Minions and fixed damage

[Blackeagle]

Trust me, I'm a statistician.

I think that one ranks up there with, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

 

[AtomicPope]

You will almost surely not roll max damage on every minion hit. It all balances out. Trust me, I'm a statistician.

Trust me, I post on the internet. I know everything.


Then you also know about Murphy's Law.

 

[hong]

Trust me, I post on the internet. I know everything.


Then you also know about Murphy's Law.

Murphy's Law applies to everything. Players can deal with Murphy's Law as applied to minions, the same way they can deal with Murphy's Law applied to every other monster in the game.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

That's your opinion.

Dozens of other successful RPGs on the market use the same division between rules for PCs and rules for NPCs. Trying to extrapolate rules to gameworld physics seems to be peculiar to D&D, and that's because 3.X made the highly unusual move of saying NPCs used the same rules as PCs. Most other games have specific rules to highlight how the NPCs are not the same as the PCs.

That NPC-PC equality is being discontinued is a strong indicator on how well that went. Not only did it make building new opponents a nightmare unless you did what most of us did and threw the rules out entirely, it resulted in a less believable world, because suddenly people could survive a fall off a 100 cliff into molten lava. It resulted in vehement arguments that people couldn't possibly get seriously hurt from being thrown from their horse. Ridiculous elements like this are finally removed, making the world far more believable because it is no longer shackled to a rules system designed to allow larger-than-life heroes to survive dramatic perils.

So my opinion is the opposite. The D&D world hasn't become less believable. It's become far, far more believable.

I have to say I agree with this.

I don't find having the same rules for NPC's as PC's more believable, I find it more annoying. I had decided not to run 3e because of the amazing amount of preparation it needed - and the problems with the cascade effect if you wanted to do anything. In 3e, you couldn't have an NPC with 10ranks in blacksmithing without giving him 7 levels of commoner, picking his other skills, feats...blah blah blah.

4e? He's an NPC. He has 3hp, blacksmithing +10 (if you even need to bother with a stat for it) and a rubbish AC and defenses. Nothing more needs to be done. I've seen people on these boards come up with reasonable suggestions for new powers, monsters and items on the spur of the moment, without even having seen the books - I never saw that happen with the 3e rules set.

 

[theNater]

Or you could describe the game-world balance however you want. In the game world, minions get lucky hits in now and then. In the real world, they always do the same amount of hit point damage.

*rolls* "The first hellguard hit you. Take 6 damage."
*rolls* "Ooh! A crit from the second hellguard. Take 6 damage."

To be clear, I approve of this. I just also find it hilarious.

 

[AtomicPope]

Murphy's Law applies to everything. Players can deal with Murphy's Law as applied to minions, the same way they can deal with Murphy's Law applied to every other monster in the game.

True but minions are supposed to Suck

 

[Plane Sailing]

The "swings" of dice rolling hasn't been taken out for speed, it's been removed for balance. Have you noticed that minions don't have "High Crit" weapons? If minions roll for damage then they might end up being more powerful then their exp costs suggests when they score a critical hit (max damage). By giving minions a flat damage amount it balances them against the potential brokeness when combined with Leaders.

...

Not speed - balance.

It is a nice thought, but it isn't what they've said!

The designers have specifically said that it was taken out for speed, and DMShoe has said in this thread that it was to keep variance lower.

Your comment does get to the heart of my original question though - what kind of imbalance might there be if you allow rolling for damage. High crit weapons would be an issue (unless you just said that minions can't get a crit, even on a 20) and leader powers could also pose a potential problem.

 

[thewok]

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.

In 4E they *finally* got rid of crit confirmation rolls. If you roll a natural 20 (or a natural number in your crit range) you crit. No second roll required.

 

[hong]

True but minions are supposed to Suck

No, they're not. That's why they have level-appropriate attacks and defenses. They go down in one hit, but they're not ignorable.

 

[DonAdam]

I find it strange that people can accept the existence of redshirts but not that redshirts don't crit. You've already given up symmetry with the first step.

I'm pro fixed damage. But I don't buy the argument that large numbers of minions might get too swingy. Everything I know about statistics says it would be the opposite: increasing numbers of minions should (by the law of large numbers) come to increasingly conform to the expected damage distribution. The real problem would be the enounter with one or two minions who, due to freak accident, cause mass chaos. Which can still happen since you're rolling attacks, but less so.