Solving all minion issues (long)

[Ceraus]

So far, I've DM'd two 4E campaigns: a low-heroic "let's try 4E before it's even out" one and a low-paragon continuation of my four-year-old main campaign. Both used minions extensively and lasted for a dozen games (the latter is ongoing).

At low levels, minions, whether kobold or undead, were exciting. The only possible problems I encountered were the efficiency of Cleave on zombies and the fact that at those levels, minions have a scary damage output.

At mid levels (around 12), minions, whether sahuagins or human army, were... irrelevant. Players dropped them so instantly with their area powers that I had to house-rule restrict the number of targets one can hit with those (3 for burst 1, 4 for burst 2, 5 for burst 3... and still a whopping 10 for the Angelic Avenger's burst 8 Astral Wave). And even when minions survived well into the fight, their pitiful damage simply made players stop caring.

As for high levels... while I haven't tested them, I think those minions are simply a waste of ink.

But before trying to solve minion issues, let's identify them.

(For the sake of this argument, I consider player/monster attack/defense scaling as balanced. This is not the place to discuss it and is, at worst, a general problem not specific to minions.)




Damage out of touch with player HP


Let's compare player HP (say that of a 13-Con Rogue that boosts his Con half the times he can) with minion damage to see what fraction of a player's HP a minion takes away on a hit. I could use extreme examples, like a 8-Con Wizard or a 20-Con Warden, but I think my point will be clear anyway.

Level 1: 25 HP, 4 damage. About 1/6 of HP.
Level 11: 78 HP, 6 damage. About 1/13 of HP.
Level 21: 131 HP, 8 damage. About 1/16 of HP.

It hurts to even look at it. If anything, minion damage should take away a slightly bigger fraction of players' HP as levels rise to compensate for increased player survivability (surges, recovery powers, death-defying abilities...). Player HP easily triples with their 10 first level-ups (except for very high-HP-starting players), but minion damage only increases by 50%, reducing their effective damage by half.



Survivability out of touch with player deadliness


What kills a minion at level 1? Especially multi-hit powers. (Especially controllers'.)

As levels pile on, bursts increase in size and many auto-hit powers rear their head. Just at level 11, the Angelic Avenger gets a burst 8 that essentially gets rid of half the minions in the battle, every battle, with little effort and no drawback. Controllers have so many auto-hit powers by Paragon that they essentially decide which minions live or die, regardless of anything else.

At high levels, most classes, even if not worried about minions, will have so many multi-hit and auto-hit powers that minions might as well be free XP.



Inconsistencies with automatic damage


This is not a mechanic issue as much as a huge flavor and realism probem. Why would a 3-damage glancing Cleave kill a minion but a dodged take-half-of-48-damage Meteor Storm fail to do so? Not to mention Cloud of Daggers cheese. I could go on.

Fireball used to be THE minion killer.



Lack of role or variety


Note that while this is only a minor problem, it is one I aim to solve anyway.

Minions have little in the way of variety. They are either melee or ranged and only have the "minion" role. A Barbarian minion and Fighter minion of the same level get the same attack, damage and defenses.

I want a wizard minion that can cast Scorching Burst at-will!

 

[Ceraus]

So! What to do? First thing, which I recommend to anyone, is to bump minion damage so that it stays consistent with player HP.



Raise minion damage


Raise it by half their level, and bump it by one more at Paragon and another one at Epic.

Let's see the results.

Level 1: 25 HP, 4 damage. About 1/6 of HP.
Level 11: 78 HP, 12 damage. About 1/6.5 of HP.
Level 21: 131 HP, 20 damage. About 1/6.5 of HP.

Great!

If you want even deadlier minions, bump their damage by one at levels 5, 15 and 25 too.

EDIT: The damage bump works for Monster Manual minions. Later minions have very varying balance.

 

[Ceraus]

The other minions issues will require more change, though. They will even require reworking the damage boost we just gave them.



Give minions HP -


Don't cringe yet! Don't you want minions to have a chance against higher-level players, eliminate the automatic damage inconsistencies and give them the same role and cool powers standard monsters do? While still retaining the minion "feeling" and ease of use?

Give this a chance.



Give minions HP but shared damage


Essentially, they have HP, but which minion takes what damage is not tracked. All damage is substracted from the "same" minion, and when that minion dies, whatever extra damage is sent to the next one. Let's start with a mid-level example.


Say we have a fight: a Fighter and a Wizard against 8 identical minions. Here's the round-by-round player recap:

The Fighter misses with Reaping Strike but still deals damage. No kill, though.
The Wizard hits 2 minions and misses 1 with a weak-damage Scorching Burst, killing 1.
The Fighter semi-wastes Brute Strike on a minion, killing it with extreme prejudice.
The Wizard hits 1 minion and misses 4 with a weak-damage Fireball, killing 2.
The Fighter hits 1 minion with Cleave, killing 2.
The Wizard misses with Flaming Sphere, but only 1 of the 3 minions adjacent to it is killed on its turn.

