# Minion Fist Fights



## Korgoth

When minions get in fist fights with one another... do they all just die?  I'm being serious.


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## ShinRyuuBR

Being minion is relative ONLY to the PCs, NOT to each other. A DM designates certain enemies as minions against the PCs so he doesn't have to keep track of their HP. Your point is interesting because a PC could dominate a minion into attack another. I don't know what would happen then, but since the PC's perspective is what matters, I'd assume they would be killed ignoring HP all the same.


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## frankthedm

Yes, if you were so inclined as a DM to say the minion's punches were breaking the knecks of the other minions, you'd be within your power. Most DMs I know would instead say they knocked themselves out.


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## Cadfan

Yes.  They all just die.

Also, if the PCs meet a level 29 minion and kill it by shooting it with an area of effect attack that does half damage on a miss, they all get a free level.  This is why wizards are so much more powerful than everyone else, even in 4e.  They kill legion devil minions for sport until they get to level 20 or so.  It takes about an hour, or slightly longer if you invite one of your lower level friends to hide behind a pillar nearby and absorb experience points.


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## BarkingDeathSquirrel

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Yes.  They all just die.
> 
> Also, if the PCs meet a level 29 minion and kill it by shooting it with an area of effect attack that does half damage on a miss, they all get a free level.  This is why wizards are so much more powerful than everyone else, even in 4e.  They kill legion devil minions for sport until they get to level 20 or so.  It takes about an hour, or slightly longer if you invite one of your lower level friends to hide behind a pillar nearby and absorb experience points.



 From the Orc preview
"HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion."


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## LEHaskell

Brings a whole new meaning to "The Quick and the Dead."   You'd think that orcs would have evolved better Init mods under these circumstances.


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## Daniel D. Fox

BarkingDeathSquirrel said:
			
		

> From the Orc preview
> "HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion."




I believe the intention is that Minions ALWAYS die whenever they're damaged. That statement doesn't take into account some missed Daily attacks still render damage, and appears to be an oversight.


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## FunkBGR

Minion = Mook

I bet common sense still applies though - but yeah, Jackie Chan has "minions" in his movies running into walls, and all kinds of crazy things, and bam, down they go!


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## Maximillian

Moniker said:
			
		

> I believe the intention is that Minions ALWAYS die whenever they're damaged. That statement doesn't take into account some missed Daily attacks still render damage, and appears to be an oversight.




I believe that you're incorrect. I'm pretty sure that the intent is that half-damage attacks and residual damage from a missed daily power do not kill minions. The intent seems to be that you should have to be able to hit minions to kill them. In this way, their level actually accounts for something. Level one PCs won't be hitting level 6 minions as easily, and thus won't be killing them.

However, I still wonder about powers that don't require an attack roll, like the Stormwarden ranger paragon path's ability to deal damage to one or more adjacent foes every round.


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## frankthedm

Moniker said:
			
		

> I believe the intention is that Minions ALWAYS die whenever they're damaged. That statement doesn't take into account some missed Daily attacks still render damage, and appears to be an oversight.



That is EXACTLY what that statement is taking into account. A missed daily that still deals damage does not kill the minion.

_Minions have 1 HP_ is there to make it easy for the DM, who won't have to track the critter's HP. Not so the minion autodies against attacks that deal damage on a miss.


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## BarkingDeathSquirrel

Moniker said:
			
		

> I believe the intention is that Minions ALWAYS die whenever they're damaged. That statement doesn't take into account some missed Daily attacks still render damage, and appears to be an oversight.



 Heck, the pre-gen fighter (I believe) from Keep on the Shadowfell has _an at-will_ power that deals damage on a miss.

I believe that line fully takes into account that those powers exist. Otherwise, you _do_ get the odd (although, corner case and highly DM-dependant) situation that Cadfan described.

Edit: Ninja'd, I guess.


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## Boarstorm

Moniker said:
			
		

> I believe the intention is that Minions ALWAYS die whenever they're damaged. That statement doesn't take into account some missed Daily attacks still render damage, and appears to be an oversight.




Err... it seems to me to be the opposite case.  They know that some missed attacks still render damage, so they decided to make minions hit-only to PREVENT that kind of cheese.

Edit: Hardcore ninja'd.


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## Wormwood

Korgoth said:
			
		

> I'm being serious.



Your first mistake.


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## Kaffis

Moniker said:
			
		

> I believe the intention is that Minions ALWAYS die whenever they're damaged. That statement doesn't take into account some missed Daily attacks still render damage, and appears to be an oversight.




Actually, I think it does take that into account. In fact, the minion appears to be the exception to said powers that do partial damage on misses.


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## Sojorn

Boarstorm said:
			
		

> Err... it seems to me to be the opposite case.  They know that some missed attacks still render damage, so they decided to make minions hit-only to PREVENT that kind of cheese.



The old wording confused the issue of auto-hits though, this new wording seems to indicate that damage auras do instantly kill minions.

I'm sure there'll be a section in the DMG or MM that explains EXACTLY what they mean though.


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## Korgoth

Wormwood said:
			
		

> Your first mistake.




Maybe so.      But when I get interested in a fantasy game, part of it is imagining the world.  I have to be able to do that somewhat consistently.

Imagine a bar full of minions.  They get into a fight with each other.  When some guy hits another guy with a chair or beer mug, does that guy automatically die?

It just seems strange.  Like some people are way too tough and others are way too fragile.


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## Maximillian

Sojorn said:
			
		

> I'm sure there'll be a section in the DMG or MM that explains EXACTLY what they mean though.




Hopefully that'll be included in the article on the 19th. From the preview article updating the DDI schedule:



> Mon 05/19: Minions (MM)


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## Sojorn

Maximillian said:
			
		

> Hopefully that'll be included in the article on the 19th. From the preview article updating the DDI schedule:



Minions: Unsafe at any speed


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## Kaffis

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Maybe so.      But when I get interested in a fantasy game, part of it is imagining the world.  I have to be able to do that somewhat consistently.
> 
> Imagine a bar full of minions.  They get into a fight with each other.  When some guy hits another guy with a chair or beer mug, does that guy automatically die?
> 
> It just seems strange.  Like some people are way too tough and others are way too fragile.




See, the problem here is, you're assuming minions *can* get in a bar fight. Everybody knows that tavern brawls are PC activities. Thus, once said fight breaks out, the minions become PCs.


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## Cadfan

No, the problem is that you're assuming that "minion" is a characteristic of the identified NPC, rather than a characteristic of the relationship between the identified NPC and the PCs.


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## Wormwood

Cadfan said:
			
		

> No, the problem is that you're assuming that "minion" is a characteristic of the identified NPC, rather than a characteristic of the relationship between the identified NPC and the PCs.



What Cadfan said.


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## Daniel D. Fox

It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.

I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.


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## I'm A Banana

> They get into a fight with each other. When some guy hits another guy with a chair or beer mug, does that guy automatically die?




Doesn't 4e have nonlethal damage at all?

I mean, there's a lot of bar fights where normal people go down in one solid punch. I've really got no problem having that happen. They're usually not dead, but they're not in "fighting shape" anymore, and I'm pretty happy with 0 hp representing "no longer a credible threat." Nonlethal damage represents that pretty okay.



			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> No, the problem is that you're assuming that "minion" is a characteristic of the identified NPC, rather than a characteristic of the relationship between the identified NPC and the PCs.




Your problem is in assuming that this is a "problem."

It's not.

It's a playstyle preference.

You can't "fix" it.


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## Wormwood

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Doesn't 4e have nonlethal damage at all?



The attacker determines whether the last blow kills or KO's, right?

If that's not the rule, it should be.


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## Cadfan

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Your problem is in assuming that this is a "problem."
> 
> It's not.
> 
> It's a playstyle preference.
> 
> You can't "fix" it.



No, it wasn't.  It was a flaw in comprehension.

It was a "playstyle preference" in about the same way that this is: "I don't understand how the 4e Ranger works.  I can't find anything at all about masks, silver revolvers, training your horse, or having native american sidekicks."

Nice try though.


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## Mort_Q

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.




It is entirely ridiculous to award a kill to a PC that *missed their attack roll*.


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## Cirex

After the first encounter at the Raiders of Oakhurst module, I told my players that minions only had 1 HP, but high attack ratings and a fixed amount of damage, for simplicity.

So, after 5 minutes of joking about it "So he tripped and died" "He sneezed and died" "Hey, if he gets hit for too long by the Sun, does he die" and etc.

Ah well...


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## scrubkai

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.
> 
> I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.




Sorry but I have to disagree with you here...
Typically in 3.x when I run a large fight with large amounts of minor bad guys (minions), if someone drops a high level AoE on them, they all get a save.
Failed save: They join the dead pile.
Made Save: They stay on the board badly wounded. (At this point they are one shot kills for anyone, including any weak AoE attack someone has)

So it normally takes one AoE attack to clear 75% of the minor characters from the board.   And it takes a second AoE to fully clear the board.

I find that it makes the players feel like they are very powerful, while still offering the sense of risk that a few of the minor bad guys might survive and close on the squishy mage/psion.

I find it interesting that 4E is doing something close to this as part of their core rules.

Of course I also have minor bad guys run if their leaders/too many of them are slain and I'm going to guess that isn't going to be part of the core rules.


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## ShinRyuuBR

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to award a kill to a PC that *missed their attack roll*.




Is it? Ridiculous to me is if a minion would have 15 HP, if you cared to track it (defeating the whole purpose of labeling it a minion), while you deal 40 damage on a hit, 20 on a miss, and because minions only take damage on a hit, you can miss him 3 times, which would deal 60 points of damage, but it doesn't die.


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## fuzzlewump

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.
> 
> I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.



I think the idea is that minions don't explode when you barely tap them, it's that a well placed hit from a PC will always kill them. A miss, including damage made on a miss, isn't defined as a well placed hit, so it doesn't kill them. The real issue is that they are balanced on only being killed when an attack beats their defenses; if damage on a miss killed them they might have to give minions more HP at higher levels and that ruins the point of minions all together. If you house rule anything, just take out minions.


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## JesterOC

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.




What is so ridiculous, *THEY HAVE JUST ONE HIT POINT! *  They need that rule to make sure they are not worthless, just mostly worthless.  

Having just one hitpoint makes their defenses the most important aspect of their ability to survive.  Half damage on miss effects completely negate the ONLY bit of defense they have.  Thus they have special cased the hit point to make sure Only hits effect them.

"Minons don't take damage on a miss" *does not equal* "Minons take damage on a hit"

JesterOC


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## keterys

I'd mostly assume that people in a bar fight aren't doing much actual hp damage, anyways. 

I mean, most people pull their punch rather than do lethal force


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## Fanaelialae

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.
> 
> I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.




I'd say it is because then minions become very little threat to a party that has access to "damage on miss" effects.  We already know that the fighter has access to at least one of these, to say nothing of the casters such as wizard and cleric.  It's at least somewhat safe to assume that most if not all classes will get "damage on miss" effects at some point in their powers.  It's your game, but if you houserule that minions die from missed half damage attacks, players that use their half damage attacks often, will kill minions regardless of what their attack roll is.

To illustrate using an extreme example (and yes, I realize that extreme examples are often inaccurate, but I'm simply using it because it best illustrates my example) a level 1 character with a half damage on miss attack could kill a level 30 minion without having to roll to hit.  By comparison, if the minion is immune to the half damage miss, the same level 1 character will need a nat 20 to kill it.

There's nothing to say that the minions aren't damaged by such attacks (scorched by a fireball or a flesh wound from a sword), they just aren't killed by the attack and MECHANICALLY haven't been harmed.

In response to the barfight question, I'd narrate that the minions are able to trade a few punches with each other, but get knocked out cold if a PC (or non-minion NPC) hits them.  If a minion is dominated by a PC and attacks another minion, hitting him, he knocks the guy out.  If minions on two sides of a battlefield exchange volleys of arrow fire, a lot of them are going to die (assuming that they can hit each other).  IMO.


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## BendBars/LiftGates

I don't know how best to handle situations where a PC uses a power that deals damage on a miss. Yes, it's annoying to say that he wasted that power, but...

Usually powers that deal damage on a miss are dailies, are they not? That's sort of a safety net of usefulness that they don't bother with for at-wills and per-encounters. If you actually blow a daily power on a minion enemy, you don't deserve that safety net.

I can only see three possibilities as to why a PC would use a daily power on a minion:
1) You're an idiot who blows powerful abilities for no reason. Try again.
2) You didn't realize it was a minion. There's a bunch of them and you should be more careful.
3) You're trying to exploit the game by dealing guaranteed damage to a minion that is far too high-leveled for you. Cover your face, because your DM is about to beat you with a rulebook.

Really, these are all so unlikely that it hardly matters. The "minions don't take damage from a missed attack" bit is only there to prevent case #3. Just go with it: "A mighty hit, sure, but the thing survives. Even minions get lucky."


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## ShinRyuuBR

> What is so ridiculous, THEY HAVE JUST ONE HIT POINT!




Not so. *Level 1* minions *might* have 1 HP. I can take a level 5 elite creature with 20 HP and use it as a level 30 minion. Just because I don't bother with how much HP it actually has does not mean every minion from 1st to 30th level has just 1 HP. Minion is not a condition, it is a label that depends on the creature's enemies' level.


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## Storm-Bringer

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to award a kill to a PC that *missed their attack roll*.



No more ridiculous than assuming that a missed attack roll will still do any damage at all.

In this case, it means that minions have a variable number of hit points.  (odds to hit)% of the time, they have 1hp, but (odds to miss)% of the time, they have infinite hit points.

An example:

Fighter attacks a minion.  the 'to hit' roll needs to be 15 or better, so 85% of the time, the minion is hit and killed.  15% of the time, the fighter will miss, and _regardless of the effects of a miss from a power_ the minion will not die.  Even if the power does some kind of splash damage on a miss, the minion lives.  No matter how many times the miss effect triggers.


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## JesterOC

ShinRyuuBR said:
			
		

> Not so. *Level 1* minions *might* have 1 HP. I can take a level 5 elite creature with 20 HP and use it as a level 30 minion. Just because I don't bother with how much HP it actually has does not mean every minion from 1st to 30th level has just 1 HP. Minion is not a condition, it is a label that depends on the creature's enemies' level.




So where is the monster sheet with a 20 hp minon with the words 'Minon does not take damage on a miss'?  Have a link?

JesterOC

Edit: Just to be clear I am not saying all minons have 1 hit point, we have seen that before.  What I am saying is that the Orc Minors have one hit point with a special rule note attached.  Unless the 20 hp minors have the same special rule, then they take damage on a miss.  If the rules were so that all minons did not take damage on a miss they would not have added the special rule on the orc sheet.  This implies that 20 hp minons don't have the miss = safe rule.


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## I'm A Banana

Wormwood said:
			
		

> The attacker determines whether the last blow kills or KO's, right?
> 
> If that's not the rule, it should be.




Neat. If it's NOT the rule, I might use that. I like it.  



			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> No, it wasn't. It was a flaw in comprehension.



Sure, then, if you've got chapter and verse where minions are written into the rules as a "relationship," I'll be happy to hear it.

Heck, if you can even give me some designer commentary that points to that, I might cede that you have a point.

Otherwise, you're just being needlessly condescending.



> It was a "playstyle preference" in about the same way that this is: "I don't understand how the 4e Ranger works. I can't find anything at all about masks, silver revolvers, training your horse, or having native american sidekicks."



That's not so much a flaw in comprehension as it is a straw man.



> Nice try though.



Likewise.


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## Daniel D. Fox

Mort_Q said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to award a kill to a PC that *missed their attack roll*.




Keep in mind attack rolls are not only for weapons, but for spells as well.

Minions can ignore half damage and live but foes with HP reserves can take damage and be killed by the same mechanic (damage on a miss). The mechanic invalidates your entire point.

This has to be an oversight.


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## JesterOC

Moniker said:
			
		

> Seriously, this is an oversight; it has to be.




It is not an oversight, it is a feature.

JesterOC


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## BarkingDeathSquirrel

ShinRyuuBR said:
			
		

> Not so. *Level 1* minions *might* have 1 HP. I can take a level 5 elite creature with 20 HP and use it as a level 30 minion. Just because I don't bother with how much HP it actually has does not mean every minion from 1st to 30th level has just 1 HP. Minion is not a condition, it is a label that depends on the creature's enemies' level.



 Actually, the two Orc Minions previewed today both have 1 HP. One's level 4, the other is level 9. I'm hazarding a guess that all minions have 1 HP.


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## Mort_Q

JesterOC said:
			
		

> It is not an oversight, it is a feature.




This.


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## ShinRyuuBR

> So where is the monster sheet with a 20 hp minon with the words 'Minon does not take damage on a miss'? Have a link?




Check again, I'm not defending this "infinite HP on miss" stuff. But neither am I assuming all minions have just 1 HP.

I don't have the link, but you can check around that normal monsters with more than a dozen HP have become minions to higher-level PCs. Things could have changed, but Keith Baker reported that any monster can become a minion depending on the difference between its level and the PC's, and the philosophy is that you don't want to keep track of HP. If the stats bring "HP: 1" for all minions, than this hit/miss discussion is moot, and the fact remains that is a construct to represent the intended game result. Its not that you get to level 30 and suddenly all bone devils have 1 HP, it's just that the multiple HP they DO have is pointless against the PCs.


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## Cadfan

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Sure, then, if you've got chapter and verse where minions are written into the rules as a "relationship," I'll be happy to hear it.
> 
> Heck, if you can even give me some designer commentary that points to that, I might cede that you have a point.



Ah, I see the tactic.  Proclaim that I am wrong because I cannot cite chapter and verse, _even though you agree with me on the substantive point I was making about the nature of minions._  See everything you personally wrote in the orc thread for reference.

Anyways, no chapter and verse, obviously, but the good money is on monsters that start out as regular monsters turning into minions as you reach higher levels.  See "legion devil" versus "legion devil legionnaire" for reference.

In the meantime, not everything is a playstyle.  "Believes the rules of the game are laws of physics even when told they aren't and when playing a game where they can't be" is not a playstyle.  It is an error.  _Preferring_ that the rules of the game be laws of physics would be a playstyle.  *Belief that they are when they are not is just being wrong.*

Edited to add- my lazy butt gets an assist from the post before this one, where someone DOES quote chapter and verse.


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## JesterOC

ShinRyuuBR said:
			
		

> Check again, I'm not defending this "infinite HP on miss" stuff. But neither am I assuming all minions have just 1 HP.
> 
> I don't have the link, but you can check around that normal monsters with more than a dozen HP have become minions to higher-level PCs. Things could have changed, but Keith Baker reported that any monster can become a minion depending on the difference between its level and the PC's, and the philosophy is that you don't want to keep track of HP. If the stats bring "HP: 1" for all minions, than this hit/miss discussion is moot, and the fact remains that is a construct to represent the intended game result. Its not that you get to level 30 and suddenly all bone devils have 1 HP, it's just that the multiple HP they DO have is pointless against the PCs.




I agree.  I think that the whole Miss = Safe only applies to 1 hit point minos.  Just a guess of course. As is most of this.


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## ShinRyuuBR

> Sure, then, if you've got chapter and verse where minions are written into the rules as a "relationship," I'll be happy to hear it.
> 
> Heck, if you can even give me some designer commentary that points to that, I might cede that you have a point.




It's impossible to keep track of everything, but it should be fairly easy to google Keith Baker's little blog essays on this matter. Heck, he might even stumble upon this thread and confirm it himself (based on his playtesting experience, of course).


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## Fanaelialae

Would it be any more agreeable to some if minion was a template that dropped a creature's XP Value to 1/4, it's hp to 1, and granted it the 4e equivalent of evasion?

Not being sarcastic or any such thing, just offering up an alternative way of looking at it.  

Personally, I think that minions will always have 1 hp (and pseudo-evasion).  It allows the DM to throw vast hordes of enemies at the players without having to worry about having to track all those hps.  

My DM recently ran a heavily houseruled 3.5 campaign (zombies) that was designed for exactly that (pitting us against large hordes of zombies, that is), and he had a nightmare of a time tracking their hps.  I think our largest fight had around 120 zombies on the table at once.  Considering that he's 10 times the DM that I'll ever be, I doubt I'd be able to use the minion rules to their full potential if they weren't as written.  Tracking the individual hps and location of each and every zombie in a horde like that... he despised our sorcerer by the time the campaign ended.


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## Daniel D. Fox

It simply doesn't make sense for with HP reserves to take damage and potentially die from a missed roll whereas Minions can ignore ANY damage on a missed roll all together.


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## I'm A Banana

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Proclaim that I am wrong because I cannot cite chapter and verse, even though you agree with me on the substantive point I was making about the nature of minions.



Telling someone that they're "wrong" is unnecessarily condescending if you can't back it up.

For isntance, this post:


			
				ShinRyuuBR said:
			
		

> I don't have the link, but you can check around that normal monsters with more than a dozen HP have become minions to higher-level PCs. Things could have changed, but Keith Baker reported that any monster can become a minion depending on the difference between its level and the PC's, and the philosophy is that you don't want to keep track of HP. If the stats bring "HP: 1" for all minions, than this hit/miss discussion is moot, and the fact remains that is a construct to represent the intended game result. Its not that you get to level 30 and suddenly all bone devils have 1 HP, it's just that the multiple HP they DO have is pointless against the PCs.



backs it up nicely.



			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> Anyways, no chapter and verse, obviously, but the good money is on monsters that start out as regular monsters turning into minions as you reach higher levels. See "legion devil" versus "legion devil legionnaire" for reference.



This also works. 

Meanwhile...


			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> "Believes the rules of the game are laws of physics even when told they aren't and when playing a game where they can't be" is not a playstyle.



No one said anything about rules being physics. You said he had a problem because of an incorrect assumption. I challenged the notion that that assumption was incorrect. You and ShinryuuBR backed it up. I'm mollified.


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## Fanaelialae

Moniker said:
			
		

> It simply doesn't make sense for with HP reserves to take damage and potentially die from a missed roll whereas Minions can ignore ANY damage on a missed roll all together.




I encourage you to look at the monster hps in 4e.  While a monster with hp reserves could die from a half damage attack, it would mean that it was being beaten on for quite some time.

IMO, if you were to use a houserule regarding minions, I daresay the one that someone suggested earlier in this thread (at least I think it was this thread) that no creature can be killed by dmg on miss would be significantly more balanced.


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## Celebrim

Korgoth said:
			
		

> When minions get in fist fights with one another... do they all just die?  I'm being serious.




The way 4e works the rules only work on the assumption that one of the participants in the action is a PC.  

The implication of this is that they tell you nothing about what happens when an NPC fights an NPC, and as such you must either use different rules or wing it.

The 4e edition rule for what happens when minions get in a fist fight is 'what ever you want'.

The corrolary is, 'If you care what happens, then the NPC isn't a minion.'  

The corrolary of that is that giving an NPC a name transforms them from a minion into something else, possibly with accompanying loss of level but at least now they have hit points.


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## Nikosandros

ShinRyuuBR said:
			
		

> Is it? Ridiculous to me is if a minion would have 15 HP, if you cared to track it (defeating the whole purpose of labeling it a minion), while you deal 40 damage on a hit, 20 on a miss, and because minions only take damage on a hit, you can miss him 3 times, which would deal 60 points of damage, but it doesn't die.



If you are willing to deal with some extra bookkeeping, you might put a wounded marker next to a minion that has taken damage on a miss. A wounded minion that is wounded again dies.


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## Korgoth

Celebrim said:
			
		

> The way 4e works the rules only work on the assumption that one of the participants in the action is a PC.
> 
> The implication of this is that they tell you nothing about what happens when an NPC fights an NPC, and as such you must either use different rules or wing it.
> 
> The 4e edition rule for what happens when minions get in a fist fight is 'what ever you want'.
> 
> The corrolary is, 'If you care what happens, then the NPC isn't a minion.'
> 
> The corrolary of that is that giving an NPC a name transforms them from a minion into something else, possibly with accompanying loss of level but at least now they have hit points.




So D&D is now officially a Forge game?

If so, it is a sad day.


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## pawsplay

Celebrim said:
			
		

> The corrolary of that is that giving an NPC a name transforms them from a minion into something else, possibly with accompanying loss of level but at least now they have hit points.




So how does that reduce my prep time?


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## Irda Ranger

Moniker said:
			
		

> It simply doesn't make sense for with HP reserves to take damage and potentially die from a missed roll whereas Minions can ignore ANY damage on a missed roll all together.



I feel the same. I can already tell Minions are going to be a problem for me, conceptually.

I think I'm going to say though that "Minions never take damage on a miss from   or     attacks"; the corollary being that they do take damage from "missed"   or   effects.  I mean, if they're in the area they're in the area.  Anything else might hurt my brain.


----------



## ZetaStriker

ShinRyuuBR said:
			
		

> Check again, I'm not defending this "infinite HP on miss" stuff. But neither am I assuming all minions have just 1 HP.
> 
> I don't have the link, but you can check around that normal monsters with more than a dozen HP have become minions to higher-level PCs. Things could have changed, but Keith Baker reported that any monster can become a minion depending on the difference between its level and the PC's, and the philosophy is that you don't want to keep track of HP. If the stats bring "HP: 1" for all minions, than this hit/miss discussion is moot, and the fact remains that is a construct to represent the intended game result. Its not that you get to level 30 and suddenly all bone devils have 1 HP, it's just that the multiple HP they DO have is pointless against the PCs.




I don't think you're entirely correct... we know for a fact that the monsters wont be used as is when their level is tripled and they're made into a minion. The math just wouldn't work, nor would they function the way a minion is supposed to. Their attack bonus would need to rise, as well as their defenses, their damage would need to become a set amount(which seems level, and not ability, dependent, judging from the orcs), and in all likelihood, their HP would drop to 1. It's just the way minions are supposed to be. Normal monsters are the ones taking multiple hits, minions come in _swarms_ and all the rules applied to them are in place to make such large encounters easily manageable. Having HP you'd have to keep track of flies in the face of that, and although you could say 'oh, they die in one hit anyway', there no guarantee of that, and if you're going to assume that, their HP might as well be 1 to begin with.


----------



## Irda Ranger

Celebrim said:
			
		

> The way 4e works the rules only work on the assumption that one of the participants in the action is a PC.
> 
> The implication of this is that they tell you nothing about what happens when an NPC fights an NPC, and as such you must either use different rules or wing it.



I really hope that when we get the rules we can point to this as an example of "Good Guess, But Wrong."  I'm OK with some gamist shortcuts, but you can take it too far.  This is too far.

The Minions rules better be really good, or else they'll be dropped in the "needs a house rule" bucket.


----------



## Scribble

Personally I think people are thinking too hard about minions...

They're not supposed to be challenges. They're just the mindless zombie like dweebs that yell out stuff like DIE and EAT MY SHORTS before the PCs kill them.

They don't really have 1 HP. 

How many do they have? It doesn't matter because chances are you won't miss them more then once or twice at the most.

I'm guessing that unlike BBEG who's ability to be hit will be a challenge, actually missing a minion will be more of a challenge then hitting them...

They're just the gullible fools the big bad guy uses to suck up attacks meant for him. Meat Shields.


----------



## habaal

Wait a minute, who said ALL minions have 1 HP? Is it certified? 
I don't know if it was a fan-made Minion or a previewd one, but I certainly saw a minion with higher HP at a higher level. If this isn't the case, It's badly designed.
Why shouldn't a mook's HP scale like all the rest, in a way that pretty much ensures an appropriate level PC will slay it in one hit most of the times, while a lower level PC would find it a bit difficult?
Unless the designers want a 1st level halfling rogue with a stick to kill a 27th level Demonswarm minion with a well placed stabbing in the eye(s).   

Actually, if a hit by that perticular minion will kill the PC as well, maybe it's OK and acceptable, if only a bit awkward.


----------



## Irda Ranger

I know this is my third post before anyone's replied to the first, ... but I can't help myself.



			
				ZetaStriker said:
			
		

> I don't think you're entirely correct... we know for a fact that the monsters wont be used as is when their level is tripled and they're made into a minion. The math just wouldn't work, nor would they function the way a minion is supposed to. Their attack bonus would need to rise, as well as their defenses, their damage would need to become a set amount(which seems level, and not ability, dependent, judging from the orcs), and in all likelihood, their HP would drop to 1.



I wonder if there's a way to do this "backwards", but starting with a Level 4 Minion and turning him into a Level 1 Brute?




			
				ZetaStriker said:
			
		

> It's just the way minions are supposed to be. Normal monsters are the ones taking multiple hits, minions come in _swarms_ and all the rules applied to them are in place to make such large encounters easily manageable. Having HP you'd have to keep track of flies in the face of that, and although you could say 'oh, they die in one hit anyway', there no guarantee of that, and if you're going to assume that, their HP might as well be 1 to begin with.



So, really this is just the DMG saying to the DM "So, you want a Boromir at the Falls of Rauros momemnt? Here you go."?  That's nice, thematically, but I still have the problem of thinking "Why are all these dudes glass ninjas?"  I feel like there should be a solution that isn't so blatant about the fact that "This world is a game; it doesn't exist."  I want to feel that the world _does _exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while.  Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.


----------



## Kraydak

Why I hate minions not taking damage on misses:

Character A is a fighter who deliberately spent scarce resources (an at-will) on an ability that does his str mod on a miss.  He has Str 18.  He misses a minion, but the 4 points vanish into the ether.  Sucks to have spent resources on that ability.

Character B is Tira from the DDXP.  Her basic melee attack does d4.  She hits, killing a minion.

Character B, on a hit, crit even, cannot do more damage than A does on a miss.  Except against minions.

Just give minions hp=level (or similar, maybe lvl/2+1 to make low level misses not quite guaranteed to drop a low level minion, but keep with the slower 4e damage growth), but die on any hit rather than hp=1, no damage on miss.

Let a character who focuses on doing damage on misses 1/round equal level minions, and those who incidentally do damage on misses need to spend 2 misses to drop one.


----------



## Celebrim

Korgoth said:
			
		

> So D&D is now officially a Forge game?
> 
> If so, it is a sad day.




I didn't say I liked it.  I'm just saying that's how it works.


----------



## WhatGravitas

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.



Let's put it that way: It's an abstraction. The minion has hit points equal to the damage an average attack would do - so on a miss, he'd survive with half of his max. hit points, i.e. half the damage an average attack would do on a hit.

But if you do that, you lose the benefit of being easy to DM. So a minion who survives such a burst, hasn't taken no damage, but has instead taken damage - just not enough to bring it down instantly.

If you want to track it - a better rule would be, minions don't take damage from the first miss.

Cheers, LT.


----------



## JesterOC

Moniker said:
			
		

> It simply doesn't make sense for with HP reserves to take damage and potentially die from a missed roll whereas Minions can ignore ANY damage on a missed roll all together.




It seems to me that some people are going to have a very very hard time with some aspects of 4E.  This is a perfect example.

To me this is a good example of the differences between 3.x and 4.0.

So lets look at it through 3E and 4E mindset.

1) Design goal. Design a monster that can swarm the party with numbers, have potential to inflict a decent amount of damage but can be easily taken out.

3E. Well define the monster type. Assign level give it low hit dice, and low AC. If you need to increase its to hit and damage increase its level and give it feats if needed.  

Result: You have a creature that can be used in any situation that any other monster can.  If can get in a bar fight, you can calculate skills.  It is a well rounded monster.  However you need just as much bookkeeping as any other monster (hit points) and if you wanted it to be skillfull in hitting and do losts of damage, it might have more hitpoints than you want but at least it fits in all of the rules.

4e. Grab a beer. Relax and think about what you want to do. Potential for lots of damage, give it the same damage as a standard orc. To hit and AC about the same. If you are going to have lots of them lets get rid of rolling for damage, just have them do average damage.  Oh and we want them to drop when hit so instead of calculating the average hit points a character rolls at this level. Lets just give them 1 hit point. Oh that will make Mages with burning hands be able to kill far too many, so lets just say you need to at least hit it to kill it. Note to self: Don't use minons in bar fights, or skill challenges. But when we do use them feel free to a lots they have been optimized for mass chaos.

Result: A specialized monster whose purpose and use are understood.  It does not do everything well, but that just means they should not be used in all aspects of the game.

I can see that some people will get stuck in an infinate loop of "what if this, or what if that..."  

My suggestion is not to use minons if you don't want to use them for mass attacks.

Just trying to articulate my thoughts on this guys, as you can tell I like 4E style better but I am pretty flexible and don't need everything in my game to be a simulation.  Oh and if some way powerful mage shows up and dropped a fireball that is many levels above the minons ability to handle. Of course I will have them drop.  That is all part of the go with the flow DM style you need with 4E.  

Funny but I think 4E may be more difficult to make into a computer game than 3E.  So much for it being so much like WOW.

JesterOC


----------



## Ginnel

Nice LT exactly what I was going to say for my first post. 

If your auto damage on a miss attack hits a minion it represents stabbing them in a not instantly leathal way and you give the minion in want of a better explantion the bloodied state, thus on the next missed auto damage attack they now die.

This would sound like a nice solution.

you could bring in the arguement of why is it that a wizard's boppy stick is killing them in one while my sneaky rogue/fighter riposte takes two hits to kill them but do you really need to?


----------



## Celebrim

Scribble said:
			
		

> I'm guessing that unlike BBEG who's ability to be hit will be a challenge, actually missing a minion will be more of a challenge then hitting them...




This actually looks unlikely to be the case now.  If the orc preview is any indication, minions are often going to be higher level (and hense higher AC and better to hit bonuses) than thier leaders.  For example, despite having 1/200th as many hit points, the orc soldiers have better to hit modifiers (+14) than the orc chieftain.


----------



## Celebrim

JesterOC said:
			
		

> Funny but I think 4E may be more difficult to make into a computer game than 3E.




Is that your professional opinion?

Because it isn't mine.


----------



## Scribble

Celebrim said:
			
		

> This actually looks unlikely to be the case now.  If the orc preview is any indication, minions are often going to be higher level (and hense higher AC and better to hit bonuses) than thier leaders.  For example, despite having 1/200th as many hit points, the orc soldiers have better to hit modifiers (+14) than the orc chieftain.




But what's the average hit bonus of a character of a level where fighting minions is appropriate?

Sure the AC might be the same or slightly higher then your BBEG, but you also have to factor in that:

1. BBEG has a HP pool.

2. BBEG hides behind minions.

If a minion and a BBEG are next to eachother it might be just as easy to hit the BBEG as it is to hit the minion... but the minion dies, wheras the BBEG can last a few hits. (Which is essentially the same as missing the minion.)

We have to keep in mind that damage doesn't scale like it does in 3.x nor do the attacks seem to do as much overall damage.


----------



## Raith5

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> I really hope that when we get the rules we can point to this as an example of "Good Guess, But Wrong."  I'm OK with some gamist shortcuts, but you can take it too far.  This is too far.
> 
> The Minions rules better be really good, or else they'll be dropped in the "needs a house rule" bucket.




QFT

Why dont we just give minions 1 or 2 hp per level and leave it at that?

It avoids 'conceptual' questions about minions being killed by missed attacks/bar fights/shaving accidents/bags of cats.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Lord Tirian said:
			
		

> Let's put it that way: It's an abstraction. The minion has hit points equal to the damage an average attack would do - so on a miss, he'd survive with half of his max. hit points, i.e. half the damage an average attack would do on a hit.
> 
> But if you do that, you lose the benefit of being easy to DM. So a minion who survives such a burst, hasn't taken no damage, but has instead taken damage - just not enough to bring it down instantly.
> 
> If you want to track it - a better rule would be, minions don't take damage from the first miss.
> 
> Cheers, LT.



 What about: if it takes damage from a miss, it is bloodied. 
Bloodied minion: any damage kills it.


----------



## Aust Diamondew

Could have minions immune to damage on misses only from characters lower than its level.

I don't really see it as being a big issue though.


----------



## WhatGravitas

UngeheuerLich said:
			
		

> What about: if it takes damage from a miss, it is bloodied.
> Bloodied minion: any damage kills it.



This is a pretty good idea. I suspect that the 4E development hasn't implemented something like to simplify the tracking (we can see a previous step of the development on the DDMs, where they had more than one hit point and could be bloodied), but for those who are bothered by things like that - nice.

Cheers, LT.


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> So D&D is now officially a Forge game?
> 
> If so, it is a sad day.



Well some of us have been saying something like this for a while. And we're not all sad about it!

(Rob Heinsoo also said something similar in his D&D XP interview):



			
				Rob Heinsoo said:
			
		

> There might not be anyone else out there who would publish this kind of game. They usually get entrenched in the simulation aspect.
> 
> Indie games are similar in that they emphasize the gameplay aspect, but they’re super-focused, like a narrow laser. D&D has to be more general to accommodate a wide range of play.


----------



## rugbyman

Here's my feeble logic at work:

One of the 4e design goals is to speed up play and make the bookkeeping less tedious.  1 hp minions certainly does this.

But if minions really do have a half-damage AOE or similar exception, that creates an extra rule to employ which flys in the face of the simplified goal.  An extra rule might be easier to use over the course of an encounter than hp bookkeeping for 20 mooks but, for those of us that suffer epic-tier rule memory laspes, its not.

If mooks ignore half-damage AOE, I can certainly envision a limited case where a mid-level boss monster dies from multiple AOE saved/half damage attacks, but his minions miraculously survive.  I suppose a another minion-only rule is "the boss is dead and so, by extension, are the mooks."  But that's yet another rule to remember.

If so, combat moves closer to the "speed of plot" style of gaming than the roll of the dice.

Ultimately, the DMG will be the arbiter of this aruguement.  Until then, we're just debating the of color of god's hair.


----------



## AZRogue

Celebrim said:
			
		

> The way 4e works the rules only work on the assumption that one of the participants in the action is a PC.
> 
> The implication of this is that they tell you nothing about what happens when an NPC fights an NPC, and as such you must either use different rules or wing it.
> 
> The 4e edition rule for what happens when minions get in a fist fight is 'what ever you want'.
> 
> The corrolary is, 'If you care what happens, then the NPC isn't a minion.'
> 
> The corrolary of that is that giving an NPC a name transforms them from a minion into something else, possibly with accompanying loss of level but at least now they have hit points.




I think this is exactly right, thankfully. I don't see a need for anything more. 

The standard rule for resolving actions that the PCs aren't involved in should be: roll dice, make a doodle on a piece of scrap paper so the PCs think you're doing something, then describe the result that you want for your game. Or, if you simply must interject randomness for some reason, flip a coin and have that rule your outcome. Since the PCs aren't involved, who really cares?


----------



## Celebrim

Scribble said:
			
		

> But what's the average hit bonus of a character of a level where fighting minions is appropriate?




As far as I can tell, appropriate for an orc soldier is going to be somewhere between 4th and 14th level, with occassional forays slightly to other that if you are careful.  That implies attack bonuses for defenders in the range of +8 to about +17 if I understand the math right.  For a considerable portion of that, the orc soldier actually has a better to hit than the hero.  Further, the orc soldier is always a better axe wielder than an orc chieftain.  He just dies to a hornet sting or a 0th level commoner girl with a steak knife if you try to abide by the rules for PC's.

That's what exception based design means.  It means you don't get to ask questions because the answers are 'just because'.  Why is it that the PCs no matter how heroic they will become will always have less hitpoints than thier foes?   Just because they need a monster that lives for a while against the combined forces of the party without actually being a significant threat to them.  There isn't any in game reason and you shouldn't bother looking for one.  4e says, "Oh screw this.  It's a game.   Nobody asks what happens to the soldiers in Settlers of Cataan after you play one.  It's just a game."


----------



## JesterOC

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Is that your professional opinion?
> 
> Because it isn't mine.




No it is not my professional opionion.  As I am not a D&D designer, nor am I currently working on a game for D&D 4E.  I was just making a point that some aspects of 4E do require the DM to make sure he uses the right system for the job needed.  Like don't use minons in a bar fight.  3E did not have such limitations.  Thus more universal, thus easier to program. But since you brought it up...

I worked at Interplay when 3E was being made. And had access to early material.  I had no direct contact with the designers, but the Interplay game designers, Chris Taylor who worked on Fallout did say that 3E was being designed to be better integrated into video games. Edit: At least I assume it was him, it has been many years..

So that is a bit of hersay and experience talking.  I just meant that 4E, while the powers are very specific and well thought out, does have some mechanics that are not universal. Take for instance the goblin harpoon dude.  That is a special case rule made just for that monster.  That kind of stuff did not happen much in 3E which means it is easier to make monsters for video games for 3E.

JesterOC


----------



## Celebrim

JesterOC said:
			
		

> I was just making a point that some aspects of 4E do require the DM to make sure he uses the right system for the job needed.  Like don't use minons in a bar fight.  3E did not have such limitations.




Uhhh... isn't this a design issue?  That isn't the sort of thing that would make a system hard to turn into a cRPG.  You establish those kind of things at design time.  Humans can make those decisions.  The things that are hard to code for are things that require interpretation at run time, and 4e's design is designed to be clean at run time.  

The only real difficulty in interpretation (and I don't want to minimize this one because it was for example huge in porting SFB to real time) is going to be moving from turn based to continious play.  But thats a challenge for any turn based game.  I don't see that 4e brings alot that is difficult at that level that you didn't have to deal with in 3e except the Warlord - who has alot of powers that are specifically written for turn based and not designed with UI's in mind.  So you'd have to do some changes in how the Warlord buffs opponents in terms of the movement he grants, but other than that 4e is easy.  



> So that is a bit of heresay and experience talking.  I just meant that 4E, while the powers are very specific and well thought out, does have some mechanics that are not universal. Take for instance the goblin harpoon dude.  That is a special case rule made just for that monster.  That kind of stuff did not happen much in 3E which means it is easier to make monsters for video games for 3E.




But computer programs don't mind special cases.  In fact, until recently everything in a game was treated as a special case.  It's only recently that we are starting to see 'universal' game physics where everything is a 3D object modeled by the same rules, or universally morphable terrain rather than (for example) specific walls or objects flaged as DestroyOK.  Having special cases presents no real challenge to a programmer.  Trying to make everything universal - now that's hard.  In fact, its so hard that no one does it. 

Next time you see Chris, ask him if he knows who Celebrim is.


----------



## hong

Celebrim said:
			
		

> As far as I can tell, appropriate for an orc soldier is going to be somewhere between 4th and 14th level, with occassional forays slightly to other that if you are careful.  That implies attack bonuses for defenders in the range of +8 to about +17 if I understand the math right.  For a considerable portion of that, the orc soldier actually has a better to hit than the hero.  Further, the orc soldier is always a better axe wielder than an orc chieftain.  He just dies to a hornet sting or a 0th level commoner girl with a steak knife if you try to abide by the rules for PC's.




Which is why you don't apply the rules for the PCs. Silly Celebrim.



> That's what exception based design means.  It means you don't get to ask questions because the answers are 'just because'.




The answers are "because the NPCs have different roles to play".



> Why is it that the PCs no matter how heroic they will become will always have less hitpoints than thier foes?




Because the DM doesn't know how to design encounters.



> Just because they need a monster that lives for a while against the combined forces of the party without actually being a significant threat to them.




This is for those moments when the DM knows how to design encounters.



> There isn't any in game reason and you shouldn't bother looking for one.




The in-game reason is "the extras and antagonists get different mechanics than the protagonists".



> 4e says, "Oh screw this.  It's a game.   Nobody asks what happens to the soldiers in Settlers of Cataan after you play one.  It's just a game."




4E says "screw this, it's a story".


----------



## I'm A Banana

Y'know, further consideration has me leaning toward "no one dies on a miss."

It's a SIMPLE fix that's also in in line with these rules.

I might have to give the guys who waste their daily missing minions a little something, because wasting one of your most powerful resources on someone's footsoldier is ALWAYS going to be a buzzkill, but maybe it won't even be an issue.

I sill like reinforcements, so I might just use those instead of having all the minions present at the start of the battle, only start with 1/2...the other 1/2 arrive in a round or two.

....just because it's a cool image. 

Thanks for the suggestion, d00ds.


----------



## hong

pawsplay said:
			
		

> So how does that reduce my prep time?



 If you do not know your players well enough to predict with confidence which red circles around creatures' feet they are liable to turn into blue circles, perhaps your DMing skills are not as good as you thought.


----------



## ShinRyuuBR

Nikosandros said:
			
		

> If you are willing to deal with some extra bookkeeping, you might put a wounded marker next to a minion that has taken damage on a miss. A wounded minion that is wounded again dies.




As Celebrim most excellently put, if I care if it is intact, wounded or dead, by definition it is not a minion.



			
				ZetaStriker said:
			
		

> I don't think you're entirely correct... we know for a fact that the monsters wont be used as is when their level is tripled and they're made into a minion. The math just wouldn't work, nor would they function the way a minion is supposed to. Their attack bonus would need to rise, as well as their defenses, their damage would need to become a set amount(which seems level, and not ability, dependent, judging from the orcs), and in all likelihood, their HP would drop to 1.




Well, I don't know where the triple level formula came from, but I agree that there is probably a minion template to scale at the very least the attack bonus so minions can be an actual threat (however small).



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> So, really this is just the DMG saying to the DM "So, you want a Boromir at the Falls of Rauros momemnt? Here you go."? That's nice, thematically, but I still have the problem of thinking "Why are all these dudes glass ninjas?" I feel like there should be a solution that isn't so blatant about the fact that "This world is a game; it doesn't exist." I want to feel that the world does exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while. Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.




I don't see what the big deal is. What I have read is that a monster is a minion to a group of PCs if their HP is as low as a single average hit from the PCs, which is supposed to be in a certain range by level exactly as are monster stats by role and level. Being so, there is no point in keeping record of their HP, because if anything is left after a blow, it will be perhaps 1 to 5 HP and not make any difference, game or story-wise. As ZetaStriker pointed, it is likely that such a monster in the raw would not even be able to hit the PCs, so most likely tehre is a template to scale them up and that's it.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> "This world is a game; it doesn't exist." I want to feel that the world does exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while. Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.




I can understand why. For me, it helps to think of it like this:

Minions don't _really_ have 1 hp. They really have as many hp as they'd have. Their HP totals are just so low that, as a simplification, we're saying 1 hit from the PC's of about the same level kills them. The game is just telling me "the HP is just too low to worry about."

If I really wanted to, I could, perhaps, give them hp. 1/level, or equal to their CON score or whatever, they could have it.

They'll still die in one hit from a PC.

If I'm using a minion outside of their intended use, I think I'll translate that 1 hp into an actual total, but 90% of the time, "one hit kills them" is going to be true no matter how much hp they have.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

1 HP, also doesn't necessarily represent their actual physical "health". If we go look at movies, a minion has the same actual physical health as the main villain (assuming they are ordinary humans) it is simply circumstances and the story dictates that the minion dies in one hit.

So take that and apply it to D&D, it isn't that a minion is physically weaker or has less health, it is simply that orc minion (who in every way is the same as that orc skirmisher) is the unlucky one who misses blocking the blow and is beheaded in one hit.

Thus minions have 1 HP,  your essentially applying story elements to combat.


----------



## hong

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> I can understand why. For me, it helps to think of it like this:
> 
> Minions don't _really_ have 1 hp. They really have as many hp as they'd have. Their HP totals are just so low that, as a simplification, we're saying 1 hit from the PC's of about the same level kills them. The game is just telling me "the HP is just too low to worry about."
> 
> If I really wanted to, I could, perhaps, give them hp. 1/level, or equal to their CON score or whatever, they could have it.
> 
> They'll still die in one hit from a PC.
> 
> If I'm using a minion outside of their intended use, I think I'll translate that 1 hp into an actual total, but 90% of the time, "one hit kills them" is going to be true no matter how much hp they have.



 Exactly. I think I mentioned it in here before, but I even used minion-ish rules in my last 3E game because I didn't want to track hit points for a huge mob of crappy monsters.


----------



## Mad Mac

> I don't know if it was a fan-made Minion or a previewd one, but I certainly saw a minion with higher HP at a higher level. If this isn't the case, It's badly designed.




  Vampire Spawn from the last DDM set were minions with 10 HP. They also had regeneration, which would be a little pointless with 1 HP. A lot of the DDM monster stats seem outdated though, so who knows, really.


----------



## Khaim

ShinRyuuBR said:
			
		

> Well, I don't know where the triple level formula came from, but I agree that there is probably a minion template to scale at the very least the attack bonus so minions can be an actual threat (however small).



There is: the legionnaire template. There might be more. The name is kind of unfortunate for the legion devils, though.


----------



## Irda Ranger

JesterOC said:
			
		

> It seems to me that some people are going to have a very very hard time with some aspects of 4E.  This is a perfect example.
> 
> To me this is a good example of the differences between 3.x and 4.0.



Good explanation, but .... ugh.  

I want to play in Middle Earth, not a movie set of Middle Earth.


----------



## hong

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> Good explanation, but .... ugh.
> 
> I want to play in Middle Earth, not a movie set of Middle Earth.



 You're playing in a movie set in Middle Earth. Does that help?


----------



## Irda Ranger

hong said:
			
		

> Exactly. I think I mentioned it in here before, but I even used minion-ish rules in my last 3E game because I didn't want to track hit points for a huge mob of crappy monsters.



The thing is, I get this.  But the corner case rules (like not taking damage from an AoE spell "miss") just really rub it in my face in the wrong way.

I'm not going to not play 4E because of this, but I think this is my least favorite part about it so far.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> Good explanation, but .... ugh.
> 
> I want to play in Middle Earth, not a movie set of Middle Earth.



Then in instances when you don't want a opponent to die in one hit don't use minions. 

Minions are not a in-game/setting issue in that in-game they aren't viewed as minions. They could very well be the same as any skirmisher or brute or artillery or lurker, just they are the unlucky one where when story does come into play (such as combat narrative) they get killed off in that one lucky blow.

As for the AoE miss issue, doesn't really bother me since well. That simply means that while they may be seriously burnt, etc. that story event where the blow finishes them off hasn't happened.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> The thing is, I get this. But the corner case rules (like not taking damage from an AoE spell "miss") just really rub it in my face in the wrong way.
> 
> I'm not going to not play 4E because of this, but I think this is my least favorite part about it so far.




Some "fixes" for that issue are bouncing around in another thread.

I think I've settled on ruling that no one ever dies on a missed attack (for now). You have to CONFIRM THE KILL.

This makes sense with how 4e views hit points. Since they're not your literal health, the final attack that takes you down is the one that gets past your defenses and finally hits a soft spot on you.

I'm not letting any misses ever do that to anyone.

So in that respect, it now makes sense: when the BBEG is damaged by a miss, you're still eroding his defenses, but by the time his defenses are nearly gone, his adrenaline is too high to get easily distracted like that -- you need to HIT, or he doesn't DIE.

This keeps minions making sense, because even if you only have 3 hp, if the attack doesn't hit you, it can't kill you.


----------



## hero4hire

I laugh when I see posts that a minion will supposedly die from a catscratch or a bee sting. 
A bee-sting or catscratch simply do not do Hit Point damage. A commoner with a steak knife? Well then yes! Certainly she kills the nameless NPC _if she hits!_
As for not dying on a miss? I like it! It doesn't mean it didn't hurt or that storytelling wise minions werent "burnt by dragon's breath". But instead _Just not seriously enough to kill them._
Personally I think the Minion rule will make for great storytelling and make the players feel heroic.


----------



## hong

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> The thing is, I get this.  But the corner case rules (like not taking damage from an AoE spell "miss") just really rub it in my face in the wrong way.
> 
> I'm not going to not play 4E because of this, but I think this is my least favorite part about it so far.




I think of it as a variant on my minion rule, which was that any hit for < X damage results in a "wounded" minion, and wounded minions die on any subsequent hit. You could do something similar here: instead of a miss doing no damage, it makes the minion bloodied instead, and bloodied minions die on subsequent hits. There'll be more bookkeeping though.


----------



## Stalker0

Consider this. In 3x you have the ancient red wyrm. One of the most powerful creatures ever to walk the world. It can destroy buildings with its might claws.

It comes across...a lonely peasant.

The dragon wouldn't even have to attack to kill this pathetic creature, he could literally just lay his hand down upon him and crush the mortal as a human would crush an ant with its finger.

And yet, if he rolls a 1, the lonely peasant takes 0 damage from the dragon. 0, from a near godlike creature.

If your okay with that, then allowing minions to live on missed rolls should be just fine.


----------



## JesterOC

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Uhhh... isn't this a design issue?




Yes it is.  I was looking at it from a simulationist point of view.  3E rules are rule based while 4E rules are excption based (with lots of rules governing the exceptions).  Minions are an exception to a normal monster. In fact Minons are not needed if a computer was dealing with the rules as the only reason to have all of the special case rules is so it is easier for the DM to manage hordes of minons. (no hit point tracking)  Something that a computer game just would not care about.

JesterOC


----------



## pemerton

Celebrim said:
			
		

> There isn't any in game reason and you shouldn't bother looking for one.  4e says, "Oh screw this.  It's a game.   Nobody asks what happens to the soldiers in Settlers of Cataan after you play one.  It's just a game."



The first sentence I agree with. But the bit in quotation marks is a bit unfair - the thought is surely something more like "Given that the mechanics are written to handle the parts of this game that are a game (ie invovle the PCs), don't look to them to tell you what happens in the gameworld outside the context of the game." It doesn't follow from this that no one cares about the orcs when the PCs aren't fighting them - just that the mechanics don't tell use what the orcs are doing under such circumstances.


----------



## ryryguy

> "This world is a game; it doesn't exist." I want to feel that the world does exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while. Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.



This reminds me of the discussion here about the "succubus charming the king" plot and how the succubus stat block charm power wouldn't support it.  Like in that case, the answer is that in 4e, the combat rules and the story have been explicitly pulled apart into separate domains.  The succubus' combat charm power has no bearing on what she can do to the king outside of combat.

Minions don't exist outside of combat, and probably not outside of combat with PC's specifically.  If there's a swarm of minions in a fight with PC's, and those minions survive (maybe the PCs run) and later go to a tavern where they get into a bar fight (with other NPCs), then at that point, _they aren't minions_.  They're now  just characters in the story.

Put another way, you know the racial percentage breakdown given in the 3.X DMG for a city population?  80% human, 7% elf, etc.?  In the orcish wastelands there isn't a "monster category" breakdown of 80% minion, 7% elite, 1% solo. 

I will say this: it is kind of cool about 3.x that you _can_ take the rules system and apply it to world creation and so forth... you can look at a complicated 3.x spell and be inspired to create a plot point that turns on some detail about how the spell works.  But on the downside, it can turn into a straightjacket.   

In any case, it's apples and oranges... I'm looking forward to trying out the 4e style and see how it works out!


----------



## Korgoth

pemerton said:
			
		

> The first sentence I agree with. But the bit in quotation marks is a bit unfair - the thought is surely something more like "Given that the mechanics are written to handle the parts of this game that are a game (ie invovle the PCs), don't look to them to tell you what happens in the gameworld outside the context of the game." It doesn't follow from this that no one cares about the orcs when the PCs aren't fighting them - just that the mechanics don't tell use what the orcs are doing under such circumstances.




You know why, once a game of Monopoly is over, I don't think about it anymore and why I don't imagine myself as a little scottie dog running around a square version of Atlantic City?  Because the rules are arbitrary and abstract.

D&D sounds like it's becoming like Monopoly.  The rules don't represent anything at all.  It's just a game where you move pieces.

Why even call them "orcs"?  Why not just call them "number fives"?  Why name your fighter?  Just call him "race car" or "green token".

If there's no internal consistency in the game world, there isn't a game world.


----------



## ryryguy

Korgoth said:
			
		

> If there's no internal consistency in the game world, there isn't a game world.




The game world is still there.  It's just been moved out of the combat rules.  The combat rules don't make the game world any more.  The game world can still be internally consistent.  The combat rules can still be internally consistent.  They just aren't always going to be consistent with each other.

Admittedly, the separation of game world/narrative and combat engine probably does create a sort of "seam" that may work a bit against suspension of disbelief.  But nothing's perfect.  I'm hoping it will not really be as jarring in practice as it might be when you're contemplating it here.  We'll see, I guess.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

I honestly don't see why rules have to work in perfect comparison to the game world, or need rules for every circumstance. 

The rules are simply an abstract means for the players through their characters to interact with the world within their sphere of influence.

Hell, if rules were needed to create a believable fantasy world, then every fantasy novel should come with a rules section.


----------



## JesterOC

Korgoth said:
			
		

> If there's no internal consistency in the game world, there isn't a game world.




I agree but I don't see how this effects the players.  The DM, yes he knows what is really going on, but if the DM does his job right, the players will never get a feeling of the game world being inconsistant.

Minions exist to make the DM's job easier to make huge cinematic battles where the PCs are out numbered 2 to 1.  Less tacking and die rolling help the DM handle the huge numbers.  And if done right the DM will never call them minions. Rather the players will look back at the fight and remember how they held off a horde of Orcs.  If they say they held off a horde of minions the DM screwed up.

JesterOC


----------



## Parlan

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> So, really this is just the DMG saying to the DM "So, you want a Boromir at the Falls of Rauros momemnt? Here you go."?  That's nice, thematically, but I still have the problem of thinking "Why are all these dudes glass ninjas?"  I feel like there should be a solution that isn't so blatant about the fact that "This world is a game; it doesn't exist."  I want to feel that the world _does _exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while.  Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.




That's my understanding. 

I respect your opinion re. breaking suspension of disbelief.   But the simple fix is to just not throw minions at your PCs. Just have all the enemies be brutes/controllers/etc.

For me personally, though, I think it's a great idea.  It means that I can pit some (relatively) low level PCs against an orc raiding party (20 orcs) and not have a TPK due to shear weight of numbers.  

Just as important, I won't drive myself crazy by feeling like I have to keep track of hitpoints for every nameless orc, just the non-minions.


----------



## Mirtek

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.
> 
> I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.



Well, a level 1 wizard missing a bunch of level 30 minions and slaying them all shoudl be reason enough NOT to


----------



## ZetaStriker

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> So, really this is just the DMG saying to the DM "So, you want a Boromir at the Falls of Rauros momemnt? Here you go."?  That's nice, thematically, but I still have the problem of thinking "Why are all these dudes glass ninjas?"  I feel like there should be a solution that isn't so blatant about the fact that "This world is a game; it doesn't exist."  I want to feel that the world _does _exist, and that I'm just visiting it for a while.  Blatantly gamist rules like this really break my s.o.d.




Late, late, late, _late_ response, without having the several pages after it that probably all contained further argument on the subject. But hey, I felt a need to reply to this before I slink off to bed.

Basically, the problem you mention isn't so much exist as a gamist situation. The ability to take dozens of hits with a sword, or survive maulings from a monster the size of a skyscraper, is far more gamist than dropping with one hit. If I was stabbed with a sword, for instance, I seriously doubt I'd still be dancing around trying to fight the guy who did it. At best, I'd be running of adrenaline and trying to get away before he finished me.

The best example of this argument I can think of are old First Person Shooters(or the multiplayer of modern day FPSs). You nail a guy in the leg and it just does less damage. Absolutely no reaction on the enemy's part. In reality, that bullet would cripple them. Now, there are two things that could happen from there. Yes, the found isn't fatal, but the pain could keep the person otherwise incapacitated. Or, they could pull forth their inner strength, pump up some adrenaline and try to ignore it. To put it simply, minions are the guys who aren't strong enough to get up after suffering that wound, while the others might be able to keep going despite it.

Further examples of differences between minions and normal NPCs/monsters can come down to a very personal level. In the real world, the average person, gang member, etc. with a gun can be seen as low level minion. Police cadets, military recruits, and other trained individuals without much experience might be level appropriate minions. Experienced officers, be they military or civilian, will be normal NPCs whose differences are measured by equipment. Special Forces members might be elites, while Solos might exist solely in the realm of fiction. And even outside all these roles, some people are just tougher than others, and even a civilian with a gun might manage to occasionally just be a low level normal NPC.

Being new to a DnD board, I somewhat unfamiliar with what _exactly_ some of these 'gamer roles' mean, but I assume that my explanations are right at home with what I understand a 'simulationist' view to be. Am I incorrect?


----------



## pweent

For those who are having cognitive dissonance issues with the minions, please tell me if it helps to think of it like this.

First, remember the golden rule: *hit points are an abstraction*.

"Minions do not have hit points. Instead, a minion is incapacitated by any successful hit which does damage."

I think it's due to the abstract (and fundamentally flawed) HP mechanic that I like minions so much to begin with, in that when described as above, minions sidestep HP entirely. However, at some point it was decided to bring the minions in line with the standard HP system. Maybe this was strictly for simplicity, maybe this was for the potential to create special cases like the already mentioned vampire spawn minions with 10 HP plus regeneration. Unfortunately, by phrasing it in terms of HP, we have a tendency to start treating HP as a concrete resource that are drained away of which minions have a miniscule supply, instead of as an abstraction to which minions do not subscribe.

HP are one way of abstracting injury (and morale, and luck) - you have a pool of them, and when you run out, you die. Minion rules are another way of abstracting injury - when a minion is *hit*, it dies. Not having HP does not mean minions exist, in the game world, in a strict binary "I'm in the pinnacle of health! / Faith and begorrah! A splinter! Tell my woman I loved her!" situation. They are BOTH abstractions. The difference is that HP is an abstraction that is intended to allow someone to be worn down by multiple attacks.

So. If you have issue with the idea that a missed fireball can't take away that lowly minion's one hit point, does the above rephrasing of minions also make you uncomfortable?


----------



## Aria Silverhands

I find it highly amusing at the people arguing about minions breaking SOD, when hit points in general are far more disruptive.


----------



## djdaidouji

Hmm... Have we verified death at 0 HP? I'm probably missing something because everyone seems certain, but if you do 4 damage to a minion, would he not just be at -3HP? Only if you deal 11 damage does he actually _die_. Though I think I'm missing something, since that defeats the purpose of minions.

What I think I'll be doing is giving the minions some extra leeway. The PC fighter manages to hit, but rolls a 1 on his damage die. I'll say "You barely scrape your enemy, drawing a bit of blood, though he still stands." I don't track HP. I just think to myself "this guy is kinda hurt," if that at all. If from some amazing luck fail that all the fighter's attacks only deal 1 damage, that minion might survive for a while.

