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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6701059" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Yes and no to the bolded point. Soaking damage with minions is possible in AD&D, but 1.) ranged damage doesn't work as well or as reliably (e.g. "+3 or greater weapon to hit" and no at-will cantrips means you have to get into melee or spend real spells to kill it), which mitigates the value of tanking minions, and 2.) in 5E, bounded accuracy on monster to-hit plus the Dodge action plus various feats like Inspiring Leader means that a random low-level Dodging minion is relatively tankier than in AD&D. A Dodging zombie in scale mail could take, oh, eight or ten attacks to drop: one hit per four attacks, three attacks to deplete hit points, plus zombie fortitude on top; when I rolled it just now, a bog-standard zombie without even Inspiring Leader or bonus HP from a Necromancer took  eight attacks from Orc ax-blows to get three hits, which killed him (failed his zombie fortitude check). If I remember my AD&D-era math correctly I believe it would take about six orc attacks to drop a zombie. For an Dodging Inspired Necro-enhanced 5E zombie it should be in the neighborhood of thirty orc attacks.So, minion tanks are tankier than before, and ranged attacks are more potent, so shooting from behind a wall of minions is an even more effective strategy than in AD&D. Oh, plus the fact that in AD&D your minions would have needed clerics to heal them at the end of the day so you're ultimately not saving much, whereas in 5E you just rest and suddenly all the minions are back at full health, since anyone can use HD healing per PHB errata which implies that everyone heals on a long rest, even minions, unless the DM rules otherwise.I sort of agree with your larger point--it is valuable to have a healer just in case everything falls apart. E.g. you don't want to have to fall back and rest for an hour or a day just because some idiot fighter tripped a saw blade trap and took 24d10 to the face while everyone else is still untouched. I don't think it is mandatory though, merely valuable. At my table, my players never plan for emergencies and the PCs are (mostly) still alive.(In fact we're starting Out of the Abyss in a separate campaign and the PCs are a Bearbarian/Open Hand monk, a Bearbarian, and an Oathbreaker Paladin/Death Cleric, which looks to me like a very narrow party with no ranged capability at all and not all that much healing... we'll see if they survive. I started the PCs off at level 1d10 for fun and they all rolled high so that will help, but I will happily strafe them to death with drow crossbow bolts at the first opportunity and then go back to the regular sandbox campaign.)</blockquote>

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