Strange things have happened: a Scorching Burst hit failed to kill and a Fireball miss did kill. Also, Reaping Strike missed but still had an effect, and Flaming Sphere did not reap through minions like a scythe through wheat.


Let's do the same fight by the numbers.

According to the minion stat block, they each have 20 HP. Let's jot that down somewhere.

The Fighter attacks with Reaping Strike but misses. Still deals 6 HP damage! The DM substracts 6 from the shared minion HP (now 14), bringing the next minion death closer.

The Wizard throws a Scorching Burst, hitting 2 minions but missing a third one. Damage is 11. The DM removes 11 for the first minion (3 HP left, still alive) and 11 for the second (so now -8 HP). That's one minion down. To continue noting minion HP, we bump the current total (-8 HP) by the minion max HP (20 HP), which makes the next minion 12 HP from death.

The Fighter unleashes Brute Strike and hits for 36 damage. We consider he's dealt max HP damage to one minion (20), so we get -8 HP. Thus, obviously, that minion dies and we bump things back to 12 HP.

The Wizard shoots a Fireball on the Fighter to get the four minions around him. He hits the Fighter but only a single minion. Damage is 19. The hit minion takes full damage, so 12 HP -> -7 HP. Dead, and next one has -7 + 20 = 13 HP. The four other ones are missed but still take 8 damage: 15 HP -> 7 HP -> -1 HP (dead). Then 19 HP -> 11 HP -> 3 HP. Result: two dead minions (one was hit, the other died from half-fireball-damage).

Then the Fighter uses Cleave, which hits for 19 damage and glances another minion for 6 damage. 3 HP -> -16 HP (dead). Then 4 HP -> -2 HP (dead). He killed the two minions he wanted. The next minion has 18 HP.

Finally, the Wizard drops a Flaming Sphere, missing a minion with the attack. The three minions that start their turn there respectively take 10, 11 and 9 damage: 18 HP -> 8 HP -> -3 HP (dead). Then 17 HP -> 8 HP. Result: one dead minion and a weakened one.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

My only real paragon tier experience with minions is running a paragon-level one-shot last night to take a break from our regular campaign. In Dungeon Delve, the second encounter from #11 has minions with this:

Tongue Lash (standard; at-will)
Reach 4; +18 vs. AC; 5 damage, and the target is dazed (save
ends). If the target is already dazed, it takes 2 extra damage
instead.

Dazing on every hit with a reach 4? That's enough to be a huge menace to higher level players.

 

[Ceraus]

The complete rules, now. (Those mentioned before can be dismissed.)



Minions have an HP stat


Their HP is about 1/5-1/6 a Standard monster's, but values are inflated at low levels and lowered at high levels. Brutes get more and Artillery and Lurkers get less, as expected.

However, all minions of a single type share HP in combat.

When a minion takes damage from any source (hit, miss, auto-hit, whatever), that damage is substracted from the shared HP. If the damage taken exceeds the max HP, reduce it to equal the max HP (in the example above, 36 damage is reduced to 20, the max HP).

Damage that brings HP to 0 or less kills the minion that took that damage. After resolving the death, continue by adding the minion max HP to the current (probably negative) HP.


And that's it!

Yeah, this does have the side effect of nerfing minion temporary HP, as it will only work for the next minion damaged. Also, the "bloodied" status occurs when only half the minions remain.

Here is a handy table of HP values according to role and level. The exact value, for Skirmishers/Soldiers/Controllers, is 5 + level. Other roles, like Artillery and Brutes, get ± 20%. Level 0 minions are worth 20 XP.

[B]Level	Art	Ski	Bru[/B]
0	4	5	6
1	5	6	7
2	6	7	8
3	6	8	10
4	7	9	11
5	8	10	12
6	9	11	13
7	10	12	14
8	10	13	16
9	11	14	17
10	12	15	18
11	13	16	19
12	14	17	20
13	14	18	22
14	15	19	23
15	16	20	24
16	17	21	25
17	18	22	26
18	18	23	28
19	19	24	29
20	20	25	30
21	21	26	31
22	22	27	32
23	22	28	34
24	23	29	35
25	24	30	36
26	25	31	37
27	26	32	38
28	26	33	40
29	27	34	41
30	28	35	42
31	29	36	43
32	30	37	44
33	30	38	46
34	31	39	47
35	32	40	48

Minion have varying attack, AC and HP according to role


With minion HP, the difference between minion Brutes, Soldiers and Artillery will be readily apparent. And now that minions have a modicum of survivability, we also need to slightly lower their damage to make them balanced.

I think that 4 damage is too deadly at level 1. Still, since minions drop fast and thus see their combined damage output lowered drastically in the first round, their base damage should stay reasonably high. I suggest a starting point of 2 for Soldiers, 3 for Artillery and 4 for Brutes. As levels rise and the rounding gets less drastical, Soldiers will settle at 4/5 Artillery and Brutes at 7/5, keeping things in line with what Power Attack and similar abilities indicate about attack/damage balance.

