Minions and the Iliad

[Korgoth]

So, I got to try 4E recently. Obviously I went into it with some set opinions and thoughts, since I've read about it and discussed it for months now, i.e. I knew going in that my regular coffee had been replaced with Folger's Crystals. But I was anxious to see it in action and the group I played with is a good group of guys, bright and very gentlemanly. So I pretty much knew I'd have some fun regardless.

And it was fun. I don't want to go into a detailed review here of what I did and didn't like about the system, but just to focus on one thing which so far looks to me to be the most important issue mechanically: The Grind.

I know people use the term "grind", and I think I'm using it the same way, but here's what I mean by it: bad guys have redonkulous amounts of hit points. We're fighting a bunch of cruddy human guards, you the kind of guys who don't bathe and have holes in their socks. The kind of guys that pay for a Fudd Lite with a soggy, sweaty copper piece and don't even tip and are surrounded by flies. And these clowns were soaking up like 55-60 hit points of damage before dropping! That was really drawing me out of the action and making me furrow my grognardly brow.

See, I'm not talking about the big bad and his helper. I don't care how many hit points they have... they're supposed to be scary. But a bunch of palookas with more hp than Gojira? Does not compute, jefe. I was initially impressed with how much damage my character could deal out, only to realize that all of these numbers could be divided by 10 and nothing would change.

And this leads me to a realization about 4E. Again, I'm skipping some steps in my assessment of it... this isn't a review. The bottom line is that I like the group of guys I played it with and I look forward to playing 4E with them again. I don't consider 4E to be "D&D" (it doesn't do what I want "D&D" to do but does other things instead) but that doesn't mean that I don't like it. I'll play other stuff besides D&D... if Folger's Crystals can produce a reasonable tasting beverage I don't care if it isn't technically "coffee" in my estimation. But that's not the realization that I referred to.

My realization is that if I ran 4E it would be all about the Minions. I'd get around Grindeons & Grindagons by simply saying that 90-95% of all demi/human(oid)s (that's humans, demihumans and prey species like orcs and goblins) would be minions. So would most things with antlers (I can only imagine that a nice buck out in the forest has about 870 hp in this system, and so would use about an entire hunting party's supply of arrows to bring down) and other incidentals. The only non-Minions would be villains (major villains, lieutenants and sergeants) and actual monsters (stuff that's rare and terrorizes a whole region when it shows up).

Then combat would look something like the Iliad. You'd have the characters like Achilles, Ajax and Hector cleaving through piles of hapless, decapitated extras until, gore-spattered, they encountered one another in a titanic and climactic struggle. Which is to say, the world is made up of Heroes (good and bad) and schlubs, and 9 out of 10 dudes (or more) are schlubs.

If 4E's vaunted math actually works (I have no idea, I've heard conflicting things) then it should be reasonable to throw piles and piles of Minions along with one or two enemy heroes at the PCs, as long as it's all within the so-called "XP budget".

I have no idea how this would turn out in practice, but if I were going to run it, that's what I'd do. Ideally, it would end up looking Homeric.

 

[MerricB]

I think you can possibly overdose on minions... but the theory is sound and is, in fact, how I'm running my Gygaxian adventures.

I also use "quasi-minions" which are normal creatures with half hit points. That also cuts down on the grind.

Cheers!

 

[Lackhand]

I've also had a bunch of success pegging things 1 level lower for the humanoids. Goblins have too many hit points, so there are some level 0 and level -1 goblins and kobolds wandering around.

But yeah, hp are too high.

 

[Oni]

If you're going to go minion crazy make sure you watch out for things like the rod of corrupton/rod of reaving combo and the blood mage's burning blood class feature.

 

[Pbartender]

The other thing to remember is that just because minions only have 1 hp, that doens't mean they're necessarily easy to hit or that they don't hit back hard.

Consider, for example, the Ogre Bludgeoneer, a level 16 minon... He has defenses in the high 20's (Fort 30!), an attack bonus of +19, deals 9 damage on a hit, has a reach of 2 squares, and has a speed of 8.

Speaking of the Iliad, creatures like that well represent the "invicible except for a single weak spot" paradigm you often see in Greek myth. Consider throwing this minion against heroic level PCs... They'll have an exceptionally difficult time hitting him, but if they can manage to target that weak spot (natural 20!), they take him out in a single hit.


