My minion rules

[NotAYakk]

I like the common damage pool and a death threshold solution.

Minions have a death threshold at (minion level).

When you damage a minion, if it passes the death threshold, the minion dies. Otherwise, you borrow damage from the damage pool to kill the minion. If that isn't enough, you move the damage you did to the damage pool. That is it.

A level 11 minion, taking 5 damage, doesn't die. 5 level 11 minions, each taking 5 damage, take a total of 25 damage -- two die, and 3 damage goes on the damage pool.

You can increase the death threshold to 2*level if you find that they still don't last long enough (that makes it take about as many HP of damage to kill a minion as it did to kill the pre-minion normal monster, but area damage works better on the swarm of minions).

Naturally if you use this rule, minions now take damage on a miss.

Also, when a minion takes a status effect that is prone or weaker, they go prone. If they take a status effect that is stronger than prone, they save-or-die immediately -- if they succeed, they go prone, if they fail, they die.

Temporary HP just increase the damage threshold of that minion by the amount granted.

Continuing damage ... well, that still sucks. I haven't figured out a fair approximation.

The bookkeeping required is 1 number for any number of minions (the damage in the damage pool), and if they are prone. Temp HP should use a counter on the table to represent a 'tougher' minion.

 

[Garthanos]

my rule has minions becoming bloodied on a miss/non targetted attack ... community damage pools are too wierd and more tracking than I like ;-).
I will add more minions at high levels since they aren't a lot more hearty... though by being bloodied they can add other roleplaying dynamics ... some will just run even if the players don't try intimidation. My 1 in 4 fine and 1 in 4 defeated rule also allows me fudge factor and an element of non-predictability without adding a die roll for every single one....
I think of minions as being more like real people ... they don't have this heroic luck buffer zone... so when it gets hairy many flee... bloodied state gives me an idea about that, healable ally minions let players inclined to heal have another way to be cool too.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Some interesting ideas here; thanks everyone!

My 'death save' minion rule predates MM2. The MM2 formula of increasing the effectiveness of minion attacks (by upping damage and adding rider effects) makes minions much more viable, which is forcing me to rethink my rule.

Combining the MM2 formula with a reduction in xp value from 1/4 to 1/8 produces a minion with which I'm reasonably happy. The drop in xp value allows you to include more minions in an encounter (or the same number of minions and more non-minions), which creates an encounter whose xp value is more in line with the challenge that encounter presents (in my opinion).

 

[Rothe_]

I just tend to use minions in waves, so that there are some of them in each part of the battle. I also use them liberally, ignoring XP from them, to make combats more interesting. So far my players are not complaining at all.

In fact, I don't use XP normally, other than for balancing non-minions in encounters, but I'd imagine the 1/8 XP rule is roughly equivalent to what I use.

I do recommend trying the wave thing. If you originally have 4 minions, just let 4 more run to join the battle after a couple of rounds, or when the enemies are getting killed.

I have also had the following things happen:

- Dwarf minions who get a save when they are hit. If they make the save, they fall prone and are dazed until the end of their next round. They also count as bloodied from then on. If they lose, they are killed. Bloodied dwarf minions just die if they get hit.

- An encounter with lots of weak human warrior minions. Once they die, they get up as zombie minions. Their boss was a human necromancer, so it fit the encounter well.

- Wraith minions who also get a save when hit. If they make it, they are not hit and are instead dazed until end of next round. If they are hit while dazed, or they miss the save, they die.

 

[Syrsuro]

If you want them to stick around more, just roll a d6 when they die. On a 5 or 6, they 'recharge'. Literally. From around the corner...

("recharge" value set as appropriate for the encounter)

In other words - the actual number of minions isn't fixed - rather they come at the party in waves, as the first few are killed they are reinforced by more arriving.

Carl

 

[Flipguarder]

Idk about a scaling possibility. But I just gave all minions 35 hp when my party was 9th level. Seemed to work out great. They take about 2 hits to kill on average. Much more fun imo.

 

[Alex319]

2) One hit and die.

This promotes metagame thinking in the PCs. "This monster went down in one hit! I can thus rely on all monsters that look like this one to also go down in one hit! Break out the area attacks!"

How is this "metagame thinking"? The characters simply realize that one monster behaved in a certain way, and then guess that other monsters that look identical to that monster behave in the same way. And they've probably made the same guess in previous situations and it's worked out. All they're doing is using basic inductive reasoning.

If minions are close together, they might as well not have been present in the encounter (i.e. one or two attacks will clear them from the board). This forces the DM to metagame when setting up the encounter by having the minions attack in waves, from different parts of the map, by having some use ranged attacks, etc. so that the PCs have to use more attacks to tag them all.

Again, how is this "metagaming"? The monsters presumably know (either from previous experience or studying the mistakes of their predecessors) that some adventurers have area attacks, and they adjust their tactics to take advantage of that.

 

[Flipguarder]

It's not metagaming, but I feel like knowing that any damage whatsoever would kill something is not that cool.

 

[Garthanos]

It's not metagaming, but I feel like knowing that any damage whatsoever would kill something is not that cool.

Think of it as probabilistic hitpoints...and it is purely a narrative difference...
A dm can make a minion tougher by giving them a tough guy bonus to there armor class and describe near misses (or attacks which do damage on a miss as being just like minor hit point loss. Their toughness is probabilistic rather than a meter that decays. It is even weirdly realistic (marines sometimes fall in to shock over medically minor injuries and sometimes tough it out through heavy injury).

Compare it this way....
A minion with toughness feat +1AC per tier a Hero/Significant NPC with a toughness feat +5 hitpoints

There is also remembering the nature of hit points.
Hitpoint loss != Wounds (unless you are a minion) and Healing even Magical healing (unless its ritual) does not mean instant stitch wounds.

Even a 1 hitpoint attack may still be somebody stabbing you with a dagger and the smallest dagger can readily reach the heart. The presence of minions allow the game to show weapon attacks as deadly as they are supposed to be... without making heros and villans massively subject to the whims of chance.

The goddess of luck is a major patron of heros.(she sometimes even favors the villainous to make life interesting)

 

[Alex319]

Think of it as probabilistic hitpoints...and it is purely a narrative difference...
A dm can make a minion tougher by giving them a tough guy bonus to there armor class and describe near misses (or attacks which do damage on a miss as being just like minor hit point loss. Their toughness is probabilistic rather than a meter that decays. It is even weirdly realistic (marines sometimes fall in to shock over medically minor injuries and sometimes tough it out through heavy injury).

Compare it this way....
A minion with toughness feat +1AC per tier a Hero/Significant NPC with a toughness feat +5 hitpoints

There is also remembering the nature of hit points.
Hitpoint loss != Wounds (unless you are a minion) and Healing even Magical healing (unless its ritual) does not mean instant stitch wounds.

Even a 1 hitpoint attack may still be somebody stabbing you with a dagger and the smallest dagger can readily reach the heart. The presence of minions allow the game to show weapon attacks as deadly as they are supposed to be... without making heros and villans massively subject to the whims of chance.

The goddess of luck is a major patron of heros.(she sometimes even favors the villainous to make life interesting)

1. You'd probably want to increase the other defenses too, not just AC.

2. This doesn't solve the problem of being able to autokill minions through automatic damage abilities.