You Never Pit 9th Lvl Minions Against 1st Lvl PCs.

[AverageCitizen]

Why not?

The Orc Warrior Minion, Level 9 XP 100, seems to be a good match for a first-level PC. 21 AC, and our 1st level fighter from DDXP has several +6 vs AC attacks, so they'll hit 1/4 of the time and kill it. The Ranger, +10 vs AC on his standard attack has nearly a coinflip to hit, with Magic Missiles from the Wizard the same way (+5 vs Reflex, a 16 for the Orc Warrior).

Seems reasonable balanced to me.

Ok, mechanics aside, (I think there are others a lot more qualified to discuss that,) the in-world explanation should also be considered. Take a war chief's bodyguard, for example. Say at level 9, these guys are minions and the main threat is the war chief himself. However, if you were to take, story wise, bodyguard X and have him fight lower level pcs he should probably be statted very differently. 'Minion' is a subjective measure. What might be a minion to a high level group might be a solo or elite challenge for a lower level group.

 

[KidSnide]

Why not?

The Orc Warrior Minion, Level 9 XP 100, seems to be a good match for a first-level PC. 21 AC, and our 1st level fighter from DDXP has several +6 vs AC attacks, so they'll hit 1/4 of the time and kill it. The Ranger, +10 vs AC on his standard attack has nearly a coinflip to hit, with Magic Missiles from the Wizard the same way (+5 vs Reflex, a 16 for the Orc Warrior).

Seems reasonable balanced to me.

It's not a matter of whether or not it is balanced. It's a matter of whether or not it is fun.

The math only works well if the levels are somewhat comperable. If the monster attacks are too high, then AC becomes an unimportant stat and the defenders can't defend effectively. Similarly, if it's not a question of wearing down hp, but is just a question of how many rounds it takes to land that "single hit", then the combats become too swingy.

 

[malraux]

Given that the whole point of minions is that its a creature that should give a challenge to the party, but that the party shouldn't have much trouble with any particular one, I'd expect that Level 9 minion against Level 1 party violates the point of the minion status.

 

[baberg]

I guess there was a lot of discussion in some other thread that I didn't read, by the way people have jumped all over my quick numbers crunch.

Whatever.

 

[small pumpkin man]

IIRC someone from WotC pointed out that the XP works OK within three levels of the PC outside of that it starts to get a bit wobbly. But I could be misremembering.

Three levels? Seriously? They talk about how Monsters work so much better both up and down, then, oh whoops, the xp system only works out of the book three levels either way.

*sigh*

I know that's probably a conservitive estimate, it doesn't mean you can't use them, just that how useful, and how fun the game is wil vary more, but it's still annoying.

 

[Sojorn]

Three levels? Seriously? They talk about how Monsters work so much better both up and down, then, oh whoops, the xp system only works out of the book three levels either way.

*sigh*

I know that's probably a conservitive estimate, it doesn't mean you can't use them, just that how useful, and how fun the game is wil vary more, but it's still annoying.

You can use the customization rules to shove them another 5 levels on top of that.

 

[N0Man]

I suppose you *could* use a group of 5 level 9 Minion Orcs against a group of 5 level 1 adventurers, but I'm not sure I'd choose to. Minions seemed to be more designed to be useful in being fodder (as the multiple grunts to a monster leader, or to be part of a zerg against the party).

You have to use some judgment when setting up these encounters. I don't think we should go strictly on just XP. I believe someone from WotC stated that scaling monsters worked best if kept within +/- 5 levels.

Using judgment and common sense, take a look at this list and ask yourself where does it start getting wonky:

* 20 x Level 1 Minions
* 1 x Level 1 Elite, 1 Level 1 x Normal, 4 x Level 1 Minions
* 2 x Level 1 Elites, 1 x Level 1 x Normal
* 1 x Level 1 Solo
* 2 x Level 2 Elites
* 1 x Level 4 Elite, 1 x Level 1 Normal, 2 x Level 1 Minions
* 10 x Level 5 Minions
* 1 x Level 6 Elite
* 5 x Level 9 Minions
* 2 x Level 14 Minions
* 1 x Level 18 Minion

Note: All of these are 500 XP encounters.

 

[hong]

Because with the orc warrior's +14 to hit, he hits even the party defenders on a 5 or better and knocks off about 1/5 of the fighter's hp per smack. If you put a group of them together, economy of actions dictates that they'll almost certainly inflict pretty heavy damage on a party of 1st-level characters before they're brought down, and if you supplement a standard 1st-level encounter with one of these dudes, his 1 hp means he'll be dropped out of the fight too quickly to be a satisfying challenge. High-level minions vs. low-level PCs are just too swingy.

High-level minions vs low-level party SHOULD be swingy. This is not always a bad thing. Unpredictability of outcomes is what makes combat what it is; that's what the dice are for. It only goes pear-shaped if there's too much unpredictability, and the final outcome can swing on one die roll. Even if you have, say, 5 minions vs 5 PCs, it'll take more than 1 die roll to kill a PC so it never gets to the silly stage.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the warrior minion could be a fun change of pace. Yes, it will be a "swingy" fight, but you know what? That isn't always a bad thing. A fight between a few Orc Warrior Minions and 1st-level PCs would be sudden, bloody, and terrifying; a good way to keep the players on their toes, lest they get overconfident in their sturdy hit points and defenses. You wouldn't want to do it often, but I don't see a problem with throwing the PCs against something like this once in a while.

The Warrior Minions would also be useful for sentries guarding important things. The rogue can slip up behind the sentry and slit his throat, killing him in one hit--but if he misses his strike, things get dicey...

 

[Irda Ranger]

I think Minions have stepped in from a different game. In this other game your AC and BAB never increase, but you get more HP and and it's your damage output that scales with level. This way when you're 10th level 1st level opponents can hit you (your AC hasn't changed since you were 1st level) and you have the same chance of hitting them, but they don't do much damage and you can kill them with one hit. Thus you can mow through crowds of them.

But that isn't how D&D works. In D&D all of AC, BAB, HP and DMG scale up. You become more powerful in multiple ways simultaneously, and 1st level guys can't even hit you. You're expected to be fighting your "peers", to graduate from orcs to ogres to giants ... you don't go back to fighting orcs once you've fought giants. No challenge.

But I guess the 4E devs wanted to offer you the choice of fighting large crowds of enemies in 4E. But to do it they had to break the underlying logic of the game. Someone can now have 1st level HP and 10th level BAB and HP. How did they get that skilled without being killed before now? Who cares? Clearly not mearls.

Now even the most basic precepts of the game are completely arbitrary. There is no internal consistency or logic at all.