Orcs preview

I'm kind of "meh" to these Orcs, but I've always been "meh" to D&D's visions of Orcs, from Basic D&D to 4E, so, at least it's not any worse! The art kind of sucks, which is sad, and of the Orcs, most are boring (esp. with all the "hit + heal self" attacks - I mean YAWN), but the Eye of Gruumsh is kind of cool, and y'know, Orcs is Orcs. I hope the MM description includes, y'know a LITTLE more about Orcish society beyond "Bad lazy things come to take your stuff!". Seems a bit... I don't know... dull? I like me some evil humanoids and I don't need epic motivations for weak-ass monsters, but a bit more depth would be appreciated.
 

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Fanaelialae said:
You can still narrate this as the minion(s) having been injured (scorched by a fireball, a minor flesh wound from a sword). In fact, I plan on doing exactly that, to prevent my players from being able to easily distinguish minions from regular mobs (at least until the mobs attack). It's simply that, mechanically speaking, they haven't been damaged(and it is a lot simpler to track that, of the 30 minion zombie horde you started with, 15 are still alive, than it is to track that 12 are uninjured, 1 has 1 hp left, and 2 have 4 hp left). IMO.
Yeah, this works more than well enough. Sure there is a chance a minion will be the subject of so many "misses that damage" effects that it will have avoided more damage than a normal foe of it's level has, but the chances for that are so slim, it is not worth worring about. Unless the players have luck like my group, who tend to roll higher on d10's than on d20's ;)
 

Celebrim said:
The reason I found it ironic was that while apparantly arguing against my position, you nonetheless restated one of my major complaints with the new edition. It was like saying, "Your totally wrong but I agree with your claim." That's irony.

And then it was doubly ironic because after making a claim that play of this sort was "soul deadingly boring" you proceeded to claim that you didn't see it as a negative. That's irony.

How does that have anything to do with rain on my wedding day???
 

Ruin Explorer said:
I'm kind of "meh" to these Orcs, but I've always been "meh" to D&D's visions of Orcs, from Basic D&D to 4E, so, at least it's not any worse! The art kind of sucks, which is sad, and of the Orcs, most are boring (esp. with all the "hit + heal self" attacks - I mean YAWN), but the Eye of Gruumsh is kind of cool, and y'know, Orcs is Orcs. I hope the MM description includes, y'know a LITTLE more about Orcish society beyond "Bad lazy things come to take your stuff!". Seems a bit... I don't know... dull? I like me some evil humanoids and I don't need epic motivations for weak-ass monsters, but a bit more depth would be appreciated.

I believe the excerpt is the complete Orc entry from the MM.
 

You can still narrate this as the minion(s) having been injured (scorched by a fireball, a minor flesh wound from a sword). In fact, I plan on doing exactly that, to prevent my players from being able to easily distinguish minions from regular mobs (at least until the mobs attack). It's simply that, mechanically speaking, they haven't been damaged(and it is a lot simpler to track that, of the 30 minion zombie horde you started with, 15 are still alive, than it is to track that 12 are uninjured, 1 has 1 hp left, and 2 have 4 hp left). IMO.

Eh. This annoys me because it robs the fun the players have hewing through masses of mooks. The POINT of a minion is that any damage the players can dish out, the little dude can't take!

I think I might implement a rule like this:

REINFORCEMENTS: Minions still take damage on a miss. However, any minions killed on a miss are immediately replaced on the next round with an equal number of reinforcements that have arrived. These reinforcements are equal to the minions that were killed in every way.

Keeps my sense of believability intact (I can probably usually buy that there are "hidden reserves" somewhere that my character doesn't know about), lets my players shine (it's gonna be so much fun when the fireball wipes out the mass army!) while preserving the intent of the rules (re-spawning minions basically act as if the regular minions didn't die), and allowing me to add a nice little "last hurrah!" moment to the combat.

Alternately, a rule like this:

Incapacitated Minions: Any minions damaged on a miss are dying slowly, but not instantly dead. They can't participate in combat, but they remain concious. They can be healed, they can be interrogated, they can be squashed under your boot, they're talking through gritted teeth as their blood pools beneath them, but they're not dead yet! You get no XP from minions killed on a miss.

The problem with this is that it STILL means damaged minions are out of the fight, so they're not providing a challenge, but the freed up XP lets me inject more minions at some later date (or save it up for the Momma Minion at the end).

Actually, to keep it fairly simple, "No XP for minions killed on a miss" works pretty well, because XP is used to populate monsters in an encounter, so it just ramps up the challenge of the next encounter or something.

Hmm....kind of like that. :)
 

frankthedm said:
Yeah, this works more than well enough. Sure there is a chance a minion will be the subject of so many "misses that damage" effects that it will have avoided more damage than a normal foe of it's level has, but the chances for that are so slim, it is not worth worring about. Unless the players have luck like my group, who tend to roll higher on d10's than on d20's ;)

Yeah, mine too, with the exception of one player who seems to siphon the rest of the group's luck for his own sinister purposes. I can only imagine how amused I'd be if the players began speculating as to what kind of paragon level orc this guy could be to survive over a dozen half-damage misses, when in truth he's a lowly Orc Drudge. ;)
 

Celebrim said:
Excuse me, but you are the one that asked the rhetorical question "Are not all leveled rpgs this way?" You are the one claiming then that all RPGs with levels are problematic, and you are the one who is admitting you find 'fixed math' to be "soul deadingly boring". Those are your positions. They don't match mine, and its precisely in the ways that they don't match my position that I am interested in D&D. If you think all RPGs with levels are problimatic and lead to 'soul deadingly boring' play, then I could just as easily ask you why you are interested in D&D?

Of course, he is arguing that if you find these things problematic then, yes, all level based RPGs are problematic. Since all your points about monsters being more powerful than 1st level PCs can be applied to all previous editions of D&D, and if you find those points problematic, then the only possible assumption to make is that you find all prior editions of D&D problematic.
 


ThirdWizard said:
Of course, he is arguing that if you find these things problematic then, yes, all level based RPGs are problematic. Since all your points about monsters being more powerful than 1st level PCs can be applied to all previous editions of D&D, and if you find those points problematic, then the only possible assumption to make is that you find all prior editions of D&D problematic.

Right.

The complaint about monsters being more powerful than PCs is... strange. I'm really not sure how I could personally address it. If there are not monsters more powerful than PCs, then PCs will experience fewer and fewer challenges past 1st level.

"Badass PCs" and "Challenging Encounters" are not mutually exclusive. We can have both, you know. :)

That said, I'm not convinced that a 4th level orc minion is actually more powerful than a PC. I think a monster's XP value says more about its difficulty than its actual level.
 
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Kamikaze Midget said:
The POINT of a minion is that any damage the players can dish out, the little dude can't take!

I don't share your opinion on minions. ;)

The POINT of a minion is that they succumb to any attack a player makes that doesn't miss.

Rewarding missing is silly.

Hit Points aren't a measure of health. It's easy enough to imagine that the minion was hurt by the miss, but not enough to drop it.

I'd rather house rule it that a miss can never bring any NPC to zero hitpoints... but only if I have to change the rules. I like what I've seen so far.
 

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