Paper Minions - WT?

[Darkness]

"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.

Buffy tends to simplify NPC stats, but this is generally done for every NPC that's not a party member, even important and/or powerful ones. Nor does it make the NPCs easier to kill.

That's not quite the same as mook rules.

Now, I CAN see a perfect scenario involving a high level minion threatening NPCs ... the old DC Spelljammer comic, where the captain and crew landed on a world for some R&R. The locals were threatened by a ... huge Red Dragon. One of the crew members was helpless before its power. Then, the captain shows up, gets pissed off with the dragon, and KILLS IT IN ONE SHOT with a finger of death. I loved that scene, because it turned the whole "climactic battle with the bad guy" theme on its head.

(Emphasis mine.) Yeah, this kind of thing happens sometimes.

 

[BryonD]

It's hand-waving it away.

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.

If the giant runs away, is the DM responsible for keeping track of the giant?
How do the players know that the giant is "out" of the fight the instant it takes that one point of damage? What indicator does that one point of damage place on the giant that lets other PCs know that it is just as out of the fight as it would be if it was dead? If the fighter hits him and he is "out", but the wizard is next to act, what lets the wizard know not to waste an attack following up on the same giant?
Can the giant decide to attack a softer npc target once it gets around the corner? If no, why not? If yes, how far must the giant flee before being allowed to attack and why? If yes, may the PCs elect to go ahead and kill the giant? (or can they elect to kill the giant simply because for XYZ reason they prefer to make certain ALL the giants are dead?) If no, why not? If yes, how is that handled? Does the giant suddenly promote to a soldier? I'm certain that having a tough angry PC fully intent on making him dead would quickly put an end to the "no stake in it" condition, so he no longer qualifies as a minion. It is impossible for a minion to become a "real boy" while he is on stage? If yes, when can he convert and how do you handle killing him? If no, then doesn't that make it very possible for the PCs to convert a minion loaded balanced encounter into a no chance in hell TPK on a plate encounter when the minions turn into soldiers? When the PCs see a group of 12 giants, how do they know the difference between 12 giants that include 10 minions and can be handled and 12 giant soldiers that will wipe the floor with the PCs while having a snack on the side?
If the 1 hp is effectively morale, then why must each and every minion be damaged? Is there a mechanic for "morale" damage? If there are ten minion giants and 9 of them get hit and run away, why does the other stay until he is somehow wounded?

 

[Lacyon]

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.

I'm not sure why you think this. (Of course, I'm not sure why Cadfan thinks mammoths should necessarily not die in one hit, either).

If you pierce an Ogre's vital organs with a weapon, they should die - if not immediately, then eventually. The odd thing about Ogre minions is not that they can die in one hit to their vitals, nor really that Heros can hit them in their vitals quite easily. The odd thing is that Joe Commoner hits them in the vitals on one strike in twenty and never really hits them anywhere else.

Which is only a problem if you let Joe Commoner find out about it.

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

I think a rectification of names may be in order.

Unlike 3E, wherein "level" was universally equivalent to HD but (at least partially) divorced from CR, level for monsters in 4E seems to be almost (but not quite) purely a descriptor for a monster's combat threat level (i.e., just CR). Moreover, it's not the sole component of a monster's threat level - there's also the "potency" or "size" aspect (Minion/Normal/Elite/Solo).

This means that Minions can definitely be understood as "lower level" in the sense of being far less powerful, while still having a higher "monster level" than their non-minion counterparts - the Orc Warrior's "monster level" is 9, but he's certainly not a bigger threat than the level 8 Orc Chieftain! This is reflected in the fact that his XP value is equal to that of a level 1 normal monster. In fact, I did some back-of-the-envelope math* a while ago that suggested the Orc Warrior is roughly the same challenge for 9th-level PCs as an Orc Berserker scaled back to 1st level (in that his total expected damage over a number of rounds is pretty comparable, and he expects to survive the same number of total attacks on average). This is because, while the first-level orc would do way more damage on a hit, he needs something close to a natural 20 to actually damage PCs 8 levels higher than him. Meanwhile, while the PCs hit him on anything but a 1 and kill him in something like 2 hits on average.

