Minions. The DM knows 'em. Do the players?

[pukunui]

I have no intention of saying "These ones are minions, they die with one hit". However, what I will most likely do is describe the ones that aren't minions slightly differently because they'll probably have non-standard equipment/appearance/etc.

Let's say the PCs get attacked by a whole tribe of goblins, most of whom are minions but some of whom are the guards, the chietain, and the shaman. I might describe the scene along these lines: "The goblin tribe rushes at you en masse. Most look like ordinary goblins but a few stand out from the crowd because they are dressed in better armor and look like they know how to wield their weapons properly. One goblin is slightly bigger than the rest and is dressed in furs and a cape. The skull of an indeterminate creature rests on his head and he wields a rod topped with the skull of a rodent. He appears to be shouting orders to the others. Also, at the back of the group is a goblin wearing nothing but a loincloth. A necklace of what appear to be teeth hangs around his neck. He is chanting in his own tongue and making subtle gestures with his hands."

This ought to tell the players that some of the goblins are more important than the others. Whether or not they know that the "mob" will all die with one hit or not is immaterial in my opinion. If they were paying attention, then they'll make sure they target the soldiers, the chieftain, and the shaman first. If the "minions" manage to get in the way before they die, then all the better.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I don't really see what is wrong with letting the players know that they are minions. Twenty goblins charging at you should be scary whether they are minions or not. That is, after all, the entire point of 4E's minion rules. The ability to drop them in one hit doesn't change the fact that they can do a lot of damage before they fall.

I probably won't bother saying outright "these are minions", but I don't see the need to try to obscure it if someone cares to ask or notices that the enemies all drop in one hit...

 

[Mouseferatu]

I probably won't bother saying outright "these are minions", but I don't see the need to try to obscure it if someone cares to ask or notices that the enemies all drop in one hit...

Purely an issue of style. I prefer describing things as close to "in-character" as I can, and since "minion" is purely a meta-game construct...

But there's nothing wrong with doing it any other way.

 

[pukunui]

Purely an issue of style. I prefer describing things as close to "in-character" as I can, and since "minion" is purely a meta-game construct...

But there's nothing wrong with doing it any other way.

I concur. This is what I was getting at. I'm not going to keep it a secret that there are creatures that can go down in one hit, but I'm not just going to say "OK, all the goblin minions charge at you while the soldiers come at you from the sides and the artillery hangs out the back".

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I don't know about any of you out there, but I know my players, and I'm pretty sure that just because they have a daily power available it doesn't mean that they'll leap on any and every baddie trying to utterly destroy it with said daily.
In fact I'm pretty sure they'll use them when they stop auto-killing the little squishy dudes with "Fodder" stamped all over their stat block.

In fact, if I know my players, I'm pretty sure they might conserve their daily powers so much for somthing BIGGER and BADDER to attack that at some points they won't even use them for some days.

Yep... can't wait to torture my players through another homebrew campaign!

 

[Trainz]

About wasting dailies on minions:

This is a non-issue. Extremely quickly (in a games session or two, I suspect), players will get into the habit of making their first attack on most critters with an at-will power, and if he's still standing after one hit, THEN decide if they want to waste limited ressources on it. In any case, they won't feel cheated.

Of course, some monsters will be quite obviously NOT minions, onto which players will let loose the dogs of war.

One cute trick a DM could pull is to organize a medium level fight with 12 kobold normals and 1 ogre minion... after wading with great difficulty through what players thought would be minions, they finally reach the "leader", and smash it down with a daily, missing... "but I still inflict some damage..." the DM pretends to write it down, only to ignore it because it's a minion, with it's 1 hp still... the other player then doing the same, unleash his daily on the mighty Ogre... "I HIT!" .... DM:"Oh don't roll, it goes down... it's an Ogre minion".

Oh I'm definitely gonna do that at least once.

