Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[ExploderWizard]

I would think it would be quite a bit different. Hit points are just the ability to stand there and soak up damage.

I think the 4E rules would have an issue with that.

It's more about the ability to endure pain, skill at rolling with or avoiding blows, and even just luck. Minions just don't have the combat skill to avoid killing blows like more highly trained individuals. You attack that does 50 damage does 50 damage whether the target has 1HP or 100HP, it's just the 100HP creature has the wherewithal to avoid being killed by the blow.

No argument here. Hp are indeed abstract, and have always been so. 50 damage is 50 damage no matter how many HP the target has. Well, 1 HP is 1 HP and using simple comparative values 1HP cannot withstand a stiff breeze compared to 50 HP.

You yourself say that HP are an abstraction so why treat them as the physics of of the game world? So while having your HP loss represent a glancing "hit" and dealing "damage" it also doesn't have to either.

Quite so, you can call a near miss that forces an opponent to use up the last reseves of energy to dodge it a hit if the mechanical resolution indicated a hit that scores damage. The physics of the gameworld don't change. If you roll a successful hit and score damage then it generally happens no matter how you want to narrate it.

Anyway it's pretty obvious you don't like the execution of minions in 4e, so how would you have done it instead?

For starters you can eliminate thier need by scrapping the ridiculous bonus bloat and regemented scaling madness of the base system. There isn't a sane need to keep jacking up the numbers in such a fashion other than to sell a constant stream of splatbooks. Your mileage and gaming needs may vary quite a bit.

 

[Oni]

I think the 4E rules would have an issue with that.

Pardon my typo.

Hit points are not just the ability to stand there and soak up damage.

 

[AllisterH]

For starters you can eliminate thier need by scrapping the ridiculous bonus bloat and regemented scaling madness of the base system. There isn't a sane need to keep jacking up the numbers in such a fashion other than to sell a constant stream of splatbooks. Your mileage and gaming needs may vary quite a bit.

Personally, I always thought this was very, very weird about D&D.

You get better at attacking - To hit bonus improves as you level.

You can take more punishment - Hp increases as you level.

You can resist effects better - Saving throws increase (in pre 3e, a high level fighter laughs in the face of non-damaging magic from any source) - including the fact that your Reflex/Breath weapon save gets better.

Yet you DON'T get better at avoiding mundane attacks?

Even back when I played 1e/DM 2e I thought there was something very weird going on there.....

 

[ST]

Good point.

For comparison, most other RPGs that don't use AC typically have two factors: ability to avoid an attack entirely, and ability to have the damage from that attack reduced.

Most of those games let you increase your chance to dodge/be missed and relegate DR to armor.

 

[MerricB]

There was indeed a disconnect between the treasures listed in modules and the advice about the placement of magic treasure in the DMG. IIRC there was a piece in Dragon Magazine where Gary said as much.

If there is, could you find the issue number for us, please? I'd like to read that article. I certainly remember Gary talking in the AD&D DMG about how early D&D games didn't suggest limits on magic item placement, and so lots of campaigns just used what the tables suggested and broke as a result.

Mind you, I have the feeling that the discussion of "low magic" that Gary has in the DMG is aimed specifically at new (1st level) campaigns; once the medium to high levels are reached, magic items became a lot more frequent. As the years have gone by, I've become very suspicious of a lot of the interpretations of Gary's advice in the AD&D DMG; it seems to me that Gary often was talking about quite specific issues which have been then made more general by the readers.

With regard to the threat of low-level monsters in AD&D: I do agree with you to some extent. I do feel that hit points determine longevity in AD&D far more than AC, although it was terribly easy for a DM to break the AC system by just giving out a couple of good magic items. Or through a fighter with very good stats.

In 4e, low-level monsters are far more successful as threats than in 3e. 3e had an incredibly steep power curve; so much so that I was of the opinion by the end that an ogre was a TPK at level 2, a threat at level 3, and a walkover by level 5. That's a terribly short period of usefulness. In 4e, the useful levels of a monster are extended to far more than 3e.

However, ignoring minions, a low-level monster in 4e, despite possibly being a credible threat, may well survive too long against higher level PCs. The goblin skirmisher (1st level) has 29 hp. An 11th level rogue can one-shot that; most other PCs won't without using encounter powers. This is a clear disconnect from how it worked in previous editions, although this isn't always a bad thing.

Cheers!

 

[Brother MacLaren]

You can take more punishment - Hp increases as you level.
Yet you DON'T get better at avoiding mundane attacks?

