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

[Maxperson]

And yet the game text has "destroyed". It uses this word in a game-system sense, rather than simulative.

It will be a poor interpretation that interprets a "minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage" in a way that results in a minion taking some amount of damage and not being destroyed.


I disagree. Knocking Creatures Unconscious generally applies to all monster roles. The Minion monster role specifically asserts an exception to it.

EDIT One way I look at this is to consider what text would make all creatures with a specific role not knock-out-able when reduced to 0 hit points without making them immune to  sleep etc.

In any event, I remain pessimistic about your chances of presenting an argument that I will agree with, and am not particularly optimistic about mine in return. So let us again just agree to disagree?

I'm curious how you square away that the game allows destroyed creatures to be knocked out, with your stance that destroyed creatures can't be knocked out.

Elementals, constructs, demons, angels, undead, etc. are all destroyed. That's the language the 4e MM uses. Just like minions, and yet there is no carve out in the section regarding knocking creatures unconscious that says you cannot knock out those categories of creatures. You can in fact knock out a creature that is destroyed and not killed.

You don't seem to have an issue with the above, yet are arguing that minions which are also destroyed can't be knocked out.

 

[clearstream]

I'm curious how you square away that the game allows destroyed creatures to be knocked out, with your stance that destroyed creatures can't be knocked out.

Elementals, constructs, demons, angels, undead, etc. are all destroyed. That's the language the 4e MM uses. Just like minions, and yet there is no carve out in the section regarding knocking creatures unconscious that says you cannot knock out those categories of creatures. You can in fact knock out a creature that is destroyed and not killed.

You don't seem to have an issue with the above, yet are arguing that minions which are also destroyed can't be knocked out.

I count 41 appearances of "destroyed" in the 4e core MM. All are consistent with my interpretation (that destroyed is a game state that once reached cannot be reverted to unconscious.) Here are some interesting examples

When a lich is reduced to 0 hit points, its body and possessions crumble into dust, but it is not destroyed. It reappears (along with its possessions) in 1d10 days within 1 square of its phylactery, unless the phylactery is also found and destroyed.​

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When a skull lord is reduced to 0 hit points, one of its skulls (determined randomly from the three listed above) is destroyed, and it loses the ability to use that power. If the creature has any skulls remaining, it instantly heals to full hit points (40 hit points). When all three skulls are destroyed, the skull lord is destroyed as well.​

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A vampire spawn that begins its turn in direct sunlight can take only a single move action on its turn. If it ends the turn in direct sunlight, it burns to ash and is destroyed.​

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Each forms a specific exception to the Knocking Creatures Unconscious general rule. But can you cite the specific text you are thinking of?

 

[Maxperson]

I count 41 appearances of "destroyed" in the 4e core MM. All are consistent with my interpretation (that destroyed is a game state that once reached cannot be reverted to unconscious.) Here are some interesting examples

When a lich is reduced to 0 hit points, its body and possessions crumble into dust, but it is not destroyed.​

​

When a skull lord is reduced to 0 hit points, one of its skulls (determined randomly from the three listed above) is destroyed, and it loses the ability to use that power. If the creature has any skulls remaining, it instantly heals to full hit points (40 hit points). When all three skulls are destroyed, the skull lord is destroyed as well.​

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A vampire spawn that begins its turn in direct sunlight can take only a single move action on its turn. If it ends the turn in direct sunlight, it burns to ash and is destroyed.​

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Each forms a specific exception to the Knocking Creatures Unconscious general rule. But can you cite the specific text you are thinking of?

Can you show anything written that says specifically how any of those that are performed by a PC invalidates the rule that if you knock a CREATURE(no exceptions in the rule for any type of creature) to 0 you can render it unconscious? For a rule to specifically beat another one, you need to show specificity, not just assume what the word might mean. Otherwise both are in force and need to be squared away so that both function, unless you want to create a house rule.

A vampire in direct sunlight is clearly not something a PC is doing. That example isn't really relevant here.

In the rules as thy are written, destroyed just equals killed for creatures who are not truly alive. Though as I said, that doesn't square with minions that are alive as it treats living beings as objects.

 

[clearstream]

both are in force and need to be squared away so that both function, unless you want to create a house rule.

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.

A vampire in direct sunlight is clearly not something a PC is doing. That example isn't really relevant here.

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

 

[AnotherGuy]

I don't think that's bizarre at all. Stories and games are different things, and there's no need to use mechanics to direct a game to follow a particular narrative path.

