Minions with 1hp - Can anyone justify this?

[GoLu]

I agree. The new minion rule creates some headscratching now that the wizard essentially attacks as well as the melees with his weapon. So he could go on a melee beatdown spree, which is kind of not cool to imagine. Your two-handed sword wielding fighter wandering about hacking down minions is believable, the robe wearing wizard doing the same is one of those images that makes you laugh.

But most players won't play that way. So hopefully won't come up too often.

If we're talking melee only, I'm pretty sure the fighter will kill more minions in a twenty round period, and take less damage in the process.

 

[Regicide]

In other words, my major objection is that they just die too quickly. Sure - they should die fast, but not so fast as to be irrelevant. When a dozen minions charge the party and are all dead before they get a chance to strike (barring ambushes and the like - and every encounter can't be a minion ambush) -- they are not improving the game, they are detracting. Players killing minions before they can even get into position to act is no more heroic then an adult picking on gradeschoolers.

And when the party starts getting large area encounter powers that clear out a lot of minions at once you need to toss even MORE minions at the party so they're not completely irrelevant until the party gets surprised and the minion horde surrounds the wizard and beats him to death before his initiative even comes up.

 

[FadedC]

And when the party starts getting large area encounter powers that clear out a lot of minions at once you need to toss even MORE minions at the party so they're not completely irrelevant until the party gets surprised and the minion horde surrounds the wizard and beats him to death before his initiative even comes up.

Good things wizards aren't quite that easy to kill then, as you've conceded to in the other thread.

 

[Syrsuro]

While contemplating minion rules, I suddenly recalled that AD&D had a 'minion' mechanic as well. It clearly operated by different rules, but it had the same goal - allowing the party to 'mow through' low level opponents.

Of course, many people didn't use this rule in 1st ed, and it was made optional in 2nd ed. But it was there (page 25, 1st AD&D PHB):

This excludes melee combat with monsters of less than one hit die (d8) and non-exceptional (0 level) humans and semi-humans, i.e. all creatures with less than one eight-sided hit die. All of these creatures entitle a fighter to attack once for each of his or her experience levels.

So the goal of a minion is not a new one for D&D. And I definately prefer the mechanic of 4E to that of AD&D. I'm just not sure they are living up to the goals of keeping' a PC occupied for one turn, hav[ing sufficient defenses, and having a meaningful attack (as stated in the "minion except" article.

Carl

 

[Goumindong]

The characters would have to be intergalactically stupid to not be able to figure out after their billionth fight that they pretty often have a large groups of opponents who consistently die at the drop of a hat. Minions are a fact of life for the 4E character, it makes perfect sense that they'll exploit it.

"Oh look, we're outnumbered again, the sensible thing would be to run."
"Nah, thats why we brought the wizard alone."
"Foosh."
"Oh yeah, just like every other fight. Now it's 5 on 3, CHARGE!"

Yea, heroes would have to be intergalactically stupid to not realize that they are freaking heroes. A level 20 fighter is a human that goes toe to toe with DEMONS for goodness sake(heck, you do that earlier).

Of course he is going to cut through minions like butter, the entire purpose is so that the game mechanics can support players being able to cut through enemies like butter and still be challenged.

Back in the day, if you lined up 1000 low level demons and a balor the level 20 PCs would be like "whatever" and go kill the balor. Now, when there are 1000 minions around a balor you are out of luck.Why? Because minions actually present a challenge. They give 1/4 exp so a fight with 20 minions is about the same as a fight with 5 enemies.

Except the minions will be doing a whole lot more damage on their turns.

I agree. The new minion rule creates some headscratching now that the wizard essentially attacks as well as the melees with his weaponn.

Uhhh. Yea, not even close. I would love to see you justify that one.

 

[Dausuul]

(deleted)

 

[Dausuul]

And that is part of my problem with them. Players are well aware when they are fighting a group of minions and will deal with them accordingly.

Especially if they have a dragonborn (esp. with enlarged breath) who can just stand up and puff many of them out of existance (and even if they don't, wizards with scorching burst can get clear them almost as fast).

In other words, my major objection is that they just die too quickly. Sure - they should die fast, but not so fast as to be irrelevant. When a dozen minions charge the party and are all dead before they get a chance to strike (barring ambushes and the like - and every encounter can't be a minion ambush) -- they are not improving the game, they are detracting. Players killing minions before they can even get into position to act is no more heroic then an adult picking on gradeschoolers.

