D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Lanefan]

Thinking about the place of minions in the game reminded me of this from 1e. I thought it was by DMG combat tables, but it is on page 25 of PHB under the table about fighter, paladin, and ranger attacks per melee round (that increase from 1 to 3/2 to 2 as they level):

View attachment 414377

Granted that melee rounds were one minute in AD&D because it "is not in the best interests of an adventure game, however to delve too deeply into cut and thrust, parry and riposte" and instead the "system assumes much activity during the course of each round". (DMG page 61). Still, a 20th level fighter getting 10x as many attacks against a 0-level (or d7 or less) monster than against a 1st level (or d8 or higher) monster shows how big of a difference that 1st level is.

I somehow knew the rule existed, but I have no recollection of fighters always (after1st level) taking multiple attacks against Goblins (d7) and Kobolds (d4). I wonder if that comes from starting with B/X and if those who started with 1e always did (and also used a lot of the combat rules in the DMG I don't remember).

I always (mis)read this as the fighter getting up to one attack against each opponent in these cases, which put a limit on it based on how many foes the fighter could reach. Thus, a 10th-level fighter surrounded by 6 commoners would only get 6 attacks, one per foe.

Then again, this is one of those rules that rarely if ever saw the light of day mostly because we usually just forgot it existed, and we quietly scrapped it over the years.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think when we've played 13th are the DM must have been telegraphing who the mooks are because I don't remember blowing dailies on them being a problem. I can imagine it being really annoying if one has no clue what was tough and what didn't.

If that was a reference to 13th Age, I'm pretty sure it explicitly tells you to be transparent about what's mooks and what's not.

(Though depending on the Daily, using that on mooks can actually be a pretty good deal, since you almost never waste damage If you've got a dozen mooks out there and drop a fireball on three of them, given how they work you can completely clean mooks off the map, which is not at an all bad deal most of the time).

 

[Faolyn]

No, I keep trying to prove that the point you are making is inconsistent. Which it is. After all, is your doctor stronger/tougher than someone who only knows first aid? After all, that's what D&D says is true. That in order to be a trained doctor, you need to be several levels higher than someone who only knows first aid. Which brings with it all sorts of extras like more HP, better attacks and whatnot. By D&D logic, a neurosurgeon should be the best MMA fighter on the planet. Stephen Hawkings should be able to arm wrestle a giant. Heck, you should be able to swing a sword much better now than you could when you first started learning basic programming. And, you should be stronger, healthier and in much better shape than you were twenty years ago.

I dunno about you, but my knees kinda creak now when I stand up too quickly. Going from a new teacher with only basic knowledge to one with twenty years experience certainly didn't make me stronger, healthier and better able to withstand damage.

Yet, that's what the "simulation" that you and @Lanefan are talking about does. If the stat block must grow, and it must grow exactly the same for everyone - PC and NPC - then your world must be filled with geriatric Conan's who can routinely assault dragons.

But, since I'm fairly sure that's not true, I will simply continue to point out the inconsistencies in what you are describing as "simulation".

This would depend on what class you take and where you put your stats. Stephen Hawkings clearly rolled some low stats at chargen and them in his Str and Dex, and then put his ASIs into his mental skills. He also obviously used some 3pp "expert" class. Maybe Level Up's Savant.

And, of course, just because you have an ability doesn't mean you have to use it.

 

[Lanefan]

But you still wrote those "nasty crit rules" into existence. AD&D doesn't have anything like that, just things like double damage or a second attack. You specifically created a crit table for attacks to be extra nasty and put in a very powerful trap against some 1st-level characters and made the trap an attack roll capable of critting instead of requiring a save or Dex check (both of which were things in AD&D).

There may have been a save or Dex check involved, I don't remember. Or, they may have been surprised by the trap (they'd for sure have got a surprise roll) in which case they'd have been sitting ducks.

But somehow, letting the pirate captain call in reinforcements is unfair. Which I really don't get.

I do, in terms of in-fiction consistency.

