Paper Minions - WT?

[Obryn]

"Minion" is a cinematic game construct. Lots of games - M&M, Buffy, and so on have "mook rules," and I've long thought D&D needed them. 4e provides them, and they're better than I expected.

There's no such thing as a minion "in the wild." There are no minion hordes roaming through cities, mingling with their brothers & sisters.

"Minion" describes how a creature operates in combat with the PCs, not anything fundamental about the creature's nature. That's all it is. 4e is gamist/narrativist - not simulationist, and the rules of the game aren't meant to be interpreted as the rules of the universe. When the PCs are not fighting minions, their combat stats are unimportant unless you really love running fights on your own that the PCs aren't involved in.

-O

 

[FunkBGR]

My answer is Jackie Chan.

I just searched Youtube for "Jackie Chan fight" and got some results -

One of which is a fight scene from New Police Story, where some guy is in a toy shop with a gun. The fight is a couple minutes long.

Guy in a toy shop -> Not a minion

I also got a result from Mr. Nice Guy, where three hooligans are trying to do something to a girl. He does some whipping around, and then next thing you know, there's a pained look on two of the hooligans as their arms are twisted. The next couple of moments show them rolling on the ground in pain, while more guys start running up.

Guys rolling on the ground -> Minions

/shrug - that's all they are. Cinematic mechanics at work within the game. By having higher level minions, you have minions that can actually hurt people.

Jackie Chan gets hurt by minions - just not much. Now, Chuck Norris? He's a different story . . .

 

[Sagiro]

Minions can work very well -- I know, because I used them a few years back in my 3E game. I wanted my party to fight a veritable army of skeletons, so I just upended a full penny jar onto the battle-mat. Anytime one of them took damage, I removed the penny. The players got a good scare, the skeletons posed a non-trivial threat, and I didn't have to track hit points for over a hundred monsters, which would have made the encounter impossible.

So count me in as a big fan of the minion system -- it allows for a kind of cinematic encounter that wouldn't be possible otherwise. And allow me to suggest that if you are troubled by trading away the realistic for the cinematic, perhaps D&D -- in any of its versions -- might not be the best game for you.

-Sagiro

 

[Blackeagle]

How do these 25th level Minions even survive? Or is it just hand waving it away? The Minion actually has 200 hit points when fighting each other or fighting other NPCs, they just have 1 hit point when fighting PCs. I'm just having a bit of a mental picture problem with a vicious minion Giant that can lay waste to an entire village stubbing his toe and dying.

How did redshirts in Star Trek survive their lives up until the time when they beam down to the planet? A minion isn't physically different from other monsters, it's just a description of the monster's role in the fight.

They will still fall down fairly easily (often with one hit at low levels, a few hits at higher levels), but at least a Ray of Frost that hits will not always be (shy of cold resistance) insta-kill against 25th level creatures.

I don't really see why Ray of Frost killing a high level minion is a problem. It's not like it's a cantrip like in 3e. It's a wizard's at-will attack, just like the fighter swinging his sword. The 25th level fighter can take down a 25th level mook in one swing and the wizard can take down a 25th level mook with one spell.

 

[Wepwawet]

Maybe you are forgetting that minions have defenses and attacks adequate to their level. You're not just fighting a creature that's 10 levels lower.

 

[Andor]

So count me in as a big fan of the minion system -- it allows for a kind of cinematic encounter that wouldn't be possible otherwise. And allow me to suggest that if you are troubled by trading away the realistic for the cinematic, perhaps D&D -- in any of its versions -- might not be the best game for you.

-Sagiro

That's a false dichotemy though. It's not realistic vs cinematic. It's 'internally consistant' vs 'inconsistant'.

No one has a problem with things like skeleton minions or kobold minions, these are weak monsters and not bothering to track hp breaks no one sense of verisimilitude.

It's at the higher levels when apparently you have minion dragons and demons and mammoths that it gets absurd.

The stated purpose of minions is to allow for creatures too weak to stand up to the pcs to still present a credible threat. If I have a 29th level character who is literally a demi-god, then why should a horde of mooks represent a credible threat? You want the cinematic scene? Fine, but leave them as the window dressing the are. Box text works just fine for describing a horde of mooks getting butchered by Gods.

Creatures that can actually threaten the gods should take more than one hit to deal with, or they weren't really a threat.

 

[Hussar]

Why though? Why can't a creature who could possibly hurt you, go down in one shot?

It has absolutely nothing to do with consistency. It's actually 100% consistent. When the PC's engage Creature X, under conditions Y, it's a minion and goes down in one hit. At all other points in time, it's a normal representative of its race.

How is this any less inconsistant than one human having 5 hp's and another having 500?

Box text descriptions are boring. Why are you wasting time at the table? If you want to write amateur fanfic and then read it aloud to your friends, do so, but, don't waste gaming time with it.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I believe the difficulty in accepting how the Minion mechanics work is two-fold:

1) Players are still under the assumption that HP equals true wounds
2) Players are still under the assumption that Damage equates to giving true wounds

The easiest fix is to not use Minion rules, and handle them as any other MM entry, by assigning HP and bumping up the EXP according to the DMG's outline. The second way would be to teach players as a DM through colorful explanations during combat that the 24HP damage they just did with their Longsword isn't necessarily true wounds. I'd treat true wounds as anything that renders a foe Bloodied or damage during the Bloodied phase. The 24HP damage can be anything from nicking a foe slightly as to hamstring him, hinder him, knocking the wind out of him, reducing their endurance by harrying them or even treating it in the same fashion that heat exhaustion/cold exposure damage is handled in previous editions; i.e., not true cuts, bruises, burns or wounds at all. Merely, the way the body handles exposure, being run down, etc... On the same token, weapons don't necessarily have to inflict bloody wounds everytime you get a strike in.

 

[Cheesepie]

That's a false dichotemy though. It's not realistic vs cinematic. It's 'internally consistant' vs 'inconsistant'.

No one has a problem with things like skeleton minions or kobold minions, these are weak monsters and not bothering to track hp breaks no one sense of verisimilitude.

It's at the higher levels when apparently you have minion dragons and demons and mammoths that it gets absurd.

The stated purpose of minions is to allow for creatures too weak to stand up to the pcs to still present a credible threat. If I have a 29th level character who is literally a demi-god, then why should a horde of mooks represent a credible threat? You want the cinematic scene? Fine, but leave them as the window dressing the are. Box text works just fine for describing a horde of mooks getting butchered by Gods.

Creatures that can actually threaten the gods should take more than one hit to deal with, or they weren't really a threat.

Like Hussar said, the beautiful thing with minions is that if you want to just describe them with box text, you're totally welcome to, but if you want to let the players play their own characters instead of you, use minions!

 

[Doug McCrae]

That's a false dichotemy though. It's not realistic vs cinematic. It's 'internally consistant' vs 'inconsistant'.

You're misusing the term 'false dichotomy'.

It's at the higher levels when apparently you have minion dragons and demons and mammoths that it gets absurd.

There are no dragon, demon or mammoth minions in the MM. In fact all dragons are solo monsters.