Paper Minions - WT?

[ryryguy]

I like the design goal of minions. I just do not like some aspects of them caused by the 1 hit point mechanic:

1) Players use the same tactics over and over. For example, do NOT use your Daily Power unless you know your opponent is NOT a minion. Ditto for Encounter Powers unless the PC is in dire straits.

This could get stale... but one of the nicer things about minions is they are still a threat. So the Daily power may be worth it if the minion is about to nail the helpless wizard, or hit the alarm button.

2) Find AoE or other attacks that will wipe out many or all of the Minions quickly, then deal with the big fish. As an example, every PC attacks with a ranged weapon on round one, targeting a different foe. This tactic is good ONLY because of the 4E 1 hit point minion mechanic. In 3E, this tactic would have been terrible to use.

We'll see how this plays out at the table... but I think the interaction between AoE and minions is intentional. AoE are supposed to wipe out minions by the bucketful - why not?

(Note also that since there is only a single damage roll for an AoE, if you go with one of these "resilience" house rules being proposed, the AoE will either kill all minions that it hits or do nothing to them all depending on whether damage > resilience. It's up to you of course, but it might be good to try playing with the minion rules as written for a while before you tinker with them.)

3) Every threatening encounter has to have either a non-minion (or several) in the group, or a boatload of minions. The BBEG cannot just send 3 or 4 minion Giants into the town to deal with the PCs and really challenge them for more than a few rounds (the BBEG not knowing that 3 or 4 minions just make the PCs yawn as designed). They are freaking Giants. 3 or 4 should be more than a one or two round nuisance, regardless of the minion rules governing them. Sure, the PCs can easily handle them, I just find "every foe falls over when touched" way too easily.

It seems like you are just saying that if the DM ignores the guidelines for encounter design and designs a poor encounter, it will be a poor encounter. So don't do that. The BBEG simply will not send only 3 or 4 minion giants. He'll send a group that is a level-appropriate encounter for the PC's, which may include minions or not. If it's all minions, it will be the appropriate number of minions to add up to the appropriate encounter XP, 12 or whatever it is.

If you're running a module or something that includes a roster of the BBEG's forces, and the PC's have wiped them all out except for 4 minions, and the BBEG wants to send them on a raid... just promote them to regular or elite or whatever. Or add more regulars or elites to make a good encounter. Think of it like Schrodinger's cat, until you open the box of the encounter, you don't know whether they are minions or not.

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I had been thinking about this issue and how it would play out in an online MMP like WoW. The 1 hp minion mechanic could never work there, because if there is a spot in the world where level 26 1 hp minions spawn, then sure enough, players will bring their 1st level characters there and fight until they get a lucky shot and kill it for level 26 loot and experience.

I'm not suggesting that anyone who has a problem with this is just thinking in MMP terms. But they do often seem to thinking about it in terms of there being a world "out there" beyond the PC's, a simulation that runs on its own with the same rules for any participants at all times. Maybe think about it instead as a gigantic "instance" dungeon that is created just for a specific party. There are no other "participants" besides the PC. Everything is spawned specifically for them and is tuned to them.

(And note "tuned to them" does not necessarily mean they can always win, the odds might be against them, but if so they will be against them by a specific amount.)

 

[Korgoth]

KD, I do plan to narrate some misses on Minions as inconsequential wounds.

But with the 1 hit point rule as written, pulling out the Daily or Encounter power against a minion will almost never happen. That's pure metagaming.

Fair enough. From my perspective we're at the "a feature not a bug" point. I wouldn't want my players to waste a precious Daily on a Minion. From what I've heard from KoTS AARs and from what I can see of the dreaded Needlefang Drake Swarm I'm not going to have any trouble killing off whole parties with 'fair' encounters. I think PCs will need all the help they can get in 4E!

But you could give an in-game explanation, too. Those stunts that people pull (Dailies) are heroic moves and taxing magical efforts... they wouldn't go to such lengths (in character) if they didn't have to. They're pushing themselves to the limit at that point, which is not something they have to do with a run-of-the-mill punk. Plus, while I wouldn't tell players definitively who is or is not a Minion, I don't mind if they figure it out. After all, perhaps they sensed that the guy might be competent but lacking that heroic elan that they possess and have faced before. Maybe you can kind of figure out who is not going to have a saga named after him.

 

[hong]

Right. Part of the "smart tactics" bit is figuring out what you're facing, and using the appropriate tools for the job. If you figure out that you shouldn't use dailies against this mob because they're easy to defeat otherwise, more power to you.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The rationale you just presented sounds good on the surface. But, it has holes. For example, it gives metagaming information to the players that they should not have which in turn will result in metagaming tactical decision making. For one thing, each foe that was killed must NOT have been a worthy foe. For another, each foe that was hit and was not killed MUST have been a worthy foe (as you suggest).

