Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[jgbrowning]

But what if I put my Black Dragon in a jungle? Can I do that? Or would I have to roll in order to see if my black dragon could survive in a new environment?

Depends on what you think appropriate. The rules say you can break them if you think it's appropriate.

You are right though, minion rules are not conducive to world creation.

It doesn't matter if I'm right. What matters, IMO, is if there's a better way of getting the mechanical effects desired out of the minion concept that doesn't alienate a part of the gaming audience.

If you could ignore that in every other edition of D&D, why is suddenly having minions a major stumbling block?

Honestly, I rarely had 1hp creatures in my worlds in prior editions and at a much lower % than indicated by the raw dice. I'd just kinda assumed most of the 1hpers in the world had already died off, resulting in only a few 1hpers being around.

I suspect the major difference is one of scale. In 1e, hp varied from 1 to about 100 for normal creatures (not uniques). In 4e that has increased from 1 (only minions) to the weakest creature in the world (outside a minion) having around 20hp while the strongest reaching close to 1,400hp. A minion, is about 1/20th as tough as the next weakest creature in the world.

The difference of scale is dramatically larger, and that increase results in it being increasingly harder to ignore an issue, IMO.

joe b.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

*LOL*

Serious question to RC (and others anti-minions)

Would the minions rules be AS bad to you if the WOTC designers had stuck to their *original* minions rules (which did have minions gaining small bits of HP - Vampire level 8 minions had 6 HP IIRC)

Okay, so that's basically like using B/X or 1E and choosing 1 hp/HD, as you might for a really old and feeble foe. Ogre with 4 hp, Hill giant with 8 hp, etc. And I suppose 1 hp/HD could represent "really bad luck" as well as "inherently feeble," so it's not impossible. Still not a fan of that approach, since I'm not a particular fan of the minion trope in TV/movies when it seems that the hero is winning because his foes are incompetent rather than because he is that good.

 

[jgbrowning]

No, the rules just say that anyone with 1 hit point is taken out when he takes any hit point damage. Minions have a special rule that says that they don't take damage on a miss.

In the DMG it says destroyed. There is the miss take no damage and there is the option of turning a kill into a knockout. These are the exceptions to the destroyed by taking any amount of damage.

joe b.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Minion rules, as you note, don't simulate biological reality for monsters. They tend to be expressions of larger universal "laws" such as the idea that at lower levels a single ogre is a terror, but as you become more and more of a mythological figure, you can hew ogres in half with one shot.

But the reality is that you in fact do not become mighty enough to hew ogres in half with one shot. Special ogre pinatas have to be constructed to permit this expression of "might". Despite getting very powerful, an actual ogre still takes a bit of effort to defeat.

The ogres in this case transform into servants of El Nebuloso. That does not make the PC's more mythic.

"Jolly good"

 

[Raven Crowking]

*LOL*

Serious question to RC (and others anti-minions)

Would the minions rules be AS bad to you if the WOTC designers had stuck to their *original* minions rules (which did have minions gaining small bits of HP - Vampire level 8 minions had 6 HP IIRC)

I am not sure that I would categorize the minion rules as "bad", per se. Depending upon what you want from a game, they might be quite good. In a Doctor Who scenario, for example, there might well be plenty of minions, and I could see this working for red shirts in Star Trek as well.

(Of course, the purpose of Red Shirts was to show how much danger the main cast was in, and if we know that the RS are 1-hit-kills, then this doesn't really serve that function at all.......This requires some thought! )

I dislike the idea of minions for the style of D&D I enjoy, and I strongly dislike the argument plan that goes "Same as it ever was, like cats and commoners" when this isn't the case.

I strongly support a Quantum Weather Butterfly.

But I'd like to note that a Minion has one hit point. As does a character that had taken enough damage to be reduced to 1 hit point. A feebleblow butterfly dealing 1/1,000,000 damage would kill both. Or rather, it miight kill neither. I am not sure the "minimum 1 point of damage" rule is still in effect in 4E.

AFAICT, there is no "minimum 1 point of damage" rule in 4E, nor is there a rule that requires a minion to take 1 point of damage to be defeated. A minion is defeated when it takes any hit point damage.

You are using a strange outlier that's a problem in all editions of D&D.

I disagree. This isn't a problem at all in previous editions of D&D that admonished the DM to use common sense whenever the rules seemed implausible. It is only with the admonishment to use the rules over common sense that the problem exists.

If you think that the DM should allow common sense to outweigh the rules in 4e, I welcome you to say so in this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ealing-dm-who-takes-things-too-literally.html). Otherwise, I hope, we can accept that this is a recent development.

I assume you fixed the issue in RCFG?