Also, I'll probably be changing the only-hit-can-kill rule on a case-by-case. A power that say, creates a surge of electricity on a miss could kill a minion, but a power that deals theoretical damage by demoralizing or scaring the enemy won't make him fall yet.

Though I have a feeling that we are -all- missing something important and we're all going to look at our DMG and go "oooooohhhhh."


----------



## WhatGravitas

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Consider this. In 3x you have the ancient red wyrm. One of the most powerful creatures ever to walk the world. It can destroy buildings with its might claws.
> 
> It comes across...a lonely peasant.
> 
> The dragon wouldn't even have to attack to kill this pathetic creature, he could literally just lay his hand down upon him and crush the mortal as a human would crush an ant with its finger.
> 
> And yet, if he rolls a 1, the lonely peasant takes 0 damage from the dragon. 0, from a near godlike creature.
> 
> If your okay with that, then allowing minions to live on missed rolls should be just fine.



You're talking about the breath weapon, aren't you? Because otherwise, it's no different from 3E.

And yeah, that's a case, where the minion rule fails. Why? Because of the huge level difference - the minion rule makes sense as "average hp equal average damage of one hit" for the approximately correct level range - here, we have an example of leaving the level range.

It doesn't bother me... but I wonder: These issues could have been fixed by a simple rule:

"Minions missed by an attack of a character equal or less the minion's level, are bloodied if it would take damage from the miss. A bloodied minion dies if it takes any damage (even from a miss). If a minion takes damage from a miss from a character of a higher level than the minion, the minion dies."

With little beads for the bloodied condition, this rule would work without major tracking issues, and would alleviate simulationist concerns. *shrug*

On the other hand, the entry in the statblock is perhaps only a shorthand for a similar concept, just as the roles "artillery" or "brutes" are probably explained in-depth somewhere. Though I doubt it, as it would imply rules that are stashed far away from the statblock without page reference.

Cheers, LT.


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> D&D sounds like it's becoming like Monopoly.  The rules don't represent anything at all.  It's just a game where you move pieces.
> 
> Why even call them "orcs"?  Why not just call them "number fives"?  Why name your fighter?  Just call him "race car" or "green token".
> 
> If there's no internal consistency in the game world, there isn't a game world.



I don't really understand this complaint.

I _do_ understand why you might object to the anti-simulationist mechanical approach of 4e, in which (roughly) the mechanics tell us how the narrative unfolds, rather than how the gameworld is causally governed. But I don't understand why you would infer from that that (i) the gameworld is internally inconsistent, or (ii) that there is no reason to care about the orcs, the character name etc.

In relation to (i), it is not the role of the mechanics, but rather the narrative, to ensure internal consistency. Not everyone prefers this style of play, but it is a coherent style of play which a number of existing RPGs deploy (eg the indie RPGs referred to by Rob Heinsoo as analogous in certain respects to 4e).

In relation to (ii), it is not a necessary condition of caring about the gameworld elements that the mechanics model them in a simulationist fashion. I assume the 4e designers assume that players will care because the colour, flavour and narrative of the game all matter to them.



			
				ZetaStriker said:
			
		

> Being new to a DnD board, I somewhat unfamiliar with what _exactly_ some of these 'gamer roles' mean, but I assume that my explanations are right at home with what I understand a 'simulationist' view to be. Am I incorrect?



I think you are correct.


----------



## hong

Korgoth said:
			
		

> You know why, once a game of Monopoly is over, I don't think about it anymore and why I don't imagine myself as a little scottie dog running around a square version of Atlantic City?




Hmm. Are you implying that once a D&D session is over, you still imagine yourself as a cute little elf running around Greyhawk? That's WEIRD, mang.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

hong said:
			
		

> Hmm. Are you implying that once a D&D session is over, you still imagine yourself as a cute little elf running around Greyhawk? That's WEIRD, mang.



Going from his name, I don't think he is imagining himself as a cute little elf...


----------



## Korgoth

hong said:
			
		

> Hmm. Are you implying that once a D&D session is over, you still imagine yourself as a cute little elf running around Greyhawk? That's WEIRD, mang.




No.  What I mean is, I don't care about the world if it doesn't make at least a tiny, itty bitty iota of sense.  If it is some Bizzaro World version of Unbreakable where the vast majority of people have never been cut by knife a or been brained by a mop handle (because they would EXPLODE if they did), whereas I who have actually survived falling in the shower AM THEREFORE THE STUFF OF LEGEND... then I guess I just don't give two craps about the world.

I mean, if you can't "get into it" at all... to what extent does it actually constitute "fantasy"?

@pemerton

"Gamist", "Narrativist" and "Simulationist" are false categories.  I can scarcely utter a single intelligible sentence about the Forge without needing to go to confession and/or being permabanned from this board.  I actually start seething with anger and revulsion when I think about the Forge.  So I'm not going to discuss it with you.  I do hope that you have fun with whatever gaming you and your buddies are doing.  But I view the Forge (rightly or wrongly) as an attempt to destroy non-Forge gaming by hijacking discussions about gaming with loaded terms and categories.  Whether this attempt is conscious or not doesn't even matter from my perspective.


----------



## LostSoul

Korgoth said:
			
		

> No.  What I mean is, I don't care about the world if it doesn't make at least a tiny, itty bitty iota of sense.




Why can't you describe the world in a way so that it makes sense to you?


----------



## Vendark

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> Consider this. In 3x you have the ancient red wyrm. One of the most powerful creatures ever to walk the world. It can destroy buildings with its might claws.
> 
> It comes across...a lonely peasant.
> 
> The dragon wouldn't even have to attack to kill this pathetic creature, he could literally just lay his hand down upon him and crush the mortal as a human would crush an ant with its finger.
> 
> And yet, if he rolls a 1, the lonely peasant takes 0 damage from the dragon. 0, from a near godlike creature.




In 3.X, the dragon's claw also misses on a 1 and does no damage. That's why, in either edition, it's best just to narrate situations like this rather than wasting time seeing how many rounds it takes a foregone conclusion to conclude.


----------



## Korgoth

LostSoul said:
			
		

> Why can't you describe the world in a way so that it makes sense to you?




Maybe because I'm not smart enough.  Or wearing blinders.  But the problem is that I can't seem to think consistently of a world where the vast majority of people die from a cut.

Sure, the world is full of punks... guys with more stones than brains.  Guys who forget to dodge.  I'm fine with that.  But even a punk can surive being stabbed or cut sometimes.  In 4E, the average person dies from a cut.  That's Bizzaro World.


----------



## Vendark

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Sure, the world is full of punks... guys with more stones than brains.  Guys who forget to dodge.  I'm fine with that.  But even a punk can surive being stabbed or cut sometimes.  In 4E, the average person dies from a cut.  That's Bizzaro World.




The point is, the average person isn't a minion. Minions are something PCs fight.

If an average person decides to fight the PCs for some reason, he may become a minion, and die in one hit...but then he's not just dying from a mere cut, he's dying from a longsword/arrow/magic missile swung/shot/cast by a genuine hero. 

But if it aids your perspective, assume that minions that go down are just out of the fight. The average person doesn't keep fighting after being stabbed or shot, even if it is non-lethal. When the fight is over, roll d4 or d6 or d10 to see how many minions are still alive and can be saved or questioned.


----------



## Charwoman Gene

Korgoth said:
			
		

> If it is some Bizzaro World version of Unbreakable where the vast majority of people have never been cut by knife a or been brained by a mop handle (because they would EXPLODE if they did),




Those aren't represented by hit points.  They never have been represented well by hit points.


----------



## Charwoman Gene

Vendark said:
			
		

> The point is, the average person isn't a minion. Minions are something PCs fight.




It's weird that I mr hat of siulation is fighting against you forgist narrative yahoos for the middle ground now.


----------



## Korgoth

This whole "'Minion' means a relationship to the PCs thing" is a total red herring.  Minions can fight minions, like when the town guard minions fight the orc warrior minions.



			
				Charwoman Gene said:
			
		

> Those aren't represented by hit points.  They never have been represented well by hit points.




So if you're cut by a knife in a bar fight, does that do 1 HP of damage or doesn't it?

If it does, then most people flop over dead when it happens.  If it doesn't, then that means that you are cut open and bleeding on a "miss".


----------



## hong

Korgoth said:
			
		

> No.  What I mean is, I don't care about the world if it doesn't make at least a tiny, itty bitty iota of sense.  If it is some Bizzaro World version of Unbreakable where the vast majority of people have never been cut by knife a or been brained by a mop handle (because they would EXPLODE if they did), whereas I who have actually survived falling in the shower AM THEREFORE THE STUFF OF LEGEND... then I guess I just don't give two craps about the world.




People have been cut by a knife and brained by a mop handle. But if it takes place offstage, then it doesn't matter, and you can assume that what happens in real life would also happen in the game world. What only matters, and what the mechanics are meant to handle, are situations where people move into the spotlight; ie, when they interact with the PCs. In this paradigm, questions like "who would win, a commoner or a housecat?" simply do not have an answer. Well, unless either the commoner or the housecat is a PC, which is explicitly something outside D&D's design parameters.



> I mean, if you can't "get into it" at all... to what extent does it actually constitute "fantasy"?




The metaphor to use is not "the game takes place in a world". It is "the game takes place on a stage set in a world".

All the world's a stage, and all the PCs and NPCs merely players, you know?


----------



## Vendark

Charwoman Gene said:
			
		

> It's weird that I mr hat of siulation is fighting against you forgist narrative yahoos for the middle ground now.




Yeah, my favorite game is HERO 5th, so calling me a forgist narrative yahoo is pretty ridiculous.


----------



## Charwoman Gene

Korgoth said:
			
		

> So if you're cut by a knife in a bar fight, does that do 1 HP of damage or doesn't it?




Depends,  1e D&D might not even consider that a hit, for instance.


----------



## Korgoth

Charwoman Gene said:
			
		

> Depends,  1e D&D might not even consider that a hit, for instance.




Why do you say that?  If I could wrap my brain around that one, perhaps it would help.


----------



## Vendark

Korgoth said:
			
		

> This whole "'Minion' means a relationship to the PCs thing" is a total red herring.  Minions can fight minions, like when the town guard minions fight the orc warrior minions.




Are the PCs there? If so, the minions are still defined by how they relate to the PCs. They're either the schmos who the PCs kill in one hit, or the schmos the PCs couldn't save from being killed in one hit.

If the PCs aren't there, then why are you running the combat at all?


----------



## Fanaelialae

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Why do you say that?  If I could wrap my brain around that one, perhaps it would help.




In D&D, taking a life threatening wound is represented by someone going to 0 hp.  If the DM narrates a tiny little cut, then it should never take me to 0 hp (unless that tiny little cut is somehow lifethreatening).  No matter how much damage an attack deals (being clubbed by a giant's club for example), it doesn't create a life threatening wound unless it takes them to 0 hp.  The reduction of hp is a representation of the character getting tired from dodging a deadly attack, or perhaps simply that they've used up a bit of their luck.  It doesn't matter that an uber-attack deals 1000 damage so long as you have at least 1001 hp; you survived it intact and are at the worst, a little worse for wear.

Hence, a minion who is struck by a minor knife wound might reel backwards a little from the pain, but has not taken a life threatening attack, and therefore does not lose any hp.  They just happen to be the guy unlucky enough that if a volley of accurate arrows flies towards them and a non-minion, the minion takes an arrow through the chest whereas the other guy gets off with a flesh wound (or is just a little worn out from dodging all those arrows, depending on the narration).


----------



## Alratan

Vendark said:
			
		

> Are the PCs there? If so, the minions are still defined by how they relate to the PCs. They're either the schmos who the PCs kill in one hit, or the schmos the PCs couldn't save from being killed in one hit.




This breaks down as soon as the possibility of the PC's having access to mind control magic occurs. Suddenly, you have minions fighting minions in quite ludicrous sudden death switches, which also happens to dictate that PC controlled minions use quite peculiar tactics, given that they are essentially glass cannons (relatively).


----------



## ryryguy

Alratan said:
			
		

> This breaks down as soon as the possibility of the PC's having access to mind control magic occurs. Suddenly, you have minions fighting minions in quite ludicrous sudden death switches, which also happens to dictate that PC controlled minions use quite peculiar tactics, given that they are essentially glass cannons (relatively).




How does it break down?  They are now simply the shmoes who are the PC's puppets who die in one hit.  What's the difference?


----------



## pweent

Korgoth said:
			
		

> So if you're cut by a knife in a bar fight, does that do 1 HP of damage or doesn't it?




It does not. When I am cut by a knife in a bar fight, it slices the skin open, causing pain, blood loss ranging from minor to potentially fatal depending on which blood vessels are severed, risk of infection, and maybe injury to vital organs if it's a deep wound in the correct place.

I don't have hit points.

Conceptually, neither should a minion.

I'll ask it again: does *"A minion does not have hit points. Instead, a minion is incapacitated by any successful hit which does damage,"* make the concept less conceptually troublesome?

Minions add a new rule to model the game world. Use them when you want characters who will go down with a single hit. If you want a bar room brawl full of characters who will take more than one punch, don't use minions.


----------



## Charwoman Gene

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Why do you say that?  If I could wrap my brain around that one, perhaps it would help.




Most humans can survive more that six stab wound if they don't hit vital spots.

0-level human in 1e have 6 or less hps.

A "non-vital" shot must be capable of being fraction hp or not always reducing hit points.

A miss in D&D is an attack that "does damage".
"doing Damage" is reducing hit points.

Therefore Some knife wounds are misses.


----------



## occam

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.
> 
> I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.




Minion status is an abstraction to speed play. Don't think of them as having literally one hit point; they have enough hit points that they can survive ancillary attack effects, but not enough to survive a well-placed attack from a PC able to hit them. Stating it as "1 hp; miss does nothing" is just an easier way to handle the record-keeping.


----------



## LostSoul

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Maybe because I'm not smart enough.  Or wearing blinders.  But the problem is that I can't seem to think consistently of a world where the vast majority of people die from a cut.




Why do you _have to_ describe the world that way?


----------



## AverageCitizen

pweent said:
			
		

> I'll ask it again: does *"A minion does not have hit points. Instead, a minion is incapacitated by any successful hit which does damage,"* make the concept less conceptually troublesome?




When you put it that way it reminded me that they use minions in Mutants and Masterminds, with pretty much the exact wording you just used. I had forgotten.

Anyway, they wouldn't actually kill each other in one hit, or from one accident, or whatever. But I've already gotten into on another thread, so I'm not going to say it again.


----------



## I'm A Banana

All this talk about people who aren't thinking about it right misses the point. This isn't, at its core, a simulation argument. This is a believability argument. I share, I think, Korgoth's threshold for believability. 



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> Maybe because I'm not smart enough. Or wearing blinders. But the problem is that I can't seem to think consistently of a world where the vast majority of people die from a cut.




I 100% agree with this sentence.

I still don't have a major problem with 1 hp minions.

First of all, because those minions don't "really" have 1 hp. That list is just there to remind the DM that they die in one hit. They might have 17000 hp, but they're "1 hp minions" because the PCs will remove 17000 hp in one hit, so those 17000 hp don't really matter vs. the PC's (though they'll matter in a bar fight). 

Second of all, because hp don't represent how many cuts you can take. They represent how adept you are at avoiding a fatal cut. "1 hp minion" means "This guy can't avoid a fatal cut from a PC at this level." Going against other minions, he doesn't have 1 hp, because he can take a potentially fatal cut from anyone else who's not a PC. 

"1 hp minion" is a shorthand, an abbreviation, the scientific notation. It's perhaps an unfortunate wording choice, but they don't actually have 1 hp. They have "less hp than the damage a character will do in a single hit."


----------



## pawsplay

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> "1 hp minion" is a shorthand, an abbreviation, the scientific notation. It's perhaps an unfortunate wording choice, but they don't actually have 1 hp. They have "less hp than the damage a character will do in a single hit."




Unfortunately, they have less hp than the damage ANY character will do in a single hit, including NPCs, pets, dominated monsters, and rival monsters. And that is problematic.


----------



## Fanaelialae

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, they have less hp than the damage ANY character will do in a single hit, including NPCs, pets, dominated monsters, and rival monsters. And that is problematic.




Okay, so a minion is a guy who dies / is incapacitated by a single enemy attack.  Apparently the Fates don't favor him or something.  Is the problem from a simulationist perspective?  Plenty of people in RL die / are incapacitated by single stab wounds, gunshots and the like (and yes, I realize that D&D is a fantasy game and not RL).  I'm merely pointing out that having someone that gets taken out by a single attack isn't out of sync with realism (IMO, creatures with high hp are a lot more of of whack with reality than those with very few).
Their defense value also provides them with protection against auto-death (just because I swing at one doesn't mean it will die / be incapacitated, it only dies if my attack is confirmed).  
Minions aren't meant to be important to the narrative.  If they were, they'd have more than 1 hp.

I honestly don't see the problem.


----------



## I'm A Banana

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, they have less hp than the damage ANY character will do in a single hit, including NPCs, pets, dominated monsters, and rival monsters. And that is problematic.




No, that's kind of my point.

"1 hp" is a way of saying "1 hit from a PC kills them."

It's not a way of saying "they can only take 1 hp worth of damage." 

Unfortunate wording. They don't mean literally 1 hp. They mean effectively, functionally, for the purposes of the combat you'll be using them in, 1 hp. Outside of that? They'll have a different total. It might be, say, 4. They still die in one hit.


----------



## AZRogue

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> No, that's kind of my point.
> 
> "1 hp" is a way of saying "1 hit from a PC kills them."
> 
> It's not a way of saying "they can only take 1 hp worth of damage."
> 
> Unfortunate wording. They don't mean literally 1 hp. They mean effectively, functionally, for the purposes of the combat you'll be using them in, 1 hp. Outside of that? They'll have a different total. It might be, say, 4. They still die in one hit.




That's exactly right. Having 1 hit point is a representation of how easy it is for a *PC* to kill them. It is not meant to be a representation of the creatures actual hit points (life points? we need a better term, or I do at least). 

4E tells us that a PC can kill a Minion in one hit. And it doesn't CARE about how many hits the minion could take from another minion, or anyone else. Nor do I, as a DM. I never have, in any edition, ROLLED OUT a battle between NPCs where the PCs weren't directly involved. It just never occurred to me to subject myself to that when there was no need. I would just declare the outcome that seemed the most likely or advanced the adventure.


So, here's the concept we should wrap our heads around: *Minions do not have 1 hit point unless a PC or party NPC attacks them. *When another creature out in the world attacks them the outcome deemed appropriate by the DM would occur. Hit points do not represent how much "life" a creature has.


----------



## Irda Ranger

pweent said:
			
		

> First, remember the golden rule: *hit points are an abstraction*.
> 
> "Minions do not have hit points. Instead, a minion is incapacitated by any successful hit which does damage."



I know HP are an abstraction. Since D&D is a _heroic _fantasy game (not gritty), I'm fine with them.  Heroes have lots of HP.  I'm actually a (tongue in cheek) fan of renaming them "Awesome Points", because you survive crap like being bitten by a Tarrasque out of sheer awesomeness.

But I also expect everyone to have their awesomeness abstracted away using the same algorithm.  They may come at them from a different angle, and I appreciate the "shortcuts" by which Brutes and Artillery determine HP, but the Minion rules suddenly have 1 HP, which just screams to me "This isn't a real creature, it's just a movie prop." It's as believable as a plywood F-22 with a bad paint job.




			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> In relation to (i), it is not the role of the mechanics, but rather the narrative, to ensure internal consistency.



I disagree with this.  I need both.  You can see my sig below, and it's very true of my playstyle.  I like things to be "emergent", where simple but consistent rules create complex systems and stories.  I don't approach any D&D campaign with a predetermined story which I'm going to "tell" to the PC's.  The "narrative" is jointly discovered, and it can take surprising turns when combats or RP take unexpected twists.  

That's what bothers me about Minions.  They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers."  Well, I don't like playing those games.  Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome.  It's like a fixed boxing match, or WWF Wrestling (neither of which I can't stand).


----------



## Korgoth

Charwoman Gene said:
			
		

> Most humans can survive more that six stab wound if they don't hit vital spots.
> 
> 0-level human in 1e have 6 or less hps.
> 
> A "non-vital" shot must be capable of being fraction hp or not always reducing hit points.




Well, I've been thinking this stuff over. I don't buy the "stage argument" (because it's really a stage on a stage, and we're back to me not being able to consider it a fantasy), nor do I buy the "minions only have 1 hp vs. PCs" because there will be fights where minions are hitting other minions (like when some minions are helping the PCs or whatever).

But you do raise an excellent point here.  The OD&D or 1E commoner tops out at 6 hit points.  But he could sustain more than 6 cuts if none of them were life-threatening.  Plus, you could be a 1 hit point commoner in either of those editions (which are really my standard for thinking about the game and how it is intended to work).

Therefore, you must be correct when you say that not every knife cut does at least 1 hit point... it must be possible to deliver a "cosmetic cut".  In Gygaxian D&D, there is either a hit or a miss, and all hits do 1 or more damage.  Therefore, a cosmetic cut must be a miss (maybe call it a "miss by 1" or something).

So, to carry out this line of reasoning, any wound that does 1 hit point or more, even in Gygaxian D&D (because a character or commoner could have 1 hp), must be a potentially life-threatening wound.  If you have more than 1 hit point, you spend whatever amount of those is necessary to zero out the damage... i.e. your hit points above 1 essentially reduce the severity of the wound to a non-life threatening status, either because of your amazing fitness or your ability to dodge or the favor of the divine or your strange metaphysical connection to Chuck Norris.  Your "hero-ness" kicks in and the damage is reduced to a mere cut, just as Gary described the high hit point fighter doing in the 1E DMG.

Thus, we would be saying not that a cut is a damaging wound that nonetheless doesn't put you down, but that hit points (above 1, at least) are your ability to turn killing blows into those inconsequential cuts that in reality would do zero damage to a 1 hit point character.  If that were not so, then a 1 hit point farmer could not sustain a mere cut, which surely as a farmer he can do.

OK.  That seems to follow.  Thanks for taking the time to deal with my skepticism.  I'll ponder this some more.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Thus, we would be saying not that a cut is a damaging wound that nonetheless doesn't put you down, but that hit points (above 1, at least) are your ability to turn killing blows into those inconsequential cuts that in reality would do zero damage to a 1 hit point character. If that were not so, then a 1 hit point farmer could not sustain a mere cut, which surely as a farmer he can do.
> 
> OK. That seems to follow. Thanks for taking the time to deal with my skepticism. I'll ponder this some more.



Yup, that works. Glad it made some sense eventually.


----------



## AZRogue

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> That's what bothers me about Minions.  They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers."  Well, I don't like playing those games.  Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome.  It's like a fixed boxing match, or WWF Wrestling (neither of which I can't stand).




The thing is, how would you ever know which monsters were monsters that you were able to kill and which were minions? The PCs don't know that the Minion dies in just one hit. He only knows that some of the monsters he fought he was able to crush and a few others were made of sterner stuff. PCs aren't looking under the game's hood all the time, only at their sheets, your table, and the imagery the DM creates in their heads.


----------



## Cadfan

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> But I also expect everyone to have their awesomeness abstracted away using the same algorithm.  They may come at them from a different angle, and I appreciate the "shortcuts" by which Brutes and Artillery determine HP, but the Minion rules suddenly have 1 HP, which just screams to me "This isn't a real creature, it's just a movie prop." It's as believable as a plywood F-22 with a bad paint job.



Secret- all monsters are movie props.

Your argument takes the form of "The more I look behind the curtain, the less I believe in the Wizard of Oz."  The solution should immediately recommend itself.


----------



## Aria Silverhands

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Secret- all monsters are movie props.
> 
> Your argument takes the form of "The more I look behind the curtain, the less I believe in the Wizard of Oz."  The solution should immediately recommend itself.



Buy more curtains. ^_^


----------



## Aria Silverhands

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> I know HP are an abstraction. Since D&D is a _heroic _fantasy game (not gritty), I'm fine with them.  Heroes have lots of HP.  I'm actually a (tongue in cheek) fan of renaming them "Awesome Points", because you survive crap like being bitten by a Tarrasque out of sheer awesomeness.
> 
> But I also expect everyone to have their awesomeness abstracted away using the same algorithm.  They may come at them from a different angle, and I appreciate the "shortcuts" by which Brutes and Artillery determine HP, but the Minion rules suddenly have 1 HP, which just screams to me "This isn't a real creature, it's just a movie prop." It's as believable as a plywood F-22 with a bad paint job.
> 
> I disagree with this.  I need both.  You can see my sig below, and it's very true of my playstyle.  I like things to be "emergent", where simple but consistent rules create complex systems and stories.  I don't approach any D&D campaign with a predetermined story which I'm going to "tell" to the PC's.  The "narrative" is jointly discovered, and it can take surprising turns when combats or RP take unexpected twists.
> 
> That's what bothers me about Minions.  They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers."  Well, I don't like playing those games.  Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome.  It's like a fixed boxing match, or WWF Wrestling (neither of which I can't stand).



Have you seen the lvl 9 orc minion?  That's hardly "not a serious challenge" when you have four of them attacking, and you can have four of them per pc in the encounter.  Numbers and damage output provide the challenge.  Not merely slogging away through a slew of hit points.

Mathematically there's not much difference between one 8 hp monster you wound 1 hp at a time and eight 1 hp monsters that take one hit to kill.  Thematically and "visually" however, it's a whole different ball game.  As someone who has played games using minion style npc's, it's a helluva lot more fun and interesting and challenging with minion monsters.  Even if they go down in one hit.


----------



## Mad Mac

> That's what bothers me about Minions. They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers." Well, I don't like playing those games. Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome. It's like a fixed boxing match, or WWF Wrestling (neither of which I can't stand).




  Minions aren't pushovers just because they die in one hit. Their armor class and attack bonuses are viable against equal level opponents, their damage is decent, and you can put 4 of them in place of a normal monster. I mean, yeah they're fun because players can mow them down in one hit, but it's not like they're all armed only with nerf bats and hugs. Used tactically, they can be a serious threat. 

  Also, it's worth mentioning that when the Kobold minions were first previewed, they didn't have HPs at all, just a "This creature dies on a succesful attack" clause. This of course led people to griping about how minions were invulnerable to all kinds of crazy stuff and could just throw themselves off cliffs to attack the party because they wouldn't be hurt, ect. So it changed...and people are still griping about it. Oh well.


----------



## Zil

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Maybe so.      But when I get interested in a fantasy game, part of it is imagining the world.  I have to be able to do that somewhat consistently.
> 
> Imagine a bar full of minions.  They get into a fight with each other.  When some guy hits another guy with a chair or beer mug, does that guy automatically die?
> 
> It just seems strange.  Like some people are way too tough and others are way too fragile.



Well, the whole minion thing is kinda cheesy to start with, but I can see what they are trying to do.  You need to think in terms of Hong Kong martial arts movies or something like 'Kill Bill'.  When the hero faces a large crowd such as in Kill Bill Vol 1, most are just minions - little more than mirror images that do have some bite until they are dispelled (dispatched) with a single hit.  They mostly fill the spaces between the real opponents and are left scattered about in a frightful body count as the heroes cut their way through to the real opponents.

Now in the absence of the players, I would assume some other rules better approximating reality apply.  Say 3E.   ;-)


----------



## Fanaelialae

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> I know HP are an abstraction. Since D&D is a _heroic _fantasy game (not gritty), I'm fine with them.  Heroes have lots of HP.  I'm actually a (tongue in cheek) fan of renaming them "Awesome Points", because you survive crap like being bitten by a Tarrasque out of sheer awesomeness.
> 
> But I also expect everyone to have their awesomeness abstracted away using the same algorithm.  They may come at them from a different angle, and I appreciate the "shortcuts" by which Brutes and Artillery determine HP, but the Minion rules suddenly have 1 HP, which just screams to me "This isn't a real creature, it's just a movie prop." It's as believable as a plywood F-22 with a bad paint job.




If there are creatures that are awesome (have "awesome points") then it seems reasonable that there are those that don't.  The awesomeness could come from skill or it could come from luck, but it seems reasonable to me that a creature could be quite unlucky yet still be skilled (this just might be it's unlucky day).



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> I disagree with this.  I need both.  You can see my sig below, and it's very true of my playstyle.  I like things to be "emergent", where simple but consistent rules create complex systems and stories.  I don't approach any D&D campaign with a predetermined story which I'm going to "tell" to the PC's.  The "narrative" is jointly discovered, and it can take surprising turns when combats or RP take unexpected twists.
> 
> That's what bothers me about Minions.  They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers."  Well, I don't like playing those games.  Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome.  It's like a fixed boxing match, or WWF Wrestling (neither of which I can't stand).




I don't think that minions are about giving PCs easy victories (unless you pit them against a single minion, but that would be silly).  I forget the exact equivalency, but a normal creature is worth about 4 or 5 equivalent minions.  That many minions can probably put out equivalent or even more damage than the single creature they replaced, assuming they all hit of course (but the odds are that at least some of them will hit in a given round, meaning that damage should be more consistant overall).  In some ways they're harder to kill (you can't take them all out with a really hard hitting single attack like you might with a singular creature, though of course they're easier to kill using AoEs if they're clustered together).  I could totally see a group of 20 minions being as deadly as 4 or 5 regular enemies (though I imagine the best combats would occur from mixing multiple types).  They're just one way of adding variation to combat and keeping your players on their toes.  IMO, of course.


----------



## Zil

Fanaelialae said:
			
		

> Okay, so a minion is a guy who dies / is incapacitated by a single enemy attack.  Apparently the Fates don't favor him or something.  Is the problem from a simulationist perspective?  Plenty of people in RL die / are incapacitated by single stab wounds, gunshots and the like (and yes, I realize that D&D is a fantasy game and not RL). I'm merely pointing out that having someone that gets taken out by a single attack isn't out of sync with realism



Um, but take your typical orc tribe.  Wading through that mob, some 90% or more of them will die from a singe attack, no matter how small the blade or wound.   Clearly there has been no attempt to simulate our objective reality there.  Rather, what they've done is simulated a certain type of movie....but is this necessarily a problem?  

If you like Hong Kong martial arts movies you'll probably have no problems at all.  If you're strongly attached to the style of play in previous versions of D&D or you want to see things as being a simulation of our objective reality, maybe you will have more problems wrapping your head around this shift in the game.


----------



## Vaeron

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> That's what bothers me about Minions.  They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers."  Well, I don't like playing those games.  Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome.  It's like a fixed boxing match, or WWF Wrestling (neither of which I can't stand).




Most minions do additional damage per adjacent minion, or provide attack or damage bonuses to adjacent allied monsters, or provide other benefits to their presence above and beyond just being scenery.  If you can't appreciate that, for example,  kobold skirmishers get +1 to attack for EVERY kobold adjacent to the target, and then imagine a fighter surrounded by 6 or 7 kobold minions, giving the kobold skirmisher +7 to hit, and +1d6 for it's combat advantage in this situation, then you are greatly underestimating the value and power of minions.


----------



## Khaim

Zil said:
			
		

> Um, but take your typical orc tribe.  Wading through that mob, some 90% or more of them will die from a singe attack, no matter how small the blade or wound.



But if the wound is small enough, then it was probably a "miss", mechanically. Any hit does a minimum amount of damage; for a minion, that damage is _always_ physical. Ergo a blow that doesn't do any appreciable physical damage to a minion wasn't a hit, it was a miss with unusual fluff attached.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, they have less hp than the damage ANY character will do in a single hit, including NPCs, pets, dominated monsters, and rival monsters. And that is problematic.



Then you as the DM, would essentially revoke that monsters "Minion-Status". Minions are a narrative device you add to a monster encounter, I don't want that monster dying against a NPC, pet, dominated monster, rival monster, etc. then it isn't a minion.

If I want to create a battle where the PCs (or NPCs) are able to cut their way through mounds of enemies, thanks to their cunning, luck and circumstance. Then those once 150 HP monsters are now Minions with 1.

Essentially, Minions do not exist in the in-game world, they exist as a narrative device that is exploited by the DM when they choose to use them. They are not used to build a world, they are used to build a story.


----------



## Korgoth

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> Essentially, Minions do not exist in the in-game world, they exist as a narrative device that is exploited by the DM when they choose to use them. They are not used to build a world, they are used to build a story.




Part of the problem is, for many of us, "story" is the enemy of gaming.

If a DM hijacks the game session to tell his "story", it's a tempting thought to just defenestrate him.

Gaming is about situations.  Stories are what you tell about the game session after it is over.


----------



## Aria Silverhands

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Part of the problem is, for many of us, "story" is the enemy of gaming. If a DM hijacks the game session to tell his "story", it's a tempting thought to just defenestrate him. Gaming is about situations.  Stories are what you tell about the game session after it is over.



D&D is marketed as an RPG and that implies that the characters are there to take part in and help create a shared story.  There are plenty of board game/adventure systems out there for you if you don't want to play a game that is "saddled" with non-combat rules that pertain to creating a visceral and cinematic story.  Besides, a DM that hijacks the game to tell their story and only their story is a bad DM.  The game requires everyone contribute to the story.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

Then use Minions within those Situations, you want a Situation where the PCs are cutting huge swaths of carnage against equally potent enemies use Minions.

If you simply want to just play in a world without any DM supervision/story, then don't use Minions.

I don't understand what is the issue with having an option that isn't required but is useful for many players/DMs be a bad thing?


----------



## Fifth Element

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Part of the problem is, for many of us, "story" is the enemy of gaming.
> 
> If a DM hijacks the game session to tell his "story", it's a tempting thought to just defenestrate him.
> 
> Gaming is about situations.  Stories are what you tell about the game session after it is over.



Why do you assume it's only the DM's story? What if all of the players are building the story?


----------



## Fanaelialae

Zil said:
			
		

> Um, but take your typical orc tribe.  Wading through that mob, some 90% or more of them will die from a singe attack, no matter how small the blade or wound.   Clearly there has been no attempt to simulate our objective reality there.  Rather, what they've done is simulated a certain type of movie....but is this necessarily a problem?
> 
> If you like Hong Kong martial arts movies you'll probably have no problems at all.  If you're strongly attached to the style of play in previous versions of D&D or you want to see things as being a simulation of our objective reality, maybe you will have more problems wrapping your head around this shift in the game.




Why would 90% of a typical orc tribe be minions?

I can understand how it plays counter to the "reality" of previous editions of D&D (since you couldn't easily create a creature that was both good in combat but weak in the hp department).

IMO, I can't see it running counter to objective reality.  Where one is stabbed is much more important than the size of the blade.


----------



## Korgoth

Aria Silverhands said:
			
		

> D&D is marketed as an RPG and that implies that the characters are there to take part in and help create a shared story.  There are plenty of board game/adventure systems out there for you if you don't want to play a game that is "saddled" with non-combat rules that pertain to creating a visceral and cinematic story.  Besides, a DM that hijacks the game to tell their story and only their story is a bad DM.  The game requires everyone contribute to the story.




No, what I'm saying is that (at least for many of us old timers) the game just plain isn't about stories.  The whole "story game or board game" is a false choice.  There is a middle ground between "My Life With Vampires in the Vineyard" and "Monopoly".

Stories have plot and an act structure.  They have rising and falling action and a climax.  They have a theme and motifs and maybe even an underlying philosophical agenda.

A role playing game doesn't have to have any of that.  In fact, I don't think that it should.  Give me a world and a dude to explore it.  That's what I call gaming.


----------



## AZRogue

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Part of the problem is, for many of us, "story" is the enemy of gaming.
> 
> If a DM hijacks the game session to tell his "story", it's a tempting thought to just defenestrate him.
> 
> Gaming is about situations.  Stories are what you tell about the game session after it is over.




There's always been story. It's what happens when the DM's world and NPCs collide with the PC's free will. It's not a "story" in the sense that you have a defined ending, but a story in the elements a DM brings to the table: an antagonist(s), interesting situations, and pressure (there's much more, of course, but these are big on my personal list). 

PCs aren't looking behind Oz's curtain; only the DM dwells there. The DM doesn't need to suspend his disbelief; he needs to create an environment that encourages the players to suspend theirs.


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> "Gamist", "Narrativist" and "Simulationist" are false categories.  I can scarcely utter a single intelligible sentence about the Forge without needing to go to confession and/or being permabanned from this board.  I actually start seething with anger and revulsion when I think about the Forge.  So I'm not going to discuss it with you.



I didn't really invite you to.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> I do hope that you have fun with whatever gaming you and your buddies are doing.



Thank you. Mostly playing high level Rolemaster at the moment, but I'm hoping that campaign will end fairly soon so I can start a HARP game. I also want to try some 4e.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> But I view the Forge (rightly or wrongly) as an attempt to destroy non-Forge gaming by hijacking discussions about gaming with loaded terms and categories.  Whether this attempt is conscious or not doesn't even matter from my perspective.



I see the Forge as a serious attempt to analyse the phenomenon of RPGing and develop a useful technical vocabulary for describing it. In terms of my appreciation of game play, game design and ability to GM in such a way as to deliver the play experience my players want, I find it has probably helped more than anything else I've ever read about RPGs. In particular (given that I mostly play and GM Rolemaster) it has really helped me understand some of the design goals, limitations and difficulties of that system, and how to work with them to get the game that me and my players want.


----------



## Aria Silverhands

Korgoth said:
			
		

> No, what I'm saying is that (at least for many of us old timers) the game just plain isn't about stories.  The whole "story game or board game" is a false choice.  There is a middle ground between "My Life With Vampires in the Vineyard" and "Monopoly".
> 
> Stories have plot and an act structure.  They have rising and falling action and a climax.  They have a theme and motifs and maybe even an underlying philosophical agenda. A role playing game doesn't have to have any of that.  In fact, I don't think that it should.  Give me a world and a dude to explore it.  That's what I call gaming.



There's a perfect game for you then.  Oblivion.  You can go play in your sandbox to your hearts content.  DM's aren't there to provide a sandbox for players.  I'm not going to DM for a group that just wants to run around wreaking havoc and killing .  I'm there, as a DM, and a player... to tell a story.  From beginning to the bloody end.  That includes rising and falling action and the climax.  There may even be side stories that have nothing to do with the main story.  You can have a "sandbox" while telling a story.


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> If it is some Bizzaro World version of Unbreakable where the vast majority of people have never been cut by knife a or been brained by a mop handle (because they would EXPLODE if they did)





			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> But the problem is that I can't seem to think consistently of a world where the vast majority of people die from a cut.






			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> This whole "'Minion' means a relationship to the PCs thing" is a total red herring.  Minions can fight minions, like when the town guard minions fight the orc warrior minions.




If you insist on treating hit points as a measure of the ingame property of _physical durability_ then you will find the minion rules hard to come at. Perhaps try Rolemaster, in which hit point totals really do represent physical durability.

But if, in accordance with 4e's development of the description of hit points that D&D has always used (a bit of luck, a bit of skill, a bit of constitution), you treat NPC hit points as a measure of the metagame property of _capacity to stand up to blows from the PCs_ (as Fallen Seraph has emphasised, when PCs hit minions they don't merely cut them, they behead, disembowel or otherwise fatally dispatch them) then you will find your problems go away - when no PCs are involved you don't need hit points at all, and can resolve the conflict between the guards and the orcs however you care to (perhaps using wargaming rules if that's really your thing - I think that's how they did it in OD&D).



			
				Fanaelialae said:
			
		

> The reduction of hp is a representation of the character getting tired from dodging a deadly attack, or perhaps simply that they've used up a bit of their luck.



This is mostly true, except that it (like Gygax's essay on hit points in the 1st ed DMG) suggests that "luck" is an ingame property. I think that "luck" in this sense (and hence the hit points mechanic) is much better thought of as a metagame device, analogous to Hero Points or Fate Points in systems like HeroWars or OGL Conan. Hit points don't represent anything in game - rather, they set a metagame constraint on the narration. This then gives us a certain flexibility: we can describe both the 1 hp 9th level Minion and the 100 hp 9th level PC fighter as buff and butch, and we can describe the same fighter reduced to 1 hp as being on his or her last legs, without committing ourselves to the sort of inconsistency that would arise if we thought "9th level, 1 hp remaining" actually reprsented some property of characters in the gameworld.



			
				Alratan said:
			
		

> This breaks down as soon as the possibility of the PC's having access to mind control magic occurs. Suddenly, you have minions fighting minions in quite ludicrous sudden death switches, which also happens to dictate that PC controlled minions use quite peculiar tactics, given that they are essentially glass cannons (relatively).



This is Kamikaze Midget's frequently voiced concern about monsters as allies. Together with the action economy issues, it is one of the tricky mechanical matters that the system has to deal with. I'll be interested to see how they handle it.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> Part of the problem is, for many of us, "story" is the enemy of gaming.
> 
> If a DM hijacks the game session to tell his "story", it's a tempting thought to just defenestrate him.



You seem to be equating "story" with "railroading". Some people play RPGs so that they can, in play, contribute to the development of thematically interesting story. In this sort of play, the role of the GM is to provide adversity and to provide opportunities for those thematically interesting statements to be made by the players via the mechanism of play. Minions can allow for this; they are not essential to it, but (given the sort of story-telling one might try to use D&D to facilitate) they can help.



			
				Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> I like things to be "emergent", where simple but consistent rules create complex systems and stories.  I don't approach any D&D campaign with a predetermined story which I'm going to "tell" to the PC's.  The "narrative" is jointly discovered, and it can take surprising turns when combats or RP take unexpected twists.



I also like a story that emerges from play, although not one generated by the rules but rather one generated by the players making thematically interesting choices for their characters (and so guided more by metagame concerns than by rules that model ingame processes).

I'm not saying that one approach is or isn't better than the other. I'm just pointing out that 1 hit point minions aren't (as Korgoth asserted) an obstacle to meaningful play.


----------



## HeavenShallBurn

Zil said:
			
		

> If you like Hong Kong martial arts movies you'll probably have no problems at all.  If you're strongly attached to the style of play in previous versions of D&D or you want to see things as being a simulation of our objective reality, maybe you will have more problems wrapping your head around this shift in the game.



So if Hong Kong martial arts movies generally make me want to crash a giant flaming asteroid into their city and irradiate the leftovers it safe to say this game is not for me?


----------



## hong

Aria Silverhands said:
			
		

> There's a perfect game for you then.  Oblivion.  You can go play in your sandbox to your hearts content.




The funny thing is, IIRC Oblivion has been criticised for being too plot-heavy compared to Morrowind....


----------



## AZRogue

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> So if Hong Kong martial arts movies generally make me want to crash a giant flaming asteroid into their city and irradiate the leftovers it safe to say this game is not for me?




Dude! You never grew up watching Kung Fu Theater?!? That stuff shaped my childhood, back in the late 70's and 80's, as much as fantasy and sci-fi ever did.


----------



## Aria Silverhands

hong said:
			
		

> The funny thing is, IIRC Oblivion has been criticised for being too plot-heavy compared to Morrowind....



I've not played Morrowind, nor Oblivion, but reference them based on secondhand opinions.  From what I've read though, there was plenty of stuff to roam around and explore, destroy, or slaughter while avoiding the main quest.  Add in user modifications and it opens up even more.  Like creating a river of pumpkins that spill down over the hillside and crash into the village below.


----------



## Zil

Fanaelialae said:
			
		

> Why would 90% of a typical orc tribe be minions?



Based on the Orc monster manual pages, that is what I would assume.    You wouldn't have 90% of the tribe being made up of chieftains and Eyes of Gruumsh?  Most of the tribe would be 'drudges' and 'warriors' and looking at the orc monster manual pages, those look like minion stat blocks to me.   Even if we assume 25% of the tribe is berserkers, raiders or better, that still leaves a lot of 1hp minions.  

Or you can stop looking at the monster manual as any kind of simulation of an ecology and instead think just in terms of the players story and ignore what goes on off camera.  I think that is what we're supposed to be doing with 4E - creating movie like stories - not simulating reality (well, as much as Orcs ever could be reality   ).



> I can understand how it plays counter to the "reality" of previous editions of D&D (since you couldn't easily create a creature that was both good in combat but weak in the hp department).



Oh, this was extremely easy to do in 2E.  The plague of kits allowed players to create these really top heavy characters who could dish out a massive amount of damage, but if you threw them up against tougher opponents to compensate for their combat effectiveness, they'd show their fragility and die too readily.  It got to be very tricky designing adventures that didn't see lots of character death, yet still were a fun challenge.  Sure, it could be done, but sometimes I'd miscalculate what the players would do in a situation and come pretty close to a TPK.  The brown splat books in 2E really did break the game in that way and made it hard on the DM.  I was actually relieved to switch to Combat & Tactics/Skills & Powers just to escape the splat books.  Of course, there were a lot issues with that as well (slow, min-max paradise, etc).  



> IMO, I can't see it running counter to objective reality.  Where one is stabbed is much more important than the size of the blade.



That wasn't really my point.  My point was that 90%of the orc tribe has the staying power of a mirror image.   One hit and *poof* - regardless of what you are using.


----------



## I'm A Banana

Aria Silverhands said:
			
		

> I'm not going to DM for a group that just wants to run around wreaking havoc and killing . I'm there, as a DM, and a player... to tell a story




Right, but Korgoth isn't.

And 4e would be a monumentally poor game if it also forced you to tell a story with it.

It would be a good game if it allowed you to tell a story with it, and also allowed you to just run around wreaking havoc and killing.

Fortunately, the designers are clever little apes, and they're making a game that enables both.

Which is why minions exist, and also why you never have to use them if you don't like them, because you're not telling a story. 

Yay for those clever apes designing 4e! Hooray!


----------



## FireLance

I think the key problem with minions is that they are supposed to replace four creatures of similar level. They are thus simplified in order to require about as much of the DM's attention as a single normal creature. Among other things, they do a fixed amount of damage in order to minimize dice rolled, and are killed on a hit in order to reduce the need to track their hit points.

If the latter seems dissonant for the player or the DM, perhaps instead of minions, there could be another class of NPCs (mooks? underlings? followers? mundanes?) that are slightly more complex than minions and replace two creatures of similar level. They could have the same statistics as minions and still do fixed damage, but would have half the hit points of a normal creature of their role and level.


----------



## hero4hire

Zil said:
			
		

> That wasn't really my point.  My point was that 90%of the orc tribe has the staying power of a mirror image.   One hit and *poof* - regardless of what you are using.




I think this is awesome. 

Now I can finally play a cinematic LoTR battle versus hordes of orcs in D&D without it being tedious or drawn out!


----------



## Fanaelialae

Zil said:
			
		

> Based on the Orc monster manual pages, that is what I would assume.    You wouldn't have 90% of the tribe being made up of chieftains and Eyes of Gruumsh?  Most of the tribe would be 'drudges' and 'warriors' and looking at the orc monster manual pages, those look like minion stat blocks to me.   Even if we assume 25% of the tribe is berserkers, raiders or better, that still leaves a lot of 1hp minions.
> 
> Or you can stop looking at the monster manual as any kind of simulation of an ecology and instead think just in terms of the players story and ignore what goes on off camera.  I think that is what we're supposed to be doing with 4E - creating movie like stories - not simulating reality (well, as much as Orcs ever could be reality   ).
> 
> 
> Oh, this was extremely easy to do in 2E.  The plague of kits allowed players to create these really top heavy characters who could dish out a massive amount of damage, but if you threw them up against tougher opponents to compensate for their combat effectiveness, they'd show their fragility and die too readily.  It got to be very tricky designing adventures that didn't see lots of character death, yet still were a fun challenge.  Sure, it could be done, but sometimes I'd miscalculate what the players would do in a situation and come pretty close to a TPK.  The brown splat books in 2E really did break the game in that way and made it hard on the DM.  I was actually relieved to switch to Combat & Tactics/Skills & Powers just to escape the splat books.  Of course, there were a lot issues with that as well (slow, min-max paradise, etc).
> 
> That wasn't really my point.  My point was that 90%of the orc tribe has the staying power of a mirror image.   One hit and *poof* - regardless of what you are using.




In my case, I don't think that I'd give a significant portion of the orcs stats at all.  If the PCs wanted to slaughter the orc children and commoners after defeating the tribe's warriors, I wouldn't make them roll for it, it's a foregone conclusion (though I might give the more decent characters nightmares for some time to come).  As for the actual warriors of tribe, it would be up to the DM, as fits his needs.  I certainly wouldn't make 90% of the tribe chiefs and eyes (it would be pretty silly to have more than one chief in most scenarios), but I'd apportion the lesser guys as I see fit.  For a small but ruthless tribe, I could see myself making 90% of the warriors bloodragers and berserkers, with only a handful of other orc types.  For a weak(er) but larger tribe, I'd likely make the majority of the orcs minions.  I see it as a way to easily (mechanically) customize tribes.

I think it's intended such that we can stop looking to the MM stats for a simulation of ecology in any real sense.  I really don't think that it was meant for that in any edition (though I do sort of see your point, in that 3.x allowed you to create orc commoners and experts if you ever felt the need).

Yeah, kits in 2e were poorly balanced.  Skills and powers was even worse in that respect (though it introduced some interesting ideas).  I don't recall any way to apply them to monsters though (it's been at least 4 years since my last 2e game though).  You're right though, 2e was much more relaxed in this respect.  I imagine if you wanted to create a creature with a Thac0 of 1 and 1 hp, there was probably a way (or just DM fiat).

Assuming that the PC is using some sort of lethal attack (as opposed to, say, a rubber chicken) I have no problem with that.  HPs are just a way of adjudicating the make-believe game of cops and robbers.  
"I shot you!  You're dead!"
"Nope, I still have 10 hp left, I dodged out of the way at the last second."
Anyone who goes from 1 to 0 hp has just gotten clobbered over the head real hard, skewered through chest, or some such.  Someone who has > 0 hp hasn't, no matter how improbable that might be (someone being grappled inside the mouth of the tarrasque).  
To paraphrase something that one of my friends is fond of saying- If you shoot someone, it really doesn't matter where you hit them or what caliber bullet you use; if they aren't unconscious, most people will still just lie down and complain.  IMO, hp is essentially just a way of turning a hit into a (near) miss, and minions are just those unlucky guys who, for whatever myriad reasons IC and for the sake of the DM's ease OOC, don't get these "get out of hit free" cards... er, points.


----------



## robertliguori

pemerton said:
			
		

> If you insist on treating hit points as a measure of the ingame property of _physical durability_ then you will find the minion rules hard to come at. Perhaps try Rolemaster, in which hit point totals really do represent physical durability.
> 
> But if, in accordance with 4e's development of the description of hit points that D&D has always used (a bit of luck, a bit of skill, a bit of constitution), you treat NPC hit points as a measure of the metagame property of _capacity to stand up to blows from the PCs_ (as Fallen Seraph has emphasised, when PCs hit minions they don't merely cut them, they behead, disembowel or otherwise fatally dispatch them) then you will find your problems go away - when no PCs are involved you don't need hit points at all, and can resolve the conflict between the guards and the orcs however you care to (perhaps using wargaming rules if that's really your thing - I think that's how they did it in OD&D).
> 
> This is mostly true, except that it (like Gygax's essay on hit points in the 1st ed DMG) suggests that "luck" is an ingame property. I think that "luck" in this sense (and hence the hit points mechanic) is much better thought of as a metagame device, analogous to Hero Points or Fate Points in systems like HeroWars or OGL Conan. Hit points don't represent anything in game - rather, they set a metagame constraint on the narration. This then gives us a certain flexibility: we can describe both the 1 hp 9th level Minion and the 100 hp 9th level PC fighter as buff and butch, and we can describe the same fighter reduced to 1 hp as being on his or her last legs, without committing ourselves to the sort of inconsistency that would arise if we thought "9th level, 1 hp remaining" actually reprsented some property of characters in the gameworld.



Point the first: elements that exist within the gameworld and are accessable and modifyable aren't metagame elements; they're game elements.  HP can be used as an importance flag to the GM, but in addition to serving such a task, they also track an in-game element, which represents how hard it is to break a person or object with damage.

Now, you're welcome to simply ignore this set of rules, and substitute the 'hit points only apply to attacks from players'.  However, inconsistencies between what the players do and what happens externally in the world will be rapidly noted.  Take, for example, a giant knocking down a castle door the PCs are defending.  If the PCs have traded blows with a comparable giant before, and know how hard it hits, then they should have an expectation that blow from giant can destroy big door, and if they can replicate blow from giant, they can destroy big doors themselves.  So, what happens when the GMs narrative hinges on the players being unable to destroy the door, then the PCs have an expectation that they should be able to and some of the players decide that the epic challenge against the enemy stronghold should be more of a showing-off-exercise?  The GM can say "Sorry, I intended for the stronghold to be more of a challenge, so you can't do that.  You must struggle against great odds to gain entrance.  Nothing else will work."  This will often get you upset players.  You can cheat, and simply prevent effects that should allow entry from succeeding without explicitly stating what you're doing; unless you have absolutely wonderful justifications on-hand, this will be even more annoying than the first case.  Physical durability is a property of creatures and objects in the world; treating PCs as a special case and otherwise winging it according to story needs can be consistent, but why bother with the headaches?  Simply assume that the numbers are descriptive, examine them according to the situation, and if they are not to your liking, change the situation ("This wall is too durable/fragile.  Now, instead of it's given description, it's old and crumbling/hewn of great blocks of stone, and probably reinforced underneath.")



> You seem to be equating "story" with "railroading". Some people play RPGs so that they can, in play, contribute to the development of thematically interesting story. In this sort of play, the role of the GM is to provide adversity and to provide opportunities for those thematically interesting statements to be made by the players via the mechanism of play. Minions can allow for this; they are not essential to it, but (given the sort of story-telling one might try to use D&D to facilitate) they can help.



OK.  Let's talk about that thematically interesting story.  One of the constant features of D&D up until 4E has been the advancement of characters from the level of just-above-average to superhuman levels of competence and ability, driven not by their breeding, or because they were chosen by the gods, but because those characters chose to set out and have adventures (and didn't die of adventuring hazards).  The suggestion that any turnip-farmer or street urchin could take up study of the sword or discover a previously-unknown talent for sorcery and having the theoretical possibility of propelling themselves to grand champion or archmage status is a thematic statement.  Minions flatly contradict this statement; a universe with minions is a universe in which certain characters exist only to provide a momentary speedbump for other, more important characters.  Moreover, the specific implementation of minions in 4E only produces acceptable narrative results if the characters are prevented from thinking too hard about how the minions interact with the world, and as far as I'm concerned, stories that rely on characters not drawing logical conclusions (when it is appropriate for them to draw said conclusions) are like games that rely on fake difficulty.



> I also like a story that emerges from play, although not one generated by the rules but rather one generated by the players making thematically interesting choices for their characters (and so guided more by metagame concerns than by rules that model ingame processes).
> 
> I'm not saying that one approach is or isn't better than the other. I'm just pointing out that 1 hit point minions aren't (as Korgoth asserted) an obstacle to meaningful play.



"There is a world.  Elements in the world act in consistent ways.  Characters that act on their perception of how the world is (or should be) contrary to how the world actually works tend to get smacked down hard.  Characters that take the time to understand the world can often leverage that understanding into power." is a theme.  However, just as heroism in the face of adversity requires adversity in order to be explored, the above theme requires a consistent world, with well-defined consequences for various choices.

I'd personally say that any game based on thematic interaction that didn't include the above theme is not a game I'd personally have any interest in.  Others' mileage may vary, of course.


----------



## LostSoul

robertliguori said:
			
		

> Point the first: elements that exist within the gameworld and are accessable and modifyable aren't metagame elements; they're game elements.  HP can be used as an importance flag to the GM, but in addition to serving such a task, they also track an in-game element, which represents how hard it is to break a person or object with damage.




Elements only exist in the gameworld if the group says that the do.  HP, at any time, may or may not be an in-game element.

They are always a "metagame" element - a feature of the rules that allow you to resolve in-game conflicts at the table.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> However, inconsistencies between what the players do and what happens externally in the world will be rapidly noted.  Take, for example, a giant knocking down a castle door the PCs are defending.  If the PCs have traded blows with a comparable giant before, and know how hard it hits, then they should have an expectation that blow from giant can destroy big door, and if they can replicate blow from giant, they can destroy big doors themselves.  So, what happens when the GMs narrative hinges on the players being unable to destroy the door, then the PCs have an expectation that they should be able to and some of the players decide that the epic challenge against the enemy stronghold should be more of a showing-off-exercise?




What happens is that the players (including the DM), if they can agree to use the game's rules, use the game's rules to resolve what happens in-game.

If they can't agree to use the game's rules, then I guess they'll have to go for beers and talk it over.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> "There is a world.  Elements in the world act in consistent ways.  Characters that act on their perception of how the world is (or should be) contrary to how the world actually works tend to get smacked down hard.  Characters that take the time to understand the world can often leverage that understanding into power." is a theme.




If the game makes the answer to that question ("Does struggling to make the world work the way you want it to lead to success or does it break you?") for you, before the game starts, we're not talking about narrativst play.


----------



## Cadfan

robertliguori said:
			
		

> One of the constant features of D&D up until 4E has been the advancement of characters from the level of just-above-average to superhuman levels of competence and ability, driven not by their breeding, or because they were chosen by the gods, but because those characters chose to set out and have adventures (and didn't die of adventuring hazards).  The suggestion that any turnip-farmer or street urchin could take up study of the sword or discover a previously-unknown talent for sorcery and having the theoretical possibility of propelling themselves to grand champion or archmage status is a thematic statement.  *Minions flatly contradict this statement; a universe with minions is a universe in which certain characters exist only to provide a momentary speedbump for other, more important characters.*



I agree with some of what you wrote, particularly the section regarding how a DM should make efforts to ensure that the descriptive nature of the gameworld matches the statistical values with which the players interact.  HP are a mechanic for interacting with the game world, but because the gameworld exists primarily as words, the words should describe something that matches the game mechanic that handles conflict resolution as well as possible.

But the statement above that I put into bold is absolutely wrong.  Its not only wrong, its nonsensical.  It mixes PCs and NPCs into the same pot.  You are essentially arguing that unless every NPC has the intrinsic mechanical ability to become a PC, the game cannot model a world in which a PC can become a PC.  That's nuts.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

habaal said:
			
		

> Wait a minute, who said ALL minions have 1 HP? Is it certified?
> I don't know if it was a fan-made Minion or a previewd one, but I certainly saw a minion with higher HP at a higher level. If this isn't the case, It's badly designed.
> Why shouldn't a mook's HP scale like all the rest, in a way that pretty much ensures an appropriate level PC will slay it in one hit most of the times, while a lower level PC would find it a bit difficult?



I know there are some playtest stats for creatures floating around the net.  Be careful.  Some of the stats from DDXP are wrong.  So are some of the stats from the backs of D&D Minis cards.  Rules change due to playtesting and not all playtesters had the most recent version of the rules at all times.  Plus, the D&D mini cards had to be at the printers rather early in order to come out on time.

As much as I hate to throw doubt on everything people think they know.  There are even some preview articles from a while back that are now completely wrong.  Things change.  Just keep that in mind.

As for minions, the idea is that they HAVE hitpoints.  Since hitpoints are an abstraction of luck and a number of other factors, it isn't that they are weaker than other creatures, it is simply that they are the ones destined to die quickly in any combat.

How quickly?  As soon as they get hit.  It is a probability mechanic.  Not a mechanic for tracking how tough someone is.

Keep in mind that hitting a high level minion requires a nat 20 in most cases and it has the ability to hit you on a 2 for most, if not all of your hitpoints.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Cadfan said:
			
		

> But the statement above that I put into bold is absolutely wrong.  Its not only wrong, its nonsensical.  It mixes PCs and NPCs into the same pot.  You are essentially arguing that unless every NPC has the intrinsic mechanical ability to become a PC, the game cannot model a world in which a PC can become a PC.  That's nuts.



What separates your turnip farming pre-1st level PC from the turnip farming pre-1st level* NPC from the next farm?

In other words, do PCs have midichlorians, and that is the only difference?

*and apparently 'unable to achieve first level' as well


----------



## AZRogue

Minions solve the problem of having many multiple weak monsters (mooks) attacking the PCs. Before this could be done by throwing multiple low-level monsters at them that posed no threat. Now, a DM can throw multiple minions that DO represent a threat, especially together, while still retaining their ability to blow up on contact for maximum "I'm conan" effect.

At least those who don't like Minions can simply choose another monster entry.


----------



## pemerton

robertliguori said:
			
		

> Point the first: elements that exist within the gameworld and are accessable and modifyable aren't metagame elements; they're game elements.  HP can be used as an importance flag to the GM, but in addition to serving such a task, they also track an in-game element, which represents how hard it is to break a person or object with damage.



Hit points don't exist in the gameworld, do they? They're a metagame device for adjudicating certain ingame phenomena such as being healed by a priest, being roused by a commander, gathering one's second wind, dodging a blow, enjoying the blessing of the fates.

Minions, poor souls, rarely gain the benefit of any of these things. That's what the 1 hit point on their stat sheet tells us. It tells us nothing about their physical durability - for all we know they are championship bodybuilders doomed to ill-luck.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> Physical durability is a property of creatures and objects in the world; treating PCs as a special case and otherwise winging it according to story needs can be consistent, but why bother with the headaches?  Simply assume that the numbers are descriptive
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the specific implementation of minions in 4E only produces acceptable narrative results if the characters are prevented from thinking too hard about how the minions interact with the world



Physical durability is a property, yes. But the game mechanics do not model it (at least, not for creatures. We haven't seen object rules yet, as far as I know).

Thinking about how minions interact with the world is easy - this thread is full of examples of it. Problems only arise if you treat the game mechanics in a way that they are almost certainly not intended to be treated, namely, as a model of some ingame property.

If you choose to interpret hit points as a measure of the ingame property of durability, then go to town. You will get silly results, like high level wizards being more durable than your typical stone statue, and minions being more vulnerable than your typical housecat, and warlord "healing" will make no sense, and on the whole the game mechanics will deliver a bizarre gameworld. But maybe that's the game you want to play.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> Take, for example, a giant knocking down a castle door the PCs are defending.  If the PCs have traded blows with a comparable giant before, and know how hard it hits, then they should have an expectation that blow from giant can destroy big door, and if they can replicate blow from giant, they can destroy big doors themselves.