Using a 9th-level minion in place of a 1st-level normal monster in that scenario means that PCs of appropriate level still kill him in about 2 rounds and his damage is amortized alongside his buddies to an average instead of rolling a bunch of dice and hoping for nat-20s before they get meaningful.

*Note, this math was based solely on preview material and not actually seeing the game. It included some assumptions about how fast PC damage/attacks/AC grow that may not hold. I still haven't seen the books to update it.

 

[Obryn]

Buffy tends to simplify NPC stats, but this is generally done for every NPC that's not a party member, even important and/or powerful ones. Nor does it make the NPCs easier to kill.

That's not quite the same as mook rules.

True.

It's still an asymmetric system, though, where the PCs and NPCs operate under somewhat different mechanics. NPCs are simplified and don't themselves roll dice.

You're right, though, that they aren't necessarily easier to kill. Sorry for lumping Buffy in there

-O

 

[IanB]

I'm not sure why you think this. (Of course, I'm not sure why Cadfan thinks mammoths should necessarily not die in one hit, either).

If you pierce an Ogre's vital organs with a weapon, they should die - if not immediately, then eventually. The odd thing about Ogre minions is not that they can die in one hit to their vitals, nor really that Heros can hit them in their vitals quite easily. The odd thing is that Joe Commoner hits them in the vitals on one strike in twenty and never really hits them anywhere else.

Which is only a problem if you let Joe Commoner find out about it.

Except when Joe Commoner fights the ogre, it isn't a minion - unless for some reason you have Joe Commoner fighting alongside PCs of sufficient power to throw ogres against them as minions. I would suggest just not doing that, or simply ruling that Joe Commoner can't inflict relevant damage to the ogre minion.

 

[Korgoth]

If you pierce an Ogre's vital organs with a weapon, they should die - if not immediately, then eventually. The odd thing about Ogre minions is not that they can die in one hit to their vitals, nor really that Heros can hit them in their vitals quite easily. The odd thing is that Joe Commoner hits them in the vitals on one strike in twenty and never really hits them anywhere else.

Which is only a problem if you let Joe Commoner find out about it.

In the interests of stubbornly maintaining my own interpretation... when Joe Commoner misses the Ogre he may still be hitting him. In fact, it's likely. How could you actually miss something the size of an ogre with a spear thrust? It's hard to believe that you would miss very often! It's just that Ogres are tough (high AC) and most of the time when you stab them you're just hitting its rough and calloused hide.

When Joe Commoner rolls that 20 he has hit the Ogre in the eye or the neck or something like that. An Ogre Hero would not actually suffer such a blow (he's the Ogre version of Chuck Norris, after all) so his hit points would spend down that blow into being another mere glance (the equivalent of a miss). But the Minion Ogre has zero Chuckness, so the stab to the eye is actually a stab to the eye, and he drops dead.

 

[Lacyon]

Except when Joe Commoner fights the ogre, it isn't a minion - unless for some reason you have Joe Commoner fighting alongside PCs of sufficient power to throw ogres against them as minions. I would suggest just not doing that, or simply ruling that Joe Commoner can't inflict relevant damage to the ogre minion.

These are both ways of preventing Joe Commoner from finding out about the Ogre minion's secret weakness.

In the interests of stubbornly maintaining my own interpretation... when Joe Commoner misses the Ogre he may still be hitting him. In fact, it's likely. How could you actually miss something the size of an ogre with a spear thrust? It's hard to believe that you would miss very often! It's just that Ogres are tough (high AC) and most of the time when you stab them you're just hitting its rough and calloused hide.

This is another way of not letting Joe Commoner find out about it.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Because in adventure books and movies, hordes of mooks DO present credible threats to the heroes. In Star Wars, Stormtroopers can and DO wound the heroes.

No, they don't. In exactly one movie out of three, at the very end, for dramatic purposes, Leia was shot in the arm. Other than that, there was absolutely no danger of the stormtroopers landing a shot on the heroes. Because they were never a credible threat.