However, there are no foes that get hit that are NOT especially worthy foes and if hit, still are able to fight in your example. There are also no foes that are worthy and get hit who are just plain unlucky that day. Worthy foes are always lucky on that first attack. Always (because they have more hit points than a single attack can do in damage).

I do not necessarily want to come up with a rule where the enemy leader dies accidently in round one. That's not my goal (but I could see it as a once in a blue moon goal of a different DM).

But, I do want a rule where the Minion does get hit and does get lucky (or is only slightly wounded). Yes, I know that if the die roll misses, it COULD be explained that way (using the mechanics to explain what happened, most players know that they either missed or didn't roll damage dice or whatever). But again, that is meta-gaming knowledge.

The players are going to continue to attack a given foe until they either know a) he is a minion because he died on a successful hit or b) he is not a minion because he did not die on a successful hit. And then suddenly, they will pull out the big gun Daily attack because they KNOW the foe is not a minion.

The Minion Damage Reduction rule someone else mentioned alleviates this issue to some extent. The players do not know if it is a Minion or a Leader, they just know they hit and did damage and it did not kill the opponent. No nearly automatic metagaming knowledge given on a successful attack roll.

And yes, criticals would give away meta-gaming information to some extent. For example, a critical on round one that does not kill an opponent would indicate that it is not a minion. However, since criticals are rare, the chance of doing so on a given opponent on the first successful attack is also rare, hence, although a loophole, it's rare enough that it shouldn't make a big difference. Players will still occassionally, pull out the big Encounter Only or Daily Only power on a minion. And, I'll probably think on the critical roll issue some more to find a way to handle it as well.

But with the 1 hit point rule as written, pulling out the Daily or Encounter power against a minion will almost never happen. That's pure metagaming.

A group who uses sensible tactics to determine the true threats in an encounter should be safe from wasting their daily powers on minions. Frankly, wasting daily powers on a minion seems like it would suck pretty hard (granted, you don't necessarily have to tell them it was a minion but the encounter does suddenly become harder because the character wasted a high damage power on a 1 hp enemy).

Using minion DR also won't prevent metagaming, just sometimes offset it slightly. It simply extends the grey area that exists in almost hitting the enemy's defense (I'm assuming you aren't outright telling the players the creature's defense score) to include low damage rolls. I can't see it changing all that much in truth.

 

[Lurker37]

From my perspective, 4E mixes it up a little bit. Maybe that big beefy monster is truly the stuff of legends, and rightfully ignores Brave Peasants. But maybe it's just a big critter that flourishes because it is hard to get through its hide and because most stuff run from the sight of its terrible maw... but if somebody did stick a spear through its eye it would bite the dust. It's not a Monster of Legend, it's just a Big Monster.

*sigh*

A lot of people seem to be making the same mistake.

Minion is not a creature type. It's mechanic you can use to build a specific type of encounter.

You do not run across minions as single random monsters.

Minion is a template used in constructing encounters with large numbers of level-appropriate opponents, whom the PCs can drop in one hit each but still need to defend against, thus recreating a common trope of adventure fiction. The minion template achieves this very specific aim neatly.

There are prefabricated minions in the MM to allow novice DMs to quickly and easily build encounters using the minion mechanic. They are not meant to be used outside of any such encounter, and cause much silliness if you try. Unfortunately, because they're in the MM, some DMs seem to be assuming that they can just pluck them out singly and use them outside of such encounters, then complain about the strange results such misuse of the rules creates.

Minions are the bands of bandits that show up by the dozen. The raiding parties of orcs that swarm over villages. The throngs of cultists between the party and the high priests preparing to sacrifice the princess. The platoons of guards blocking the stairway up out of the evil baron's dungeon. They're not the lone guard wandering down the hallway - he's a normal monster (he can't be a minion because he's not in a group).

And if you can't visualise your PCs dropping a monster in one hit, then it probably doesn't make sense to use that monster as minions yet.

 

[hong]

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

4E is perfectly internally consistent. A minion has 1 hp, and it has 1 hp forever more. It is not consistent with the previous D&Dism that level was the only measure of toughness and all high-level creatures had to have lots of hit points. However, since said D&Dism is outside the 4E framework, it does not have to be consistent with it. It is only because you have become so thoroughly inured to this D&Dism that you are unable to comprehend a game that discards it when it becomes a hindrance.

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?

Why not? So they have flamethrowers. That doesn't mean they must have asbestos undies.

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.

Box text is boring. Mooks being fun to fight is good.

 

[Lurker37]

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.

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

 

[Saeviomagy]

I like the design goal of minions. I just do not like some aspects of them caused by the 1 hit point mechanic:

1) Players use the same tactics over and over. For example, do NOT use your Daily Power unless you know your opponent is NOT a minion. Ditto for Encounter Powers unless the PC is in dire straits.