Given that PCs are less than half the height of most giants, why would they be able to replicate the blows of giants? And if they are (eg by casting shapechange) then why wouldn't they be able to break down the doors. The issue you are attempting to raise is not to do with the application of the hit point mechanic, but rather with ingame consistency.  



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> So, what happens when the GMs narrative hinges on the players being unable to destroy the door, then the PCs have an expectation that they should be able to and some of the players decide that the epic challenge against the enemy stronghold should be more of a showing-off-exercise?



Then the GM may be railroading, and/or the players may be annoying. As Lost Soul said above, if they can't agree on how the game is to be played maybe they need to go off and have a chat about it. If they can agree, they use the mechanics to resolve the situation. But this tells us nothing about the connection between hit points rules and ingame realities.  



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> The suggestion that any turnip-farmer or street urchin could take up study of the sword or discover a previously-unknown talent for sorcery and having the theoretical possibility of propelling themselves to grand champion or archmage status is a thematic statement.  Minions flatly contradict this statement; a universe with minions is a universe in which certain characters exist only to provide a momentary speedbump for other, more important characters.



Nothing in the rules says that an NPC currently statted as a minion can't be restatted as a PC, as far as I'm aware.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> "There is a world.  Elements in the world act in consistent ways.  Characters that act on their perception of how the world is (or should be) contrary to how the world actually works tend to get smacked down hard.  Characters that take the time to understand the world can often leverage that understanding into power." is a theme.  However, just as heroism in the face of adversity requires adversity in order to be explored, the above theme requires a consistent world, with well-defined consequences for various choices.



Nothing about that them requires simulationist mechanics, as far as I can see. In fact, given the role that dice play in most purist-for-system games, there is actually no guarantee that a world-defying character won't get lucky and win! Conversely, of RPGs that I'm familiar with one that places the most emphasis on leveraging knowledge of the world's workings into power is HeroWars/Quest, and its mechanics are narrativist (not unlike skill challenges), not simulationist.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What separates your turnip farming pre-1st level PC from the turnip farming pre-1st level* NPC from the next farm?
> 
> In other words, do PCs have midichlorians, and that is the only difference?



Nothing seperates them in the gameworld except for the fact that the NPC hasn't actually done it yet, and probably never will.

The mechanical privileges of PCs are a metagame device to make the game fun for the players. If you want to play a different (perhaps grittier) sort of game, RQ, RM, E6, Pathfinder etc are still all in print.


----------



## D.Shaffer

To me, a minion's 1 HP is DM shorthand for 'This creature is designing to go down with one solid hit by the PC's.  It DOES have an actual HP total, but it's not really high enough to bother recording as that solid hit is going to knock it from full HP to 0 anyways.'  In fact, I remember seeing a Developer post stating that was the exact intention, although I cant seem to find it now.

The way I see it, if you dont like the shorthand/handwave, you just need to figure out the avg damage level of characters of the level they're expected to go against and just insert that.


----------



## Mallus

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What separates your turnip farming pre-1st level PC from the turnip farming pre-1st level* NPC from the next farm?



I play the PC and the DM plays the NPC. Did that need clarification?



> In other words, do PCs have midichlorians, and that is the only difference?



What does George Lucas's unfortunate descent into early senile dementia have to do this?


----------



## Lizard

Moniker said:
			
		

> It is entirely ridiculous to assume that a missed burst or blast that does half damage would not kill a minion.
> 
> I can already see that I'm going to have to houserule this, until WotC can provide any better reason NOT to.




The same reason for all the head-go-splodey rules in 4e.

Game balance.

If minions die on a miss, then any 'roomsweeper' spell like fireball kills all the minions, no need to worry about you roll. Anyone with AE 'damage on miss' spells will just use their lowest level, otherwise useless, spells to wipe out the highest level minions. Thus, because Fighting Minions Is Fun, they have to be given wholly illogical, wholly inconsistent special abilities to keep them from being cleaned out by any character with access to damage-on-miss abilities, so that the Defenders can get to do THEIR shtick and stop the Onrushing Hordes.

You know, I already own Feng Shui.

About the only way one can make even the tiniest bit of sense out of this mess is to surrender all pretense that the game is simulating or modeling anything, and that, outside of their encounter with the PCs, minions have "normal" hit points and don't die when they stub their toe, but that "Minion" is a dramatic label, that the same individual who is an orc minion today might be a non-minion tomorrow if his role changes for some reason. "Minions" don't exist in the world; creatures are given "minion" status when the plot demands it, and they all dodge the fireball that singes the higher hit point chief in their midst because, well, the plot demands it. It's 100% handwaving, with no possible "realistic" justification, even with the amazingly loose definition of "realism" required for high fantasy adventure. 

Even M&M, which likewise has Minion rules, didn't have them be magically immune to area affects. (OTOH, there was no 'half damage on miss' in MM, that I can recall; you ended up doing much lower damage, on average, with AE powers because AE raised the power cost so much.)


----------



## Mallus

Lizard said:
			
		

> About the only way one can make even the tiniest bit of sense out of this mess is to surrender all pretense that the game is simulating or modeling anything...



Assume the game is modeling an action movie or novel. Problem solved!


----------



## Lizard

Cadfan said:
			
		

> .
> 
> But the statement above that I put into bold is absolutely wrong.  Its not only wrong, its nonsensical.  It mixes PCs and NPCs into the same pot.  You are essentially arguing that unless every NPC has the intrinsic mechanical ability to become a PC, the game cannot model a world in which a PC can become a PC.  That's nuts.




How so? It makes sense to me.

Most people DON'T go on adventures, because they don't. But, yeah, given the same stat array, the only thing which (should) separate Fred the first level fighter from his twin brother Joe the first level commoner is the life choices he made. He chose to run off and learn combat arts and master weapons and get in enough fights (and survive them) to earn his first level as a fighter; Joe stayed home and farmed cabbages. If Joe up and decides to follow in his brother's path -- and rolls well -- he may become a Commoner 1/Fighter 1.


----------



## Mallus

Lizard said:
			
		

> Most people DON'T go on adventures, because they don't.



Most NPC's in my setting don't adventure because I-as-DM don't need them to. Narrative imperatives and all... 



> If Joe up and decides to follow in his brother's path -- and rolls well -- he may become a Commoner 1/Fighter 1.



If I-as-DM decide that Joe takes up arms, which is just another way of saying 'I have a new use for this fictional character', I wave my magic author-wand and Joe is transformed into a low level fighter. 

What stops me-as-DM from doing this? A cranky simulationist armed with a baseball bat?


----------



## Wormwood

Mallus said:
			
		

> Most NPC's in my setting don't adventure because I-as-DM don't need them to. Narrative imperatives and all...



And let's be honest. The minute Fred the 5th-level fighter gets eaten by a grue, his twin brother Joe the Cabbage Farmer 5th-level fighter can join the party in a Quest for Vengeance™.


----------



## Celebrim

Lizard said:
			
		

> Most people DON'T go on adventures, because they don't. But, yeah, given the same stat array, the only thing which (should) separate Fred the first level fighter from his twin brother Joe the first level commoner is the life choices he made. He chose to run off and learn combat arts and master weapons and get in enough fights (and survive them) to earn his first level as a fighter; Joe stayed home and farmed cabbages. If Joe up and decides to follow in his brother's path -- and rolls well -- he may become a Commoner 1/Fighter 1.




This is how I've always seen it as well.  For one thing, if a PC dies, a well positioned NPC is likely to become the replacement PC.  For another, NPC's are likely to evolve over the story with the assumption that if they do the sort of things PC's do, then they level up and conversely they leveled up because they've been doing similar things to the PC's.  

Moreover, there is always the assumption that the PC's aren't the only heroes in the world.  They have rivals and foils and allies out there which are heroic (or at least 'exemplars of villany') in thier own right.  For one thing, its quite possible that there are or will be parallel campaigns played out in different parts of the game world.

But mostly it just makes sense to assume that what makes a PC special is something more abstract than simply having extremely good stats and the ability to swing a sword better than his peers.  One of my assumptions is generally that PC quality individuals are not overly rare, but groups of them together sharing a (largely) common cause which they are working toward even at risk of life and limb are indeed very rare.  Another assumption is that this is the story we are telling because we always tell the story of the heroes who became heroes because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time and who did something about it.  There might have been and indeed likely were other individuals that could have done it, but they didn't or didn't have the oppurtunity.  They met maurading giants back when they were 1st level.  They were hundreds of miles removed from the center of action.  They had no friends or allies to rely on.  Or whatever.   The characters are heroic not because they are exceptionally special or advantaged (although they might be special), but because of what they do especially when they do it despite not being exceptionally advantaged.

Most of all, the purpose of having NPC's and PC's use the same rules is to partially be able to claim and partially foster the illusion that the reason for the characters success is the quality of the players play.  In other words, there isn't much satisfaction in winning because you've had the odds stacked in your favor at every oppurtunity compared to winning because you made your own oppurtunities.


----------



## Celebrim

Mallus said:
			
		

> What stops me-as-DM from doing this? A cranky simulationist armed with a baseball bat?




Nothing stops you from doing that.  Its the DMs perogative to be inventive and its a necessity of the job.  The simulationist just says, "Why not assume a simulation where you've done as much of the waving of magic wands before you start so that the tools you want to use later are already there?"   Thus, Joe is a low level fighter not only because of narrative need but also because he lives in a world where it is the nature of people of his profession, background, and social status to be low level fighters, and we can expect NPCs in similar circumstances (yoeman, farming at the edge of the wilderness, son of a soldier and younger brother of an adventurer) to be low level fighters.  Thus Joes existance and the story which proceeds from it are logical within the framework of the setting the story takes place in.

The simulationist gets cranky when the rules cease to describe the setting and become merely story tropes which cannot be applied literally to the setting.  The Minion rules are like that because you can't apply the characters minion status in a logical way outside of the minions narrow role as a petty obstacle to be overcome.  The Minion doesn't live outside of this role except by waving your magic wand and removing his minion status.


----------



## Cadfan

Lizard said:
			
		

> How so? It makes sense to me.



I'm not surprised, because...


> If Joe up and decides to follow in his brother's path -- and rolls well -- he may become a Commoner 1/Fighter 1.



...of this.  You seem to believe that non player characters, created by the Dungeon Master to fill a gameworld in which Players enjoy a game, are somehow _real people._

The are not real people.  They are ideas that exist in my mind.  They don't make decisions.  I do.  _They don't even have immutable or intrinsic stats._  They have what I give them.  They are constructs, fictional, ephemeral creations.

Further, when the players create a character, they don't pick an NPC from the cast of characters occupying my gameworld, divert his destiny, and start leveling him up.  They create a character of their own.

Now that character might be Joe, previously Joe the Commoner.  And he be an every day guy who learns to wield a sword and wear armor, and then rises to greatness.

But that has nothing to do with what his stats were before he was a Fighter, because before he was a Fighter he didn't exist.

And when I invent an NPC, that NPC doesn't need a mechanical capacity built into his stat block that enables him to convert what he is now into player character levels, just in case he becomes a hero.  He's not GOING to become a hero, because he's an NPC Minion Dirtfarmer.  If he WAS going to become a hero, I'd have statted him differently in the first place.  And on the outside chance that an NPC I didn't expect to be important suddenly becomes thrust into heroism?  _I'll restat the sucker._

Anyways, the fact that a particular NPC isn't built to level from Dirtfarmer to Hero has nothing to do with whether Fred the Commoner, a random person selected by Destiny for greatness (Destiny, in this film, being played by my friend Ben), can rise from obscurity into heroism.

I don't know how to make this more clear.  PCs and NPCs don't obtain stats until AFTER its determined whether they're the one destined for greatness, ie, whether they're a player character or an NPC.


----------



## Mallus

Wormwood said:
			
		

> And let's be honest. The minute Fred the 5th-level fighter gets eaten by a grue, his twin brother Joe the Cabbage Farmer 5th-level fighter can join the party in a Quest for Vengeance™.



Exactly! I-as-DM would never deny the grieving and suddenly talented Joe his revenge!


----------



## Vael

Considering that PCs will have built in retraining rules to allow them to swap feats and powers, I have no issue with restating Joe the NPC to Joe the Fighter.


----------



## Mallus

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Thus Joes existance and the story which proceeds from it are logical within the framework of the setting the story takes place in.



OK, but I don't see how Minion rules interfere with the creation of a reasonable story framework.

Joe begins as a peaceful dirt farmer. In mechanical terms he's described using the Minion rules.

Later, for story purposes, the DM declares Joe joins the local militia and muster out. Mechanically, he is now a low level fighter. 

This seems like a logical framework to me, readily understood by players. How is it not? Do you feel that there needs to be procedural rules that take Joe from Minion to classed NPC, even though its easily explained in a strictly narrative way? 



> The simulationist gets cranky when the rules cease to describe the setting and become merely story tropes which cannot be applied literally to the setting.



The Narrative Pragmatist in me rolls his eyes when simulationists insist on applying the rules so literally that unwanted and nutty results result, and then cry foul. 



> The Minion rules are like that because you can't apply the characters minion status in a logical way outside of the minions narrow role as a petty obstacle to be overcome.  The Minion doesn't live outside of this role except by waving your magic wand and removing his minion status.



I don't know what you mean by 'live outside his role' here. I'm free to characterize a Minion as much or as little as I like, imbue them with whatever fictitious life I need to. 'Minion' is just a combat descriptor. Where are you going with this?


----------



## Lizard

Celebrim said:
			
		

> The simulationist gets cranky when the rules cease to describe the setting and become merely story tropes which cannot be applied literally to the setting.  The Minion rules are like that because you can't apply the characters minion status in a logical way outside of the minions narrow role as a petty obstacle to be overcome.  The Minion doesn't live outside of this role except by waving your magic wand and removing his minion status.




Bingo.


----------



## Lizard

Mallus said:
			
		

> I don't know what you mean by 'live outside his role' here. I'm free to characterize a Minion as much or as little as I like, imbue them with whatever fictitious life I need to. 'Minion' is just a combat descriptor. Where are you going with this?




That the way the minion is described, mechanically, only makes sense when he's on-stage fighting the PCs. When armies clash, their soldiers don't leave battle either completely dead or completely unhurt, but that's the way the minion rules describe it. So when the PCs aren't around, orc minions can be partially injured, and so can the peasant levies they're fighting, but as soon as the PCs walk onstage, the world changes and it's "save or die" for every participant (except them and "named" enemies).

This bugs me. It doesn't bug you, or a lot of people for whom 4e is the shizzle, if the shizzle means "good" these days. I think it used to. Anyway, I understand the narrative role of minions. But D&D has never been a narrativist game, and having it warped into one in the space of a single edition is more than a little jarring.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

It is not so much the world changes as much as the well essentially the fate, luck, whatever of those now deemed minions change.

In one battle, they faired quite well, yes one lost a arm but he was saved, and continuous to fight, etc.

In another battle, the DM decides well this guy I think is going to slip in the mud and be impaled right away, even though in a previous battle he faired well but was still injured.

To anyone in the world, that is all it seems like. It doesn't seem like he magically became weaker, he simply slipped in the mud, lost his balance, was slow in bringing his shield up, etc. 

While I am not much of a simulationist, doesn't that entail it is a fine mechanic in that in-game it appears perfectly reasonable?


----------



## AZRogue

Lizard said:
			
		

> This bugs me. It doesn't bug you, or a lot of people for whom 4e is the shizzle, if the shizzle means "good" these days. I think it used to. Anyway, I understand the narrative role of minions. But D&D has never been a narrativist game, and having it warped into one in the space of a single edition is more than a little jarring.




I don't consider myself a narrativist player or DM. I think I'm just a mix, really. I know that Rolemaster/MERP is my second favorite RPG, followed lately by d20 Modern and Cyberpunk, so I think I'm probably a mix of whatever "-isms" we're using nowadays. 

So, in that light, I see Minion rules as providing a valuable shortcut for something I've ALWAYS done anyway. I don't think it's new. As a DM I was always looking for ways to save time and I've never cared if the mechanics can simulate NPCs working amongst themselves; I've only ever cared about what the PCs experience on their side of the table. I know that I can't be the only DM who had a list of six or seven generic stat blocks (THAC0, AC, DMG, HP, one Save for all things, etc.) on a sheet of paper with me for the occasional wandering monster or surprise fight. I had them labeled from really bad in melee to really deadly, based on my players current stats, and would use the statblock I wanted. My game never broke and it freed me up to worry about more important things like introducing plot hooks, mystery clues to be uncovered a year later, and story arcs.


----------



## Andor

Lizard said:
			
		

> That the way the minion is described, mechanically, only makes sense when he's on-stage fighting the PCs. When armies clash, their soldiers don't leave battle either completely dead or completely unhurt, but that's the way the minion rules describe it. So when the PCs aren't around, orc minions can be partially injured, and so can the peasant levies they're fighting, but as soon as the PCs walk onstage, the world changes and it's "save or die" for every participant (except them and "named" enemies).
> 
> This bugs me. It doesn't bug you, or a lot of people for whom 4e is the shizzle, if the shizzle means "good" these days. I think it used to. Anyway, I understand the narrative role of minions. But D&D has never been a narrativist game, and having it warped into one in the space of a single edition is more than a little jarring.




QFT.

If the world doesn't feel real to me, if I don't enjoy the sense that my characters actions matter because they make the world a better place for NPC who are living, breathing, thinking characters, then I might as well be pumping quarters into Donkey Kong.

I do not feel like a character is a hero because he cut down a horde of disposable minions to show off his testicular magnitude, I feel like a character is a hero because he made a difference. If the NPCs are visibly cardboard props in the set dressing of the story, then no difference has been made. It's a solipsistic circlejerk.


----------



## Lacyon

Lizard said:
			
		

> That the way the minion is described, mechanically, only makes sense when he's on-stage fighting the PCs. When armies clash, their soldiers don't leave battle either completely dead or completely unhurt, but that's the way the minion rules describe it. So when the PCs aren't around, orc minions can be partially injured, and so can the peasant levies they're fighting, but as soon as the PCs walk onstage, the world changes and it's "save or die" for every participant (except them and "named" enemies).




Point of Fact: It's not the minion rules that say every combatant leaves completely dead or completely unhurt.


----------



## Mallus

Lizard said:
			
		

> When armies clash, their soldiers don't leave battle either completely dead or completely unhurt, but that's the way the minion rules describe it.



Well that's just it: the minion rules aren't the mass combat rules. They neither model nor describe a battlefield during war. Attempting to do so using them is using precisely the wrong tool for the job. 



> So when the PCs aren't around, orc minions can be partially injured, and so can the peasant levies they're fighting, but as soon as the PCs walk onstage, the world changes and it's "save or die" for every participant (except them and "named" enemies).



Exactly.

This is really no different from previous editions. When the PC's aren't around NPC's can get their limbs chopped off, suffer debilitating wounds, lose morale, get infections, etc. In other words, battles and battlefields can be described in ways which aren't supported by the combat rules. But as soon as PC's enter they fray, it's back to ablative hit points and "full strength/dead" ie combat following the RAW, where such 'realistic' effects aren't accounted for. 



> But D&D has never been a narrativist game, and having it warped into one in the space of a single edition is more than a little jarring.



I can see that. But I wouldn't get too hung up on the term 'narravitism', it's a bit of a distraction. Saying that the minion rules lead to absurd-looking battlefields neatly ignores the fact the D&D complete lack of injury rules have always resulted in ridiculous depictions of combat. Unless you're willing to apply/describe effects outside the scope the actual rules, which just so happen to only affect the extras and the supporting cast.


----------



## Mallus

Lacyon said:
			
		

> Point of Fact: It's not the minion rules that say every combatant leaves completely dead or completely unhurt.



If not 'unhurt', at least at full fighting strength...

Thanks, Lacyon, for saying in a single sentence what took me several stumbling ones to do less well.


----------



## Mallus

Andor said:
			
		

> If the NPCs are visibly cardboard props in the set dressing of the story, then no difference has been made.



How well an NPC is characterized, dramatized, motivated, etc. has nothing to do with their combat durability (which is all the Minion rules measure). Conversely, an NPC can have a three-page stat block and enough hit points to survive bare-hand bear wrestling and _still_ be nothing more than an uninteresting cardboard cut-out.


----------



## LostSoul

Andor said:
			
		

> I do not feel like a character is a hero because he cut down a horde of disposable minions to show off his testicular magnitude, I feel like a character is a hero because he made a difference. If the NPCs are visibly cardboard props in the set dressing of the story, then no difference has been made. It's a solipsistic circlejerk.




What if he cuts down a horde of disposable minions and, in doing so, makes a difference?


----------



## bramadan

An awesome saying - I think of Cadfan's - comes to mind here.

Lots of folks have internalized the DnD mechanics so deeply as to mistake them for the way world works. 

One stab wound will usually incapacitate or kill a person - no matter how skilled or experienced they are. Blade penetrating more then an inch into the body will throw human into shock which is for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from the 0HP state in DnD.
Falling into 10' pit unexpectedly tends to break limbs with similar results. Suffering 3rd degree burns, taking crushing blows with a mace, being savaged by a bear... all those will either kill or incapacitate anybody in "real life" with rare and insignificant exceptions. 

Keep in mind that "incapacitate" specifically does not mean kill - even in DnD. We already know that 0HP for non PCs is entirely open to interpretation by the DM and that shock or broken limbs are as valid interpretation (if narratively relevant) as death.

If you are cut open in the bar fight you may not be dead, you may not even be in shock, but you are, likely as not, holding your wound and crying Uncle. If you are not, if you are shrugging it of and fighting on you are most definitively not a minion.

Things that deal HP damage in DnD are as a rule lethal or incapacitating things - it is therefore not at all surprising that a significant number of creatures in DnD world will be killed or incapacitated by those things. Things that do not kill or incapacitate - falling in showers, being punched with a fist, being stung by a bee etc... - by definition do not deal HP damage. 

If you want your DnD realistic - then all characters, PC and NPC are "minions" in the sense of having 1HP (and potentially high defenses due to their skill etc). 

Where the realism is sacrificed for "gamism" is not in the minion rules but in the HP rules for non-minions. DnD - wanting to simulate heroic fantasy - wants to give heroes and some antagonists multiple leases on life through a mechanic that incorporates things like morale, grit, divine favor, luck and sheer awesomeness factor. 

If you are interested in any level of "simulation" in DnD then HP do not represent ability to sustain physical damage because human beings are simply not able to sustain the physical damage of being hit by a sword - even once - even by a novice swordsman. That is why Warlord shouting encouragement can "heal" HP, that is why Cleric muttering prayers can "heal" HP, that is why (a heroic character) can "pull themselves together, take a deep breath" and heal HP. 

That is why most non-heroic folks have 1HP - they are simply regular Joes who do die or get injured when hit with deadly weapons.

In many ways minion rules make it possible for much more "realistic" campaign worlds. If anything, capable individuals no longer have to be PC-like larger then life figures who laugh at crossbows pointed at them. They still can be - but there is no built in game expectation that they are. 

Finally to answer the question - what happens when two minions fight each other: same thing that happens when two people fence in real life. There is a few rounds (for a given value of round) where their attacks get parried or deflected by the opponent (due to miss) and then one gets a lucky break and skewers the other - this can only sound unnatural to someone whose entire perception of the world is colored by DnD.


----------



## Celebrim

Mallus said:
			
		

> This seems like a logical framework to me, readily understood by players. How is it not?




I started to write a long responce, but I'm at work.  The problem is that you are creating a world where the players must very consciously be at all times genera blind so as to avoid roleplaying a character who isn't genera blind.  

Now, to a certain extent this is true of all fantasy, but you are upping the bar to the point that I think every good story still looks like 'Order of the Stick'. 

If you don't want a world that contains literal minion beings who have the physical attributes described by the minion mechanics, then you are working against your interests to have NPCs that are mechanically minions.  

Or perhaps an even briefer response is that I don't think that story is the end all be all of a role playing game.  I don't think that the two are exactly equatable.  Story is hopefully one of the products of a role playing game, but it is not itself a story.


----------



## Deadstop

Arguments about the unbelievability of the minion rules seem to rest on the notion that various particular individuals in the game world "are minions," and noticeably so.

But that's not what minion status is for. An individual character (PC or NPC) considered as an individual is never a minion.

Minions come in hordes of nearly-identical critters. That's why they have the bookkeeping-friendly hp.

So, within the orc tribe, you don't have Grik who was born a normal monster and his cousin Grak who was, tragically, born a minion and has only survived to this day by being as obsessive as Thomas Covenant.

If Grik and Grak are going to be encountered as a pair of orcs who put up a good fight, maybe even surviving to return another day, then the DM uses the stats of normal monsters or maybe even elites.

If the "same" two orcs who are notionally named Grik and Grak are just parts of an orc horde whose stories the PCs will never know, then the DM uses minion stats for them and the rest of the horde.

But most likely, the DM didn't pick out two orcs and give them names in order to use them as indistinguishable parts of a horde of minions, so you will never get the situation in which Grik and Grak suddenly "become" minions. 

Unless maybe the higher-level PCs, after the battle against the horde, happen to recognize two of the corpses as the same two orcs who gave them such a hard fight at lower level.

(What about when the orc horde fights the town militia, both groups of which would be treated as minions were they to fight the PCs? Then the DM describes the fight however he likes, presumably not playing it out blow-by-blow. There's no need for him to acknowledge the "reality" that all of these combatants die from a mild shove -- because that's not the statement the minion rules are making about the world.)

Likewise, Grargh the Ogre might be treated as a solo monster when he first comes up against the party, but later (assuming he survives) he might be treated as just one normal monster in a whole group of ogres and other monsters. That doesn't mean that Grargh's physical characteristics have literally changed inside the game-world, just that an ogre is no longer useful as a solo threat against the PCs (and therefore doesn't need the enhanced hp, defenses, and special attacks that make a solo a challenge for a whole party). Why is the GM reusing Grargh, then? Maybe he has the idea that, if the PCs recognize their old foe or vice versa, the encounter could become a social challenge instead. Maybe Grargh owes the PCs a favor for letting him live last time (or vice versa!). Or maybe the PCs can appeal to some element of Grargh's personality that they remember in order to change his mind about serving the Dark Lord of the Week. Thus, even with situationally fluctuating combat stats, Grargh can still serve as a recurring NPC with good backstory and characterization.

The whole minion thing (and to a lesser extent, the elite/solo thing) are there to facilitate fun gameplay and sort of a cinematic flair. They don't represent in-game reality to the extent that a particular NPC "really is" a minion and dies easily no matter what the circumstances.

Yes, that's a very different take on the relationship between game stats and in-game reality than 3e had. Like many here, I thought the 3e approach really refreshing when it first came out, yet I also see the downsides and am open to 4e's entirely different direction (which may well turn out to have plenty of downsides of its own over the course of the edition's life). Yes, it means the hit points of a creature and the hit points of an inanimate object measure different things, even though they use the same game-mechanical term.

Obviously, a number of people don't care for that change, and that's perfectly fine. 'S'why there's more than one RPG system in the world.  But the "4e way" is not seriously putting forth that there are certain identifiable monsters who die when flicked on the nose, so that's rather a silly claim to be using against it.


Deadstop


----------



## Cadfan

Andor said:
			
		

> If the world doesn't feel real to me, if I don't enjoy the sense that my characters actions matter because they make the world a better place for NPC who are living, breathing, thinking characters, then I might as well be pumping quarters into Donkey Kong.



That makes sense.  Although I'd note that the big evil bad guy's faceless stormtroopers aren't living, breathing, thinking characters, at least, not after the PCs get done with them.


			
				Andor said:
			
		

> I do not feel like a character is a hero because he cut down a horde of disposable minions to show off his testicular magnitude, I feel like a character is a hero because he made a difference. If the NPCs are visibly cardboard props in the set dressing of the story, then no difference has been made. It's a solipsistic circlejerk.



Now this, on the other hand, doesn't make sense.  It doesn't make sense _at all._

Are you seriously arguing that killing imaginary faceless minions is a circlejerk if the minions have minion rules, but is deep and meaningful and worthwhile if the minions don't?  Are you calling the very idea of a big, important villain having faceless minions bad storytelling?  The existence of minion rules is not only irrelevant to whether the PCs actions are meaningful in the context of a larger plot, its irrelevant on a second level as to whether the minions of the bad guy are faceless, or objects of pathos.  Or whatever it is you want them to be.

Your argument is literally akin to saying, "Killing faceless minions is meaningless without a story behind it that makes it worthwhile.  Therefore, the cover of the PHB should be blue."  This isn't a straw man- your argument _really is that bad._  Your complaint and your solution have absolutely no relationship to one another.


----------



## Celebrim

bramadan said:
			
		

> An awesome saying - I think of Cadafan's - comes to mind here.
> 
> Lots of folks have internalized the DnD mechanics so deeply as to mistake them for the way world works.




No.  

Lots of folks have apparantly so internalized the rejection of DnD mechanics so deeply that they are willing to make absolutely ludicrous claims about how the world works so as to justfiy thier own dislike of past D&D mechanics.

As many others have said, D&D never precisely simulates the real world, but at low levels D&D has always had a sort of casual realism.



> One stab wound will usually incapacitate or kill a person - no matter how skilled or experienced they are.




Eventually.  Sure.  And D&D doesn't model bleeding or shock.  But a one inch gash in your body is unlikely to send an energized combat heightened individual into immediate shock.  It's quite possible in the middle of combat to get shot and not even realize it until after things have settled down.  There are any number of cases of humans taking extraordinary wounds and still being able to act.  Does this mean that hit points are in any way realistic simulations of how the body takes damage?  No, but at low levels of play they have a casual versimilitude, especially outside of some corner cases.



> Falling into 10' pit unexpectedly tends to break limbs with similar results.




Sometimes.  But the fact is that simulationists have been fiddling with falling rules since the early days of the game because for various reasons I won't go into here again they fail the casual realism test.



> We already know that 0HP for non PCs is entirely open to interpretation by the DM and that shock or broken limbs are as valid interpretation (if narratively relevant) as death.




The number of things which are entirely open to DM interpretation in the new edition keeps increasing.  As a DM, that sounds burdensome to me rather than liberating.



> Things that do not kill or incapacitate - falling in showers, being punched with a fist, being stung by a bee etc... - by definition do not deal HP damage.




You might want to check out the statistics on how many people die after falling in the shower.  Likewise, you speak like someone who has never actually been punched in the face by a fist very hard.  Likewise, what's the most bee stings you've ever had at one time?



> If you want your DnD realistic - then all characters, PC and NPC are "minions" in the sense of having 1HP (and potentially high defenses due to their skill etc).




BUHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous.  Again, "Lots of folks have apparantly so internalized the rejection of DnD mechanics so deeply that they are willing to make absolutely ludicrous claims about how the world works so as to justfiy thier own dislike of past D&D mechanics."  Are you really suggesting that the minion rules are 'realistic'.  Because in that case, not only the above, but apparantly _you've_ so internalized the 4E D&D mechanics that you are mistaking them for how the world really works.

So, are we through with that lazy 'attack the other posters mental state as defective' nonsense?  



> If you are interested in any level of "simulation" in DnD then HP do not represent ability to sustain physical damage because human beings are simply not able to sustain the physical damage of being hit by a sword - even once - even by a novice swordsman.




And yet there are hundreds recorded incidents of taking multiple swords or bullets through the chest and not only living, but actually taking conscious actions after doing so.


----------



## Mallus

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I started to write a long responce, but I'm at work.



That never stopped you before!



> The problem is that you are creating a world where the players must very consciously be at all times genera blind so as to avoid roleplaying a character who isn't genera blind.



I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I'm having trouble parsing this sentence. Could you rephrase?   



> If you don't want a world that contains literal minion beings who have the physical attributes described by the minion mechanics, then you are working against your interests to have NPCs that are mechanically minions.



This is only true if you have a problem with the 'minion' descriptor being context-sensitive. 



> Or perhaps an even briefer response is that I don't think that story is the end all be all of a role playing game.



Not sure where this is coming from. I used 'narrative' earlier to describe the parts of the game proceeding without explicit rules support. Those parts are no less the game then the stuff described in the RAW. I didn't make any statements about prioritizing any particular play agenda (aw crap, I'm veering into Forge-speak...).


----------



## robertliguori

Mallus said:
			
		

> I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I'm having trouble parsing this sentence. Could you rephrase?



First, it would probably help it the spelling 'genre' were used.  Next, as a first attempt, I'd say that it means that characters can't reach reasonable conclusions.  For instance, they can't note that the horde of goblin runtlings go down with just a stab from the beleaguered wizard's emergency backup dagger, and decide to use non-attack autodamage area attacks. This is the logical thing to do in-game (that, or start dissecting minions to discover why Flaming Death Murder Meteorite which deals umpdy-d6 (and half damage on a miss) will fail to kill minions 5% of the time.

Most annoyingly, the problem could have been solved much more elegantly with the tools and conditions already existing in D&D 4E.  Give each minion a bloodied value and a dead value.  Minions that get hit for their death amount die.  Minions that get hit for between their death amount and their bloodied amount are bloodied; minions that get hit twice for this amount die.  In the case of high-level minions that should actually not go down with two hits from a peasant with an ax handle, you can use resist all.



> This is only true if you have a problem with the 'minion' descriptor being context-sensitive.



We have not seen the minion descriptor be context-sensitive, is the thing.  Hell, I'd love to see minion as a template that could be applied to normal monsters to make them cannon fodder-ish, with the proviso that the template should only be applied when the monsters are in a group and facing attacks that will kill them outright 90% of the time.  What I don't like are 9th-level orcish minions remaining orcish minions when they're attacking a village full of non-9th-level adventurers.  I want stats for what the orcs are in the gameworld, and the ability to simply to make my life easier.



> Not sure where this is coming from. I used 'narrative' earlier to describe the parts of the game proceeding without explicit rules support. Those parts are no less the game then the stuff described in the RAW. I didn't make any statements about prioritizing any particular play agenda (aw crap, I'm veering into Forge-speak...).



I'll rephrase the statement, then; the way the DM chooses to dramatically frame the scene is not the be-all and end-all of what should happen.  In fact, I've found that I get better results by abandoning "I want there to be a climactic showdown between the party and the necromancer." and going with "The necromancer has these goals, and these resources.  You have these goals, and these resources.  He's going to try to kill you as hard as he can; I'd advise you to return the favor." and working from there.  There are three outcomes here, based on my choice.  Either I design for the scripted setpiece climax, or I work organically.  If I work organically, I run the risk of unfun outcome.  However, I've personally got a lot better player reception from the encounters in which I had stopped trying to reach an outcome as GM and started running with what the NPC would do.  Sometimes this meant desperate retreat, and PC death.  Sometimes it meant watching my carefully-prepared villain blow a Spot check and then go the way of the Raiders of the Lost Ark swordsman.  But on the whole, the highs of careful planning, desperate improvisation, and honest victory outweighed the highs of a carefully-planned encounter.  More interestingly, the stories my players tend to remember are the ones that begin with me looking at my notes for the evening, sighing, tossing them up in the air, and saying "OK, give me five minutes, then we'll run with this."


----------



## Kishin

Lizard said:
			
		

> This bugs me. It doesn't bug you, or a lot of people for whom 4e is the shizzle, if the shizzle means "good" these days. I think it used to. Anyway, I understand the narrative role of minions. But D&D has never been a narrativist game, and having it warped into one in the space of a single edition is more than a little jarring.




It's never been even a remotely simulationist game either. It has never even made a conscious effort to place simulationism as a valued tenant of design.

IMO, complaining about how simulationist ideas don't mesh in D&D is basically tantamount to complaining about how those square pegs you have just can't seem to fit into the round holes.

Also, I wish I could reach back in time and annihilate every speck of the G/S/N theory, or whatever you want to call the nonsense that spawned so many ridiculoues arguments.


----------



## pemerton

Lizard said:
			
		

> About the only way one can make even the tiniest bit of sense out of this mess is to surrender all pretense that the game is simulating or modeling anything, and that, outside of their encounter with the PCs, minions have "normal" hit points and don't die when they stub their toe, but that "Minion" is a dramatic label, that the same individual who is an orc minion today might be a non-minion tomorrow if his role changes for some reason.



Disregarding the slightly disparaging tone towards Minion rules, this is more-or-less true.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> It's 100% handwaving, with no possible "realistic" justification



This is 100% false. The inference from "this rule has no simulationist logic" to "this is not a rule, its just handwaving" is an utterly unsound inference. It implies that there are no RPGs which (i) have rules and (ii) are not simulationist, but in fact many such RPGs exist (including, apparently, 4e D&D).


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Celebrim said:
			
		

> And yet there are hundreds recorded incidents of taking multiple swords or bullets through the chest and not only living, but actually taking conscious actions after doing so.



Agreed.  The FBI statistics someone posted a while back demonstrate that the movie notion of dying after one stab is entirely fiction.  Most stabbing victims have been stabbed dozens of times in the face, neck and chest, and still managed to crawl away.  Sometimes to get medical attention, other times not.  The whole notion of relatively minor wounds killing people is somewhat absurd.

All the minion rules seem to do is allow a DM to apply arbitrary damage to the characters, which the players have some level of control over.  It isn't really terribly different than the Random Damage Table from the April Fools issue of Dragon a number of years ago.


----------



## pemerton

Celebrim said:
			
		

> The problem is that you are creating a world where the players must very consciously be at all times genera blind so as to avoid roleplaying a character who isn't genera blind.
> 
> Now, to a certain extent this is true of all fantasy, but you are upping the bar to the point that I think every good story still looks like 'Order of the Stick'.
> 
> If you don't want a world that contains literal minion beings who have the physical attributes described by the minion mechanics, then you are working against your interests to have NPCs that are mechanically minions.



Celebrim, sometimes your criticisms of non-simulationist play rest upon assertions like the above - roughly, that non-simulationist mechancs will produce a poor play experience.

This is an empirical claim. What is the evidence in its favour? Certainly, not everyone believes it. Ron Edwards makes it clear that he thinks more people would enjoy playing RPGs if there were more (and more mainstream) non-simulationist RPGs for them to play. It seems to me that WoTC agree with him (otherwise why would they write such a non-simulationist game as 4e?).

I have no particular view one way or the other. I think (from my own experience) that wargamer/boardgamer types probably do enjoy simulationist rulesets to a degree, but they are certainly not the only actual or potential RPGers.

So, just to reiterate - on what evidence are you basing your hypothesis about enjoyable play experience?


----------



## pemerton

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> All the minion rules seem to do is allow a DM to apply arbitrary damage to the characters, which the players have some level of control over.  It isn't really terribly different than the Random Damage Table from the April Fools issue of Dragon a number of years ago.



What is a dungeon - indeed, what is a 10-year campaign - but a series of applications of the Random Damage Table accompanied by a bit of flavour text?

If someone can't conceive of the logic of monster design, encounter design, adventure design, campaign design, character creation, and the actual GM player-interaction that is play itself, other than as an applicaiton of the Random Damage Table, then maybe RPGs are not for that person.

Conversely, if someone can appreciate that the flavour text is more than just a gloss on the Random Damge, but is actually _one of the principal purposes of play_, then they can presumably appreciate that this is also true when it comes to the particular application of the mnion rules.


----------



## bramadan

Celebrim said:
			
		

> No.
> 
> Lots of folks have apparantly so internalized the rejection of DnD mechanics so deeply that they are willing to make absolutely ludicrous claims about how the world works so as to justfiy thier own dislike of past D&D mechanics.
> 
> As many others have said, D&D never precisely simulates the real world, but at low levels D&D has always had a sort of casual realism.
> [\quote]
> 
> Fighting through being stabbed or successfully hit by a mace or being slashed by a saber is at best a rare exception. Claiming that most of those will, unless deflected by armor or dogged (both of which are separate mechanics in DnD) incapacitate any even remotely human-like creature is by no means ludicrous, it is common sense.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Eventually.  Sure.  And D&D doesn't model bleeding or shock.  But a one inch gash in your body is unlikely to send an energized combat heightened individual into immediate shock.  It's quite possible in the middle of combat to get shot and not even realize it until after things have settled down.  There are any number of cases of humans taking extraordinary wounds and still being able to act.  Does this mean that hit points are in any way realistic simulations of how the body takes damage?  No, but at low levels of play they have a casual versimilitude, especially outside of some corner cases.
> [\quote]
> 
> There are *cases* of humans taking wounds and functioning - but those are exceptions - notable and in some instances heroic exceptions. If you ask any martial arts instructor, or for that matter a cop: expected reaction to being severely injured - with a knife, bullet or a heavy blunt object is incapacitation.
> Most exceptions that we hear about are actually consequence of the very modern high-velocity weapons, but even with those in greatest majority of cases if you get hit with a lethal weapon you are almost certainly down.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sometimes.  But the fact is that simulationists have been fiddling with falling rules since the early days of the game because for various reasons I won't go into here again they fail the casual realism test.
> [\quote]
> 
> reasons they fail casual realism test is that HP system is not particularly realistic. There are recorded instances of people falling from extreme heights and suffering little or no injury, but most often - falling results in injury that is at least temporarily incapacitating, much as most often being stabbed with a knife results in injury that is at least temporarily incapacitating.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The number of things which are entirely open to DM interpretation in the new edition keeps increasing.  As a DM, that sounds burdensome to me rather than liberating.
> [\quote]
> 
> That is question of taste. I do not think that DnD would particularly benefit from the "incapacitation table" on which to roll when an NPC drops to 0HP, but it is easy thing to add if you think it would.
> Previous edition rules were at least as ambiguous as to what happens to 0HP opponents so you can not claim this is something particular to the 4th.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You might want to check out the statistics on how many people die after falling in the shower.  Likewise, you speak like someone who has never actually been punched in the face by a fist very hard.  Likewise, what's the most bee stings you've ever had at one time?
> [\quote]
> 
> You can not have it both ways, either something is potentially lethal or it is not. If people are upset about the world in which bee-sting or a fist blow can be incapacitating then it makes sense to assume that in their campaign those things will not be incapacitating. For the purposes of this text I assume the healthy, strong individuals - not the elderly who fill in the "died from the fall in the shower" statistics. Burly guy (Orc) can exchange fist blows for a while but will go down very fast if guns or knifes are pulled out.
> 
> And yes, I have been both hit with fist and stabbed with a knife... difference is *significant*, even with the stab being very deliberately "non-lethal".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BUHAHAHAHAHAHA.
> 
> I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous.  Again, "Lots of folks have apparantly so internalized the rejection of DnD mechanics so deeply that they are willing to make absolutely ludicrous claims about how the world works so as to justfiy thier own dislike of past D&D mechanics."  Are you really suggesting that the minion rules are 'realistic'.  Because in that case, not only the above, but apparantly _you've_ so internalized the 4E D&D mechanics that you are mistaking them for how the world really works.
> 
> So, are we through with that lazy 'attack the other posters mental state as defective' nonsense?
> [\quote]
> 
> I grant that there are exceptions - but fact is that one hit by a lethal weapon will take most people out of the fight most of the time. Disagreeing with that fact is not a question of mental state - it is a question of a basic ignorance as to how weapons (and human physiology) work.
> 
> [quote
> And yet there are hundreds recorded incidents of taking multiple swords or bullets through the chest and not only living, but actually taking conscious actions after doing so.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There are probably even thousands of such recorded incidents, but they come out of the pool of millions of instances where people were incapacitated after suffering a blunt or penetrating trauma. Those incidents are *recorded* exactly due to their exceptional nature.
> 
> Entire fighting styles are predicated on the idea that one hit will incapacitate trained opponent, most sword fighting techniques, from small-sword to kendo, make no sense if you do not expect your opponent to drop on a hit. Most policing techniques (pre-tasers) also do not make sense if you assume that. It is just within bad movies and RP-games that people trade blow after blow in a combat.
> 
> I understand that it is good game mechanics because it reduces swingyness etc... (and I actually do not mind it too much within a game) but HP mechanic is not the one on which you should be making the verisimilitude stand.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


----------



## bramadan

Celebrim said:
			
		

> No.
> Lots of folks have apparantly so internalized the rejection of DnD mechanics so deeply that they are willing to make absolutely ludicrous claims about how the world works so as to justfiy thier own dislike of past D&D mechanics.
> 
> As many others have said, D&D never precisely simulates the real world, but at low levels D&D has always had a sort of casual realism.




Fighting through being stabbed or successfully hit by a mace or being slashed by a saber is at best a rare exception. Claiming that most of those will, unless deflected by armor or dogged (both of which are separate mechanics in DnD) incapacitate any even remotely human-like creature is by no means ludicrous, it is common sense.



> Eventually.  Sure.  And D&D doesn't model bleeding or shock.  But a one inch gash in your body is unlikely to send an energized combat heightened individual into immediate shock.  It's quite possible in the middle of combat to get shot and not even realize it until after things have settled down.  There are any number of cases of humans taking extraordinary wounds and still being able to act.  Does this mean that hit points are in any way realistic simulations of how the body takes damage?  No, but at low levels of play they have a casual versimilitude, especially outside of some corner cases.




There are *cases* of humans taking wounds and functioning - but those are exceptions - notable and in some instances heroic exceptions. If you ask any martial arts instructor, or for that matter a cop: expected reaction to being severely injured - with a knife, bullet or a heavy blunt object is incapacitation. 
Most exceptions that we hear about are actually consequence of the very modern high-velocity weapons, but even with those in greatest majority of cases if you get hit with a lethal weapon you are almost certainly down.



> Sometimes.  But the fact is that simulationists have been fiddling with falling rules since the early days of the game because for various reasons I won't go into here again they fail the casual realism test.




reasons they fail casual realism test is that HP system is not particularly realistic. There are recorded instances of people falling from extreme heights and suffering little or no injury, but most often - falling results in injury that is at least temporarily incapacitating, much as most often being stabbed with a knife results in injury that is at least temporarily incapacitating.



> The number of things which are entirely open to DM interpretation in the new edition keeps increasing.  As a DM, that sounds burdensome to me rather than liberating.




That is question of taste. I do not think that DnD would particularly benefit from the "incapacitation table" on which to roll when an NPC drops to 0HP, but it is easy thing to add if you think it would. 
Previous edition rules were at least as ambiguous as to what happens to 0HP opponents so you can not claim this is something particular to the 4th.



> You might want to check out the statistics on how many people die after falling in the shower.  Likewise, you speak like someone who has never actually been punched in the face by a fist very hard.  Likewise, what's the most bee stings you've ever had at one time?




You can not have it both ways, either something is potentially lethal or it is not. If people are upset about the world in which bee-sting or a fist blow can be incapacitating then it makes sense to assume that in their campaign those things will not be incapacitating. For the purposes of this text I assume the healthy, strong individuals - not the elderly who fill in the "died from the fall in the shower" statistics. Burly guy (Orc) can exchange fist blows for a while but will go down very fast if guns or knifes are pulled out. 

And yes, I have been both hit with fist and stabbed with a knife... difference is *significant*, even with the stab being very deliberately "non-lethal".



> BUHAHAHAHAHAHA.
> 
> I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous.  Again, "Lots of folks have apparantly so internalized the rejection of DnD mechanics so deeply that they are willing to make absolutely ludicrous claims about how the world works so as to justfiy thier own dislike of past D&D mechanics."  Are you really suggesting that the minion rules are 'realistic'.  Because in that case, not only the above, but apparantly _you've_ so internalized the 4E D&D mechanics that you are mistaking them for how the world really works.
> 
> So, are we through with that lazy 'attack the other posters mental state as defective' nonsense?




I grant that there are exceptions - but fact is that one hit by a lethal weapon will take most people out of the fight most of the time. Disagreeing with that fact is not a question of mental state - it is a question of a basic ignorance as to how weapons (and human physiology) work. 



> And yet there are hundreds recorded incidents of taking multiple swords or bullets through the chest and not only living, but actually taking conscious actions after doing so.




There are probably even thousands of such recorded incidents, but they come out of the pool of millions of instances where people were incapacitated after suffering a blunt or penetrating trauma. Those incidents are *recorded* exactly due to their exceptional nature.

Entire fighting styles are predicated on the idea that one hit will incapacitate trained opponent, most sword fighting techniques, from small-sword to kendo, make no sense if you do not expect your opponent to drop on a hit. Most policing techniques (pre-tasers) also do not make sense if you assume that. It is just within bad movies and RP-games that people trade blow after blow in a combat. 

I understand that it is good game mechanics because it reduces swingyness etc... (and I actually do not mind it too much within a game) but HP mechanic is not the one on which you should be making the verisimilitude stand.


----------



## bramadan

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Agreed.  The FBI statistics someone posted a while back demonstrate that the movie notion of dying after one stab is entirely fiction.  Most stabbing victims have been stabbed dozens of times in the face, neck and chest, and still managed to crawl away.  Sometimes to get medical attention, other times not.  The whole notion of relatively minor wounds killing people is somewhat absurd.




it is not a question of killing, it is question of incapacitation. Most people will not die after one stab (or after being hit once by a truncheon), but most people will cease to offer much in terms of resistance after one successful stab (which is why the opponent manages to stab them dozens of times without much injury to themselves). 

When someone not only lives and crawls away after being hurt with a lethal weapon but continues to fight, that is news-worthy (dare I say heroic) indeed. 

If you need confirmation of this - check those same FBI statistics as to the number of instances of knife fights where both sides ended up with significant stabbing wounds, I think you will find them a miniscule number in comparison to ones where the guy who stabs first "wins".


----------



## Andor

robertliguori said:
			
		

> I'll rephrase the statement, then; the way the DM chooses to dramatically frame the scene is not the be-all and end-all of what should happen.  In fact, I've found that I get better results by abandoning "I want there to be a climactic showdown between the party and the necromancer." and going with "The necromancer has these goals, and these resources.  You have these goals, and these resources.  He's going to try to kill you as hard as he can; I'd advise you to return the favor." and working from there.  There are three outcomes here, based on my choice.  Either I design for the scripted setpiece climax, or I work organically.  If I work organically, I run the risk of unfun outcome.  However, I've personally got a lot better player reception from the encounters in which I had stopped trying to reach an outcome as GM and started running with what the NPC would do.  Sometimes this meant desperate retreat, and PC death.  Sometimes it meant watching my carefully-prepared villain blow a Spot check and then go the way of the Raiders of the Lost Ark swordsman.  But on the whole, the highs of careful planning, desperate improvisation, and honest victory outweighed the highs of a carefully-planned encounter.  More interestingly, the stories my players tend to remember are the ones that begin with me looking at my notes for the evening, sighing, tossing them up in the air, and saying "OK, give me five minutes, then we'll run with this."




God yes. I used to play with a GM who would have a picture of some scene he wanted to describe in his head, and would do whatever it took to make that scene happen so he could describe it. It was appalingly awful. Often we saw it coming from miles away and would go to great lengths to explain how we couldn't care less, our characters were trying advance the plot, not get side tracked by the dramatic scene de jour. Nothing worked. The game died.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

pemerton said:
			
		

> What is a dungeon - indeed, what is a 10-year campaign - but a series of applications of the Random Damage Table accompanied by a bit of flavour text?



Is the entire dungeon or campaign able to be finished by one attack roll?  Or, alternately, effectively immune to damage on a miss-effect?



> If someone can't conceive of the logic of monster design, encounter design, adventure design, campaign design, character creation, and the actual GM player-interaction that is play itself, other than as an applicaiton of the Random Damage Table, then maybe RPGs are not for that person.



Similarly, if hewing dozens of opponents that are no real challenge is considered the height of tactical play, perhaps that person ought not play RPGs either.



> Conversely, if someone can appreciate that the flavour text is more than just a gloss on the Random Damge, but is actually _one of the principal purposes of play_, then they can presumably appreciate that this is also true when it comes to the particular application of the mnion rules.



Except, 'minion rules' are, by definition, not 'flavour text'.

As Irda Ranger mentioned initially, minions have been stripped of fully half the ability to challenge characters that normal opponents have.  They have been reduced to a skill check, in that they are either hit and dead, or missed and alive.  It is really no different than having the opponents with hit points waiting around until you pass the 'minion disposal skill challenge'.  Complexity (number of minions)  (minion) Successes before (party hit points) Failures.

It is a clumsily implemented attrition mechanism to wear down the characters' resources.  Effectively, they have binary hit points.  On a hit, they have 1hp, on a miss (even with a miss-effect) they have infinite hit points.  There is no point in them being there.  Roll your to hit as a skill check or take X damage, and don't bother with minions cluttering up your battlemat or combat notes.


----------



## Korgoth

pemerton said:
			
		

> Ron Edwards makes it clear that he thinks more people would enjoy playing RPGs if there were more (and more mainstream) non-simulationist RPGs for them to play. It seems to me that WoTC agree with him (otherwise why would they write such a non-simulationist game as 4e?).




I don't know which is more funny: "Ron Edwards makes [blank] clear" or "WoTC agrees with Ron Edwards"!      Anyway, I don't think that these statements clarify anything.  Technically, every role playing game ever written has been "non-simulationist" because, as far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a "simulationist" game.

"Simulationist" appears to be nothing more than a semantic placeholder for "thing I'm going to say compares unfavorably with whatever it is I like".  It doesn't have any content.  

Is "simulationist" trying to simulate reality, or a genre?  If reality, does it matter how that is done?  Two games might set out to simulate reality.  The first one models gun fights by comparing bullet caliber with the target's bone density to adjudicate the precise trajectory of the bullet after it strikes your femur.  The latter one models gun fights by saying "FBI statistics show that 1% of bullet wounds from that range of that caliber are instantly fatal, and a further 32% are eventually fatal.  Roll percentiles please."  Both end up (for the sake of argument) returning a "realistic" result, which is to say a result that basically measures up to how that scenario would play out in the real world.  But their methodologies are completely reversed.  Are they really in the same category?  And what if you're trying to simulate genre?  And what if you're trying to simulate genre, but within certain parameters of verisimilitude?

I'm sorry that my thread has deteriorated to this degree.  Perhaps I can help get it back on track?  I think that Charwoman Gene had an excellent point earlier.  It has always been the case in D&D that, whatever hit points are, a basic villager cannot have more than 6 of them.  Is D&D attempting to claim, therefore, that this villager (Villager Bob) cannot sustain more than 6 actual injuries?  Or that Bob's diminutive son, Villager Tim, who has 1 hit point (whatever they are, it has always been possible to have 1) cannot endure even 1 single injury?

It seems that this is not the case, if we assume that D&D has attempted to make reasonable claims about the denizens of its virtual villages.  A cut is an injury.  I have given myself a good gash with the old hobby knife on occasion.  If, in the course of a D&D session, a character accidentally cuts himself with a hobby knife (or let's say a butter knife at the family dinner table) does that necessarily inflict at least 1 hit point of damage?  I can imagine Tim cutting himself with a small knife and not flopping over dead.  Would D&D have ever posited that 1/6th of the inhabitants of its virtual world flop over dead from common household accidents?  We could maintain that it has done so... but why assume something ludicrous only to get upset about its implications?

Rather, if the D&D rules are applied to its virtual world consistently, we must say that not every cut or other minor injury causes the loss of hit points.  If we allow the text to tell us what it is really telling us, it is saying that the loss of even 1 single hit point represents a life-threatening injury.  It must, since some people can die from it.  I think we can conclude 2 things from this: first, hit points must represent, at minimum, your ability (for whatever reason) to avoid dieing from life-threatening injuries; and second, not every cut, bruise and sting does hit point damage.

Since the latter point is an interesting challenge to DM narration of results, how do we account for minor cuts, bruises and other non-life threatening injuries that can crop up in combat (like getting nicked by a blade, or suffering a minor flesh wound)?  Obviously, since hits do 1 point of damage or more, those must be "misses".  Or at least, they can be misses... though one might also narrate hit point loss as the luck or skill that reduces what would have been life-threatening strikes to those minor and incidental wounds.


----------



## Andor

Cadfan said:
			
		

> That makes sense.  Although I'd note that the big evil bad guy's faceless stormtroopers aren't living, breathing, thinking characters, at least, not after the PCs get done with them.
> 
> Now this, on the other hand, doesn't make sense.  It doesn't make sense _at all._
> 
> Are you seriously arguing that killing imaginary faceless minions is a circlejerk if the minions have minion rules, but is deep and meaningful and worthwhile if the minions don't?  Are you calling the very idea of a big, important villain having faceless minions bad storytelling?  The existence of minion rules is not only irrelevant to whether the PCs actions are meaningful in the context of a larger plot, its irrelevant on a second level as to whether the minions of the bad guy are faceless, or objects of pathos.  Or whatever it is you want them to be.
> 
> Your argument is literally akin to saying, "Killing faceless minions is meaningless without a story behind it that makes it worthwhile.  Therefore, the cover of the PHB should be blue."  This isn't a straw man- your argument _really is that bad._  Your complaint and your solution have absolutely no relationship to one another.




You know, I've been posting on this board for better than 6 years now. I've had many good discussion with many people, including you. I've often had people fail to understand my point, but never understand it and claim it was worthless. Perhaps you should have looked at bit closer, before assuming you grasped what I was saying.

I'll repeat myself and bold the word you seem to have missed.







			
				Andor said:
			
		

> I feel like a character is a hero because he made a difference. If the NPCs are *visibly* cardboard props in the set dressing of the story, then no difference has been made.




Do you understand? Indy shooting the swordsman was a great scene. If there had been a sound boom visible in the shot it would have sucked rotten eggs. If the minion rules make the existence of mooks not only visible, but distractingly obvious in the context of the game then you raise the bar for willing suspension of disbelief to levels I cannot match. The boom is in the shot, the set falls over, and the magic goes away. My character stops being a hero, and becomes a set of numbers of paper. The NPCs stop being villagers and become a set of plastic minis. I stop caring.

Allow me to draw you a scene that can and will happen around the tables of poor to mediocre GMs everywhere in coming years.

GM: "Okay. The last of the Orcs falls dead, when you loot the bodies you get..."
Minerva the Mage: "Hold on. I used my sleep spell so we could get some prisoners to interogate."
GM: "Yeah but then you killed them with a fireball."
Minerva: "Not that guy."
Borax the Fighter: "That's right, I was standing there next to him, and she dropped the fireball over a couple to miss me and catch that bloodrager dude."
GM: "Okay fine. You tie him up, he's awake now. What do you ask him?"
Rodger the rakish rogue: "Foul miscreant, who paid you tribe to attack these pilgrims?"
GM: "I ain't sayin nothin."
Borax: "I pop him one on the lip to get him to loosen up."
GM: "He dies."
Borax: "What?"
GM: "He was a minion, you made a to hit roll, he dies."
Minerva: "I'm pretty sure minion status is meant to be a narrative device and not a litteral..."
GM: "Stuff it. He had one hit point and he's dead. Now do you want your loot or not?"

Are you telling me that wouldn't interfere with your suspension of disbelief?


----------



## smetzger

Didn't read the whole thread.

Minions should be thought of as being 'outside' of hit points.  

1 hit always kills them, a miss if it does damage will injure them but not kill them.


----------



## bramadan

Korgoth said:
			
		

> I'm sorry that my thread has deteriorated to this degree.  Perhaps I can help get it back on track?  I think that Charwoman Gene had an excellent point earlier.  It has always been the case in D&D that, whatever hit points are, a basic villager cannot have more than 6 of them.  Is D&D attempting to claim, therefore, that this villager (Villager Bob) cannot sustain more than 6 actual injuries?  Or that Bob's diminutive son, Villager Tim, who has 1 hit point (whatever they are, it has always been possible to have 1) cannot endure even 1 single injury?
> 
> It seems that this is not the case, if we assume that D&D has attempted to make reasonable claims about the denizens of its virtual villages.  A cut is an injury.  I have given myself a good gash with the old hobby knife on occasion.  If, in the course of a D&D session, a character accidentally cuts himself with a hobby knife (or let's say a butter knife at the family dinner table) does that necessarily inflict at least 1 hit point of damage?  I can imagine Tim cutting himself with a small knife and not flopping over dead.  Would D&D have ever posited that 1/6th of the inhabitants of its virtual world flop over dead from common household accidents?  We could maintain that it has done so... but why assume something ludicrous only to get upset about its implications?
> 
> Rather, if the D&D rules are applied to its virtual world consistently, we must say that not every cut or other minor injury causes the loss of hit points.  If we allow the text to tell us what it is really telling us, it is saying that the loss of even 1 single hit point represents a life-threatening injury.  It must, since some people can die from it.  I think we can conclude 2 things from this: first, hit points must represent, at minimum, your ability (for whatever reason) to avoid dieing from life-threatening injuries; and second, not every cut, bruise and sting does hit point damage.
> 
> Since the latter point is an interesting challenge to DM narration of results, how do we account for minor cuts, bruises and other non-life threatening injuries that can crop up in combat (like getting nicked by a blade, or suffering a minor flesh wound)?  Obviously, since hits do 1 point of damage or more, those must be "misses".  Or at least, they can be misses... though one might also narrate hit point loss as the luck or skill that reduces what would have been life-threatening strikes to those minor and incidental wounds.




The philosophy behind hit-points the way I see it is as follows
(I believe it has not really changed ever since 1st ed. AdnD):

1. Most injuries made by lethal weapons have capacity to be incapacitating.
2. Human beings and other creatures have capacity to ignore such injuries to a certain extent. 
3. Some fraction of that capacity comes from the physical bulk and stamina. This fraction is relatively high for non-human creatures such as giant bears, dragons, etc and is very small for humans and human-like creatures. 
4. For (somewhat normal) humans, most of the injury ignoring capacity comes from bravery and grit - ability to just clench one's teeth and carry on...
4a. For heroes: the bravery and grit are taken to the extreme, in addition divine favor, luck and innate ability to turn greater injury into a lesser one are all at play. Gary Gygax in 1st ed DMG stated that for a 90HP fighter - only about 15HP represent the physical injury and 75 the insubstantial karma that is being slowly eroded away as the combat goes on. Those 15HP worth of injuries are the sort of cuts and blows that would have downed even a considerable normal person but our 10th level fighter manages to fight through them because of his great self discipline and pain tolerance.

In this picture - Minion is a sort of creature that has very little basic bravery and grit, they panic easily and freeze with fear as soon as they take the first hit - even if they are physically capable of continuing to fight. They will certainly not have inner reserves of fortitude and collectedness that are needed to keep on going.

In that they are similar to great majority of people in the "real world". 

If Minion is in the presence of an inspiring leader or drunk or drugged or some such - they will have their natural bravery and grit supplemented which will be reflected by them having temporary hit points. 