Yes. I used the same fix as all TSR-D&D has used: giving the GM explicit permission and encouragement to overide the rules when the rules don't make sense.

(Not that this occurs, of course, in RCFG. )

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Of course, at the same time, the minion concept fixed certain other fiction-based fiat problems that 3E had.

Namely, I distinctly remember one adventure I wanted to write that involved the assassination of a powerful and influential high-level Diplomat. I could make him an NPC Expert or Noble, but... If I made him high enough level to accurately represent the level of skill he had in Diplomacy and such, then his BAB, saving throws and hit points would have been too high for any assassin within the scope of the adventure to succeed.

The only way to solve the problem was to use DM fiat in a manner similar to what you're suggesting must be used for minions to survive to adulthood. In other words, "He can be assassinated in a single hit by being stabbed by a dagger, because it's important to the adventure and the setting and I say so."

This problem, though, I think I fixed.


RC

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Of course, at the same time, the minion concept fixed certain other fiction-based fiat problems that 3E had.

Namely, I distinctly remember one adventure I wanted to write that involved the assassination of a powerful and influential high-level Diplomat. I could make him an NPC Expert or Noble, but... If I made him high enough level to accurately represent the level of skill he had in Diplomacy and such, then his BAB, saving throws and hit points would have been too high for any assassin within the scope of the adventure to succeed.

The only way to solve the problem was to use DM fiat in a manner similar to what you're suggesting must be used for minions to survive to adulthood. In other words, "He can be assassinated in a single hit by being stabbed by a dagger, because it's important to the adventure and the setting and I say so."

Somewhat OT, but the best fix for this that I saw was a suggestion of basically giving an "occupation bonus" of about 0.5-1 per year of intensive practice, up to a +10. Works for diplomats, craftsmen, etc., but unlikely to make much difference for adventurers. Doesn't have to be DM fiat, can be a new universally-applied rule.

 

[Obryn]

The minion is integral, IMO, to 4e D&D combat.

I would pretty much completely disagree with this. It's a matter of DM and player taste. There are even published adventures - Thunderspire Labyrinth, for one - without really any minions at all.

I, personally, tend to add more, because I love movie ninjas. I don't see it breaking anything if you remove them entirely, though. You've mentioned that you think it breaks 4e combat, but I'm not really seeing how it could do that, after running the game for a year.

Thinking about it.... if having no minions breaks 4e combat, it should stand to reason that any 4e combat without minions should be broken. I honestly haven't found this to be the case.

OTOH, If having a single combat without minions isn't broken, then I don't see how a series of combats without minions could be broken.

-O

 

[jgbrowning]

Minion rules, as you note, don't simulate biological reality for monsters. They tend to be expressions of larger universal "laws" such as the idea that at lower levels a single ogre is a terror, but as you become more and more of a mythological figure, you can hew ogres in half with one shot.

I agree. I think that treating certain monsters in such a way (making them minions) is dramatically different than how prior editions treated all monsters. Which goes back to my postulate that 4e is moving in a different direction of style of play than prior editions.

Right. And I'll admit that not everything really needs to get to be a minion; I wouldn't make giants minions (even if they tended to get one-shotted in 1e if you had the right magic items). But those are specific applications, and in general I love the rule. It's like a skill challenge; I wouldn't run any of them out of the book as formal as all that, as they're too limiting, but a define-as-you-go skill challenge is delicious.

I think it's a lot like a skill challenge, with a bit of player challenge thrown in as well in determining what is a minion and what is not.

Such is my interest as well!

I think talking about design from a professional rather than a fan perspective is much easier. It's all about what's the goal of the design, does that design do what was intended, and what unforeseen outcomes of the design occur?

joe b.

 

[AllisterH]

Okay, so that's basically like using B/X or 1E and choosing 1 hp/HD, as you might for a really old and feeble foe. Ogre with 4 hp, Hill giant with 8 hp, etc. And I suppose 1 hp/HD could represent "really bad luck" as well as "inherently feeble," so it's not impossible. Still not a fan of that approach, since I'm not a particular fan of the minion trope in TV/movies when it seems that the hero is winning because his foes are incompetent rather than because he is that good.

Yeah...I got the sense the original rule was simple

1 HP per level for minions was the idea but they discovered that meant that the DM had to actually keep track of the HP which defeated the entire point of having minions

(a.k.a make it easy for the DM to simulate large number of opponents versus the PCs)

re: Solos in the world

Here's another question. Solos are as much a metagame construct as minions. Are they as problematic for people as minions are?

Another question. If the mechanics/rules are the physics of the world, how did you deal with spawning monsters like the Wraith or the Pit fiend in pre 3e?