Solving all minion issues (long)

[keterys]

Hmm, part of the problem is also the immense variance between minion stats since there's very few guidelines.

Like, I just ran two adventures in a row that featured level 1 minions - in the first, the level 1 minion was melee only, level +4 vs AC, 2 damage, very normal defenses. In the second, the level 1 minion did ranged attacks at +4 vs. Reflex, 4 radiant, and on death explode in a close burst 3 that did 3 radiant to enemies and healed allies for 6 hp.

Similarly, compare something like a Lich Vestiges to Legion Devils.

 

[Ceraus]

Hmm, part of the problem is also the immense variance between minion stats since there's very few guidelines.

Like, I just ran two adventures in a row that featured level 1 minions - in the first, the level 1 minion was melee only, level +4 vs AC, 2 damage, very normal defenses. In the second, the level 1 minion did ranged attacks at +4 vs. Reflex, 4 radiant, and on death explode in a close burst 3 that did 3 radiant to enemies and healed allies for 6 hp.

Similarly, compare something like a Lich Vestiges to Legion Devils.

True that. Monster Manual minions like Legion Devils are clearly wrong, but at least their stats are consistent and can easily be fixed.

Newer minions might not be as easy to balance.

 

[evilbob]

How could that possibly be too much work?

And... if you just want to boost minion damage, my second post outlines an easy and balanced way to do it that requires about 10 seconds for each minion.

Because my time is precious and there's a jillion other thing I already need to keep track of? I am not joking when I say that something involving minions that takes 10 seconds is easily 9 and a half seconds longer than I am willing to spend solving this problem.

Ultimately it's a matter of priority; I think yours is very high and mine is very low regarding this issue. I agree that it's something of an problem but I disagree that anything taking longer than half a second is worth the time it took to fix it. Your millage may vary, as they say.

 

[keterys]

I think I'd rather start afresh on minions, rather than modify existing ones imperfectly... but I guess the extra damage can work.

I'm not big on tracking hit points. My minion house rule is
Minion Weakness If a minion is hit for any damage, it dies. If a minion takes damage without being hit, it is not killed, but it becomes bloodied and dies the next time it takes any damage in any way.

and my gut impression is that you want to increase the minion ratio from 4. Like, say, 4 + 1 / 5 levels of the party... so 4-6 at Heroic, 6-8 at Paragon, 8-10 at Epic.

Maybe just simplify it by picking a specific number by tier and having it apply to the whole tier.

So that's what I'd rather do than a HP pool and increased damage I think, though a HP pool was something I played around with a little in 3rd edition.

 

[KarinsDad]

For the record, I'm firmly in the camp of telling players which enemies are minions once they've engaged them. I've sent small armies at my players, and they know by now that the foot soldiers are minions. Why not give them a little "minion" tag?

Look at the Lord of the Rings... say, just the part where Boromir dies at the end of the first movie. The difference between the mooks and their leader is apparent... but just because the camera frames him as a menace. Also, his arrows obviously deal high damage; again a camera trick.

I think players are expected to "feel" the difference in the same way regardless of realism. 4E is cinematic if anything.

The same tricks should apply to Elites and Solos. Again, compare with Lord of the Rings: when the troll enters the Moria tomb, there is not a second of doubt he's at least an elite.

I'm not playing the Lord of the Rings. The game can be very cinematic without handing metagame info out like candy. You are basing this analogy on a faulty premise.

The fact that people ignore the 4E rules and DMG guidelines and still insist that 4E is designed to have players immediately know which enemies are minions is telling. The rules on what information to hand out do not indicate that role information should be handed out.

Okay, they won't all do so, but...

The Decrepit Skeleton will. It almost did in my campaign on repeated occasions. Boosting its average damage by 62% makes it way too deadly, not to mention how often minions roll 20's... in this case, for 10 damage.

How exactly do the 4 or even 8 Decrepit Skeletons actually do serious damage to any party? They are level one. They fall over if you breath on them.

