Minions and hps

[Mistwell]

I have yet to see anyone report that using minions as-is results in an un-fun result.

And I've used them myself, and found them to work fine.

So what exactly have you seen in-game, in actual use, that turned out to be not fun?

 

[keterys]

I have yet to see anyone report that using minions as-is results in an un-fun result.

I can say that minions are far easier to kill than anything near their level of XP and at higher levels can be so trivially killed as to not be worth their value in XP, giving very different levels of challenge (to un-fun result) depending on heavily minions are used.

This applies more at higher level - when you have things like large encounter area effects that hit enemies only, encounter walls, etc. Before 11th it was just an occasional 'Meh' when certain abilities were used and it made the combat feel more cheap or boring, while starting with 11th it was just like 'These are just a lie about how much XP they're worth'

As a player, I've seen minions just drop like flies to Armor of Agathys or a Reaving wand and not gotten any satisfaction at it, making the fight less fun. As a DM, I've had to treat minions differently when building encounters, making the game less fun.

I certainly appreciate minions as an option, however, so want to retain that level of ease of tracking and things dying. Tricky, eh?

At any rate, that's why I gave my suggestion - addresses both sides of the complaint. The cleric who turn undeads and goes "Okay, 18 to this guy, 9 to that guy" "He's a minion, no damage." "Wait, what?" "He's a minion, misses don't hurt him." "But, 9 damage..." and the "Okay, so you put a cage around that 5x5 section. All minions on the edges automatically die at start of their turns, roll hits for the ones in the middle... and any that don't have ranged attacks are effectively worthless now since they can't get through the wall without dying too. Ah well."

 

[James McMurray]

I have yet to see anyone report that using minions as-is results in an un-fun result.

And I've used them myself, and found them to work fine.

So what exactly have you seen in-game, in actual use, that turned out to be not fun?

On the player side: 20 zombies come pouring out of a desecrated church to kill us. All but two die to OAs before they get anywhere near us. I appreciate free XP as much as the next guy, but it wasn't any fun.

On the GM side: 8 level 18 minions as part of a huge boss fight. All but two of them die to Come and Get It and a fighter stance in the first round, having done nothing. One survives for three rounds through pure luck (really bad rolls on the part of the two guys attacking it). The numbers in the DMG said it would be a challenging encounter, but because of automatic damage abilities a huge chunk of the "challenge" was just free experience. Also not fun.

I love minion rules, and have had a blast with them in Exalted and Scion. However, in those games they die incredibly easily, but not automatically. They can be a challenge, and they survive long enough to be used as scenery for cool stunts. Minions in low level games of D&D behave similarly because there's very little automatic damage, but past a certain level (depends on party makeup) their inability to survive the first round of combat means a GM putting them in the game either has to make them artillery minions so they stay out of range, or resort to extravagant tactics to try to keep them from being free levels.

 

[Kordeth]

On the player side: 20 zombies come pouring out of a desecrated church to kill us. All but two die to OAs before they get anywhere near us. I appreciate free XP as much as the next guy, but it wasn't any fun.

If they were provoking OAs, they certainly got somewhere near you.

 

[Samurai]

What I've done is similar to Nifft's suggestion, but simpler. Minions have a Damage Threshold equal to their Con bonus (including 1/2 their level, as listed in the monster's description), + their usual 1 HP. Any attack that does the DT or less in damage is ignored by the minion. Any attack that does more than the DT (enough to then take out its 1 HP) takes out the Minion.

For example, the Aboleth Servitor is a lvl 16 Minion that has a listed Con Bonus of +13 (+5 stat, +8 for 1/2 lvl). That means it ignores attacks that do 13 damage or less, and an attack that does 14 damage or more takes it out.

It's quick and easy, no additional conditions to keep track of (like Bloodied), and helps make the Minions more of a challenge, especially against low damage AoE powers. If you want to use the Bloodied status, though, you could say that an attack that is exactly equal to the DT (13 in the example above) makes the Minion Bloodied, wiping out its Damage Threshold so any additional hit will take it down.

 

[keterys]

The problem I have with the damage threshold rules is they make powers actually designed to deal with minions like scorching burst and cleave less effective against them.

 

[Samurai]

The problem I have with the damage threshold rules is they make powers actually designed to deal with minions like scorching burst and cleave less effective against them.

Well, at the early levels, when the DT is only a couple of points, Scorching Burst will still be effective (Cleave not so much, except against things like Zombie Rotters). Later on, when minions are worth hundreds of XP each and should be a bit of a threat, I'm not sure I want easily spammable level 1 At Wills taking them out without a decent chance of failure. Suddenly, using an Encounter or even Daily AoE power against an advancing horde of Minions isn't a complete and utter waste, as it is in the RAW, but actually a good idea, even a necessity! Personally, I like that, but YMMV.

 

[Mad Hamish]

On the player side: 20 zombies come pouring out of a desecrated church to kill us. All but two die to OAs before they get anywhere near us. I appreciate free XP as much as the next guy, but it wasn't any fun.

How did you get the OAs before they get to you?

 

[wedgeski]

Well, FWIW, minions have been a decisive threat against my party in the low levels we're currently playing. I see no incentive for changing them at all.

 

[DracoSuave]

Well, at the early levels, when the DT is only a couple of points, Scorching Burst will still be effective (Cleave not so much, except against things like Zombie Rotters). Later on, when minions are worth hundreds of XP each and should be a bit of a threat, I'm not sure I want easily spammable level 1 At Wills taking them out without a decent chance of failure. Suddenly, using an Encounter or even Daily AoE power against an advancing horde of Minions isn't a complete and utter waste, as it is in the RAW, but actually a good idea, even a necessity! Personally, I like that, but YMMV.

When minions are worth hundreds of XP each, normal monsters are worth a thousand or so. The idea that minions need to be individually tougher stems from the mistaken belief that they are to be treated as individual monsters. They're a mob, and are geared towards mob tactics and situations, and their XP reflects that across all levels (seeing as that a minion gives an individual party member 1/200th of the xp needed to level at all levels assuming a 5-man team, they -always- give trivial xp to reflect their trivial nature.)