Paper Minions - WT?

[IanB]

So, can someone explain to me why it is a bad thing for players to know which ones are the minions?

I think that's the concept I'm just not getting here. The game seems specifically designed to encourage players to use anti-minion abilities against minions, so how is it metagaming when they do?

 

[ForbidenMaster]

All of this worked in 3E. The advantage of the minion rules in 4E is not so much that it allows large battles. Being outnumbered happened in many 3E combats. The advantage of the minion rules is that it's less bookkeeping for the DM and allows for more "same level" opponents. The offense of the mooks increased slightly, but the defense (i.e. hit points, the last bastion of defense in damaging combat) went right out the door.

But there is still AC. In 3.x If you wanted to have large battles, as you stated above, they had to be weak. Minions fix that in that they allow you to have battles against a large amount of foes and have it not be a cake walk.

A standard monster is supposed to go down in 4 hits. Minions serve the same exact function, except that instead of getting hurt, they die off.

BTW, personally, I dont mind your idea of harder to kill minions. I do however think that when you start to get to the 3 hits to kill minion you are essentially talking about a normal monster, albeit one that is of lower level to the party (3 hits as opposed to 4). What I have been doing in my campaign for when I want minions to last a bit longer is that I am increasing their level, or just using minions with higher levels. A higher AC means that they are in the combat longer.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

So, can someone explain to me why it is a bad thing for players to know which ones are the minions?

I think that's the concept I'm just not getting here. The game seems specifically designed to encourage players to use anti-minion abilities against minions, so how is it metagaming when they do?

The same way that its metagaming when you try to figure out a normal monsters stats while you are fighting it. Everyone does it, and yeah sure you can just say that its your character working it out, etc. but its still pretty metagamie (?).

With regards to minions, there are specific campaign reasons, at least in the campaign that I am working on, where I dont wan the PC to know that the minions are minions. In the first encounter there are going to be I think 10 monsters, and its going to pretty obvious that most of them are minions. However later on there is going to be an encounter, and there are a few minions in it, but I dont want to be immediately obvious. Personally I think I have succeded in hiding the minions because there are less minions then there are other monsters, so there is less of a chance that the PCs will come across a minion, and therefor less chance that they will think any given mob will be a minion, but then again I guess I will have to just wait and see how it works out.

 

[billd91]

So, can someone explain to me why it is a bad thing for players to know which ones are the minions?

I think that's the concept I'm just not getting here. The game seems specifically designed to encourage players to use anti-minion abilities against minions, so how is it metagaming when they do?

I don't know about anybody else, but it potentially redlines my corny meter. I keep having flashes of the Batman TV series, in which the thugs of the main villain were always easily identifiable. They might as well all wear t-shirts saying "Minion #".

In some games and modes of playing, like in Feng Shui, the mook rules make some sense to me. But then the game is consciously about action theater, the more outlandish the better. The game becomes, substantially, describing fanciful action while unleashing the 'carnival of carnage' on the mooks. But not every game is nor should be Feng Shui. Some games should focus less on over-the-top action and more on the world from the PC's point of view, where the metagame differences between minions and named characters/boss monsters/solo monsters should be not so obvious.

 

[Doug McCrae]

But not every game is nor should be Feng Shui. Some games should focus less on over-the-top action and more on the world from the PC's point of view, where the metagame differences between minions and named characters/boss monsters/solo monsters should be not so obvious.

D&D's changed a bit, it's more cinematic than it used to be. OD&D->3e = not cinematic at all. Eberron however is explicitly so, modelling itself partly on Indiana Jones, with rules (action points) that are intended to support cinematic action, though whether they do is another matter. The minion rules are the outstanding example of how 4e has become more cinematic, more like Feng Shui.

Yes I know, it's also an mmorpg, anime, ccg, boardgame and Rifts. Yes.

 

[KarinsDad]

D&D's changed a bit, it's more cinematic than it used to be. OD&D->3e = not cinematic at all. Eberron however is explicitly so, modelling itself partly on Indiana Jones, with rules (action points) that are intended to support cinematic action, though whether they do is another matter. The minion rules are the outstanding example of how 4e has become more cinematic, more like Feng Shui.

