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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm-Bringer" data-source="post: 4864028" data-attributes="member: 57832">What you are saying is that a normal monster has three dimensions:  Defences (AC, Dex, what have you), Damage, and Hit Points.  Minions don't have that last dimension.  Their hit points are essentially undefined.  If you hit, they are dispatched, if you miss, they aren't.  Powers with a miss component don't trigger on minions, so it's pass/fail.This is the same as saying a cube has height, width and depth.  Except these cubes over here are missing that last component.  So we have flat cubes with only height and width.  But they are still cubes!  They are just flat cubes the party can kick over easily so they feel heroic.Which is exactly what combat with minions is:  achieving a goal, in this case an out of game goal to make the players feel like big damn heroes.You are probably used to thinking of skill challenges with defined numbers plugged in rather than variables.  You just have to plug the numbers in on the fly with minions.  The equation looks like this, in skill challenge terms:(Number of minions) successes before (minion damage divided by PC hit points) failures.So, 10 minions that do 5 damage vs the PC with 30hp:10 successes before 6 failures.If the PC can achieve 10 successes, that is, dispatch 10 minions, before those ten minions can deliver 30pts of damage, the PC succeeds.  It's like any other skill challenge.  The applicable skills are whatever attacks the player uses, the DC is whatever defence applies for that attack.  Str vs AC, Dex vs AC, Int vs Will, etc.The player has the opportunity to 'reset' some of their failures (getting hit by the minions) with healing surges.  Other than that, it is the exact same system as a skill challenge.  In fact, the healing surges only serve to decrease the number of failures before the challenge is over, so it really doesn't change it drastically.Well, as above, if we consider a monster (or 'suitable opponent') to have those three dimensions, and minions are lacking in one of those dimensions, you can hardly say it is a 'monster'.  Like our flat cubes in the previous example, it doesn't really make sense to call them 'monsters'.Interestingly, the depth of our flat cubes isn't precisely gone, it's simply undefined.  It could be near infinite, in fact.  For example, Blast of Cold does 6d6 and immobilizes the target on a hit, or half damage and slowed on a miss.  Unless the target is a minion, in which case, it does no damage, but the minion is slowed, save ends.  The other kobolds in the encounter, who may have an actual number of hit points (say, 12-15) could all very well be dead, but the minions fight on after a miss.  In this case, the minions have more hit points than the regular opponents.Hopefully, I have provided examples to make the similarity clearer.It's quite instructive, in fact.  If you disable the trap, no more damage, but it doesn't have hit points per se.  Well, it generally didn't in previous versions.  Currently, with traps having the equivalent of hit points, they are more akin to monsters than minions are.Sure, I will use your structure to do so:The reality in an RPG is ultimately the backdrop for exploring a world and engaging in a role. Most, if not all, role-playing is essentially of this type.It's only 'telling a story' in the broadest sense of relating what happened to other people after the sequence of events is completed.  At the time they are in play, the characters are not telling a story, they are creating a story.  The narrative, that is, the sequence of events and their larger meaning, comes after the events have been resolved for good or for ill.  You can't tell a story while you are creating it, however, as the events are not yet fixed; you don't know what happens next, so you can't know how that relates to what happened before, and certainly not how it will affect what happens after that.</blockquote>

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