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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrMyth" data-source="post: 5049596" data-attributes="member: 61155">Just to give a bit of insight into the philosophy of Minions/Solos/etc: Minions are to represent monsters that are trivial for the PCs to defeat. At low levels, this might be the average kobolds who aren't exceptional warriors or raiders. When the PCs are level 10, however, even those war-trained kobolds aren't much of a threat - why not represent them as minions now, as well? In prior editions, the way this was represented was by simply having the monsters be much lower level. The problem is, fifty "1/3 level" kobolds aren't even a speedbump for a high level a character, since their attacks can only hit on 20s, and any attention the PCs turn upon them will vaporize them. In 4E, having Minions allows for level-appropriate monsters that still have a decent chance at hitting or avoiding attacks - but do relatively small damage and can be taken out with a single well-aimed shot. Think of the epic war scenes from the Lord of the Rings movies (or other similarly cinematic moments) where orcs are dropping like flies to the heroes. Those are Minions - enemies that can still be a threat in large quantities, but who fall to a single dramatic blow.  Elites and Solos are basically the other end of the scale. If you want a challenging single monster, rather than having one enemy 5+ levels above the party (who they simply can't hit at all), you have a level appropriate enemy with more hitpoints and more abilities, who can unleash as much threat in one round as an entire band of orcs. Elites might be powerful leaders - the Orc King, who stands as a powerful threat even while accompanied by a number of regular orcs (his bodyguards) and a small army of orc minions. Whereas a solo might be one truly intense foe, such as a Dragon or Beholder. (Though even with solos, it can keep the fight interesting to still have a few minions around, or simply make sure there is entertaining scenery or terrain.)  The important thing is to realize that the stats are designed to represent how the monsters interact with the PCs, rather than how the monsters interact with each (or the rest of the world.) At epic levels, PCs might be on their way to fight the Storm Giant Emperor, and cleaving through countless lesser giant minions - but the fact that a hill giant minion only has '1 hp' for the PCs doesn't mean that a stray farmer can chuck a rock at it and kill it on a lucky hit. The '1 hp' represents how easy the hill giant is for the party to kill. The DM doesn't need stats for how easy it is for a farmer to kill a hill giant, since that is basically his decision anyway!</blockquote>

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