Minions: What Bugs You?

[ExploderWizard]

Minions are just not Snickers. They really don't satisfy.

 

[Somebloke]

I love them- once ran a battle with 5x4th level characters vs. 80 zombie rotters. Absolutely wonderful (What...there's more?!) Although the whole 4=1 normal monster is rubbish, in my opinion...8 at least.

 

[Dausuul]

My big problem with minions is the ease with which players can exploit automatic damage effects to slaughter them en masse. Minions are a great concept, but I don't think the designers thought through all the ramifications.

I also find that minions do insufficient damage to pose a threat commensurate with their XP values, even when players aren't nuking them with auto-damage. My rule of thumb is to take the damage listed for a minion in the Monster Manual and double it.

 

[Obryn]

I love minions, but have done one of two things every time I use them.

(1) Most of the time, I halve their XP and therefore double their numbers. This gets their value about right, IMO - or at least a lot closer than 1/4 does.

(2) Other times, I give them a DR rating (I haven't formalized the amount), and give them two hits before death (the first one bloodying them). Alternately, if a single attack does a ton of damage, the minion dies right away. For a group of level 10 minions I used, they had 10 DR, and 20 was the auto-kill.

Otherwise, I love the concept. I've played or read quite a few games with minions, and I think they fill a great niche in D&D's design space.

-O

 

[Jhaelen]

I don't have much new to add. The two potential problems I see are
- automatic damage by pcs shouldn't completely negate minions
- mid/high level minions should have ways to deal automatic damage, cause conditions or boost allies

 

[avin]

- Why should that orc go down in one hit whereas that other "identical" one takes at least 3 rounds of team effort?

Because they're not identical. I like to think minions as well trained combat n00bs and normal antagonists as more seasoned combatants. Not a perfect thought, but it's functional.

The DR idea for auto damage is interesting. Low auto damage means no minion kill, or at least two rounds of auto damage to kill... but, to be honest, I have no problem with auto damage killing them.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I like minions but in my high level game they last exactly one round due to the Feypact warlock with twin curse and the feat that allows him to curse after killing a cursed victim. This allows him to flit around the battlefield leaving a trail of bodies. I'm definitely considering instituting the save mechanic suggested here.

 

[Mallus]

I don't have a problem w/the current implementation of Minions. My group finds that they work as advertised.

Then again, I don't have a problem, on the conceptual level, of describing the same monster using different descriptive mechanics, depending on the situation. That is, the same ogre can be Minion when a PC is swinging at it with his mighty magic sword Cloud-caller, but a great big sack of HP when an NPC villager is trying to drive it away with a rusty pitchfork.

No imaginary reality is made less real in the above example. The ogre is one tough cookie to the dirt-farmer, but markedly less so to the PC. The fact that two different descriptive 'languages' were used for the same ogre has no impact on whether the game world seems persistent or believable.

Probably because I don't find the mechanical underpinning of the game world have much to do with whether it seems persistent or believable. Persistence and believability are laudable goals, but I think they're achieved through other means.

 

[Halivar]

4 PC's surrounded by 250 zombie minions of their level. They felt like bad-asses for the first 3 rounds. Once they were down to At-Will's and no AoE powers, the pucker factor kicked in. Serious fun.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No imaginary reality is made less real in the above example. The ogre is one tough cookie to the dirt-farmer, but markedly less so to the PC. The fact that two different descriptive 'languages' were used for the same ogre has no impact on whether the game world seems persistent or believable.

Others might disagree with this assessment (including me), but I see where you are coming from.

I'm currently re-reading The Hobbit for the nth time, and it occurs to me that within 4e terms, Smaug might be described as a minion (but only to Bard), and that this could be described as a testiment to Bard's skill, or luck, or the potency of the black arrow, etc.

But Tolkein is writing a story. He knows what he wants to have happen. Indeed, what must happen to tell the story he wishes to tell. IMHO, minions seem to be a tool for crafting a story out of a rpg, where the DM determines aforehand what must happen to tell the story he wishes to tell.

That is not what I enjoy about rpgs. And it does make the imaginary world less real, for me.


RC