Truth be told, I have the same problem with "wandering monsters" in many modules. The one I'm running right now, for example, has wandering monsters that can't be explained and that the dungeon has nowhere to otherwise put, meaning I've had to amend that table considerably. A different module I just bought and read through yesterday, however, has the "wandering monsters" in fact be inhabitants of the place going about their daily lives, which makes far more sense (no surprise given it's a Jennell Jaquays module).

They can play their characters however they want at someone else's table. I don't have to GM for them.

Which leads me to think, if you're willing to clobber player agency in that way what else are you willing to do to it? How much agency will I actually have over my character and what it can do in the fiction?

If "all" the good stories--or even a large chunk of them, assuming hyperbole--come from infighting, that kinda indicates to me that the actual game isn't all that interesting.

Sometimes the game is just a backdrop for whatever shenanigans they want to get up to. Fine with me, and as they kept laughing all session and coming back for more I wasn't concerned in the least.

And for me, to start out the game not knowing if I can trust the people around me to not kill me or turn on me? I can't imagine why I would work with you. I may need your skill set, but that doesn't mean I need you. I'll find someone else who can do what you can do and is trustworthy.

Me, I'll just fight fire with fire. I might not start anything but I reserve the right to finish anything.

And yes, sometimes characters do get run out of parties for just this reason...and the reverse; I've seen situations where it's the trustworthy one that gets run out because the less-savoury types don't want to get ratted out.

 

[AnotherGuy]

But why is your strength being represented by a substantial reduction in their capability? What do their abilities have to do with how super-awesome you are?

I think it is because it is easier to just create a minion monster for an encounter than deal with the game repercussions of walking deities.

 

[Faolyn]

Why is 4e "trying to tell" any stories? Or any edition, for all that?

Isn't the story something that each table of people comes up with on their own in whatever manner suits them?

You're misunderstanding what "trying to tell a story" means. The game isn't giving you stories to tell (outside of published adventures, of course). It's helping you and your table create the story.

 

[Faolyn]

I didn't care for minions, even if I did understand what they were going for. But it just made no sense in the fiction. Take Grr, the dragonborn. Grr has a breath weapon, something barely useful unless facing the weakest of foes. At low levels Grr faces ogre and they're tough, no way he's going to bother using breath weapon on them. As he goes up levels, the ogre get tougher and tougher.

But then one day because he has nothing better to do with his minor action he breathes fire at the pair of big brutish ogre and he takes them both out. Next encounter he does it again but the ogres laugh at the wasted attempt.

Now, from a game mechanic point of view I know what's happening. From an in-world point of view it makes no sense that some ogres are tough to kill and others are apparently giant animated balloons that look, weigh and hit like ogres.

That may be fine with you but to me it changed the very essence and in world reality of the monster in a way that was illogical.

That's not how it works. If the ogres are minions, then there should be someone commanding them. This being is the actual villain you're facing. Say it's a dragon with ogre minions. Do you really want to waste in-game minutes (meaning potentially hours out-of-game) dealing with ogres when there's a dragon right there?

I'm going to guess that for most people, the answer is no. So enter the minion. The minion can still deal out damage, possibly a lot of it, but they go down quicker so you can get to the dragon faster, because everyone knows that the ogres are not actually important. It's the dragon that's important.

But lets say your high level party is going after a bunch of ogres. Not ogres who are working for a dragon, but a bunch of ogres who are doing ogre things all on their own. These ogres would not be minions. They'd have regular hit points, or possibly more to make them more level-appropriate.

Does this mean that you always have to use ogre minions when facing a monster + mooks? No, of course not. If having a bunch of full-fledged monsters is your goal or would make the adventure better, then go for it! You simply need to decide "is it actually worth the length of time the combat will be" before you do so.

 

[AlViking]

That's not how it works. If the ogres are minions, then there should be someone commanding them. This being is the actual villain you're facing. Say it's a dragon with ogre minions. Do you really want to waste in-game minutes (meaning potentially hours out-of-game) dealing with ogres when there's a dragon right there?

