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

[AlViking]

Keep in mind that with 4e D&D, "just an ogre" isn't really a thing. The "ogre" is represented by a variety of different stat-blocked NPCs: ogre thug (minion), ogre bludgeoner (minion), ogre savage (brute), ogre skirmisher (skirmisher), ogre warhulk (brute), ogre cave hunter (lurker), ogre ironclad (soldier), ogre storm shaman (controller), and ogre dreadnaught (soldier). In this way, they operate more as specialized units instead of some sort of platonic or static idea of "ogre."

Nobody claims they aren't different monsters according to the rules. That doesn't mean they aren't the same monster in our shared modern fantasy fiction. Some may be more skilled or dangerous than others but the dichotomy of the "low level" ogre having over a hundred HP vs an ogre with far better AC and hits for far more damage having 1 HP is incongruous to a lot of people.

 

[Aldarc]

Nobody claims they aren't different monsters according to the rules. That doesn't mean they aren't the same monster in our shared modern fantasy fiction.

That's all the more reason why I personally find the argument against minions to be somewhat absurd. In the fiction, they are all ogres. 1 HP? 50 HP? 100? Who cares? Obviously, I guess that you do. Monster stat blocks are GM tools for me. They don't tell the full story of the fiction. There are so many times when I could easily grab some other monster, call it an ogre, and throw it at my players without them being the wiser because what matters to them is the shared fiction that it's an ogre.

Some may be more skilled or dangerous than others but the dichotomy of the "low level" ogre having over a hundred HP vs an ogre with far better AC and hits for far more damage having 1 HP is incongruous to a lot of people.

"Incongruous to a lot of people" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It's more accurate to simply say that they are incongruous to you, which is fine. Tastes vary. However, there are so many successful TTRPGs out there with minion rules or equivalents, including the recently released Daggerheart and Draw Steel. I think that trying to say that minion rules are "incongruous to a lot of people" doesn't necessarily hold up. It's even possible that the people who are disturbed by minion rules are less than you think or make it seem.

To be clear, I prefer if people speak to their own preferences instead of speaking for “a lot of people.” The tiny teacup that contains this mild storm on ENWorld is hardly representative of the preferences of the broader hobby.

 

[Faolyn]

Not sure what you mean here. The dragon's breath weapon does its max hit points in damage, not its current hit points.

MM just says "equal to its hit points." I've always heard that as current hp, not max. So it's just another issue of unclear writing.

This is all new on me. Dragons in various media today tend to get nastier as they get more injured, not the reverse.

Those old movies are a whole 'nother world.

 

[Lanefan]

When I ran 4e a second time, I modified minions to have a shared health pool. 4 minions would have hit points equivalent to a standard creature of that level. Whenever a hit lowered their total hit points by 25%, that would be the hit that killed the minion, assuming that the damage had at least been equal to the monster's level. Otherwise it just applied to the pool.

Now this is an interesting idea.

It occurs to me you can set the pooled hit point value to whatever makes sense - could be two standard creatures, or one, or a multiplier of how many mooks you're throwing in (e.g. ten mooks, give 'em 10 hit points each, that's a 100 point pool; but now you only have to track one number instead of ten and every ten damage takes down a mook). Quickly thinking about it, I'd probably go with the multiplier idea.

The advantage here is that the low-damage-dealers can still help because there's no damage threshold, and if for some reason the whole party are poor at giving out damage they can still all contribute to slowly draining the pool.

It made minions vulnerable to AoE damage, which helped prioritize controller abilities over striker single-target damage, but the striker's overflow damage would still be useful even when used on a minion.

The way to limit what AoE can do is to be harsh on positioning: the AoE can only affect so much area and that area can only hold so many mooks. Or, have it that for mooks only, AoE damage is only given once. A 38-point fireball against six mooks doesn't do 38 to each one, it does 38 to the pool (forego the save); only three of the six go down and the pool has 22 points left.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think this is the whole story. I have played with MCDM minions as a player, not a DM. In the situation you describe the minions are all one-hit, but the way the damage carryover works the Fighter is going to do more damage and kill more monsters.

For example with Minions with 11 hps the Cleric hits one, does 10 damage and kills one minion. The Fighter hits and does 25 damage and kills 2; the one he hit and another one more with the 15 damage carryover, if he manages good rolls and does 31 damage he kills 3 of them in one shot.

I am not saying you are wrong, but it is highly situational who specifically is favored.

Ah. I was ignoring follow-through or cleave mechanics.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Now this is an interesting idea.

