Rule of Three: 20/3/12

[GreyICE]

No, they are saying the opposite. They will design the math so that 8 levels lower 5e creatures will still be threats, just easy to deal with like 4e minions of about your level.

Lemme put it this way. Minions are often built around swarm tactics. They have math simplifiers like not rolling dice for damage, so you can use many of them. They assume a basic harassment role based on their powers and abilities.

If 'minions' are made out of baseline monsters, then they lose a lot of that. You have to roll dice for their damage, slowing the game down. They don't have any nifty swarm tactics built in. They're not a strategic challenge, they're just the same goblins you fought 5 levels ago but more of them.

 

[Mattachine]

What other useful aspects to minions have that will not be present in the model suggested?

And isn't "unaligned" just another name for "neutral"? I know that one could play the true neutral alignment as pro-active for balance, but in most games I've played and seen "neutral" just meant "unaligned".

Minions are also specifically designed to be easy to run, with simple attacks and effects. That is not necessarily true if simply using lower level monsters as minions. Also, minions often have traits that come into play when in groups, or when a leader is present. Of course, a DM can add these in at-will, but then again, a DM can simply create all the monsters, too. It's nice to have some things done "out of the box", and nice to have good examples to work from.

As far as the neutral alignment goes, it has too much baggage to count as Unaligned for me. It currently has three interpretations: Nature (druids, animals, elementals), Cosmic Balance (Mordenkainen, Lady of Pain), and Indifferent (unaligned, commoners, unintelligent creatures). Other alignments don't have that many large interpretations attached. I would at least put in Unaligned.

Aside, [MENTION=6675228]Hassassin[/MENTION], CN is pretty specific in the 9 alignment system. It means you've chosen to, or were born to, actively cause/spread/embrace chaos. I want an alignment that means you didn't choose anything--Unaligned. I would like a 10-alignment system, where "Unaligned" exists separate from any notions of cosmic balance or nature.

 

[Klaus]

I am the only one who didn't like the minions as presented in 4e?
I always had found em a bit artificial, a bit gamey. Although i can see the merit as concept, the way that this concept was materialised didn't appeal to me. The new approach - less gamey - seems better imho.

You say "gamey", but minions were always more of a storytelling tool than anything else. The DM decides if this creature is gonna be one of those orcs mooks from LotR, which got killed by the droves, or if this creature is gonna be Lurtz, which gave Aragorn a run for his money.

Or maybe that Olympic torchbearer orc that Legolas couldn't kill, even though later he takes out a mumakil with just as many arrows.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Not having explicit minion rules is good. Having damage scale more and having hit point totals create implicit minions is not as bad; I'd probably just boost the hit points to avoid this happening (or maybe even let it happen in some situations).

I have to agree that while I could do without alignment, it is inherently a part of D&D. If the mechanical aspects are clearly optional, that would be a plus.

The third part is the most interesting. That the fighter's turn would be characterized as more dynamic than a caster's or that he's using maneuvers is good. The important question is, do all characters have some competency in the basic maneuvers, and are the maneuvers limited in such a way as to make them spell-like? Still not sold until I see that these problems have been avoided.

 

[Kaodi]

Maybe it is just me but it sounds a lot like they are expanding the system of multiple actions per round.

As for how to give different classes different feels, that's all going to come down to how the systems work. For example, if you substitute maneuvers in for individual attacks, the fighter class plays more like a mix-and-match system combining maneuvers and multiple attacks; on my turn, I charge the orc, then use my next attack to disarm him, and my final attack to push him back away from the weapon he dropped. Spells, on the other hand, are likely to be focused more on big effects, so that the cleric is more likely to cast a single flame strike spell that consumes much of what she does for that round.

I mean, it seems like a weird way to word things if it is just the same system that was used in 3.X. It almost sounds like the fighters charge and manuevers are all individual actions, while the flame strike uses multiple actions.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Between this and the leak (if it's authentic), I am really, really liking what we know so far about 5th edition. My hope is rekindled that D&D will once again be able to recapture that classic feel that have been missing in recent editions, IMO.

Good stuff. I am excited. More, please!

 

[Someone]

As others have said, the minion mechanic is more about making an encounter easy for DMs to run than anything else.