To go back to your village example, if little Tim gets a nasty knife cut he immediately drops what he is doing and bawls for his mother. If his father does likewise he is probably able to continue doing what he is doing provided it is important enough. If his father gets hit by the saber over the face - even if he survives he is not likely to seek inner fortitude to fight on (unless for example his wife and kids are at stake). He is not (necessarily) dead but he is out of combat. 

If you take into account that incapacitation =/= death then minions and their hit points start making ways more sense.


----------



## LostSoul

Andor said:
			
		

> Do you understand? Indy shooting the swordsman was a great scene.




That's because he was obviously a minion! 



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> If there had been a sound boom visible in the shot it would have sucked rotten eggs. If the minion rules make the existence of mooks not only visible, but distractingly obvious in the context of the game then you raise the bar for willing suspension of disbelief to levels I cannot match. The boom is in the shot, the set falls over, and the magic goes away. My character stops being a hero, and becomes a set of numbers of paper. The NPCs stop being villagers and become a set of plastic minis. I stop caring.




That sounds like a really good description of simulationism.  I was talking to fusangite (who doesn't post much here any more), the biggest "simulationist" I know, and he said something like this: 'I know the gameworld is made up of cardboard props.  I just want to see how much I can kick them before they fall down.'

I played in a game of his for a few sessions.  I had no idea what was going on at the table, between players.  It was like a different hobby, only slightly related to what I was used to.

I guess my point is that 4e doesn't look like a good fit for you.  Either you can change your goals for play to get what 4e (hopefully) will deliver, or stick with 3.x, Pathfinder or some other game that's a better fit.


----------



## mhacdebhandia

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> That's what bothers me about Minions.  They're a statement by the DM that "This isn't a serious challenge. These guys only have one purpose, and that's to make you feel cool as adventurers."  Well, I don't like playing those games.  Both from a DM's point of view and a player's point of view it's a hollow victory, with a predetermined outcome.



So don't use them.

Give every creature that's written to appear with 6 minions a trio of normal monsters instead. Use orc raiders instead of orc warriors. Who gives a crap?

Last night in my Rise of the Runelords game, the four 2nd-level PCs went up against 10 goblin warriors straight out of the _Monster Manual_ - CR 1/3, 5 hit points, whatever. What on earth is the point of really, seriously, rolling that fight out?

So I basically used minion rules: any hit was a kill. As it happens, that was true anyway, but . . . seriously, I was saying at the start of the fight that I should have just cut it out, and even with one-hit-kills it was a little tedious.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Hit points are SUCH AN UNREALISTIC SYSTEM. They don't even have internal consistency. If hit points don't break your suspension of disbelief, then you have turned your suspension of disbelief off.

Minions are pretty unrealistic too. This shouldn't break the game.


----------



## Scribble

Andor said:
			
		

> GM: "Okay. The last of the Orcs falls dead, when you loot the bodies you get..."
> Minerva the Mage: "Hold on. I used my sleep spell so we could get some prisoners to interogate."
> GM: "Yeah but then you killed them with a fireball."
> Minerva: "Not that guy."
> Borax the Fighter: "That's right, I was standing there next to him, and she dropped the fireball over a couple to miss me and catch that bloodrager dude."
> GM: "Okay fine. You tie him up, he's awake now. What do you ask him?"
> Rodger the rakish rogue: "Foul miscreant, who paid you tribe to attack these pilgrims?"
> GM: "I ain't sayin nothin."
> Borax: "I pop him one on the lip to get him to loosen up."
> GM: "He dies."
> Borax: "What?"
> GM: "He was a minion, you made a to hit roll, he dies."
> Minerva: "I'm pretty sure minion status is meant to be a narrative device and not a litteral..."
> GM: "Stuff it. He had one hit point and he's dead. Now do you want your loot or not?"
> 
> Are you telling me that wouldn't interfere with your suspension of disbelief?




Sure... But as of this point we only have a vague notion of how minions are presented in the MM. We have an example of the minion, but none of the explainations that go along with it.

For all we know there could be an entry in the MM or more likely the DMG that talks about how Minions interact with PCs when PCs aren't trying to kill them. IE handle interogation through skills not damage. Assume the OPC is "roughing him up" as opposed to an actual combat situation. The Minion presents no challenge physically to the PC, only skills wise.

The same scenario could be seen around a 3e and earlier table...

Ok I rough him up.

Roll damage.

What? I'm not trying to kill him, just rough him up.

Too bad roll damage.


It's a situation better handled through skills, and I'm guessing the new DMG with it's apparent emphasis on learning proper  DM fu as opposed to secret DM knowledge, will have this info.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

mhacdebhandia said:
			
		

> So don't use them.
> 
> Give every creature that's written to appear with 6 minions a trio of normal monsters instead. Use orc raiders instead of orc warriors. Who gives a crap?



So, a good portion of the Monster Manual won't be usable without serious modification?  Great selling point.  Wait, let me predict the response:  "Play a different game, 4e is not for you".



> Last night in my Rise of the Runelords game, the four 2nd-level PCs went up against 10 goblin warriors straight out of the _Monster Manual_ - CR 1/3, 5 hit points, whatever. What on earth is the point of really, seriously, rolling that fight out?
> 
> So I basically used minion rules: any hit was a kill. As it happens, that was true anyway, but . . . seriously, I was saying at the start of the fight that I should have just cut it out, and even with one-hit-kills it was a little tedious.



Perhaps a more challenging fight would have been less tedious?


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Do you understand? Indy shooting the swordsman was a great scene. If there had been a sound boom visible in the shot it would have sucked rotten eggs. If the minion rules make the existence of mooks not only visible, but distractingly obvious in the context of the game then you raise the bar for willing suspension of disbelief to levels I cannot match. The boom is in the shot, the set falls over, and the magic goes away. My character stops being a hero, and becomes a set of numbers of paper. The NPCs stop being villagers and become a set of plastic minis. I stop caring.




Nothing about the minion rules mandates that mook status must be visible and obvious outside the context of combat.



> Allow me to draw you a scene that can and will happen around the tables of poor to mediocre GMs everywhere in coming years.




See, all your problems will be solved by not playing with GMs who are apparently out to prove a point.



> (dumb example)
> 
> Are you telling me that wouldn't interfere with your suspension of disbelief?




This is no different to encountering creatures with 1-2 hp when everyone can deal decent damage: IOW, an exceedingly common scenario in 3E at 1st level, especially around people with blue circles around their feet. I do not know of any DMs who habitually killed off human commoners whenever the PCs roughed them up a bit. I do not know why you think this will suddenly change in 4E.


----------



## Scribble

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, a good portion of the Monster Manual won't be usable without serious modification?  Great selling point.  Wait, let me predict the response:  "Play a different game, 4e is not for you".
> 
> 
> Perhaps a more challenging fight would have been less tedious?




But why give up the option to play out another type of scenario?

Minions give you the option to have a crowd of flunkies that go down quickly but still must be dealt with... Meat shields that give your BBEG time to either:

1. laugh maniacly and yell "Fools! Your end is fast approaching!" or some other dastardly evil villainesque phraze...

2. get away so he can fight later ina  better situation.

3. Toss off ranged powers without the threat of the PCs in his face.

If you're just using a "higher challenge" then chances are the BBEG is going to have to be right there on the forefront slugging it out with PCs...

Which leads to less movie/book like games and more Order of The Stick like games...

"Ahahahahahahaahahahahah your end is... OUCH fast.. Ouch! Quit stabbing me in the gut dude! approach- aww crap I'm dead."


----------



## JohnSnow

Korgoth said:
			
		

> It has always been the case in D&D that, whatever hit points are, a basic villager cannot have more than 6 of them. Is D&D attempting to claim, therefore, that this villager (Villager Bob) cannot sustain more than 6 actual injuries? Or that Bob's diminutive son, Villager Tim, who has 1 hit point (whatever they are, it has always been possible to have 1) cannot endure even 1 single injury?
> 
> It seems that this is not the case, if we assume that D&D has attempted to make reasonable claims about the denizens of its virtual villages. A cut is an injury. I have given myself a good gash with the old hobby knife on occasion. If, in the course of a D&D session, a character accidentally cuts himself with a hobby knife (or let's say a butter knife at the family dinner table) does that necessarily inflict at least 1 hit point of damage? I can imagine Tim cutting himself with a small knife and not flopping over dead. Would D&D have ever posited that 1/6th of the inhabitants of its virtual world flop over dead from common household accidents? We could maintain that it has done so... but why assume something ludicrous only to get upset about its implications?




Okay, now I believe we have the possibility of getting somewhere. I agree with you that it's counterproductive to make a ludicrous assumption and then get upset about its implications. So instead, let us make a decision that whenever we are confronted by the implications of an assumption that we will first question the assumption itself to see if it is, indeed, ludicrous. If it is, it is the assumption that needs revisiting, not the implications.

I also like the direction here because it lets us question ridiculous things like a housecat that can kill a commoner (or a 1st-level wizard).

So, I would agree with the point that little Tim might cut himself with a knife without inflicting a lethal injury. Or skin his knees while playing, or anything similar. Clearly, for our 1 hit point commoner, he seems to have the ability to take some degree of non-lethal damage.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> Rather, if the D&D rules are applied to its virtual world consistently, we must say that not every cut or other minor injury causes the loss of hit points. If we allow the text to tell us what it is really telling us, it is saying that the loss of even 1 single hit point represents a life-threatening injury. It must, since some people can die from it. I think we can conclude 2 things from this: *first, hit points must represent,* at minimum, *your ability (for whatever reason) to avoid dieing from life-threatening injuries;* and *second, not every cut, bruise and sting does hit point damage.*




Again, I would mostly agree with this (with a proviso I'll get to). At least so far as it concerns low-level commoners. When we're talking about characters with many, many hit points, we can get into some different interpretations. I'll get back to that in a minute, but I want to address another point first.

Your first point is the one that I want to dwell on briefly. You said "Hit points represent your ability to avoid dying from life-threatening injuries." I would argue that that's only "sort of true." Rather, I would argue that "hit points represent your ability to avoid dying from *potentially* life-threatening injuries." That may sound like nitpicking, but hear me out.

By inserting "potentially," we can argue that a 1 hp wound is a wound that can be inflicted by a serious knife, a shuriken or even a lesser injury from a sword or axe. This _can_ kill anyone, but is less than what all these weapons are capable of. Similarly, a knife wielded with lethal intent is capable of inflicting an injury that's sufficient to kill some people (anybody with less than 4 hp) in a single blow. 

But what does this 1 hp mean to a character who has 10? Further, has villager Bob (who has 6 hp) taken an injury equivalent to the one received by his 1 hp neighbor? Perhaps. But this only makes sense up to a certain point.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> Since the latter point is an interesting challenge to DM narration of results, how do we account for minor cuts, bruises and other non-life threatening injuries that can crop up in combat (like getting nicked by a blade, or suffering a minor flesh wound)? Obviously, since hits do 1 point of damage or more, those must be "misses". Or at least, they can be misses... though *one might also narrate hit point loss as the luck or skill that reduces what would have been life-threatening strikes to those minor and incidental wounds.*




Emphasis mine. That is actually my preferred interpretation of what hit points, and the loss thereof, represent. Yes, characters can, to a degree, have minor injuries without losing hit points. But they can also (and this is especially true of experienced adventurer types) lose hit points but have only minor injuries. Basically, that minor injury is a tiny fraction of the character's resistance to injury. At first level, it's 1/8th of a hit point, or less, and we just fudge it as _not relevant._ By the time we're dealing with characters that have 80 hp, they can react to a sword blow that would split a normal man in half (10 hp!) and end up with nothing more than a slight cut. It was the same strike, but a different result, because the target made it different.

Moreover, this interpretation allows characters who we have established are not going to die from their injuries to still be "injured" (in the sense of having nicks, scabs, bruises and flesh wounds) but be at full hit points. It also allows things like the Warlord's inspirational healing, the Second Wind ability, and similar to make a lot more sense.

The way I see them, hit points represent your ability to turn a potentially lethal (or disabling) injury into one that is non-lethal. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, wear you out, or potentially leave you bruised, cut, or bleeding. It just means that you aren't in danger of death. Now, I also hold to the theory that a "hit" doesn't even have to hit, as long as it wears down your ability to avoid future injury. 

Now, there are some corner case things here. Poisoned attacks have to be described as "hits" that draw blood for the condition of "poisoned" to make any kind of sense, even if they do only one point of damage to a character possessing hundreds. Similarly, if I was, for example, running a duel with the characters playing to "first blood from the torso" (or somesuch), I would probably rule that the character had only been pinked when they hit the "bloodied" condition. Anything before that might be a cut to the arm, or a bruise, or a near miss, but it isn't "first blood."

Now, first touch? That's the first attack that does hit point damage. My interpretation.

By the way, it has been confirmed that when your blow would drop an opponent to negative hit points, you can choose to "pull the blow," knocking them out rather than killing them. I believe it was in Rodney's blog, but I'm not sure.


----------



## hong

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Rather, if the D&D rules are applied to its virtual world consistently, we must say that not every cut or other minor injury causes the loss of hit points.  If we allow the text to tell us what it is really telling us, it is saying that the loss of even 1 single hit point represents a life-threatening injury.  It must, since some people can die from it.  I think we can conclude 2 things from this: first, hit points must represent, at minimum, your ability (for whatever reason) to avoid dieing from life-threatening injuries; and second, not every cut, bruise and sting does hit point damage.
> 
> Since the latter point is an interesting challenge to DM narration of results, how do we account for minor cuts, bruises and other non-life threatening injuries that can crop up in combat (like getting nicked by a blade, or suffering a minor flesh wound)?  Obviously, since hits do 1 point of damage or more, those must be "misses".  Or at least, they can be misses... though one might also narrate hit point loss as the luck or skill that reduces what would have been life-threatening strikes to those minor and incidental wounds.




You just... narrate it. The guy gets gashed by your sword, staggers back, but comes back for more. Or he ducks at just the right moment so the lightning bolt takes out his hair, but not his face.

This is identical narration to what might happen to a non-minion guy. The difference is that the non-minion guy will be slightly weaker from lost hp, while the minion guy won't, and this could cause problems for believability if the minion guy survives several such attacks. But in practice, after several attacks, nearly all minions will be dead. For the 1 minion in a thousand who actually survives half a dozen rounds of being stabbed, shot, burned or whatever, then bully for him! In fact, if he continues to live, you've even got yourself a new significant NPC or plot hook right there. Who is this "minion", who managed to live through punishment that killed all his buddies? What kind of supernatural toughness does he have, and where did he get it?


----------



## mhacdebhandia

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, a good portion of the Monster Manual won't be usable without serious modification?  Great selling point.  Wait, let me predict the response:  "Play a different game, 4e is not for you".



The orc entry has two minion types and four non-minions. Out of the four "encounter groups", only two use a minion type (and it's the same level 9 orc warrior both times, as it happens).

Not using the two minion types doesn't really fit my personal definition of "serious modification".



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Perhaps a more challenging fight would have been less tedious?



Absolutely. What I should have done is either eliminate the encounter (which would have left the area they were exploring oddly devoid of opponents, and deleted a nice bit of colour the players picked up on), or replace it with something more interesting. I would have chosen door number two, there, but I didn't have time. It's part of the reason I was running a published adventure in the first place.

My point is that using "minion rules" for this encounter turned a pointless and boring encounter which I should never have used into something quicker and less tedious.

This ain't much of a selling point for minions in Fourth Edition, I quite realise! What is *does* indicate is that minions let you have large battles which don't get bogged down - a few non-minions backed up by a mini-horde of minions will be a lot less painful than the same encounter has been in the past.


----------



## Sojorn

I want to know if people are going to think about swarms this hard.

The MM apparently has a full section devoted to them. Which makes me think it might mean more than just "bugs" this time around.


----------



## Fanaelialae

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> So, a good portion of the Monster Manual won't be usable without serious modification?  Great selling point.




Actually, it seems like there are plenty of people on these forums who like the minion rules (though I in no way deny there are quite a number that don't).  Those who like the minion rules won't have to change a thing, and considering that they like what the minions seem to add to the game, great selling point indeed, for them at least.

I don't want to come across as callous, but there is some truth in that you cannot please all of the people all of the time.


----------



## Kishin

Andor said:
			
		

> GM: "Okay. The last of the Orcs falls dead, when you loot the bodies you get..."
> Minerva the Mage: "Hold on. I used my sleep spell so we could get some prisoners to interogate."
> GM: "Yeah but then you killed them with a fireball."
> Minerva: "Not that guy."
> Borax the Fighter: "That's right, I was standing there next to him, and she dropped the fireball over a couple to miss me and catch that bloodrager dude."
> GM: "Okay fine. You tie him up, he's awake now. What do you ask him?"
> Rodger the rakish rogue: "Foul miscreant, who paid you tribe to attack these pilgrims?"
> GM: "I ain't sayin nothin."
> Borax: "I pop him one on the lip to get him to loosen up."
> GM: "He dies."
> Borax: "What?"
> GM: "He was a minion, you made a to hit roll, he dies."
> Minerva: "I'm pretty sure minion status is meant to be a narrative device and not a litteral..."
> GM: "Stuff it. He had one hit point and he's dead. Now do you want your loot or not?"
> 
> Are you telling me that wouldn't interfere with your suspension of disbelief?




I'm more in disbelief that you could use an example so laden with hyperbole and utter ridiculousness and think it some sort of compelling argument.

That's not going to happen around any table where the participants have more since than an intoxicated sea turtle.  If it does...Well, to quote Ron White, 'You can't fix stupid'.


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> I don't know which is more funny: "Ron Edwards makes [blank] clear" or "WoTC agrees with Ron Edwards"!      Anyway, I don't think that these statements clarify anything.  Technically, every role playing game ever written has been "non-simulationist" because, as far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a "simulationist" game.
> 
> "Simulationist" appears to be nothing more than a semantic placeholder for "thing I'm going to say compares unfavorably with whatever it is I like".  It doesn't have any content.



I don't think that this thread is the place to defend either Ron Edwards (about whom I know nothing other than his essays on The Forge, which I have read and which I admire) or the utility of his classificatory scheme.

But I will say that there is such a thing as a simulationist RPG. I have GMed one for the past 18 years, weekly for many of those years, now closer to monthly. That game is Rolemaster. I have also played other simulationist games such as RQ, CoC and (to a lesser extent) Classic Traveller. These games exist, and people (including me) play and enjoy them.

The notion that "simulationism" is a pejorative term I find bizarre. It's the only useful conceptual device I've encountered for describing the design logic and aesthetic of the main game that I play - that is, Rolemaster. And the main thing that has helped me become a better Rolemaster GM, by helping me understand it's design logic and limitations, is Ron Edwards' essay on simulationism, and particularly his analysis of purist-for-system design.

So far from being a useless nomenclature, I think that the reaction of many players to 4e mechanics illustrates the utility of the Forge terminology: it almost exactly parallels (for example) the sorts of arguments against the role of Spritiual Attributes in TRoS that Edwards discusses in his review of that game; it almost exactly parallels arguments I was having 18 months ago on the ICE forums discussing the differences between RM and HARP and the direction that an RM revision might take; there is a division in gaming aesthetic and preferences that it is useful to name, and the contrast between simulationism on the one hand, and gamism/narrativism on the other hand, seems to capture it pretty well.

Even Rob Heinsoo has used the contrast to try to explain the design direction of 4e.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> Is "simulationist" trying to simulate reality, or a genre?



As you probably know, Forge terminology distinguishes between the former (purist-for-system) and the latter (high concept). 



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> If reality, does it matter how that is done?  Two games might set out to simulate reality.  The first one models gun fights by comparing bullet caliber with the target's bone density to adjudicate the precise trajectory of the bullet after it strikes your femur.  The latter one models gun fights by saying "FBI statistics show that 1% of bullet wounds from that range of that caliber are instantly fatal, and a further 32% are eventually fatal.  Roll percentiles please."  Both end up (for the sake of argument) returning a "realistic" result, which is to say a result that basically measures up to how that scenario would play out in the real world.  But their methodologies are completely reversed.  Are they really in the same category?



Again, as you probably know, Forge terminology distinguishes between high and low search and handling time mechanics (which would seem to differentiate your two designs in at least one respect). Furthermore, there is no special reason to think that two simulationist games have to use the same mechanics even if they are both crunch-heavy: compare parrying in RQ to parrying in RM.

What your second design would also permit is a degree of FitM: having determined the consequences of the bullet, the player or GM could narrate its precise cause. RQ and RM do not permit this (having complex hit location systems). Classic Traveller does (having only generic stat damage but no mechanic to tell us what sort of physical injury any stat loss represents). Your second design is therefore perhaps more open to be drifted in a narrativist direction.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> And what if you're trying to simulate genre?  And what if you're trying to simulate genre, but within certain parameters of verisimilitude?



Then different games get written. Compare RQ 3rd edition to RM to Ars Magica to Chivalry and Sorcery for various ways of designing mechanics of various degrees of complexity to model what would, to any outsider, have to be regarded as pretty much the same genre: dark ages/medieval fantasy.

I don't know how familiar you are with methodology in the social sciences, and particularly with Weber's notion of the "ideal type". I see the Forge nomenclature as playing that sort of role: it is not necessarily the case that any game design is absolutely one thing or another (contrast Hero or RM, for example, each of which has highly metagaming, and therefore potentially narrativist or gamist character build rules, with RQ or Classic Traveller, both of which lack such rules), but these ideal types of simulationism, gamism and narrativism are nevertheless very useful in describing and analysing particular features of game systems which make them prone to support (or not) a particular play experience.


----------



## pemerton

Andor said:
			
		

> Borax: "I pop him one on the lip to get him to loosen up."
> GM: "He dies."
> Borax: "What?"
> GM: "He was a minion, you made a to hit roll, he dies."





			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> It seems that this is not the case, if we assume that D&D has attempted to make reasonable claims about the denizens of its virtual villages.  A cut is an injury.  I have given myself a good gash with the old hobby knife on occasion.  If, in the course of a D&D session, a character accidentally cuts himself with a hobby knife (or let's say a butter knife at the family dinner table) does that necessarily inflict at least 1 hit point of damage?  I can imagine Tim cutting himself with a small knife and not flopping over dead.  Would D&D have ever posited that 1/6th of the inhabitants of its virtual world flop over dead from common household accidents?  We could maintain that it has done so... but why assume something ludicrous only to get upset about its implications?



As John Snow said upthread, now we're getting somewhere.

The next question is: who gets to do the narration? The GM - in which case the game is about the GM making his/her point - or the player - in which case the game is about the player making his/her point.

And what are the mechanical constraints on the narration (which John Snow considers in detail in his post).

And is there any reason to think the Minion rules introduce any unexpected difficulty into the answer to those questions?


----------



## pemerton

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> minions have been stripped of fully half the ability to challenge characters that normal opponents have.  They have been reduced to a skill check, in that they are either hit and dead, or missed and alive.  It is really no different than having the opponents with hit points waiting around until you pass the 'minion disposal skill challenge'.  Complexity (number of minions)  (minion) Successes before (party hit points) Failures.



I assume you are aware that there are a number of RPGs which, either expressly or by implication, treat combats in this fashion.

Thus, HeroQuest/Wars allows combats to be resolved as Simple Contests (skill checks, in D&D language). RQ and RM treat combats as skill checks, and against unevenly matched opponents they do reduce to skill checks: the first successful PC attack against an inferior foe in RQ or RM will take that foe out of the combat.

D&D, in introducing this possibility into the game, is playing catch up. It is not pioneering new (let alone unpassable) ground. What distinguishes it from RQ and RM, and brings it closer to HeroQuest/Wars, is that the use of the device is being driven by a narrativist logic rather than a simulationist logic.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> 'minion rules' are, by definition, not 'flavour text'.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It is a clumsily implemented attrition mechanism to wear down the characters' resources.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There is no point in them being there.  Roll your to hit as a skill check or take X damage, and don't bother with minions cluttering up your battlemat or combat notes.



One way to look at the minion rules is as an attrition mechanism. Another way is to look at them as a tool to be used to permit expression of a particular thematic point. Another way (Hong's way) is to look at them as an opportunity for the PCs to showboat. The second and third ways definitely establish that there is a point to the minions being there. And that point is the "flavour text" (otherwise known as roleplaying) that the minion mechanics support.

The notion that one would replace roleplaying with "roll to hit as a skill check or take X damage" is absurd. If you aren't interested in the play experience that minion mechanics support, then don't use minions. If you aren't interested in the play experience that D&D 4e will support, don't play it. But don't assert that there is no sensible play experience to be had with minion rules, and with D&D 4e.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Wait, let me predict the response:  "Play a different game, 4e is not for you".



Every other RPG in the world is allowed to be what it is, and those who don't like what it is don't play it. Why does D&D have to be different? And from the mere fact that some people don't like it, why does it follow that it is, in some objective sense, an untenable game?


----------



## AZRogue

Andor said:
			
		

> GM: "Okay. The last of the Orcs falls dead, when you loot the bodies you get..."
> Minerva the Mage: "Hold on. I used my sleep spell so we could get some prisoners to interogate."
> GM: "Yeah but then you killed them with a fireball."
> Minerva: "Not that guy."
> Borax the Fighter: "That's right, I was standing there next to him, and she dropped the fireball over a couple to miss me and catch that bloodrager dude."
> GM: "Okay fine. You tie him up, he's awake now. What do you ask him?"
> Rodger the rakish rogue: "Foul miscreant, who paid you tribe to attack these pilgrims?"
> GM: "I ain't sayin nothin."
> Borax: "I pop him one on the lip to get him to loosen up."
> GM: "He dies."
> Borax: "What?"
> GM: "He was a minion, you made a to hit roll, he dies."
> Minerva: "I'm pretty sure minion status is meant to be a narrative device and not a litteral..."
> GM: "Stuff it. He had one hit point and he's dead. Now do you want your loot or not?"
> 
> Are you telling me that wouldn't interfere with your suspension of disbelief?





That's so improbable that I can't even imagine it happening without a DM out on a mission to make things work poorly. Like one of those infomercials where the guy shouts "are you tired of trying to use those old, confusing, freezer bags" and the camera shows some numbskull wrestling with a Ziploc before choking himself to death to prove the infomercial's point.

If the PCs are socking the minion around for information you just ...... roleplay. You don't look at his sheet and subtract hit points. You're not in combat. They roleplay the encounter with you and you either a) use their roleplaying to figure out how to resolve the encounter, or b) make it into a Skill Challenge. Someone who removes a hit point from a minion and kills them outside of combat is being deliberately obtuse.


----------



## Lizard

AZRogue said:
			
		

> So, in that light, I see Minion rules as providing a valuable shortcut for something I've ALWAYS done anyway. I don't think it's new. As a DM I was always looking for ways to save time and I've never cared if the mechanics can simulate NPCs working amongst themselves; I've only ever cared about what the PCs experience on their side of the table. I know that I can't be the only DM who had a list of six or seven generic stat blocks (THAC0, AC, DMG, HP, one Save for all things, etc.) on a sheet of paper with me for the occasional wandering monster or surprise fight. I had them labeled from really bad in melee to really deadly, based on my players current stats, and would use the statblock I wanted. My game never broke and it freed me up to worry about more important things like introducing plot hooks, mystery clues to be uncovered a year later, and story arcs.




I wouldn't mind if "Minion" were a template or option a DM could apply to a generic monster when statting out a fight. That makes it clear that "minion" is a dramatic/narrative label and not a description of a condition which is meaningful in the game world.

I do mind when the MM presents stat blocks for baseline orcs that make no sense for how the orcs exist in the world outside a fight.

I also mind when special rules (Minions take no damage on a miss) are ham-handedly jammed into the system as a balance mechanic with no pretense of an explanation beyond "Just 'cause!"


----------



## Lizard

Deadstop said:
			
		

> So, within the orc tribe, you don't have Grik who was born a normal monster and his cousin Grak who was, tragically, born a minion and has only survived to this day by being as obsessive as Thomas Covenant.




But, barring text we haven't seen yet, that is EXACTLY the impression the rules give of how the 4e world works, and THAT is what I cannot wrap my mind around.



> But the "4e way" is not seriously putting forth that there are certain identifiable monsters who die when flicked on the nose, so that's rather a silly claim to be using against it.




Why do you draw this conclusion? 'Cause that's exactly the impression I'm getting from the rules I've seen thus far. As opposed to 3x 1HD creatures who have a 'buffer' of 10 negative hit points to keep them from popping like soap bubbles every time they stub their toe, the 4 1hp minion with no healing surges and no negative hit points is a creature so fragile they make a 1e MU look like an action hero.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> But, barring text we haven't seen yet, that is EXACTLY the impression the rules give of how the 4e world works,




It is?


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Lizard said:
			
		

> Why do you draw this conclusion? 'Cause that's exactly the impression I'm getting from the rules I've seen thus far. As opposed to 3x 1HD creatures who have a 'buffer' of 10 negative hit points to keep them from popping like soap bubbles every time they stub their toe, the 4 1hp minion with no healing surges and no negative hit points is a creature so fragile they make a 1e MU look like an action hero.



This is a problem with misunderstanding hitpoints.  They are entirely a metagame concept that are PC-Centric.  They only exist when in combat with the PCs.

A minion can survive 30 stabs to the head if you want it to away from the PCs.  When they are fighting it, they just happen to get the lucky blow in and it dies.

The entire purpose of hitpoints is to prevent anti-climactic deaths of important characters.  The point of them is to avoid the situation where the PCs get lucky and kill something in one shot.  Especially if you've hyped up the creatures/person as extremely dangerous before the PCs face them.

But minions are those monsters you don't care about.  They don't need any buffer except what is required for them to fulfill their combat role: be a roadblock for the PCs movement.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> This is a problem with misunderstanding hitpoints.  They are entirely a metagame concept that are PC-Centric.  They only exist when in combat with the PCs.



Clearly, they don't.  They are a measure of how difficult it is to overcome a particular challenge, and they exist independently of the PCs interacting with them or they are meaningless as a measure of anything.  A gallon of milk isn't something else when people aren't measuring it.



> A minion can survive 30 stabs to the head if you want it to away from the PCs.  When they are fighting it, they just happen to get the lucky blow in and it dies.



Except, it isn't a 'lucky blow', because it happens every time the PCs land a successful hit.



> The entire purpose of hitpoints is to prevent anti-climactic deaths of important characters.  The point of them is to avoid the situation where the PCs get lucky and kill something in one shot.  Especially if you've hyped up the creatures/person as extremely dangerous before the PCs face them.



The entire purpose of hit points is to adjudicate the combat mini-game.



> But minions are those monsters you don't care about.  They don't need any buffer except what is required for them to fulfill their combat role: be a roadblock for the PCs movement.



Then don't use them.  It would be as simple to make the terrain more difficult, or to set a trap in their way.  Or apply the Random Damage Table until they pass their 'to hit' skill challenge a certain number of times.


----------



## Scribble

Lizard said:
			
		

> I wouldn't mind if "Minion" were a template or option a DM could apply to a generic monster when statting out a fight. That makes it clear that "minion" is a dramatic/narrative label and not a description of a condition which is meaningful in the game world.




What's a "generic orc?" Would that be a skirmisher? a brute? a controller? 

Monster's are now made more in line with how pcs work... They ahve a race: Orc and a class: Brute, Controller, Skirmisher...

Minion is a class. It's kind of like a 3e template, in that it changes the powers and abilities of the monster, but different in that it's easier to work with.

Just like when you templated out a monster so it works how you wanted it to, now you can just select a style that fits.



> I do mind when the MM presents stat blocks for baseline orcs that make no sense for how the orcs exist in the world outside a fight.




I can't help you with this. It's not realy a problem with the mechanics of the system. The system works well for what it's trying to do. It gives me rules for how to deal with challenges to my PCs brought by the orcs. If my PCs are not in some way trying to stop my Orc from doing something, it can probably do it.

My Orc doesn't have any skills invested in cooking... I'm pretty sure he won't starve. I'm pretty sure he can cook dinner. He might have an issue if he tries to win the title of Top Chef, but starve he will not.

I like the new system. It's something I ham handedly did with the old system, just done btter. The works been done for me.



> I also mind when special rules (Minions take no damage on a miss) are ham-handedly jammed into the system as a balance mechanic with no pretense of an explanation beyond "Just 'cause!"




Not ham handed. The math is simplified. You could probably increase the Monster's HP so that he can't survive a direct hit (your PCs average damage will be too much) but he could survive a half damage attack... But why? Chances are the PC won't miss a second time. Why make the DM track more numbers then he has to?



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> A gallon of milk isn't something else when people aren't measuring it.




Mmmmm... thats a matter of philosophy... 

But a galon of milk is a physical object. Hit Points are not. 



> Then don't use them. It would be as simple to make the terrain more difficult, or to set a trap in their way. Or apply the Random Damage Table until they pass their 'to hit' skill challenge a certain number of times.




Sure... But minions give you options. Options are good. Options allow for more stories to be told.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Scribble said:
			
		

> Mmmmm... thats a matter of philosophy...
> But a galon of milk is a physical object. Hit Points are not.



Well, the milk is a physical object.  A gallon is one way of measuring how much is present.  There are any number of ways to describe how much milk is present.  The philosophical part of your response details exactly whether or not those methods are valid.  There are very few philosophical disciplines that concern themselves with whether or not the milk exists.

So, the 'opponent' is a physical object.  The 'hit points' are measuring how much 'opponent' is present.  There are certainly different ways of measuring how much opponent you have, and other games have different rules for doing so.  But a rule that says 'milk only comes in the one gallon size, because it's a thematic device' runs fairly counter to everything else in the rules.



> Sure... But minions give you options. Options are good. Options allow for more stories to be told.



As has been said uncountable times before, you don't need rules to tell a story.


----------



## TwoSix

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Clearly, they don't.  They are a measure of how difficult it is to overcome a particular challenge, and they exist independently of the PCs interacting with them or they are meaningless as a measure of anything.  A gallon of milk isn't something else when people aren't measuring it.




But they aren't a measure of anything.  That's the point.  



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Except, it isn't a 'lucky blow', because it happens every time the PCs land a successful hit.



"Lucky blow" probably isn't as good of a term as "final blow".  It's perfectly valid to narrate a miss against a minion as a hit against their armor, or a flesh wound, or a blow to the head that sets their ears ringing.  The hit is just the attack that actually takes them out of the combat. (And is entirely appropriate to be described as being knocked unconscious, limb lopped off, what have you).


----------



## TwoSix

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> As has been said uncountable times before, you don't need rules to tell a story.



However, you need rules to play a role-playing game, to define the conflict resolution between the players and the DM.  You don't need rules to define the imagined game space that contains no conflict between the players and the DM.


----------



## Scribble

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Well, the milk is a physical object.  A gallon is one way of measuring how much is present.  There are any number of ways to describe how much milk is present.  The philosophical part of your response details exactly whether or not those methods are valid.  There are very few philosophical disciplines that concern themselves with whether or not the milk exists.
> 
> So, the 'opponent' is a physical object.  The 'hit points' are measuring how much 'opponent' is present.  There are certainly different ways of measuring how much opponent you have, and other games have different rules for doing so.  But a rule that says 'milk only comes in the one gallon size, because it's a thematic device' runs fairly counter to everything else in the rules.




Yes... there are a number of ways. Just like 2/6th of a galon = 1/3 of a gallon.

Minion rules are pretty much the same. Simpliied math.




> As has been said uncountable times before, you don't need rules to tell a story.




I do when the story is at a point that is interacting with my PCs.

Sure I could say a bunch of minions run up and hold you guys off doing about 10 damage to you James, while Evil Orcy McEvilton runs away down the halway after tossing off a 30 pioint damage ball...

But I think my players would be a little annoyed... It's the same reason we "need" rules for combat in the first place.


----------



## Aenghus

I think monsters in 4e will call for different stat blocks in different contexts. An orc guard may be fully statted out against a low level party, and be a mere minion against a higher level party. Same orc, different purpose, different stats.

This is because they have changed what the stats represent in 4e. Now they are far more of an aid to the DM to help him run the game as easily as possible, not some sort of visualisation of the cosmic all. 

A number of years ago I would have hated this idea. However, I recently finished a 6+ year 3e campaign, and am heartily sick of statting up NPCs, assigning magic items, spells etc. I am willing to countenance anything that makes this process easier.

And as a player I just miss the old-school pleasure of fireballing a bunch of orcs and killing most of them with one spell.


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> Nothing about the minion rules mandates that mook status must be visible and obvious outside the context of combat.




Do they not? Unless you were a playtester then you, like me, have no idea what rules apply to minions outside of combat. If there is not a section in the DMG that explicitly changes their status as soon as the PCs interact with them, then I hold that the scenario I painted is not only likely but inevitable. (Incidently, for those claiming my example was ridiculous and full of hyperbole.. Seriously? How many GMs have you ever played with, 'cause I have to tell you I've run into several like that. Poor GMs abound.)

And leaving that aside, it is enought that their mook status is visible _in_ combat, to disrupt my suspension of disbelief. Goblin warriors dropping in one hit, as has been pointed out many times in this thread, is not new, and Goblin minions are not the problem. No one is claiming they are. 21st level devil legionaire minions are a problem. Giant minions are a problem. Dragon minions are a problem.

Suddenly the battle of Gondor seems less impressive when we realize that Legolas did nothing extraordinary, that Mumakil was just a Colossal Minion.


----------



## Mallus

Andor said:
			
		

> 21st level devil legionaire minions are a problem. Giant minions are a problem. Dragon minions are a problem.



Hmmm, a class of D&D opponents, say like high-level minions, with tremendous destructive capabilities that can still be taken down by a lucky shot from a normal person, presumably while the stars of the show dealt with the real antagonist(s), should be considered a feature and not a bug.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> Suddenly the battle of Gondor seems less impressive when we realize that Legolas did nothing extraordinary, that Mumakil was just a Colossal Minion.



Perhaps you could report back after playtesting something the size and scope of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields using the 4e rules, because right now your comparison between a portion of a novel and a D&D combat isn't particularly meaningful.


----------



## Scribble

Andor said:
			
		

> And leaving that aside, it is enought that their mook status is visible _in_ combat, to disrupt my suspension of disbelief. Goblin warriors dropping in one hit, as has been pointed out many times in this thread, is not new, and Goblin minions are not the problem. No one is claiming they are. 21st level devil legionaire minions are a problem. Giant minions are a problem. Dragon minions are a problem.




A 5th level fighter runs up on a 5th level commoner. What happens?

Minions to me at least represent the commoner better then the commoner ever did. Sure maybe there will be minion Dragons and minion Devils... But maybe not unless you decide you want them there.

They give you a good mix of commoner with soldier. 

I think they do a great job of representing the common soldier. They arenn't Achilles... They're that soldier that runs up on Achiles and gets taken out on a side swipe. 

Sure like any soldier they might kknow how to dish out some hurting... They just don't have that edge. That somthign that makes them the BBEG... So like any normal person a stab to the gut kills them.

So they don't take damage from a miss. It doesn't matter neither does the BBEG... His abuility to resist getting killed goes down though. So does the Minions... You just don't need to track it because chances are, you won't miss him again.


----------



## Kishin

Lizard said:
			
		

> But, barring text we haven't seen yet, that is EXACTLY the impression the rules give of how the 4e world works, and THAT is what I cannot wrap my mind around.
> 
> 
> 
> Why do you draw this conclusion? 'Cause that's exactly the impression I'm getting from the rules I've seen thus far. As opposed to 3x 1HD creatures who have a 'buffer' of 10 negative hit points to keep them from popping like soap bubbles every time they stub their toe, the 4 1hp minion with no healing surges and no negative hit points is a creature so fragile they make a 1e MU look like an action hero.




Stop thinking like a simulationist and this problem will go away.

Rules are not gameworld physics.


----------



## Andor

Mallus said:
			
		

> Perhaps you could report back after playtesting something the size and scope of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields using the 4e rules, because right now your comparison between a portion of a novel and a D&D combat isn't particularly meaningful.




Actually I was thinking of the movie. Particularly this scene. Legolas never interacts with a Mumakil in the book.

But no, hey, you're right. "We're fighting a 40' tall elephant thing? I throw a butterknife at it's toe." "Good call, it was a minion and it dies." sounds like a much more enjoyable game.


----------



## Mallus

Andor said:
			
		

> But no, hey, you're right. "We're fighting a 40' tall elephant thing? I throw a shiruken at it's toe." "Good call, it was a minion and it dies." sounds like a much more enjoyable game.



To be more precise, that sounds like a game run by an idiot. The fact that minion rules can be used badly does not preclude them being used well. Bad games, you will always have with you... 

And I'm not ruling out the potential for coolness in a scene featuring a shuriken killing a 40ft mammoth. There's coolness in there, I can feel it.


----------



## Lacyon

Andor said:
			
		

> Actually I was thinking of the movie. Particularly this scene. Legolas never interacts with a Mumakil in the book.
> 
> But no, hey, you're right. "We're fighting a 40' tall elephant thing? I throw a butterknife at it's toe." "Good call, it was a minion and it dies." sounds like a much more enjoyable game.




Mumachilles' Toe?


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Mallus said:
			
		

> To be more precise, that sounds like a game run by an idiot. The fact that minion rules can be used badly does not preclude them being used well. Bad games, you will always have with you...
> 
> And I'm not ruling out the potential for coolness in a scene featuring a shuriken killing a 40ft mammoth. There's coolness in there, I can feel it.



And then there was the day in my Dragonstar Campaign where the Monk tripped the Elephant commanded by the evil Druid...


----------



## Mallus

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> And then there was the day in my Dragonstar Campaign where the Monk tripped the Elephant commanded by the evil Druid...



Did the elephant retaliate with a grenade? The bad guys always retaliated w/grenades in our Dragonstar campaign...


----------



## DM_Blake

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> This is a problem with misunderstanding hitpoints.  They are entirely a metagame concept that are PC-Centric.  They only exist when in combat with the PCs.
> 
> A minion can survive 30 stabs to the head if you want it to away from the PCs.  When they are fighting it, they just happen to get the lucky blow in and it dies.
> 
> The entire purpose of hitpoints is to prevent anti-climactic deaths of important characters.  The point of them is to avoid the situation where the PCs get lucky and kill something in one shot.  Especially if you've hyped up the creatures/person as extremely dangerous before the PCs face them.
> 
> But minions are those monsters you don't care about.  They don't need any buffer except what is required for them to fulfill their combat role: be a roadblock for the PCs movement.




So, you're saying that a party fighting a Minotaur and his 4 Minotaur Minions, manages to get 4 lucky blows and kill the 4 minions, but then all their luck runs out and they have to whittle down the real minotaur blow by blow by blow?

In other words, if the bad guy is important, it's NEVER possible to land a lucky blow (heck, even crits only mean you hit the same as a normal hit with a good damage roll), but everything else dies in one shot automatically?


----------



## Lizard

Scribble said:
			
		

> What's a "generic orc?" Would that be a skirmisher? a brute? a controller?




It would be an orc standing in line at Orc School, trying to decide if he's going to major in Axe-Thrower or Head-basher.

As you say, creatures have a race and a class -- what's an orc look like with no class in 4e?

(Like every other orc! Badum-BUM!)

But, seriously, in 3x, generic orcs were level 1 warriors -- so you could strip off the 'warrior' (+1 BAB, +2 Fort save, etc), and replace it with something else very easily -- adept, rogue, ranger, warlock, whatever. How do I get down to the "Raw Orc" in 4e?


----------



## Lizard

Mallus said:
			
		

> To be more precise, that sounds like a game run by an idiot. The fact that minion rules can be used badly does not preclude them being used well. Bad games, you will always have with you...




How is this being used badly, or even incorrectly? The RAW are pretty clear -- one point, minion dies. If something fifty feet tall and dripping acid from its 90 mouths is a "minion", a peasant, a pitchfork, and a Nat 20 spell its doom.

And there ARE Epic Minions, with all that implies.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Andor, your argument against minions is that you could, inexplicably, set up a single, giant, set-piece opponent who you decided to make a MINION. Correct?


----------



## DM_Blake

Scribble said:
			
		

> A 5th level fighter runs up on a 5th level commoner. What happens?
> 
> Minions to me at least represent the commoner better then the commoner ever did. Sure maybe there will be minion Dragons and minion Devils... But maybe not unless you decide you want them there.
> 
> They give you a good mix of commoner with soldier.
> 
> I think they do a great job of representing the common soldier. They arenn't Achilles... They're that soldier that runs up on Achiles and gets taken out on a side swipe.
> 
> Sure like any soldier they might kknow how to dish out some hurting... They just don't have that edge. That somthign that makes them the BBEG... So like any normal person a stab to the gut kills them.
> 
> So they don't take damage from a miss. It doesn't matter neither does the BBEG... His abuility to resist getting killed goes down though. So does the Minions... You just don't need to track it because chances are, you won't miss him again.




Why is the commoner 5th level?

Doesn't the very fact that he is 5th level indicate something? Doesn't it mean he's been around, fought some wars, done his bit chasing goblins and kobolds off the farm, gained some levels that are represented in increased HP, attack modifiers, skills, etc.?

So, if you want your 5th level fighter to one-shot a commoner, make him a true commoner. 1st level, no experience, no wars, rading parties, or other events under his belt. 

But, if he is 5th level, then don't make those additional 4 levels meaningless by saying "oh, yeah, he's fought in wars, he's fended off raiding parties from his farm, but he still only has 1 hp and any player who sneezes his direction will kill him outright".

Either give him 5 levels, or don't. Why would you give the levels and then invalidate them by applying some kind of minion status/template to rob him of everything the levels gave him?


----------



## Kishin

Andor said:
			
		

> Actually I was thinking of the movie. Particularly this scene. Legolas never interacts with a Mumakil in the book.
> 
> But no, hey, you're right. "We're fighting a 40' tall elephant thing? I throw a butterknife at it's toe." "Good call, it was a minion and it dies." sounds like a much more enjoyable game.




The Mumakil in that scene could have been a minion, and that could have been Legolas' DM or Legolas' player describing how he disposed of it.

Inconceivable, right? Nope.


----------



## Andor

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> Andor, your argument against minions is that you could, inexplicably, set up a single, giant, set-piece opponent who you decided to make a MINION. Correct?




Nope. That would be a strawman arguement because it presupposes a _really_ incompetant GM, rather than a merely medicore one.

My problem is that once you get past commoners and goblins the difference between a minion and the guy standing next to him that looks just like him becomes so extreme that the minion rules become plainly visible in game, such that the characters cannot fail to notice them. And that interferes with my suspension of disbelief, to the detriment of my enjoyment of the game. 

I will admit that it is possible for a skilled GM to use the minion rules or something similar in a way that might enhance the game, with judicious application. 

I fear however that outside of the hands of that excellent GM (who probably didn't need WotC holding his hand anyway) the minion rules are going to detract from the game in a big way.


----------



## Scribble

Andor said:
			
		

> But no, hey, you're right. "We're fighting a 40' tall elephant thing? I throw a butterknife at it's toe." "Good call, it was a minion and it dies." sounds like a much more enjoyable game.




Ah you got me there... I totaly forgot about called shots... wait... I didn't because they don't exist! For this same reason. If they did the game devolves into who can shoot out who's eye fastest.

If you are assuming that you threw a butterknife at the monster's toe and it died... the problem lies with YOU not the game.

The rules of the game are assuming your character is attacking the monster in the best way possible in any given attack.

Ok you used a butterknife... But you managed to jam that thing into the minions brain. 



			
				DM_blake said:
			
		

> Doesn't the very fact that he is 5th level indicate something? Doesn't it mean he's been around, fought some wars, done his bit chasing goblins and kobolds off the farm, gained some levels that are represented in increased HP, attack modifiers, skills, etc.?




Because he's not an inexperienced commoner. He has experience and know how, and can even dish out some hurt. 

In game terms he is a threat to the PCs. He's not just something they ignore and run past because the AoO probably won't hit them and if it does won't do any damage worth caring about.

The minion just doesn't have that edge that non minions have. That thing that allows them to shrug off attacks as "flesh wounds" or manage to duck just in time.

A PC is captain kirk or rambo, or John McClain... Minions are the random unnamed terrorists and aliens that run up on them and can still kill them, but can't shrug off any kind of real attack.

Again you could give them say 10 HP and let them take damage from a miss... The chances of you're missing them twice though is so low... it's just an added step. A time waster.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> But, seriously, in 3x, generic orcs were level 1 warriors -- so you could strip off the 'warrior' (+1 BAB, +2 Fort save, etc), and replace it with something else very easily -- adept, rogue, ranger, warlock, whatever. How do I get down to the "Raw Orc" in 4e?




Same way you did in 3e, only even easier. Just like you could strip a PC down to it's raw raceness.

A race is nothing more then a set of racial modifiers and bonuses. Seems like Orcs have at least fast charge as their bonus. Probably a few other things you could dig out of there.

The work has just been done already for 4e. They have some common monsters. Wich works GREAT for me. I don't have all that much free time to spend hours making custom ranger orcs or sorcerer orcs... If you have that time? Awesome you'll still be able to spend it in 4e. The default just doesn't assume you do. Which is good.


----------



## Mallus

Lizard said:
			
		

> How is this being used badly, or even incorrectly? The RAW are pretty clear -- one point, minion dies. If something fifty feet tall and dripping acid from its 90 mouths is a "minion", a peasant, a pitchfork, and a Nat 20 spell its doom.



It would be idiotic for a DM to designate one of the principle opponents as a 'minion'. And if the mammoth isn't meant to be a principle opponent, who cares?

And as I wrote earlier, the existence of a class of opponents that are both 1) fearsome and 2) able to be killed by normal people is a welcome addition to the system, as far as I'm concerned. 



> And there ARE Epic Minions, with all that implies.



It implies the system scales. What else were you thinking of? Does it need to said that 'minions should only be used where appropriate'?


----------



## Mallus

Andor said:
			
		

> And that interferes with my suspension of disbelief, to the detriment of my enjoyment of the game.



Perhaps you should consider considering 'suspension of disbelief' as something you-as-a-player are also, in part, responsible for creating and maintaining, rather than treating it as something owed to you by the DM and rules system.

Maybe this should be a corollary to hong's Second Law of Fantasy: "If you absolutely have to think too much about fantasy, think about it making sense".


----------



## Rex Blunder

I still don't understand how anyone's suspension of disbelief could be broken by minions but not by hit points.

HIT POINTS.

There's no way I can kill this unarmed wizard by stabbing him with this sword. He has 40 HP, and my max damage is 20 HP!

This is not a realistic system, nor one that successfully models literature. As a simulation is is the dismalest of dismal failures!

However, it makes for good gameplay.

Minions are no worse. Better, I suspect.


----------



## Scribble

Lizard said:
			
		

> How is this being used badly, or even incorrectly? The RAW are pretty clear -- one point, minion dies. If something fifty feet tall and dripping acid from its 90 mouths is a "minion", a peasant, a pitchfork, and a Nat 20 spell its doom.
> 
> And there ARE Epic Minions, with all that implies.





Awesome... In this crazy situation that peasant managed to do that... WOOHOOO SUPER PEASANT!!! then the rest of the minions wipe the floor with the peasants... A crit is a crit. It's a lucky shot. I think the problem in that situation lies in removing the confirming roll. In either case... It doesn't make a difference to me, because:

1. None of my PCs are peasants...

2. The lucky peasant still won't live long... and if he does... he gets a cool adventure written around him... Or at least the vilagers think they actually have a local hero.

3. If I come to my game table and peaseants and epic minions have been fighting while I was not gaming... I have larger issues to deal with... like maybe jack chic was right...


----------



## Wormwood

Mallus said:
			
		

> Does it need to said that 'minions should only be used where appropriate'?



Apparently. And repeatedly.


----------



## Mallus

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> I still don't understand how anyone's suspension of disbelief could be broken by minions but not by hit points.



<Tevye>
Tradition!
</Tevye>


----------



## Cadfan

It should also be pointed out that design diaries have explicitly said that any monster can be a minion, when fought by sufficiently powerful PCs.  Thus establishing that "minion" status is relative to who's stabbing the putative minion.

Now logically this works in reverse.  If something is a minion for a level 25 party of PCs, its not necessarily a minion when fought by a party of level 1 PCs.

I believe we may have already seen a bit of this, though through a glass darkly.  Legion Devil Legionnaires are epic level minions.  I believe we've seen that regular Legion Devils are heroic level non minions.


----------



## Andor

Mallus said:
			
		

> Perhaps you should consider considering 'suspension of disbelief' as something you-as-a-player are also, in part, responsible for creating and maintaining, rather than treating it as something owed to you by the DM and rules system.




'suspension of disbelief' is shorthand. The full phrase is "Willing suspension of disbelief." I assumed that was common knowledge on these forums. As the full phrase implies I am already exerting my will to suspend my disbelief. There are limits to the strength of my will however. If I am playing a science fiction RPG and the GM tries to tell me Starships commonly have screen doors and no air locks, it ain't gonna work. If I am playing in a fantasy RPG and the GM tells me that an epic level Devil, a fallen angel who warred against a god _and won_, and who has since survived millenia in hell against endless intrigue and infighting just died because John-boy the 12 year old farm kid who's been tagging after the party just rolled a 20 to hit with the stale corn muffin he loaded into his sling, I again have a problem with it. 

I will buy in to the game to the extent that I am able. I've played many, many systems over the years, and this has almost never been a problem. Although there have been a few games that were so silly we never even tried to play them. Synnibar comes to mind. And some other thing where you were supposedly an immortal god who had forgotten but was remembering his old powers as the game went on.

But just as I can't haul an 800lb safe up a flight of stairs without assistance, I can't buy in to a game world when it is too alien for me to grasp the view point of a character within that world. I can't say for certain not having seen the books, but the minions rules seem to be skirting perilously close to that edge.


----------



## Scribble

Andor said:
			
		

> If I am playing in a fantasy RPG and the GM tells me that an epic level Devil, a fallen angel who warred against a god _and won_, and who has since survived millenia in hell against endless intrigue and infighting just died because John-boy the 12 year old farm kid who's been tagging after the party just rolled a 20 to hit with the stale corn muffin he loaded into his sling, I again have a problem with it.




This is like saying that you're watching the movie before it's been edited and complaining because it breaks your "willing" suspension of disbelief.

Sure... If you decide to stop the game, roll up a peasant, and then play out a fight between said peasant and an epic devil minion, and the peasant manages to roll a crit (assuming there aren't any other rules for this situation) and kills the epic minion devil, that for some reason you are assuming faught a war with god and managed to win without being hit... (I guess he was the super peasant that roleld the crit againsta  minion god??? who in turn rolled a crit against a minion whatever made hima  god???)

Then sure... fair enough. feel free to have your willing suspension of disbelief broken.

Mine would have faltered a while ago at the sheer insanity of the situation.

If you nit pick every little situation to its uttmost absurd level... then yeah, almost anything can be a problem. Hell just walking into certain parts of San Francisco almost are enough to break my willing suspension of disbelief about the real world...






> And some other thing where you were supposedly an immortal god who had forgotten but was remembering his old powers as the game went on.




That has to do more with personal taste then anything non-sensical.



> But just as I can't haul an 800lb safe up a flight of stairs without assistance




That's easy dude... Just ignore the rules for encumberance.    

But seriosuly... minions seem closer to my real world state then PCs... who knows maybe I'm just an NPC in your world... but if you hit me with a sword... I die. I don't jump up and say... that al you got! It's just a flesh wound!


----------



## Rex Blunder

Rex's 4e fixes, addendum:

STALE CORN MUFFINS AND CATS DO NO DAMAGE


----------



## Andor

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> I still don't understand how anyone's suspension of disbelief could be broken by minions but not by hit points.
> 
> HIT POINTS.
> 
> There's no way I can kill this unarmed wizard by stabbing him with this sword. He has 40 HP, and my max damage is 20 HP!
> 
> This is not a realistic system, nor one that successfully models literature. As a simulation is is the dismalest of dismal failures!




That's because you're mis-applying the test, at least as I see it. I usually get labeled as a simulationist in these things so let's assume I am. As a simulationist, I don't care in the least if the game models our reality well. I care about whether or not it *consistently* models it's own reality well.

HP may be toughness, "Meat points" as someone put it. It may show the supernatural strength of will that Wizard has aquired over the years which allow him to function when suffering a wound that would kill a lesser man. They may be a learnt ability to keep body and spirit together when they should have parted. They may be something else.

But whatever they are, they *are*. Inside that game world they are an absolute and inconrovertible fact of life. Indeed it would be pretty easy for anyone to find out exactly how many HP they have by simply letting someone pelt them with blowgun darts until they pass out. Count the darts and you know your HP total. 

When HP start to be contextual, it as though you were to say that a bridge might be made of concrete one day when it's being used by humans, but somehow became a bridge of papiermache the very next day when some centaurs tried to cross it. 

Note that the problem a lot of non-simulationists have is when they try to insist, for whatever reason, that things which appear concretely in the rules are not actually there. That a sword in the game should be capable of doing the exact same thing it does in our world. Really? Should they also frequently break, as they do in our world? Bend? Roman accounts are full of gauls and celts haveing to stomp their blades back into shape in mid-battle. A person in our world can die from a single cut it is true. On the other hand the chinese had a torture technique called the "Death of a thousand cuts" where the victem isn't supposed to die till the last cut. Should we then assume that all people have 1000 hp? 

I don't want or need a game that models our reality exactly. My house has doors for that very reason. I do want a game where my character can reasonably expect things to work the same way twice running.


----------



## robertliguori

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> I still don't understand how anyone's suspension of disbelief could be broken by minions but not by hit points.
> 
> HIT POINTS.
> 
> There's no way I can kill this unarmed wizard by stabbing him with this sword. He has 40 HP, and my max damage is 20 HP!
> 
> This is not a realistic system, nor one that successfully models literature. As a simulation is is the dismalest of dismal failures!
> 
> However, it makes for good gameplay.
> 
> Minions are no worse. Better, I suspect.




Lots of literature features characters who go through an improbable number of combats if their ability to survive was merely skill-based, even with superlative or superhuman levels of skill.  However, when enough mundane force is applied in a short enough period of time, these characters can fall.  Hit points represents this adequately.

Minions represent a universe in which certain characters are utterly cursed by fate, and are utterly incapable of enduring the level of damage one would expect from creatures of their build, size, and specific anatomy.  If I attack a pig with a dagger, out of the blue, I do not expect to inflict an instantly-debilitating injury 100% of the time I connect.  Why should I assume any differently about an orc?  The minion rules assume that given creatures have totally avoided any form of potentially-disabling injury until they encounter the PCs, at which point any at all* direct damage will slay them.

Of course, there's also the fact that some minions don't take damage from missed attacks.  This means that not only does the universe hate these creatures, but it hates them selectively; it will keep them alive until someone takes a swing at them and connects.  An attack that blankets the area in deadly fire (and thus does not produce an attack roll) does not and cannot hurt a minion.

Really, the problem stems from the fact that minions were created to represent dramatic set pieces, and not to represent an element in a fantasy world.  And the problem with this is that without representing the element thereof, there is minimal (if any) drama.  It is much easier for me to get excited about defending a castle from a horde of 3.5E orc warrior1s (some with a few interesting feat selections to keep things lively) than from the 4E minions, because the 4E orcs don't seem to represent anything other than playing pieces which you need to hit to remove from the game board.

Also, in terms of realism, the minion/hero dichotomy leaves worlds to be desired.  In 3.5E, the average person in a Western country would be represented by a character with one d6 or d4 HD, a low or nonexistent Con bonus, and no armor.  An average sword swing from a person with average strength will instantly drop such a person slightly better than two-thirds of the times it connects.


----------



## Mallus

Andor said:
			
		

> 'suspension of disbelief' is shorthand.



I know.



> The full phrase is "Willing suspension of disbelief."



I believe the original was 'will*ful* suspension of disbelief'. It's Coleridge. 



> I assumed that was common knowledge on these forums.



It is. 



> As the full phrase implies I am already exerting my will to suspend my disbelief.



Not hard enough .



> There are limits to the strength of my will however.



Apparently. 



> If I am playing a science fiction RPG and the GM tries to tell me Starships commonly have screen doors and no air locks, it ain't gonna work.



Yet starships the size of minivans and FTL travel that doesn't automatically = time travel are par for the course. Genre fans are a funny lot. 



> If I am playing in a fantasy RPG and the GM tells me that an epic level Devil, a fallen angel who warred against a god _and won_, and who has since survived millenia in hell against endless intrigue and infighting just died because John-boy the 12 year old farm kid who's been tagging after the party just rolled a 20 to hit with the stale corn muffin he loaded into his sling, I again have a problem with it.



For the last time, you don't designate Lucifer as a 'minion'. As for one of Lucifer's own minions, well, what sadder fate for a second-string member of the Host of Heaven than to pitchforked to death by an angry farmer or his muffin-slinging son? That would be cool. The farmer could start a Church based on the righteousness-conferring power of corn meal... see, I spend my creative energy trying to make things interesting, not looking for and/or engineering deal-breakers.



> I will buy in to the game to the extent that I am able.



"From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". That's not Coleridge.



> I can't say for certain not having seen the books, but the minions rules seem to be skirting perilously close to that edge.



Well, we'll all see how this pans out in a few weeks...


----------



## Lacyon

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> Rex's 4e fixes, addendum:
> 
> STALE CORN MUFFINS AND CATS DO NO DAMAGE




Not even when used as improvised weapons?


----------



## Rex Blunder

OK, Andor. The D&D game you are playing, where the warlord has figured out his hit point value via darts and can announce it to the world, doesn't match my "pretend the stuff offstage follows logical laws" game.

But your position is internally consistent, I think we each understand the opposing points of view, so I have nothing else to say about it. But I'd sit in on your D&D game, and I bet it would be fun.


----------



## Mallus

robertliguori said:
			
		

> The minion rules assume that given creatures have totally avoided any form of potentially-disabling injury until they encounter the PCs...



You mean like house cat scratches? I hear they did in a lot of folks pre-3e...


----------



## Brown Jenkin

Mallus said:
			
		

> You mean like house cat scratches? I hear they did in a lot of folks pre-3e...




While cats shouldn't kill a person, from personal experience they sure can inflict damage.


