Solving the minion problem: Waves!

[Regicide]

At some point in the fight, when it is opportune, you send in reinforcements, equal in number to the wasted minions. The new minions will require new actions to kill, thus preserving the assumed economy with respect to minions and encounter design.

You could be adding a ton of XP to the encounter, or making the players wonder why they're getting "ripped off." Also many/most fights are short so the bosses could easily be killed before your second wave could plausibly get there "hey why didn't we see them coming!" making the extra minions just easily killed sacks of XP.

I could see doing something like this occasionally, like for the final boss fight of an adventure or if you want to feed the PCs XP because they're falling behind for some reason, but I wouldn't use it as a general solution.

 

[deleteme123456]

Everyone who says "but what about the wizard" or other AoE, should remember that many of these powers (s. burst, for example) do require an attack roll, and the OP did say he didn't count a minion as wasted if it required an attack roll.

But some things are a little too good against minions: flaming sphere is an auto-kill, armor of agathys, and those are just name two level 1 powers (dailies, yes, but no attack roll is required).

Or look at the lightning weapon's daily power, that's a level 4+ item that can clear out minions in a hurry (and yes you have to hit something with it, but not the minions themselves).

 

[Wish]

And people wonder why everybody wants to play a striker? Maybe because there are a bunch of DMs on here in nearly unanimous agreement that they need to hose controllers.

 

[Cadfan]

And people wonder why everybody wants to play a striker? Maybe because there are a bunch of DMs on here in nearly unanimous agreement that they need to hose controllers.

Basic psychology, my friend. Giving the controller lots of weak foes he can blast to smithereens is NOT hosing the controller.

Now, if you TELL the player of the controller that you're increasing the number of enemies every time he kills a bunch of them, he might FEEL hosed. That's why you don't tell him.

Hosing the controller would be if you made most or all of your battles against elites and solos so that his area of effect spells mostly didn't work.

 

[Mengu]

Minions to me are not part of the combat challenge, they are part of the story. They are supposed to die easily and in droves. They don't significantly increase the challenge in a fight all that much, and you can throw lots of them at the PC's without worrying about killing them off. If it makes the PC's feel good about themselves when they autokill minions with their uber powers, I'm not going to sweat it.

I think you can break the encounter budget with extra minions with little or no impact to the outcome. For awarding XP, I would max out the XP for minions at twice party size number of minions. So for a party of 5, any encounter with 10 or more minions is going to reward 10 minions worth of XP. Obviously there is a breaking point to this method if you go for infinate soup, but you'll be bored fighting minions before reaching that point, so I think it self-moderates just fine.

I've used minions anywhere from single to dozens. Minions make the perfect watchmen whenever your rogue is on a stealth mission. And as mentioned, minions are perfect for a last stand scenario fighting waves upon waves of mooks. They simply fill in story elements where ever you need them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Idea: Minions are designed so that they can be killed in a single hit. Given that it's expected a normal monster will take around 4 hits, give or take, a minion should be worth 1/4 what a normal monster is.

It's not quite that simple. A minion is even easier to kill than 1/4 of a normal monster, but 4 minions can dish out more damage than 1 normal monster. So killing minions at a better than 4:1 ratio or with relatively few actions, is just fine.


That said, sending minions in waves is a good tactical idea that the enemy might use. The first wave can and the normal monsters that go with it an draw off limitted-use AE attacks so a second wave of minions can survive longer.

Minions that survive more than a round or two can have a significant impact on a battle. Melee minions who get in close provide flanking and other bonuses (lots of monsters gain defense or damage bonuses for having others of thier own kind, even minion versions, nearby). Ranged minions dish damage relentlessly, not a lot with each hit, but many attack rolls mean at least some likely hit every round, that adds up.

 

[Sanzuo]

I like how minions operate in combat, I mostly think of them as hazardous battlefield obstacles. but I think they're worth too much xp as it is. If I just want a straightforward fight with the players slaughtering a couple dozen guys then I can, but it seems they gain a disproportionate amount of xp considering how easy the fight was.

 

[ricardo440]

I've been thinking about a couple of ideas:

1) 6 or 8 minions are the same XP as a similarly leveled monster
2) Minions can only be killed by a successful attack roll.

I just find minions are a little bit dull. I really like the idea of them, but am not satisfied as to how that idea actually translates to game play.

 

[Gruns]

Wait... There's a problem with minions?! I'm glad no one told our group this startling news.
I DM for group of three: Dragonborn Paladin, Eladrin TacLord, Halfling Rogue. The Dragonborn has his breath weapon(Encounter), which seems to miss way more often than 50% of the time. The Rogue has Blinding Barrage(Daily) and recently picked up Cloud of Steel(Encounter). So they have three AoEs that they can use, and one of them is a Daily. I prefer to use a decent mix of units, and due to the smaller group size, I tend to use at least a couple of minions to round out the encounter group. So far for us, minions are working exactly as expected. You can ignore them for a litle while, but that damage adds up fast. Ranged minions have been particularly annoying.
Granted, we don't have any of the Autokill options that were mentioned, such as Flaming Sphere, Stinking Cloud or Armor of Ag, but I still don't see those as problems. Those are Daily powers! They're limited to one use per day, and supposed to do cool things. I don't think ripping off your group by reducing the XPs they actually earn for killin minions simply because you deem them too easy to kill is the correct answer. If they use their resources correctly, they should be rewarded, not punished. A better "solution", if you feel you must have one, would be to use fewer minions.
Later!
Gruns

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'd certainly agree that a second wave of minions would be a good idea - particularly if they can attack from a different direction!

All part of good 4e encounter design I think. Having stuff attack from odd directions, or be tactically smart, or so forth.

And even better idea would be a second (or even third) wave with two or three different monster roles represented, including minions--designed that way from the beginning. I like to do my encounter budget with everything group together (10 minions, 3 skirmishers, etc.) but then allocate the creatures in two or three waves based on tactical or story reasons. Not only does this make a more complex, interesting encounter, it feels less cookie cutter. But then I've been consciously using "waves" in encounter design since my late 80's Fantasy Hero games (where the technique also works well, for the same reasons it does in 4E).

As for whether or not the minions are worth the XP, I agree that if the DM knows they aren't carrying their weight--either adjust your tactics to make them do so, or change the 4:1 ratio to whatever makes sense. I've run my games with 6-8 players, and noticed that the 4:1 ratio doesn't seem to hold up quite as well around 8 players as it does with 6. Perhaps having those kinds of numbers in PCs means too many actions or available AoE attacks. So I've got no problem using 5:1 or 6:1 in particular encounters, where it makes sense. I've also got no problem going for 3:1 or even less, if that makes sense. It all evens out in the end. And the mere act of varying it in itself makes minions slightly more effective, because they are more unpredictable (especially if you don't automatically tell the players which ones are minons).