Agreed.

However, regardless of how the game is played, earlier versions had definitive statements that the players could not just say "I target the leader with Hold Person". The player had to say which NPC he wanted to target.

In 4E, there appears to be this hand waving of "Oh, go ahead, tell the player which NPC is the leader so that he can cast Hold Person on him". It gets back to the player entitlement issue that some people dislike.

Some people consider it cinematic license. Others consider it metagaming.

 

[Xyl]

If you want to do minions, but want them to be "tougher", but still do not want to have to keep up with paperwork, give them a d20 range that will drop them. Every time someone hits one of them, roll a d20, if its in x through y range, the minion is done. Otherwise, its still up. example: your minions are up on 1-5, so every time one takes a hit, a d20 is rolled. 1-5, the minion is still up and fighting, 6-20, its down. No bookkeeping.

It's even simpler to just use the same d20 for the attack roll and the roll to see if they survive. If the roll is 1-8, the minion stays up, if it's 9-20 the minion goes down.

In other words, do it exactly like the RAW.

 

[Zurai]

I'm with Andor on this.

I have no problem with skeleton minions (or the like) because a skeleton can reasonable have 1 hit point (assuming it is 1 hd skeleton) - but I have a harder time wrapping my head around things like "giant minions", unless I happened to be playing Thor or somehing.

But that's exactly it! At 25th level, you are "Thor or something"! You're on the path to being a deity for heaven's sake! A piddly little hill giant is nothing but a speedbump to a demigod. A hill giant king and his elite guard might present a challenge, but the rank and file are going to fall like wheat before the scythe.

 

[MrGrenadine]

Sorry for repeating myself, but I like the idea of PCs wading through hordes of zombies, or skeletons, or whatever, slaying at will as they fight to save the day. I don't think minions should be harder to kill--I just think that the power to kill them should be in the PCs hands, and not because an otherwise normal monster has a ludicrously small number of hp.

The "minion" signifier can and should be able to be applied to *any* creature in the game, (yes, dragons--Smaug--and yes, mammoths--LOTR), for story purposes/cinematic feel/etc., and would simply mean that when *only* a PC hits with a damage dealing attack, you apply a huge multiplier to the damage, (x10, 20, 50 or whatever).​

That way, the PCs are none the wiser about what foe is a minion and what foe is not, and DMs get their simple, no-hp-tracking battles. All the DM has to do is add some flavor to describe the foe's death--"you capitalize on the orc's clumsy attack", or "the goblin slips on a smear of blood as you bring your axe down on its head", or "your arrow slips between the beasts armor-like scales and pierces its foul heart".


MrG

 

[Lurker37]

Agreed.

However, regardless of how the game is played, earlier versions had definitive statements that the players could not just say "I target the leader with Hold Person". The player had to say which NPC he wanted to target.

In 4E, there appears to be this hand waving of "Oh, go ahead, tell the player which NPC is the leader so that he can cast Hold Person on him". It gets back to the player entitlement issue that some people dislike.

Some people consider it cinematic license. Others consider it metagaming.

Others consider it simple observation.

Player: "Ok, I target the guy with the armoured guard each side of him. The guy shouting out all the orders."

DM: "What? How'd you figure out he was the leader?"

Player: "... You're joking, right?"

The PCs know there are minions because the encounter outnumbers the party.

The PCs can tell who the minions are because the minions are the first troops sent forwards, just like the expendable peasant infantry were the first ones sent forward in many medieval battles.

If you continue on the theme of minions as expendable troops, minions will most likely have standard-issue equipment, because that's how you equip expendable infantry. It's cheaper, and helps build a sense of esprit de corps. So there's real life precedent for minions to all look the same.

There's no metagaming.

Furthermore, making minions take more than one hit would mean you had to use less minions. Four minions dying in one hit each replace one standard monster who dies in four hits. If minions take two hits to kill, then two of them replace one standard monster. Three hits, and they might as well be a normal monster.

And the problem with requiring an odd or even roll to kill a minion is that 25% of the time minions will take three or more hits to kill, and it will not be uncommon for minions to require more than four hits, making them tougher than a standard monster. That's terrible design, and a possible TPK.