There is never a need but I'd dare say almost every table does it and they're likely not aware of it. Some examples of 5e mechanics which can assist directing a particular narrative storylines are Gritty Rests, Low Magic Settings (Restrictions on Magic) , Renown, Loyalty, Honour, Sanity, Healing Surges, Horror, Lingering Injuries.
The 3.5e DMG is riddled with variant mechanics at the bottom of its pages. Many of these mechanics help direct specific narrative arcs.
The 2e DMG had the optional rules listed in blue columns.

What I think you are objecting to is exceptional mechanics which buck the rule but that is not what I'm arguing. The debate is whether mechanics (in general) should be used for tropes to emulate different media. My contention is they are already, all the time.
Just because one is not a fan of the minion mechanic doesn't mean other mechanics don't already exist in one's game to emulate a trope.

If you think about its embedded everywhere.
For instance, the Wild Magic mechanic of a Sorcerer is there to follow a trope.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Yes.

A TV-based example of one-shot minions are most of the fights in Hercules and Xena. Usually there the mooks get clobbered, pick themselves up, and run for the hills; and while fine for campy entertainment like that, it actually makes very little in-character sense that the heroes a) let them go (usually without even catching one to question) and then b) don't track them to their base to either round them up or finish them off.

The other thing Game of Thrones does that Herc-Xena really doesn't is better reflect the idea that there's a whole range of fighting capabilities (i.e. levels) between mook and master.

Putting aside that you decided to select a campy TV show for your issue with minions you admitted that minions/monks exist in GoT but are ok with it because it visually looks better.
Looks better can easily be narrated it better.

 

[Hussar]

I'd be fine with it if destroyed were actually defined in the rules and the definition was different from killed, but it isn't. To make matters worse, in 4e elementals, undead, outsiders(not sure that's the term for them), and constructs are all destroyed, yet since they are all creatures they can be knocked out.

Why can destroyed creatures(elementals, undead, outsiders, etc.) be knocked out, but destroyed creatures(minions) cannot be? It makes no sense.

Again, it makes perfect sense when you've decided that this is the hill you are going to die on and no amount of evidence will shift your perspective. As I said, @clearstream's interpretation means that minions are immortal, never need to eat or sleep, and are utterly immune to diseases. The only way they can be destroyed (since they cannot be killed) is to deal HP damage and, other than combat, very little causes HP damage.

Heh. Thinking about it, it actually turns D&D minions into something that looks a LOT like Minions from the movies - they apparently live forever and virtually nothing actually kills them.

This is why reading RAW in very specific, inflexible ways results in ridiculous examples. I'm still waiting to see how @clearstream would care to justify immortal orc minions as somehow something that is intended by his interpretation of the rules.

 

[Hussar]

You realise you just brought up Game of Thrones killing off main characters as a defense of your style game (which I have no issue over) in the other thread but somehow draw the line at one-shot minions as the bridge too far?

Again, this is a very good example of the 6 impossible things before breakfast. It doesn't matter that the first six things are identical to the seventh thing. We make exceptions for the first six things because no one made us actually think about them before. But, that seventh one is right there in your face and is crystal clear about how the first six impossible things are also completely ridiculous.

So, instead of simply shrugging and adding one more impossible thing to the pile of impossible things we already accept in the name of willing suspension of disbelief, we claim that that seventh thing is totally different and then jump through all sorts of mental hoops in order to "prove" that it's different in order to maintain the fiction that it is, somehow, not the same as all the other stuff we don't have a problem with.

And, largely, the only reason that the seventh thing is a problem is because it doesn't pretend that it isn't impossible. 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." Previous versions and 5e all try to bury the lede and pretend that the reason they do things a certain way is because of "in game fiction" or some handwavey lie like that. Thus we get things like "Gygaxian Naturalism" which is just so much after the fact justification of pure gamism.

I've always maintained that 4e's main problem was presentation. If 4e had been written in 5e style, the history of the game would be VERY different. 4e's biggest mistake was treating gamers like they were in on the joke. Like gamers knew how the magic trick worked. It turns out that gamers really, REALLY don't want that. They want the pretense and the illusion. They have zero interest in seeing how the sausage is made. 4e treated gamers like chefs when gamers want to be treated like diners.

 

[clearstream]

I'm still waiting to see how @clearstream would care to justify immortal orc minions as somehow something that is intended by his interpretation of the rules.

It is answered in general here (and my next post answers your particular worry)...

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.

As a game, they say that Minions are destroyed by any amount of damage.

 

[clearstream]

The only way they can be destroyed (since they cannot be killed) is to deal HP damage and, other than combat, very little causes HP damage.

I think I follow you. You seem to believe that I read

A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage.​

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As​

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A minion is destroyed if and only if it takes any amount of damage.​

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But nowhere do I propose doing so! I read "when" as simply "when" (non-exclusive). Hence your worry here relates to some interpretation other than mine.