Paper Minions - WT?

[Korgoth]

Yes! What Hong said.

 

[Andor]

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.

You know, not being a fan of abstract hitpoints it always drove me nuts in earlier editions when people would insist that a hit might be a miss, despite the fact that the whole basis of the armour system is that most hits fail to do damage and only solid blows even count as a hit, along with all the 'corner' cases.

Now in 4e people are simulateously saying that missing a minion hits it, but hitting another monster misses it. This makes baby Gygax cry.

 

[Samurai]

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).

Actually there is a very good incentive... if the PCs have been over-run by a horde of meleeing minions, the Wizard has the choice of using a single target or small area spell and only taking out 1 or a few minions, or he could use a large area effect that will harm his companions as well. Since the feat to exclude allies from area effect spells isn't available until Epic levels now, you have a great deal of incentive to keep a massive burst damage area spell that is strong enough to take out minions (only needs to do 1 HP), and yet as weak as possible so that you don't harm your fellow PCs too much. In a situation like that, would you rather do 1d6 damage to everything within 5 squares, or 7d6 damage? I know your allies will be much happier with you if you only cause them 1d6 damage...

 

[Lizard]

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.

Ah, but there were treated as a threat. Han ran from them, surrendered to them, etc. They blew 3P0 to pieces. Minions, by being able to damage level-appropriate heroes, can't simply be ignored. They're a speedbump due to their 1 hit point, they can be swept through, but if you ignore them to focus all your damage on the BBEG, they WILL tear you to shreds.

 

[Obryn]

You know, not being a fan of abstract hitpoints it always drove me nuts in earlier editions when people would insist that a hit might be a miss, despite the fact that the whole basis of the armour system is that most hits fail to do damage and only solid blows even count as a hit, along with all the 'corner' cases.

Now in 4e people are simulateously saying that missing a minion hits it, but hitting another monster misses it. This makes baby Gygax cry.

Erm, Gygax himself said that hit points were abstract.

Please turn your AD&D DMG to Page 82, where he talks about how ridiculous it is to assume that a hero can take multiple sword thrusts just because he's a hero, and how hit points also represent endurance, the ability to turn aside blows, and even divine favor.

-O

 

[Doug McCrae]

Minions give the wizard a chance to shine, particularly an all minion encounter cause there'll be so damn many of 'em. AoE frenzy.

Something to consider for DMs who plan not to use them.

 

[KarinsDad]

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

Which is a fine narration, but the players know that they missed unless you always have them roll to hit and roll damage and add up their damage on every attack, which tends to defeat the purpose of 4E simplicity.

 

[Andor]

This is the thread that never ends... it just goes on and on my friend...

I had that exact thought...

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Wasnt this argument already resolved a while back? Its like trying to figure out the D&D economy, but a lot less painful. In the end you either have to accept it as it is or ignore it all together.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The issue of killing mammoths with (unpoisoned) blowgun needles, mentioned in the previous thread, is very unlikely to come up for two reasons:

1) There are no mammoth minions.
2) PCs don't use unpoisoned blowgun needles. They're PCs, they use the biggest, baddest weapons available.

The worst case scenario is a dagger-armed rogue killing a cyclops minion (cyclops are large). This does stretch credibility a bit, but no more than D&D always has imo. In prior editions a cyclops on 1 hit point couldn't have been seriously wounded by the attacks that brought him to 1, as his fighting ability, movement and so forth are completely unimpaired. Thus in D&D, people have always been able to kill a (practically) uninjured mammoth with a dart.

I feel the interpretation of hit points that makes most sense, which I'll still be using in 4e, is that until the killing blow, all wounds are minor - shallow cuts, scrapes, flesh wounds. Their recovery via warlord and second wind is explained as a burst of energy - morale, adrenaline - which negates the effect of the wound, though physically it still exists. During a short rest these wounds are assumed to be bandaged and thus effectively healed.

The two alternative approaches have worse problems in my view. Regarding hit point damage as completely non-physical doesn't explain how poison could work or why bigger weapons do more damage. The second alternative, which sees non-fatal wounds such as a blow which takes a 100hp character to 20hp as still being serious, doesn't explain how the wounded character's fighting capability isn't affected.