NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9179812" data-attributes="member: 6696971">But, actual "cheating" is about the actual tactical and strategic layer of a game.  Insofar as a game actually cares about this (and they don't all do that), what matters is that the particular mechanic in question engages with and preserves one or both of these layers.  And the 4e minion rules, and the AD&D originals, do so as long as there isn't any user error.  Neither of these mechanics are there exclusively for color or genre tropes.  They are both of those things, but they get there via engagement with and preservation of that tactical and strategic layer of the game.Minion rules don't exist in isolation.  So like in 4e, you have to consider them holistically along with the rest of the game engine and the best practices instruction on how to generate a compelling tactical and strategic layer of the game along with strong color and coherent genre tropes.  So you start with (1) Encounter Budget > (2) Battlefield Array > (3) Team Monster Roster within those Encounter Budget constraints and synergizing both within Team Monster and with respect to the Battlefield Array.  Minions are a part of that last piece and they can easily be either (a) the pivot point for threat in a conflict (due to what they can do alone, do to what they can do in concert with respect to other components of the roster or the terrain, or due to how they can make difficult a Win Con alternate from "kill all the HPs dead") or (b) merely an amplifier of threat due to their interactions/synergy with the rest of the roster or the terrain.  Which is to say, when using the system as its design, Minions are multivariate threats that engage with the tactical and strategic layer and that must be legitimately overcome to achieve whatever the Win Con is of the combat (whther that be "Kill Team Monster" or "Escort NPC Safely" or "Escape the Waves" or "Stop the Ritual" or "Exorcise the Demon Before it Kills the Host" etc).</blockquote>

Verification