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

[Maxperson]

Weren't people telling me earlier that minion mechanics weren't about narrative, but were instead Gamist in nature? Or were you not in that camp?

Oh, right. People were fighting tooth and nail for it not to be narrative and instead gamist. I didn't see @Umbran in that group, though.

 

[Cadence]

@Maxperson on the other hand, it would be fun to work out the economy and culture of a place where most people (commoners) only used clubs as weapons, and ditto for all other NPC classes only using the weapon listed in the MM.

 

[Maxperson]

@Maxperson on the other hand, it would be fun to work out the economy and culture of a place where most people (commoners) only used clubs as weapons, and ditto for all other NPC classes only using the weapon listed in the MM.

How would such a culture even come about, and why would the PCs be an exception to a cultural practice that widespread? It might be fun for you, but that doesn't sound like my idea of fun.

 

[Cadence]

How would such a culture even come about, and why would the PCs be an exception to a cultural practice that widespread? It might be fun for you, but that doesn't sound like my idea of fun.

I think I meant "could" and had a wrong letter and missing quotes!

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Question: what's the functional difference between giving minions a damage threshold and just leaving them with the hit points they would have had were they not minions?

Again, though, what's the functional difference between this and just leaving them their normal hit points?

I don't have to track them on my scrap sheet behind the GM screen. They get hit ..they die. No tracking conditions and any other kind of overhead....they get hit ..they die. Or they don't die and get knocked out. Or they run away. Or they cower in the corner because they are scared of big bad hero character.

Once again....the rules exist to serve the narrative. 0HP doesn't have to mean they were literally slaughtered if the fiction works better otherwise.

I have been in this board a long long time and I know that you and I have almost polar opposite views of how RPGs "work" for us. I never let a rule bar me from telling the story I want to tell.

No 10 year old with a handheld rock is going to kill an ogre....unless the narrative presents an opportunity for them to do so. I don't hem and haw about the rules behind minions....because I just view those files as an additional color in my paint set.

I usually used minions to represent distant does that weren't directly engaged in a battle....like archers on a castle wall. If a player wanted to give up an important combat round to deal with that threat....then they can. I don't need to track 40 archers on a walls I dividual HP anymore than I need to actually roll 40 attacks against the players because they are there.

Instead an Infinitely more interesting and dynamic battlefield can be had by having those archers provide "damaging zones" on the map akin to trap damage when moved through or forcing attacks at disadvantage as the players are constantly keeping their head on a swivel to avoid getting pincushioned.

Everyone has different play styles and you are arguing strictly from a sumulationist standpoint against the idea of minions when you have never used them in (my sole opinion) the context in which they were designed to be used.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Question: what's the functional difference between giving minions a damage threshold and just leaving them with the hit points they would have had were they not minions?

A PC cannot 1-shot an Ogre easily.

The minion with the DT can be 1-shotted. The point being that the attack needs to do a minimum amount of damage so there has to be some effort required by the PC.
And it comes down to taste - so if I remove the DR completely you can imagine a wizard extending out his hand releasing a magic missile from each of his fingertips and tearing through the neck of each of the ogres around him, dropping then like some kind of Jedi Master.
But adding a DT that makes it a little harder to do. What DT number is used will depend I suspect from table to table or even encounter to encounter.

Also refer below.

Again, though, what's the functional difference between this and just leaving them their normal hit points?

Tracking less in combat, increase combat pace.
Streamlined combat when dealing with lots of participants.

My next high level encounter will see 50 or so participants, mechanics that helps streamline the process are useful.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Oh, right. People were fighting tooth and nail for it not to be narrative and instead gamist. I didn't see @Umbran in that group, though.

I'm of the opinion minions can be used for both.

In @Umbran's example they serve primarily if not solely as narrative set pieces. In my next session's battle they'll be part of a mass combat encounter, and identified as minions, with less focus on their narrative role, but rather serve as tactical obstacles.

 

[MichaelSomething]

WOTC made minions because they thought tracking the HP of twenty plus creatures was too much of a pain.

Does anyone here want to share tips for managing a fight with thirty of so giants??

 

[MrBeens304]

But that goes back to whether or not someone wants monsters to just fill a narrative role and did minions fill that role. If I want a game that leaned into narrative tropes, I wouldn't play D&D.

It's a matter of preference of course but for me minions just never worked. They always felt like a cheat code in a video game, a "You win" button. It was like they wanted to do a narrative game but only for some things and not others.

If I were to use them (I rarely did) I would have something like a "faded" condition, where the monster, of whatever sort, had been affected by some debilitating curse. Not only do they look different but there's also an in-world reason for them to only have 1 HP.

Meanwhile it was just weird that my dragonborn Grr could use his breath weapon on two ogres that look almost identical and one dies and the other is barely touched.

Re bolded: LOL what? The core of D&D is all about replicating narrative tropes - Classes, levels, adventure parties, fighting monsters, getting loot.

Re minions: I get that minon's don't work for everyone, that is fine. But what is this obsession with Ogres being this one mono-Ogre, all Ogres are exactly the same. If we can accept that humans can range from 5hp to 200 hp, dragons can exist at different age levels with different HP and abilities, why do Ogres all of a sudden have to all be identical to each other?

 

[CreamCloud0]

There is no way someone who is not trained extensively should be able to use either a dagger or a crossbow effectively in combat.

Club yes. Quarterstaff - it depends on exactly what you mean by that. Oriental Bo stick - no, 16th century English Quarterstaff - no, Galdalfs walking stick - sure.

If we want to bring logic into this discussion, you can break simple weapons into three groups:

Easy to use without training: Club, Greatclub, Small hammer, Sickle, Shortbow, Spear, Dart, Hand Axe (when not throwing it)

Hard to use in combat without extensive training: Light Crossbow, Javelin, Dagger, Hand axe (when throwing), Sling

Weapons which it is not clear exactly what they refer to and could be hard or easy depending: Mace, Quarterstaff

slight tangent, i've long thought now that weapons in 5e ought to be split up into three tiers instead of two: simple, martial and expert, but something that just occurred to me is getting additional bonuses on weapons of a lower tier than what you're trained in so that the situation occurs where more proficient classes like a fighter or paladin for example might ever actually have reason to use a dagger, greatclub or shortbow as their primary weapon of choice,