I had a negative vibe from each part of that Rule of Three:

1. Minions--keeping the one hit kill, but possibly not their other useful aspects
2. Alignment--suggesting that Unaligned goes away, keeping mechanical effects as a default--what happened to starting simple and adding to that?
3. Class Mechanics--multiple attacks for the fighter/rogue--cool, except for slowing down combats; didn't Mike Mearls design Iron Heroes and all that?

I sort of agree, but how they deal with it may save those aspects and make them actually good.

1- I appreciate the rules elegance in making obsolete monsters virtual minions without adding another monster category and extra rules, but minions have the advantage of being much more DM friendly. However if they include a guideline on how to deal with monsters of much lower level than the party with advice about to average the damage they deal, not caring too much about their hit points and possibly giving them insteresting effects when they die then they'll function as 4e minions withoy bogging down unexperienced DMs' games.

2- Looks like they are reserving the actual alignment based effects for powerful supernatural creatures like demons and such so farmer Bob, who cheats on his wife and kicks puppies for fun, won't worry about appearing in a paladin's evil radar. This is a good compromise, IMO and means that you can pretty much ignore the alignment based rules.

3- I have doubts about this one. I keep having the feeling that if the fighter just dealt damage to the orc it'd be dead or close, instead of just lightly hurt, disarmed and slightly out of position. Also it's difficult that a relatively small pool of possible maneuvers that remain constant with level will compete with an ever expanding choice of spells of increasing power.

 

[Hassassin]

As far as the neutral alignment goes, it has too much baggage to count as Unaligned for me. It currently has three interpretations: Nature (druids, animals, elementals), Cosmic Balance (Mordenkainen, Lady of Pain), and Indifferent (unaligned, commoners, unintelligent creatures). Other alignments don't have that many large interpretations attached. I would at least put in Unaligned.

Aside, [MENTION=6675228]Hassassin[/MENTION], CN is pretty specific in the 9 alignment system. It means you've chosen to, or were born to, actively cause/spread/embrace chaos. I want an alignment that means you didn't choose anything--Unaligned. I would like a 10-alignment system, where "Unaligned" exists separate from any notions of cosmic balance or nature.

I merely meant that if you want a character actively against enforcing balance. TN would more typically apply to an unaligned character - it is even described as "undecided" in 3e: (My bold.)

Neutral, "Undecided"
A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion.

 

[gyor]

I like what the Fifth Edition might do about minions and flattening the bonuses. I enjoyed the mechanical benefit of minions in the Fourth Edition, but they did strain belief at high levels: the monster could die with one blow, but it had a huge armour class.

I am nervous about most of things being said about fighters. Disarming, sundering, bull rushing, tripping and grappling are mundane everyday things any character can do with enough strength. I like to see some flashy and stunning tricks and combinations: basically many of the Fourth Edition powers were tricks that allowed the Fighter to do more than one thing with a single action. The Rule of Three here seems to be suggesting that the Fighter can do the three actions of hit, trip and push in one efficient action, but if it just means use your move and standard and minor action, that is three actions spent. The clerical Flamestrike takes one standard action. But i have no idea what the action economy will be in the Fifth Edition, which is why I am nervous but undecided.

I don't know if there even is minor and move actions. That being said I believe the fighter just gets multiple attacks as he advances in level, I don't know how many he maxes out at. It appears when ever the fighter can make an attack he can use a combat manuever instead. I do assume that these manuevers still deal some damage if not as much.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Unsurprisingly, I'm very excited to hear that they're experimenting with a "bounded accuracy system"! It's the direction I've been hoping they'd go with DDN.

As to minions, I agree that this would change them away from their role in 4e, however it also removes the "baggage" that made some players reject the notion. It shouldn't be at all difficult for them to include a template for converting "minions" into real minions. The template would give them flat damage, 1 hp, and an immunity to miss damage. Even if the designers don't include such a template, I predict we'd see a home brewed version within the first week of DDN's release (if not sooner).

I'm not the biggest fan of alignment, but given that Rodney said that the mechanical elements should be easily removable, I don't see a problem either. Although I'll echo others in saying that I'd like to see Unaligned join the other 9 Alignments as a viable choice.

Regarding the fighter being able to perform all of those maneuvers in one turn, according to the SA leak the fighter did get a bonus standard action once per day (at 4th level, I think). Perhaps it's some version of that, rather than something the fighter can do every round. Admittedly, three standard actions every turn seems a bit excessive, but if the fighter can only do so once per day, or even once per encounter, it seems much more reasonable.