Maybe they are a more serious threat with your minion house rules. D8+2 (or D6+3) damage is strong damage against first level PCs, but not overwhelming. It would take an average of 27 successful minion hits to wipe out a party of 5 first level PCs (taking into account healing surges and leader heal powers) at the 35% to 55% hit ratio of the skeletons. That's quite a few rounds. Plenty of time for the PCs to react and wipe out a bunch of them.

A first level Fire Beetle averages 7 damage.
A first level Spiretop Drake averages 7.5 damage.
A first level Goblin Blackblade averages 5.5 damage.
A first level Goblin Warrior averages 6.5 damage.
A first level Halfling Slinger averages 6.5 damage.
A first level Riding Horse averages 7.5 damage.
A first level Kobold Skirmisher averages 4.5 damage.
A first level Kobold Slinger averages 6.5 damage.
A first level Dire Rat averages 5.5 damage.
A first level Stormclaw Scorpion averages 6.5 damage.
A first level Stirge averages 2.5 damage plus ongoing 5 damage.

6.5 damage for the "toughest first level minion" is not that unreasonable.

Please consider switching to the 4E mindset of not caring about "shortsword damage".

The 4E mindset? Or your mindset? Nothing in the 4E rules indicate that a monster using a weapon should not do weapon damage. In fact, the opposite occurs in the MM.

Take a Minotaur Warrior with Str 23 and a Greataxe. It should do 1d10 + 6 damage. It does do 1d10 + 6 damage.

The 4E mindset appears to be that monsters with weapons should often follow the standard weapon damage rules. The main exception to this appears to be minions and we are in a thread discussing house rules for minions.

There are exceptions at high levels, but those consist of monsters doing weapon damage plus some other amount of damage, often to get on par with the DMG monster damage suggestions for those levels.

 

[Ceraus]

Ultimately it's a matter of priority; I think yours is very high and mine is very low regarding this issue. I agree that it's something of an problem but I disagree that anything taking longer than half a second is worth the time it took to fix it.

Harsh. Still, you're quite civilized about it apart from the extra-dismissive attitude.

I have to agree that it's a high priority for me: my campaign is quite militarish and I need armies to be a balanced threat, which is not happening with the RAW.

 

[Garthanos]

My minion house rule is
Minion Weakness If a minion is hit for any damage, it dies. If a minion takes damage without being hit, it is not killed, but it becomes bloodied and dies the next time it takes any damage in any way.

Already adopted that

and my gut impression is that you want to increase the minion ratio from 4. Like, say, 4 + 1 / 5 levels of the party... so 4-6 at Heroic, 6-8 at Paragon, 8-10 at Epic.
Maybe just simplify it by picking a specific number by tier and having it apply to the whole tier.

You are using minion methods to get things done. If you need more threat pile on more minions or higher level ones. I still think minion clumping and broadcasting their role is one of the play style issues but I also think them controllers should get their fun too.

I think we officially have identical house rules on minions ;-), very cool.

 

[evilbob]

Harsh. Still, you're quite civilized about it apart from the extra-dismissive attitude.

That's fair: I apologize about the extra-dismissive attitude. I didn't mean for it to be that way but I do have that tendency.

 

[Stalker0]

I think if you follow the idea of the damage increases, and you include more minions per monster slot at higher levels you will get better results. Minions should probably still die by the bucketload by if they always do respectable damage they can get the job done.

For example, the suggestion at epic was to make minions do 20 damage a hit. Combine that with 6 minions per 1 monster slot, that's a theroetical 120 damage a round! (far more than other epic monsters). The tradeoff of course is that that damage will drop very quickly.

 

[Garthanos]

I have to agree that it's a high priority for me: my campaign is quite militarish and I need armies to be a balanced threat, which is not happening with the RAW.

I also want PC's to be able to interact with ally minions in some ways too... giving them a bloodied state (so they can be healed in a hand waving sort of fashion ) is currently for me adequate.

Heck I almost want a leader to be able to raise there status to allow them to be heroic.... someone was suggesting a martial ritual for that purpose.