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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ulthwithian" data-source="post: 4218757" data-attributes="member: 60612">To borrow a phrase from failure analysis (and engineering in general), hit points and other ablative effects fail gracefully (at least mechanically), while binary effects fail catastrophically.In general, minions are a superset of exception-based design, in some ways.  That seems to be the issue.  I don't detect any inherent issues in the OP about exception-based design in general, but surely 'minion' is simply an exception 'set' rather than an individual exception?  Note that in 4E's exception-based design, the exceptions are very rarely individual.  All Orcs have a similar theme running through their abilities, as do Kobolds, Gnolls, and (presumably) Goblins.  Minions are on a different axis from the above exception-based 'classes', but certainly the same logic applies?If you find the solution inelegant, that is your decision, but others (including myself) find the implementation of minions quite elegant.As far as Kraydak's concern about replacing minions in products, I believe the math analysis I did on page 9 is fairly telling; 4 minions do about the same damage as one mob.  Replace on an as-needed basis.  Note that you definitely weaken AoE powers (and by extension, Controllers) when you do so.  What is ironic is that if your party contains no Wizard, you can punish them by sending waves of minions at them.  XP for XP, minions do damage faster to opponents than 'normal' mobs, apparently.</blockquote>

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