Paper Minions - WT?

[hectorse]

I would use level 30 dragon minions for the big climatic campaign ending encounter that fulfills the character's epic destinies.

No problem there

 

[Tripgnosis]

here's an interesting perspective-- an inverse mechanic for minions could have been to give them hit points comparable to PC's of the same level, but make their defenses nil, representing their lack of morale fortitude and bravery and such. this method is more realistic and easier to swallow, but the end result would be pretty much the same, their lifespan in combat would remain unchanged. The downside for this method would be a whole lot of HP tacking for the DM. I like the current mechanics for minions because of its simplicity and ease of use, and like I said teh end result is the same. Keep in mind that this is a game, you've gotta make certain allowances. Sometimes believability or realness is a favorable sacrifice for keeping the mechanics simple and balanced.

PS, I'm not suggesting anyone should adopt that alternative method, I'm citing it as an example of a mechanic that would be needlessly more complex. Like THAC0

 

[Obryn]

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.

No, I think you actually understand minions perfectly.

I agree - it's tough to wrap my head around mammoth minions, or for that matter huge minions of any kind.

They're a narrative tool and a game mechanic, and that's it... If the PCs are at the point in their careers when you could reasonably argue they'd fell mammoths or youngish dragons with one stab of their spear, or one spell from the wizard - go for it. As you said - if they're "Thor or something."

Kobolds and skeletons make perfect sense for low-level minions. Other stuff makes sense for high-level minions.

That's why throwing a level 22 minion against a low-level party is almost nonsensical. If a creature is that powerful, relative to the PCs, it should no longer be treated as a minion.

I also take exception to being told that if you want something different maybe you should look for a game other than D&D. I, and many other people, have played D&D just fine in various incarnations.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it's fair to say that people who want the level of detail 3e had will not be as happy with 4e, but people have been houseruling their D&D games since before the white box. Different games are certainly more suitable to certain styles of play out of the box, but D&D is nothing if not flexible.

Minion rules will certainly be cool for certain kinds of games and it is neat option to have, but I am not quite convinced they are a necessity, or by their very nature make the game better.

Also agreed. I think they make a lot of sense when viewed in context, and the slide right into the kind of game I want to run. But if you as a DM don't like minions, well... don't use them.

-O

 

[Sagiro]

Well, a few things:

1. I wasn't attempting to create an all-or-nothing dichotomy between realism and cinema. But while they're obviously not a zero-sum game, there is often an unavoidable trade-off between the two. I suppose you could make a game that was both supremely realistic and extremely cinematic, if you were willing to bite off a lot of rules complexity as well. (Of course, if you have a fantasy system that is realistic, cinematic AND simple, I invite you write it and market it -- I'll be first in line to buy! )

2. I'm not trying to tell anyone they're "wrong" for playing D&D even if they prefer realism to cinema. But if someone finds systems like Minions troubling because it strains their sense of believability, it wouldn't surprise me if they're annoyed all the time while playing D&D, because it's filled with abstractions and unrealistic notions that streamline the experience and leave more time for cinema and storytelling.

el-Remmen, you say "I also take exception to being told that if you want something different maybe you should look for a game other than D&D." Think about what you just, literally, wrote. Rephrased, you said: "If I want something different, I don't want to be told I should look for something different." Now, I'm guessing that in your case, there are enough things you like about D&D that you're willing to overlook or house-rule the things you don't like. Heck, that probably describes 95% of the people on this board, myself included. Nothing wrong with that! And I'm not suggesting that someone abandon D&D just because they don't like minions -- that's crazy talk. But the sense I get from KarinsDad, from this post and from others, is that he has enough "realism" issues with 4e that he may have more fun trying a system that values realism more highly than does D&D. I'm not ascribing any value judgments, believe me.

3. I agree fully with el-Remmen that the Minion system is easily modularized. Your 4e game won't suffer noticably if you never use minions, or if you only use minions that look or feel like minions to you. I find myself in agreement with Cadfan and some others -- some minions would strain both the realism AND the cinematic nature of a scene to the breaking point. And, I see the MM doesn't seem to have any of those -- there are no Ancient Red Dragon Minions, or Mammoths Minions, etc.

For me, "paper minions," as a system, has a fun and important place in D&D, and railing against the system because you can't understand how minions survive in the wild while fighting each other is missing the point entirely.

 

[Henry]

Minion rules will certainly be cool for certain kinds of games and it is neat option to have, but I am not quite convinced they are a necessity, or by their very nature make the game better.

Oh, absolutely; I imagine the game will function perfectly without them. Just as long as you don't want scads of monsters bearing down on the party as an appropriate challenge, their absence will work as well as not. But if there's ever a scenario where you want a couple dozen monsters as a winnable challenge, the players better wise up quick that fighting's NOT an option, even for critters several levels below 'em.

 

[Philodendron]

Hp are not literal representations of wounds. The 1 hp of minions is meant to represent that they have no stake in the fight and will fold/fall over/run away/surrender/cry at the slightest hint that it isn't going their way. That's all.

Picture a soldier who's separated from his commander, looks around at the carnage, gets hit with a rock or something and starts bleeding, and goes 'you know what... they ain't payin' me enough for this sh*t.'

A Giant minion isn't a minion unless said Giant has been brought along by a bigger Giant and made to attack a village when it would have rather been sipping from giant coconuts at home. Said Giant will say 'yeah screw this' at the slightest hint of trouble.

This!


With a little creativity and remembering that HP are abstract, minions can add to the verisimilitude just as well as take away from it. It may require a major shift in mind set, but no particular shift in how much sense the game makes.

 

[AuraSeer]

Yes, a DM could make a dragon, describe it as being the size of a house, give it incredible attack powers, and then assign it one hit point. Whether that would be a good idea would depend on whether the PCs were at a power level where it would make sense for them to one-shot-kill a firebreathing lizard the size of a house.

