Tougher minions

[karolusb]

I started writing this in the skirmish topic, but decided it was a bit too hijacky and so it gets it's own thread.

I want tougher minions (if you don't that's fine too;-). I want fast combats, which standard creatures are often not ideal for. And I don't want to go to the trouble of creating a half creature that sits between minions and standards on the power chart. I like a certain level of uncertainty, the anticipation of a damage roll, which current minions completely fail to provide.

I am not a big fan of simple multi-hit minions. Unless you have some sort of scaling it takes away form the advantages of being the high damage character, and the fun of a good damage roll. If you said that attacks that do 10 or more count as 2 hits that could work for me (you could alter this by level, but I am not sure what a good alterations formula would be off the top of my head).

For me I am thinking a damage "check" by the minion. something like (10+((damage-1/2 level)[MIN 0])) or higher and the minion survives the blow (this replaces the minions aren't damaged on a miss rule so you can reaping strike minions). Sounds more complicated than it is, ideally you would preroll and list with the minion if the minion somehow survives the three rolls you premade he dies the next time he takes damage. Ex: minion one 0 (first roll was 6) minion two 8, 9, 0 (rolls of 18, 19 and 3). If the minions are higher than first level you just increase the number (minion one wouldn't change, and minion two would be 23, 24, 0 if they were 30th level).

These guys would be tougher, but minions were not a great encounter budget choice to begin with, that and the ability to damage them on a miss seems like it should allow them to slip into a game without any extra balancing.

Thoughts?

 

[Saeviomagy]

One thing you can do is give minions damage resistance - you need to do more than X damage to kill a minion. That makes tougher minions (because minimum damage rolls might not kill them) while rewarding high damage characters.

I think if you're pre-rolling numbers and comparing and marking off things you may as well just give your minions hitpoints: it's an equivalent level of complexity.

 

[Stalker0]

The damage resistance is a common idea. You can go halfway with that idea with the following:

Minions

Whenever a minion takes damage, it is bloodied. A bloodied minion that takes damage is killed.

All minions have a fatal threshold equal to X (X being whatever you see fit, and scales appropriately). A minion that takes damage greater than its FT from a single source is killed instantly.


This makes minions more durable, but still allows low autodamage effects (like cleave) to have some affect. It also creates a quasi 2 hit minion without enforcing a strict 2 hit minion model that some people enjoy.



I personally don't like giving minions a defense roll because it takes away from the main mechanical point of having minions, they are quick and easy to run. If you have to make a roll for each minion to live....well that's a lot of rolls.

 

[fba827]

Unless you have some sort of scaling it takes away form the advantages of being the high damage character, and the fun of a good damage roll.

By focusing on this aspect, you are short changing your nonstriker-built PCs. Not there is anything wrong with that, just recognize that you're encouraging striker builds in your party by having a minion rule that accounts for damage in the equation.

minions have been the hallmark of wizards and other AoE people who choose to focus not on high single target damage but rather low spread out damage. again, not a problem, just realize that's what's going on.

i.e. if you have a party with a wizard and a bunch of strikers, the wizard (or even some defenders) won't be able to contribute as much as everyone else. conversely, if your party is all strikers with roughly equal damage output potential, then no harm would come of making a minion death equation based on damage taken.

If you don't like single-hit minions, and you don't like two hit minions (one hit bloodied, one hit dead), then how about:

Every time a minion is hit, he makes a save. Success=alive; Fail = death.
since the saving throw mechanics are already made, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, just using it for an unconventional method.

Alternatively, if you do have a party full of strikers then maybe something like every round roll 1d4 (or 1d6), multiply by 10 and that is how much resistance the minion has that round (or do it per hit if you don't want to do it per round). Thus, they are still minions that will die in one hit if you beat the threshold, else, they stay alive. And because it's variable it isn't some carefully controlled thing, just a matter of luck of the dice...

 

[ninefold_one]

I agree with fba827's first statement that the minion is the hallmark of the controller classes. In which case I wouldn't change anything at all. Not to mention that minions are designed to give adventurers that cinematic feel of "one hit, one kill" that you see in movies all the time.

