D&D 5E Simulation vs Game - Where should D&D 5e aim?

[Umbran]

If two completely disparate mechanical frameworks could conceivably be applied to the same situation, that isn't a very well-designed set of rules.

My hammer is a well designed tool... if I'm hammering nails. It's a pretty poorly designed tool if I am trying to loosen a bolt. Whenever you say something is "well designed", there needs to be a definition of what task they're designed to do.

Folks playing RPGs are by no means all trying to do the same thing. You and I might sit down with the same ruleset, but have somewhat different base playstyles, and in many cases both have a good time. So, a flat statement of "that is well designed" seems poorly founded. You might say such rules are not well-designed for your preferred playstyle. But, since there's folks who play differently, I don't think the flat declaration is well-founded.

For you, having two disparate mechanical frameworks may seem like confusion. But maybe to someone else, that looks like flexibility - they can choose the framework that fits the mood of the table at the time, or creates the better pacing in the adventure, or what have you. Maybe you very specifically want a well-designed cutting blade for chopping vegetables, and that's all you ever want. Someone else may be looking for a Swiss Army knife. They'll think those rules are fine, even if you find them shoddy.

 

[Umbran]

Neither reality nor shared genre conceptions are rules.

Reality certainly works by rules. Ask your nearest physics professor.

And, shared genre conceptions are rules kind of like the Pirate's Code in certain Johnny Depp movies. You can break 'em, but you have to be careful of when you do that, or there'll be some major problems. Break genre, and you break with expectations - and that's great sometimes and really, really bad at others.

 

[the Jester]

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] is the only 4e GM around here who I know runs a sandbox (maybe [MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION] too?). Maybe they can tell us how they use minions (if at all).

Yep, I run a sandbox.

Yes, I use minions. I use them a lot, and sometimes I use a lot of them.

If the basic question here- and I haven't been following this thread for the last, like, week or something- is how a sandbox works in 4e vis-a-vis monsters when the pcs hit it at different levels, let me give you an example.

Early in my current 4e group's career, they found a big ass dungeon beneath a fissure opened up by an earthquake. They found it at first or second level, made a few forays in and managed to gain the allegiance of some goblins in there. Deeper levels included tougher monsters: a pair of wererats with a baby purple dragon, durgar, eventually a level of troglodytes suffering from internecine religious war... and so on.

The pcs are now in the mid-20s, levelwise, and have returned to the same dungeon. The demographics of the dungeon have changed in the meantime, with a troglodyte cleric and his allies having killed most of their own people and animated them as zombies.

So what stats am I using as the pcs explore? Basically, I'm doing three things.

1. Encounters with one, or even a few, of the trog zombies get handwaved. "As you guys move into the next chamber, you see a pair of the shambling zombies start to stagger toward you. You easily dispatch them." Generally there's not even any need for dice.

2. Encounters with many of the trogzombs are played out, treating each mass of trogzombs as a swarm (custom stats on this).

3. Then, of course, there are a few heavy hitting monsters down there that can work as-is: a dragon turtle (alas, they already killed it), some high-level evil leader types, etc.

That doesn't address the minion question directly, but it shows what I do when we step beyond the point at which a given monster would be 'minionized.'

Now, let's take the example of giants. Near the end of their paragon tier adventures, the pcs made enemies of a tribe of frost giants. At the time I was using standard mid-teen-levels frost giants for most of their stats. When a band of them attacked the party some levels later, I rewrote their leader's stat block from an elite level 19 or thereabouts to a standard monster a few levels higher (I usually try to make the xp values roughly equal when I do this) and rewrote the rest of them into level 21 or 22 minions.

In 4e, the stats a monster wears at a given moment aren't absolute. They're relative to the party. I think that's one of the issues a lot of folks have with it, but because of the rate the math changes at, you kind of have to accept this if you want to make the system sing.

As far as higher level minions- I don't have a problem with e.g. the 1st level pcs encountering 4th level minions. I wouldn't build that encounter as a matter of course, though. The thing about that kind of encounter is that you have to ask yourself, as the dm, how you want the pcs to perceive the monster in question. Sticking to duergar as an example, if you want the pcs to perceive duergar as a bunch of bad asses that they need to be wary of, wait on the minions until the pcs have had a chance to deal with several of the "standard" duergar. But if the pcs raid a duergar fort and find the less-combative types (e.g. the old retired guy with one leg, the women and children, if duergar have the stereotypical dwarven patriarchal society, etc), minions are perfect for representing them.

I use minions in two basic ways: 1. Cannon fodder and 2. To represent creatures that aren't a significant individual threat due to pc competence.

