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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James McMurray" data-source="post: 4496863" data-attributes="member: 743">Last session our epic game had two fights with minions. The rule we used is the one mentioned earlier for zombies:- A minion that takes any kind of damage is knocked prone.- A prone minion that takes any kind of damage or a status effect is killed.- A minion that starts its turn prone rolls a saving throw. If it fails it lashes out once with a basic attack and then dies. If it succeeds it acts normally.The first fight was against an elite and three minions. The minions died readily, but got to do a little damage first.The second fight was against 2 monsters capable of resurrecting minions (modified Skull Lords), a trap, and a bunch of minions. The minions got to do a bunch of damage in this fight, but nowhere near as much as the similarly levelled trap or the skull lords. I don't have my notes handy, but IIRC they made their death saves a few times, and failed them about as often. The skull lords' presence definitely helped them out, as they raised minions at least five times. IMO it worked out really well. One player expressed a concern that theoretically minions could take infinite damage. But since the odds of them saving once is 55%, and each added save cuts the odds roughly in half, I'm not too concerned about that. Plus any attack which would deal damage and also knock them prone or apply an effect that has to be tracked will kill them outright. There's not even a 10% chance that a minion will survive four attacks. On average I expect them to survive one and a half hits. A standard monster seems to take four to six hits to drop, depending on level and who is hitting it. That seems about right to me. There are times when a minion might survive more attacks, but also times when a single attack is going to kill it, especially once the players know who are minions and who aren't.The party's wizard just changed himself to a swordmage, and the terrain kept him from using his minion slaying at will attack. Also, the radiant cleric didn't make it to the session. Had either of those not been the case, the minions still would have dropped like flies, but not without a chance to do something first.The player of the warlock may be changing to a wizard to fill the empty controller slot. If that happens, minions will still be dying in droves, but it'll be teamwork causing it instead of a single fighter stance.</blockquote>

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