Smaug.

 

[Lacyon]

This isn't anything new- in 3e, I could create a monster with 20 levels of barbarian, then describe it as a fluffy bunny that inexplicably murders the whole party. There is nothing in the rulebook preventing me from making mistakes.

You misspelled awesome there.

 

[Lizard]

I can see no reason why this should be so, and you do not provide one.

Why is it that a 21st level devil minion is the same as a 21st level mammoth minion? Mammoths have real world attributes, namely, being big, hairy elephantine beasts that don't immediately die when a human being stabs them with a sword. That creates the possibility for a mismatch between rules and expectations when a player stabs a mammoth and it instantly dies. This makes them poor candidates for minion-hood in anything but the most incredibly high powered of games- and I'm not sure that 4e GOES that high.

How about ogres, then? They, too, are large, bulky, and shouldn't die when a human stabs them with a sword, but there are ogre minions in the MM.

Cyclops? Giant 1-eyed critter with huge-ass club. Cyclops minions are in the MM.

Source: Friend who DL'ed the books. Who will now be being very snide to me since I'd been lecturing him about it. See what you made me do?

Devils on the other hand do not have real world attributes. In game, we know there are some devils which are very dangerous monsters capable of challenging the plans of the gods, and in some cases, fighting the gods themselves. Why can't there also be devils which are NOT particular tough, and which DO immediately die when an epic level character stabs them with a sword? There's really no reason why not.

No reason why there can't be magic stabbable mammoths, either, esp since they're not that much more impressive than ogres or cyclops. Minionism isn't about toughness, it's about plot role. A minion is anything the DM wants the PCs to kill in large numbers. It's up to the DM to make it narratively plausible, at least as far his players' tolerances are concerned.

Minions aren't "lower level" versions of monsters. In many cases, they're the same, or higher, level than non-minion versions.

If you ever work out a method of summoning forth a viewing portal into the Realm of Dungeons and Dragons, by all means, report back on the objective nature of a Legion Devil's combat prowess, and compare and contrast it with that of a mammoth. But until then, there's no reason to assert that a legion devil minion automatically justifies a mammoth minion.

What, exactly, do you have against the poor mammoth minion, anyway? Why does it bug you so much?

Is this the real issue? You want the game to have built in rules that prevent DMs from homebrewing monsters you don't like?

Uhm....huh?

Why do you interpret everything I write as some sort of attack on 4e?

Of course I don't want that. I'm pointing out the fundamental illogic in your mammoth minion hatred.

For some reason, you seem to have decided that the minion rules are great, as long as the minions fit your, personal, subjective, definition of "minionable". Whenever anyone brings up the possibilities of minions you, personally, don't find "believable" (whatever that means in this context) you go off on a wild raving tangent about how, maybe, legion devils (21st level monsters) are trivial to kill, but mammoths (12th level at MOST) MUST NEVER BE MINIONS! NEVER! EVER! The skies shall be AS BLOOD before that can occur!

Yes, a DM could make a dragon, describe it as being the size of a house, give it incredible attack powers, and then assign it one hit point. Whether that would be a good idea would depend on whether the PCs were at a power level where it would make sense for them to one-shot-kill a firebreathing lizard the size of a house. If the PCs are indeed at that level (and I'm not sure that 4e goes that high), then that sort of minion is perfectly fine. If the PCs are not at that level, then a DM who created such a minion would be making a mistake.

So explain to me why it makes sense to one-shot-kill one type of ogre and not another. They're both the same size. They're both about as hard to hit. They're both about as good at dealing damage. One is statted as a minion so you can plow through hordes of them, one isn't. It's pure narrative convention, and I don't see why you, of all people, are suddenly getting all simulationist and insisting the only things which can be minions are those which the PCs could "kill anyway", and it's just a bookkeeping simplification. It isn't. It's 100% DM narrative fiat, decreeing:"For this fight, you WILL cleave your way through a hundred dragons, because you're JUST THAT UBER. Next fight, one single dragon, visually identical to the 100 you just killed, will wipe the floor with you, because that one's the Boss Monster."

This isn't anything new- in 3e, I could create a monster with 20 levels of barbarian, then describe it as a fluffy bunny that inexplicably murders the whole party. There is nothing in the rulebook preventing me from making mistakes.

Why is it a "mistake"? Vorpal bunnies have been a part of D&D lore ever since a certain movie...My recent campaign had an awakened wolf who had 10 ranger levels. No one found that odd.

 

[grickherder]

It's pure narrative convention, and I don't see why you, of all people, are suddenly getting all simulationist and insisting the only things which can be minions are those which the PCs could "kill anyway", and it's just a bookkeeping simplification. It isn't. It's 100% DM narrative fiat, decreeing:"For this fight, you WILL cleave your way through a hundred dragons, because you're JUST THAT UBER. Next fight, one single dragon, visually identical to the 100 you just killed, will wipe the floor with you, because that one's the Boss Monster."

Great post.

One thing that rubbed me the wrong way about 3e/3.5e was how absolutely everything was described and how the rules were sort of a fantasy combat/situation simulator. I was bored to tears by it. I went back to playing classic D&D (Labrynth Lord, Basic Fantasy RPG, Rules Cyclopedia) and am now poking my head out to see what's up with the new edition.

And it's a complete shift. And I really like it. I am so happy the days of clunky simulationist play are over when it comes to D&D. Time to break out the ass-kicking game play and over the top stories and stats that represent narrative role rather than physiology/measured ability.

Minions are monsters that don't matter individually as far as the story is concerned and are to be dealt with quickly as far as game play is concerned. What they are a simulation of, is utterly irrelevant in 4th edition.