I'm going to guess that for most people, the answer is no. So enter the minion. The minion can still deal out damage, possibly a lot of it, but they go down quicker so you can get to the dragon faster, because everyone knows that the ogres are not actually important. It's the dragon that's important.

But lets say your high level party is going after a bunch of ogres. Not ogres who are working for a dragon, but a bunch of ogres who are doing ogre things all on their own. These ogres would not be minions. They'd have regular hit points, or possibly more to make them more level-appropriate.

Does this mean that you always have to use ogre minions when facing a monster + mooks? No, of course not. If having a bunch of full-fledged monsters is your goal or would make the adventure better, then go for it! You simply need to decide "is it actually worth the length of time the combat will be" before you do so.

So just change the scenario to not have minions? I'm not following.

The scenario was simple. Ogre leader is threatening the town and blackmailing them. The DM wants the leader to have a bunch of followers without blowing out the XP budget. The characters through clever play, scouting and a bit of luck figure out how to set up an ambush. They get the commoner townsfolk helping.

This is where it falls apart. The townsfolk were just supposed to be a distraction, throw some rocks down at the ogres and run away causing confusion and maybe some of the ogres chasing the townsfolk. Except the commoners start throwing rocks and ogre minions are dropping like flies.

I suppose the DM could have ignored the fact that they were minions, could have just had the commoners always miss or something else. But that's just papering over the issue.

Like I said I don't remember if it was ogres, I just remember the discussion around the encounter afterwards.

 

[Cadence]

That's not how it works. If the ogres are minions, then there should be someone commanding them. This being is the actual villain you're facing. Say it's a dragon with ogre minions. Do you really want to waste in-game minutes (meaning potentially hours out-of-game) dealing with ogres when there's a dragon right there?

I'm going to guess that for most people, the answer is no. So enter the minion. The minion can still deal out damage, possibly a lot of it, but they go down quicker so you can get to the dragon faster, because everyone knows that the ogres are not actually important. It's the dragon that's important.

But lets say your high level party is going after a bunch of ogres. Not ogres who are working for a dragon, but a bunch of ogres who are doing ogre things all on their own. These ogres would not be minions. They'd have regular hit points, or possibly more to make them more level-appropriate.

Does this mean that you always have to use ogre minions when facing a monster + mooks? No, of course not. If having a bunch of full-fledged monsters is your goal or would make the adventure better, then go for it! You simply need to decide "is it actually worth the length of time the combat will be" before you do so.

I think if it just happened to be a bunch of ogres on the way (not controlled by a boss, just something I had on the map from levels ago or something to add color and remind them of the threats normal people faced), I might make them minions here still.

 

[CreamCloud0]

So just change the scenario to not have minions? I'm not following.

the minions are a threat, however they're one that is intentionally designed to not last more that a couple of rounds, they chuck out a bunch of damage the first few rounds, they die, and the main threat gets to take centre stage with the party having a large section of their HP or maybe one or two of their big effects used up, rather than everyone having ganging up and focus fired on it the first turn.

The scenario was simple. Ogre leader is threatening the town and blackmailing them. The DM wants the leader to have a bunch of followers without blowing out the XP budget. The characters through clever play, scouting and a bit of luck figure out how to set up an ambush. They get the commoner townsfolk helping.

This is where it falls apart. The townsfolk were just supposed to be a distraction, throw some rocks down at the ogres and run away causing confusion and maybe some of the ogres chasing the townsfolk. Except the commoners start throwing rocks and ogre minions are dropping like flies.

I suppose the DM could have ignored the fact that they were minions, could have just had the commoners always miss or something else. But that's just papering over the issue.

Like I said I don't remember if it was ogres, I just remember the discussion around the encounter afterwards.

again as stated previously, this is why they probably ought to have some sort of damage threshold to overcome, random villagers are not high level adventurers, logically their cherry tapping should not be taking these monsters out and i feel keep circling back to this scenario of NPC chip damage is missing the fundamental narrative premise of the mechanic and how it's meant to be used.