----------



## Rex Blunder

I don't trust Brown Jenkin or pawsplay when it comes to the fighting prowess of cats. Cats always inflate their kill rate.


----------



## Primal

Kishin said:
			
		

> Stop thinking like a simulationist and this problem will go away.
> 
> Rules are not gameworld physics.




Yet some level of simulationism is needed, IMO, to achieve immersion in the story and the characters -- otherwise it's just a game of abstract stuff happening on a tactical board.


----------



## Lizard

Scribble said:
			
		

> Awesome... In this crazy situation that peasant managed to do that... WOOHOOO SUPER PEASANT!!! then the rest of the minions wipe the floor with the peasants... A crit is a crit. It's a lucky shot. I think the problem in that situation lies in removing the confirming roll. In either case... It doesn't make a difference to me, because:
> 
> 1. None of my PCs are peasants...
> 
> 2. The lucky peasant still won't live long... and if he does... he gets a cool adventure written around him... Or at least the vilagers think they actually have a local hero.
> 
> 3. If I come to my game table and peaseants and epic minions have been fighting while I was not gaming... I have larger issues to deal with... like maybe jack chic was right...




It's not that crazy. Send 20 peasants out to deal with the thing; odds are, it will die. Send 40 and it's virtually certain; send 100 and the odds of it living are incredibly low.

I can live with almost any rules, no matter how whacked; what I can't live with is the idea the people living in the world don't understand the rules the world they live in works by and act accordingly. I'm having interesting thoughts about how streets are laid out in 4e cities given how movement on diagonals works...the only problem is, how do the city planners know where the grid lines are? It's probably a ritual. ("Detect graph paper")

In any event, I think it boils down to, "Is minion a physical condition which a creature natively possesses, or is it a metagame state imposed by the DM at the point of PC contact?" The fact that the MM lists monsters as "Minions", rather than having a "minion template", tells me it's the former, and that implies a lot about the world.


----------



## Lizard

Brown Jenkin said:
			
		

> While cats shouldn't kill a person, from personal experience they sure can inflict damage.




Ditto.

When morning comes and the cat food dish is empty, they can be quite...insistent. I've determined I must be at least 3rd or 4th level based on my cat survival skills alone.


----------



## Primal

hong said:
			
		

> It is?




Yep. Fact.


----------



## Scribble

Lizard said:
			
		

> It's not that crazy. Send 20 peasants out to deal with the thing; odds are, it will die. Send 40 and it's virtually certain; send 100 and the odds of it living are incredibly low.




It's crazy in the fact that why is this happening in your game? 

Also, as said before, the minion isn't the BBEG... it's the grunt soldier. Sure your army of peasants takes down a minion... Awesome! Good for them! Now the other 3 (at least) minions tear the rest up... Oooooh they only lost half their guys before the other 3 were taken out? Great... Cheer on... until the Epic Skirmisher roles up and takes the other 50 out.



> I can live with almost any rules, no matter how whacked; what I can't live with is the idea the people living in the world don't understand the rules the world they live in works by and act accordingly. I'm having interesting thoughts about how streets are laid out in 4e cities given how movement on diagonals works...the only problem is, how do the city planners know where the grid lines are? It's probably a ritual. ("Detect graph paper")




The actual laws of or own universe aren't all that well understood. Certain physics don't seem to appy when you get to a quantum level and they can't seem to reconcile the two... According to Quantum Physics there is a chance albeit very small that if I ran into a wall, I would be able to run right through it. Does this mean I should run into walls instead of using the door?



> In any event, I think it boils down to, "Is minion a physical condition which a creature natively possesses, or is it a metagame state imposed by the DM at the point of PC contact?" The fact that the MM lists monsters as "Minions", rather than having a "minion template", tells me it's the former, and that implies a lot about the world.




So what's a wizard vrs a fighter? Same thing as a minion vrs a skirmisher. Sure it's metagame.. all the RULES are metagame. If they aren't you're playing some kind of campaign modeled after Order of The Stick. (Not that that wouldn't be awesome in a box.)

Why are some people fighters and others commoners? 


Would it be easier to except if the Minion had 10 hp and your fighter did an average of 10 hp per attack, and hit well over 50% of the time? 

You'd still be tracking dead or not dead... just with a lot more useless paperwork. (Kind of like my job.)


----------



## Deadstop

Lizard said:
			
		

> In any event, I think it boils down to, "Is minion a physical condition which a creature natively possesses, or is it a metagame state imposed by the DM at the point of PC contact?" The fact that the MM lists monsters as "Minions", rather than having a "minion template", tells me it's the former, and that implies a lot about the world.




There may well also be a "minion template," or at least a procedure for turning a non-minion statblock into a minion one, even if it's not classed as a template. We know of such a procedure for turning a non-elite monster elite, for example.

That aside, though ... okay, you could take the minion concept one of two ways. The one that seems most likely to you also implies insane things about the game world. Do those implications not, perhaps, indicate that your judgment of which take is most likely might be faulty? Or does it make more sense to you that the 4e devs are pushing the existence of "literal minion beings," as someone else put it?

Have you never played another game with "mook rules"? (I thought you mentioned _Feng Shui _ at one point.) Are Nazi goons statted as "extras" in _Adventure!_ literally more flimsy than their major-villain leaders within the world setting, or is that just a cinematic conceit to provide both "speedbump" and "scene-long duel" types of fights?


Deadstop


----------



## DM_Blake

Andor said:
			
		

> I care about whether or not it *consistently* models it's own reality well.
> 
> HP may be ... some stuff...some other stuff...some more other stuff...
> 
> But whatever they are, they *are*. Inside that game world they are an absolute and inconrovertible fact of life. Indeed it would be pretty easy for anyone to find out exactly how many HP they have by simply letting someone pelt them with blowgun darts until they pass out. Count the darts and you know your HP total.
> 
> When HP start to be contextual, it as though you were to say that a bridge might be made of concrete one day when it's being used by humans, but somehow became a bridge of papiermache the very next day when some centaurs tried to cross it.
> 
> ...
> 
> I do want a game where my character can reasonably expect things to work the same way twice running.




But then 4e won't be for you.

Because sometimes HP are lost to sword cuts, but healed by kind words. And sometimes HP are lost to abstractions like exhaustion or fatigue, but are  healed by healing magic.

Because one day you might fight a giant, and stab him with your sword 20 times before he dies, then the next day you might fight a very similar giant, same size, same race, no injuries, and slay him with but a single stroke of that same sword.

Because sometimes that epic devil might be a destroyer of entire cities, slayer of heroes, and an epic level fight for your entire party, and next time he's a 1 HP minion you can kill with a single magic missile.

So, in 4e, whatever HP are, you most definitely cannot "expect [HP] to work the same way twice running"


----------



## HeavenShallBurn

DM_Blake said:
			
		

> But then 4e won't be for you.



Which is kind of the point, the 4e design philosophy in moving toward the narrativist corner has abandoned the region of the chart D&D previously existed in through several editions.  In which case how can it still be D&D and what about all the people who preferred the territory it previously held?  

For us 4e is just _generic fantasy rpg_ with a title of "D&D" bestowed by WoTC that it no longer lives up to.  It's no more D&D than GURPS Fantasy is D&D because it's changed the nature of the game too much.


----------



## Fanaelialae

robertliguori said:
			
		

> Lots of literature features characters who go through an improbable number of combats if their ability to survive was merely skill-based, even with superlative or superhuman levels of skill.  However, when enough mundane force is applied in a short enough period of time, these characters can fall.  Hit points represents this adequately.




Fair enough.



> Minions represent a universe in which certain characters are utterly cursed by fate, and are utterly incapable of enduring the level of damage one would expect from creatures of their build, size, and specific anatomy.  If I attack a pig with a dagger, out of the blue, I do not expect to inflict an instantly-debilitating injury 100% of the time I connect.  Why should I assume any differently about an orc?  The minion rules assume that given creatures have totally avoided any form of potentially-disabling injury until they encounter the PCs, at which point any at all* direct damage will slay them.




Most living beings are fairly fragile.  Put a knife through someone's lung and, while they won't die instantly, they certainly won't be in any shape to continue fighting.  Just like a hit can be interpreted in game as a miss (the creature was lucky enough to duck at the last second and loses hp to represent that it's used up some of it's good karma), a miss in terms of an attack roll doesn't have to mean that the attack was a complete whiff; it just means that the attack did no appreciable harm (kind of like a papercut; while unpleasant, it's in no way life threatening).  For the orc who is designated as a minion when he comes across the PCs, it just happens to be the unluckiest day of his life (as well as the last day).



> Of course, there's also the fact that some minions don't take damage from missed attacks.  This means that not only does the universe hate these creatures, but it hates them selectively; it will keep them alive until someone takes a swing at them and connects.  An attack that blankets the area in deadly fire (and thus does not produce an attack roll) does not and cannot hurt a minion.




Actually, many of us are fairly certain that ALL minions don't take damage from missed attacks (that deal half damage).  It means that minions have a chance of surviving a half-damage attack (partly because having half damage attacks automatically kill minions would not be balanced).  You can still consider the orc who survived the fireball to be mildly burned, he just wasn't life threateningly burned.  Since AoEs require a seperate attack roll against each target, the odds are that some of the minions will live and some will die.  Minions ARE capable of avoiding damage, just not to the extent that normal monsters and PCs can.  Just like elite and solo creatures can avoid significantly more damage than normal monsters and PCs.

We actually don't know how an attack that does not produce an attack roll would effect a minion.  My guess is that it would be an auto-kill, as the only power of this type that we've seen so far (from the Storm Warden in the Paragon Path's preview) is limited in nature and fairly high in level(the power deals automatic damage to two adjacent creatures at the end of the Warden's turn provided he's capable of making AoOs).  But that's only a guess and we really don't know.



> Really, the problem stems from the fact that minions were created to represent dramatic set pieces, and not to represent an element in a fantasy world.  And the problem with this is that without representing the element thereof, there is minimal (if any) drama.  It is much easier for me to get excited about defending a castle from a horde of 3.5E orc warrior1s (some with a few interesting feat selections to keep things lively) than from the 4E minions, because the 4E orcs don't seem to represent anything other than playing pieces which you need to hit to remove from the game board.




All creatures in D&D (aside from the PCs) are dramatic set pieces.  Some die easier than others, that's all.  Are you still excited about protecting the castle from level 1 orcs when the PCs are level 9?  Level 1 orcs pose absolutely no challenge to level 9 PCs regardless of what feats you give them.  The beauty of the minion rule is that a level 9 minion poses a significant threat to the PCs and you can still use a horde of them.  In 3.x you either had a horde of creatures OR creatures that posed a significant threat to the PCs (there was some amount of overlap, but it wasn't easy to find).  In 4e you can have a horde of minions AND have them pose a significant threat to the PCs.  IMO, a significant threat is more exciting than an insignificant one.



> Also, in terms of realism, the minion/hero dichotomy leaves worlds to be desired.  In 3.5E, the average person in a Western country would be represented by a character with one d6 or d4 HD, a low or nonexistent Con bonus, and no armor.  An average sword swing from a person with average strength will instantly drop such a person slightly better than two-thirds of the times it connects.




If you feel that the Average Westerner minion should drop instantly from 2 out of 3 sword swings give them a 15 AC.  If you want an explanation as to where the exta AC came from, let's call it a luck bonus.

What many of us who like the minion rules enjoy about them is the minimum of bookkeeping required.  A minion is either dead or alive.  You don't need to record which minion has 1 hp remaining after an attack.  Just how many are still alive.  This is very convenient if you're running a large horde of creatures and aren't blessed with good multitasking skills (which, sadly, I am largely bereft of).  It's great if you can track the hp and position of 20 different creatures while keeping track of everything else in combat, but for those of us who can't, I hope you'll understand the advantage therein.


----------



## Andor

DM_Blake said:
			
		

> But then 4e won't be for you.
> 
> Because sometimes HP are lost to sword cuts, but healed by kind words. And sometimes HP are lost to abstractions like exhaustion or fatigue, but are  healed by healing magic.
> 
> Because one day you might fight a giant, and stab him with your sword 20 times before he dies, then the next day you might fight a very similar giant, same size, same race, no injuries, and slay him with but a single stroke of that same sword.
> 
> Because sometimes that epic devil might be a destroyer of entire cities, slayer of heroes, and an epic level fight for your entire party, and next time he's a 1 HP minion you can kill with a single magic missile.
> 
> So, in 4e, whatever HP are, you most definitely cannot "expect [HP] to work the same way twice running"




That's what worries me. I've been playing D&D since the red box set. I will be saddened if the game moved in a direction I cannot follow.


----------



## JohnSnow

Andor said:
			
		

> That's because you're mis-applying the test, at least as I see it. I usually get labeled as a simulationist in these things so let's assume I am. As a simulationist, I don't care in the least if the game models our reality well. I care about whether or not it *consistently* models it's own reality well.
> 
> HP may be toughness, "Meat points" as someone put it. It may show the supernatural strength of will that Wizard has aquired over the years which allow him to function when suffering a wound that would kill a lesser man. They may be a learnt ability to keep body and spirit together when they should have parted. They may be something else.




This is a game style problem. You've self-defined your problem by claiming, essentially, that "the rules of the game simulation represent the concrete reality of the game world."

*In that context,* you are correct that *the minion rules make no sense.* But it's ludicrous to make an assumption and then complain about the implications of that assumption.

The one "something else" that you aren't allowing for is the one thing that allows a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the rules. That interpretation hinges on this: Hit points are *primarily* a non-physical representation of whatever metaphysical forces prevent a human being from being easily killed. That seriously alters the available alternatives posed by your next example.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> But whatever they are, they *are*. Inside that game world they are an absolute and inconrovertible fact of life. *Indeed it would be pretty easy for anyone to find out exactly how many HP they have by simply letting someone pelt them with blowgun darts until they pass out.* Count the darts and you know your HP total.
> 
> When HP start to be contextual, it as though you were to say that a bridge might be made of concrete one day when it's being used by humans, but somehow became a bridge of papiermache the very next day when some centaurs tried to cross it.




That is, quite possibly, the most absurdist argument I've ever heard. You are again assuming that "hit points," an _entirely gamist construct_ are tied to some physically measurable property of the gameworld.

Again, this interpretation leaves out the notion of hit points as luck, skill at turning mortal blows into lesser ones, blessings of the gods, or any other non-measurable (that is, metaphysical) phenomenon. If hit points aren't entirely physical, your whole conception that they are measurable is meaningless.

Can you measure how "lucky" someone is in "the real world?"





			
				Andor said:
			
		

> Note that the problem a lot of non-simulationists have is when they try to insist, for whatever reason, that things which appear concretely in the rules are not actually there. That a sword in the game should be capable of doing the exact same thing it does in our world. Really? Should they also frequently break, as they do in our world? Bend? Roman accounts are full of gauls and celts haveing to stomp their blades back into shape in mid-battle. A person in our world can die from a single cut it is true. On the other hand the chinese had a torture technique called the "Death of a thousand cuts" where the victem isn't supposed to die till the last cut. Should we then assume that all people have 1000 hp?
> 
> I don't want or need a game that models our reality exactly. My house has doors for that very reason. I do want a game where my character can reasonably expect things to work the same way twice running.




You mis-characterize the non-simulationist argument. We argue that the rules are a useful abstraction for adjudicating between desirable alternatives in situations involving player characters. We argue that they are not relevant when the PCs are "off-stage" as it were. That's because D&D is a game, not a (piss-poor) fantasy world simulator.

I don't want or need a game that is entirely dependent on the game rules for its reality. To me, that leads to _Order of the Stick_ style absurdity. That's a game I could, perhaps, enjoy, but it would play more like a Bugs Bunny cartoon than a semi-serious fantasy adventure game.

If I wanted a full-on fantasy world simulator, I'd recognize four things:

1) It would have to have a boatload of rules for things D&D totally ignores.
2) The ruleset would be so large as to be totally unwieldy.
3) It would not be a fun ruleset under which to play out fantasy action adventure.
4) It would still be a piss-poor world simulator, because it couldn't remotely account for all situations in a believable manner.

We talk a lot about suspension of disbelief, particularly as it relates to the hit point and damage systems and things that pertain to those (like the Minion rules). In the end, the question is: which of the following do you find more SoD-breaking?

A) The physical laws of the game world are defined by the game rules even when that leads to implications utterly divorced from "real reality," or: 
B) The game rules (including hit points) are a useful abstraction for resolving in-game conflict, but don't govern reality in situations where the PCs aren't involved.

I personally find A to hurt my SoD more than B does. If, on the other hand, I accept the game rules as a useful narrative abstraction for resolving certain kinds of conflict in a game, I don't have to go through mental gymnastics about things like second wind, minions, and the like. So for me and my sensibilities, B is definitely preferrable (and less SoD breaking) than A.

Andor, I get the sense that you, and many others, are more bothered by B than A. If that's the case, I'm afraid it may just be that Fourth Edition is simply not the game for you. Because it seems to me that the designers have accepted B as a basic design tenet of the game. And I think they did that because, at the end of the day, D&D *is* a game, and no amount of consistency in the rules will prevent people from realizing that they are, in fact, playing a game.

In my opinion, YMMV, and all that.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

How about this, in the broad spectrum.

HP simply means this: The game construct that registers and suggests the ability for a creature to avoid the incapacitating blow, based on its own skill, luck, circumstance, etc.

Thus a Minion has one HP, because circumstance and whatever else has made it so that its ability to avoid the incapacitating blow is that much less likely to be avoided. A person with more HP has more world/individual promise in surviving that blow and simply goes up from there.

So in a normal monster when HP goes down this is thanks to things such as ordinary wounds, slipping on mud (most battlefields do get muddy after a time), growing tired, etc.

However with a Minion that whole process of wearing down the HP isn't there since their chance to avoid that incapacitating blow is so much less likely, thus they die in the first lethal blow.


----------



## Kishin

Primal said:
			
		

> Yet some level of simulationism is needed, IMO, to achieve immersion in the story and the characters -- otherwise it's just a game of abstract stuff happening on a tactical board.




I would say the utter ridiculousness of this discussion is well beyond  the 'some' level of simulationism you are describing. If you are seriously taking the minion rules to be actual game world physics, instead of modelling a literary and cinematic action sequence trope, well, I really don't know what to say. This 'some' level of simulationism doesn't mean 'the rules and regulations of the game systems are empirical laws of the universe that everyone in the campaign setting is aware of as functional aspects of their reality.'

I really, honestly fail to see how the minion rules so mortally wound everyone's suspension of disbelief in any situation in which they aren't overanalyzing (as Hong would say, 'Thinking too hard about fantasy'). The examples of minions dying from a punch in the nose and using blowguns to divine someone's exact HP. are pretty much testament to the absurdity being exercised here.



			
				JohnSnow said:
			
		

> You mis-characterize the non-simulationist argument. We argue that the rules are a useful abstraction for adjudicating between desirable alternatives in situations involving player characters. We argue that they are not relevant when the PCs are "off-stage" as it were. That's because D&D is a game, not a (piss-poor) fantasy world simulator.






			
				JohnSnow said:
			
		

> B) The game rules (including hit points) are a useful abstraction for resolving in-game conflict, but don't govern reality in situations where the PCs aren't involved.




JohnSnow, you deserve some sort of forum medal. You  really have a knack for eloquently, succintly and clearly expressing your point in an argument.


----------



## Andor

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> Andor, I get the sense that you, and many others, are more bothered by B than A. If that's the case, I'm afraid it may just be that Fourth Edition is simply not the game for you. Because it seems to me that the designers have accepted B as a basic design tenet of the game. And I think they did that because, at the end of the day, D&D *is* a game, and no amount of consistency in the rules will prevent people from realizing that they are, in fact, playing a game.




I too am afraid that may be the case. I hope not, but I can't know untill I see the books. Again, I don't demand the rules emulate our reality, just that they stay true to their own and there is no pretense that this isn't really how things work. For a literary example consider Terry Pratchett's Diskworld novels. This is a world of narrative causality, and the people who live in that world know it. This occasionally results in them trying to game the system, sometimes it works, usually it's just funny. Or for a counter example the main character from Dianne Wynn Jones's "Howl's moving Castle" who is convinced that she is doomed to a dull humdrum life because she's a middle daughter and everybody knows it's the youngest child that has all the adventures. 

I'm not saying that while playing 3.x D&D I forget I'm playing a game, but I don't feel like my character is being beaten about the face and shoulders with the unreality of his own world. :/


----------



## Scribble

Andor said:
			
		

> I too am afraid that may be the case. I hope not, but I can't know untill I see the books. Again, I don't demand the rules emulate our reality, just that they stay true to their own and there is no pretense that this isn't really how things work. For a literary example consider Terry Pratchett's Diskworld novels. This is a world of narrative causality, and the people who live in that world know it. This occasionally results in them trying to game the system, sometimes it works, usually it's just funny. Or for a counter example the main character from Dianne Wynn Jones's "Howl's moving Castle" who is convinced that she is doomed to a dull humdrum life because she's a middle daughter and everybody knows it's the youngest child that has all the adventures.
> 
> I'm not saying that while playing 3.x D&D I forget I'm playing a game, but I don't feel like my character is being beaten about the face and shoulders with the unreality of his own world. :/




I guess this is just a very alien way of viewing the game for me... I feel like doing this is viewing D&D as a sort of weird ant farm, or tomagotchi... 

It doesn't matetr to me what an Orcs stats are when I'm not fighting it. It's just an orc. A member of a tribe. The tribe has a bunch of orcs, they raided a bunch of farms. The leader is an orc named Tim. He likes pie.

It only comes into play when my PCs fight the orc tribe. 

It doesn't matter what the outcome of farmer vrs minion would be.. why? Should I have played several mini games by myself before my players get there to determine is Tim's Tribe of Orcs could have indeed beaten the villagers they did in order to validate my adventure?

I guess I just feel like the minion rules vrs internal consistancy thing is only a problem if you're looking for a problem.


----------



## Kitirat

Kishin said:
			
		

> I would say the utter ridiculousness of this discussion is well beyond  the 'some' level of simulationism you are describing. If you are seriously taking the minion rules to be actual game world physics, instead of modelling a literary and cinematic action sequence trope, well, I really don't know what to say. This 'some' level of simulationism doesn't mean 'the rules and regulations of the game systems are empirical laws of the universe that everyone in the campaign setting is aware of as functional aspects of their reality.'
> 
> I really, honestly fail to see how the minion rules so mortally wound everyone's suspension of disbelief in any situation in which they aren't overanalyzing (as Hong would say, 'Thinking too hard about fantasy'). The examples of minions dying from a punch in the nose and using blowguns to divine someone's exact HP. are pretty much testament to the absurdity being exercised here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> JohnSnow, you deserve some sort of forum medal. You  really have a knack for eloquently, succintly and clearly expressing your point in an argument.




Agreed, good work man.

Ok so without reading the 1000 posts on how a minion dies to a punch, here is what I've been doing and it works pretty well.

In NPC situations and where minions are 4 or more levels higher than the PC's, I grant them their consitution score + 1/2 level modifer in hit points.  It is on every monster sheet and works out fine.  When they are in combat with the PC's they are fodder and easily struck down by our heroes.  Yes I am a simulationist at heart.  But why two different systems?

The minion does not know he is a minion in the sense of his health when compared to the heroes.  However in combat, his morale and capablity to match the power of the heroes is such that they are "beyond his capabilities"  he can choose to engage them, but the cost is likely his life.  As a real life example, I can likely get in a fist fight and last a hell of a long time, but against a trained soldier, he could likely snap my neck in short time.  In normal for myself situations I am ok, but when I'm way over my head, is there much point in tracking my potential?  

People will always complain what they do not like, and attempting to change their minds, especially gamers, is unlikely.  But for those looking for a practical solution, try it out, I have a feeling you will be comfortable with the outcome.

See ya,
Ken


----------



## Wormwood

Kishin said:
			
		

> JohnSnow, you deserve some sort of forum medal. You  really have a knack for eloquently, succintly and clearly expressing your point in an argument.



Hand me a petition and I'd sign it.


----------



## The Little Raven

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> <Sheer Genius>




"Check out the big brain on Brett!"


----------



## BryonD

JohnSnow said:
			
		

> You mis-characterize the non-simulationist argument.



Now there is some yummy irony.


----------



## Lizard

Scribble said:
			
		

> It's crazy in the fact that why is this happening in your game?




I'm running a "Seven Samurai" scenario and the peasants are out fighting to protect their village from the demon hordes, while the heroes take on their leader?

There's a demon horde ravaging the countryside, and I want a good sense of how many villages they can tear through before being weakened?

I'm writing the history of my world, and I want to know if it's sensible to have an army of average soldiers hold off a demon horde for...a day? A week? A month?



> Also, as said before, the minion isn't the BBEG... it's the grunt soldier. Sure your army of peasants takes down a minion... Awesome! Good for them! Now the other 3 (at least) minions tear the rest up... Oooooh they only lost half their guys before the other 3 were taken out? Great... Cheer on... until the Epic Skirmisher roles up and takes the other 50 out.




That's fine. I want to be able to figure out the numbers if it matters.




> So what's a wizard vrs a fighter? Same thing as a minion vrs a skirmisher. Sure it's metagame.. all the RULES are metagame. If they aren't you're playing some kind of campaign modeled after Order of The Stick. (Not that that wouldn't be awesome in a box.)
> 
> Why are some people fighters and others commoners?




Why am I a tubby computer programmer and someone else is an Olympic boxer?



> Would it be easier to except if the Minion had 10 hp and your fighter did an average of 10 hp per attack, and hit well over 50% of the time?
> 
> You'd still be tracking dead or not dead... just with a lot more useless paperwork. (Kind of like my job.)




Yes, it would be, because then I wouldn't have to deal with things like minions can't be bloodied, don't benefit from healing surges, and can be killed by peasants with stale muffins 5% of the time.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> That's what worries me. I've been playing D&D since the red box set. I will be saddened if the game moved in a direction I cannot follow.




Oh well.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> I'm running a "Seven Samurai" scenario and the peasants are out fighting to protect their village from the demon hordes, while the heroes take on their leader?




They fight until the heroes take out the leader, and the survivors congratulate them. Or if the heroes run away, the peasants all die.



> There's a demon horde ravaging the countryside, and I want a good sense of how many villages they can tear through before being weakened?




Make it up.



> I'm writing the history of my world, and I want to know if it's sensible to have an army of average soldiers hold off a demon horde for...a day? A week? A month?




Make it up.



> That's fine. I want to be able to figure out the numbers if it matters.




You can make it up. It's not hard. People have been writing fanfic for years, without the aid of tables and charts and arrows on the back of each one to be used as evidence against us.



> Yes, it would be, because then I wouldn't have to deal with things like minions can't be bloodied, don't benefit from healing surges, and can be killed by peasants with stale muffins 5% of the time.




See, if you just made it up, you wouldn't have to deal with things like this.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> Ditto.
> 
> When morning comes and the cat food dish is empty, they can be quite...insistent. I've determined I must be at least 3rd or 4th level based on my cat survival skills alone.




Your level needs calibration.


----------



## hong

Primal said:
			
		

> Yep. Fact.



 Nope. Fact.


----------



## BryonD

hong said:
			
		

> You can make it up. It's not hard. People have been writing fanfic for years, without the aid of tables and charts and arrows on the back of each one to be used as evidence against us.



And yet some people are willing to pay WotC for the privilege to keep doing it.


----------



## hong

BryonD said:
			
		

> And yet some people are willing to pay WotC for the privilege to keep doing it.



 Clearly not as many as are willing to pay WotC to take it out.


----------



## Kishin

Lizard said:
			
		

> I'm writing the history of my world, and I want to know if it's sensible to have an army of average soldiers hold off a demon horde for...a day? A week? A month?




J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, was once asked how fast White Stars (a highly advance ship type in the B5 universe) moved. He responded with 'at the speed of plot'. If the story was served by them getting there in time, they did. If not/if it required them to not be there, they weren't.

Thus, in the end, what makes a better story wins out.

I know I just totally spouted anathema to you, but maybe you should give it a second thought.


----------



## Lizard

hong said:
			
		

> Make it up.




Then what will WOTC sell me?


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> Then what will WOTC sell me?



 I don't know. Do you want to buy what WotC is selling?


----------



## Lizard

Kishin said:
			
		

> J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, was once asked how fast White Stars (a highly advance ship type in the B5 universe) moved. He responded with 'at the speed of plot'. If the story was served by them getting there in time, they did. If not/if it required them to not be there, they weren't.




Yes, and if you think that didn't make writing the Galaxy Guide a total PITA, you're wrong. 



> I know I just totally spouted anathema to you, but maybe you should give it a second thought.




I do that when I have to. But I often find it more interesting to derive plots from the universe, then to impose my plots ON the universe. That's why I have trouble with 4e. In 3e, I could get plots from stat blocks; in 4e, I decide on my plot and then build stat blocks for it.

It's an interative process, of course. One the story is in motion, narrative law predominates. But the setup and worldbuilding is my favorite part of DMing.


----------



## Kishin

Lizard said:
			
		

> Yes, and if you think that didn't make writing the Galaxy Guide a total PITA, you're wrong.




I doubt he had the Galaxy Guide in mind at the time. 

It also amuses me that I brought up that example, only to bounce over to the other thread and see you mention Straczynski there. 



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> I do that when I have to. But I often find it more interesting to derive plots from the universe, then to impose my plots ON the universe.




I don't find the two to be mutually exclusive (I'm not sure if you're saying you do, though). I guess I don't see 4E preventing me from deriving plots from worldbuilding, which I also enjoy.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Andor said:
			
		

> I too am afraid that may be the case. I hope not, but I can't know untill I see the books. Again, I don't demand the rules emulate our reality, just that they stay true to their own and there is no pretense that this isn't really how things work.



It isn't that things don't "really" work that way.  They do work that way.  For the PCs during the course of their adventure.

It's a lot like saying that nearly every fantasy novel ever written took place in a world with an extremely low mortality rate since the residents of those worlds manage to survive amazingly dangerous things constantly(Or at least the heroes do, and since the books normally concentrate on the heroes, that's all we see of the world).

Of course, that isn't the case at all.  The heroes of these books/movies/tv shows all live in worlds where the vast majority of things work exactly the same way they do in real life.  However, the heroes are extremely lucky.  When something would have a 95% chance of killing any normal person, it might have a 5% chance of killing the heroes.  Technically, it had a 0% chance of killing the heroes, since it is a story and there's a writer who decided on his own what was going to happen based on story considerations and not on what was "realistic" or "consistent".

And that's the point.  The D&D rules don't attempt to model "reality" anymore.  They don't model what happens to 99% of the world.  They just model what happens to a group of players around a table playing a game of D&D.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> For a literary example consider Terry Pratchett's Diskworld novels. This is a world of narrative causality, and the people who live in that world know it. This occasionally results in them trying to game the system, sometimes it works, usually it's just funny.



And that's rather the point.  These books are supposed to be funny by how absurd it is that the people are essentially living in a game of D&D and know the rules when they shouldn't.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> I'm not saying that while playing 3.x D&D I forget I'm playing a game, but I don't feel like my character is being beaten about the face and shoulders with the unreality of his own world. :/



I don't think he IS beaten about the face with that.  From your character's point of view he goes on an adventure, defeats some monsters, some of which he takes down quickly as he catches them off guard or they are just poor fighters.  Some of them managed to dodge out of the way or deflect his blows and it takes him a while to break through and strike that final blow.

He knows that despite these things being easy for him to defeat, any normal villager out there would likely die a horrible death in combat with them.  Which is why he needs to be around to protect them.  A great hero.

Sure....out of character you know that the creature is a minion and it only has 1 hitpoint and whether or not a villager would win against it is entirely up to the DM's opinion of how tough the standard orc is and how tough the standard villager is.  But you have faith that the DM will make a reasonable decision as you could probably see there being a chance(depending on circumstances) that either of them could win.  The villager might be able to sneak up behind the orc with a knife or might attack the orc after he tripped over a cat crossing the street and win.  That villager might have been trained in combat.  There's so many factors involved that it would take a super computer weeks to calculate all of the things that might allow one side to win over the other one.

No one would be able to predict the results of that accurately.  Certainly no set of rules that a human could understand and process in a couple of minutes.  So, pretty much any answer the DM comes up with is going to be an abstraction.  Might as make it one that is interesting to the storyline rather than a random one.


----------



## Lizard

Kishin said:
			
		

> I doubt he had the Galaxy Guide in mind at the time.
> 
> It also amuses me that I brought up that example, only to bounce over to the other thread and see you mention Straczynski there.




As a writer of brilliant tales, deeply moving, with complex character arcs and the ability to fairly easily respond to radical changes in cast and timing imposed on him by external factors....he is a master.

As a builder of wholly consistent worlds....erm...well, let's put it this way, I found THREE dates for the first lunar colony in canon sources. 



> I don't find the two to be mutually exclusive (I'm not sure if you're saying you do, though). I guess I don't see 4E preventing me from deriving plots from worldbuilding, which I also enjoy.




I am of the type who, when desperate, will flip open a monster manual until I find a critter which implies a plot to me, then build a plot around it -- at least enough to get by. (I rarely do more than 30 minutes prep for my 3e games; indeed, I'll sometimes brag to players that "Hey, I actually did prep work this time!") From what I've seen of 4e, it works the other way -- you get an idea then find monsters to fill it. Everything has a niche, a role, a purpose, and can't easily go beyond it. Encounters are more complex, involving larger numbers of monsters. Terrain and tactical options are more important. Everyone says it's easier to ad-hoc things in 4e, but I don't see how; stuff I used to fudge because it didn't matter now becomes vital due to expanded player movement abilities and the wide range of tactical positioning options.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> I am of the type who, when desperate, will flip open a monster manual until I find a critter which implies a plot to me, then build a plot around it -- at least enough to get by. (I rarely do more than 30 minutes prep for my 3e games; indeed, I'll sometimes brag to players that "Hey, I actually did prep work this time!") From what I've seen of 4e, it works the other way -- you get an idea then find monsters to fill it. Everything has a niche, a role, a purpose, and can't easily go beyond it. Encounters are more complex, involving larger numbers of monsters. Terrain and tactical options are more important. Everyone says it's easier to ad-hoc things in 4e, but I don't see how; stuff I used to fudge because it didn't matter now becomes vital due to expanded player movement abilities and the wide range of tactical positioning options.




Life wasn't meant to be easy.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

Lizard said:
			
		

> Everyone says it's easier to ad-hoc things in 4e, but I don't see how; stuff I used to fudge because it didn't matter now becomes vital due to expanded player movement abilities and the wide range of tactical positioning options.



It is easier in that, since you have complete monsters in various forms, you can quickly go. Okay, I need a orc who can take a lot of damage, *finds a Orc Brute puts in game*.

3e was like this: You had to build a monster to fit a slot in the game, sometimes if your good this slot can work only half complete.

4e gives you that monster that completely fills the slot and with possible extension points, that other slots can be added onto.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Lizard said:
			
		

> As a writer of brilliant tales, deeply moving, with complex character arcs and the ability to fairly easily respond to radical changes in cast and timing imposed on him by external factors....he is a master.



Agreed.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> I am of the type who, when desperate, will flip open a monster manual until I find a critter which implies a plot to me, then build a plot around it -- at least enough to get by. (I rarely do more than 30 minutes prep for my 3e games; indeed, I'll sometimes brag to players that "Hey, I actually did prep work this time!") From what I've seen of 4e, it works the other way -- you get an idea then find monsters to fill it. Everything has a niche, a role, a purpose, and can't easily go beyond it. Encounters are more complex, involving larger numbers of monsters. Terrain and tactical options are more important. Everyone says it's easier to ad-hoc things in 4e, but I don't see how; stuff I used to fudge because it didn't matter now becomes vital due to expanded player movement abilities and the wide range of tactical positioning options.



Well, 4e can be done either way.  It's possible to just get an idea by looking at the books.  It's also possible to get an idea and use the books to build it.

As has been said in the past, it's possible to open the MM look for a bunch of monsters around the PCs level with a variety of roles and have an interesting encounter.  Terrain isn't all that hard.  Throw in some trees or rocks or lava or whatever in some random spaces on the battlemat and you have interesting terrain.

However, IF you have the time or inclination to plan in advance, you can use the templates, rules for increasing or decreasing the level of monsters, traps, creatures of various levels(or even creatures you make up yourself), and carefully crafted terrain to give the enemies an interesting advantage in order to build the exact encounter you want that fits in perfectly with your planned adventure.

Both methods work fine.


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> Life wasn't meant to be easy.




Wow. No "here's how to do it" or "this is why it's good." Just a snark that amounts to "You're right but I don't care."

Have you just gotten that tired of trying to pimp for 4e?


----------



## Korgoth

I think one thing that may be getting left behind in this discussion is this: players of the game are often called upon to make a choice in order to solve a problem (that's kind of what games are).  What resources do players have to call upon in order to try to make a good choice?  They have 2 things:

1) Stuff they know about the real world.  If you deny this, you don't know what you're talking about.  Any role playing game is replete with such expectations.  When they need to get into a room, most players will trying using that thing called a "door" at some point.  Why?  Because that's a bit of real world knowledge they're expected to apply.  Likewise, they don't have their characters jump into lava or try to ask directions from stray dogs.  Because they know from the real world that, all other things being equal, those things don't do you any good.

2) Those things which are explicit or implied within the rules.  If hitting a werewolf with a non-magical mace doesn't hurt it, a frying pan probably won't work either.  You know how one things works in the rules, and from that you infer whether something else will or won't work.

So demands for consistency aren't merely aesthetic demands, which is how some folks seem to be treating them.  A demand for consistency is a demand for a playable game.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Wow. No "here's how to do it" or "this is why it's good." Just a snark that amounts to "You're right but I don't care."




Indeed, I am assuming that Lizard is right when he says "this is how I like to do it".



> Have you just gotten that tired of trying to pimp for 4e?




Psst. I am WotC's bitch, not WotC's pimp.


----------



## hong

Korgoth said:
			
		

> I think one thing that may be getting left behind in this discussion is this: players of the game are often called upon to make a choice in order to solve a problem (that's kind of what games are).  What resources do players have to call upon in order to try to make a good choice?  They have 2 things:
> 
> 1) Stuff they know about the real world.  If you deny this, you don't know what you're talking about.  Any role playing game is replete with such expectations.  When they need to get into a room, most players will trying using that thing called a "door" at some point.  Why?  Because that's a bit of real world knowledge they're expected to apply.  Likewise, they don't have their characters jump into lava or try to ask directions from stray dogs.  Because they know from the real world that, all other things being equal, those things don't do you any good.
> 
> 2) Those things which are explicit or implied within the rules.  If hitting a werewolf with a non-magical mace doesn't hurt it, a frying pan probably won't work either.  You know how one things works in the rules, and from that you infer whether something else will or won't work.




You forget:

3) Stuff they know from movies. (Or cartoons, or comics, or whichever medium you prefer.) In general, this tends to trump (1) when they come into conflict.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Korgoth said:
			
		

> 1) Stuff they know about the real world.  If you deny this, you don't know what you're talking about.  Any role playing game is replete with such expectations.  When they need to get into a room, most players will trying using that thing called a "door" at some point.  Why?  Because that's a bit of real world knowledge they're expected to apply.  Likewise, they don't have their characters jump into lava or try to ask directions from stray dogs.  Because they know from the real world that, all other things being equal, those things don't do you any good.



True.  However, there will always be exceptions that work differently in the game world than the real world.  A lot of things CAN be assumed as working the same way as in real life.  I'm certainly not going to assume that there is a company called Pepsi in the game world simply because it is in real life.  Generally people only use this for basic things rather than complicated things.  The economy is unlikely to work the same way as it does it real life either.

Still, I agree this needs to happen for a game to work.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> 2) Those things which are explicit or implied within the rules.  If hitting a werewolf with a non-magical mace doesn't hurt it, a frying pan probably won't work either.  You know how one things works in the rules, and from that you infer whether something else will or won't work.



True.  I think this is where the disconnect comes in.  I expect that if I am using a set of rules that says "Here's what the chance of a player hitting a monster is."  I don't assume that it is the same chance all creatures everywhere have of hitting all other creatures in all circumstance.  It is simply one rule that applies in one circumstance.

When a rule doesn't cover something, I default back to rule number 1 or use rule number 3 that you missed:

3) Those things which are explicit or implied by the campaign setting.  If you know the average city has only 300 people in it, then villages would have to be smaller than that.  If there is an oracle who can tell the future I'm going to assume that such a power exists in some people even if it isn't in the rules.



			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> So demands for consistency aren't merely aesthetic demands, which is how some folks seem to be treating them.  A demand for consistency is a demand for a playable game.



I think consistency is good in some ways.  Doors should continue to be opened by turning the door handle through the whole  game.  Walking through walls shouldn't suddenly become possible without a reason.

I think applying consistency to a rule that shouldn't be consistent is a bad idea.  If a particular rule works perfectly well when you apply it in a group of players who are fighting some monsters then good.  If that same rule causes oddities when you use it for NPCs against NPCs then you use a different rule in that case.  Especially when in 99% of all cases, the players aren't going to care if you followed the rules exactly when it doesn't involve them.

I think players are looking for as much consistency as they see in real life.  Which means they get a LOT in some areas(the laws of physics), and not so much in other areas(the "better" fighter losing in a boxing match, the worst candidate getting the job, one person being able to understand something easily while another has problems, and so on).  They expect a certain level of "things don't work exactly the same for everyone."


----------



## Korgoth

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> I think applying consistency to a rule that shouldn't be consistent is a bad idea.  If a particular rule works perfectly well when you apply it in a group of players who are fighting some monsters then good.  If that same rule causes oddities when you use it for NPCs against NPCs then you use a different rule in that case.  Especially when in 99% of all cases, the players aren't going to care if you followed the rules exactly when it doesn't involve them.
> 
> I think players are looking for as much consistency as they see in real life.  Which means they get a LOT in some areas(the laws of physics), and not so much in other areas(the "better" fighter losing in a boxing match, the worst candidate getting the job, one person being able to understand something easily while another has problems, and so on).  They expect a certain level of "things don't work exactly the same for everyone."




I agree with your post pretty much without qualification, up to this point.  At this point, my agreement becomes qualified.

I can accept that within a fantasy world, certain people are picked out as people of destiny and so have greater potential (for triumph and tragedy) than an average person... in fact, that seems to have been the view of some cultures upon which traditional fantasy cultural tropes are based.  No problem.  I can even buy, after having certain insights brought to my attention, that certain denizens of the world are "minions"... peons in the aristocracy of Fate.

But what I need at least, I suppose, is a "metaconsistency"... that if someone has 1 hit point (whatever the physical, metaphysical or cosmic meaning of that status) then they always have that, at least until their fortunes improve somehow.  Sure, I know very well the importance of DM fiat.  And I know that what we're discussing here is fantasy.  But there has to be some substrate of consistency in which those fiats and fantasies inhere... that substrate is the internal logic of the game world which is represented by the rules.

That has always been the case with D&D.  As far as I can tell, that has been what gaming was since '81 when I started, and it was before then as well.  I very much hope that 4E still supports that approach to gaming, because it's bascially the _sine qua non_ of me actually caring enough about the game to play it.  And I don't think that's too much to ask.

I play in a semi-regular D20 Babylon 5 game.  Now, that's a game based on a show where starships move at the speed of plot and the whole thing was very cinematic, preachy, used story structure and had transparently manufactured sets (great show, though).  But the Ref does an excellent job not only of not railroading the group (which is really tough when they have easy access to FTL travel and what the Ref might be called upon to improv is virtually limitless) but of making the world feel "real".  There is a basic sense of consistency (or at least metaconsistency) such that you feel like you're interacting with something that is not merely a cardboard prop, but a thing with space and depth.  If that 'sense of reality', manufactured as it is, were not present, there'd be no reason to continue playing the game.

So, to bring it back around to minions: I can accept that, at least in a fantasy world, some guys are metaphysical losers.  But I can't accept that they oscillate from "loser" to "winner" based upon their physical proximity to the PCs.  A guy is either a minion, or he isn't... and if he stops being a minion, that would have to be subsequent to doing or experiencing something of comparable importance to the status he is gaining.


----------



## Hussar

> So, to bring it back around to minions: I can accept that, at least in a fantasy world, some guys are metaphysical losers. But I can't accept that they oscillate from "loser" to "winner" based upon their physical proximity to the PCs. A guy is either a minion, or he isn't... and if he stops being a minion, that would have to be subsequent to doing or experiencing something of comparable importance to the status he is gaining.




Look at it this way.  The rules are a spotlight focused on the PC's.  The entire function of the rules is to determine the results of actions that the PC's take.  

End of story.

As soon as you take PC's out of the equation, the spotlight is turned off, and you are free to use any rules you like.  This has always been true.  It's a pretty rare DM that would tear up his adventure because his BBEG actually died in an earlier adventure while he tried to level the BBEG up to the appropriate challenge for the PC's.  

Instead, the DM simply writes BBEG Wiz 15 and moves on.  He completely and utterly ignores all the rules that govern the PC's.  The minion rules simply expand upon this.  When there are no PC's around, Mr. Minion goes about his life as normal.  But, when he faces a PC, he gets whacked in one hit.


----------



## Kishin

Lizard said:
			
		

> As a writer of brilliant tales, deeply moving, with complex character arcs and the ability to fairly easily respond to radical changes in cast and timing imposed on him by external factors....he is a master.
> 
> As a builder of wholly consistent worlds....erm...well, let's put it this way, I found THREE dates for the first lunar colony in canon sources.




I would take the former any day. A good story trumps (more than that, good -characters-) trump just about everything in my book. But that's more straying in to the realm of fiction writing, I imagine.




			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> I am of the type who, when desperate, will flip open a monster manual until I find a critter which implies a plot to me, then build a plot around it -- at least enough to get by. (I rarely do more than 30 minutes prep for my 3e games; indeed, I'll sometimes brag to players that "Hey, I actually did prep work this time!") From what I've seen of 4e, it works the other way -- you get an idea then find monsters to fill it. Everything has a niche, a role, a purpose, and can't easily go beyond it. Encounters are more complex, involving larger numbers of monsters. Terrain and tactical options are more important. Everyone says it's easier to ad-hoc things in 4e, but I don't see how; stuff I used to fudge because it didn't matter now becomes vital due to expanded player movement abilities and the wide range of tactical positioning options.




I must say I'm surprised. Given your admitted love for worldbuilding and being absolutely certain of internal consistency, your self described DMing style runs almost entirely contrary to that. Ah well, never let it be said that human beings weren't complex.   

The thing is, you can still fudge it. You don't have to incorporate the length and breadth of those considerations into every session/adventure, IMO. I don't see anything about 4E that makes you beholden to that. Not every fight needs to have crazy secondary terrain effects; But it does make things more interesting now and again, and clearly the intent was to provide for the greater possibilities inherent in expansion of terrain effects/tactical options/riding a dinosaur into a heavily fortified position (well, maybe not the last one), but that doesn't mean you need to wholly abandon your way of doing things.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> Have you just gotten that tired of trying to pimp for 4e?




I think Hong wisely realizes when he's trying to sell a blowtorch to a guy looking for a wrench, that's all.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

Korgoth said:
			
		

> So, to bring it back around to minions: I can accept that, at least in a fantasy world, some guys are metaphysical losers.  But I can't accept that they oscillate from "loser" to "winner" based upon their physical proximity to the PCs.  A guy is either a minion, or he isn't... and if he stops being a minion, that would have to be subsequent to doing or experiencing something of comparable importance to the status he is gaining.



Why would something "metaphysical" need to change, there isn't a big metaphysical change that happens, when by random a person trips on the stairs and falls and only gets a bump on the head and the second time when they snap their neck? The first fall the person is normal, the second they are a minion.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Korgoth said:
			
		

> So, to bring it back around to minions: I can accept that, at least in a fantasy world, some guys are metaphysical losers.  But I can't accept that they oscillate from "loser" to "winner" based upon their physical proximity to the PCs.  A guy is either a minion, or he isn't... and if he stops being a minion, that would have to be subsequent to doing or experiencing something of comparable importance to the status he is gaining.



As a narrative technique, the idea is that they are metaphysical losers when it comes to the current storyline only.  Which means they are metaphysical losers only when dealing with the Heroes(the PCs).

You can have your average Orc who makes a name for himself by surviving alone in the haunted forest as a rite of passage and comes back with the head of a dire wolf on a spear only to marry the best looking female Orc in their tribe, then saves the Chief's life one day and gets assigned as a member of his personal guard at his tent.  Seems like he's rather karma-rific due to all the good things that have happened to him.  It's not that he's unlucky.

However, the PCs come along, they are trying to kill the Chief due to the tribes raids on local villages.  The Chief's Warleader, the Shaman of the Tribe, the Spymaster, The Chief himself, and that Orc and his 3 fellow members of the Chief's personal guard gather to stop the invaders.....when the Orc realizes...it's his time to die.   

That's more of the point.  These creatures are destined to die in this place at this moment, so they suddenly become Metaphysical Losers.  Because from the point of view of the PCs(which is the point of view of the entire story), that Orc is simply Guard Number 3.


----------



## FireLance

Fallen Seraph said:
			
		

> Why would something "metaphysical" need to change, there isn't a big metaphysical change that happens, when by random a person trips on the stairs and falls and only gets a bump on the head and the second time when they snap their neck? The first fall the person is normal, the second they are a minion.



I think the key assumption here is that hit points are somehow a property of the person, and that they shouldn't have to change based on circumstances. Instead, what changes is the lethality of the circumstances. A character may trip and fall one day and only take one point of damage because the DM rolled low on 1d6. The second time, he may have critically fumbled a Dexterity check, or some other circumstance occured which increased the damage from the fall to 3d6, and the DM rolled three sixes. In both cases, the results are fully consistent with the fact that he had 4 hp, and will continue to have 4 hp unless there is some change to the person (say, gaining a level, or losing Constitution).

Interestingly enough, I recall an anecdote from a TSR staffer that in the early days of D&D (when a character's Hit Dice were expressed as XdY in the rules), he used to roll hit points for the PCs every _session_. So, a character with 5d8 Hit Dice could have 20 hit points one session and 40 hit points the next.  If that approach had become the standard, it would be much easier to describe minions and paragon-level fighters dying due to falling off horses.


----------



## AZRogue

Korgoth said:
			
		

> But I can't accept that they oscillate from "loser" to "winner" based upon their physical proximity to the PCs.




The thing is, how could a player ever verify that the minion "oscillated"? Once the player begins interacting with the minion the minion will be operating under the minion rules. Only the DM could "see" the minion away from the PCs and, since the DM doesn't play by himself, this has no game effect. 

And, should the minion become a helper to the PCs, I would count that as a change in his fortune and give him hitpoints equal to the most common type of his race (for an orc, Brute) for his level. Making powerful friends like the PCs is a definite change in fortune.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

FireLance said:
			
		

> *Snip*



Guess I am just trying to show a different way to look at it. Where HP simply measures how far you are from that incapacitation/death. Thus why wounds, fear, bad luck, circumstances, fatigue, etc. brings down HP since it means that person is closer to incapacitation.

Also explains why things like Warlord Healing works since it motivates and collects the person, so they can fight/concentrate better thus bringing them farther away from death. Same idea goes with Healing Surges too, is your bringing yourself farther away from the brink (with the less Healing Surges you have representing it being harder to do so).

Thus when a person has entered a instance where it has been deemed that how far they are from incapacitation is extremely minor, ie: 1 HP they are a Minion in that moment. But they have no more actual health then another person with 200 HP.


----------



## N0Man

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Yes.  They all just die.
> 
> Also, if the PCs meet a level 29 minion and kill it by shooting it with an area of effect attack that does half damage on a miss, they all get a free level.  This is why wizards are so much more powerful than everyone else, even in 4e.  They kill legion devil minions for sport until they get to level 20 or so.  It takes about an hour, or slightly longer if you invite one of your lower level friends to hide behind a pillar nearby and absorb experience points.




1) This is a game run by a human being, not a video game that you can easily exploit.  If the DM is allowing players to "power level" off high level minions, then the whole game is a ridiculous sham anyway.  The DM might as well just hand them levels, if that's what he wants as the result.  There is no reason for him to make the players go through ridiculous motions.

2) Minions only die from an actual hit.  Misses do not damage Minions, even if you Miss them a million times with an ability that does damage on a Miss.

3) A level 29 Minion is estimated to be 3,750 xp.  In a party of 4 or 5 players, that's not quite enough for 1 level, when you split the XP.

4) If you put a level 29 Minion against a party, the Minion is still going to have very high defenses and very high attack ratings, compared to the party.  The party is only going to hit them on a Critical hit, which by rules, hits even if they couldn't hit with a 20 normally.

Do people just really like coming up with poorly thought out arguments with ridiculous circumstances that aren't going to happen with any reasonable party, just to try to find a flaw in 4E?


----------



## Heselbine

There seems to be a lot of this 'exception-based' thinking around minions. There was another ridiculous thread about what happens when minions fight each other.

The game is predicated on the notion of PCs fighting a balanced group of monsters, some of whom may be minions. Last week I ran a 'Night of the Living Dead' scenario with zombies attacking an inn. It worked really well, and having minions added massively to the potential of the encounter. They're the red-shirts, the stormtroopers, the peasants - they're how pretty much all action films work - what's so difficult to understand about minions?


----------



## HeavenShallBurn

Heselbine said:
			
		

> they're how pretty much all action films work - what's so difficult to understand about minions?



The problem isn't understanding it's that D&D has never in previous editions really been modeling an action movie.  Other more narrativist games like Feng Shui and Exalted have, and have had rules for minions.  But moving the design space of the game so far from where it's always been is kind of irritating to all the people who liked it where it was before.  It's like saying that if you slapped the name *Ranger* on a *Miata* it would have become a *Ranger*.  Clearly it hasn't, no matter that it may say *Ranger* on the trunk you aren't going to get 800 pounds of fertilizer in it, cause a Ranger it ain't.  Similarly the name may still be *D&D* but it doesn't support the playstyle or design philosophy that has kept us with the game through 3 or more editions in some cases.


----------



## med stud

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> The problem isn't understanding it's that D&D has never in previous editions really been modeling an action movie.  Other more narrativist games like Feng Shui and Exalted have, and have had rules for minions.  But moving the design space of the game so far from where it's always been is kind of irritating to all the people who liked it where it was before.  It's like saying that if you slapped the name *Ranger* on a *Miata* it would have become a *Ranger*.  Clearly it hasn't, no matter that it may say *Ranger* on the trunk you aren't going to get 800 pounds of fertilizer in it, cause a Ranger it ain't.  Similarly the name may still be *D&D* but it doesn't support the playstyle or design philosophy that has kept us with the game through 3 or more editions in some cases.



I'm not agreeing with you. I came to D&D from Runequest (a Swedish iteration of the game). In the Swedish game I played, a dragon was essentially impossible to defeat, no matter how experienced your PC was. In the same vein, no matter how tough you were, you were in grave danger if you were cornered by town guards. A crossbow was always a lethal weapon during the entire career of a PC.

That was fun for a while, it was realistic in a way, but it missed out on the superhero-feel from Conan and Elric and the like. That's where D&D entered the picture. One fighter can stand against 50 orcs and the orcs will be toast if the fighter is high enough level. Those orcs essentially were minions, it's just that they weren't explicitly called it.

I would say that minions aren't anything new to D&D, it's just that the game is open about it this time.


----------



## Lizard

hong said:
			
		

> Life wasn't meant to be easy.




But 4e was.


----------



## Lizard

Kishin said:
			
		

> I
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I must say I'm surprised. Given your admitted love for worldbuilding and being absolutely certain of internal consistency, your self described DMing style runs almost entirely contrary to that. Ah well, never let it be said that human beings weren't complex.




Ah. but you see, that's just it. The more I know my world, the easier it is to improvise adventures -- or specific details to fill in general regions. 

There's also the fact that worldbuilding and gamerunning are, really, two different games you play with the same set of rules.



> The thing is, you can still fudge it. You don't have to incorporate the length and breadth of those considerations into every session/adventure, IMO. I don't see anything about 4E that makes you beholden to that. Not every fight needs to have crazy secondary terrain effects; But it does make things more interesting now and again, and clearly the intent was to provide for the greater possibilities inherent in expansion of terrain effects/tactical options/




None of which I object to; it is always better to have more options. My complaints WRT 4e are about the things being taken away, not added.



> riding a dinosaur into a heavily fortified position (well, maybe not the last one), but that doesn't mean you need to wholly abandon your way of doing things.




In the prior 3e campaign I ran, we had a PC taming a raptor and then overrunning some cowboys to escape from a fort...




I think Hong wisely realizes when he's trying to sell a blowtorch to a guy looking for a wrench, that's all.[/QUOTE]


----------



## Heselbine

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> Similarly the name may still be *D&D* but it doesn't support the playstyle or design philosophy that has kept us with the game through 3 or more editions in some cases.




Having played through all those editions, from the early days of 1e through the unplayable 2e, and DMed throughout, I can only disagree with you. All I care about is having fun. Minion rules allow me to have more fun.


----------



## The Mirrorball Man

I find this debate about "minions" very interesting, because as far as I'm concerned, they're nothing new. Like many of you, in my 3e campaign, I used "minions" (though I didn't call them "minions", I called them "redshirts"). In fact, I used the exact same rules that 4e seems to be using (1 hp, immune to indirect damage), and it worked like a charm.

On the battlemat, whenever minions were involved in combat, we used Smarties instead of minis. Whoever killed the minion ate the candy.

It was a high-level campaign, and using minions saved us A LOT of die-rolling and bookkeeping, which, in my opinion, is the best argument in favor of minions.


----------



## AllisterH

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> The problem isn't understanding it's that D&D has never in previous editions really been modeling an action movie.  Other more narrativist games like Feng Shui and Exalted have, and have had rules for minions.  But moving the design space of the game so far from where it's always been is kind of irritating to all the people who liked it where it was before.  It's like saying that if you slapped the name *Ranger* on a *Miata* it would have become a *Ranger*.  Clearly it hasn't, no matter that it may say *Ranger* on the trunk you aren't going to get 800 pounds of fertilizer in it, cause a Ranger it ain't.  Similarly the name may still be *D&D* but it doesn't support the playstyle or design philosophy that has kept us with the game through 3 or more editions in some cases.




Hmm?

My understanding of D&D was that it was intended NOT to model Middle-Earth, Cimmeria or any other specific country/setting but to model the CHARACTERS that we read about. Elric, Conan, Aragorn all have done the "hero vs the minions" scene.

I think you might want to read more of the fantasy novels (elric, conan, LotR) that influenced D&D. This is partly why I find this discussion frustrating...What's wrong with D&D actually modelling scenes from the novels that actually inspired us to play D&D in the first place?


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> But 4e was.




And it is.


----------



## D.Shaffer

When you can explain how Stormtroopers are considering elite troops and yet get mowed down like wheat by anyone with a name in the Star Wars movies, I think you're ready to consider the use of minions.  Minions are the stormtroopers to the PC.  It doesnt matter HOW elite a stormtrooper is, against a PC they're going to get mowed down like wheat. 

 If you dont like that cinematic trope, you dont use it.  Replace 4 minions with 1 non-minion.  The amount of hand wringing over this is rather amusing.


----------



## Cadfan

N0Man said:
			
		

> *snip*



Those were actually sarcastic straw man arguments, aimed at what I perceived to be a trolling OP.

It wasn't until later in the thread that people began _actually making_ arguments I originally intended as straw person claims that no intelligent person would possibly believe, and no sincere person actually say.


----------



## Scribble

Lizard said:
			
		

> I'm running a "Seven Samurai" scenario and the peasants are out fighting to protect their village from the demon hordes, while the heroes take on their leader?




And you're rolling all the dice and running this scenario while you're players sit there and wait for you to finish a battle between 100 npc villagers and a demon? I still find this crazy. If you don't, then more power to you. 



> There's a demon horde ravaging the countryside, and I want a good sense of how many villages they can tear through before being weakened?




And minions somehow prevent this? If you're answer is not "however many need to be to serve the next adventure"  then that's a math thing.

A demon horde presents x challange. A bunch of villages present x challenge. Go at it.



> I'm writing the history of my world, and I want to know if it's sensible to have an army of average soldiers hold off a demon horde for...a day? A week? A month?




See above. 




> That's fine. I want to be able to figure out the numbers if it matters.




You still can!

I think it actually makes a lot more sense to just decide what you want, unless you're actually going to sit there and play every battle.. Compairing numbers is great and using dice averages great... but when's the last time you ran a game where the average always came up? 

Just because there's a 50% chance to get a heads or a tailes result on a coin toss doesn't mean it's going to actually play out that way...




> Why am I a tubby computer programmer and someone else is an Olympic boxer?




You tell me? You can borrow my latest copy of men's health if you want.

My point was, fighters have more HD and HP then Wizards. Some people in your D&D ant farm have more HP for some mysterious reason. Why can't the same be true for monsters?

It already was to a  degree in 3.5... your monsterness determined how much you had... before 3e everyone was exactly the same... 




> Yes, it would be, because then I wouldn't have to deal with things like minions can't be bloodied, don't benefit from healing surges, and can be killed by peasants with stale muffins 5% of the time.




If the math works out the same, then all you're dealing with is more paperwork. Ok the creature benefited from a healing surge... Great Fighter didn't miss the second time! He's still dead!


----------



## Scribble

Korgoth said:
			
		

> So demands for consistency aren't merely aesthetic demands, which is how some folks seem to be treating them.  A demand for consistency is a demand for a playable game.




It is consistent... I can say 2/6ths or 1/3rd it's the same number.

D&D hit dice is just dealing with percentages and amount of time a challenge should exist/ be able to exist.

D&D Fighters have more HD then D&D Wizards. It doesn't matter if that thing is an elf or a human.  What's the difference here? A minion has less HD/HP then another monster class.


----------



## Lacyon

Scribble said:
			
		

> If the math works out the same, then all you're dealing with is more paperwork. Ok the creature benefited from a healing surge... Great Fighter didn't miss the second time! He's still dead!




The math probably _doesn't_ work out the same when using creatures of vastly different level. In which case, you should use a different model.

20th-level minions (by extrapolation that may not hold in the final game) have XP values equivalent to something like 12th-level normal monsters or 8th-level Elite monsters, and a bit less than 3rd-level solo monsters.

