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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James McMurray" data-source="post: 4475991" data-attributes="member: 743">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.</blockquote>