 

[Vaeron]

If you use specific minis or counters for minions, PCs will most certainly be able to tell who is who. If you mix it up, it'd be harder, which is better since the point of minions isn't just to provide enemies for the PCs to ignore. A WotC blog specifically mentioned hiding an elite zombie in the middle of a horde of minion zombies as a way to catch PCs by surprise. I would never come right out and say they're only fighting minions, ever. If they waste their daily on something with only 1 hp (meaning they haven't even bothered to see how hard it is) that's they're own fault.

There's a substantial equipment difference that PCs will certainly catch onto - the poor kobolds wearing rags with javelins aren't big threats, but the guys with the shields and shortswords are. And the kobold with the robe and the dragon mask? Probably someone a bit more important.

According to the Quick Start rules, PC's can use knowledge skills to determine what they're facing. Nature for creatures of the natural type, dungeoneering for aberations, religion for immortals and undead, arcana for etc. etc. etc... DC 15 for name, DC 20 for some powers, DC 25 for vulnerabilities.

So the DC for narrowing down a monsters specific role would probably be somewhere in that 20-25 range. Maybe higher, since that's an additional level of even more specific information. But I'd say it probably wouldn't take more than the 15 or 20 to note that the kobold in question doesn't seem as buff, coordinated, or skilled as other kobolds you're aware of.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm curious... Why does everyone assume that the minions are wearing rags and carrying steak knives? Sure, some of them could be... But minions have AC, and at least in small groups do damage, on par with normal creatures. So it's reasonable to assume that, at least in some cases, minions will be equipped similarly, if not identically, to their more robust counterparts.

 

[Steveyd]

I don't intend to point out minion-ness, some situations may call for descriptions that clue them in, some may not. If your PCs can figure out that even though there are 20 goblins that 16 are likely minions and thus this is just a standard encounter's worth of exp it takes away the real impact of 20 goblins. They'll know it's not an encounter that will really push them despite the numbers.

I intend to have a few encounters where I randomize who is a minion and who is not. Not even I'll know which one is which until it gets close to a pc to attack or gets attack. Then role some dice to determine what it is based on how many of the total group I want to be minions or not. If I want 5 of those 20 goblins to be non-minions, then on a 4 on a d4 once a PC does damage it doesn't go down in one hit and is actually an appropriately leveled goblin.

I want to run a hall of zombies scenario like this. Some relic in a (locked) door at the end of the hall in underground ruins is animating zombies from mass graves above the ruins. The hall, maybe 4 x 15 squares, is filled every square with zombies. Most will be pretty basic level 1 minions (PCs should be maybe level 3 or 4 now) but there's a chance some will be level 1 standard monsters, and a smaller chance they'll actually be of the PCs level. They'll have to fight their way to the end of the hall. More zombies move in from the T junction at the end of the hall where zombies are continually being animated from the graves. It's intended to be a difficult encounter, maybe capping off the quest, but smart use of powers to clear out zombies and move forward should see them through. They're not intended to actually kill every zombie since more are coming each round. They just need to get through the door. Should be fun!

 

[pukunui]

I'm curious... Why does everyone assume that the minions are wearing rags and carrying steak knives? Sure, some of them could be... But minions have AC, and at least in small groups do damage, on par with normal creatures. So it's reasonable to assume that, at least in some cases, minions will be equipped similarly, if not identically, to their more robust counterparts.

In my case, it was because I was talking about goblins, and I was picturing a rather primitive tribe at that. Dunno why.

But, to use another example, if the PCs were trying to resist arrest in a town and most of the town guards who were chasing after them were minions, I'd describe them as wearing the standard kit of the guardsmen, be it leather armor or a chain shirt or whatever underneath a tabard depicting the town's symbol, etc etc. And if there was a sergeant or captain or something (a non-minion), then I'd describe him so he stood out a bit.

The point I was trying to make is that I want to leave it up to my players to figure out which creatures are the "important" ones and which ones are the "mooks". I'll give them clues in my description, but it'll be up to them to pay attention and to remember. I'm not going to say "these guys are minions and this guy's the leader". If the players are paying attention, it should be fairly obvious, but I'd like to think that I'll be more descriptive and potentially more subtle than the above statement in quotes.