So, against 1st-level commoners, you should probably treat each of them more like a 3rd-level solo monster if you were actually going to play out the fight and try to have it be interesting. If you're not going to play out the fight, that's still probably a better baseline for gauging how many such creatures the Million Peasant Army "ought" to be able to defeat before they die horribly.

If the math has really been fixed, there's not really a good reason to keep the nat-20 auto-hit or nat-1 auto-miss rules in the game.


----------



## med stud

OK, let's say that a level 22 minion has AC 25 and AB +20. That means that 95% of the time it will kill a peasant, while the peasant will kill the minion 5% of the time. There you have your numbers, the demon minions will kill peasants by the score.


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> Psst. I am WotC's bitch, not WotC's pimp.




My bad. I'm still getting these new roles confused.


----------



## Scribble

med stud said:
			
		

> OK, let's say that a level 22 minion has AC 25 and AB +20. That means that 95% of the time it will kill a peasant, while the peasant will kill the minion 5% of the time. There you have your numbers, the demon minions will kill peasants by the score.




Which also indicates that unless your peasants are psycho death lovers... they will kill a minion 0% of the time. Once they see the first 95% (or more likely a lot less) die without making a scratch on the thing... I'm prettys sure they'd run.

Unless of course there's a big neon sign over the minion's head indicating that each of them has a 5% chance to kill the creature in one hit. In which case, why are we still arguing about lack of realism???


----------



## Andor

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> OK, Andor. The D&D game you are playing, where the warlord has figured out his hit point value via darts and can announce it to the world, doesn't match my "pretend the stuff offstage follows logical laws" game.
> 
> But your position is internally consistent, I think we each understand the opposing points of view, so I have nothing else to say about it. But I'd sit in on your D&D game, and I bet it would be fun.




Thanks. 

I'm in the slow process of cooking up a campaign. If you're in central Florida when I get it done, you're welcome to come play.


----------



## Fanaelialae

Lacyon said:
			
		

> If the math has really been fixed, there's not really a good reason to keep the nat-20 auto-hit or nat-1 auto-miss rules in the game.




Overall, I agree with what you stated.  A high level minion should definitely be scaled down to a solo creature appropriate for fighting low-level commoners, should that be the scenario.  Well said.

However, I think that the nat-20 / nat-1 rule will still be necessary for adjudicating some rare cases.

Suppose a fighter was fighting a well-armored creature (a soldier) a few (4 levels?) above his level.  He might need a 15 base chance to hit, which is fine.  Now a seperate creature hits him with it's 1/encounter fear ability that reduces his chance to hit by -4 (now he needs a 19 to hit).  Another creature trips him, so he's prone and receives an additional -2 to hit (he can now no longer hit the creature, unless the nat-20 auto hit rule exists).  It's better to give the fighter a chance to hit than none at all.

I admit, it will likely be a very rare occurance for circumstances to conspire JUST SO that you need to invoke the nat-20 / nat-1 rule.  It seems to me that the math dictates that outside of multiple conspiring factors, it should be fairly impossible to arrive at a character that can only hit on a nat-20 or only miss on a nat-1 (assuming the DM is doing his job and not throwing enemies that the PCs aren't supposed to be facing, such as a level 20 creature against a level 1 party).  Nonetheless, for those rare situations where it does occur, I suspect the rule will remain.


----------



## Lacyon

Fanaelialae said:
			
		

> Overall, I agree with what you stated.  A high level minion should definitely be scaled down to a solo creature appropriate for fighting low-level commoners, should that be the scenario.  Well said.
> 
> However, I think that the nat-20 / nat-1 rule will still be necessary for adjudicating some rare cases.
> 
> Suppose a fighter was fighting a well-armored creature (a soldier) a few (4 levels?) above his level.  He might need a 15 base chance to hit, which is fine.  Now a seperate creature hits him with it's 1/encounter fear ability that reduces his chance to hit by -4 (now he needs a 19 to hit).  Another creature trips him, so he's prone and receives an additional -2 to hit (he can now no longer hit the creature, unless the nat-20 auto hit rule exists).  It's better to give the fighter a chance to hit than none at all.




Iin that particular case, the Fighter should stand up. Barring that, maybe he should make an attack that still has an effect on a miss, delay until an ally leader can give him an attack bonus, maneuver around the creature to achieve a flank, or otherwise make do under the circumstances.



			
				Fanaelialae said:
			
		

> I admit, it will likely be a very rare occurance for circumstances to conspire JUST SO that you need to invoke the nat-20 / nat-1 rule.  It seems to me that the math dictates that outside of multiple conspiring factors, it should be fairly impossible to arrive at a character that can only hit on a nat-20 or only miss on a nat-1 (assuming the DM is doing his job and not throwing enemies that the PCs aren't supposed to be facing, such as a level 20 creature against a level 1 party).  Nonetheless, for those rare situations where it does occur, I suspect the rule will remain.




I'm not against the nat-20-rule per se, and don't mind if it's there, but it may well not be in the rules.


----------



## Scribble

Lacyon said:
			
		

> Iin that particular case, the Fighter should stand up. Barring that, maybe he should make an attack that still has an effect on a miss, delay until an ally leader can give him an attack bonus, maneuver around the creature to achieve a flank, or otherwise make do under the circumstances.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not against the nat-20-rule per se, and don't mind if it's there, but it may well not be in the rules.




I can kind of see them removing the natural 20 thing. Especialy with, as mentioned above the possibility of still harming on a miss.


----------



## Umbran

Cadfan, you've shown an egregious lack of respect for your fellow posters.  These boards expect and require you respect the folks around you.

Please don't post in this thread again.


----------



## Korgoth

FireLance said:
			
		

> I think the key assumption here is that hit points are somehow a property of the person, and that they shouldn't have to change based on circumstances. Instead, what changes is the lethality of the circumstances. A character may trip and fall one day and only take one point of damage because the DM rolled low on 1d6. The second time, he may have critically fumbled a Dexterity check, or some other circumstance occured which increased the damage from the fall to 3d6, and the DM rolled three sixes. In both cases, the results are fully consistent with the fact that he had 4 hp, and will continue to have 4 hp unless there is some change to the person (say, gaining a level, or losing Constitution).
> 
> Interestingly enough, I recall an anecdote from a TSR staffer that in the early days of D&D (when a character's Hit Dice were expressed as XdY in the rules), he used to roll hit points for the PCs every _session_. So, a character with 5d8 Hit Dice could have 20 hit points one session and 40 hit points the next.  If that approach had become the standard, it would be much easier to describe minions and paragon-level fighters dying due to falling off horses.




OD&D seems quite open to interpretation about just when you roll your hit dice... rolling every session is not unreasonable.

But I would say, even then, that they're still a consistent number of hit dice.  The notion that Johnny Orc is standing around being invincible one day, and the next day, purely because the PCs have shown up, he becomes a 1-hitpoint wonder... that's just far too arbitrary and contrived for me.

I know that my response opens the door to a million arbitrary and contrived things to be trotted out.  What can I say?  It's a matter of degree.  The status of an NPC possessing a modicum of stability is simply one of those things that's required for me to get a feeling of stability and depth from the fantasy world.  Bob the Villager is Bob the Villager... he's not Bob the Weak one day and then Bobowulf the Mighty the next day.

I can see what people are saying with their appeals to "narrative" and "story": the game world is admittedly a contrivance.  But there's a difference between a work by Jackson Pollock and a work by Bouguereau or Raphael.  The former is just a bunch of squiggles, like an ugly wallpaper.  The latter actually look like people and real things.  They're obviously _not_ real people and things (they're paintings!), but they look like them.  They're pleasing because they possess a semblance of the basic congruence of real life.

Fortunately I think that Minions can be interpreted in a way consistent with the old 'metaconsistency' of traditional D&D.


----------



## med stud

Scribble said:
			
		

> Which also indicates that unless your peasants are psycho death lovers... they will kill a minion 0% of the time. Once they see the first 95% (or more likely a lot less) die without making a scratch on the thing... I'm prettys sure they'd run.
> 
> Unless of course there's a big neon sign over the minion's head indicating that each of them has a 5% chance to kill the creature in one hit. In which case, why are we still arguing about lack of realism???



I very much agree. If the peasants are charmed into attacking or if they are some kind of fanatics looking for martyrdom, you would see the 95% odds in action. Otherwise they would most likely run just from the sight of the demons.

BTW, this doesn't only go for peasants. A level 1 fighter would have problems fighting one minion with that kind of AB and AC. Most likely that minion will have a damage output at about 15 damage, which gives the fighter something like 3 rounds to get a natural 20. Otherwise, the minions pulls of a victory.


----------



## HeavenShallBurn

med stud said:
			
		

> That's where D&D entered the picture. One fighter can stand against 50 orcs and the orcs will be toast if the fighter is high enough level. Those orcs essentially were minions, it's just that they weren't explicitly called it....I would say that minions aren't anything new to D&D, it's just that the game is open about it this time.



Funny thing is we play D&D for exactly the same reason.  Because it supports a mythic feel where level is king.  That's exactly the reason I have a problem with minions.  They completely short circuit the level-based design scheme.  The whole point of level is that a level three monster is of little to no threat against a level 14 PC even in huge numbers.  They're only going to _touch_ the PC on a crit.  Yet an appropriate level enemy IS a threat and can reliably damage the PC while soaking at least a couple rounds of damage from the PC.  These minions are neither fish, nor foul, nor good red meat.  

They're a completely narrativist construct from a Forge game applied to D&D.  They have all the modifiers of a level appropriate monster to be a real threat to the PCs yet drop like a glass ninja when struck once because they don't have level appropriate HP.  Minions stand completely outside the structure of a level-based game for so called "dramatic purposes".  This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't *supposed* to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff.  On the other hand an enemy with the modifiers to be a threat should have the level to actually be a threat instead of a speedbump.


----------



## Scribble

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> They're a completely narrativist construct from a Forge game applied to D&D.  They have all the modifiers of a level appropriate monster to be a real threat to the PCs yet drop like a glass ninja when struck once because they don't have level appropriate HP.  Minions stand completely outside the structure of a level-based game for so called "dramatic purposes".  This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't *supposed* to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff.  On the other hand an enemy with the modifiers to be a threat should have the level to actually be a threat instead of a speedbump.




It's not actually just for "dramatic purposes."  

Sure I could just toss a bunch of low level creatures at the pcs... but then they serve no purpose other then to clutter the board with extra minis. They can't harm the PCs, the PCs know this. They ignore them an accept the AoOs and such incurred by ignoring them because it does nothing one way or the other. They're pointless.

Minions still need to be dealt with, while at the same time not overwhelming the levels. 

So they have lower HP... this is a new concept to D&D???  Warriors have less HP then Fighters... Wizards even less! 

It's nothing new. HPs are a numbers game. A percentage amount of time something should stay up. They do not exist in a vacume. Things like AC and attack power factor in as well. 

Minions simply adjust the percentage of time the monster stays alive when dealing with an opponent by playing a numbers game with the HPs.


----------



## Counterspin

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't *supposed* to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff.  On the other hand an enemy with the modifiers to be a threat should have the level to actually be a threat instead of a speedbump.




I don't see why you would bother running a combat with enemies that have no chance of winning.  I wouldn't run minions the way you suggest because I view it as a waste of everyone's time.  I'd just narrate it.  With 4e style minions, I can run large groups of expendable enemies with minimal book keeping.  I don't see the benefit in using your method, which creates a pointless combat, over the 4e minion rules.  I'm not really interested in what tags you attach to a concept, I just want to know if it will make things better.


----------



## Alratan

Scribble said:
			
		

> Which also indicates that unless your peasants are psycho death lovers... they will kill a minion 0% of the time. Once they see the first 95% (or more likely a lot less) die without making a scratch on the thing... I'm prettys sure they'd run.
> 
> Unless of course there's a big neon sign over the minion's head indicating that each of them has a 5% chance to kill the creature in one hit. In which case, why are we still arguing about lack of realism???




Unless they have bows and arrows and are on top of a wall, in which case they just keep on shooting until the enemy dies


----------



## Lacyon

Alratan said:
			
		

> Unless they have bows and arrows and are on top of a wall, in which case they just keep on shooting until the enemy dies




Because 20th-level monsters don't have any way of dealing with _that_.


----------



## Counterspin

One, the high level minion versus bunch of peasants argument is only valid if the auto hit on a 20 rule is still in.  Two, minion is a relationship between PCs and NPCs, and thus does not apply to a fight between two groups of NPCs.  Three, lone demons do not charge cities during broad daylight.


----------



## Scribble

Alratan said:
			
		

> Unless they have bows and arrows and are on top of a wall, in which case they just keep on shooting until the enemy dies




Yes... but instead of enemy replace it with moron just standing there getting shot instead of fighting back. And we're back to the already way out of realism anyway point.

Yes... you can determine soemthing is unrealistic by putting it into an unrealistic situation. Bravo. 

I concede.

I hope WOTC removes this rule, otherwise I may one day open my MM in the future to find that in my absense an uprising of peasants has destroyed all of the minions.


----------



## pemerton

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Except, it isn't a 'lucky blow', because it happens every time the PCs land a successful hit.



It is not lucky in the real world - the rules are set up deliberately to bring it about.

It is lucky in the gameworld - in the gameworld such blows only get through when minions trip, misjudge their shield usage, look the other way, etc.

If you cannot distinguish the causal mechanicsm of the gameworld (as revealed by player and GM narration) from the causal mechanicsm of the realworld (ie the game mechanics which tell us how the PCs are built and their actions resolved), you may well not enjoy 4e. Try Runequest or Classic Traveller. (Even RM, GURPS or HERO is too gamey for a die-hard simulationist, because each allows the _player_ to build the character with no attempt to correlate the purely metagame process of character build with any ingame causal process.)



			
				DM_Blake said:
			
		

> In other words, if the bad guy is important, it's NEVER possible to land a lucky blow (heck, even crits only mean you hit the same as a normal hit with a good damage roll), but everything else dies in one shot automatically?



No. It's just that against the important bad guy the lucky shot only comes after several rounds of trading blows (ie when the fatal blow is landed).



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> Suddenly the battle of Gondor seems less impressive when we realize that Legolas did nothing extraordinary, that Mumakil was just a Colossal Minion.



It was heroic in the gameworld. It was mechanically facilitated in the real world. For many people, the whole _point_ of playing a fanatsy RPG is to have the character achieve heroic, fantastic or lucky outcomes wihout the player having to be heroic or get lucky.

If you really want to be as heroic as Legolas, why are you playing D&D? Go and climb Mt Everest or become a Medecins Sans Frontiere fieldworker.


----------



## Hussar

HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> Funny thing is we play D&D for exactly the same reason.  Because it supports a mythic feel where level is king.  That's exactly the reason I have a problem with minions.  They completely short circuit the level-based design scheme.  The whole point of level is that a level three monster is of little to no threat against a level 14 PC even in huge numbers.  They're only going to _touch_ the PC on a crit.  Yet an appropriate level enemy IS a threat and can reliably damage the PC while soaking at least a couple rounds of damage from the PC.  These minions are neither fish, nor foul, nor good red meat.
> 
> They're a completely narrativist construct from a Forge game applied to D&D.  They have all the modifiers of a level appropriate monster to be a real threat to the PCs yet drop like a glass ninja when struck once because they don't have level appropriate HP.  Minions stand completely outside the structure of a level-based game for so called "dramatic purposes".  This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't *supposed* to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff.  On the other hand an enemy with the modifiers to be a threat should have the level to actually be a threat instead of a speedbump.




As a player, my response would have to be, "Why are you wasting my time?"  I get pretty much no xp from the encounter, the baddies are zero threat yet I have to spend half an hour or so of my valuable free time mowing through these things.

How is this even remotely good adventure design?

And, let's face it, how often was this situation even considered in an adventure?  Once in a while you might see that room full of mooks in a high level adventure, but, by and large, it was a complete waste of time.

When I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, the final region that I ran was full of small armies of monsters - all at least 10 CR's below the average party level.  Formian workers, derro, some deep dwarves, etc.  They did nothing.  Total and complete waste of time and I had to spend a significant amount of time reworking the region to make it any sort of threat.  The Mob rules from the DMG 2 certainly played a large role.

But, without those mob rules, the PC's would have walked all over these encounters.  Some of the worst adventure design I've ever seen.  The funny thing is, the designer comments in the module detail all sorts of tactics and options for the baddies.  Yet they completely ignore the fact that none of these tactics had an even remote chance of success.  IIRC, it was three rounds to wipe out nearly 150 formians.  Two or three Blade Barrier spells from the cleric and the problem went away in a haze of blood.

3e mechanics do not support large numbers of small creatures assaulting a high level party.  Heck, they specifically state it in the DMG that this doesn't work.  Once you get about 6 or 8 CR's below the PC's levels, you might as well use harsh language.  The only effective tactic is to use creatures with abilities that force saving throws and hope for a 1.  

I'm really, really liking these minion rules.


----------



## pemerton

Lizard said:
			
		

> I can live with almost any rules, no matter how whacked; what I can't live with is the idea the people living in the world don't understand the rules the world they live in works by and act accordingly.



Lizard, I think we've had this conversation before in one (or a dozen) other thread.

But to have another go at it: if the rules are acknowledged as a metagame construction for resolving the _game_ (ie the actions that players announce on behalf of their PCs) then there is not the least reason to suppose that the people of the gameworld could infer to those rules via experimentation and observation. That experiment and observation would tell them what the ingame causal processes are - and ex hypothesi the rules of the game are in no fashion a model or simulation of these.

Your contrary notion only goes through if we reject my assumption and proceed from a simulationist premise. But that does not refute non-simulationism. It just shows that 4e + simulationism entails absurdity. So you've provided a reductio prove that 4e is a non-simulationist ruleset. Which we all knew anyway. Even Rob Heinsoo has said so (though I seem to be the only person on these forums whose noticed his reference to the comparison between 4e and indie RPGs).

I'll say it again: for those who want mainstream simulationist fantasy both RM and RQ are currently in print, and they're both really good games.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> In any event, I think it boils down to, "Is minion a physical condition which a creature natively possesses, or is it a metagame state imposed by the DM at the point of PC contact?" The fact that the MM lists monsters as "Minions", rather than having a "minion template", tells me it's the former, and that implies a lot about the world.



There are two things I don't understand about this argument. First, why would I assume that baseline stats are simulationist models but templates are gamist devices? Second, why would I assume that the MM is a biology textbook for a fantasy world, when it is _exressly written and marketed as_ a set of rules for playing a game.


----------



## Andor

pemerton said:
			
		

> But to have another go at it: if the rules are acknowledged as a metagame construction for resolving the _game_ (ie the actions that players announce on behalf of their PCs) then there is not the least reason to suppose that the people of the gameworld could infer to those rules via experimentation and observation. That experiment and observation would tell them what the ingame causal processes are - and ex hypothesi the rules of the game are in no fashion a model or simulation of these.




So then what tools do we have for knowing what the causal process, as you put it, are in the game world? What does my character experience? What kind of predictions can he make based on his experience? How can I grasp the viewpoint of my character if I have not the faintest idea what it is that he is viewing?

And if your answer is "Ask the GM." what then happens when another GM takes over? When I play an RPGA living character?


----------



## Lizard

pemerton said:
			
		

> But to have another go at it: if the rules are acknowledged as a metagame construction for resolving the _game_ (ie the actions that players announce on behalf of their PCs) then there is not the least reason to suppose that the people of the gameworld could infer to those rules via experimentation and observation. That experiment and observation would tell them what the ingame causal processes are - and ex hypothesi the rules of the game are in no fashion a model or simulation of these.




Because the players WILL apply the rules as if they were the laws of physics, if they have any sense. If there's a cheap way to create magical long distance communication, the PCs will go into the telegram business, even if no one else in the world ever thought to do so before. If the players know minions die from one hit point of damage, they will rig traps that do minimal damage and set them off with themselves in range, knowing the minions will be fried and they'll be only slightly harmed -- and they'll ask why none of the locals ever thought of using very weak bombs to do the same thing. (City guards in 4e aren't minions, after all...a city guard with a 1d10 burst 2 explosive could clear out a dozen orc drudges and be barely scratched himself.)

In short, if there's an obvious disconnect between how the players can manipulate the world, using their knowledge of the rules, and the way the other people living in the world have manipulated it in the past, suspension of disbelief is ruined and it becomes much harder to care about the world or if you're saving it or not -- it's just too palpably unreal. (And the people in it are clearly idiots for not thinking of these things when they're obvious to the players after a short period of play. Who wants to risk their neck to save idiots?)

Asking players to ignore the implications of the rules in the name of obeying the spirit of the rules is asking them to behave like idiots and deliberately handicap themselves. Few players do this willingly.


----------



## Aria Silverhands

Hussar said:
			
		

> As a player, my response would have to be, "Why are you wasting my time?"  I get pretty much no xp from the encounter, the baddies are zero threat yet I have to spend half an hour or so of my valuable free time mowing through these things.



Sorry, but +14 attacks from 9th lvl minions are not "zero threat".  Paired up with an Eye of Gruumsh, they become dangerous even when killed.



> When I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, the final region that I ran was full of small armies of monsters - all at least 10 CR's below the average party level.  Formian workers, derro, some deep dwarves, etc.  They did nothing.  Total and complete waste of time and I had to spend a significant amount of time reworking the region to make it any sort of threat.  The Mob rules from the DMG 2 certainly played a large role.



That was an issue with the CR system.  Creatures 10 cr's below the pc's don't have a chance to hurt them.  The minion rules fix that problem.



> But, without those mob rules, the PC's would have walked all over these encounters.  Some of the worst adventure design I've ever seen.  The funny thing is, the designer comments in the module detail all sorts of tactics and options for the baddies.  Yet they completely ignore the fact that none of these tactics had an even remote chance of success.  IIRC, it was three rounds to wipe out nearly 150 formians.  Two or three Blade Barrier spells from the cleric and the problem went away in a haze of blood.



Which is damn cool for the cleric player!


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> So then what tools do we have for knowing what the causal process, as you put it, are in the game world? What does my character experience? What kind of predictions can he make based on his experience? How can I grasp the viewpoint of my character if I have not the faintest idea what it is that he is viewing?




Your grasp of ingame reality is shaky indeed if it hinges so much on how to handle minions.



> And if your answer is "Ask the GM." what then happens when another GM takes over?




Ask the new GM.



> When I play an RPGA living character?




Ask the RPGA GM.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> Because the players WILL apply the rules as if they were the laws of physics, if they have any sense.




This is why sense is overrated.



> If there's a cheap way to create magical long distance communication, the PCs will go into the telegram business, even if no one else in the world ever thought to do so before.




Or they may realise that they are playing a game designed to facilitate the killing of monsters and taking their stuff, and adjust their thinking accordingly.



> If the players know minions die from one hit point of damage, they will rig traps that do minimal damage and set them off with themselves in range, knowing the minions will be fried and they'll be only slightly harmed -- and they'll ask why none of the locals ever thought of using very weak bombs to do the same thing.




Or they could just drop fireballs at ground zero. Which has been an option since forever, one open to NPCs even, and yet the game has managed to survive.



> (City guards in 4e aren't minions, after all...a city guard with a 1d10 burst 2 explosive could clear out a dozen orc drudges and be barely scratched himself.)




And...?



> In short, if there's an obvious disconnect between how the players can manipulate the world, using their knowledge of the rules, and the way the other people living in the world have manipulated it in the past, suspension of disbelief is ruined and it becomes much harder to care about the world or if you're saving it or not -- it's just too palpably unreal.




Of course it's unreal. It's a movie. To be precise, a fantasy movie.



> Asking players to ignore the implications of the rules in the name of obeying the spirit of the rules is asking them to behave like idiots and deliberately handicap themselves. Few players do this willingly.




Many players do this willingly. This is because they realise the value of not thinking too hard about fantasy.


----------



## Hussar

Aria Silverhands said:
			
		

> Sorry, but +14 attacks from 9th lvl minions are not "zero threat".  Paired up with an Eye of Gruumsh, they become dangerous even when killed.




Sorry, wasn't clear.  Was referring to the above example of not using minions.  Thus, using creatures that far below the power level of the party is a waste of time.



> That was an issue with the CR system.  Creatures 10 cr's below the pc's don't have a chance to hurt them.  The minion rules fix that problem.
> 
> 
> Which is damn cool for the cleric player!




I think you misread what I posted.  I was agreeing with the minions rules.  

As far as being cool for the cleric player, meh.  Total waste of time for the game.  There was zero threat to the party, so, it was more just a case of using the largest area spell to get through things as fast as possible.

Piss poor game design though.

Lizard - to some degree I agree with you.  If there are mechanics that allow long distance communication, then, yes, it's entirely possible that the players will go into business.

However, there's a point you are missing.  There is absolutely no way to tell, in game, the difference between a minion and a regular monster.  None.  Yes, some orcs die faster than others, but, that could be due to all sorts of factors.  However, there is no bit "I'm a Minion" sign over certain monsters.

Thus, there is no reason, in game, for anyone to conceptualize making bombs to dispose of minions.  You state that "city guards aren't minions" as if this were empirical fact.  That's simply not true.  Sometimes, the guards just might be minions.  Sometimes they are not.  There is nothing preventing using the minion rules for guards, regardless of their species.

Heck, I'm fairly certain that you could have epic adventures where dragons are minions.  An epic level dragon guarded by all sorts of smaller dragon progeny.  

Yet, as far as the in game world is concerned, there is no "minion" designation.  Simply because there is absolutely no way to test it.  If you throw a stale muffin at someone, he's not going to die, because his minion status depends on his relationship to the PC's.

The rules are a spotlight with the PC's in the middle.  Anything outside that spotlight IS NOT COVERED IN THE RULES.

We know this for an absolute fact.  The designers have said as much. THIS IS NOT SIMULATIONISM.  Why do you insist on trying to force these rules to be simulationist?


----------



## Fanaelialae

Andor said:
			
		

> So then what tools do we have for knowing what the causal process, as you put it, are in the game world? What does my character experience? What kind of predictions can he make based on his experience? How can I grasp the viewpoint of my character if I have not the faintest idea what it is that he is viewing?
> 
> And if your answer is "Ask the GM." what then happens when another GM takes over? When I play an RPGA living character?




Common sense and imagination?  At least that's what I use to fill in the little details that my DM leaves out.  (Like instinctively assuming that the inn he just described has a door, despite that he hasn't bothered to actually call it out- I don't ask if there is a door, I simply tell him I'm going in the inn).


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> demands for consistency aren't merely aesthetic demands, which is how some folks seem to be treating them.  A demand for consistency is a demand for a playable game.





			
				Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> I expect that if I am using a set of rules that says "Here's what the chance of a player hitting a monster is."  I don't assume that it is the same chance all creatures everywhere have of hitting all other creatures in all circumstance.  It is simply one rule that applies in one circumstance.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think applying consistency to a rule that shouldn't be consistent is a bad idea.  If a particular rule works perfectly well when you apply it in a group of players who are fighting some monsters then good.  If that same rule causes oddities when you use it for NPCs against NPCs then you use a different rule in that case.  Especially when in 99% of all cases, the players aren't going to care if you followed the rules exactly when it doesn't involve them.



Agreed. Playability requires consistent application of the rules. 4e seems intended to deliver this - the PCs' actions will be resolved by the consistent application of the appropriate ruleset.

In an RPG it may often also require consistency in the gameworld. 4e mechanics do not preclude this, _provided_ that it is understood by all at the table that the mechanics are not intended to model the gameworld.

As to how to assure consistency in the gameworld, read on!



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> So then what tools do we have for knowing what the causal process, as you put it, are in the game world? What does my character experience? What kind of predictions can he make based on his experience? How can I grasp the viewpoint of my character if I have not the faintest idea what it is that he is viewing?



The rules of the game tell us how to decide that. Depending on what those rules are, the GM might get to say, or the player might, or some sort of negotiation might be required.

Most of the time in my experience it is fairly obvious - if the GM says "Cresting the hill you see a castle" or "Your well-timed blow cuts the orc in two" you know what's going on. If you hit and crit what you're pretty sure is a minion, while using a power that let's you take an extra shift if you foe drops, you say "I duck under its blow and stab it in the chest while rushing past". If you've made a mistake, and it's not a minion at all, the GM can reply "With a grunt of exertion the orc parries your blow. The force of the impact stops you in your tracks." And then, to steal from someone upstead, you respond "At last! A worthy foe!"

There can be tricky cases, I concede. These can also arise in simulationist play, if the detail delivered by the mechanics is insufficiently fine or incomplete. I general, be guided by the rules - if the rules tell you that a certain outcome is still possible (eg you're only at the 3rd of 4 required successes for a skill challenge, or a foe still has hit points remaining) then don't describe things in such a way that the outcome in question is rule out.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> And if your answer is "Ask the GM." what then happens when another GM takes over? When I play an RPGA living character?



I don't have any suggestion as to how to play an RPGA game, in 4th ed or any other edition. When I've played convention games it's generally been for fun, and so I follow the GM's lead but make my own contributions when it seems appropriate.

If RPGA play is primarily for points (is that the case?) then I would have thought that a good knowledge of the rules, rather than a good grasp of the narrative intricacies of the gameworld, would be the most important thing.

If the concern is that non-simulationist games will suck if GMed in an adversarial manner, no doubt that is probably true.  If the GM won't let the players participate in shaping the gameworld, and then turns around and used it as a stick to beat them over the head with, players won't have a good time of it. But I think 4e is designed under the assumption that the GM is non-abusive. And unlike earlier editions of D&D (especially AD&D) it won't need to include the sort of GMing advice that is prone to produce abusive GMing. I expect the 4e DMG to read in many ways like the rulebooks for HeroWars or The Dying Earth, and nothing like the 1st ed DMG.


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> The status of an NPC possessing a modicum of stability is simply one of those things that's required for me to get a feeling of stability and depth from the fantasy world.  Bob the Villager is Bob the Villager... he's not Bob the Weak one day and then Bobowulf the Mighty the next day.



As suggested by Fallen Seraph upthread, can't we just say that the number of hit points measure distance from death? The minion rules therefore tell us that minions are (when confronted by the PCs) close to death.

If you like, treat minions as having the following rule: when confronted by PCs, suffer negative X temporary hit points until end of encounter (where X is the difference between their "real" hit points and 1). It's sort of the opposite of players having Fate Points: the GM is allowed to put multiple foes on the battle mat, but pays for this by assigning a certain number of AntiFate Points (ie minion status).



			
				HeavenShallBurn said:
			
		

> They completely short circuit the level-based design scheme.  The whole point of level is that a level three monster is of little to no threat against a level 14 PC even in huge numbers.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Minions stand completely outside the structure of a level-based game for so called "dramatic purposes".  This isn't a skill-based game, if the PCs are supposed to mow through a bunch of insignificant enemies you make them lower level and accept that they aren't *supposed* to be a credible threat to the PCs, they're chaff.





			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> As a player, my response would have to be, "Why are you wasting my time?"  I get pretty much no xp from the encounter, the baddies are zero threat yet I have to spend half an hour or so of my valuable free time mowing through these things.



What Hussar said.

Also, how did you decide "the whole point of level"? One possible point of level is that it groups certain game elements - PCs, powers, magic items, monsters - into well-matched categories. And a minion of level N is well-matched to a PC of level N or so wielding magic items of level N or so that deliver powers of level N or so. So I don't really see what the problem is.

Would you find my AntiFate point game design objectionable? If so, why? If not, what is wrong with implementing it via the functional equivalent of minionhood.


----------



## pemerton

Lizard said:
			
		

> Then what will WOTC sell me?



Rules for playing a game. Which are not the same thing as equations and statistics to model a universe.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> In short, if there's an obvious disconnect between how the players can manipulate the world, using their knowledge of the rules, and the way the other people living in the world have manipulated it in the past, suspension of disbelief is ruined and it becomes much harder to care about the world or if you're saving it or not



The rules aren't for manipulating the world, though - they're for distributing the authority to narrate what happens in the world (ie for roleplaying).



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> I often find it more interesting to derive plots from the universe, then to impose my plots ON the universe. That's why I have trouble with 4e. In 3e, I could get plots from stat blocks; in 4e, I decide on my plot and then build stat blocks for it.



4e is a game for those who like making up fantasy stories, rather than those who enjoy the economic modelling of imaginary worlds.

Whether or not that is any given individual's preferences, it's surely not an absurd thing for an RPG to be.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> Because the players WILL apply the rules as if they were the laws of physics, if they have any sense.
> 
> <snip examples of applications of game rules to situations outside the intended domain of application of those rules>



Why would people who want to play that sort of game turn up to a 4e game, though?

I mean, is it an objection to all past versions of D&D that a high level fighter/cleric (who can survive a fall of any distance and restore him or herself to full health multiple times per day) can get work as a messenger jumping from the top of Mt Everest to the bottom, thus doubling the speed of communication from the outpost at the summit and the base camp below? If _that's_ the sort of thing I wanted to roleplay I'd choose Toon, not D&D.


----------



## CrimsonNeko

I apologize that I don't have the patience to slog through 26 pages of replies.  However, I can illustrate how flawed the "just use low level npcs" argument can be.  

I was playing in a harn based game a while ago (if you know harn, kudos to you, you get a cookie).  The GM was a believer in following through with a scenario no matter how things changed.  We had a special sword in the group that did sunburst (the spell that annihilates undead in a radius) at will (it was basically a minor artifact).  We were planning on attacking the villians temple, which was an island with nothing on it but the temple and 100 skeletons.  We got it so everything was out of the way, and we were going to do the onslaught the next week.  

Fast forward a week.  The guy with the sword is gone, and we can convince the gm to just transfer it.  The island having all those skeletons was an important detail, so he can't simply ignore it.  And, as a rule, he won't NPC players.  We spent 6 hours plinking level 1 skeletons to death.  The entire thing was boring as hell.  We were high enough level that we took next to no damage.  I think one person needed a cure light at one point, and that was it.  We never felt really threatened.  The session felt pretty much like a waste.  And the only person who leveled from fighting ONE HUNDRED skeletons was the level 3 guy who was hiding in the back.  What took probably near 100 combat rounds would of taken closer to 10-20 with minion rules (he gave us some NPCs, the local noble's personal guard, if I remember right....he wasn't completely heartless about it).  On top of that, the skeletons could of been an actual threat.  As I said, cause they were just level 1 skeletons, we only took like 10 hits total across the whole party.  Minions could of had atleast a chance to deal damage to us above the joke level.


----------



## Andor

Here is a point I honestly don't get. What is the reason for developing a narrative based ruleset for a game centered solely around killing things and taking their stuff?

A narrativist ruleset for a game centered around courtly love I understand. Likewise for games about gods influencing the mortal world, or monsters stuggling with the horror of their own nature.

A "simulationist" system like Hero or Gurps I understand for games where tracking minutia is desireable like a gritty tale of Medieval yeoman conscripts, or a crime/mystery solving game of cops dealing with gangs and slowly dawning horror.

Where does a game of tactical combat between faceless monsters and murdering plunderers with pretensions of glory gain from having a system that passes lightly over the details of that combat that is at the heart of it's function?

And Hong, please don't tell me not to think about it.  No offense but as I said (in an utterly unrelated conversation a few weeks ago) I will never apologize for suggesting someone think.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Here is a point I honestly don't get. What is the reason for developing a narrative based ruleset for a game centered solely around killing things and taking their stuff?




Context.



> And Hong, please don't tell me not to think about it.  No offense but as I said (in an utterly unrelated conversation a few weeks ago) I will never apologize for suggesting someone think.




See, it all works if you don't think about it.


----------



## Fallen Seraph

Andor I view it likes this, the narrative ruleset for combat (I am assuming when talking about the rules for combat, given that narrative rules will of course play a role in non-combat/social, etc.) is that it helps in blending the gameplay together into a collective whole. 

By having narratively driven combat, it means that combat can weave just as tightly into the story as other narrative rules. So as such whatever story or concept your game is following it is not disturbed by combat.

Hopefully my post was understandable  (3 am writing sometimes equals DOHS!)


----------



## AZRogue

I don't see 4E as really narrative. Instead, it has just chosen to concentrate on results and gameplay instead of worrying about the rules also providing a structure outside a gameplay scenario. 4E seems to want your experience while playing the game to be the best (in their opinion) it can be without worrying about whether the rules as written support simulating the world away from the players. 

It seems a very reasonable focus to me. YMMV.


----------



## ryryguy

(Reaching back a few days in the thread, sorry...)



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> I do that when I have to. But I often find it more interesting to derive plots from the universe, then to impose my plots ON the universe. That's why I have trouble with 4e. In 3e, I could get plots from stat blocks; in 4e, I decide on my plot and then build stat blocks for it.




I personally have no problem with minions only being minions when they fight the PC's... with the combat engine being largely decoupled from the larger gameworld and narrative.  I have certainly experienced some struggles and rough points with the old style, and I'm excited to try out the new.

Even given that point of view, I just wanted to say that I do appreciate Lizard's comment here.  It _is_ cool that in 3e, you could maybe get a plot point out of a mechanic... something like: because a guy gets a saving throw against charm once a day, the succubus behind the throne has to arrange to be alone with the king at that time to re-charm if necessary.  This is cool not from the inspiration, but because when this detail is revealed in the course of the adventure, the players' "a-ha!" is amplified by their shared a priori understanding of how the game world works.  

That may end up occasionally being missed in 4e.  At least, it will be somewhat more challenging to set up.  The DM may educate the players about his custom, story "out-of-combat charm mechanics" during the course of the adventure, but it would be harder to do so without being heavy-handed and giving the game away prematurely.  (At least in this example.)

But still, there's lots of 4e stuff we haven't seen yet, obviously.  It may be that there are some suggested gameworld "laws" (outside of the combat engine) you can play off of in similar ways.  

And if not, then if that high degree of world consistency and logic is important to you and your game, then maybe you can have fun creating it!  I really don't think things like weirdness of minion hp in combat will really interfere with that effort unless you are looking for problems... there should still be many points from the rules you can play off of, and just downplay or handwave the odd bits that don't work out.


----------



## Celebrim

AZRogue said:
			
		

> I don't see 4E as really narrative.




I don't either.  I see it as a highly gamist game.  The rule changes are designed to encourage a more minature driven tactical game, ensure greater balance between the classes, ensure greater viability of classes at all levels of play, remove anything from core play which is difficult to translate to a video game, allow for more open ended play by implementing diablo/WoW like 'fixed math', and so forth.  It's not a story driven rules set.  It is a combat driven rules set.  It's a tactical skirmish game with the option to role play.

I think that its being welcomed by some more narrativist types because they are hoping for something which is less burdensome to thier style of play and high on that list would be fixing the balance of the game in and out of combat so that they can focus on the story more.  I also think that there are quite a few gamists who are talking about 4E as a narrativist game because 'gamist' has acquired (quite unfairly) a reputation for being a less mature sort of play, and 'narrativist' has acquired (quite unfairly) a reputation for being a more serious, mature, and sophisticated form of play.

But I think that the idea that 4E is a narrative driven game is undermined by all sorts of points, not the least of which is hong's continual chorus of 'don't think about it'.


----------



## hong

Celebrim said:
			
		

> But I think that the idea that 4E is a narrative driven game is undermined by all sorts of points, not the least of which is hong's continual chorus of 'don't think about it'.




You will be amazed at how many problems this solves.


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> You will be amazed at how many problems this solves.




I find myself unable to respond to this without violating the "No Politics" rule...


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> I find myself unable to respond to this without violating the "No Politics" rule...



 Politics is involved in pretending to be elves?


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> Politics is involved in pretending to be elves?




No, vampires.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> No, vampires.



 Politics is involved in pretending to be vampires?


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> Politics is involved in pretending to be vampires?




You never played a Vampire LARP?


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> You never played a Vampire LARP?



 Politics is involved in a Vampire LARP?


----------



## AllisterH

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I don't either.  I see it as a highly gamist game.  The rule changes are designed to encourage a more minature driven tactical game, ensure greater balance between the classes, ensure greater viability of classes at all levels of play, remove anything from core play which is difficult to translate to a video game, allow for more open ended play by implementing diablo/WoW like 'fixed math', and so forth.  It's not a story driven rules set.  It is a combat driven rules set.  It's a tactical skirmish game with the option to role play.
> .




The only thing I disagree with you is "translate to a video game". Mainly because 4E seems explicitly to rely on DM judgement calls. As Hong keeps pointing out, "don't think about it too hard/just accept it" works well with a human DM to keep things inline but as a videogame? 

It would be horrendous.....


----------



## hong

AllisterH said:
			
		

> The only thing I disagree with you is "translate to a video game". Mainly because 4E seems explicitly to rely on DM judgement calls. As Hong keeps pointing out, "don't think about it too hard/just accept it" works well with a human DM to keep things inline but as a videogame?
> 
> It would be horrendous.....



 Somehow, "different rules for PCs and NPCs" seems to have morphed into "video gamey".

This is of course a total furphy, because "different rules for PCs and NPCs" is in fact anime.


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> Politics is involved in a Vampire LARP?




Yes. Also hair dye.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Yes. Also hair dye.



 No, politics is not involved in a Vampire LARP.


----------



## med stud

Two things: The main difference between low level opponents of previous editions and 4e minions is that the minions are _dangerous_. Against a level 12 party, 100 orcs are just tedious. They have no realistic chance of being a real danger to 4 mid/high level PCs.

100 orc warrior minions are nothing to sneeze at. They hit often enough, together they hit hard and if you are not careful, they can kill you. You will still kill them left and right and you can take on far more of them than regular level 9 orcs, but there is a point of playing out the fight.

This means that you can have the PCs engage huge amounts of enemies and still keep the drama. The fight will be dynamic and victory won't be a given. If those orc warriors instead were 1 HD creatures with AB +3, there would be no need to play it out. You could just narrate the death of the orcs instead.


The second thing is the in-the-game-world vs the in-the-rules is how much it takes to kill a mionion compared to a "real" creature.

Example in game: An orc minion is shot at five times by archers. Everyone misses their attack except for the last one. That means that it took FIVE attacks to kill the minion. The next orc, who is not a minion, is attacked FOUR times by the same archers and everyone hits. They roll good damage and the orc falls over. This means that the minion took one more attack to kill than the non-minion. In the game world, this would mean that it took more to kill the minion than it took to kill the non-minion, hence the archers would most likely think that that orc was tougher. I don't think anyone of the archers would pick up their stale muffins for the rest of the fight.


----------



## Lizard

Hussar said:
			
		

> Thus, there is no reason, in game, for anyone to conceptualize making bombs to dispose of minions.  You state that "city guards aren't minions" as if this were empirical fact.




It is. We've seen the stat blocks.

Now, it's possible there are Night Watch Grunts which ARE minions. The question is, do they know it? Or is it discovered the hard way?

"We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
"And?"
"He's dead."
"Huh. I could have sworn we had a 'no minion' policy in the guard."
"That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone."
"Oh well..."



> Heck, I'm fairly certain that you could have epic adventures where dragons are minions.  An epic level dragon guarded by all sorts of smaller dragon progeny.




Send in the peasants to clear them out. 20 per dragon. Peasants are cheap.



> Yet, as far as the in game world is concerned, there is no "minion" designation.  Simply because there is absolutely no way to test it.  If you throw a stale muffin at someone, he's not going to die, because his minion status depends on his relationship to the PC's.




Is this explicitly stated anywhere? Are there rules for "deminioning" someone?



> We know this for an absolute fact.  The designers have said as much. THIS IS NOT SIMULATIONISM.  Why do you insist on trying to force these rules to be simulationist?




Because regardless of the purpose of the rules, players WILL treat them as descriptions of the universe, and to the extent they need to be told "Well, yes, according to the rules you could do that, but you can't, because that's not how the rules are supposed to be used", they will feel limited and constrained. If game balance is based on "People should honor the spirit of the rules", game balance is broken.

It's like being in a video game where you can blow up tanks, but not a flimsy wooden door, because the game designer wants you to find a key. It blows immersion out of the water.

Now, to be fair, according to a blog post by Mike Mearls, 4e explicitly opposes that style of play, encouraging players to treat the environment as 'real' and not as a set of skill check DCs. Unofrtunately, that kind of thinking is inherently simulationist and doesn't mesh well with anti-simulationist rules.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> It is. We've seen the stat blocks.
> 
> Now, it's possible there are Night Watch Grunts which ARE minions. The question is, do they know it? Or is it discovered the hard way?
> 
> "We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
> "And?"
> "He's dead."
> "Huh. I could have sworn we had a 'no minion' policy in the guard."
> "That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone."
> "Oh well..."




So... a plan to kill the bad guys by dropping a fireball at ground zero fails, and this is a Bad Thing?



> Send in the peasants to clear them out. 20 per dragon. Peasants are cheap.




It is going to be generally assumed that the players want to wear the white hats. Or at worst, slightly grimy grey hats. Players who deliberately put on black hats are nobody's problem but their own.



> Is this explicitly stated anywhere? Are there rules for "deminioning" someone?




Why do you need this?



> Because regardless of the purpose of the rules, players WILL treat them as descriptions of the universe, and to the extent they need to be told "Well, yes, according to the rules you could do that, but you can't, because that's not how the rules are supposed to be used", they will feel limited and constrained. If game balance is based on "People should honor the spirit of the rules", game balance is broken.




Game balance works perfectly fine. This is not a game balance problem, but a believability problem, and that you conflate the two illustrates a poor understanding of what constitutes game balance.


----------



## Lacyon

Lizard said:
			
		

> Send in the peasants to clear them out. 20 per dragon. Peasants are cheap.




Assumptions, assumptions.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> Is this explicitly stated anywhere? Are there rules for "deminioning" someone?




This is quite possibly the first case I've seen of you _not thinking hard enough_ about fantasy, Lizard.


----------



## Fifth Element

Lizard said:
			
		

> Send in the peasants to clear them out. 20 per dragon. Peasants are cheap.



What if we assume, just for a moment, that the PCs _don't_ own hundreds of peasants to do with what they please?


----------



## Wormwood

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> What if we assume, just for a moment, that the PCs _don't_ own hundreds of peasants to do with what they please?



Great. You just made me drop my suspended disbelief.


----------



## hong

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> What if we assume, just for a moment, that the PCs _don't_ own hundreds of peasants to do with what they please?



 Maybe peasants are cheaper than magic items, what with that 500% markup....


----------



## LostSoul

Lizard said:
			
		

> Because regardless of the purpose of the rules, players WILL treat them as descriptions of the universe, and to the extent they need to be told "Well, yes, according to the rules you could do that, but you can't, because that's not how the rules are supposed to be used", they will feel limited and constrained. If game balance is based on "People should honor the spirit of the rules", game balance is broken.




You can deal with the NPCs however you want - you're the DM, you decide what happens to them.  You don't need to use the rules that resolve what the PCs want to do when you're only dealing with NPCs.  You have the authority as DM to excercise that kind of fiat.

If the PCs want to have the NPCs do something for them, make the players roll the dice.  Base success of the NPC's actions on the results of the rolls.


----------



## Lacyon

hong said:
			
		

> Maybe peasants are cheaper than magic items, what with that 500% markup....




I have a near-monopoly on the peasant trade. They're marked up _far_ more than 500%.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Wormwood said:
			
		

> Great. You just made me drop my suspended disbelief.



That sounds vaguely dirty. 



> Send in the peasants to clear them out. 20 per dragon. Peasants are cheap.



"Send the Irish, they cost nothing?"

So you'd say it would be acceptable in a campaign of D&D for the players to regularly sacrifice innocent peasants? 
If I'd run an evil campaign, this might work. Off course, I think the PCs would only get XP for the Peasants (since they somehow convinced them to sacrifice them, but didn't actually interact with the monsters), or at least share the XP with the (now dead) peasants. 

It might be a better example if we'd say that an NPC (maybe the evil grand vizier?) ordered the peasants to do this job. But then, isn't this a result that we might actually want? The villain is sacrificing people expendable to them, and the PCs are going to stop him. 

So, even if we take these rules at face value for "game world physics", we still get acceptable results to tell interesting stories.


----------



## Mallus

Lizard said:
			
		

> Is this explicitly stated anywhere? Are there rules for "deminioning" someone?



Does there need to be? Wouldn't a simple judgment call based on the situation suffice? Put another way: should a hammer come with detailed instructions for _not_ using it to pound dents into your head?



> If game balance is based on "People should honor the spirit of the rules", game balance is broken.



Then every super hero game is broken. This includes D&D, BTW. 

Also, all social functions are governed by etiquette. Expecting that players not go out of their way to break the game is no different from a party host having the (reasonable) expectation that his party guests won't trash his house (unless, of course, you believe that gamers are essentially an unsociable lot  ).

I understand that there's always going to be tension between the players wanting freedom (read: power) and the DM wanting a manageable (read: controlled) game environment. But in the end the players have to be partners in keeping the campaign running. If they shirk this responsibility, if they're only interested in finding exploits, gaming the system, etc., then no rule system is going to help. 



> Unofrtunately, that kind of thinking is inherently simulationist and doesn't mesh well with anti-simulationist rules.



Not neccessarily. You can believe in a game as an engaging, participatory story. You can believe in it's characters and their motivations. You can believe it's fun to kill monsters with wahoo. None of this requires a detailed physics/economics/climatological simulator. Put another way: Ulysses is a good book --just go with me on this-- even though you couldn't use it to rebuild Dublin from scratch.


----------



## Scribble

Lizard said:
			
		

> If the players know minions die from one hit point of damage, they will rig traps that do minimal damage and set them off with themselves in range, knowing the minions will be fried and they'll be only slightly harmed -- and they'll ask why none of the locals ever thought of using very weak bombs to do the same thing.




So you're saying your players will intentionaly go about doing the more tedius and cuumbersome task as opposed to just attacking?

Let's all watch bob make a bunch of skill rolls arming a trap, oh he needs x to build the trap, well lets gop back to the town where we found that thing... 

Makes a LOT more sense then just fighting them... 




> (City guards in 4e aren't minions, after all...a city guard with a 1d10 burst 2 explosive could clear out a dozen orc drudges and be barely scratched himself.)




We don't know this... I'd be happy if minion was the new commoner actually. 

But in any case... I'll repeat soemthign I said earlier. Hit Points do not exist in a vacume. They are part of an overall method of determining how long one opponent can stand against another, but they are not the ONLY determining factor.

The minion rules are just a simplified math form of creating a creature that can stand for X amount of time against an opponent of X power. 

It's no different then anything else in the game, just simplified so as to be easier to track.



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> Where does a game of tactical combat between faceless monsters and murdering plunderers with pretensions of glory gain from having a system that passes lightly over the details of that combat that is at the heart of it's function?




How does it do that? See above? 

Minion rules are no different then any other game element.


----------



## Andor

Scribble said:
			
		

> Minion rules are no different then any other game element.




Except of course for how they directly contradict other existing game elements. Like the fact that in D&D a 40' tall giant is hard to kill. Unless he's a minion, then a well flung spork will do the job.


----------



## LostSoul

Andor said:
			
		

> Except of course for how they directly contradict other existing game elements. Like the fact that in D&D a 40' tall giant is hard to kill. Unless he's a minion, then a well flung spork will do the job.




A "40' tall giant" is not a game element.

Hit Points: 140
AC: 25

That's a game element.  That doesn't contradict "hard to kill".


----------



## Scribble

Andor said:
			
		

> Except of course for how they directly contradict other existing game elements. Like the fact that in D&D a 40' tall giant is hard to kill. Unless he's a minion, then a well flung spork will do the job.




Except it doesn't. 

4e puts it more in line with other elements. In 4e no longer is a monster's power based just on it's race. It's more in line with how the rest of the game works. Race + Class.

a Wizard is easier to kill then a  fighter. 

A minion is easier to kill then a brute.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Andor said:
			
		

> Unless he's a minion, then a well flung spork will do the job.



What's wrong with that? A spork in the Eye is a spork in the Eye is a spork in the Eye....


----------



## Cadfan

Simulationism is dead.  Long live illusionism.

From a simulationist perspective, a 21st minion dies if you stab it with a spork.

From an illusionist perspective, you didn't stab the minion with a fork.  Instead, you have huge muscles, and you have a magical greatsword, and you just chopped a weak demon into two pieces so that you could get at his master.

From an illusionist perspective, information like "secretly, the minion only had one hit points" is metagame knowledge that your character doesn't know.  In strict game terms, your character knows he just pulverized a demon.  In slight metagame terms, you know you just did 4d6+a bunch of damage, because you're 21st level.  

In heavily metagame terms, you might know about the 1 hp thing, but you don't think in heavily metagame terms, because anyone who metagames that much and then whines about their sense of immersion is engaged in self inflicted injury.


----------



## Kishin

Celebrim said:
			
		

> But I think that the idea that 4E is a narrative driven game is undermined by all sorts of points, not the least of which is hong's continual chorus of 'don't think about it'.




The perfect example of this: The new Die Hard movie. It was amazing; pretty much everything an action movie should be. The whole premise behind the 'fire sale' and whatnot was utterly, patently ridiculous. But the point clearly was not to think about it. Keep your eyes on John McClane being awesome.

Unfortunately, this does litle to prevent people from forcing themselves to believe game mechanics equal game reality, which is where everyone's problem with minions are stemming from. Its a rule designed to model a literary/cinematic trope: Hordes of somewhat threatening but ultimately faceless mooks that the heroes put down in droves. There is no conceivable way you can force this sort of thing to conform to a simulationist, vaguely realistic viewpoint. Square peg. Round hole.



			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> It is. We've seen the stat blocks.
> 
> Now, it's possible there are Night Watch Grunts which ARE minions. The question is, do they know it? Or is it discovered the hard way?
> 
> "We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
> "And?"
> "He's dead."
> "Huh. I could have sworn we had a 'no minion' policy in the guard."
> "That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone."
> "Oh well..."




One stat block had non minion city guards. This does not mean all city guards are non minions.

And could we please stop using these ridiculous examples? They prove nothing, and don't strengthen any argument whatsoever. Minion isn't a concept the inhabitants of the game world are aware of and can verify, nor was it ever intended to be.



			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> From an illusionist perspective, you didn't stab the minion with a fork. Instead, you have huge muscles, and you have a magical greatsword, and you just chopped a weak demon into two pieces so that you could get at his master.
> 
> From an illusionist perspective, information like "secretly, the minion only had one hit points" is metagame knowledge that your character doesn't know. In strict game terms, your character knows he just pulverized a demon. In slight metagame terms, you know you just did 4d6+a bunch of damage, because you're 21st level.
> 
> In heavily metagame terms, you might know about the 1 hp thing, but you don't think in heavily metagame terms, because anyone who metagames that much and then whines about their sense of immersion is engaged in self inflicted injury.




Thank you. This is perfect.


----------



## robertliguori

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> What's wrong with that? A spork in the Eye is a spork in the Eye is a spork in the Eye....




A spork in the eye is not a spork deep enough into the brain to cause instant death, and neither should be 5% of sporks flung by peasants.

The fact that heroes can kill minions in one blow should be a function of how awesome the heroes are, not how crappy the minions are.  And if the heroes are insufficently awesome to slay a minion with a single blow, then by definition, said minion isn't miniony enough to face the heroes.



			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> Simulationism is dead. Long live illusionism.
> 
> From a simulationist perspective, a 21st minion dies if you stab it with a spork.
> 
> From an illusionist perspective, you didn't stab the minion with a fork. Instead, you have huge muscles, and you have a magical greatsword, and you just chopped a weak demon into two pieces so that you could get at his master.
> 
> From an illusionist perspective, information like "secretly, the minion only had one hit points" is metagame knowledge that your character doesn't know. In strict game terms, your character knows he just pulverized a demon. In slight metagame terms, you know you just did 4d6+a bunch of damage, because you're 21st level.
> 
> In heavily metagame terms, you might know about the 1 hp thing, but you don't think in heavily metagame terms, because anyone who metagames that much and then whines about their sense of immersion is engaged in self inflicted injury.



Er...OK.  So, if the circumstances of the game world lead to a nonheroic character attacking a minion with an improvised weapon and dealing a point of damage, then said nonheroic character morphs into a well-armed hero?  The point is that there are game elements in the world that do not represent heroes with heavy weapons and vast murderous experience, and that these game elements can accomplish the same damn thing as said heroes versus a particular type of enemy.  If you observe that a single normal attack with a shrukien (or similarly small-sized miniweapon) kills a particular class of creature 100% of the time on a successful hit, then minion status is visible in the game itself.

Really, the problem here is that we have one set of people who expect the rules to document their expectations of the universe, and another set who don't.  If you don't care that what the rules say happens in a given scenario are utterly at odds with what you think should happen, you need not worry about whether a given system is simulationistic.  However, I reserve the right to laugh long and loudly when your undocumented assumptions crash against the DM's documented-in-the-rules assumptions and he or she invites you to either go along with the fate your character has sown, or leave the table.  If you work out beforehand with all participants that the story is the thing, then you are operating under a given rule, and simulationists who complain that the witch didn't have the right feat to craft a 100-year-long enchantment are in the wrong.

Really, I can go either way as to what people should expect to be the default route to maximal fun.  I've seen enough people all convinced that good storytelling/fun gameplay/an immersive universe is the holy grail, and enough that could mostly take or leave that element, that I document my assumptions when I gain a new player or join a new game.  I personally like the fact that the assumed storyline of my games can end with 'and then a random goblin killed the last surviving hero, and darkness befell the land.', or, for that matter, that the BBEGs can get squished in the prologue if they're not careful.  I like the fact that the tactical minigame can warp from "Defeat the monsters and gain their treasure." to "Hunt down and kill other monsters suitable for animation as undead, and send the undead to defeat the monsters and gain their treasure."


----------



## robertliguori

Kishin said:
			
		

> The perfect example of this: The new Die Hard movie. It was amazing; pretty much everything an action movie should be. The whole premise behind the 'fire sale' and whatnot was utterly, patently ridiculous. But the point clearly was not to think about it. Keep your eyes on John McClane being awesome.
> 
> Unfortunately, this does litle to prevent people from forcing themselves to believe game mechanics equal game reality, which is where everyone's problem with minions are stemming from. Its a rule designed to model a literary/cinematic trope: Hordes of somewhat threatening but ultimately faceless mooks that the heroes put down in droves. There is no conceivable way you can force this sort of thing to conform to a simulationist, vaguely realistic viewpoint. Square peg. Round hole.



Of course you can do that simulationistically. It's simply a matter of increasing the power of the heroes instead of decreasing the power of the antagonists.  When the weakest blow of the heroes does 2n damage, where n is the maximum number of hit points of a given creature, said creatures are effectively minions against the first creature.  I submit Sauron incarnate (from the intro of the LotR movies) as an example thereof.

Moreover, jacking up the heroes is the simplest way of modeling such a scenario.  If a non-heroic character were to be inserted in the place of a hero in a hero vs. minion conflict, it is not expected that the nonheroic character would do as well as the hero; therefore, statting minions such that anyone (even another minion) can wipe them out in hordes is a poor representation of what they are meant to represent.



> One stat block had non minion city guards. This does not mean all city guards are non minions.
> 
> And could we please stop using these ridiculous examples? They prove nothing, and don't strengthen any argument whatsoever. Minion isn't a concept the inhabitants of the game world are aware of and can verify, nor was it ever intended to be.



They prove that if you use the rules we've been given, the result is pretty ridiculous. I'd call that a win for Team Simulationist. If you'd like to suggest we ignore the rules for minions in certain circumstances, I'd call that a pressing need for rules clarification, as well as an explanation for how to adjudicate the scenario causing said absurd result.

I'd also like a clear explanation for which areas in which the rules of the universe differ from ours are transparently obvious (the existence of magic, for instance), and which areas we're supposed to pretend to not notice the difference.  (Hint: Mention the words common sense and you'll get a lecture on how dragonflight is in violation of common sense and therefore flying dragons are impossible, and any existence implying them shjould be ignored.)


----------



## Fifth Element

Lizard said:
			
		

> "We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
> "And?"
> "He's dead."
> "Huh. I could have sworn we had a 'no minion' policy in the guard."
> "That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone."
> "Oh well..."



"We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
"And?"
"He's dead."
"Huh. I could have sworn we had a '_no 1st-level warrior_' policy in the guard."
"That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone."
"Oh well..."

Why are we discussing metagame terms in in-game terms? Would the captain of the watch comment that Cpl. Smith had only 5 hit points, so he should have sent out Sgt. Johnson, who's 2 levels higher and has a higher Constitution and has 17 hit points? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.


----------



## Scribble

robertliguori said:
			
		

> A spork in the eye is not a spork deep enough into the brain to cause instant death, and neither should be 5% of sporks flung by peasants.




In game terms, sure it is. 

YOU described it as a spork to the eye. That's a problem with your description skills. You purposefully chose something that seems ridiculous in order to make it seem ridiculous. Well done!

Ok, you're a commoner. You used a spork as your weapon. Nothing about rolling a 20 and killing the monster EVER indicated you stabbed it in the eye and that caused it to die.

Maybe you stabbed it in its artery. maybe you managed to find a crack in its spine. Who knows. 

The point is, you got lucky. As a peasant, you got lucky. Damn lucky. 

Sure, statistically 5 out of every 100 peasants should be that lucky... but how often does statistics actually play out in RL? Overall, sure, but in the short run? Flip a coin 10 times... did it alternate heads or tales each flip???




> The fact that heroes can kill minions in one blow should be a function of how awesome the heroes are, not how crappy the minions are.  And if the heroes are insufficently awesome to slay a minion with a single blow, then by definition, said minion isn't miniony enough to face the heroes.




It should be both. And it is.

The heroes are awesome enough to have no real trouble getting through the minions defenses. A commoner isn't that awesome (thuse the 5% thing) 

The minion is well trained at killing, but just doesnt have the MOXIE that others do.




> Er...OK.  So, if the circumstances of the game world lead to a nonheroic character attacking a minion with an improvised weapon and dealing a point of damage, then said nonheroic character morphs into a well-armed hero?




Why would this cause him to morph into anything? He got lucky. 



> The point is that there are game elements in the world that do not represent heroes with heavy weapons and vast murderous experience, and that these game elements can accomplish the same damn thing as said heroes versus a particular type of enemy.




Sure. When they get lucky. 




> If you observe that a single normal attack with a shrukien (or similarly small-sized miniweapon) kills a particular class of creature 100% of the time on a successful hit, then minion status is visible in the game itself.




