a PC gets unlucky and eats a few crits from some minions, tough. It's the price you might pay for wading in to a sea of red shirts.

On the other hand, it could be argued that a minion suffers no additional ill effects from a crit...

 

[ZappoHisbane]

This smacks of the same exceedingly poor logic (not yours ZH, but the overarching logic you're explaining) that made some monsters arbitrarily immune to crits in 3e. Simply put, if you want game-world balance and believability, crits (and many other things) have to work both ways equally. A minion can be critted against, and there's no good reason it can't give a crit right back...and if a PC gets unlucky and eats a few crits from some minions, tough. It's the price you might pay for wading in to a sea of red shirts.

Lanefan

I've bolded the main gotcha in there. We're not looking for game-world balance, we're looking for game balance. 4E is not, never was, and never will be internally consistant, since not everything in the game uses the same rules.

 

[charlesatan]

This smacks of the same exceedingly poor logic (not yours ZH, but the overarching logic you're explaining) that made some monsters arbitrarily immune to crits in 3e. Simply put, if you want game-world balance and believability, crits (and many other things) have to work both ways equally. A minion can be critted against, and there's no good reason it can't give a crit right back...and if a PC gets unlucky and eats a few crits from some minions, tough. It's the price you might pay for wading in to a sea of red shirts.

Lanefan

It's cinematic logic. PCs aren't the same as minions/mooks/stormtroopers. The former are heroes, the latter aren't.

This kind of mechanic can be seen in other RPGs. In Savage Worlds, it's the Wild Die mechanic (not everyone has them) and/or fate chips. In L5R, it could be the lack of void points on the opponent's part. In 7th Sea, they have minions too who die in one hit.

 

[Hussar]

This smacks of the same exceedingly poor logic (not yours ZH, but the overarching logic you're explaining) that made some monsters arbitrarily immune to crits in 3e. Simply put, if you want game-world balance and believability, crits (and many other things) have to work both ways equally. A minion can be critted against, and there's no good reason it can't give a crit right back...and if a PC gets unlucky and eats a few crits from some minions, tough. It's the price you might pay for wading in to a sea of red shirts.

Lanefan

Critting a minion does absolutely nothing.

If minions were as DMShoe originally posted, only getting a single attack per round, then, I would agree they should get crit chances. However, since they are getting 4 times as many attacks as any other creature, (it is 4:1 right?) then they have measurably higher chances of critting.

Should they then not have different mechanics for determining a crit?