What are Minions anyway?

[Lacyon]

Something I started doing for my Star Wars game was to ignore hit points completely for mooks like stormtroopers or rebel soldiers. Instead if they had 30 or less hit points, they died in one hit, if they had 30 or more, it took two or a single crit.

If the attacker rolled really crappy on the damage roll, I let the minion live but marked it so that another attack would kill it. The players still haven't caught on that I am doing this and the game runs so much faster.

I'm thinking of doing something similar in 4E for things like "half-damage on a miss" and cleave-like powers that might not auto-kill a minion: just mark them bloodied and make any extra damage kill them.

 

[drjones]

All I know is my players loved em because they got to do some mass carnage now and then rather than whittling hp and I loved them because I could throw a mob at them without tracking hp on all them or worrying that the PCs will get killed by 'mooks'.

 

[Baka no Hentai]

This is an issue that is pretty difficult to solve unless you have determined a conclusive way that you are going to rationalize the abstarction of hit points.

Once you have an idea on that, then you have a starting point with which you can measure the difference between minions and non-minions.

For example, say you've taken the approach that Hit Points are a representation of the cumulative threat of death (or defeat) to a character... that each action taken by the enemy is driving the character closer and closer to the point where they can no longer avoid that final, deadly blow. In this scenario, you could assume that the difference between minions and non-minions is their general ability to avoid what would otherwise be a fatal wound.

In this example, lets say you have an orc taking a swing with a big nasty two handed sword that is aimed to take his enemies head off. If his enemy is a trained fighter, he may bring his sword up just in time to block the swing, but the force of it jars his shoulder and throws him off balance... not inflicting any lasting physical injury, but increasing the threat of the fighter's ultimate death if he cannot find a way to turn the combat in his favor.

If that enemy were instead a minion, he would not have the training (or strength, reflexes, or pure luck... however you want to look at it) to block the blow in time and would end up headless on the floor.

If instead you want to say that the loss of hit points represent actual phsyical wounds, then a trained fighter might be able to turn just enough that a dagger aimed for his gut merely cuts his flesh, whereas a minion would be caught unawares and takes a blade to some vital organ.

Once you have a solid idea of how to represent hit points, it shouldnt be too hard to put everything else into place from there.


Edit: Tomtill beat me to the point regarding the abstraction of hit points and to hit rolls, and did it better than I could I might add!

 

[frankthedm]

I'm thinking there's a "magic spreadsheet" somewhere in the WotC offices that has a computation for the average (or possibly even minimum) damage a standard character deals at X level with one hit, and minions of the same level are keyed to that amount.

I'm quite confident that spreadsheet and many like it exists. If it was not done for 3E, the char-oppers showed wotc that system math WILL worked over with a fine toothed comb, and so the game designers should be doing it before the munchkins.

I suspect those charts probably are what lead to final decisions regarding a LOT of 4e decisions like Critical hits and how much damage powers do. Those charts quantify the whole of the system, with damage ranges of how much a player should be doing with attacks, at will powers, per encounter powers and daily powers at every single level. Those charts are also the real reason why open ended power attack won’t be in 4E since it fluxes the math too much and lets a Player gamble for level inappropriate damage.

 

[OchreJelly]

In my mind, minions fit in with the following:
- Any conscript soldier
- Laborers (non warrior caste, ala peasant workers, miners, etc.).
- Remeber how older editions used to list non-combatant frequency numbers in stat blocks? Those are minions (all those poor baby orcs).
- any poorly equip or unfit soldiers. i.e. Volksgrenadiers (old men and boys), or possibly starved slave troops.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

In my mind, minions fit in with the following:
- Any conscript soldier
- Laborers (non warrior caste, ala peasant workers, miners, etc.).
- Remeber how older editions used to list non-combatant frequency numbers in stat blocks? Those are minions (all those poor baby orcs).
- any poorly equip or unfit soldiers. i.e. Volksgrenadiers (old men and boys), or possibly starved slave troops.

I think you can add some to the list, for high level PCs. In my mind, minions are not necessarily poorly equipped or poorly trained - they may be competent combatants, but they are totally outclassed by the PCs. An example I liked from an old thread is the final battle scene in the first LotR movie against the Uruk-hai. Against most people, those orcs are downright deadly, but to Aragon et al. they were mostly one-hit-kills. They were just outclassed.

Basically, any monster with low enough hp to die in one hit is a minion, whether or not they're actually classed as such. To a 15th level PC, a normal 5th level soldier might well be a minion.

 

[malraux]

Someone has to be Porkins.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

This follows sorta along with the idea that Baka no Hentai and tomtill were talking about. But creates a little bit less distinction between minion and non-minion.

A minion could be for all signifigant purposes the same as an ordinary enemy. So for this example lets say the party is facing a group of Orc Grunts.

All the Orc Grunts have had the same training, same equipment and same will to fight. The differences come up when they enter combat, it isn't their lack of skill that causes their quicker/earlier demise if they are a minion it is simply luck of the draw.

A fighter may swing his sword, and only manages to despite how well he hit, slice away a couple fingers. However that same fighter swinging just as well in another round, manages to come down luckily on the neck of another Orc, beheading it. This Orc was in mechanical terms a minion. In-Game however he was just the unlucky Orc that had bowed its head at the wrong time.

 

[Derren]

Basically, any monster with low enough hp to die in one hit is a minion, whether or not they're actually classed as such. To a 15th level PC, a normal 5th level soldier might well be a minion.

There is a difference. A real minion has laughable HP but somehow is a competent enough fighter ho hit the higher level PC and has a for this level average defenses while a normal guy with much lower level does not have high HP and has also a very low attack and probably also low defenses.

Considering how HP is supposed to work in 4E this minion setup (no HP, average attack and defense) does not make sense, but as shown numerous times 4E doesn't care about immersion, logic and realism and instead endorses action movie logic.

 

[Minigiant]

Minions are the no names. The guys the heroes and villains beat up on if they are not injured or weakened in some way. Minions are the police and army when the supervillain attacks the city. Minions are the guys that get shoulder tossed and jumped kicked in the start of a kids action show. They are the basic soldier who do a job if they don't get attacked first. Low level ones are untrained guys with sticks. High level ones are the "special agents" who KO the security guards then get OHKOed by the heroes 5 minutes/pages later.