Minions

[CodexofRome]

I think some people might need to go back to basic GM school.

Why would any GM who actually wanted to run an interesting game decide to take away the suspense of knowing how dangerous their opponents really are?

If you choose to tell your players that some of their opponents are "minions", then you've ruined the game for your players.

Good GMs will treat each and every minion as if they were any other opponent. Roll dice for their damage. Let players roll dice for the hits they get on Minions. Mix up Minions with more powerful versions of the same monster.

 

[stormer]

Minions and Half hit points

I appreciated your inputs.

I have seen some interesting responses.

However, if anyone is going to DM school they must have lots and lots of time.

Most others say minions are required to give a cinematic feel. what is that feel, well the feeling that characters can slaughter loads of creatures at once or very quickly. And why can’t they slaughter loads of creatures without having the minions? Because the hit point system as is is screwed up IMHO!

Any player that knows the rules will know who a minion is right after he hits that minion. Regardless of what the DM does or how he plays the minion if you take down a guy with one hit guesses what, he is a minion (with few exceptions). I fully understand the reason for the minions. It is to allow characters to take down loads of monsters easy and fast. What I am proposing with the reduced hit points still allows characters to take down hoards of monsters fast but makes the game world more like a world that the characters adventure in, not a world waiting for the characters to act.

What I am saying is the reason for the minion is the unusually high hit points given to all base first level characters. I am saying if you reduce the hit points, you get rid of the need for this minion monster and still retain the cinematic feel.

If the hit points are reduced all creatures revert back to low hit points and now your first level goblin is the same as a minion. He does not exist just to be killed, he exists and has few hit points because he is a goblin. The minions as they currently are, remind the characters that this is just a game and the bad guy is just sitting here waiting for the players to come get him. Regardless of how they treat the minion prior to combat once combat starts his minion status is confirmed and now the players know the bad guy just hired him so he can be killed. The minion has no real place in the world he just exists to be taken out. it may be fun to take out minions but putting hoards of easy obstacles into the game world just to be killed reminds people this whole thing is just made up for their characters.

I like my players to believe they are in a world that moves forward and that they can influence that world if they figure it out and take action. The existence of minions reminds the players that the world sits and waits for the players to do things and that the world revolves around them.

If you lower the hit points, then you still get the cinematic feel from taking out hoards of goblins or other first level characters but the minion i.e. the creature that exists and is hired by the bad buy just to give the characters something to kill, is removed from the game.

If you just want to take things out with rolls of the die you can play risk! However if you want a story along with it that makes sense, you play DnD. Minions reduce the integrity of the DND world and suspend believe in the DnD story. I know what you are thinking, DND has fireballs and flying mages how can that be believed. Well the idea of Dnd (to me) is what if this setting exists. what if people can do these things. Assume everything else is the same as the real world it is just that people now have these special abilities. Given these abilities what happens now? Minions make this interpretation difficult logically.

What I really want to know is, what happens to the game if all hit points are reduced. Do you think it changes game balance. Do some characters become more powerful? Which ones and why?

Thanks for reading and you input.

 

[Appleseeth]

stormer: I think you are, in fact, missing the point of 4e. None of the rules are necessarily there to make realistic sense. I mean, the new grab rules are easy, but make almost no realistic sense (I could have read them completely wrong, twice). 4e isn't the to simulate, that was 3.x's job. 4e is there to excite the players and get everyone involved in combat. That means giving people specific jobs in combat, such as lurker, striker, controller and yes, minion.

They aren't just there to be push overs. One of the groups I DM for doesn't have a controller, and they then HAVE to treat minions with respect, because there's no one there to just fireball a bunch of them.
DMs also need to use them appropriatly. You don't just throw wave after wave of minions. what I like to do is send a few minions to get the PCs riled up, then just when they think the fight is over and everything's good, I send the real men/ladies/plants in to mess with the PCs after they've expended their encounter resources. I also never, ever, make it possible for the PCs to differentiate on the game board what monsters are what.

 

[Pielorinho]

What I really want to know is, what happens to the game if all hit points are reduced. Do you think it changes game balance. Do some characters become more powerful? Which ones and why?

Thanks for reading and you input.

