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

[Enrahim]

I agree with that, and it fits with my interpretation. The "destroyed" wordings in the MM are typically attached to a monster feature. Examples include the Lich's "Indestructible" feature, the Skull Lord's "Triple Skulls" feature, and the Vampire's "Destroyed by Sunlight".

That means that they are not inevitably in conflict with Knocking Creatures Unconscious. For instance, one could reduce a vampire to 0 hit points by some means other than sunlight and in doing so choose to knock it unconscious.

That notwithstanding, when one of these features is invoked it takes the creature directly to destroyed. In such circumstances (i.e. where the feature applies), the creature can't be knocked unconscious. It's game state becomes destroyed and players don't get a choice about that. They don't get to have sunlight knock vampires unconscious, for example.

The circumstances attached to the Minion role are "takes any amount of damage". So in the same way that a vampire is destroyed by direct sunlight, a minion is destroyed by any amount of damage. Players don't get a choice about that.


To dismiss vampire would be cherry-picking. My interpretation covers all creatures that are destroyed, including vampires, equally.

I think you with this has convinced me that "destroyed" for minions indeed is meant to override the general 0 hp rule.

However I still then maintain that while a vampire destroyed by sunlight is commonly understood to be a pile of dust, a destroyed god is commonly understood to be basically eviscerated from reality, and a ceramics bowl destroyed by falling from a table is generally recognized as broken pieces; I do not think a similar common understanding of what a ogre minion "destroyed" from a whip attack looks like in the fiction exist. And I do not think 4ed does any attempt at all at clarifying this?

 

[MrBeens304]

In a movie the mooks are ignored after they fall for reasons of runtime. In an RPG runtime is not a concern; the players can take the time to have their PCs interact further with the mooks if they want to, and for reasons of info-gathering it's often to their benefit to do so.

It might also be in the PCs' best interests to charm a mook and keep it rather than kill it or run it off. I can't count the number of times I've both seen/done this as a player and run it as a DM.

Why try to enforce a movie trope at all in an RPG, which is a different medium?

I can't recall if Revivify was in 4e but it's certainly in 5e; and if the idea is to somehow port minions into 5e then Revivify comes into play.

And though we're using destroyed as a catch-all term for killed-defeated-incapacitated, it doesn't mean or imply the body has been run through a shredder. There should still be enough left to speak with...or animate, if you've got that type of group.

Or it means there's no such thing as a true one-hit mook in that game; they all have the potential to play a bigger role depending on how or if the PCs interact with them after they've been defeated.

Never mind that in theory if the mooks are rendered helpless and the PCs are supposed to be heroes, it then falls on the PCs to make sure the defeated mooks are patched up so they don't die and then either signed on to help the party, kept as prisoners, or allowed to run away; all of which requires more interaction than just one or two combat swings.

This is certainly a table preference thing, but "RPG runtime" can be a concern and is not just a a universal truth that it is not a concern.
Our game time is precious, we actively try to reduce busywork, distractions and wasted time.
Things that come under this banner:

• After a fight dealing with all the "non dead" - chasing down runaways, dealing with prisoners, interrogating each and every survivor (we also have a standing rule of no scenes of torture etc, so this also removes that temptation for breaking
• Looting - no lets not examine every goblin, keep track of the 16 short swords in the bag of holding, trying to sell them back at town for 5 copper each
• Consumable tracking - Rations, ammo etc
• Minimal "back in town upkeep" - only actually play out significant interactions,
• Not playing out each and every day of travel
  

 

[clearstream]

I do not think a similar common understanding of what a ogre minion "destroyed" from a whip attack looks like in the fiction exist. And I do not think 4ed does any attempt at all at clarifying this?

Agreed, and that seems like an example of what @Hussar outlined upthread...

The designers in 4e were really, really clear about how the mechanics worked and why they worked that way. They repeatedly showed you how the sausage was made and didn't try to gloss over it. They told the players and DM's, "Hey, this is the game. This is how and why this game works like this. Now, it's your job, as players, to build from that and create all the fictions in your game world."

The problem being, as you wrote upthread, that sometimes it's hard to square frank game system with cromulent fiction. A risk in systematizing narrative tropes is they become parody (your tight-skinned ogre for e.g.) and I suspect the designers really expected players to treat minions more or less as objects.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i don't really have a horse in this race but it occurs to me, minions weren't just any one type of monster right? you literally had a template which you could apply to any monster to minionise it, could the fact the term 'destroyed' be used be more of a result that not all minions would've necessarily been creatures and thus specifically 'killed' when at 0HP? so they were just using the more broad term.