Which is why I am leaning towards a small change (essentially minions occasionally are blooded rather than being killed by attacks, giving them a chance to act), as suggested here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=236228

Carl

If that's how it plays out for you. I have not had such a problem. My PCs can certainly cut through minions pretty fast (when they aren't suffering the Curse of the Vengeful Dice Gods, which seems to happen a lot lately - I've never seen so many natural 1s and 2s), but not so fast as to make the minions useless.

Remember that every round a character spends blasting minions is a round not spent blasting the big guy. And you can still miss minions. And scorching burst isn't that big an area - in my experience, it's unusual to be in a position to hit more than two targets with it.

Instead I'm just using one, level 1 at-will power as it is intended to be used.

It is not intended to be used by a 1st-level character against a 26th-level minion.

 

[Syrsuro]

If the PC with the Area attack is getting a dozen hits out of a dozen attack rolls, either he's using loaded dice, or the encounter was not built properly.

Well - yes. If taken that literally. But what if that one PC has a friend.

To take Zombies as an example (either Rotters from the MM or Pack Zombies from Treasure of Talon Pass; and it has been pointed out elsewhere that zombies make poor minions) - with their best defense of 13/14, and a reflex defense of 9/10, you are typically going to take out 3/4th of them with any attack - so after two area attacks (usually versus reflex) you are going to have only 1 in 16 (<1 out of a dozen) surviving.

So lets consider Kobolds instead. Now we have a reflex of 13, so your first levels dragonborn and wizard are going to kill half of them per attack. Better, but the odds of any surviving to reach the PCs is still pretty slim. Barring an ambush, 3/4ths are dead before they reach the party. And when they do, those members of the party who won initiative will have delayed an attack until they get into range and will kill (statistically) half of the remaining before they get into range. Which means that 7/8ths of any group of minions will die before they can reach that party, with only the expenditure of a dragonborn breath (encounter, pretty much only good for minions) and a few at wills. And the one or two remaining from the original dozen get one attack before they die.

If they minions can't reach the party and attack first, they will never get an attack.

So yes, the alternative (aside from starting all encounters with a zerg rush, or making all minions ranged attackers) is to go in and manually edit all minions to get their initial survival rate up to where it ought to be. But is that really any different than (for example) redefining the effect of a hit so that some survive and are bloodied? Either you follow the RAW and nearly all die to two area blasts or you don't and you manipulate the rules/numbers to get the survival rate you want.

That said - I do agree that that these are not well built encounters. But I think that they are typically built encounters. Any encounter that bunches minions together (as, for example, was done with every minion encounter in Treasure of Talon Pass) is bad encounter design. And this doesn't necessarily mean they have to be a mass at the start of combat - the simple need to close with the party (especially when combined with non-minions that hold back and don't attack during that first round) is usually sufficient to crowd them adequately unless you put each minion on its own initiative - in which case you've undone any potential decrease in bookkeeping you gained from the minion mechanic.

Only when the minions are scattered amongst non-minions so that you can only target one or two with an area attack are they useful. But that doesn't seem to really fit how most people see/use them.

Carl

 

[Runestar]

How readily are players supposed to be able to recognize minions for what they are? For example, is there any chance a fighter might say, be suckered into using a key encounter or daily power on a minion because he mistook it for a normal foe? Or are players supposed to know which are minions and possess perfect knowledge with regards to how best to take them down?

If a 1st lv rogue went nova and dealt a blow dealing 30 damage to a minion, then it won't really matter if it had 1 hp or 29 hp then, would it.

 

[Scud.NZ]

Impossible encounter. The minion encounter mechanic is to replace one monster with four - not to have a one-hit wonder at large in the world! Such misuse of minions is going to result in some rather silly situations. And what does making this tax collector a credible but frail combatant add to the game? And what fun is a trivially-dispatched major villain?

For this encounter, I'd just make the tax gatherer a noncombatant NPC.

What's a noncombatant NPC? I'm not allowed to stab the guy because he's a noncombatant...or Swiss? If he's in the encounter then he's a target.

Granted, one of the things about such a villain is that he can be "faceless" and not there. Imagine the shock when the PC's realise that the villain giving them such grief is a "normal" man.

OK, there might be other ways to deal with him; discredit the man, fake evidence against him, and so forth. However, the option still has to be there to commit violence upon his person.

Whatever way the PC's deal with him there are going to be consequences to their actions. It might be found out that they faked evidence against him, they might be charged with his murder, he will want to seek revenge and may call upon other individuals to do so. He might call upon his merchant friends who will refuse to do business with the PC's. Power isn't just the pointy end of the sword.

However, from the point of view of awarding XP, I agree that the Minion mechanism doesn't work/apply . Myself, I'd make the defeat of the troublesome tax collector a Quest Objective, and reward it accordingly.