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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Irda Ranger" data-source="post: 4543305" data-attributes="member: 1003">Mmm. No direct experience, but it's something I've given a lot of theoretical thought to.  Basically, there are two sliders you can move up & down - HP vs. Dmg and Attack vs. Defense.  The first one is ablative (or analog) and the second one is a threshold (or digital).  Minions as presented by the 4E Core are purely digital - you get a 0/1 result.  Brutes are about as close as you get to a pure Ablative situation - you always hit and slowly wear them down.But it all comes down to one number: (Results/Round)/Total Rounds.  Put another way, the number of bad guys you make dead each round, averaged over the length of a combat.  You can slide this number around either by increasing/decreasing the ablative factors (HP usually, but you get the same result by tweaking PC damage by giving the bad guys Resistance or Vulnerability) or the threshold numbers (AC/Defenses usually, but you get the same result by tweaking PC attack bonuses).That being said, the choice to fiddle with the threshold numbers or the ablative numbers will effect the kind of game you get.  Combats with high thresholds and low ablatives are "swingy".  The d20 controls the flow of combat because a couple lucky (or unlucky) rolls in a row will succeed (or fail) to overcome the thresholds and suddenly 1:1 odds become 3:1 odds really fast like. You can FUBAR really quick.  Combats with low thresholds and high ablatives are a lot more predictable because you do steady & slow damage each round to get your eventual desired result (someone kicking it). Plus, and this is good for PCs, in "mostly analog" combats it becomes apparent that you'll lose a fight several rounds before the inevitable happens, which gives you time to retreat. You don't get that kind of warning in a mostly digital fight.Personally, and this is a bit radical but you should consider it, I recommend freezing all attack and defense scores at 1st level. Only adjust upward for stat boosts as you level. Reduce the attacks and defenses of higher-than-level-1 monsters by ROUNDDOWN(-3/(5*level-1))** to compensate.  The result is that you've taken one of the sliders off the table and only advance the HP/Dmg slider when leveling up. This will mean that bad guys slowly become "quasi-minions" and "true minions" as you level up, because a 1st level monster will still be able to hit you at 10th level (your AC is barely any higher than at 1st level) but your average damage from a single attack will exceed his HP total, making him a de facto minion.  Before you get there though he'll be a quasi-minion by the time you're 6th level or so.**There are four assumed sources of "digital leveling" built into the 4E game system. They are +1/2 per level, +1/4 level from stats, +1/4 level from items, and +1/5 per level from feats.  Add all that together and you get a nice, neat +1/level progression (which, surprise!, is how you make Minions). I have proposed yanking the boosts from items and +1/2 per level, but that leaves you with boosting stats and feats. This flattens the power curve of 4E even more than it already is, but it gives MerricB what he's looking for.</blockquote>

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