Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pickles JG" data-source="post: 5353078" data-attributes="member: 61501">I have used 2 hit minions, they could be alive - bloodied - unconscious or dead.These were the crew on a boat the PCs were travelling on in a "Heart of Darkness" scenario. They were mostly there to be rescued from peril or die horrible deaths, not add to the combat power of the party though. As such, since the are so fragile, I do not consider them to add to the strength of the PCs team. In fact if the PCs really do want to keep them alive they weaken it. IIRC I do not think mine did much attacking being busy sailing but even if they did they can be a liability. Any healing type effect the PCs used on a minion improved its status one step & temp HP etc would give them an extra buffed step. Crits & big damage powers - single target encounter powers for example - could inflict 2 steps of damage.  Swarms seem to be the easiest way to run a lot of NPCs but casualties would seem a bit abstract then. If you do not want to narrate the play of the NPCs then the best way to do it whatever mechanics you use is to let the players run their share of them - on minion/ swarm or pack of minions per PC. If the NPCs are not fighting merely getting in the way then the DM can run them without getting bogged down in playing with himself. I really hate the games where DMs insist on running large numbers of NPCs on both sides & the players get to watch him playing mastubatory D&D.</blockquote>

Verification