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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 4268810" data-attributes="member: 2011">I can think of other exploits.The DM throws 10 foes at the PCs. The players pretty much know that some of the foes are minions (either that, or the DM is throwing lower level oppoents at the PCs or is trying for a TPK which typically won't happen in most games).So, since there are 10 foes, all 5 PCs throw a dagger (or other ranged attack) at 5 different NPCs. 3 hit and 2 of the 3 foes drop. Not only do the players gain the exploit of knowing that the one foe that did not drop is not a minion and can have encounter / daily powers thrown at him (as you state), they have also gotten some fairly cheap XP and changed the odds from 10 to 5, to 8 to 5.They are using a tactic that they typically would not use if there were 4 foes coming at the PCs during the encounter.The tactic should work the same regardless of number of foes, but the tactic works better against the larger group not because it is a good tactic in combat, but because the players can exploit the metagaming knowledge that minions exist in the game system and when minions are typically used in the game and how those minions are easily defeated.Against 4 foes, the players can pretty much be sure that there probably are not any minions in the group, so they exploit that knowledge to use the different superior tactic of concentrating most of their attacks against a single foe (if their goal is to change the odds more into the PCs favor). And even if there were minions in the 4 foe encounter, the first PC who hits kills one, so the other PCs can concentrate on the rest of the foes. No gain, but no loss of using this tactic.Another exploit. The player of the Fighter knows that Cleave works better when fighting 2 foes in the 10 foe case over the 4 foe case. The Fighter is still fighting 2 foes in both cases and there should be no differences, but the player knows that because of how the game is designed, his Cleave will often be more productive in that encounter type. That's an exploit.Ditto for area effect attacks that might in the game system, be much more effective against groups of minions than groups without, even though the caster is using it against the same number of foes.Knowledge is power. In this case, knowing that there are probably minions and knowing which are not minions is a great deal of metagaming power.</blockquote>

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