No, it is not. In game there is absolutely NOTHING to distinguish one dead Orc from another. They are Orcs.  It's not like being a minion requires you to wear a certain colored jumpsuit based upon level like in american ninja!

Your character doesn't see a number pop up every time he hits an orc. He knows whether he killed it or not.



> Really, the problem here is that we have one set of people who expect the rules to document their expectations of the universe, and another set who don't.  If you don't care that what the rules say happens in a given scenario are utterly at odds with what you think should happen, you need not worry about whether a given system is simulationistic.




Actually what I see as the problem is one set of simulationists who have determined not to use ALL criteria (hit points, AC, attack power, movement, powers, magic) to deternmine what is simulated, and have instead decided to latch on to ONE aspect of the whole.

Ok so your bridge is made of concrete and the other one is made of wood... The concrete one should hold more right? But see in my simulation I've failed to account for the fact that the concrete one doesn't have any support beams!

minions have a certain % chance to last against an enemy of a certain % power. 

If this fails to fuel your simulation it's because you're fueling your simulation not with facts, but with your own preconcieved notions about what the facts should be!

That car is red, so it should go faster then your green one. Sports cars are always red so my red car MUST be a sports car. Sports car are fast! YEAH!!!!


----------



## robertliguori

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> "We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
> "And?"
> "He's dead."
> "Huh. I could have sworn we had a '_no 1st-level warrior_' policy in the guard."
> "That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone."
> "Oh well..."
> 
> Why are we discussing metagame terms in in-game terms? Would the captain of the watch comment that Cpl. Smith had only 5 hit points, so he should have sent out Sgt. Johnson, who's 2 levels higher and has a higher Constitution and has 17 hit points? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.




If something exists and is measurable in the game world, it's a game element.  If the GM is attached to an NPC and will alter the rules of the world on the fly to preserve that NPCs existence and awesomeness, then that NPC's immortality / competence are game elements.  Likewise, if certain characters are never slain by a 2d4+5 damaging attack when they're at full health, there is no reason why this would not be noticed and remarked upon.  In the real world, experimental observation confirms that injury is very swingy; sometimes a blow with a certain weapon, at a certain force, targeted at a certain area instantly kills or incapacitates, and sometimes merely slows down the victim, and sometimes can be completely ignored in the heat of combat.  We put this down to luck, as there do not appear to be a consistent set of factors that combine to make all potentially-mortal blows merely injurious.  A person can survive a blow rated to be very deadly, then two weeks later suffer a freak accident and get stabbed in the heart by a needle.

In D&D, there is a factor that determines whether a given blow will slay you or not; it's called hit points.  Hit points can be determined, tracked, and the conditions that grant or remove them can be observed.  If it's ridiculous to assume that characters know about the rough theory of character levels and hit points in-game, I claim that it is likewise ridiculous likewise for them to know about the existence of magic.


----------



## Scribble

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> "We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
> "And?"
> "He's dead."
> "Huh. I could have sworn we had a '_no 1st-level warrior_' policy in the guard."
> "That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone."
> "Oh well..."
> 
> Why are we discussing metagame terms in in-game terms? Would the captain of the watch comment that Cpl. Smith had only 5 hit points, so he should have sent out Sgt. Johnson, who's 2 levels higher and has a higher Constitution and has 17 hit points? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.




Exactly... here's how I see it:

"We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs."
"And?"
"He's dead. But he did manage to take one out with him sir..."
"Huh. They can be kileld then... You see that men? Stand your ground like the men you are! We can fight these things or die trying!"
"Sir... there's 300 of them... there's only 20 of us... even if each of us could manage to kill two of them..."
"Then we just better hope the time it takes for those bastards to kill us gives the women and children time to escape..."

PC Hero... "Leave those ugly pig faced a-holes to us..."


----------



## Fifth Element

robertliguori said:
			
		

> If it's ridiculous to assume that characters know about the rough theory of character levels and hit points in-game, I claim that it is likewise ridiculous likewise for them to know about the existence of magic.



No, it's not ridiculous for characters to know that some in-game people are tougher than others, and my post certainly did not imply that. But the example I was referring to involved _characters_ knowing exactly how many hit points another character had (as a minion). Not just that he wasn't very tough, but that he had only 1 hit point.

Your counterpoint is inaccurate; the equivalent would be _characters_ knowing exactly how much damage a _magic missile_ spell causes.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

robertliguori said:
			
		

> In D&D, there is a factor that determines whether a given blow will slay you or not; it's called hit points.  Hit points can be determined, tracked, and the conditions that grant or remove them can be observed.  If it's ridiculous to assume that characters know about the rough theory of character levels and hit points in-game, I claim that it is likewise ridiculous likewise for them to know about the existence of magic.



But hit points are abstract. And they are even more so in 4E then they have ever been. Hit-point wise, you can heal all damage you have taken, despite having been knocked down to -half your bloodied value +1 and failed 2 death saves, with a short rest. Sure, you might complain about that too, but that is one of the premises of 4E. 

In the end that means what hit points damage is all up to your flavor text. Some Orcs will survive 20 game-term attacks because they have so many hit points. You can describe them beeing stabbed in the guts 20 times, or buy evading each and every blow until the final one. Some Orcs will survive 20 game-term attacks because their defenses are high enough so that only the 20th actually connected, and since they had only 1 hit point, they're dead. 

And the problem is - from the outside, you won't really know if you fought Orc type 1 or Orc type 2. The closed thing you can measure is "time between first attack and deadly death" (if you can even measure what constitutes an attack, if most attacks present multiple swings and maneuvers). Measuring this stuff in the game-world is very hard.


----------



## Andor

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Simulationism is dead.  Long live illusionism.
> 
> From a simulationist perspective, a 21st minion dies if you stab it with a spork.
> 
> From an illusionist perspective, you didn't stab the minion with a fork.  Instead, you have huge muscles, and you have a magical greatsword, and you just chopped a weak demon into two pieces so that you could get at his master.
> 
> From an illusionist perspective, information like "secretly, the minion only had one hit points" is metagame knowledge that your character doesn't know.  In strict game terms, your character knows he just pulverized a demon.  In slight metagame terms, you know you just did 4d6+a bunch of damage, because you're 21st level.
> 
> In heavily metagame terms, you might know about the 1 hp thing, but you don't think in heavily metagame terms, because anyone who metagames that much and then whines about their sense of immersion is engaged in self inflicted injury.




You're seriously going to tell me that it's metagaming for my character to notice that out of a horde of apparently identical demons who look like this: [sblock=Demon]
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





[/sblock]
  70% of them die to a single hit from any weapon, even a blowgun dart, but the other 30% need dozens of hits to kill. And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?


----------



## Fifth Element

The only problem I can think of with using minions is changing my mini-using habits. Typically, if I have a group of goblins or whatever, and there are several types of goblins with different stats (archers, skirmishers, war chiefs, etc), I'll use the same mini for each type to make it easier for me to keep track of the stats of the goblins on the board. But if I use the same mini to represent each minion, my players could figure out which mini represents the minions after the first one falls and metagame to take advantage of that.


----------



## AZRogue

Andor said:
			
		

> 70% of them die to a single hit from any weapon, even a blowgun dart, but the other 30% need dozens of hits to kill. And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?




Absolutely. The ones you killed in one hit didn't die because they were weak so much as you landed a more deadly blow. Right past any defenses and into the heart, so to speak. The ones who take longer to kill don't allow you to penetrate their defenses until that final damage roll. So it means you're very good, not that they're really bad. Your int 20 wizard would know that.


----------



## Fifth Element

Andor said:
			
		

> And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?



You are, of course, assuming that there will be minions in _every_ encounter. I don't think that's the intent, and if you foresee a problem with that, then _don't use minions in every encounter_. Use them when appropriate.


----------



## AZRogue

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> The only problem I can think of with using minions is changing my mini-using habits. Typically, if I have a group of goblins or whatever, and there are several types of goblins with different stats (archers, skirmishers, war chiefs, etc), I'll use the same mini for each type to make it easier for me to keep track of the stats of the goblins on the board. But if I use the same mini to represent each minion, my players could figure out which mini represents the minions after the first one falls and metagame to take advantage of that.




Yeah, I've thought of this too. I'm mixing it up when it comes to minion miniatures. More trouble for me, maybe, but worth it.


----------



## LostSoul

Andor said:
			
		

> 70% of them die to a single hit from any weapon, even a blowgun dart, but the other 30% need dozens of hits to kill. And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?




Sometimes you get lucky.


----------



## CrimsonNeko

Andor said:
			
		

> 70% of them die to a single hit from any weapon, even a blowgun dart, but the other 30% need dozens of hits to kill. And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?




I would say it's fine they know that, honestly.  First of all, since that 30% doesn't drop from one hit, they can't just assume they can plow through everything.  If they just try to charge through a line of them, they're going to hit a non-minion half way through and suddenly have all the survivors beating on them and die quickly.  Honestly, I don't really feel it takes away from the epic-ness.  In every fantasy book or movie I've read, as a D&D player I've always been bothered by how the characters can plow through so many nameless hordes.  I mean, it seemed totally natural that an orc could die from being stabbed in the face by an arrow in the lord of the rings movies.  It seems people are just bothered by the fact that the rules reflect that now.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Stale Pastries Do Zero Damage


----------



## Campbell

Here's the thing: No argument is going to satisfy those who do not like minions due to simulation-based concerns. They were included as a boon to those with divergent play agendas. If you don't want to use minions in your games that is your choice. 

It might mean some stat blocks in the Monster Manual are useless for you, but I can't say it bothers me that much. There is always going to be game material that is useless for a portion of the game's audience. Life sucks - Get a helmet.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

After however many pages since my last reply, I still don't see minions as anything besides Wandering Damage the PCs have to pass the Minion Skill Challenge to overcome.

They are no different than using mobile traps.  Mobile traps that use AC instead of DC for your skill check, and have a 1/'PC hit points' ratio for success/fail.  But they have also managed to nerf the powers that have damage effects on a miss, which were in there so the players could be all awesome all the time.  Except when they are fighting a minion.  A normal monster with low hit points?  Yeah, that one is dead.  Not the minion, though, they get to survive an infinite number of miss-effects.

Give the regular monsters a damage aura which ends when they are bloodied, and let's stop pretending minions are anything other than Konami code cheese.


----------



## Fifth Element

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Give the regular monsters a damage aura which ends when they are bloodied, and let's stop pretending minions are anything other than Konami code cheese.



Good to know you still want to contribute to the discussion.


----------



## Andor

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> Stale Pastries Do Zero Damage




I dunno. I've seen someone dropped by a well thrown 2-week old bagel to the groin.


----------



## Sojorn

Andor said:
			
		

> I dunno. I've seen someone dropped by a well thrown 2-week old bagel to the groin.



They do, however, add sneak attack damage.


> *Sneak Attack*
> Once per round, when you have combat advantage against an enemy and are using a light blade, a stale baked good, a crossbow, or a sling, your attacks against that enemy deal extra damage. As you advance in level, your extra damage increases.


----------



## jeffwik

Andor said:
			
		

> You're seriously going to tell me that it's metagaming for my character to notice that out of a horde of apparently identical demons who look like this: [sblock=Demon]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [/sblock]
> 70% of them die to a single hit from any weapon, even a blowgun dart, but the other 30% need dozens of hits to kill. And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?




Actually, yeah, I would say it could be.  Because hit point damage doesn't reflect injury, it's valid to imagine a scenario in which those dozens of hits you're inflicting on the non-minion monsters aren't wounds the monster is accumulating.  Rather you're wearing down its ability to fight and defend itself, until the last blow gets through its defenses and kills it.  So every single monster is one hit, one kill, regardless of whether it is a minion or not.


----------



## robertliguori

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> But hit points are abstract. And they are even more so in 4E then they have ever been. Hit-point wise, you can heal all damage you have taken, despite having been knocked down to -half your bloodied value +1 and failed 2 death saves, with a short rest. Sure, you might complain about that too, but that is one of the premises of 4E.
> 
> In the end that means what hit points damage is all up to your flavor text. Some Orcs will survive 20 game-term attacks because they have so many hit points. You can describe them beeing stabbed in the guts 20 times, or buy evading each and every blow until the final one. Some Orcs will survive 20 game-term attacks because their defenses are high enough so that only the 20th actually connected, and since they had only 1 hit point, they're dead.
> 
> And the problem is - from the outside, you won't really know if you fought Orc type 1 or Orc type 2. The closed thing you can measure is "time between first attack and deadly death" (if you can even measure what constitutes an attack, if most attacks present multiple swings and maneuvers). Measuring this stuff in the game-world is very hard.




Hit points are an abstract measure of toughness, luck, battle skill, and the like, but they are a concrete example of the amount of damage it takes to kill someone or break something.

And if the system of D&D had a single attack and damage roll, your example would be true, and this would not be an argument.  But since there exist concrete effects that are tied to hits versus misses, it's trivial to tell whether or not any given blow was a hit or a miss, no matter how it's flavored.  For instance, if a secondary effect triggers on a hit, then even if the GM flavors it as a just-barely-dodged from the minion's perspective, the player knows it's a hit.  Plus, you can always tie up a character and swing at it repeatedly; if its a nonminion, then it will take several max-damage Coup de Grace attempts to kill it, while a minion will squish.

The thing is, even if you abstract an attack into a round's worth of feints, maneuvers, and swings, the attack still exists, and it will still be known that you need to put a certain amount of effort into an attack to have a chance of connecting.  We've seen attacks that trigger on hits and imply significant wounding happened with the hit (such as the goblin picador); this means that there is a limit to the amount of reflavoring possible for missed attacks versus HP-depleting hits.


----------



## AZRogue

Campbell said:
			
		

> Here's the thing: No argument is going to satisfy those who do not like minions due to simulation-based concerns. They were included as a boon to those with divergent play agendas. If you don't want to use minions in your games that is your choice.
> 
> It might mean some stat blocks in the Monster Manual are useless for you, but I can't say it bothers me that much. There is always going to be game material that is useless for a portion of the game's audience. Life sucks - Get a helmet.




You're correct, of course. The reflex to argue is difficult to overcome, though. For those who want minions to fall into some sort of simulation-based mold (as in, fit into the world somehow while still using the same stats as he has during combat with a PC, even though there's no reason whatsoever to know how minions survive when not being killed by PCs) there will be no answer. They weren't provided to model anything outside of combat. All this means is that some DMs will have a few more statblocks available than others. 20 more pages won't change that basic fact, I think.


----------



## Cadfan

Andor said:
			
		

> You're seriously going to tell me that it's metagaming for my character to notice that out of a horde of apparently identical demons who look like this: *snip*
> 70% of them die to a single hit from any weapon, even a blowgun dart, but the other 30% need dozens of hits to kill. And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?



Yes.  It is metagaming.  Metagaming mixed with a healthy dose of straw man argumentation, though.

Do you seriously believe that monsters like woolly mammoths will be minions?  I mean you, personally, the person typing under the screen name Andor.  As an individual human being in real life.  Not as a Mighty Forum Warrior who will say anything to win a fight.  You personally.  Do you think that Woolly Mammoths sound like a minion monster?

Everyone else is giving you a pass here on the hyperbole, but without the hyperbole your post is blank.  So I'm not inclined to let it go.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Everyone else is giving you a pass here on the hyperbole




Credit where credit is due! I have been ever vigilant about the stale pastries issue.

-Rex "Voted Most Likely to Take a Hard Line about the Damage Done by Flung Food" Blunder


----------



## hong

robertliguori said:
			
		

> If something exists and is measurable in the game world, it's a game element.




The trick is not to waste your time measuring stuff.


----------



## pemerton

Andor said:
			
		

> Here is a point I honestly don't get. What is the reason for developing a narrative based ruleset for a game centered solely around killing things and taking their stuff?



I can't speak for others,  but for me the attraction is the same as in superhero comics: excessive physical violence is a very easy metaphor for a whole range of conflicts.



			
				AZRogue said:
			
		

> I don't see 4E as really narrative. Instead, it has just chosen to concentrate on results and gameplay instead of worrying about the rules also providing a structure outside a gameplay scenario.





			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> I don't either.  I see it as a highly gamist game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think that its being welcomed by some more narrativist types because they are hoping for something which is less burdensome to thier style of play and high on that list would be fixing the balance of the game in and out of combat so that they can focus on the story more.  I also think that there are quite a few gamists who are talking about 4E as a narrativist game because 'gamist' has acquired (quite unfairly) a reputation for being a less mature sort of play, and 'narrativist' has acquired (quite unfairly) a reputation for being a more serious, mature, and sophisticated form of play.



Rob Heinsoo has said it is being written for gamist purposes, but has (in the same paragraph) said that in that respect it resemble indie games.

I think that this is consistent with the notion put forward by Ron Edwards, that many of the same rules that support gamism can support narrativism (and vice versa), because both are about a player-centric game. At any given gaming table it is simply a question of the purposes to which those rules are being put.


----------



## robertliguori

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Yes.  It is metagaming.  Metagaming mixed with a healthy dose of straw man argumentation, though.
> 
> Do you seriously believe that monsters like woolly mammoths will be minions?  I mean you, personally, the person typing under the screen name Andor.  As an individual human being in real life.  Not as a Mighty Forum Warrior who will say anything to win a fight.  You personally.  Do you think that Woolly Mammoths sound like a minion monster?
> 
> Everyone else is giving you a pass here on the hyperbole, but without the hyperbole your post is blank.  So I'm not inclined to let it go.




We've seen epic-level minions, yes?  That would tend towards the ridiculous end of the scale in terms of minions.

I'll turn it around.  Of course that mumak (advanced dire elephant) exists solely to smash through your lines but then be slain in a single dramatic action.  Likewise, the Witch-King of Angmar is obviously a minion; he dies in a single stroke after his defenses are lowered by the low-level hobbit's Daily (and with the flanking).  I mean, that makes sense; there are nine nazgul, after all, so some of them have to be minions in order for the encounter to be balanced.

And as for me personally, I haven't seen enough to pick out a coherent sense of minion versus nonminion status.  I have seen several crude attempts to approximate a cinematic feel encoded into the rules, and I have seen several movies in which great beasts were felled with titanic single blows.  Given this, I'd not be terribly surprised if we did have huge-and-above animal minions.


----------



## Hussar

> Originally Posted by Andor
> Here is a point I honestly don't get. What is the reason for developing a narrative based ruleset for a game centered solely around killing things and taking their stuff?




Because it will let me have scenes like this one in my game:







And any rules that let me do that?  Well, gimme please.


----------



## Family

"...killing things and taking their stuff?"

Good luck looting those bodies.

On the upside good use of forced movement.


----------



## Piratecat

robertliguori said:
			
		

> Likewise, the Witch-King of Angmar is obviously a minion; he dies in a single stroke after his defenses are lowered by the low-level hobbit's Daily (and with the flanking).  I mean, that makes sense; there are nine nazgul, after all, so some of them have to be minions in order for the encounter to be balanced.



This is the funniest thing I'll read today. It's so, so very true. I'd never considered it before.


----------



## Andor

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Yes.  It is metagaming.  Metagaming mixed with a healthy dose of straw man argumentation, though.
> 
> Do you seriously believe that monsters like woolly mammoths will be minions?  I mean you, personally, the person typing under the screen name Andor.  As an individual human being in real life.  Not as a Mighty Forum Warrior who will say anything to win a fight.  You personally.  Do you think that Woolly Mammoths sound like a minion monster?
> 
> Everyone else is giving you a pass here on the hyperbole, but without the hyperbole your post is blank.  So I'm not inclined to let it go.




As RobertLiguori said, we have seen *Epic Devil* minions. Elsewhere on this thread people have said they wouldn't mind seeing dragon minions. So no, I would not put it past WotC to have Huge or Colossal minions. As so many have stated there is no element of simulationism in these rules, so why not? What honestly is the difference between an epic level minion who looks like Satans last blind date, and one that looks like an elephant that abused steroids?


----------



## Celebrim

Hussar said:
			
		

> Because it will let me have scenes like this one in my game:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And any rules that let me do that?  Well, gimme please.




300 4th level fighters bullrushing 300 1st level warriors?


----------



## Hussar

Andor said:
			
		

> As RobertLiguori said, we have seen *Epic Devil* minions. Elsewhere on this thread people have said they wouldn't mind seeing dragon minions. So no, I would not put it past WotC to have Huge or Colossal minions. As so many have stated there is no element of simulationism in these rules, so why not? What honestly is the difference between an epic level minion who looks like Satans last blind date, and one that looks like an elephant that abused steroids?




To be fair, I see no problems with epic level minions.

The odds that IN PLAY you are going to be able to toss peasants at them is so vanishingly small that I can't honestly be asked to worry about whether or not it would actually matter.

Yes, Andor, you're probably 100% right.  But, since you are only 100% right in such a small, miniscule corner case, it's pretty safe to say, "who cares?"


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> You're seriously going to tell me that it's metagaming for my character to notice that out of a horde of apparently identical demons who look like this:




"Identical"?


----------



## Hussar

hong said:
			
		

> "Identical"?




Of course they're identical Hong.  Didn't you know that any two creatures with the same stats must be indistinguishable?  Despite the fact that this appears no where in any rule, it must be so.


----------



## hong

Hussar said:
			
		

> Of course they're identical Hong.  Didn't you know that any two creatures with the same stats must be indistinguishable?  Despite the fact that this appears no where in any rule, it must be so.



 Actually, if Andor is saying anything, he's saying that any two creatures with different stats must be indistinguishable. Because, you know, the 70 legion devil minions clearly look exactly the same as the 30 war devil leaders mixed in with them.

Or something.


----------



## Piratecat

Guys, don't dogpile someone because you disagree with them. Sarcasm isn't necessarily the right tool for having, you know, actual discussions.


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> Actually, if Andor is saying anything, he's saying that any two creatures with different stats must be indistinguishable. Because, you know, the 70 legion devil minions clearly look exactly the same as the 30 war devil leaders mixed in with them.
> 
> Or something.




So, are you suggesting now that minions _do_ have some kind of distinguishing characteristic that allows one to visually seperate them from their fellow monsters who aren't made of soap bubbles? I'm finding it hard to keep track of your argument.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> So, are you suggesting now that minions _do_ have some kind of distinguishing characteristic that allows one to visually seperate them from their fellow monsters who aren't made of soap bubbles? I'm finding it hard to keep track of your argument.




You have legion devils. They are minions.

You have other kinds of devils. Who are not minions.

Why do you assume that all devils look the same?


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> You have legion devils. They are minions.
> 
> You have other kinds of devils. Who are not minions.
> 
> Why do you assume that all devils look the same?




I seem to recall that the article on the Pitfiends mentioned Legion Devils who were not minions. I can't confirm that though because WotC wants me to sign in to view what was once free content. In any event it leaves aside my question of whether or not it is possible to tell a 9th level Orc minion with 1 hp from a 7th level Orc brute with 194 hp. 

Or an 8th level Angel of Valor  with 88hp from a 21st level Angel of Valor with 1.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> I seem to recall that the article on the Pitfiends mentioned Legion Devils who were not minions. I can't confirm that though because WotC wants me to sign in to view what was once free content. In any event it leaves aside my question of whether or not it is possible to tell a 9th level Orc minion with 1 hp from a 7th level Orc brute with 194 hp.




You tell the orc minion from the orc brute in exactly the same way as you tell the 1HD orc warrior from the 15HD orc barbarian.



> Or an 8th level Angel of Valor  with 88hp from a 21st level Angel of Valor with 1.




Why do you assume that all angels of valor look the same?


----------



## Lizard

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Do you seriously believe that monsters like woolly mammoths will be minions?




Why *couldn't* they be? Seriously.

Let me address this from a 4e-positive perspective. If we accept that "minion" is a dramatic condition, not a physical aspect, then, there's no reason ANY creature can't be a minion. The heroes are in a time-lost valley filled with dinosaurs, cavemen, and mammoths, evolutionary timelines by damned! (PLUG: See "GURPS:Lands Out Of Time". By me. End Plug.) The strange mummy-lich in pyramid at the end of the valley is completing his ritual. To keep the pesty heroes away, he casts a plot-device spell which causes the creature of the valley to rise up and stampede! The heroes must fight their way through the onrushing beastial hordes in order to reach the villain before he completes his fell rite!

Under those circumstance (and please don't tell me that's not a common enough plot conceit in the type of literature D&D, and especially 4e, aims to emulate), why SHOULDN'T wooly mammoths be minions?

They're doing what minions do -- provide a roadblock for the heroes. 

Have hordes of equally minion cavemen fighting alongside the heroes, along with a non-minion Primitive Princess and someone riding a tyrannosaur. The minion-class creatures slaughter each other with abandon, the heroes carve their way through the horde, getting battered but not dying.

If the idea of wooly mammoth minions is too much, you haven't drunk enough 4e kool aid. By the design ethos of 4e, it makes perfect sense to me.


----------



## BryonD

Hussar said:
			
		

> And any rules that let me do that?  Well, gimme please.



So you never achieved that with 3E?
That's kinda sad.


----------



## Lizard

Fifth Element said:
			
		

> What if we assume, just for a moment, that the PCs _don't_ own hundreds of peasants to do with what they please?




They might not. The local lord does. So he only needs heroes when he's run out of peasants.

One of the things I discovered working on Fields of Blood was just HOW NASTY even mid level monsters are in 3x, compared to the level 1 shlubs that make up the world. Even if the peasants hit (unlikely), many, many, critters have such high DR that even a critical with max damage rolled won't do much. Many have too high an AC to be hit on anything but a 20, and even then, you have only 1-in-20 chance of confirming that potential crit. One or two CR 9 or 10 creatures can wipe out entire armies of level 1 warriors, statistically speaking. Never mind what a CR 20 dragon can do -- using the demographics of the DMG, most cities would be destroyed by one, even if they threw everything they had at it. You NEEDED heroes, no matter how many peasant levies you could raise; no one else could do the job.

4e? Even leaving aside minions, there's no DR, 20s always hit and always crit. Your peasant levies just got a lot tougher.

And maybe that makes sense. 4e postulates a lot fewer heroes and a much rougher world, so if a gang of 20 farmers can't kill the occasional troll or ankheg or bullette, there's going to be no points of light at all. So in a twisted sort of way, the rules *are* simulationist, as they seem to accurately model how the world has to work for it to exist as described.

And that's where we get to my tipping point -- do the rules describe the world in a believable fashion? If they do, then they work. If they don't, then they don't. Some of the things I've heard from the PHB 'sneak peek' are actually getting me interested in a positive way. I'm trying to keep an open mind here.


----------



## Fifth Element

Lizard said:
			
		

> They might not. The local lord does. So he only needs heroes when he's run out of peasants.



No, he needs heroes _before_ he runs out of peasants. His peasant army may be able to hold off the hordes for a little bit, while the lord hires some heroes to do a proper job, but they will be overcome. And who's going to work the land or pay the taxes if the lord uses his peasants to fight off invasions?


----------



## Fifth Element

Lizard said:
			
		

> 4e? Even leaving aside minions, there's no DR, 20s always hit and always crit. Your peasant levies just got a lot tougher.



Bear in mind that the peasants would likely be minions themselves.


----------



## Korgoth

Lizard said:
			
		

> They might not. The local lord does. So he only needs heroes when he's run out of peasants.
> 
> One of the things I discovered working on Fields of Blood was just HOW NASTY even mid level monsters are in 3x, compared to the level 1 shlubs that make up the world. Even if the peasants hit (unlikely), many, many, critters have such high DR that even a critical with max damage rolled won't do much. Many have too high an AC to be hit on anything but a 20, and even then, you have only 1-in-20 chance of confirming that potential crit. One or two CR 9 or 10 creatures can wipe out entire armies of level 1 warriors, statistically speaking. Never mind what a CR 20 dragon can do -- using the demographics of the DMG, most cities would be destroyed by one, even if they threw everything they had at it. You NEEDED heroes, no matter how many peasant levies you could raise; no one else could do the job.
> 
> 4e? Even leaving aside minions, there's no DR, 20s always hit and always crit. Your peasant levies just got a lot tougher.
> 
> And maybe that makes sense. 4e postulates a lot fewer heroes and a much rougher world, so if a gang of 20 farmers can't kill the occasional troll or ankheg or bullette, there's going to be no points of light at all. So in a twisted sort of way, the rules *are* simulationist, as they seem to accurately model how the world has to work for it to exist as described.
> 
> And that's where we get to my tipping point -- do the rules describe the world in a believable fashion? If they do, then they work. If they don't, then they don't. Some of the things I've heard from the PHB 'sneak peek' are actually getting me interested in a positive way. I'm trying to keep an open mind here.




See, this is a point of view that works for me.  In point of fact it probably is possible to bring down a mammoth (or some other giant muscular critter) with a single spear thrust, so long as the thrust goes through the eye and into the brain, or penetrates the neck, or whatever.  As long as we stick with the notion that 1 hit point of damage is a life-threatening wound (and therefore does not represent the injury of a stubbed toe or incidental cut, both of which can be painful but not life-threatening) then the mammoth can go until he receives a life-threatening hit.  He ignores non-life threatening hits all day long, just like everybody else.  What separates him from BeoMammoth the Mammoth Hero is that no matter how good a spear throw you make, that slippery cuss always seems to turn aside at the last minute, the spear either missing completely or perhaps sticking ineffectually in its ample mastodon rump.  Hunting down that mammoth (Ol' Snaggletusk or whatever the tribe calls him) is the stuff of legend.

Likewise, perhaps there are trolls for whom a mob of 20 villagers with pointy weapons would be threatening.  The thing is, you never know (as a villager) when you're facing Grendel the troll and when you're facing Urkel the troll.  And there's nothing less than your life at stake.  And even if you guys eventually get him, there are going to be a lot of widows in town after this fight.  So maybe you'd be better off paying some heroes to do the job, if possible?  After all, to you, a troll's a troll.  Better safe than ripped to shreds.

Still, when the baddies raid your point of light, Joe Peasant might be able to take one down.  This can be seen as establishing a PoL ecology, as you pointed out.


----------



## Fifth Element

Korgoth said:
			
		

> The thing is, you never know (as a villager) when you're facing Grendel the troll and when you're facing Urkel the troll.  And there's nothing less than your life at stake.  And even if you guys eventually get him, there are going to be a lot of widows in town after this fight.  So maybe you'd be better off paying some heroes to do the job, if possible?  After all, to you, a troll's a troll.  Better safe than ripped to shreds.



Yes. It's easy to say "throw the peasants at it", but that assumes you _know_ that the monster is a minion (and _how would you know that ahead of time_), and assumes the peasants would go along with the plan. In-game, peasants are people too. They will fight in dire circumstances, but generally against a fearsome monster, they will flee. They have _no way of knowing_, in-game, that the monster will fall with a single lucky hit.


----------



## Rex Blunder

I gotta say, Lizard, I like your reductio-ad-absurdum wooly mammoth scenario. I think it sounds Kickin'. Throw a couple of velociraptors on motorcycles and you've got something.

If the heroes are sufficiently high-level that they could conceivably take a wooly mammoth one-on-one without too much trouble, then I don't have a problem with there being mammoth minions. I'm guessing this is at least Paragon tier.

At first I thought, "It seems like an abuse to have minions who are fighting other minions. After all, minions are supposed to be creatures who can be plowed through BY THE PCs. 'Minion' is a relative term."

Then I thought, "Yeah, but I honestly don't want to be tracking the hit points of a bunch of wooly mammoths and cavemen who aren't even interacting with the PCs. I don't want to sit there rolling tons and tons of dice while the PCs wait to attack or be attacked. So, if the mammoths' and cavemen's AC and attack bonuses are such that a mammoth will kill an appropriate-ish number of cavemen, then, SURE. Minions fighing minions might be a good timesaver."

Minion rules might actually allow this big battle to work without a lot of dead time for the players.

Do you think the caveman princess is a warlord?


----------



## Sojorn

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> I'm guessing this is at least Paragon tier.



Epic.

At the earliest.


----------



## Lizard

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Likewise, perhaps there are trolls for whom a mob of 20 villagers with pointy weapons would be threatening.  The thing is, you never know (as a villager) when you're facing Grendel the troll and when you're facing Urkel the troll.




Sure you do:
One troll=Grendel
Twenty trolls=Urkel

4e works on the Ninja Rule, whereby there is a fixed amount of Ninja Power in the universe, and the more ninjas there are in any given scene, the weaker each ninja is. If you face 100 ninja, you can mow them down like butter, if you ever ran your lawnmower over butter. If you face one ninja, make out your will.


----------



## Cadfan

Lizard said:
			
		

> Why *couldn't* they be? Seriously.



I know that technically speaking the DM can make any monster he wants into a minion.  This is much like how a DM can rule that in HIS campaign, kobolds have 30 billion hit points, or how, in 3e, I as a DM can grant a goblin 15 class levels in Warmage, while not actually changing his appearance or gear, then hide him amongst a bunch of goblin warrior 1s.

So... I suppose if I, as DM, wanted to declare that mammoths, or Balors, or Elder Gods were minions now, I could do that.

But of course no one can blame WOTC for the possibility that someone might customize their campaign in a way that you don't like.

I'm operating from the assumption that the key test for whether a monster is a minion is whether it makes sense for a character of a particular level to kill a particular monster in one hit.  That's what the mammoth question aimed at.  I suppose I should have been more precise for the sake of pedants.  So, does anyone disagree with the likelihood that that's the test?


			
				Lizard said:
			
		

> If the idea of wooly mammoth minions is too much, you haven't drunk enough 4e kool aid. By the design ethos of 4e, it makes perfect sense to me.



You think this because the way you entertain yourself on this forum is constructing straw person versions of 4e, insist that other people believe them, then declaring victory when it turns out that the reality is more reasonable than your crabbed vision.


----------



## Lizard

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> I gotta say, Lizard, I like your reductio-ad-absurdum wooly mammoth scenario. I think it sounds Kickin'. Throw a couple of velociraptors on motorcycles and you've got something.




What's so reductio about it? There's 22nd level minion devils. Compared to that, minion mammoths is nothing. Hell, look at King Kong. You had minion raptors and bronotsaurs.



> If the heroes are sufficiently high-level that they could conceivably take a wooly mammoth one-on-one without too much trouble, then I don't have a problem with there being mammoth minions. I'm guessing this is at least Paragon tier.




Yeah, you usually hit the Lost Valley Of The Dinosaurs around 10th level old school, 15th level 4e.




> At first I thought, "It seems like an abuse to have minions who are fighting other minions. After all, minions are supposed to be creatures who can be plowed through BY THE PCs. 'Minion' is a relative term."




Why is this an abuse? Isn't it the best model for the "PC's lead their army of redshirts against the enemy redshirts?" During the various Big Fights of LOTR, you had armies of disposables killing each other, while the heroes took out the Named.



> Do you think the caveman princess is a warlord?




Unless the Bard class has come out by then, yeah. There's also going to be a shaman (warlock or cleric) in the mix. There always is.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Lizard said:
			
		

> 4e works on the Ninja Rule, whereby there is a fixed amount of Ninja Power in the universe, and the more ninjas there are in any given scene, the weaker each ninja is.




So does 3e.

Are you forgetting that 3e has encounter level guidelines for constructing encounters? That's not new with 4e. If your 3e DM throws 15 ninjas at you, you can guess that they're a lot lower-level than if he throws 1 ninja at you.

Or is your argument that 3e is so much worse at balancing encounters that the 3e encounter-level guidelines might as well not exist? In which case, I disagree with you - 3e is not THAT bad.

Or is it that, "but in MY 3e game I ignore the EL guidelines when building encounters - which, for some reason, is impossible in 4E"? In which case I disagree with you: "Houseruled 3e is better than stock 4e, so 3e > 4e" is a fallacy.


----------



## Lizard

Cadfan said:
			
		

> But of course no one can blame WOTC for the possibility that someone might customize their campaign in a way that you don't like.




Can you tell me why 22nd level devil minions make more sense than mammoth minions? If "Minion" is a storytelling aspect, as is usually claimed, there's no reason for anything to NOT be minion, if the story calls for hordes of them to be flung at the players mostly so the players can show off how bad-ass they are.

As another example, consider the uber-vamps from season 7 of Buffy. When there was one of them, it took one very experienced slayer and a dozen proto-slayers an entire episode to kill it. By the season finale, there was an army of them, and newly-empowered slayers were killing 2-3 a round. Cearly, in the first appearence, it was a solo uber-vamp, and in the final episode, they were all minion uber-vamps.

But if one had escaped the slaughter and appeared in a hypothetical future episode, it would be back to being uber.

You can't have it both ways. You can't have simulationist logic and story logic both ruling the world. Either you allow for wooly mammoth minions, or you have to rethink the whole 'minion' idea. If we accept that 'minion' is a plot aspect, not an innate aspect, it all makes sense.


----------



## Lizard

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> So does 3e.




Sure.



> Are you forgetting that 3e has encounter level guidelines for constructing encounters? That's not new with 4e. If your 3e DM throws 15 ninjas at you, you can guess that they're a lot lower-level than if he throws 1 ninja at you.




Yeah, I'd forgot that, which is why when the 8th level PCs encountered a bunch of gnolls, they were all 8th level.

Oh wait...only the boss was. The rest were 2nd level warriors on top of the normal gnoll base.

Why are you assuming I'm trying to make an anti-4e or pro-3e argument? I'm pointing out that mammoth minions make perfect sense in 4e, and no one has yet shown that they DON'T. I even gave what I consider to be a perfectly reasonable example of a scenario where you'd have mammoth minions, to show it wasn't a ridiculous edge case that would never come up in actual play.

I'm reminded of the famous argument between an atheist and a believer. The believer denied the existence of Odin, Zeus, and so on, but claimed to believe in his deity of choice. The atheist then noted that he was much the same as the believer, except that he believed in one fewer god.

If you can accept devil minions but not mammoth minions, you're just one minion away from being a simulationist.


----------



## Vendark

Lizard said:
			
		

> Why are you assuming I'm trying to make an anti-4e or pro-3e argument? I'm pointing out that mammoth minions make perfect sense in 4e, and no one has yet shown that they DON'T.




The problem with the mammoth minion idea is that killing gigantic monsters in one hit is anti-climactic in the vast majority of cases, and thus detracts from drama rather than building it. So while you certainly could make mammoths minions, it probably isn't advisable unless the campaign is aiming for a truly gonzo epic feel.


----------



## Lizard

Vendark said:
			
		

> The problem with the mammoth minion idea is that killing gigantic monsters in one hit is anti-climactic in the vast majority of cases, and thus detracts from drama rather than building it. So while you certainly could make mammoths minions, it probably isn't advisable unless the campaign is aiming for a truly gonzo epic feel.




Any evidence all minions in the DMG are medium or smaller?

Here's the scene.

The mammoths charge down the narrow valley, blocking the only path to the necromancer's dread ziggarut where, even now, eldritch lightning is crackling as the dread ritual approaches its climax. If the heroes cannot stop him before the three moons align, this alien world -- and their own -- is finished.

The paladin, of course, is first in, charging boldly on his steed. He stands in the saddle and slashes open the underbelly of the first beast, the divine radiance which trails after his sword emboldening his comrades. The next to move is the tiny halfling, who dodges beneath the feet of the giants. His small dagger barely nicks one, but as the maddened brute tries to gore the diminutive pest, his target ducks to one side, and the beast's tusks instead impale another hairy giant.

The warlock is not be left out. Dark forces glow around his hands as he warps space and time by will, appearing for a moment in the air next to one onrushing enemy's head. With perfect timing, his bolt smashes into the creature's eye, and it falls with a terrible howl of pain. Behind it, another collapses as the clerics divine lance explodes its throat. The warlock, now covered in mammot gore, sneers at the cleric's poor aim; this has been a longstanding feud between them.

Etc.


----------



## Korgoth

Lizard said:
			
		

> Sure you do:
> One troll=Grendel
> Twenty trolls=Urkel
> 
> 4e works on the Ninja Rule, whereby there is a fixed amount of Ninja Power in the universe, and the more ninjas there are in any given scene, the weaker each ninja is. If you face 100 ninja, you can mow them down like butter, if you ever ran your lawnmower over butter. If you face one ninja, make out your will.




Of course.  I can't send 100 Chuck Norrises after somebody, because I've only _got_ one Chuck Norris.  On the other hand, if I've got a Chuck Norris, I might not even bother sending any lesser ninjas.  Unless Chuck needs somebody to hold his coat while he kickboxes the target into the next life.    

I'm saying that Minions are those examples of whatever dude or critter that "are a dime a dozen", as it were.  If, in my world, every troll is special and of the Grendel caliber, then there are no minion trolls.  But if Grendel is an exceptionally tough troll and there are lesser trolls, then maybe those lesser trolls are minions.  Likewise, if Ol' Tusky the mammoth is an exceptional mammoth, maybe he stands out as a non-minion among a herd of minion mammoths.  On the other hand, if I intend all mammoths to be as slipperly as Ol' Tusky then I won't use minion mammoths at all.

Just like orcs.  The way I see it, the vast majority of orcs are minions... they have no special destiny to avoid life-threatening blows.  Their only defense is to keep their heads down.  But every once in a while you run into the Audie Murphy of orcs... an orc hero.  He is a tough customer, and well-placed slashes and thrusts that should have killed a creature of his size (and remember that even a dagger is quite a deadly weapon if it gets stuck in your chest) end up not striking his vitals.  That's a non-minion orc for you.

It's like the Iliad.  You have to mow through a lot of fine Trojan warriors before you get to a Hector or a Sarpedon.  There's "capable" and then there's "heroic".  Multiple hit points are for heroes.


----------



## Vendark

Lizard said:
			
		

> Any evidence all minions in the DMG are medium or smaller?




Adult mammoths are Huge, at the least. I don't have any more idea what's in the MM than you do, but I don't expect to see many Huge or larger minion write-ups.



> Here's the scene:




Reads more like a hazard than a fight.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Oh, I just got confused because you said "4e works on the Ninja Rule" instead of "D&D works on the Ninja Rule".

I personally have no problem with the PCs fighting mammoth minions, as long as the PCs are high enough level to make normal mammoths routine. Others may disagree, of course.

You're selling me on that lost-world campaign, Lizard. Is your GURPS sourcebook all like that, or is it boring ol' simulationy stuff? *flush* What was that sound? Was that your opinion of me going down the toilet?


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

I agree with Lizard that there is nothing wrong with Mammoth Minions. If you have a high level campaign where the characters are to stop a stampede of Mammoth, well, do it with Mammoth Minions.

What, off course, you'd better off not doing would be trying to send four of these Mammoth Minion against a low level group. I think it would work out mathematically okay, but it just doesn't feel right.  

Off course, the interesting thing is you could use the rules to explain how when a herd of Mammoth runs through a village, the villagers managed to kill a few. In 3E (or with 4E regular mosters), they probably wouldn't have had a chance to ever deal enough damage to the typical mammoth, since they'd need the ability to concentrate their fire on a specific one. The occassional stray spear now can actually bring down a Mammoth. 

Poor Mammoth... They probably have gone extinct just become someone decided to make all Mamooth Minions, and thus they could be easily hunted down to death...


----------



## Cadfan

What's wrong with mammoth minions?

Again.  The test of whether something is a minion, I predict, is whether or not its reasonable for a player of a particular level to kill the creature in one blow.

So I suppose if you are running a campaign where the characters are so powerful that killing a mammoth in one shot is the likely outcome of a player character attacking a mammoth, then they should be minions.

Now, a 3e elephant has over 100 hp.  So I'm doubting that's going to happen.

What's NOT going to happen is that 4e will have rules declaring "if the story requires the PCs to slaughter a herd of mammoths, then VOILA!  They're minions!"  This will not happen because D&D is a game where players have stats, and fight monsters based on those stats.  Minions allow for certain types of fight scenes, certainly, but that happens in the overall context of the D&D game.

The argument that 4e design principles magically transform monsters into minions willy nilly based on what the story demands without any outside context of consistent gameplay is Lizard-logic at best.


----------



## Lizard

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Now, a 3e elephant has over 100 hp.  So I'm doubting that's going to happen.




And a 4e 8th level orc has 100+ hit points, and a 4e 9th level orc minion has 1.

So I fail to see the problem. I mean, it doesn't really make sense the 9th level orc minion MADe it to 9th level with only 1 hit point. Offstage, it wasn't a minion. When it gets stuck in front of the onrushing PCs, it becomes one. Otherwise, nothing makes any sense...



> What's NOT going to happen is that 4e will have rules declaring "if the story requires the PCs to slaughter a herd of mammoths, then VOILA!  They're minions!"  This will not happen because D&D is a game where players have stats, and fight monsters based on those stats.  Minions allow for certain types of fight scenes, certainly, but that happens in the overall context of the D&D game.




So, you ARE taking the view that minionism is an innate, not plot-imposed, condition? This puts you at odds with most of the pro-minion faction. Just want to be sure I'm understanding you.




> The argument that 4e design principles magically transform monsters into minions willy nilly based on what the story demands without any outside context of consistent gameplay is Lizard-logic at best.




Yet, it's the logic others have used to sell minions. And it works. 

Embrace the mammoth minion.


----------



## Lizard

Vendark said:
			
		

> Reads more like a hazard than a fight.




Perhaps it is.

"OK, there's a Horde Of Mammoths up ahead. It's a skill challenge. Success means you get through with plenty of time and refreshed as per a standard rest. Failure means you will be entering the final fight bloodied and with your dailies expended. How do you deal with the mammoths?"


----------



## Rex Blunder

I gotta go with Lizard on this one.

While I think he did it to prove the absurdity of the minions concept, Lizard has shown to my satisfaction that a high-level encounter with some mammoth minions could be Pretty Awesome™.

This use of minions is justified, in my mind, by the Rule of Cool.

(Note that on the Rule of Cool page, the second paragraph references "a herd of crazed mammoths". Coincidence?)


----------



## marune

I think I agree that mammoths or even dragons could be done as higher-level minions.


----------



## Lizard

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> I gotta go with Lizard on this one.
> 
> While I think he did it to prove the absurdity of the minions concept, Lizard has shown to my satisfaction that a high-level encounter with some mammoth minions could be Pretty Awesome™.




No, I did it to show that if you are going to embrace minions, it's pointless to draw lines. If you can accept that some 9th level orcs have 150+ hit points, and some have 1, then it's ridiculous to say "Well, mammoths aren't minions, that's just being silly!"

And if you CAN'T accept mammoth minions, then, in all honesty, I don't see how you can accept 21st level devil minions, either. 

If I run a game with minions, anything I want to come in hordes will be minion-able.

(And the 'can kill it in one hit' logic doesn't hold. Again, look at the orcs. Can an 8th level PC reliably one-shot an orc chieftain? No. Yet he CAN one-shot an orc grunt who is, actually, of higher level than the chieftain. So it boils down to "Can my DM plausibly narrate me one-shotting this creature?" If your DM can't....find a better DM. 'nuff said.)

I mean, most D&D fights are narrated as a series of progressively nastier wounds, until the DM gets to whip out his thesaurus for the 'fatality' blow. Minions just skip straight to the fatality.



> (Note that on the Rule of Cool page, the second paragraph references "a herd of crazed mammoths". Coincidence?)




Ideally, riding in zeppelins. Which are piloted by Nazi apes.


----------



## Family

skeptic said:
			
		

> I think I agree that mammoths or even dragons could be done as higher-level minions.




It's all about the tone of the scene (and the fun of it). Agents in the Matrix were L20 in the first movie, but Neo took on a 100 of them in the second. They were minions.

Uruk-Hai warband putting up a exceptional fight against Aaragorn in the first movie? Check. Hundreds getting moved down by him and Gimli in the 2nd? Check.

You just might be a minion if...


----------



## NMcCoy

Indeed, after reading over some of the stuff about minions one of my first thoughts was how awesome it'd be to have high-level Epic characters taking on swarms of dragon minions in aerial combat. Also, think about the potential in giving said dragon minions Resist All 20.


----------



## pemerton

Lizard said:
			
		

> Because regardless of the purpose of the rules, players WILL treat them as descriptions of the universe, and to the extent they need to be told "Well, yes, according to the rules you could do that, but you can't, because that's not how the rules are supposed to be used", they will feel limited and constrained. If game balance is based on "People should honor the spirit of the rules", game balance is broken.



What is the basis for this generalisation? Yes, a certain sort of player will treat a non-simulationist ruleset as if it were simulationist. They should play simulationist games.

If what you say was true of all players, then there would be no players of HeroWars - which _expressly states_ that, during the course of an extended contest, Action Points measure no ingame property.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> Of course you can do that simulationistically. It's simply a matter of increasing the power of the heroes instead of decreasing the power of the antagonists.



What this won't give you is a horde of foes, all of whom are threatening (in terms of attack output) but some of whom are destined to fall before a single blow of the protagonists.

As I've said in another post, minion status is just like AntiFate points. It could be implimented in various ways. Minion rules are one such way.  



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> They prove that if you use the rules we've been given, the result is pretty ridiculous. I'd call that a win for Team Simulationist.



Simulationism + Rules = Ridiculous. That is not a win for simulationism - its a reductio on it.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> If you observe that a single normal attack with a shrukien (or similarly small-sized miniweapon) kills a particular class of creature 100% of the time on a successful hit, then minion status is visible in the game itself.



But there is not, in the relevant sense, a particular class of creature, because minoin status is not itself an ingame category. So what we have is that some orcs are lucky and some unlucky. But for the PCs (as opposed to the players, who can be expected to read the rulebooks) there is no basis for predicting whether any given orc will be lucky or not.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> Hit points are an abstract measure of toughness, luck, battle skill, and the like, but they are a concrete example of the amount of damage it takes to kill someone or break something.



This is not true, because D&D "damage" is not always physical damage. We know that some of it is the wearing down of a foe, the purely abstract reduction of luck, etc.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> But since there exist concrete effects that are tied to hits versus misses, it's trivial to tell whether or not any given blow was a hit or a miss, no matter how it's flavored.  For instance, if a secondary effect triggers on a hit, then even if the GM flavors it as a just-barely-dodged from the minion's perspective, the player knows it's a hit.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> We've seen attacks that trigger on hits and imply significant wounding happened with the hit (such as the goblin picador); this means that there is a limit to the amount of reflavoring possible for missed attacks versus HP-depleting hits.



But not all hits have to be treated as these sorts of hits. Welcome to fortune-in-the-middle.



			
				robertliguori said:
			
		

> Really, the problem here is that we have one set of people who expect the rules to document their expectations of the universe, and another set who don't.  If you don't care that what the rules say happens in a given scenario are utterly at odds with what you think should happen, you need not worry about whether a given system is simulationistic.



But the rules don't say that a peasant with a spork can kill a demon minion 5% of the time, for at least two reasons: first, the rules don't define the spork as a weapon; two, the rules aren't intended for the resolution of NPC vs NPC combat.

I expect the rules to tell me how to play the game. NPC vs NPC combat is not playing the game - it is the GM generating backstory. (Now, if one of those NPCs is a PC-extension - eg a cohort or a pet - that is a different matter. We don't yet know how 4e handles such things. I'm pretty confient that it just won't be a question of taking the monster stats and applying them as if they were PC stats.)


----------



## pemerton

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> After however many pages since my last reply, I still don't see minions as anything besides Wandering Damage the PCs have to pass the Minion Skill Challenge to overcome.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Give the regular monsters a damage aura which ends when they are bloodied, and let's stop pretending minions are anything other than Konami code cheese.



That would be one way to do it (perhaps in a game that didn't emphasise tactical movement or positioning so much) - much as HeroWars handles NPC companions, which simply add Action Points to the boss PC.

But I don't see how it's an objection to a mechanic that it (i) allows the story to involve hordes of foes and (ii) makes that horde mechanically easy to handle. If you think (i) is irrelevant, because you don't care for flavour text, then fine - but I think most RPGers do care about the flavour text. It what distinguishes an RPG from a wargame or an abstract board game.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Not the minion, though, they get to survive an infinite number of miss-effects.



Given they will never be exposed to an infinite number of miss effects, that counterfactual claim has no significance. One of the PCs will hit them (especially because some damage, such as Cleave, does not require a to-hit roll).


----------



## pemerton

Andor said:
			
		

> You're seriously going to tell me that it's metagaming for my character to notice that out of a horde of apparently identical demons who look like this: [sblock=Demon]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [/sblock]
> 70% of them die to a single hit from any weapon, even a blowgun dart, but the other 30% need dozens of hits to kill. And that pretty much every battle they've ever fought in had the same thing going on. For all 300 encounters of their adventuring career. But it's metagaming for my Int 20 Wizard to pick up on this, and wonder why 70% of all Wooly Mammoths can be slain with stale pastry?



Correct. Just the same as Batman fears for his life when he gets shot at, even though he has never been fatally shot in any of the previous 400 episodes. Just as Frodo is anxious as to whether or not he'll survive the trip through Mordor even though every other adversity he's confronted he's narrowly escaped. You, the player, know that your PC is the hero. Your PC does not.

If you don't like that sort of author stance, you need simulatonist play of the 3E variety. But in such play, either (i) hordes of foes will kill you, or (ii) hordes of foes will never threaten you. You'll never get the play experience that 4e minions deliver. Whether or not that's a good thing I leave to you to judge for yourself.


----------



## pemerton

Korgoth said:
			
		

> As long as we stick with the notion that 1 hit point of damage is a life-threatening wound (and therefore does not represent the injury of a stubbed toe or incidental cut, both of which can be painful but not life-threatening) then the mammoth can go until he receives a life-threatening hit.  He ignores non-life threatening hits all day long, just like everybody else.  What separates him from BeoMammoth the Mammoth Hero is that no matter how good a spear throw you make, that slippery cuss always seems to turn aside at the last minute, the spear either missing completely or perhaps sticking ineffectually in its ample mastodon rump.  Hunting down that mammoth (Ol' Snaggletusk or whatever the tribe calls him) is the stuff of legend.



Korgoth, after 30 or so pages we've ended up on pretty much the same page!


----------



## pemerton

Lizard said:
			
		

> If you can accept devil minions but not mammoth minions, you're just one minion away from being a simulationist.



For the record, I've got nothing against mammoth minions, and think your vally-of-the-dinosaurs example shows how one might use them. I also thought your sample narration was great!

I don't see how this is any sort of counterexample to 4e's internal coherence. Nor does it establish that stale pastry is capable of killing a mammoth (but I'm not sure you were trying to prove the latter proposition).



			
				Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> the interesting thing is you could use the rules to explain how when a herd of Mammoth runs through a village, the villagers managed to kill a few.



Given that we know this to be possible (if not likely) without ever consulting the rules, we don't need the rules to tell us this. It is in the realm of GM backstory narration.


----------



## Korgoth

pemerton said:
			
		

> Korgoth, after 30 or so pages we've ended up on pretty much the same page!




It's nice to agree on things.    

Despite how it may have seemed, I didn't start the thread with the intent to simply bag on 4E or some part thereof.  I started it because, while I am open to liking 4E, I tend not to commit to something without being rigorously skeptical to start with.  I was very skeptical of the minion rule, but I feel that it has survived my skepticism.  And if it can survive that, my hat's off to it!


----------



## Andor

Cadfan said:
			
		

> The argument that 4e design principles magically transform monsters into minions willy nilly based on what the story demands without any outside context of consistent gameplay is Lizard-logic at best.




8th level Angel of Valor. 88 hp.

21st level Angel of Valor. 1 hp.


----------



## Lizard

pemerton said:
			
		

> I don't see how this is any sort of counterexample to 4e's internal coherence.




It's not intended to be.

It's intended to show that if you can accept high-level minions in general (as opposed to, say, some sort of special 'minion rule' which might apply only to 1HD monsters in earlier versions of D&D), then saying "Well, bringing up mammoth minions is just being ridiculous and disruptive!" is not a supportable line of argument.

The dragon horde example for epic heroes also makes sense on that scale of play.


----------



## AZRogue

I would have no problem with mammoth minions. I would probably add one or two normal mammoths in there but the PCs skill would be high enough to puncture the eye, sever an artery, or otherwise kill the other mammoths (the minions). I think it could be an appropriate scenario, depending on the situation.

It's going to be interesting to see which monsters will have minion entries in the MM. I imagine that the criteria are those creatures that will attack in large groups. Either way, I think that whatever use people want for their minions would be acceptable. They're a shortcut, shorthand for those unlucky creatures that are going to fall before a PCs blade, while still posing a threat themselves.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> 8th level Angel of Valor. 88 hp.
> 
> 21st level Angel of Valor. 1 hp.



 Contrary to popular belief, there is likely to be more than one angel of valor in a D&D universe, and hence nothing magically transforms into anything else.


----------



## Rex Blunder

This is D&D! Things don't magically transform!!


----------



## Lizard

hong said:
			
		

> Contrary to popular belief, there is likely to be more than one angel of valor in a D&D universe, and hence nothing magically transforms into anything else.




So you, too, are going with "Minionism is an innate condition" rather than "Minionism is a plot element"?

Is there a test for minionism? Do the minions survive it?

"Well, Mrs. Jones, we ran the standard minion test."
"And?"
"Well, your son died as soon as we took a blood sample, so the test was positive."


----------



## Korgoth

Lizard said:
			
		

> So you, too, are going with "Minionism is an innate condition" rather than "Minionism is a plot element"?
> 
> Is there a test for minionism? Do the minions survive it?
> 
> "Well, Mrs. Jones, we ran the standard minion test."
> "And?"
> "Well, your son died as soon as we took a blood sample, so the test was positive."




I think it's more like this:

"Well, your son died as soon as we stabbed him in the heart with a 12-inch blade.  He in no way cheated death."


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Lizard said:
			
		

> The dragon horde example for epic heroes also makes sense on that scale of play.



Scale of play... I like that. It is a good ... well... simulationist approach maybe. (Pemerton will probably hesitate to agree, and possibly correctly so). 

The Legion Devil Legionaire and the "normal" Legion Devil, or the Angel of Valor and the Angel of Valor Legionaire are probably good examples of this. 

At the scale of heroic levels, these guys are "regular" monsters, pretty nasty and complex detailed. But at high levels, using their "reguler monster" description just is fiddly and not very satisfying. So, we use a different scale to describe them, and we get Minions. 

Similar rules stuff seems to be done in supplements for mass-combat in D&D, but the scale is size, not level. Swarms and Mobs in 3.x also have some similarities to this. There is no way to "simulate" 1.000 insects crawling over a character that could lead to a satisfying play experience without a "Swarm" shortcut...


In Physical Sciences, similar methods are sometimes used. For simple, "human scale" stuff, using the Newtonian Laws for describing movements works very well. We don't really notice the differences. But once we try to describe near-light speed movements, or satellites circling Earth, we need the laws of relativity, since they describe the world more accurate. But it would be a big hassle trying to use them to calculate how long a train needs from Bremen to Frankfurt/Main, or a ferry from Dover to Calais. Or how long a sprinter needs for 100 meters...


Interesting side note: Some scientist actually entertain the thought that it's possible that we will be eventually forced to always use different "scales" of scientific laws. I think in the field of Solid State Physics, a lot of stuff can be easier described by ignoring the quantum mechanical rules of quarks & electroncs and formulating "higher level" laws. They might be emergent properties of the "real" laws, but they can be formulated and used to predict observations without ever relying on the smaller details...


----------



## darkadelphia

I just can't fathom why people are so bothered by these minion rules.  It's one more tool in the box for DMs to make satisfying encounters.  If you don't like it, don't use it, but in my mind, it's going to be a lot of fun.  As far as the whole "are minions always minions or are they made minions by plot concerns," well, that's a silly argument.  All the characters and monsters in the game are made whatever by plot/game/fun concerns.  A PC from previous editions is not capable of enduring ten long sword wounds simply because he has 45 hit points--that's just silly.  It represents, as has been said a hundred times, the ability to cheat death, etc.

It's a game--the whole idea of simulationism with D&D is so silly it boggles the mind.  From beginning to end it's silly--there is realism in D&D only verisimilitude.  People are flying and teleporting and wearing ioun stones, for crying out loud!  Lighten up.  If you don't like minions, fine--don't use them.  Meanwhile, my players will be having a great time killing a horde of mastadon minions.


----------



## Blackeagle

I realize this discussion has been going on forever, but perhaps I can offer a new perspective.  I teach some self defense stuff, so I've learned a bit about what it takes to stop a human attacker.  There are essentially two ways to stop an assailant: physically incapacitating them (either through blood loss or destroying a vital part of the central nervous system) or by hurting them enough to persuade them to stop attacking you (a psychological stop).  Self defense tends to emphasize the first method, because the second isn't a sure thing.  Your assailant may be on drugs, or adrenaline, or just really determined.  

This is what I think differentiates minions from heroes and non-minion NPCs.  A hero has the psychological wherewithal to keep fighting even when he's injured.  As long as he can physically keep fighting, he's going to do so.  Same with non-minion NPCs.  Minions, on the other hand, are not made of such stern stuff.  As soon as they take a solid hit, even if it's not life threatening, they turn into a gibbering wreck.  If they have the intelligence and willpower to actually do something, all they'll be doing is trying to staunch the bleeding and bind up their wounds.

The key is to think of what happens below 0hp differently for a minion than a non-minion.  A non-minion with negative hit points is unconscious (or dead).  A minion with negative hp may be unconscious or dead, but they may just be lying there in shock, or sitting there staring at his wound, or trying to staunch the flow of blood.  They're both out of the fight, but one had to be physically battered into submission while the other was a wimp who gave up on the first hit.  It's their psychological durability, rather than their physical durability that differs.


----------



## Andor

darkadelphia said:
			
		

> I just can't fathom why people are so bothered by these minion rules.  It's one more tool in the box for DMs to make satisfying encounters.  If you don't like it, don't use it, but in my mind, it's going to be a lot of fun.  As far as the whole "are minions always minions or are they made minions by plot concerns," well, that's a silly argument.  All the characters and monsters in the game are made whatever by plot/game/fun concerns.  A PC from previous editions is not capable of enduring ten long sword wounds simply because he has 45 hit points--that's just silly.  It represents, as has been said a hundred times, the ability to cheat death, etc.
> 
> It's a game--the whole idea of simulationism with D&D is so silly it boggles the mind.  From beginning to end it's silly--there is realism in D&D only verisimilitude.  People are flying and teleporting and wearing ioun stones, for crying out loud!