I'm not sure if that answers the question adequately, but I would be happy to go into more specifics if anyone has further questions for me.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Yep, I run a sandbox.
....
In 4e, the stats a monster wears at a given moment aren't absolute. They're relative to the party. I think that's one of the issues a lot of folks have with it, but because of the rate the math changes at, you kind of have to accept this if you want to make the system sing....

A really interesting read on how you do things. Thinking about what you are doing, it looks like it works very well*, and quite smoothely, except for the fact that you are recalculating all the monsters every 3-5 levels? As far as I can tell, if you ran this in 5e, with it's bounded accuracy, you could run the monsters without altering them and handwave combat if it gets too easy. How do you think the job as a DM would be in 5e?

*with a simulationist feel, not gamist

 

[Aenghus]

No that's not my point (though in all honesty I don't think 1st level characters should be one-shot'ing Duergar and Devils)... but by this description it seems you are asserting that Duergar minions aren't there to be used as relative versions of standard Duergar that represent a character hitting a level where Duergar or Devil's aren't a major threat... because that's been the prevailing wisdom from the 4e side in this thread. Are you saying that minions are just level 4 monsters that happen to have equipment and training that is so bad it is represented by them having 1 hit point and going down after 1 hit? and if so are you asserting this for all minions, say something like fire giants or ogres?

I'm not the person you asked but I can give my response.

The minion rules serve multiple purposes and even people who use them have differences of opinion on when and how they are used.

Minions can be poorly trained and equipped versions of standard monsters, or represent monsters you once found a challenge some levels ago but that you now outclass or non-combatants who happen to be caught up in the encounter or the spawn of a solo monster. Often, they literally are the faceless minions of action films that can be mown down to show how badass the PCs are, so they can be apparently well equipped, like star wars stormtroopers, but literally outclassed by the PCs.

As regards to players identifying minions, I treat it on a case by case basis. Sometimes I say it's obvious, sometimes the players have to use reconnaissance by fire. YMMV.

A minion is an NPC that represents a limited threat to the PCs. They appear as groups and are designed to have low book-keeping. The 1 hp thing is an approximation to reduce the book keeping of managing large numbers of monsters. Since minions are about the same level as the PCs, the PCs will have on average a 50-60% chance to hit one on a single attack, so there is no guarantee of a one-shot-kill on any hit roll as misses do no damage.
(autodamage attacks are a separate issue, and for me at least not a problem, no more than auto-hitting magic missiles in previous editions).

If the players know the DM sometimes uses minions it can serve to discourage immediate alpha strikes, which I found could be a problem in earlier editions as the most effective tactic, leading to the 15 minute day. Powergamers hate the idea of wasting big damage on 1 hp monsters, especially when they take no damage on a miss. For me this improves the pacing of the game, where players need to size their opponents up first, then make their move, rather than immediately resort to nukes(which I found could be the best way to survive in high level 3.x). The BBEG might even get to successfully monologue and still live past round one.

I disagree with some of the printed uses of minions, such as having the initial appearance of a dangerous monster as a minion - I would always aim to use the monster at earlier levels when it was a threat, so the subsequent appearance of the minion version can feel like player progression, and isn't so jarring. I wouldn't use minion ogres, giants and trolls till high levels relative to their original appearance. I generally don't use higher level minions relative to the PCs, unless there's a reason do so.

As regards minion duergar, I could rule either way. I could see duergar having badly trained and equipped slave soldier duergar, lawbreakers and oathbreakers. That rationalisation could even produce *gasp* roleplaying opportunities. Or criminal thugs in a larger settlement, who could be pressganged for their crimes.

 

[Obryn]

No that's not my point (though in all honesty I don't think 1st level characters should be one-shot'ing Duergar and Devils)... but by this description it seems you are asserting that Duergar minions aren't there to be used as relative versions of standard Duergar that represent a character hitting a level where Duergar or Devil's aren't a major threat... because that's been the prevailing wisdom from the 4e side in this thread. Are you saying that minions are just level 4 monsters that happen to have equipment and training that is so bad it is represented by them having 1 hit point and going down after 1 hit? and if so are you asserting this for all minions, say something like fire giants or ogres?

You use duergar minions when you want to throw a big number of mooks at the party.

Oh, and I always identify minions right away, but might hide a named enemy in among them. I never try to convince my players that a Minion is anything other than a Minion, though, because blowing your daily against a Minion is lame.

 

[Obryn]

A really interesting read on how you do things. Thinking about what you are doing, it looks like it works very well*, and quite smoothely, except for the fact that you are recalculating all the monsters every 3-5 levels? As far as I can tell, if you ran this in 5e, with it's bounded accuracy, you could run the monsters without altering them and handwave combat if it gets too easy. How do you think the job as a DM would be in 5e?

