Paper Minions - WT?

[see]

You know, there's an easy solution to minions. Don't use them in your game. They're a tool, and if you don't like 'em, you don't need to bother with them.

If you're dealing with a published adventure, in prep you'll have to substitute one standard monster for every four minions of that level, or use one standard creature four levels lower for every pair of minions. Say, a Minotaur Warrior for every two Cyclops Guards. A bit of work, granted.

 

[Andor]

Erm, Gygax himself said that hit points were abstract.

Please turn your AD&D DMG to Page 82, where he talks about how ridiculous it is to assume that a hero can take multiple sword thrusts just because he's a hero, and how hit points also represent endurance, the ability to turn aside blows, and even divine favor.

-O

*pinches bridge of nose* I know. I read it years ago and thought it silly then.

Again, the whole basis of the AC system is that blows that connect are turned by the armour, or dodged by dex or pushed away by delfection. If it connects then it connects. It draws blood. The poison on the blade, or a dozen other rider effects make this a mandatory aspect of the system.

This is not to say that every sword blow spears through the other guys liver, it could be a scratch, but it did connect.

And again, if you'll read the post you responded too, I'm being driven mad by the idea that the 4e minion rules divorce HP so far from what it conceived of as believeable that some are now argueing BOTH that some blows miss and some misses hit. That's how confused matters have become in 4e.

 

[KarinsDad]

After some thought on the issues, I came up with the mechanic that I will be using.

I will introduce:

Weak Minions: 1 hit to kill (minions in MM)
Regular Minions: 2 hits to kill
Tough Minions: 3 hits to kill

into my game. I will up the XP for Regular and Strong Minions so that I can still balance an encounter.

This removes much of the meta-gaming player knowledge aspects and the only thing is that I have to keep track of how many times the Regular and Tough Minions get hit. That's less bookkeeping than keeping track if a minion is stunned or dazed or some other condition.

Compared to Marking and Combat Advantage and Bloodied, etc. (or even all of the things I kept track of as DM in 3E), that will be easy to do.

Problem solved sufficiently for me.

Even a critical hit on a Regular or Tough minion will not give the players any metagaming information about the creature.

This also effectively gives me more monsters from the core Monster Manual with very little work on my part. All I have to do is figure out my XP equation and I'm set. But at the moment, x1.5 XP for Regular and x2 for Tough is looking ok when I compare it to the other non-minions in the MM.

My thinking for this amount of XP is that although it takes 3 successful hits to take out a Tough Minion, it only gets 1 attack per round compared to 3 attacks per round for 3 Weak Minions and synergies between 3 Weak Minions. So, it is not worth as much 3 * XP. But on a one on one fight, it will last 3 times as long, so it is worth quite a bit (i.e. 2x XP).

 

[Doug McCrae]

And again, if you'll read the post you responded too, I'm being driven mad by the idea that the 4e minion rules divorce HP so far from what it conceived of as believeable that some are now argueing BOTH that some blows miss and some misses hit. That's how confused matters have become in 4e.

It wouldn't make baby Gygax cry though. Baby Gygax, who has a surprisingly large vocabulary for his age would just say, "The Dungeons & Dragons game was never conceived of as a simulation. It is a game, not a working model of a fantasy milieu. Now give me back my bottle. Wah! Wah!"

 

[Obryn]

And again, if you'll read the post you responded too, I'm being driven mad by the idea that the 4e minion rules divorce HP so far from what it conceived of as believeable that some are now argueing BOTH that some blows miss and some misses hit. That's how confused matters have become in 4e.

Naah, it doesn't bother me

I mean, I've been running HPs as abstract since I read that part of the AD&D DMG over 20 years ago.

Combat in D&D is an abstraction, and it has been forever. I don't see that this changes it. Abstract is abstract.

-O

 

[Korgoth]

Another big abstraction of D&D combat is that it doesn't account for weapon length or penetration. Sometimes the abstraction of hit points highlights that other abstraction.

So I have about as easy a time doing 1 hp of damage to a cyclops as I do to a goblin. This is fine if I am wielding a poleaxe, but with a dagger you have to imagine how I could get a dagger to some place that would actually kill a cyclops. The femoral artery might be a good start. Likewise with taking out a mammoth minion with a blowgun (I acknowledge that there are no mammoth minions but I'm not opposed to them in principle). You pretty much need to get that dart through his eye. So really it should be a harder shot, but D&D makes it basically as easy to hit a mammoth with a blowgun as with a crossbow.

You could always just impose a -4 "inopportune weapon" penalty and leave it at that. Or just assume that the guy using the blowgun is able to hit the eye of a mammoth if what he rolls is, in fact, a hit. Now, if he runs up against Ol' Tusky (a non-Minion mammoth, the Chuck Norris of mammoths) that blowgun is going to start seeming inadequate (Ol' Tusky is reputed to be very good at closing his eyes at the right moment).

 

[wayne62682]

I personally LOVE the idea of minions. Finally there's a way to give the players the thrill of cutting down a ton of mook enemies before reaching the "boss". Or demonstrate just why the PCs are heroes if they beat down a couple of monsters that are, say, terrorizing a village and killing the town guard left and right. Classic staple of fantasy and anime (oh noes, the anime!); big bad monster is killing people left and right, and nobody can stop it, then the hero(es) show up and kill the thing in one blow. Townspeople awed beyond belief at the might of these individuals.

Plus, they provide a great way to showcase a new PC and make them look like a hero. I've had far too many heroic concepts ruined because the DM would have my new character show up during a combat, and due to some bad rolls I proved to be largely useless, resulting in ridicule from the rest of the group. No more! Pit the new PC against a scary-looking minion, and have him one-shot it with one of the cool Encounter powers. Instant "Woah, this guy is badass!" effect.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

If they were never a credible threat, why did Han run from them in the famous "bluff charge" scene? Why were the heroes running from hordes of Stormtroopers invading Hoth? Why were they so utterly defeated on Endor when ambushed, saved only by the little furry plot-devices... err, Ewoks? If the stormtroopers weren't a credible threat, then the heroes themselves didn't know it! And in my opinion, neither should the PCs. But how to simulate that sense of trepidation?

I may have mentioned this already, but it was a movie.

 

[hong]

I may have mentioned this already, but it was a movie.

This argument of yours, that D&D fails to simulate D&D, it is a bug, not a feature.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Leia has a visible wound. She's bloodied (as lost at least half her hitpoints). Sounds like a credible threat to me.

She doesn't have hit points, it's a movie.

Also, it was more than ten years after the first movie. Getting shot once in ten years of a skirmish war is pretty damn incompetent on the enemy's part.