Minions and hps

[KarinsDad]

The designers played with minions a lot. I think that for most of the playtest lifecycle they had small numbers of hit points.

The designers aren't perfect, but they were considerate enough to playtest this idea for you and didn't like it.

This isn't quite true.

The designers tested giving minions low number of hit points and didn't like the idea that they then had to keep track of hit points for the minions.

His idea is to give minions low number of hit points and if the damage does not meet the threshold, it does zero damage. In this case, there is no keeping track of hit points.

 

[KarinsDad]

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.

Minions are boring.

Our party just made 7th level and we encountered a room with 12 zombie-like minions in one large pile of bones and another 4 zombie-like minions in another.

The DM was going to have all 16 attack us in the same round, however, he suddenly remembered that my Wizard had just acquired Winter's Wrath. So, he had them attack in waves (over several rounds) so that my Wizard would not kill all 12 in the larger group with a single encounter power.

When the DM has to change his encounter design plans due to a game design element, it means that the game design element is flawed.

In the case of minions, they are cardboard cutouts. Our group blows through minions with minor scratches at best.


There is a concept of "Tough Minions" where on even damage, they die. On odd damage, they survive (or vice versa, the DM rolls randomly each encounter). 3 attacks will always kill a tough minion. A tough minion is worth double XP of a normal one. If the DM throws in some tough minions every once in a while, it makes the game more challenging and interesting. But, normal minions are a joke, even at first level.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Minions are boring.

Our party just made 7th level and we encountered a room with 12 zombie-like minions in one large pile of bones and another 4 zombie-like minions in another.

The DM was going to have all 16 attack us in the same round, however, he suddenly remembered that my Wizard had just acquired Winter's Wrath. So, he had them attack in waves (over several rounds) so that my Wizard would not kill all 12 in the larger group with a single encounter power.

When the DM has to change his encounter design plans due to a game design element, it means that the game design element is flawed.

In the case of minions, they are cardboard cutouts. Our group blows through minions with minor scratches at best.


There is a concept of "Tough Minions" where on even damage, they die. On odd damage, they survive (or vice versa, the DM rolls randomly each encounter). 3 attacks will always kill a tough minion. A tough minion is worth double XP of a normal one. If the DM throws in some tough minions every once in a while, it makes the game more challenging and interesting. But, normal minions are a joke, even at first level.

Ummm - that sounds like a poorly thought out encounter to me. An encounter with nothing but minions should be a cakewalk no matter your level or what powers you have. Minions have to have something to be a minion to.

My typical encounter is something like 4 regular monsters (of varying roles) and between 4 and 16 minions depending on how lethal I need it to be. I would never just throw minions at a party and expect it to be anything other than boring.

 

[Obryn]

Apart from the Zombie Minions, who should be Level 0.5, I've found minions to be very effective and a whole lot of fun.

They need to be used right, though. Ideally, there are enough more-powerful bad guys that killing a minion doesn't seem worthwhile. Then they can gang up and surround people really, really easily.

-O

 

[James McMurray]

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

The door they came pouring out of coupled with the terrain to force them to all go through the paladin's polearm gamble range or the rogue's OA range. Technically they got near some of the party. Had I know people were going to be hypercritical about my word choice I'd have said "before they got anywhere near attacking us."

The point was that the minion portion of the encounter consisted of a string of die rolls, and every die roll of 2+ for the paladin or ~5+ for the rogue converted itself into free XP. The zombies weren't the only things in the encounter, and the rest of the fight was interesting, but nowhere near as challenging as it would have been had minions not had a single hit point, or had there been five more regular monsters instead of 20 minions (though I might be misremembering and it might have only been 16 of them).

 

[cbbakke]

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.

We basically have the same idea on the minion hp threshold. I considered adding the CON mod also but I didnt want to make aoe powers useless. At top end if the HPS are too high it would become hard to kill them with your set up. We have a 4th level party and a 12th level party. The damage doesnt scale taht dramatically for powers so with your example of 16 hps for the mob, all but the striker classes would struggle to kill a minion which I think pulls it to far the other way.

My current thought is HPS= 3+ 1/2 level. Even at level 10 mobs they would have 8 hps so AOE attacks would still be able to kill them with an average roll but not make them useless.

Right now as people have said, minions are free exp.

 

[Foxman]

Reading through the thread, I have 3 comments.

1) I feel that minions work as is.

2) Its you game do what you like! Cavet if you make minions more powerful (do not auto-die in one hit) then you need to up the XP (think of your budget!) because they are a bigger threat.

3) I like the "Damage on a miss = Bloodied Minion" and will be using it in my game. Yes its a *little* more to track but not much, as I just throw a bloodied token on the minion. (gives the tiefling race a bonus to hit a bloodied minion!) (of course any area healing would remove bloodied).

 

[satin]

We've only been playing low-level so far, but the minions have been pretty fun.

I do agree though, terrain and placement matter a LOT. If minions are forced to provoke OAs or you can easily pick them off one by one, you can cut through them like butter. On the other hand, if you're facing a swarm of minions that are flanking people all over the place, and spread out enough that area attacks can't easily get them... ouch.

 

[cbbakke]

At higher levels Warriors get an encounter power that anybody who starts their turn next to them takes 1d10+1 damage (meaning any minion who startst the turn next to them dies). This lasts for the entire battle.

Clerics get a similar power that they can sustain with a minor.

Rangers can do wisdom mod to one person at the end their turn.

 

[Stalker0]

When the DM has to change his encounter design plans due to a game design element, it means that the game design element is flawed.

I have to disagree with this statement, a DM always has to adjust his encounters to be suitable to his particular party. If I had a team of all defenders, then a group of archers is going to get mauled a lot easier than normal for example. A group of all strikers will have a harder time dealing with minions than a group with a lot of controllers, etc.

I have found these tactics are helpful when using minions:

1) Split them up. Have them attack from different sides.
2) Use aid another. Have the minions aid their big friends instead of attack themselves.
3) Its all about the last few. Generally minions die by the bucketload early in the fight, but i've found as there becomes fewer of them there's less incentive to kill them as opposed to hitting the big guys. And that's when they start doing their damage, as they are ignored. If they aren't ignored, well then they are absorbing damage which is fine.


I'll admit that I also haven't played high levels much yet, so perhaps my tune will change when we get there. I like the DT idea, but I wouldn't go farther with that (especially not a bloodied condition). I really have to argue against any minion houserule that adds extra bookkeeping. A DT idea is a quick check on an attack, bloodied is something I have to track during the fight, and its not worth it imo.