Zombie Minions are too weak

[Voss]

must... resist...urge...to...pun...
failed.

a zombie hoard would be a sign of a sick and deranged mind.

But this brings to mind some issues I noticed with the monsters we had previews of. The levels on some of them were a bit questionable. The human berserker stands out in my mind, it was higher level than most of the kobolds, yet it was a much easier opponent- the lower defenses made more of a difference than the higher hit points or damage, and after about 5 trial runs with various monsters, it was fairly clear to me that as a monster, it was much weaker than lower level ones, and that experimenting with others, it seemed to be part of a pattern with 'brute' monsters- they just weren't as challenging.

 

[Rechan]

On one side of the argument: Zombie minions should be level 1, because the gobbo is more potent. Zombies are meant to be in hordes, which precludes lots of them, something that you can achieve quicker with a minion costing less xp.

On the other side of the argument: Zombie minions should be level 3; they have immunities and dark vision.

On a smaller portion of the argument: Zombie minions should be able to immobilize or grab, and should work better as a horde.

Rechan's suggestion: Go middle of the road.

Take level 3 minion stats. Call it level 2 minion. Make it harder to escape a grab by a zombie that is surrounded by other zombies.

 

[Cadfan]

Stalker0- Lots of things are roughly linked to level. For a minion, damages, defenses, xp, those are all linked to level.

Let me illustrate using a wider level disparity than 1 and 3.

Suppose we have our level 11 generic brute minion, who has a particular set of stats. And we have our generic level 21 minion, who has those same stats, mostly +5.

Suppose we wanted an extra large minion horde for our level 21 pcs.

We could use already existing monsters. If we used the level 21 minions, we could do it by declaring this an encounter of above average difficulty, and use more minions than normally appropriate.

If we used level 11 minions, we could use many more than normal due to the lower xp cost per minion, but the minions would die easily, and would rarely hit the pcs.

But we could also create a third, compromise minion. We could perhaps give it the same attacking stats as the regular generic level 21 minion, but give it the defensive values of the level 11 minion. Such a minion would die even faster than normal for minions in an encounter with level 21 pcs, but would still remain a credible threat for damage. Because these minions still attack at the same level as a regular level 21 minion, we might want to set them at or near level 21. But because they die faster, we might set their XP value lower, and suggest to players that they use extra large crowds of these minions whenever they use them.

Get the idea? I'm not saying that 4e did this, I'm saying that 4e COULD do this, and it ought to work out just fine.

 

[Mengu]

I am not sure if they would be appropriate as level 1 minions. +6 attack with 5 points of damage seems rather strong. I do agree their defensive abilities seem a bit off for level 3, though not having played level 3, it's hard to say. The difference between level 1 and level 3 is not as drastic in 4.0 as it used to be in 3.x. However, if they appear weak, maybe giving them a defensive ability would fix the problem. Zombies are supposed to be resilient, so I'd give them something in the lines of:

Resilient/2: When a zombie rotter takes enough damage to be destroyed, it is knocked down instead of taking the damage, on the roll of 1 or 2 on 1d6.

So on average you would have to kill 4 zombie rotters 6 times.

 

[Stalker0]

But we could also create a third, compromise minion. We could perhaps give it the same attacking stats as the regular generic level 21 minion, but give it the defensive values of the level 11 minion. Such a minion would die even faster than normal for minions in an encounter with level 21 pcs, but would still remain a credible threat for damage. Because these minions still attack at the same level as a regular level 21 minion, we might want to set them at or near level 21. But because they die faster, we might set their XP value lower, and suggest to players that they use extra large crowds of these minions whenever they use them.

Get the idea? I'm not saying that 4e did this, I'm saying that 4e COULD do this, and it ought to work out just fine.

Definately a great idea, but I seriously doubt that's a core idea in the MM. In the MM, levels and XP are linked. If you want to customize your minions, sure have fun, that's what making monsters is all about. But in teh core rules, zombies aren't any more hoard able than any other minion, and because of their level, they are actually less hoarable than the goblins.

 

[Spatula]

Read my whole post. I'm arguing that if zombies are special level 3 minions that only cost maybe 30 xp, it would make sense.

I can see designing a minion type monster that has the same damage as a regular minion of that level, but with half the durability. Then you could use twice as many.

There's no such thing. Every monster of a given level and a given "strength" (minion, normal, elite, solo) is worth the same XP.

EDIT: The level 3 zombie minions in KoTS are indeed worth 38 XP.

 

[FadedC]

Well there are 2 things to consider here.....

1) Assuming the minions were attacking a rogue with 18 dex and leather armor (ac 16) the goblins do an average of 2 damage per round, and the zombies do an average of 2.75. So the zombies do about 38% more damage then the goblins.

2) Do any zombies have abilities that become more powerful based on number of adjacent zombies? If so then that just made zombie minions much more powerful.

 

[Antara]

How do zombie minions compare to skeleton minions? Could someone post skeleton minion stats here?

 

[Sojorn]

2) Do any zombies have abilities that become more powerful based on number of adjacent zombies? If so then that just made zombie minions much more powerful.

Yeah, minions are never EVER meant to be used in a vacuum (unless you design several minion types to work together well, but then that's still not a vacuum)

The orc minions, for example, seem pretty weak compared to Legion Devils. However, orc minions will often get the benefit of a rather powerful aura that allows them to make an extra attack when they hit zero HP. The Legion Devils are just meant to be a wall of hard to kill minions in full plate with shields.

Zombies are assumed to be bolstered, or raised or otherwise improved by the presence of a necromancer, or made deadly though another zombie type. Or perhaps they can give some bonuses to something as they die. Or you can indeed put them as doorstops in a poison trap.

Goblin minions are assumed to have fewer benefits from leader types, and so each one is a bit stronger individually to compensate.

And if you run into a bunch of zombies with no leader or necromancer, of COURSE it'll seem easy. They're just zombies.

 

[Nytmare]

I don't currently have any of my stuff at my disposal, but the first two things that come to mind are that there might be a common undead ability that gives all other undead on the board some kind of bonus, and that we might have a better feel for the balance issue if we were to compare a 2nd, 4th, and 5th level minion alongisde the gobbo and zombie.