Here is a list of suggested damage values according to role and level. Average minion damage is 3 + 0.6 per level, rounded down. At level 1 or 30, a minion will down a weak wizard of its level in 6 hits, but the average character will easily withstand 9 or 10.

[B]Level	Sol	Art	Bru[/B]
0	2	3	4
1	2	3	5
2	3	4	5
3	3	4	6
4	4	5	7
5	4	6	8
6	5	6	9
7	5	7	10
8	6	7	10
9	6	8	11
10	7	9	12
11	7	9	13
12	8	10	14
13	8	10	15
14	9	11	15
15	9	12	16
16	10	12	17
17	10	13	18
18	11	13	19
19	11	14	20
20	12	15	21
21	12	15	21
22	12	16	22
23	13	16	23
24	13	17	24
25	14	18	25
26	14	18	26
27	15	19	26
28	15	19	27
29	16	20	28
30	16	21	29
31	17	21	30
32	17	22	31
33	18	22	31
34	18	23	32
35	19	24	33

Skirmishers with Sneak Attack should get Soldier damage without it but get half Soldier damage (rounded up) as their Sneak Attack bonus. Skirmishers and Controllers attacking at about 5 squares should get Soldier damage; same thing for Artillery attacking from more than 10 squares away. Any minion can attack in a burst 1, close or ranged; just cut its damage in half.

For attack and defenses, follow the DMG guidelines: average defense is 12 + level, AC is generally 14 + level, but Soldiers have 16 and Brutes and Artillery have 12. Try keeping those AC values. Attack vs. AC is 5 + level and attacks against other defenses are 3 + level. Soldiers and Artillery get +2 to attacks, Brutes get -2.

Other role-dependent considerations:

• Soldiers are not expected to be mobile, but they mark on a hit (Standard Soldiers usually get one more ability to reinforce their role).
• Skirmishers are mobile and need either an ability to represent that (Goblins' and Kobolds' racial traits are a good example) or a positional damage boost (like Sneak Attack).
• Brutes and Artillery are fine as they are, entirely defined (as minions) by their HP, defense, attack, and damage. No worries.
• Controllers get powerful non-damaging effects, so they're just not recommended as minions.
• Lurkers could be minions, but it's hard to balance their abilities.

There are aspects of combat I'm still not sure about. Minions getting "bloodied" when half of them remain has worked so far in my games. But do minions get saving throws? I'm tempted to say "no", which would definitely be cool for the players (and require a lot less rolling). They could be granted saving throws by other abilities, though.

I might have missed other potential issues... but that's what the forums are for. I'm open to criticism, but if you're already about to dismiss my house rules, please give them a try first.


EDIT: Code'd the tables.

 

[Ceraus]

Dazing on every hit with a reach 4? That's enough to be a huge menace to higher level players.

I agree. I wouldn't give minions "save ends" effects, though, if only for the massive amount of saves the players would have to make.

 

[fissionessence]

Very interesting and thought-provoking write-up, which seems pretty thorough. I'll keep it in mind in case minions ever become a problem in my games.

~

 

[DreamChaser]

Honestly, this takes a monster type that is super simple, easy to utilize or ignore as I the DM choose and requires me to review a bunch of different tables with the hope of possibly making a more "balanced" mook.

Thanks for the efforts but no it doesn't IMO make a workable solution.

The "fix" for minions shouldn't be more complicated than the creatures are currently or it isn't a fix.

DC

 

[Ceraus]

Honestly, this takes a monster type that is super simple, easy to utilize or ignore as I the DM choose and requires me to review a bunch of different tables with the hope of possibly making a more "balanced" mook.

The tables are only used when creating a minion from scratch (or adapting a pre-existing one). They're for easy reference and certainly make minion creation much easier than standard/elite/solo creation.

In combat, it's only one more HP score to track. Having used my house rules for months before posting, I can attest that the effect is negligible. What's noticeable, though, is the Ranger's scimitars sometimes killing minions on a miss, the Wizard's Fireball being back to its 3.5 minion-clearing effectiveness and the difference between minion Soldiers and Brutes being very perceivable.

At least boost your minions' damage according to my second post for a semblance of balance. They'll be effective before they all fall like flies.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

Why not just up the minion damage and increase their defenses a bit? They would deal more damage, and thus be more threatening. By upping their defenses, they shouldn't die as quickly, though it might get frustrating to repeatedly miss if you overcorrect this. Those changes would make them a threat again.

What your solution seems to be attempting to do is not only make them a threat, but also remove the "one hit = dead" mechanic, which is a much more drastic change. I can completely understand that, but from your post about the issues it seems like the goal is "make minions stay challenging". Changing their survival mechanics entirely certainly is a legitimate concept, but not the easiest way to reach that particular goal; it adds more work for the DM.