It occurs to me you can set the pooled hit point value to whatever makes sense - could be two standard creatures, or one, or a multiplier of how many mooks you're throwing in (e.g. ten mooks, give 'em 10 hit points each, that's a 100 point pool; but now you only have to track one number instead of ten and every ten damage takes down a mook). Quickly thinking about it, I'd probably go with the multiplier idea.

The advantage here is that the low-damage-dealers can still help because there's no damage threshold, and if for some reason the whole party are poor at giving out damage they can still all contribute to slowly draining the pool.

The way to limit what AoE can do is to be harsh on positioning: the AoE can only affect so much area and that area can only hold so many mooks. Or, have it that for mooks only, AoE damage is only given once. A 38-point fireball against six mooks doesn't do 38 to each one, it does 38 to the pool (forego the save); only three of the six go down and the pool has 22 points left.

I could see the shared minion hp pool working for me if it had an in-universe reason to exist; for example, if the creatures were mystical linked such that one (I would have it at random) from the group drops when any of the group are damaged such that the total exceeds a certain percentage of the pool. Like morale rules, but leading to death rather than flight. That would be pretty cool.

 

[clearstream]

Appeal to popularity is not a solid rhetorical position. Especially popularity among unnamed masses. This is among the weakest appeals to authority extant.

Just for clarity, I refer to acceptance by other academics pursuing game studies. The notion of procedural rhetoric has at least been influential.

 

[clearstream]

Broadly speaking, sure. But there is a time and place and method for things.

I don't see any strong justification to say that this particular conversation should be ruled out of this sprawling thread.

 

[Faolyn]

Yes it is, to the point where this should pretty much go without saying.

Get the mechanical simulation of its physicality vaguely right and the narrative will take care of itself.

And yet in a D&D play situation it's very easy to imagine a situation arising where a 10-year-old villager is stuck facing down (or is even intentionally trying to help the PCs against) an Ogre to which the level of the PCs has given "minion" status. Then what?

Or never mind a 10-year-old; let's make it the village policeman, all one level of Fighter of him, standing up to that minion Ogre while the PCs deal with some other threats. Now what?

This goes back to my much earlier question about lower-level henches in the party and how they work with minions, which got largely pooh-poohed with answers saying, in effect, 4e didn't have henches; hardly helpful, and I'm sure there's 4e tables that did (and maybe still do) have henches or followers or hirelings as a thing.

I think it was pointed out that those ogre minions had an AC of 27 (the minimum AC that a minion ogre thug could have, which is 16 + the monster's level; ogre thugs are level 11). No low-level guard (let alone a child) would be able to actually hit the ogre minion, except on a very lucky roll of 20. So: a 1-in-20 chance of a David-and-Goliath effect, at which point all the other ogre minions immediately converge and kill the heck out of that guard. Because minions come in groups (that's the point of minions), and the minion template doesn't affect how much damage they do. Also, minion groups don't come alone--there are non-minion, more powerful ogre leaders there as well. With boatloads of hit points.

 

[AlViking]

That's all the more reason why I personally find the argument against minions to be somewhat absurd. In the fiction, they are all ogres. 1 HP? 50 HP? 100? Who cares? Obviously, I guess that you do. Monster stat blocks are GM tools for me. They don't tell the full story of the fiction. There are so many times when I could easily grab some other monster, call it an ogre, and throw it at my players without them being the wiser because what matters to them is the shared fiction that it's an ogre.


"Incongruous to a lot of people" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It's more accurate to simply say that they are incongruous to you, which is fine. Tastes vary. However, there are so many successful TTRPGs out there with minion rules or equivalents, including the recently released Daggerheart and Draw Steel. I think that trying to say that minion rules are "incongruous to a lot of people" doesn't necessarily hold up. It's even possible that the people who are disturbed by minion rules are less than you think or make it seem.

To be clear, I prefer if people speak to their own preferences instead of speaking for “a lot of people.” The tiny teacup that contains this mild storm on ENWorld is hardly representative of the preferences of the broader hobby.

The stats for a creature are just there to represent a fictional creature that exists in our shared imagination. Ogres are one of those monsters that, like dragons, have a pretty clear depiction in fantasy literature and non-game depictions.

The rules of the game didn't match expectations for us. By "us" I mean the people in a couple groups I played with. Low level minions were okay because low level monsters are supposed to be wimpy and were things that didn't really have built in expectations.

High level minions (especially things like ogres) just didn't make sense to us so we never used them.

It's fine if they worked for you, im just relaying the experience for me and the people I played with.