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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Danzauker" data-source="post: 4384178" data-attributes="member: 1929">Well, it's obvious who the minions are: they're the ones wearing a red jacket!Jokes aside, IMHO minions should not have a "M" floating over them, but players should in most cases be able to discern them, because they are supposed to look and act like minions, and because of some good reasons.- Verisimilitude: in RW commanders and leaders were easily identifiable by means of pennants and standards not because they were fond of drawing enemy fire, but because allied troops knew who to look at to get orders and coordinate their actions on the battlefield.Also, I expect orcish warchiefs to get the best weapons and armor from their loot, and to be equipped visibly better than his subordinates.Even in animal / low intelligence packs of monsters the pack leader would be most probably the biggest and best fed individual, and the one to launch the attack.So overall, I expect it would be easy to spot the real bead gays from the mooks just by good DM fluff.- Mechanics: roles expect minions to be identified as such to some extent, in some way. A wizard is most effective against minions, while a rogue would not like to waste his sneak attack on a 1hp minion.Making combat become a "guess the minion" thing I think cheapens good tactics and is not that funny.It's for the same reason players should know which enemies are bloodied. If they didn't, some of their powers would be crippled.- Narrative: in classic fantasy I expect the BBEG vampire to say something cheesy like "attact those puny mortals, my slaves, while I complete the ritual that will make me invincible!" to his spawn.This because it makes clear what the objectives of the player are. Mooks and grunt level opponents are supposed to be obstacles the heroes must beat in order to get to the real deal. Heroes should not waste time trying to guess out who the minions are, but trying to get to the mean guy for the real showdown.They are not much better than a trap, in a way. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />So, yes, I think im most cases the DM should give clear clues to the players to who is a minion and who is not. Like for other monster roles. After all, I gues any adventurer with a minimum of experience can tell that the chest punching and charging ogre is a Brute, the gobling staying in the back pointing a bow is Artillery and the shaking kobolds sent in the front line by the yelling warchief are Minions.As I expect intelligent monster to be easily able to tell that the PC with the big sword and armor that steps ahead to block his way is a Defender, and the one trying to circle him from behind is a Striker.They would not use those terms, of course, but I guess an intelligent leader would use the best tactics depending on what he sees.That is not to say he has to use minions stupidly. I don't think that minions should move all together in group waiting for that fireball to incinerate them. Nor that the DM should have tham spread out around the party in order to negate area attacks.Metagame works both ways. The DM should remember that minions don't know thay are minions, and use them logically, like he would do for any monster. I think it would be best to use minions together with "regular" monsters, let's say have some orc minions lead by an orc "sergeant" that guides them attack the party, so that a nice area attack will hopefully leave only the standard orc to fight.Just my 2c of course.</blockquote>

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