Controllers become *less* powerful. In my limited experience, the party's wizard has excelled at taking out minions. Other characters who specialize in attacking multiple enemies would similarly suffer. (Note that the wizard often does like 4-5 points of damage to several enemies at once; unless you're lowering HP such that 4-5 points takes an enemy out, it wouldn't be lowered enough to make the change unnoticeable to her).

I'm actually fine with telling the players that certain creatures are minions. I'll generally use other cues--the creatures look frail or sickly, or are leaving themselves wide open to attack, or are otherwise easy prety--but I'll also say, sotto voce, "You're thinking a single hit could take these guys out," or something similar. It's shorthand for narrating what the characters can see and suss out, for me. I don't see it as metagaming at all; on the contrary, I figure that these folks who make a living out of not getting killed will have gotten pretty good at assessing the relative danger of different creatures.

I'll similarly communicate to them when they encounter elite and solo monsters. The one solo I've done so far I gave them plenty of ominous buildup, so that by the time it appeared, I didn't have to say that it was a solo. But I woulda .

Daniel

 

[firesnakearies]

I really like the new minion concept. I think it's genius.

 

[liberofurore]

If i was a bad guy i would not go out and hire minions to defend me when i can hire 24 hitpoint first level goblins!!!

This will cause you trouble with the Minion's Union.

 

[aybkamen]

If i was a bad guy i would not go out and hire minions to defend me when i can hire 24 hitpoint first level goblins!!!

Because at same price you can hire four equally skilled goblin minions, covering four times number of guard posts with same resources.

Minion is only a scene resource. Out of stage that goblin minion takes a normal life, has full hit points, and can terrorize a village the same as their normal goblin companions. Is only when the goblin hits scene that he is designed to fall out of combat in a single slash, or several of them are fated to be blown away by wizards thunderburst. All that is like the movies we love.

I don't want to see a movie in which every single opponent stands two or three hits/rounds/plane shots against the hero, because this fades away the feeling of the big guy fight

I really miss minion template, so the same creature can be converted from normal to minion depending on the mood of the scene

 

[Praesul]

Stormer, a few things...

First, I will admit that I am biased because I love the new minion system. I think it makes things a lot easier for the DM and it also provides *all* characters, regardless of damage output, the ability to one-shot something in the game. It's a rather superficial thing, but come one... you know when you play you love to get that feeling of one-shotting something from time to time.

Second, stop trying to make a 4e shaped peg fit into a 3.5 shaped hole and you'll be a lot less stressed about rule mechanics. This is a new edition of the game, it comes with some changes that everyone is going to need to adjust to. Changing the HP totals for both players and creatures is going to require you to, in turn, adjust the damage output of every power and every creature in the game. If you don't adjust monsters to account for lower HP players... I hope your PCs are alright with frequent TPKs.

Third, there is nothing in the rules that say you *have* to use minions in the encounters you build. Not including them will, however, reduce the usefulness of the wizard as Pielorinho has said. Minions are not meant to be the meat of your game world, minions are meant to be filler for encounters when you want it to feel a little more overwhelming or challenging without making an encounter impossible.

 

[orca]

As a DM I love minions. Aside from the cosmetic value, they also give the NPC bosses (and hence the DM) some great strategic options. They can provide cover, flanking opportunities, decoys, and of course good old cannon fodder.

If i was a bad guy i would not go out and hire minions to defend me when i can hire 24 hit point first level goblins!!!

Of course you would, Minions would be a lot cheaper and easier to find. And its not like you care about their health.

I see minions as the old level 0 characters. These are the "Normals". What chance would a "normal" really have against a trained soldier?

I propose drastically lowering the starting hit points for all characters and monsters and getting rid of the minions for good. This will remove the meta gaming minion. Lowering the hit points will also allow characters to destroy hoards of low level monsters just as they did in previous editions hence the minions role will now be filled by first level goblins and kobolds just as it should be.

I also love the higher HP. Not many of my campaigns get to higher levels, and I hated the fact that PCs were so vulnerable at first level. Nothing worse than someones first experience of D&D being their own death to a critical or lucky/unlucky die roll.

Higher HP balance this out. There is still a chance they will die, but it's not so arbitrary.

Also because Monsters are tougher, everyone gets their chance, no matter what their initiative roll.