The other fin thing is to mix and match... Have one extra tough town guard who's the Captain of the Watch and has all the extra hit points, while all the dozen constanbles backing him up are minions who''ll go down fast.

 

[Rechan]

See, I don't get this "Too many HP" thing. Fights in my game rarely last more than 5 rounds unless it's a Big N+2 battle. Monsters go down fast. In fact, the only thing that keeps monsters on the field long is if they are an elite (double the HP). And I routinely only have one striker in the party.

I'm playing in Pyramid of Shadows, and given the first two encounters, the only thing with the insane amount of HP was a 10th level elite brute (vs. 7th level players. Yiiiiiikes).

 

[Korgoth]

The other thing to remember is that just because minions only have 1 hp, that doens't mean they're necessarily easy to hit or that they don't hit back hard.

Consider, for example, the Ogre Bludgeoneer, a level 16 minon... He has defenses in the high 20's (Fort 30!), an attack bonus of +19, deals 9 damage on a hit, has a reach of 2 squares, and has a speed of 8.

Speaking of the Iliad, creatures like that well represent the "invicible except for a single weak spot" paradigm you often see in Greek myth. Consider throwing this minion against heroic level PCs... They'll have an exceptionally difficult time hitting him, but if they can manage to target that weak spot (natural 20!), they take him out in a single hit.


The other fin thing is to mix and match... Have one extra tough town guard who's the Captain of the Watch and has all the extra hit points, while all the dozen constanbles backing him up are minions who''ll go down fast.

Good points.

Perhaps such a world, if it conformed to the typical quasi-medieval D&D milieu, would be sort of like what the Homeric world might have evolved into if certain things had been otherwise (impossible, but for the fact that it's fantasy). I don't mean that you'd have thureophoroi and peltasts and symposia... I mean that the "heroes" would mostly be of noble birth or perhaps special, even divine, heritage. A guard captain who was a non-minion, for example would be a minor noble and a hero of some repute. Perhaps some demi-human groups such as elves and dwarves would have more heroes... thus their general pretensions to nobility (and helping make up for their small populations). A human commoner of heroic proportion would be a rarity, and might suggest abnormal parentage.

Oh, and horses would be minions, too. I have no clue who thought it was a good idea that your average war horse can be shot in the face with a 120mm anti-tank gun and shrug it off. Every horse must be some kind of UltraHorse... or maybe they just look like horses on the outside and underneath they're like the Terminator. Or something. But in my world they'd actually be killable with high-velocity shaped charge munitions. Or like arrows, even.

 

[Rechan]

Oh, and horses would be minions, too. I have no clue who thought it was a good idea that your average war horse can be shot in the face with a 120mm anti-tank gun and shrug it off. Every horse must be some kind of UltraHorse... or maybe they just look like horses on the outside and underneath they're like the Terminator. Or something. But in my world they'd actually be killable with high-velocity shaped charge munitions. Or like arrows, even.

Probably the person who thought that players who play mount-oriented characters would get rightly upset if their Mounted-stuff was lost as soon as a single blow landed on their horse. Considering that a section of the Adventurer's Vault is dedicated to mount-based magical items, if the PC is going to go out of their way to spend feats AND trick out their mount, the mount shouldn't die at the drop of a hat.

This goes doubly so with the amount of area affects being tossed around. That horse is likely to just die in the first round as soon as the enemy gets off an AoE. So, if the PC loses initiative, they'd not even get the opportunity to charge.

I'm pretty sure that "The Lone Ranger" would have had a much grittier tone if Silver died in every battle.

Even if not considering from the Player's perspective, the enemy is going to want to benefit from those rider-based abilities. Therefore, the horse can't just die at the drop of the hat.

 

[Cadfan]

How many times do you think a typical monster should have to be hit before it dies?

 

[Korgoth]

How many times do you think a typical monster should have to be hit before it dies?

Depends on what kind of monster. A scabby, illiterate brigand? Once or twice.

How many times would Conan have to hit a brigand? That's your answer.

A big hulking monster, on the other hand... a lot I suppose. It doesn't really matter. But Larry, Darryl and Darryl shouldn't each have the hit points of an M1 Abrams.