*with a simulationist feel, not gamist

I'm not sure you could, because even against weak foes, 5e characters never ramp up in power that significantly. The number of enemies seems to be much more relevant to encounter difficulty than the individual potency of those monsters.

I'll use one of my favorite examples here - Buffy. At the start of the series, individual vampires are a challenge. Later on, and when it's narratively cool, individual vampires are a joke, hardly even worth attention, except for the big, named, important ones. Near the end, they introduce "super vampires" who are almost invincible for a while. By the end, they're dropping in droves, too. If you're trying to do this in 4e, you make them minions all of a sudden. Same monster, different role.

I don't get the sense this degree of scaling can happen in 5e.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You use duergar minions when you want to throw a big number of mooks at the party.

I don't think that helps

In 4e, the only official 4th level minion Duegar I'm aware of are Duegar Thugs. And Thugs aren't generally people who are trained well or wear good armour. They are hunks of muscle, generally with little training and lightweight equipment, and who intimidate people. By level 2 the PCs have been in more actual fights (as opposed to shakedowns) than any Duegar Thug. If you want Duegar who are well equipped and have been blooded in battle then you can use the Duegar Guard and Duegar Shocktrooper, neither of which is a minion. (There's also a Duegar spellcaster wandering around and almost certainly some Elite, named Duegar in some adventure or other).

Or, to put it simply, Level 4 Duegar Thugs are not meant to be used as relative versions of standard Duegar. They are ill trained and ill equipped Duegar as opposed to actual Duegar fighters. In 3.X they would mostly be Commoners and Experts.

The minionisation we are talking about, as I said earlier, does not explicitly happen in any official 4e product I am aware of. If you have a Level 10 fighter in 4e fighting a Level 4 Duegar Guard then the odds are the Duegar will be hitting on about an 18 and the fighter will hit on a 2. This leads to an almost pointless amount of dice rolling. The Duegar aren't actually threats to the fighter even if they hit (which they rarely do), and the whole thing is going to be very tedious to play out with the fighter against a handful of Duegar - each one takes 2-3 hits for the fighter to kill, but isn't actually doing much constructive other than by being a threat due to their numbers. At this point they have about as much chance of slowing you down as the Duegar Thugs did when you were level 3.

The above fight of level 10 PCs vs a lot of level 4 guards is going to be a time consuming excercise in pointlessness. You can leave it as is (the books never say otherwise), you can have the guards run away, or you can minionise, keeping the XP value constant. Which turns the Level 4 Duegar Guards into Level 12 Minion Duegar Guards. You add 8 to their attack bonus and AC (meaning they now hit on a 10 and are hit on a 10) - and tweak their damage slightly (average damage is going to drop from 12 to 10) and, of course, drop their hit points to 1. In neither case are they a threat individually - but with the minion version they are more likely to do something before they drop, but drop faster. The difference in experience is minor. This is all optional and not actually recommended by the rulebooks.

 

[fjw70]

In my 4e game I use low-level minions sparingly. I low-level minion is typically a non-combatant or a small weak creature (e.g. Kobolds or goblins).


One thing I typically do in my 4e games is to keep the XP of a creature consistent over the course of a campaign. A typical orc warrior is level 3 or 4 standard so is worth 150-175 XP. That is what the PCs face early on. By the time they get to the upper heroic tier those typical orcs become level 11-12 minions and then later on they may be grouped in swarms of 10 and be level 16-17 standard monsters. So orcs can stay pretty relevant and threatening to the PCs for a long time (I have never played higher than 17-18th level in 4e and prefer the heroic tier --levels 1-10).

 

[the Jester]

A really interesting read on how you do things. Thinking about what you are doing, it looks like it works very well*, and quite smoothely, except for the fact that you are recalculating all the monsters every 3-5 levels? As far as I can tell, if you ran this in 5e, with it's bounded accuracy, you could run the monsters without altering them and handwave combat if it gets too easy. How do you think the job as a DM would be in 5e?

*with a simulationist feel, not gamist

I'm only recalculating/restatting monsters when the pcs go somewhere that has monsters of a significantly different level than theirs. The pcs are generally pursuing epic goals these days, so they generally fight epic threats. Part of the thing about getting higher level (in my campaign, anyway) is that the pcs gain more and more control over the larger sweep of the campaign. (Instead of being able to save the princess and preserve the town, they can decide, "You know what? Let's go kill that ancient evil that is the source of all grimlocks" or something. It's not as fun to pick on orcs when you know that deicide is an option.

EDIT: As far as how my style will work in 5e- just fine, I'm pretty sure. I love the bounded accuracy; 4e's "Schroedinger's stat blocks" are a small PITA to me, since I do have to restat things once in a while. On the other hand, I love doing monster stats, so it's not a big chore.