HP are a mix of ability to withstand punishment and ability to dodge (or at least roll with) mundane attacks. The difference between escalating AC as the primary defensive mechanic, and escalating HP, is that HP can be worn down over time.

An 8th-level fighter in B/X might take as many or only half as many hits from 1-HD foes compared to a 1st-level fighter (depending on if he has magic armor), but be able to withstand 8 times as many hits. So if he's taken 3 or 4 hits, he can judge that it's time for a fighting withdrawal. Now suppose we escalated HP slower, but AC faster, so that he is hit only 1/8 as often but can only take 2x as many hits. Fights would be more swingy; he could breeze through hordes of lesser foes effortlessly, or a couple of bad rolls could kill him. The reliance on HP as the main level-based difference in defense reduces the swinginess.

I liked the deflect mechanic in the Master Set; a skilled swordsman could indeed improve his ability to parry blows 1-on-1, but a large number of lesser foes could still overwhelm him. As it should be IMO. Conan fights the Battle of the Mounds by engaging foes one at a time, not charging in and letting himself get surrounded by armed men. Give him a high level-based bonus to AC, and he can act like the Bride vs. the Crazy 88, which is not a scene I ever want to see again in a game or a movie.

 

[Hussar]

Post #378 where I said "I expect GMs to always exert narrative control to the point of mostly ignoring all rules except those that make players question their suspension of disbelief."

In addition Hussar's post, and my post to him was concerning humanoids which you quoted. Not cats, bat, fungi, and bacteria. In my game, I rarely have humanoids with 1hp, expecting most of them to have died out.

Why don't the smaller things with 1 hp die out? For the same reason they don't in the real world. Simulation is a scale that one needs not go to the far end to prefer.

joe b.

So, basically, you're saying that you're only simulationist to a point. You take the rules to simulate your world to a point you feel comfortable with and then arbitrarily cut it off any further than that.

In other words, you rewrite the rules to suit your tastes. 1st level commoners and any 1 hit die (or lower) monster NEVER has 1 hit point. They, as you say, die off.

The problem I'm having with this is it's so illogical. You have no problems fiating over the rules to ignore the minion like status of 25% of the population of your entire world (at least the humanoid parts of it) but, the fact that there is a specific minion type for some monsters makes you balk?

The fact that the rules in every edition specifically HAD minions doesn't bother you though.

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

Just to be clear, I'm agreeing with you completely.

I just get amused when I'm the mushroom and onion guy and I'm being told that pepperoni is just as good a vegetarian pizza.

See, I'd agree with the both of you if you weren't slathering your pizza with hamburger. Your idea of simulation forces you to change the rules. To selectively apply the rules of the game to create the world that you like. Yet, for some reason, having explicit rules that are exactly the same from a world building stance as the rules of every other edition tips you over.

Again, there's a bit too much protestation going on.

 

[Ariosto]

I ask myself, "Why minions, in the first place?"

For a start, I notice that the scaling by level of both attack and defense factors creates some problems to my mind -- but that it certainly does not prevent high-level characters from whacking low-level monsters with near impunity.

The problem is that, even with some increase in damage per hit, critters of all sorts in 4E simply have too many hit points ... and the "grind" just gets worse as levels get higher.

That's largely intentional, if perhaps not as well calibrated as it could be. The designers wanted to give plenty of opportunity to bring powers, combat advantage, and conditions into play. The at-will and encounter powers especially need some time for shifting, sliding, and synergies to produce decisive positions on the board.

Unfortunately, it also means that anything on par (in hit points) with even a first-level character is a drag for high-level PCs to take out. Actual first-level stats make the situation even duller because the chance of scoring a hit on a PC is -- thanks to the scaling of factors -- so remote as to be nearly inconsequential even if hits could not be shrugged off with healing surges.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Why have Minions? They exist so you can fight a large group of monsters without running into a management nightmare. They don't just have one hit point, they also deal a fixed amount of damage. This means while you still have to roll attacks for every monster, you at least don't need to account their hit points or roll their damage rolls.
At the same time, their attack and defense remains "relevant" for their level, making each roll useful (and not just hope for "not a 1" and "only a 20").
Their primary purpose is to provide a different model of "low level" threats without hurting the gameplay experience by requiring too much management or dice rolls and too many "hopeless" dice rolls.

 

[Ariosto]

Mustrum, hit points points and damage dice do not in my experience constitute a "management nightmare". On top of all the complications in 4E, maybe they could be the straw that breaks the camel's back ... but that is to put things out of proportion!

The real necessity comes from the factors I outlined above, a whole complex of interrelated design choices. I'm not sure what "problems" they were meant to solve, but some they have created are clear enough.