As opposed to previous editions where you save high level spells for the big guns... Oh, wait.

2) Find AoE or other attacks that will wipe out many or all of the Minions quickly, then deal with the big fish. As an example, every PC attacks with a ranged weapon on round one, targeting a different foe. This tactic is good ONLY because of the 4E 1 hit point minion mechanic. In 3E, this tactic would have been terrible to use.

In 3E, noone even touched a ranged weapon unless they were the machine-gun archer of the group because they tended to be incredibly ineffective.

The AOE tactic was prevalent in 3E too. Fireball isn't considered a staple of every wizards spellbook because of it's amazing out-of-combat uses, after all.

And it's not like the group declares "we all shoot a different foe" at the beginning of the round - you pick a target on your turn and fire at it. If it dies, obviously other people don't continue shooting it.

You know, just like 3e.

3) Every threatening encounter has to have either a non-minion (or several) in the group, or a boatload of minions. The BBEG cannot just send 3 or 4 minion Giants into the town to deal with the PCs and really challenge them for more than a few rounds (the BBEG not knowing that 3 or 4 minions just make the PCs yawn as designed). They are freaking Giants. 3 or 4 should be more than a one or two round nuisance, regardless of the minion rules governing them. Sure, the PCs can easily handle them, I just find "every foe falls over when touched" way too easily.

Surprise surprise. The BBEG can't send a very small group of weakling goons to pose a challenge to the PCs.

The solution, to any BBEG worth his salt, is to NOT SEND SMALL GROUPS OF LOW GRADE SOLDIERS IF YOU EXPECT OPPOSITION. Send a large group, send a leader with them OR send some veteran troops.

And the tactics sound so repetitive. Use the same tactics to defeat easy foes quickly. Even in KotS, it states over and over again that the "Minions should be sent in first". Sure, that might be a valid NPC tactic, but it gets old after a while as a player to see that NPC tactic come at the PCs over and over again. Even if the DM switches it up some, the players will be LOOKING to easy-whittle down the opposition because the game system is designed for it.

If the PCs are fighting a gang of monsters that they've seen before on an empty plane, the fight will be boring regardless of how quickly the monsters die.

In fact if the encounter is that bad, having the monsters die quicker is a mercy.

I'm not keen on the idea of the players knowing that since foes could be red shirts or not, that they should tactically play the game different and take that into account. Sure, some foes are weaker then others. But, not cardboard. It gives an incentive for the players to find unique ways to do one point or more of damage to many foes.

The rules structure is really good at preventing this - there's no incentive for a PC to take (or use) a weak AOE when a stronger one is available (until you're distinguishing between encounter and daily powers).

So, I like the suggestion made earlier in the thread about Minion Damage Resistance. Light hits do not do enough damage. Medium to heavy hits kill minions.

It's a nice compromise between tracking hit points (on the one hand) and super easy kills (on the other). Thanks for that suggestion, I will be using it. I just need to find the sweet spot for it (although the 1/2 level + CON modifier suggestion looks like a good place to start).

Personally I expect that this change would have the following effects:

It avoids corner cases where a PC decides to abuse the rules to make things seem ridiculous - like trying to find an attack that's only capable of causing a single point of damage.

Powers obviously intended for dealing with minions stop working (cleave, some of the defensive "foes who attack you take X damage" which are intended to make minions look for another target) and the occasional unlucky damage roll (depending on where the threshold is put) will fail to kill a minion (making minions more of a challenge).

Most situations will be exactly the same.

In short - you're changing a fairly complex part of the games interactions in order to avoid a corner case caused by players who are deliberately trying to trash the system.

Personally I don't think it's going to be worth it.

 

[Blackeagle]

My only gripe is that minions should have been handled as a template rather than having 16th level monsters that have one hit point in the MM.

The designers have said one of the emphases in the 4e MM was to make the monsters runnable right out of the book. The example they used was dragons (creating a full dragon stat block from the 3.x MM was basically an hours worth of work), but I think it applies to minions as well. They didn't want a DM who needed a squad of minions for a fight to have to go through and fiddle with a template. Instead you just open the MM to the appropriate page.

 

[hong]

*sigh*

A lot of people seem to be making the same mistake.

Minion is not a creature type. It's mechanic you can use to build a specific type of encounter.

You do not run across minions as single random monsters.

There is nothing wrong with using minions as single monsters if you want. Just because their intended use is as big mobs, doesn't mean you can't think outside the square. And you know this must be significant, seeing as how normally I go on about how thinking too hard about fantasy is bad.

One possible use for this is as a way to foreshadow future adventures. The PCs meet one tough minion. All their attacks miss against its level-inappropriate defenses. Eventually someone makes a lucky hit, and the thing goes down. This tells them that there's stuff out there that's meaner than what they've seen before.