Which is really the meat of this matter. Ewoks dropped by the score. X-wings, Y-wings, TIE fighters... destroyed all over the place. Luke's X-Wing? R2 got shot and rebuilt. The Millenium Falcon? Lost their DishTV connection. And that wasn't even shot, Lando ran into an i-beam.

The heroes in Star Wars (and almost any other example) weren't particularly durable. They were every bit as flimsy as the bad guys. What they had in their favour was two-fold: script immunity, and the bad guys weren't a credible threat. When the extras were shooting at each other, they were fine. When they were shooting at the heroes, they were utterly incompetent. Han Solo could have walked up to a dozen stormtroopers, and they all would have missed.

It has nothing to do with hit points. It has to do with the minions everyone uses as an example being utterly unable to pose any danger to the protagonists.

 

[Korgoth]

No, they don't. In exactly one movie out of three, at the very end, for dramatic purposes, Leia was shot in the arm. Other than that, there was absolutely no danger of the stormtroopers landing a shot on the heroes. Because they were never a credible threat.

Which is really the meat of this matter. Ewoks dropped by the score. X-wings, Y-wings, TIE fighters... destroyed all over the place. Luke's X-Wing? R2 got shot and rebuilt. The Millenium Falcon? Lost their DishTV connection. And that wasn't even shot, Lando ran into an i-beam.

The heroes in Star Wars (and almost any other example) weren't particularly durable. They were every bit as flimsy as the bad guys. What they had in their favour was two-fold: script immunity, and the bad guys weren't a credible threat. When the extras were shooting at each other, they were fine. When they were shooting at the heroes, they were utterly incompetent. Han Solo could have walked up to a dozen stormtroopers, and they all would have missed.

It has nothing to do with hit points. It has to do with the minions everyone uses as an example being utterly unable to pose any danger to the protagonists.

That's one interpretation.

How about this one: we have no evidence from the Star Wars movies how many hit points the good guys lost, if any. Why? Because hit points are what you spend to make the shot that killed you miss you (or graze you) instead. So there's no way to tell whether a miss is a Miss or a Hit that did damage... in the end, both look like misses. Likewise, a scratch to the arm could be a Hit (it would have killed you but you spent it down to something ineffectual) or a Miss (it didn't do significant damage so it doesn't do at least 1 hp). There's no way to tell because Hit Points, and thus Hits and Misses, are abstract. The one thing that is not abstract is when you get taken below 1 hit point: then we know that something connected and you're gravely hurt.

 

[MrGrenadine]

Dog pile on the guy who doesn't like minions!

I love the *idea* of minions. They're a great concept for all the reasons quoted earlier in this thread and others, (epic battles, cinematic feel, not having to track hp, etc.), but I agree with the OP that they have a problem, and it is simply this: the 1 hit point.

Yeah, hp are abstract. They've been abstract since 1e or 2e, where the DMG definition of hp, (as posted tby someone in another thread), clearly states that hp rise because *fighting skill* rises, not because higher level beasts and characters develop some sort of hard exoskeleton over time.

However, the abstraction has always had logic and consistency. Higher level=tougher to kill=more hp.

The 1 hp rule, on the other hand, works great for kobolds and other low level beasts, but breaks when applied to higher level beasts. Any high level foe with powerful attacks better have bones made of glass to warrant only 1 hp, as far as I'm concerned.

So my solution? I posted somewhere around here weeks ago to say I would houserule a certain amount of minimum damage needed to kill a minion, which would raise at the Paragon and Epic levels. But this thread has made me change my mind. If minions are only minions in relation to PCs, I say put the power to one-shot the minion in the PCs hands:

Monsters with the "minion" label have normal hp for their respective level, but when a PC, (and ONLY a PC), successfully hits the minion with any damage-dealing attack, the PC does his or her normal damage times 100.​

The multiplier could be x10 for Heroic level, then raise through Paragon and Epic levels as needed. But whatever the multiplier, (x1000, anyone?), it would fix all the "if a minion trips in the woods, and no one sees it, does it still take 1 hp and die" questions.


MrG