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

[Fallen Seraph]

How did they get that skilled without being killed before now?

They got that skilled by training, and knowledge, etc. like anyone else would get that skilled. They die in one hit because you as a DM by placing a minion there has dictated that particular creature will be the one who doesn't raise his shield in time, or blocks in time and gets killed in one hit.

He is just as physically fit and healthy as anyone else, it is simply luck and circumstance was not on his side.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Its indeed a balancing act, I certainly wouldn't use such an encounter often, but I would use it still.

Though I prefer 2x Orc Raider and 2x Orc Warrior to mix it up from 2x Orc Raider and 4x Orc Drudge for example.

 

[hong]

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.

The power scaling of 3E is not something inherent to the game. In earlier editions, it was much easier to fight monsters above or below your level. Eg the G1-2-3 modules are tough but doable in 1E, but a killer in 3E if you just change all the monsters to their 3E stats.

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.

It's very easy to get 1st level hp and 10th level BAB in 3E. (Well, not quite, but close.) Just give the guy crap Con. I did exactly this for an NPC in my Britannia 3E game, who I wanted to be an old, retired assassin: dangerous, but also past his prime.

 

[AverageCitizen]

You guys... the orc doesn't actually have only one hit point. Its a shortcut, a book keeping trick to save the dm time because they usually go down in one hit anyway. If you had a peasant run into the battle and start smacking them around with his scythe you'd have to adjudicate about how many hit points they should actually have. If the orcs started fighting one another for some reason, they would need hit points. They aren't actually pushovers, its just that they don't stand a chance against the PCs.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

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.

Well, there is a lot of internal consistency and logic. The WotC Designers and Developers simply made a decision that running an exciting game that moves quickly and is easier to prepare for always trumps, "This rule does not make explicit sense as a 'physical law' of the world."

Ok, let me put on my "D&D rules = World Logic" Hat. (It know no limit, BTW)

A 9th level orc must have gotten his abilities by actively surviving many battles and over coming EL appropriate challenges. Okay, I see your point.

Taking off the Hat...

That 9th level Minion? He's one of the Uruk-Hai in Peter Jacksons LotR. He hasn't seen a real threat before. He's been trained, his sparring skills are high, but he's never really been in a threatening combat. So he charges out at Gimli, hits him, and is beheaded before he takes another action.

Yeah, my hat of "D&D Rules must equal world logic" know no limit.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

That 9th level Minion? He's one of the Uruk-Hai in Peter Jacksons LotR. He hasn't seen a real threat before. He's been trained, his sparring skills are high, but he's never really been in a threatening combat. So he charges out at Gimli, hits him, and is beheaded before he takes another action.

Or that Uruk-Hai could have even had lots of real combat experience, but luck and circumstance simply wasn't on his side that day and Gimli managed to behead him in one hit.

 

[pemerton]

Or that Uruk-Hai could have even had lots of real combat experience, but luck and circumstance simply wasn't on his side that day and Gimli managed to behead him in one hit.

Fallen Seraph, I just wanted to know that at least one person is enjoying (and agrees with) your narrativist defence of the minion rules in this and other threads.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Fallen Seraph, I just wanted to know that at least one person is enjoying (and agrees with) your narrativist defence of the minion rules in this and other threads.

Thanks

I think the different types of monster roles will really add alot of nice narrative to combat, since the DM can quite easily determine how he approaches each monster/how the monster reacts to the PCs (including the monsters being killed).

 

[Byronic]

Perhaps Orc Minions are simply very very strong as a race (compared to humans) in battle, but most of them are too reckless to understand the "don't let the other guy cut your artery or you'll die in seconds" the ones who do understand this salient fact usually grow up to become strong brutes and such.

 

[Eyada]

They got that skilled by training, and knowledge, etc. like anyone else would get that skilled. They die in one hit because you as a DM by placing a minion there has dictated that particular creature will be the one who doesn't raise his shield in time, or blocks in time and gets killed in one hit.

He is just as physically fit and healthy as anyone else, it is simply luck and circumstance was not on his side.

You guys... the orc doesn't actually have only one hit point. Its a shortcut, a book keeping trick to save the dm time because they usually go down in one hit anyway. If you had a peasant run into the battle and start smacking them around with his scythe you'd have to adjudicate about how many hit points they should actually have. If the orcs started fighting one another for some reason, they would need hit points. They aren't actually pushovers, its just that they don't stand a chance against the PCs.

Agreed. People are generating a problem here that doesn't exist. The Orc Minion is given 1 HP purely for narrative and bookkeeping reasons; the Orc does not actually have 1 HP total. The DM rules that -in the context of the upcoming fight- that particular Orc is greatly outclassed by his foes and will thus be considered a "Minion"; meaning that his HP will be considered to be 1 to reduce bookkeeping. So, because fate bows to DM fiat, that particular Orc will meet a most unpleasant end in the upcoming melee when he is skewered by his superior opponents. In a situation where that Orc is more powerful than what he is fighting, the DM would simply remove the "Minion" designation and restore his actual HP value.

The thread concerning Orc Minions slapping one another to death is rediculous because the Orcs would not be designated "Minions" in a scenario where they were fighting each other; rather, the DM would simply give them HP appropriate to their level and then let them go at it.