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Minions and hps
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<blockquote data-quote="Victim" data-source="post: 4486194" data-attributes="member: 78"><p>Yeah. If "Don't kill them all now! We can use them later to recharge our stuff" is a reasonable approach to minions, then they aren't really functioning as effective threats worth 1/4th a normal monster.</p><p></p><p>It seems like the main use for minions is fuel or otherwise work with the abilities of other monsters at higher levels. Death Giants have powers that are fueled by people dieing in their aura. Skull Lords can res minions as a minor action. The Demonic Acolyte template heals when its allies die. The Pit Fiend turns its allies into bombs. Etc. Minions aren't there to do things later on. They're there so other people can use them to do things - and, at that point, it doesn't matter a whole lot what level the minions are.</p><p></p><p>Abyssal Ghouls might be the perfect minions since their deaths cause damage. As long as they get to move next to people before they die, they can help.</p><p></p><p>---------------------------------</p><p></p><p></p><p>Besides changing the specific rules minions, it might be easier to change their XP values. If killing minions becomes increasingly easy compared to normal monsters as levels increase, then the amount of XP a minion is worth compared to the normal monster should also decrease. The only issue here would be a high initiative spike, and dividing up the minions into subgroups for initiative should mostly counteract that problem.</p><p></p><p>Also, I think most high level minions are poorly designed mechanically. At low levels, minions come with ranged attacks. A few kobold minions spread out over a wide area tossing javelins aren't giving up a whole lot, and can do some damage. Most of the low level monsters carry ranged weapons even if they prefer melee. At high levels, monsters tend to be more specialized in terms of what they do - it's more special abilities, natural attacks, etc, not carrying some weapons - so minions tend to only have melee attacks. That means that they pretty have to bunch up to bring their numbers to bear. More ranged skirmishing/artillery minions at high levels would make them not quite so trivially killed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Victim, post: 4486194, member: 78"] Yeah. If "Don't kill them all now! We can use them later to recharge our stuff" is a reasonable approach to minions, then they aren't really functioning as effective threats worth 1/4th a normal monster. It seems like the main use for minions is fuel or otherwise work with the abilities of other monsters at higher levels. Death Giants have powers that are fueled by people dieing in their aura. Skull Lords can res minions as a minor action. The Demonic Acolyte template heals when its allies die. The Pit Fiend turns its allies into bombs. Etc. Minions aren't there to do things later on. They're there so other people can use them to do things - and, at that point, it doesn't matter a whole lot what level the minions are. Abyssal Ghouls might be the perfect minions since their deaths cause damage. As long as they get to move next to people before they die, they can help. --------------------------------- Besides changing the specific rules minions, it might be easier to change their XP values. If killing minions becomes increasingly easy compared to normal monsters as levels increase, then the amount of XP a minion is worth compared to the normal monster should also decrease. The only issue here would be a high initiative spike, and dividing up the minions into subgroups for initiative should mostly counteract that problem. Also, I think most high level minions are poorly designed mechanically. At low levels, minions come with ranged attacks. A few kobold minions spread out over a wide area tossing javelins aren't giving up a whole lot, and can do some damage. Most of the low level monsters carry ranged weapons even if they prefer melee. At high levels, monsters tend to be more specialized in terms of what they do - it's more special abilities, natural attacks, etc, not carrying some weapons - so minions tend to only have melee attacks. That means that they pretty have to bunch up to bring their numbers to bear. More ranged skirmishing/artillery minions at high levels would make them not quite so trivially killed. [/QUOTE]
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