Also mathematically there is a problem with changing how minions take damage. The problem with the resistance is what if he survives two or three times? In some cases he might outlast a soldier. In doing so his role changes and he is no longer a minion. In other words you have to be careful when making the decision to change how a role works because it may no longer fit the role it was designed for.

 

[Zaran]

I had an idea in my Solo PC thread about using a regular monsters hit points but they make a save at the end the turn in which they take damage. If they fail, they die. They could still do minion damage of course or you can say they always do minimal damage as well.

 

[Mengu]

Minions

Whenever a minion takes damage, it is bloodied. A bloodied minion that takes damage is killed.

All minions have a fatal threshold equal to X (X being whatever you see fit, and scales appropriately). A minion that takes damage greater than its FT from a single source is killed instantly.

This is what I do 90% of the time, when I want tough minions (not all my minions are tough).

Occasionally I'll come up with a different or additional mechanic to keep things more interesting and less predictable. Some examples:

Incorporeal minions (not tough) get the encounter power to make a saving throw when they would be killed, if they succeed, they are not killed. (I place a white marker underneath them when I put them on the board, I remove the white marker when this power is spent).

A troll minion (tough) that starts its turn bloodied, becomes not bloodied.

When a zombie minion (not tough) is hit, it is knocked prone instead of being killed. If a prone zombie minion is hit, it is removed. If a zombie minion starts its turn prone, it makes a saving throw. If successful, it can act normally, otherwise it makes an attack against an adjacent enemy, and then it is removed.

When an orc dredge minion (not tough) is killed, instead of removing the creature, place a death marker on it. Until the end of its next turn the dredge gains resist all 20, and is removed from play at the end of its next turn.

Undying Skeleton Minion's (not tough) have the Undying encounter power. When the skeleton is killed, leave a marker in its last location, and do not remove it from the initiative order. At the beginning of its next turn, place the undying skeleton within 2 squares of its last location.

 

[OnlineDM]

Minions

Whenever a minion takes damage, it is bloodied. A bloodied minion that takes damage is killed.

All minions have a fatal threshold equal to X (X being whatever you see fit, and scales appropriately). A minion that takes damage greater than its FT from a single source is killed instantly.

I've been doing something similar to this for a while (full write-up on my blog). With normal damage, one hit bloodies a minion and any damage dealt to a bloodied minion kills it.

However, if you do anything extra to a minion it dies in one shot. This includes a critical hit, a striker ability (Warlock's Curse, Hunter's Quarry, Flurry of Blows, etc.), dealing it damage to which it's vulnerable (radiant for an undead minion, e.g.). The rule of cool also applies - if a character does something totally awesome that feels like it SHOULD wipe out an unbloodied minion, then it DOES wipe the monster out.

 

[babinro]

My group has houseruled the concept of elite minions, which are of course the common multi-hit idea. The first hit bloodies the minion, the second one kills it.

To compensate for strikers though, if they apply their extra damage to the minion, then it is killed on one strike to reflect the greater damage output of the class. In addition, an elite minion is immediately killed on any character who critical hits the unit.

This concept works very nicely for classes like the Rogue, Ranger, Warlock and Monk who apply separate damages. The DM needs to make adjustments for other striker classes.

Off the top of my head I'd say the following:
Avenger: Kills an elite minion immediately if both attack rolls would hit.
Sorc/Barbarian: Kills an elite minion on any successful single target attack, multi-targets act as normal unless critically hit.

 

[SkullThrone]

I've tried the "Elite" minion, creating one, two and even three hit minions (where every x damage counted as a hit...x = 5 for small creatures, 10 for medium and 15 for large)..."X" increases by 1 per level. Damage done that was less than the "X" rounds up to the X.

example, fighting a "2 hit" medium minion, a defender do 8 damage, counts as 1 hit. But striker does 14 which would count as 2 hits dropping it even if it was full.

My newest thought to increase the speed of battles is my Squad idea, see my newest Topic post.