Minions and fixed damage

[pawsplay]

It makes it really obvious what's a minion, that's for sure.

 

[Korgoth]

Do minions not get extra damage on a crit? I think it would be fine if they inflicted double damage, which is essentially like doint the maximum.

 

[PeelSeel2]

I am going to run minions with damage dice and crits. It will not slow things down at all.

 

[Sigdel]

Not only would the fixed damage be a dead give away that your facing minions, but the one hit kills would also sell it. and the quantity of them. and the lack of any offensive abilities...

Really, I think any PC would be able to spot cannon fodder from a mile away, in any addition. If they outnumber your party 3 to 1, you have grass to cut.

I don't see what the issue is. Their have always been minions, now they seem to have a functioning mechanic for the one hit kills that heroes always seem to get in ALL fiction.

 

[frankthedm]

Do minions not get extra damage on a crit? I think it would be fine if they inflicted double damage, which is essentially like doint the maximum.

Feel the same way.

 

[MindWanderer]

Remember, there was a design & development post that mentioned that they'd considered doing away with damage rolls entirely. They decided against it, not because it didn't work, but because a lack of damage dice made it feel not like D&D anymore. What would D&D be without polyhedral dice?

 

[DMShoe]

At one point, we'd simplified minion attacks even further -- a group of minions would make one attack roll, and the damage would be based on the number of minions involved in the attack (for example, one minion would attack for 2 damage, so 4 minions would make an attack together, rolling once, to do 8 damage total).

Generally, it's the same average damage as rolling separately, but the language and timing got a little clunky, as we had to then consider that the minions would probably need to all act at the same time, which then created complexity when you wanted some minions to move and attack, but other minions to attack and then move... ultimately, rolling one attack for each minion felt right to most DMs. But we kept their damage flat, to keep the variance of minions lower.

Side effect: minions never get that "lucky hit" (crit). But they are only minions, after all.

now back to your regularly scheduled minion discussions....

 

[drjones]

The more minions the closer fixed damage is to what you would have gotten rolling it, and the bigger advantage to not rolling.

extrapolating what the die roll would be should not be a problem though if you want to roll.

 

[Lanefan]

Side effect: minions never get that "lucky hit" (crit). But they are only minions, after all.

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

 

[Rex Blunder]

I bet when the villains get together with their minions to play D&D, the PCs can't get crits