You do realize, don't you, that you are offering nothing more than your own opinion, and not stating fact. Some of us are perfectly capable of entertaining ideas that you find silly. Obviously the reverse is also true. Our suspension of disbelief breaks at different points. Strangely this does not serve as proof that either one of us is evil incarnate, nor that we are having badwrongfun.


----------



## darkadelphia

> You do realize, don't you, that you are offering nothing more than your own opinion, and not stating fact. Some of us are perfectly capable of entertaining ideas that you find silly. Obviously the reverse is also true. Our suspension of disbelief breaks at different points. Strangely this does not serve as proof that either one of us is evil incarnate, nor that we are having badwrongfun.




That's kind of the point I'm trying to make--the whole game is full of silly things that allow us to have fun and minions are a new tool that not everyone has to use.  It seems silly to get so upset about it.  Perhaps it's my last sentence that implied badwrongfun--I have every intention of having a great time having my players kill mastadon minions.  That doesn't at all take away from the fact that other groups will be having just as much fun ignoring the minion rules.

Another scenario made possible by minion rules--Giant Snakes on an Airship.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> You do realize, don't you, that you are offering nothing more than your own opinion, and not stating fact. Some of us are perfectly capable of entertaining ideas that you find silly. Obviously the reverse is also true. Our suspension of disbelief breaks at different points. Strangely this does not serve as proof that either one of us is evil incarnate, nor that we are having badwrongfun.



 You are not having badwrongfun. You are failing to have badwrongfun. In fact, you are also failing to have goodrightfun. The way to start having fun, whether of the badwrong or goodright variety, is to stop thinking.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> So you, too, are going with "Minionism is an innate condition" rather than "Minionism is a plot element"?




It can be both, depending on who is asking.



> Is there a test for minionism?




Why do you ask?



> Do the minions survive it?




Does it matter?



> "Well, Mrs. Jones, we ran the standard minion test."
> "And?"
> "Well, your son died as soon as we took a blood sample, so the test was positive."




See, the solution to midichlorians is not to think too hard about fantasy.


----------



## Parlan

hong said:
			
		

> You are not having badwrongfun. You are failing to have badwrongfun. In fact, you are also failing to have goodrightfun. The way to start having fun, whether of the badwrong or goodright variety, is to stop thinking.




And the way to ensure this, is to have Ninjas attack whenever the players even *think* of thinking.

Silly players.  That'll learn 'em!


----------



## pemerton

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Scale of play... I like that. It is a good ... well... simulationist approach maybe. (Pemerton will probably hesitate to agree, and possibly correctly so).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> At the scale of heroic levels, these guys are "regular" monsters, pretty nasty and complex detailed. But at high levels, using their "reguler monster" description just is fiddly and not very satisfying. So, we use a different scale to describe them, and we get Minions.



Scaling is one way to look at it. But as you predicated I do prefer the "plot element" analysis. I don't want to say that it's objectively and without a doubt correct - I haven't read the rules or spoken to the designers. I just think it makes sense of what we've seen, and what Rob Heinsoo said about design priorities.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Hong said:
			
		

> See, the solution to midichlorians is not to think too hard about fantasy.




Or: How I Learned to Stop Thinking and Love the Hong



Spoiler



in before fnarr


----------



## robertliguori

Blackeagle said:
			
		

> I realize this discussion has been going on forever, but perhaps I can offer a new perspective.  I teach some self defense stuff, so I've learned a bit about what it takes to stop a human attacker.  There are essentially two ways to stop an assailant: physically incapacitating them (either through blood loss or destroying a vital part of the central nervous system) or by hurting them enough to persuade them to stop attacking you (a psychological stop).  Self defense tends to emphasize the first method, because the second isn't a sure thing.  Your assailant may be on drugs, or adrenaline, or just really determined.
> 
> This is what I think differentiates minions from heroes and non-minion NPCs.  A hero has the psychological wherewithal to keep fighting even when he's injured.  As long as he can physically keep fighting, he's going to do so.  Same with non-minion NPCs.  Minions, on the other hand, are not made of such stern stuff.  As soon as they take a solid hit, even if it's not life threatening, they turn into a gibbering wreck.  If they have the intelligence and willpower to actually do something, all they'll be doing is trying to staunch the bleeding and bind up their wounds.
> 
> The key is to think of what happens below 0hp differently for a minion than a non-minion.  A non-minion with negative hit points is unconscious (or dead).  A minion with negative hp may be unconscious or dead, but they may just be lying there in shock, or sitting there staring at his wound, or trying to staunch the flow of blood.  They're both out of the fight, but one had to be physically battered into submission while the other was a wimp who gave up on the first hit.  It's their psychological durability, rather than their physical durability that differs.




Oooh.  How about this as a compromise: minions have HP equal to their Con +1, and are disabled (and bloodied) after taking a point of damage.  So, a dagger thrust will drop a minion, but may not actually lethally injure him.  This gets us transparency with other forms of HP generation, and lets us upgrade from minion to nonheroic by simply pulling off the 'disabled on any damage' flag.


----------



## Celebrim

hong said:
			
		

> You are not having badwrongfun. You are failing to have badwrongfun. In fact, you are also failing to have goodrightfun. The way to start having fun, whether of the badwrong or goodright variety, is to stop thinking.




This is possibly the worst advice I've ever seen.

I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that isn't improved by some serious thoughtfulness either before, after, or during the event (depending on what you are doing).  Maybe there is something out there, but I don't know what it is.  It definately isn't gaming, which is almost by definition thinking seriously for the purposes of relaxation.  If you don't like thinking, I can't imagine why you like gaming.


----------



## hong

Celebrim said:
			
		

> This is possibly the worst advice I've ever seen.
> 
> I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that isn't improved by some serious thoughtfulness either before, after, or during the event (depending on what you are doing).  Maybe there is something out there, but I don't know what it is.  It definately isn't gaming, which is almost by definition thinking seriously for the purposes of relaxation.  If you don't like thinking, I can't imagine why you like gaming.




So. Tell me how much fun you are having gaming.


----------



## robertliguori

Celebrim said:
			
		

> This is possibly the worst advice I've ever seen.
> 
> I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that isn't improved by some serious thoughtfulness either before, after, or during the event (depending on what you are doing).  Maybe there is something out there, but I don't know what it is.  It definately isn't gaming, which is almost by definition thinking seriously for the purposes of relaxation.  If you don't like thinking, I can't imagine why you like gaming.




FTR, I agree with this.  However, I find this so incredibly intuitive that I find stating that I agree with it mostly to be wear and tear on pixels, and I personally find people blithely stating otherwise to be a wonderful shibboleth for "My opinions are sufficently divergent from yours on what constitutes 'fun' and 'play' that it is impossible for us to have meaningful dialogue; do not try without a thorough examination of terms."  I can then decide whether I want to open with such a discussion, or simply not respond.


----------



## Kishin

Celebrim said:
			
		

> This is possibly the worst advice I've ever seen.
> 
> I'm having a hard time thinking of anything that isn't improved by some serious thoughtfulness either before, after, or during the event (depending on what you are doing).  Maybe there is something out there, but I don't know what it is.  It definately isn't gaming, which is almost by definition thinking seriously for the purposes of relaxation.  If you don't like thinking, I can't imagine why you like gaming.




When Hong says thinking, I assume by default he means 'thinking too much'.


----------



## Kunimatyu

"When you use minions, you should use those of a level appropriate to the encounter you’re building. The concept of minions is to provide fun filler for encounters, not to provide a way for a 1st level character to gain 1,000+ XP for defeating a 23rd-level abyssal ghoul minion by rolling a natural 20. Minions are a rules abstraction, and one of the many tools a DM has to build exciting encounters." --Stephen Schubert, from the new minions article


----------



## Andor

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> Or: How I Learned to Stop Thinking and Love the Hong
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> in before fnarr





Does that imply that Slim Pickens is going to ride Hong into an apocolyptic mushroom cloud?


----------



## Blackeagle

Andor said:
			
		

> Red Blunder said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Or: How I Learned to Stop Thinking and Love the Hong
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Does that imply that Slim Pickens is going to ride Hong into an apocolyptic mushroom cloud?
Click to expand...



No, it means Hong going to sit in a wheelchair, talk with a German accent, and strangle himself with his robotic hand.


----------



## Lizard

hong said:
			
		

> So. Tell me how much fun you are having gaming.




Well, I spent the last 7 hours drinking soda, eating cheese cubes, and laughing uproariously with friends, so I think I'm having a lot of fun gaming. 

There's nothing like a humanoid raven turning into a giant shark in order to bite an undead with an aura that makes people drown to drive home the importance of realistic simulation in gameplay.


----------



## HeavenShallBurn

Does anyone in Australia have an industrial robot arm that can strangle Hong?  Cause I think I'd pay to see that.    


@$#%^ed weak dollar, uh it'll have to be cheap.


----------



## VannATLC

<--- Location.

And I know we go to the same games store.

And I can get a CNC manipulator, but Strapping it to my back is going to get me accused of being a Techpriest Cosplayer.


----------



## Lizard

Kunimatyu said:
			
		

> "When you use minions, you should use those of a level appropriate to the encounter you’re building. The concept of minions is to provide fun filler for encounters, not to provide a way for a 1st level character to gain 1,000+ XP for defeating a 23rd-level abyssal ghoul minion by rolling a natural 20. Minions are a rules abstraction, and one of the many tools a DM has to build exciting encounters." --Stephen Schubert, from the new minions article




So, mammoth minions FTW!


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> Well, I spent the last 7 hours drinking soda, eating cheese cubes, and laughing uproariously with friends, so I think I'm having a lot of fun gaming.
> 
> There's nothing like a humanoid raven turning into a giant shark in order to bite an undead with an aura that makes people drown to drive home the importance of realistic simulation in gameplay.



 Exactly.


----------



## Lurker37

Question:

Do those who dislike minions also dislike scenes in books of movies where the hero(es) defeat multiple guards/thugs/etc in rapid succession, but still taking time to parry their blows as if they were credible threats, but then when they reach a named villain it takes them several minutes of screentime/paragraphs to defeat them, usually taking a wound or more in the process?

It seems to me that these are a staple of many genres, including sword and sorcery and fantasy, and that a gaming system unable to reproduce such a scene is lacking.

By allowing the minions to have level-appropriate defences and attack bonuses, we are able to understand why they remain a credible threat, even if they lack the fortitude to take a single blow, or the luck/skill to not present an opening for a lethal blow. Furthermore it even explains why 0-level commoners were helpless against them - they needed a 20 to hit.

The only problem lies in if a minion transforms into a non-minion, or vice-versa. Again, a non-issue IMO. A minion can only survive if it never got hit. So the only way a minion can be encountered as a non-minion is if its minion status was never confirmed in the first place. *Dramatic unmasking* "HaHa! You fools! You thought you faced a common foot soldier? I think NOT!"  (And the PCs attack because nobody likes a mouthy mammoth. )

The other way around ought to be reigned in by the fact that it is often poor storytelling.

Consider: any major character who has survived previous rounds of combat with the PCs needs to have a damn good reason from the DM for being killed by a single blow because it has the potential to be jarringly anti-climatic. So such characters should probably be either weakened somehow (injury, poison, illness etc) or else suffer some form of treachery if they need to be 'written out'.

So minion rules should only disrupt suspension of disbelief if they are used for reasons other than intended: to recreate scenes where the heroes fight through a large number of minor opponents to reach the real threat. This intended use is such a staple of the genres D&D handles that any gaming group ought to be able to take it in their stride.


----------



## Blackeagle

Lurker37 said:
			
		

> Consider: any major character who has survived previous rounds of combat with the PCs needs to have a damn good reason from the DM for being killed by a single blow because it has the potential to be jarringly anti-climatic. So such characters should probably be either weakened somehow (injury, poison, illness etc) or else suffer some form of treachery if they need to be 'written out'.




Or maybe just as a demonstration of how powerful the characters have become.  I could easily see an NPC who was a name villain at the heroic tier ending up as a minion at the epic tier.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Kishin said:
			
		

> When Hong says thinking, I assume by default he means 'thinking too much'.



I do not like "not thinking", but I'd like to stop the moment it provides no longer fun.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Lizard said:
			
		

> So, mammoth minions FTW!



Indeed. And I also declare "Mustrums Different Scale Theory" FTW, too!


----------



## Blackeagle

robertliguori said:
			
		

> Oooh.  How about this as a compromise: minions have HP equal to their Con +1, and are disabled (and bloodied) after taking a point of damage.  So, a dagger thrust will drop a minion, but may not actually lethally injure him.  This gets us transparency with other forms of HP generation, and lets us upgrade from minion to nonheroic by simply pulling off the 'disabled on any damage' flag.




I like the idea, but getting specific about whether the minion dies or is just incapacitated does bring up the killing the wounded problem.  Depends how gritty you want your campaign to be I guess.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Hussar said:
			
		

> Because it will let me have scenes like this one in my game:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And any rules that let me do that?  Well, gimme please.



Yeah, the DMG in previous editions was _harsh_ the way it prevented people from doing that.

A friend of mine found an underground cyberpunk to remove the tracking device from his DMG so he could put 1hp opponents in his game.  It was harrowing for a while there.

Oh, wait, that means you could have done that with any of previous editions.  So, there you go.  You have three previous editions of AD&D and the BECMI version to choose from.


----------



## keterys

Well, it was pretty hard to have 1 hp AC 37, +26 to hit creatures...


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Yeah, the DMG in previous editions was _harsh_ the way it prevented people from doing that.
> 
> A friend of mine found an underground cyberpunk to remove the tracking device from his DMG so he could put 1hp opponents in his game.  It was harrowing for a while there.
> 
> Oh, wait, that means you could have done that with any of previous editions.  So, there you go.  You have three previous editions of AD&D and the BECMI version to choose from.



Hmm. That's a good reason to go 4E, even if you dislike a lot of aspects. You can just houserule anything you don't like! 

Sorry, this kind of arguing doesn't really further the discussion at all. At best it shows that you can have fun even with imperfect systems, but we know that already, since basically everyone here played 3E and had fun with it at some point.


----------



## Lizard

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Yeah, the DMG in previous editions was _harsh_ the way it prevented people from doing that.
> 
> A friend of mine found an underground cyberpunk to remove the tracking device from his DMG so he could put 1hp opponents in his game.  It was harrowing for a while there.
> 
> Oh, wait, that means you could have done that with any of previous editions.  So, there you go.  You have three previous editions of AD&D and the BECMI version to choose from.





You also had 3e "mook" rules from Atlas Games, which were also included in "Ultimate NPC" by Mongoose (via the miracle of OGL!) as "Faceless Hordes". 

Those with an interest in irony might check authorship on that latter tome.

Sometimes, supporters of 4e remind me of the earnest people who show up with a booth at every GenCon, eagerly showing off their "original" fantasy game where "you don't have to memorize spells" and "wizards can use swords".


----------



## Storm-Bringer

keterys said:
			
		

> Well, it was pretty hard to have 1 hp AC 37, +26 to hit creatures...



Why?

If it is just a narrative device to simulate the swarm of bad guy henchmen anyway, why would it be difficult to just give higher level creatures 1hp in previous editions?  Previous editions had a built in 'avoid damage on a miss-effect', because no one did damage on a miss.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Saying that you can house-rule 3e to have 4e-style minions is correct.

You could use Shadowrun rules in 3.5 too.

That doesn't say anything substantive about 3e, 4e, or Shadowrun, though.


----------



## Rex Blunder

Also, Lizard, can you explain your poor-deluded-fools-at-gencon analogy?

As far as I can tell, there's not a pin of difference between the strongly pro-3e and strongly pro-4e folks, as far as logic and rhetoric go. We all chose a position based on gut feeling, and are rationalizing our feeling using logic as best we can. Standard human behavior


----------



## Storm-Bringer

pemerton said:
			
		

> That would be one way to do it (perhaps in a game that didn't emphasise tactical movement or positioning so much) - much as HeroWars handles NPC companions, which simply add Action Points to the boss PC.



But there is no difference.  You are rolling a 'skill challenge' to shut off the damage that is taken on a somewhat random basis.  It doesn't really matter whether it is a horde of angry orcs or one orc with the same hit points and same number of attacks.  That you have distributed the damage around to other minis that stop after one successful attack isn't a mechanical difference.  At best, any individual minion is a mobile trap with a difficulty of (attack roll) and a success/fail ratio of (successful attack)/(PCs hit points)



> But I don't see how it's an objection to a mechanic that it (i) allows the story to involve hordes of foes and (ii) makes that horde mechanically easy to handle. If you think (i) is irrelevant, because you don't care for flavour text, then fine - but I think most RPGers do care about the flavour text. It what distinguishes an RPG from a wargame or an abstract board game.



I don't see how you need rules for that.  You are arguing that flavour text needs rules to support it.  By definition, it is part of the story, not the rules.  The only time I can see rules being needed for a story is in some story writing competition.



> Given they will never be exposed to an infinite number of miss effects, that counterfactual claim has no significance. One of the PCs will hit them (especially because some damage, such as Cleave, does not require a to-hit roll).



And yet, no matter how many times (one, ten, or a hundred) they are to receive damage from a miss-effect, it will never add up, but it will for the 2nd level Orc drudge right next to them.  In effect, their hit points waver between one and infinity, depending on how well the player rolls their attack.


----------



## Bagpuss

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> Are you forgetting that 3e has encounter level guidelines for constructing encounters? That's not new with 4e. If your 3e DM throws 15 ninjas at you, you can guess that they're a lot lower-level than if he throws 1 ninja at you.




The problem there was one high CR ninja to make an appropriate EL, had a good chance of hitting you, and was tricky to hit. 15 ninja's of reduced CR to make the correct same appropriate EL could most likely only hit you on a 20. Thankful in 4e the minion rules fix this.



> Or is your argument that 3e is so much worse at balancing encounters that the 3e encounter-level guidelines might as well not exist? In which case, I disagree with you - 3e is not THAT bad.




It's still pretty bad, especially if you go above two or three opponents.


----------



## Andor

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> And yet, no matter how many times (one, ten, or a hundred) they are to receive damage from a miss-effect, it will never add up, but it will for the 2nd level Orc drudge right next to them.  In effect, their hit points waver between one and infinity, depending on how well the player rolls their attack.




I'm pretty leery of the minion rules, I think that's clear. But otoh I think the "No damage on a miss." rule is one of the potential saving graces of the minion system, because it helps blur the line between these critters and the rest of the game world. 

E.G. If the wizard fireballs a bunch of orcs rushing at the party, and the survivors drop easily, then it makes it seem as though they actually had a few HP and the Wizard softened them up for the fighters. 

It's the fact that minions are made out of soap bubbles and silly string that disturbs me. Anything that makes that less glaringly obvious is a good thing.


----------



## hong

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Yeah, the DMG in previous editions was _harsh_ the way it prevented people from doing that.
> 
> A friend of mine found an underground cyberpunk to remove the tracking device from his DMG so he could put 1hp opponents in his game.  It was harrowing for a while there.
> 
> Oh, wait, that means you could have done that with any of previous editions.  So, there you go.  You have three previous editions of AD&D and the BECMI version to choose from.



 So... 4E is bad because it lets you do stuff you could do in previous editions.

No, wait, 4E is good because it lets you do stuff you could do in previous editions.

Clearly this must also be a postcount thing.


----------



## hong

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> And yet, no matter how many times (one, ten, or a hundred) they are to receive damage from a miss-effect, it will never add up,




Assuming a 50% chance to hit an orc minion, it will be roughly one in a thousand orcs who survives 10 attacks, and 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 who survives 100 attacks. We can safely assume that a minion who lives through that has the protection of the gods, and hence deserves promotion to at least drudge status.

Trust me, I'm a statistician.


----------



## Bagpuss

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> And yet, no matter how many times (one, ten, or a hundred) they are to receive damage from a miss-effect, it will never add up, but it will for the 2nd level Orc drudge right next to them.




Really the only thing that matters in the game is if a character is alive, or dead (or unconscious in some cases). Hit points are an abstract to let you know when a character goes from alive to dead status. It covers all sorts of things, from actual vitality and health, to luck and determination. For players (and main bad guys) it's useful to have wide scale for dramatic tension, so they can judge when is a good point to press the attack, when is a good point to retreat.

But for minions, all you need to know is if it is alive or dead, hence no need for a scale.



> In effect, their hit points waver between one and infinity, depending on how well the player rolls their attack.




So? Hit points are an abstract anyway, what does it matter if they have 1 or an infinite amount. What matters is if they are alive or dead. That is determined by a successful damaging hit, the 1 hp is just a mechanic to record their alive status.

They are caught in the blast of a fireball but not "hit" then it burns them, you could even discribe them as the flesh blistered and such but they still alive, so they still have 1 hp.


----------



## hong

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> Saying that you can house-rule 3e to have 4e-style minions is correct.
> 
> You could use Shadowrun rules in 3.5 too.
> 
> That doesn't say anything substantive about 3e, 4e, or Shadowrun, though.



 The idea seems to be that using house rules to replace 2-column, 9-point serif type promotes a sense of ownership, fights complacency and builds character. Only you know what you really want from your campaign, and hence the more rules (which are written for the mass market) that you replace, the better your campaign will be. In fact, the better the rules appear to be, the worse they actually are, because this just results in a false sense of security. The best rulebook is thus not one that actually contains rules, but simply reading material to stimulate the imagination. I, for one, am planning to use Wikipedia as my rulebook for my next campaign.


----------



## Hussar

BryonD said:
			
		

> So you never achieved that with 3E?
> That's kinda sad.




It's sad because there is absolutely no way to do this in 3e.  If I send 30+ enemies at the PC's, even if I go a 5+APL on the EL, the mooks are going to be so low on the CR scale that they are not any challenge. 

And, wasting time at the table while the players roll endless d20's with absolutely no threat of failure is not my idea of fun.

YMMV and all that.


----------



## Hussar

Andor said:
			
		

> 8th level Angel of Valor. 88 hp.
> 
> 21st level Angel of Valor. 1 hp.




8th level PC roughly 20 damage/attack

21st level PC roughly 100 damage/attack

Any more questions?



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Yeah, the DMG in previous editions was _harsh_ the way it prevented people from doing that.
> 
> A friend of mine found an underground cyberpunk to remove the tracking device from his DMG so he could put 1hp opponents in his game.  It was harrowing for a while there.
> 
> Oh, wait, that means you could have done that with any of previous editions.  So, there you go.  You have three previous editions of AD&D and the BECMI version to choose from.




Umm, no you couldn't.  How do you make a creature with 2 hit dice only have 1 hp?  And, while you complain about the unrealism of minions, you have no problems with hundreds of people having only 1 hp?

Let's see you create a 10 hit dice creature, with 1 hp, and a +15 attack bonus in previous editions.  I'll wait.


----------



## Rex Blunder

hong said:
			
		

> Clearly this must also be a postcount thing.




Nah, then he'd make a bunch of short, koan-like posts - maybe squeezing in a hidden meaning or two


----------



## Andor

Hussar said:
			
		

> Let's see you create a 10 hit dice creature, with 1 hp, and a +15 attack bonus in previous editions.  I'll wait.




Orc Minion
HD: 10
HP: 1 (Because I'm the GM and I said so.)
Attk: +15 1d10+5 (Including Because I said so bonus)
AC: 32 10 base 4 armour 2 dex 16 GM said so

Done. Make a "favored of the GM" template if you want to. Or check out the "Paragon" template from the ELH. It's a bunch of utterly arbitrary +20 luck bonuses that amount to the same thing.

Also where are you getting 100 hp per attack at 22 lvl? That seems much higher than the flatter curve we've seen for 4e would indicate.


----------



## Scribble

Andor said:
			
		

> Orc Minion
> HD: 10
> HP: 1 (Because I'm the GM and I said so.)
> Attk: +15 1d10+5 (Including Because I said so bonus)
> AC: 32 10 base 4 armour 2 dex 16 GM said so
> 
> Done. Make a "favored of the GM" template if you want to. Or check out the "Paragon" template from the ELH. It's a bunch of utterly arbitrary +20 luck bonuses that amount to the same thing.
> 
> Also where are you getting 100 hp per attack at 22 lvl? That seems much higher than the flatter curve we've seen for 4e would indicate.




Rock on... So you've pretty much done what a minion does but with more work for you. Not to mention the fact that WOTC has alo kindly done the math for us to show when the challeneg per level works out right... 

Also you've made the game inconsistent (were you the one arguing that?) in that why do some races have a class and others just have raceness?


----------



## Rex Blunder

OK, then you'll agree that minions are not a bad ruleset because I can give the minions 50 hit points?  

Are we discussing RAW or not? Is the pro-minion side allowed to make up crazy nonlegal stuff too?


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Orc Minion
> HD: 10
> HP: 1 (Because I'm the GM and I said so.)
> Attk: +15 1d10+5 (Including Because I said so bonus)
> AC: 32 10 base 4 armour 2 dex 16 GM said so
> 
> Done. Make a "favored of the GM" template if you want to. Or check out the "Paragon" template from the ELH. It's a bunch of utterly arbitrary +20 luck bonuses that amount to the same thing.




... or you could just play 4E. Seems to save an awful lot of house ruling.


----------



## Andor

Scribble said:
			
		

> Rock on... So you've pretty much done what a minion does but with more work for you. Not to mention the fact that WOTC has alo kindly done the math for us to show when the challeneg per level works out right...
> 
> Also you've made the game inconsistent (were you the one arguing that?) in that why do some races have a class and others just have raceness?




I'm not claiming this is a good idea. I was just irritated by the absurdity of the "It can't be done in 3e! Prove me wrong." claim. 3e provides a nice clean set of tools for making monsters built in a concistent fashion. There is absolutely nothing that compels a GM to limit himself to that system however. 

Frankly if I wanted a bunch of low level orcs to provide a credible threat to a higher level party they would be part of a warband that included a cleric, bard, and Marshal to give them all some boosts. Maybe even an Orc warblade with some white raven powers. If they absolutely had to inflict fsome damage on the PCs they'd have a dragon shaman with a damage aura up.

What I find bizzare about the whole minion disscusion is everybody saying "I want that scene from (book/movie/videogame) where the heros cuts through 500 mooks. And I want those mooks to represent a credible threat to the party!"

... Make up your minds people! Are these minions are threat or aren't they? If they are set dressing for the party to mow down like ants then why do they need to present a greater threat than they would have in 3e? To give you an excuse to award XP for them? *pffft* Conversely if they are a threat then how does the ability to be killed by a stiff breeze enhance their function?


----------



## LostSoul

Andor said:
			
		

> Done.




Hang on - what's the CR?  How much XP do you get for killing it?


----------



## Rex Blunder

You don't think it would be exciting to have a big, challenging battle against hordes of opponents? 

Obviously it wouldn't be fun to roll a bunch of dice if there's no chance of failure. It would be a waste of everyone's time. My group would get impatient and say, "OK, what happens after we slaughter these orcs?"

It doesn't necessarily follow, though, that my group has no interest in fighting more than about 6 opponents.


----------



## Lizard

Rex Blunder said:
			
		

> Also, Lizard, can you explain your poor-deluded-fools-at-gencon analogy?




People trumpeting things in 4e as if they were innovations in either game design or D&D.

Like: "Wow! In 4e, the DM is free to IGNORE THE RULES!"

Because, you know, I narrowly dodge the WOTC Ninjas when I just handwave stuff in 3e that gets in the way or strikes me as not working properly for a particular edge case.


----------



## AllisterH

Andor said:
			
		

> What I find bizzare about the whole minion disscusion is everybody saying "I want that scene from (book/movie/videogame) where the heros cuts through 500 mooks. And I want those mooks to represent a credible threat to the party!"
> 
> ... Make up your minds people! Are these minions are threat or aren't they? If they are set dressing for the party to mow down like ants then why do they need to present a greater threat than they would have in 3e? To give you an excuse to award XP for them? *pffft* Conversely if they are a threat then how does the ability to be killed by a stiff breeze enhance their function?




Um, but in the movies, the HEROES treat them as a credible threat even while they're mowing them down.

The problem with simply using lower level critters as pointed out before is that you could literally not do anything and the kobolds/goblins literally couldn't touch you. Furthermore, their defenses are so pitiable that even on a 1 you're probably hitting them yet when we see these scenes in books/movies, the hero looks cool while mowing down minions and many people consider rolling a 1 not being cool.


----------



## Parlan

Andor said:
			
		

> I'm not claiming this is a good idea. I was just irritated by the absurdity of the "It can't be done in 3e! Prove me wrong." claim. 3e provides a nice clean set of tools for making monsters built in a concistent fashion. There is absolutely nothing that compels a GM to limit himself to that system however.




The point is, there no way to do it within the 3.x RAW, without relying on Rule 0.

By your logic, Minions can also be included in Texas Hold 'Em, Basketball and Hot dog Eating Contests with a liberal enough application of Rule 0 (or its respective equivalents).  Technically true, but not exactly helpful to the discussion. 



			
				Andor said:
			
		

> ... Make up your minds people! Are these minions are threat or aren't they? If they are set dressing for the party to mow down like ants then why do they need to present a greater threat than they would have in 3e? To give you an excuse to award XP for them? *pffft* Conversely if they are a threat then how does the ability to be killed by a stiff breeze enhance their function?




That's the whole point: they are a threat *and* they aren't a threat.
They are enough of a threat that PCs can't ignore them (relatively high to hit bonuses)
They are not so much of a threat that a mass of them will likely overwhelm the PCs

Why the dichotomy? So combats with large numbers of opponents are fun:

When the BBEG sics his Horde o' Minions on the party they have a choice of strategies:

1. focus on the BBEG and ignore the Minions
2. focus on the Minions and ignore the BBEG
3. focus on both

Each strategy has pluses and minuses.  Analyzing these is part of the fun of combat.

Without Minion rules, either the party just focuses on the BBEG because no other strategy is viable (the non-BBEG's aren't likely to do hit often or hard enough to warrant the PCs' attention).
One obvious strategy = boring.

Or the party gets wiped out by shear numbers.
TPK = sucky

Minion rules seem to allow these types of encounters by elegantly balancing the threat dichotomy and DM book-keeping.


----------



## Lizard

Parlan said:
			
		

> The point is, there no way to do it within the 3.x RAW, without relying on Rule 0.




How so?

Create a "minion" template which does things like drop hit points, or just adds:

Minion (Ex):The creature dies if it takes any damage from any player action.  (Or any source, if you prefer). It ignores all other damage.

OR

Minion (Ex):The creature dies if it takes more than Hit Dice in damage from any player action. (Or any source, if you prefer) It ignores all other damage. 

Or any other such thing. Give it a CR adjustment of whatever's appropriate: -4 seems good to me, though I'd want to playtest it.

3x allows you to 'bolt on' damn near anything, even metagaming concepts like minionhood. 

I wonder how many of the people squeeling about the "freedom" 4e gives DON'T have (as I do) about twenty-odd feet of 3x supplements pulling the game in a thousand different directions. I guess if all you've seen is the SRD, 3e looks pretty constrained. Much like, I suppose, my problem with 4e -- when I look at all I have for 3e, it's hard to see how 4e could replace it for at least a year, and that's only if the third party folks really ramp it up.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

hong said:
			
		

> So... 4E is bad because it lets you do stuff you could do in previous editions.
> 
> No, wait, 4E is good because it lets you do stuff you could do in previous editions.
> 
> Clearly this must also be a postcount thing.



The only thing a higher post count seems to provide is an skill bonus to posting nonsense.

Clearly, the correct answer is "If you could do it (easily) in previous editions, it isn't really an improvement".  In other words, the whole concept for minions could have been a short-ish article in Dragon magazine five years ago, or a section of a longer article on DMing.  It's hardly 'revolutionary'.


----------



## Hussar

Andor said:
			
		

> Orc Minion
> HD: 10
> HP: 1 (Because I'm the GM and I said so.)
> Attk: +15 1d10+5 (Including Because I said so bonus)
> AC: 32 10 base 4 armour 2 dex 16 GM said so
> 
> Done. Make a "favored of the GM" template if you want to. Or check out the "Paragon" template from the ELH. It's a bunch of utterly arbitrary +20 luck bonuses that amount to the same thing.
> 
> Also where are you getting 100 hp per attack at 22 lvl? That seems much higher than the flatter curve we've seen for 4e would indicate.




I see.  So, to make 3e minions, you have to use 4e mechanics.  Gotcha.


----------



## Andor

Hussar said:
			
		

> I see.  So, to make 3e minions, you have to use 4e mechanics.  Gotcha.




You do realize you're critiqueing me for provideing exactly the example you asked for while conveniently ignoring the counter example I offered that stuck with 3e mechanics. 



			
				Me said:
			
		

> Frankly if I wanted a bunch of low level orcs to provide a credible threat to a higher level party they would be part of a warband that included a cleric, bard, and Marshal to give them all some boosts. Maybe even an Orc warblade with some white raven powers. If they absolutely had to inflict some damage on the PCs they'd have a dragon shaman with a damage aura up.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> You do realize you're critiqueing me for provideing exactly the example you asked for while conveniently ignoring the counter example I offered that stuck with 3e mechanics.




Seeing that minion rules are, at heart, a formalising of the general rules of thumb that most DMs would use when running a big mob of mooks, what is your point, really?


----------



## hong

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> The only thing a higher post count seems to provide is an skill bonus to posting nonsense.




Exactly. And I always check my facts before posting nonsense to mailing lists.



> Clearly, the correct answer is "If you could do it (easily) in previous editions, it isn't really an improvement".  In other words, the whole concept for minions could have been a short-ish article in Dragon magazine five years ago, or a section of a longer article on DMing.  It's hardly 'revolutionary'.




Your use of 'quote marks' does not, unfortunately, count as 'checking your facts'. It is good indeed that the minion excerpt never says anything about it being revolutionary, or you might not have posted nonsense.


----------



## Hussar

Andor said:
			
		

> You do realize you're critiqueing me for provideing exactly the example you asked for while conveniently ignoring the counter example I offered that stuck with 3e mechanics.




The example you provided doesn't work though.

Basically, you're slapping bandaids on the issue - including clerics and marshals?  What if I want a horde of vermin?  Or a horde of zombies?  Or anything that doesn't get class levels?

The mechanical solution you provided doesn't work either.  You gave it 10 hit dice, but no feats, no skills and no CR.  And, you cannot simply decide, in 3e, that a creature has less than 1 hp/hit die, unless you drop it's Con below 10.  Which doesn't really work on a 10 hit die creature anyway.

Note, I KNOW you can do it by ignoring RAW.  That's a given.  My argument was that you cannot do it by RAW.  Ignoring RAW is not a strength of a system.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> People trumpeting things in 4e as if they were innovations in either game design or D&D.




Oh, it's an ATTRIBUTION thing. This puts all that hoo-ha about mammoth minions into a whole new light.



> Like: "Wow! In 4e, the DM is free to IGNORE THE RULES!"




The only ppl who have been ignoring rules are those recreating 4E minions by ignoring the existing 3E framework.



> Because, you know, I narrowly dodge the WOTC Ninjas when I just handwave stuff in 3e that gets in the way or strikes me as not working properly for a particular edge case.




... or you could just use 4E. Because apparently all that business about verisimilitude, challenge and elegance was really due to a lack of proper attribution, so a nice apology from WotC should suffice to put things right. Are you listening, WotC?


----------



## robertliguori

Hussar said:
			
		

> The example you provided doesn't work though.
> 
> Basically, you're slapping bandaids on the issue - including clerics and marshals?  What if I want a horde of vermin?  Or a horde of zombies?  Or anything that doesn't get class levels?
> 
> The mechanical solution you provided doesn't work either.  You gave it 10 hit dice, but no feats, no skills and no CR.  And, you cannot simply decide, in 3e, that a creature has less than 1 hp/hit die, unless you drop it's Con below 10.  Which doesn't really work on a 10 hit die creature anyway.
> 
> Note, I KNOW you can do it by ignoring RAW.  That's a given.  My argument was that you cannot do it by RAW.  Ignoring RAW is not a strength of a system.




Just add the following ability to any monsters you want to be minions:
Because I Said So (Ex): This creature exists solely as a narrative construct, and interacts with the world independently of rules or rulings made previously of the rest of the world.  

Then run your combat as you desire.  That way, you don't have to wonder why it is that this horde of zombies is a threat while the one they fought two levels ago wasn't, and why the identical one they'll fight tomorrow is an entirely different threat.  Exception-based design is easy.

I mean, you could come up with rules to represent how to raise zombies, how zombies were mechanically represented in the world, note that past a certain point, characters that can smash adamantine walls by head-butting them and can swim the 100 meter backstroke in hot lava aren't going to be challenged by a swarm of human-shaped, human-strength things that squish more easily than even a soft stone wall, and use another monster if you want said PCs to be challenged by a horde of monsters.

If you want to achieve a certain result more than you want your universe to be consistent, then slap the above ability onto everything, and you're done, easy-peasy.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

robertliguori said:
			
		

> Just add the following ability to any monsters you want to be minions:
> Because I Said So (Ex): This creature exists solely as a narrative construct, and interacts with the world independently of rules or rulings made previously of the rest of the world.
> 
> Then run your combat as you desire.  That way, you don't have to wonder why it is that this horde of zombies is a threat while the one they fought two levels ago wasn't, and why the identical one they'll fight tomorrow is an entirely different threat.  Exception-based design is easy..



Exception based design is easy. But it is not a usual part of D&D 3.5. It is never stated as an important design element, though off course there are tons of examples where it effectively is in place. 

More importantly, if WotC had created a "Minion" Template for 3.5, and used it in one of their published modules, people would have been all over it and say how much they hate it. Just, in fact, like they do in for 4E. But, you know, there is a tiny difference: 
Before the announcement and the details on 4E, I would have been part of the group that would ridicule WotC on Minions. Because it goes against any and all of the design assumptions and the inherent understanding of the 3E system. It feels like an abonimation of the rules. Since it is strongly against the design assumptions of the game, it might also actually be a bad rule, since there are many cases where this system breaks down.

I already incorporated a lot of the basic design assumptions of 4E into my Iron Heroes game. But I always feel a little dirty about it, because I know I am not following RAW, or even just the basic design assumptions any more. 

A new edition, a new system, creates a clean slate. (If you let it.) New assumptions are at work, and new rules can work even if they wouldn't have flown in the previous system.


----------



## La Bete

Lizard said:
			
		

> I wonder how many of the people squeeling about the "freedom" 4e gives DON'T have (as I do) about *twenty-odd feet of 3x supplements * pulling the game in a thousand different directions. I guess if all you've seen is the SRD, 3e looks pretty constrained.




I'd advance the theory that if you require 20+ foot of supplementary material to remove the constraints from the game, then it's time to re-engineer the game.

Oh, wait....


----------



## Storm-Bringer

hong said:
			
		

> Exactly. And I always check my facts before posting nonsense to mailing lists.



I hardly think your household pet counts as fact checking.  Perhaps you should try studying math.



> Your use of 'quote marks' does not, unfortunately, count as 'checking your facts'. It is good indeed that the minion excerpt never says anything about it being revolutionary, or you might not have posted nonsense.



Oh, I see.  So it is just uncritical supporters that loudly and endlessly tout the new rules as being 'revolutionary' and 'liberating', as though each new tidbit has never before seen the light of day in other games.  I'll make sure not to extrapolate* in the future.

Since you didn't bother with math, here is a quick primer on English: Quotation marks

The minion issue is easily solved by thinking harder about games.


*it's another math term, so I understand your confusion


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

I really fear that Storm-Bringer and hong might eventually cause the use of the red font I so came to dread since the 4E announcement, but somehow, it's too entertaining to watch them...

Edit: Maybe that's fitting and on-topic for a thread called "Minion Fist Fights"?


----------



## Andor

Hussar said:
			
		

> The example you provided doesn't work though.
> 
> Basically, you're slapping bandaids on the issue - including clerics and marshals?  What if I want a horde of vermin?  Or a horde of zombies?  Or anything that doesn't get class levels?
> 
> The mechanical solution you provided doesn't work either.  You gave it 10 hit dice, but no feats, no skills and no CR.  And, you cannot simply decide, in 3e, that a creature has less than 1 hp/hit die, unless you drop it's Con below 10.  Which doesn't really work on a 10 hit die creature anyway.
> 
> Note, I KNOW you can do it by ignoring RAW.  That's a given.  My argument was that you cannot do it by RAW.  Ignoring RAW is not a strength of a system.




It's not the RAW? Hate to break it to you but the first RAW is Rule 0. And if I really felt like it I could stat the critter up using the frail flaw which does allow for 1 hp for a 10 hd critter. by the RAW. 

And I'm not slapping bandaids on the issue. It's a non-issue. Want a dangerous horde of vermin or zombies? Swarm and Mob templates respectively. No class levels? I didn't give it class levels actually. It was an incomplete stat block because I was merely taking 30 seconds to disprove your already absurd arguement. And that 30 second statblock would handily provide all I needed to know about a mook anyway, so who cares if it isn't complete?

Look, if you love the minion rules, more power to you. Use them and enjoy. But don't pretend either one of us can't play D&D without them, and don't cry that is can't be done in 3e because it can. In fact here ya go:

[sblock=3.X Mook Template]*Mook*

Mook is a template provided to a creature that the GM wants to use as a mook. It can be applied to any creature of a CR below the parties level. It enhances the creature to make it a credible threat to the party by adding a Mook Factor. The Mook factor = Party's average level - Base CR.

The base creatures Size, Type, Hit Dice, and Speed are unchanged.

AC, Base Attack bonus and Saving throws and skills all receive a Morale bonus equal to the Mook Factor.

The creatures damage becomes a fixed number equal to it's average damage + 1/2 Mook factor (round down.)

Creatures CR = the party's level -2

_Thrilled by the chance to play in the big leagues, mooks enjoy a considerable morale bonus._[/sblock]

Allow me to clarify my position. Since I have never, in almost 30 years of playing RPGs, bought into the "abstract hp" theory to the extent that some do I therefore fear that the 4e minions will prove shockingly disruptive to my immersion in the game in the same way I would feel if a set got knocked over in a movie. 

I understand the goal of minions, but it's not a goal I've ever felt unable to achieve in earlier editions. Nor do I think it's desireable to make any previously dangerous foe into mooks just because the party has a few more levels. 

If the Balrog took everything they had to defeat 5 levels ago, I do not feel that 6 weeks later they should be knocking them over by the dozen like henchmen in _Kung-Fu Hustle_. That doesn't make me feel like I've gotten better, it makes me feel like a pansy for having had to sweat to beat the first one.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Hussar said:
			
		

> The example you provided doesn't work though.
> 
> Basically, you're slapping bandaids on the issue - including clerics and marshals?  What if I want a horde of vermin?  Or a horde of zombies?  Or anything that doesn't get class levels?



Then use everything else in the statblock except the hit points.  For that, just note a '1' and move on.

Secondly, there are no bandaids, because it isn't an issue in previous editions.  There were no minions.  What is being described is how it could have easily been done before.  Further, its and argument supporting the overarching idea that you don't have to slavishly wait for the rules to hold you by the hand and provide you with an enjoyable gaming experience.  Since Mr Gygax put pen to paper, _it was always in your hands_.  That's right!  You have always been 'allowed' to change whatever you wanted!  That isn't Rule 0.  That is how roleplaying games work.

But, from what I have gathered, most of the 4e support I have heard lately doesn't seem to want to go far afield from the letter of the rules.  In the last few weeks, the chorus appears to applaud every new rule almost unanimously.  Simply taking a monster statblock as written, and changing the hit points to 1 in order to get the 'cinematic feel' people seem to be looking for is anathema.



> The mechanical solution you provided doesn't work either.  You gave it 10 hit dice, but no feats, no skills and no CR.



So?  It's not there to interact with the players.  It's there to provide a cinematic horde to make the players feel badass.



> And, you cannot simply decide, in 3e, that a creature has less than 1 hp/hit die, unless you drop it's Con below 10.  Which doesn't really work on a 10 hit die creature anyway.



I don't understand the first sentence.  Why can't I decide that in 3.x?  Or, for that matter, in 2nd edition, 1st edition, BECMI, Traveller, Tunnels and Trolls, Star Frontiers or Deadlands?  What, precisely, is physically preventing me from doing exactly what I want?  I can give a kobold 6 mega-hit points per die, or I can give a dragon one-tenth of a hit point per die, if I so choose.  Here, check this out:



		Code:
	

Ogre Mage
Type:   	Minion
Hit Dice: 	[b]1 hit point[/b] (5d8+15 (37 hp))
Initiative: 	+4
Speed: 		40 ft. (8 squares), fly 40 ft. (good)
Armor Class: 	18 (-1 size, +5 natural, +4 chain shirt), touch 9, flat-footed 18
Base/Grapple: 	+3/+12
Attack: 	Greatsword +7 melee (3d6+7/19-20) or longbow +2 ranged (2d6/×3)
Full Attack: 	Greatsword +7 melee (3d6+7/19-20) or longbow +2 ranged (2d6/×3)
Space/Reach: 	10 ft./10 ft.
Spc Attacks: 	Spell-like abilities
Spc Qualities: 	Change shape, darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, regeneration 5, spell resistance 19
Saves: 		Fort +7, Ref +1, Will +3
Abilities: 	Str 21, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 17
Skills: 		Concentration +11, Listen +10, Spellcraft +10, Spot +10
Feats: 		Combat Expertise, Improved Initiative
Environment: 	Cold hills
Organization: 	Solitary, pair, or troupe (1-2 plus 2-4 ogres)
CR: 		[b]2 (8)[/b]
Treasure: 	Double standard
Alignment: 	Usually lawful evil
Advance: 	By character class
LA: 		+7

I bolded everything I changed to turn this into an Ogre Mage minion.  Now, you can cut them down by the score, and they will be a 'credible threat' to the PCs.



> Note, I KNOW you can do it by ignoring RAW.  That's a given.  My argument was that you cannot do it by RAW.  Ignoring RAW is not a strength of a system.



Only if you expect the system to cover every possible circumstance that could ever come up.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I really fear that Storm-Bringer and hong might eventually cause the use of the red font I so came to dread since the 4E announcement, but somehow, it's too entertaining to watch them...
> 
> Edit: Maybe that's fitting and on-topic for a thread called "Minion Fist Fights"?



At least one of us is getting something out of the exchange.  

But, before I get in trouble, I will take this as a friendly tip, as I need those from time to time, and I will let Hong go about his merry way without me.


----------



## Lizard

hong said:
			
		

> Oh, it's an ATTRIBUTION thing. This puts all that hoo-ha about mammoth minions into a whole new light.




I can't parse that at all.




> The only ppl who have been ignoring rules are those recreating 4E minions by ignoring the existing 3E framework.




You've apparently missed the many threads/posts where people are incredibly excited about the "freedom" 4e gives them, as if DMs haven't been handwaving rules/making up ad-hoc rules since, oh, 1974 or so.





> ... or you could just use 4E. Because apparently all that business about verisimilitude, challenge and elegance was really due to a lack of proper attribution, so a nice apology from WotC should suffice to put things right. Are you listening, WotC?




The frack?

Hong, either stop posting late at night or send me whatever you're on, because this entire post made no sense, even by Hong non-sequiter standards.


----------



## Family

...In conclusion, on examining the above post by CrackMonkey74, after carefully working my way through the haze of spelling errors (documented in section 3), abuse of capitalization (section 4), and general crimes against grammar and syntax (sections 7-8), I have demonstrated that, beneath it all, the work betrays the author's staggering ignorance of the history and working of the minion system. While the author's wildly swerving train of thought did at one point flirt with coherence, this brief encounter was more likely a chance event (see statistical analysis in table 5) than a result of even rudimentary lucidity.

- Summer Glau


----------



## Lizard

La Bete said:
			
		

> I'd advance the theory that if you require 20+ foot of supplementary material to remove the constraints from the game, then it's time to re-engineer the game.
> 
> Oh, wait....




The constraints were already removed. The 20+ feet of material is just implementations of ideas.

I'd say a system robust enough to handle confederate dinosaurs, magical mecha, galactic dragon empires, and arthurian elves -- using just the core rules as a base -- is a pretty darn good system, and any "re-engineering" of it better prove to be just as good and just as flexible, or it will hit the market with a resounding thud.

The folks designing 4e have a much bigger challenge than the folks designing 3e, mainly because 3e WAS designed, giving it an amazing edge on 2e. It wasn't very hard to make a better, more robust, more flexible system than AD&D 2e. It's a lot harder to make that kind of leap for 4e.


----------



## La Bete

Andor said:
			
		

> It's not the RAW? Hate to break it to you but the first RAW is Rule 0




A house rule is RAW because of Rule 0? Try and make that fly in the Rules Forum. I triple-dog-dare ya.


----------



## Mallus

Lizard said:
			
		

> I'd say a system robust enough to handle confederate dinosaurs, magical mecha, galactic dragon empires, and arthurian elves -- using just the core rules as a base -- is a pretty darn good system.



It is. 

But it's also a system in which the mechanics set out in the _core books_ break down, in terms of both ease-of-use and the underlying math, at higher level. The existence of offshoot games w/wacky fluff like Dragonstar doesn't alter that.

And for my money, the best d20 game is one that made significant changes to the core mechanics: Mutants and Masterminds.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

I don't really fault 3E for not having Minion rules. It was certainly not a problem percieved at the time that just using lower level characters might not lead to satisfying results. 

I agree with Lizard that 3E design was a major improvement over AD&D design. That should never be forgotten. 

But I do not think that 4E does need to make a similar leap in quality. It just needs to make noticeable improvements, fixing smaller and larger issues with 3E. And adding rules for something like Minions just seems like such a fix to me. It alone certainly would not be enough, but it's not the only thing.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Only if you expect the system to cover every possible circumstance that could ever come up.



Not every possible circumstance. But maybe some of the likely, interesting or generally useful ones? And in the end, it is not a "flaw" in the sense of "What were they thinking, those 3E designers? Everyone knows that Minions are a vital part of every good game system! Nobody even remotely competent would create a system without Minions!" 
It's just that they didn't find it important, or the issue never came up. That happens. But it doesn't mean a system can be better for having such rules.


----------



## Scribble

Lizard said:
			
		

> I wonder how many of the people squeeling about the "freedom" 4e gives DON'T have (as I do) about twenty-odd feet of 3x supplements pulling the game in a thousand different directions. I guess if all you've seen is the SRD, 3e looks pretty constrained. Much like, I suppose, my problem with 4e -- when I look at all I have for 3e, it's hard to see how 4e could replace it for at least a year, and that's only if the third party folks really ramp it up.




For me that "freedom" that 3e gave was a blessing and a curse. Sure, for those that had the time, you could do a TON of stuff with it... But for DM's like me that barely have enough time to play the game let alone prep it?

I just don't have the time to dig through 20+ feet of gaming material to find that feat or power or spell I need, let alone time to apply the template and do the math to check to make sure it didn't skew the CR too much... My games tended to be a bunch of ad-hok monsters, and flubbing at the table when I realized the CR was off... 

Things I find give me "freedom" in 4e:

1. Special powers, Feats and spells have been rolled into one or two things for Monsters. Changing the monster's abilities will be quicker/simpler. Find one that is relaitvely similar swap it out, GO.  Really it's the fact that they also don't stack or rely on other abilities that helps the most.

2. Changing a monster's power level is easy. So that means I'll do it by the rules more often, and not have to flub to make up for not ad-hoking correctly.

3.  WOTC has done the work for a lot of the things I wish I had the time for in 3e. (Different power levels, trimming the powers down to usable ones, etc...)

4. Monsters now have race + class which is consistent with the rest of the game, which really does change things for me. It makes things work smoother in my eyes.

True, it won't have as many options at start as 3e had. It will just be easier for me to make use of the ones it has now, and the ones it will have in the future then 3e ever was. (And if I can't make use of them, then they just sit there mocking me!)


----------



## Family

Andor said:
			
		

> Nor do I think it's desireable to make any previously dangerous foe into mooks just because the party has a few more levels.




There are some Rivers you don't want to cross.


----------



## Lacyon

Lizard said:
			
		

> The folks designing 4e have a much bigger challenge than the folks designing 3e, mainly because 3e WAS designed, giving it an amazing edge on 2e. It wasn't very hard to make a better, more robust, more flexible system than AD&D 2e. It's a lot harder to make that kind of leap for 4e.




About the only thing they could do to compete with 3E for me is adding balance.

Which they seem to be doing just fine.


----------



## Korgoth

Family said:
			
		

> There are some Rivers you don't want to cross.




Wait, what does any of this have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer?


----------



## Wolfspider

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Wait, what does any of this have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer?




Heh.


----------



## La Bete

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Wait, what does any of this have to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer?




Well played, sir.


----------



## Hussar

Look, I'm not bagging on 3e.  I'm not saying 3e is bad at all.  What I AM saying, is that by RAW, you cannot do what they are doing in 4e.  

YES YOU CAN DO IT BY IGNORING THE RULES.

I shouted that so no one would say that I'm ignoring that fact.  But, that's not what I'm arguing.  I'm arguing, BY RAW, you cannot do minions.  They break several 3e RAW rules.  And, Andor and Storm Bringer, I know that you agree with me here because you admit to such.  The fact that you have to invoke Rule 0 (which doesn't exactly say what you think it says in 3e) in order to do it shows you know I'm right.

Can you have 1 hp baddies in 3e?  By RAW, no.  By DM changing the rules - yes.  

However, if you are changing the rules to get what you want, isn't that the same thing as having rules in place that give you what you want?


----------



## Andor

La Bete said:
			
		

> A house rule is RAW because of Rule 0? Try and make that fly in the Rules Forum. I triple-dog-dare ya.




Done. The consensus seems to be that the GM altering a creature's stats at whim is legit, although most feel that it should be done during encounter design and not fudged at the table. (Which I agree with in general.)


----------



## Hussar

Andor said:
			
		

> Done. The consensus seems to be that the GM altering a creature's stats at whim is legit, although most feel that it should be done during encounter design and not fudged at the table. (Which I agree with in general.)




Heh, I reject your version of reality and submit my own:



			
				Desert Gled said:
			
		

> Simply put: By the RAW, the DM is not required to follow the RAW. That does not make his houserules RAW.




YOu have a strange sense of consensus.


----------



## hong

Lizard said:
			
		

> You've apparently missed the many threads/posts where people are incredibly excited about the "freedom" 4e gives them, as if DMs haven't been handwaving rules/making up ad-hoc rules since, oh, 1974 or so.




Try to keep on-topic. We are talking about minions, not the many threads/posts where people are incredibly excited about the "freedom" 4E gives them, nor the many threads/posts where people go on undifferentiated rants about the other people being incredibly excited about the "freedom" 4E gives them, nor the fact that peanut butter is different to ice cream, nor indeed the price of tea in China.



> The frack?
> 
> Hong, either stop posting late at night or send me whatever you're on, because this entire post made no sense, even by Hong non-sequiter standards.




It is very simple. Much of the earlier part of this thread was made up of various arguments about minions breaking suspenders of disbelief, dying after having cream pies thrown at them, the silliness of monsters like mammoths having 1 hp, and so on. But now, it appears that minions have been around since some obscure publication by some obscure author from some obscure company, and so these points of dispute can't have been very important after all. After all, if it was in 3E, and people were doing it all along anyway, the concept must be sound, right? So all it should take to get people happy and smiling again is for WotC to issue a statement saying yes, this was all done by someone else long ago, we were very naughty not to acknowledge it, and now can we all get on the minion boat please. And I don't know about you, but I like minion boats.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Done. The consensus seems to be that the GM altering a creature's stats at whim is legit, although most feel that it should be done during encounter design and not fudged at the table. (Which I agree with in general.)



 Nobody said it was not legit. The issue is whether it was in the rules.

Nobody ever claimed that rule 0 was illegitimate.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Andor said:
			
		

> Done. The consensus seems to be that the GM altering a creature's stats at whim is legit, although most feel that it should be done during encounter design and not fudged at the table. (Which I agree with in general.)



It is legit, but still not RAW, as I understood it. Legit, because you can change the rules if you're the DM. Not RAW, because the Rules As Written do not contain the specific house rule the DM is making. Only the "right" to change something...


----------



## pemerton

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> But there is no difference.  You are rolling a 'skill challenge' to shut off the damage that is taken on a somewhat random basis.  It doesn't really matter whether it is a horde of angry orcs or one orc with the same hit points and same number of attacks.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You are arguing that flavour text needs rules to support it.  By definition, it is part of the story, not the rules.  The only time I can see rules being needed for a story is in some story writing competition.



Just to be clear - are you claiming that there is no difference in the play experience one would get from playing an encounter with minions in 4e, and a variant of the same encounter in HeroWars in which the minions simply lend their APs to the real protagonist?

If that is what you are claiming, it is nonsense. Tactical movement is irrelevent in HeroWars. It is at the heart of the 4e play experience as far as combat is concerned. And to achieve this the minions have to be disaggregated from the boss and located on the battlemat.

As to whether or not rules are needed for a story - contrast Rolemaster, in which one story outcome of a combat between a PC and NPC swordsmen can be that the PC lost an arm and yet won the fight, with AD&D 1st ed, in which that is not a possible outcome (unless the NPC is wielding a sword of sharpness).

Other games - especially some indie games - obviously make the connection between rules and story much more intimate.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> And yet, no matter how many times (one, ten, or a hundred) they are to receive damage from a miss-effect, it will never add up, but it will for the 2nd level Orc drudge right next to them.  In effect, their hit points waver between one and infinity, depending on how well the player rolls their attack.



Their hit points don't "waver". You might want to say that, with every missed attack that would have dealt damage to a non-minion, their hit points grow. But that is not wavering, it is unidirectional. 

Furthermore, given that every game session comes to an end, the hit point growth will always be to a finite amount. And given that, within 6 or so rounds it is almost certain that a fighter will cleave or otherwise kill the minion, I suggest that the upper limit to that growth will be somewhere shy of 1000 hit points (I haven't got enough examples of powers and damage in front of me to do any precise maths, but doubt that missed-attack damage is going to amount to more than 10 hits per round or so at low levels, or 50 hit points per round or so at high levels).


----------



## pemerton

robertliguori said:
			
		

> This creature exists solely as a narrative construct, and interacts with the world independently of rules or rulings made previously of the rest of the world.



Obviously this would not be a substitute for 4e minions, which are tightly rule governed.


----------



## Shabe

hong said:
			
		

> and now can we all get on the minion boat please. And I don't know about you, but I like minion boats.




Just hope to heck that a stray arrow doesn't hit the minion boat   

I just waded my way through all the posts over a couple of days, unfortunately i don't have anything to add as i can see where both sides are coming from, it adds a new aspect to the core rules which means you can have heroes (not always PCs) sending monsters heads flying left, right and center, at the end of the day you could just like not use them if they break your playstyle / suspension of disbelief. 

I myself will dm a game and use them mixed in with hordes of other monsters without having to write down 12 minion hp notes, as i think minions are kewl.


----------



## Trevelyan

I'm personally in awe of the skill with which the anti-4E crowd skipped so skillfully from "Minion rules make no sense in the game world" to "Minions rules are good but 4E still suks because you could house rule minions into 3E if you wanted". That and the fact that no one seems to have called them on it in spite of the fact that it's the same people involved.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Trevelyan said:
			
		

> I'm personally in awe of the skill with which the anti-4E crowd skipped so skillfully from "Minion rules make no sense in the game world" to "Minions rules are good but 4E still suks because you could house rule minions into 3E if you wanted". That and the fact that no one seems to have called them on it in spite of the fact that it's the same people involved.



That is because the discussion moved towards how cool and mechanically innovative minions are.

Minions are still a method of putting rubber bumpers and training wheels on your encounters, in an effort to make players feel like they accomplished something by popping soap bubbles disguised as opponents.  They are still not innovative, because it was done _ad nauseum_ in other systems, and it amounts to really nothing more than giving monsters one hit point, which was trivial to do in previous editions.

So, there is no skipping.  "Minion rules make no sense in the game world, and you could trivially make minions in previous editions."

What entirely baffles me is this fetish with following the rules so exactly.  What I find puzzling is the pro-4e argument of "if you don't like it in 4e, change it!" but when it is shown that simply changing one or two items makes 3.5 (or earlier) do exactly what 4e is doing, the cry goes up "But that isn't RAW!".

Further, trying to emulate popular fiction or movies with a role playing game will ultimately lead to frustration, because they don't have the same underlying constructs.  Protagonists in media don't mow through henchmen because the henchmen are fragile.  They plow through because the plot requires it.  The authours aren't sitting at home rolling dice to see how things turn out.  If you give PCs the same total script immunity, you are no longer playing a game.  If you put the PCs in danger, you won't get the outcome you want every time.  Bridging that gap is tricky, but certainly possible.

Minions are a weak plank in that bridge.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> What entirely baffles me is this fetish with following the rules so exactly.  What I find puzzling is the pro-4e argument of *"if you don't like it in 4e, change it!"* but when it is shown that simply changing one or two items makes 3.5 (or earlier) do exactly what 4e is doing, the cry goes up "But that isn't RAW!".



I am not a big fan of the bolded part, either. But I think the reasoning goes something like this:
_So, you prefer 3E over 4E(, and might even think the designers are not doing good work). But 3E didn't have X. You tell me I can houserule X, if I want it. 
SO, if Y is something you don't like in 4E, just houserule it. See, 4E is just as great as 3E. _

Off course, there is also the matter of how difficult it is to houserule something. Taking out magical +X items from 3E while preserving game balance? Very hard. Taking out magical +X items from 4E while preserving game balance? Astoundingly easy. 



> Further, trying to emulate popular fiction or movies with a role playing game will ultimately lead to frustration, because they don't have the same underlying constructs. Protagonists in media don't mow through henchmen because the henchmen are fragile. They plow through because the plot requires it. The authours aren't sitting at home rolling dice to see how things turn out. If you give PCs the same total script immunity, you are no longer playing a game. If you put the PCs in danger, you won't get the outcome you want every time. Bridging that gap is tricky, but certainly possible.



But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be mechanics that allow me to easily replicate certain aspects of books or movies. Mooks (lower level NPCs & monsters) in 3E are pretty pointless. You roll a lot of dice and the end result - you win - is still obvious. (The worst thing possibly is that the best way to handle mook fights is to send your melee warriors to deal with them, since this will most likely not cost you any important resources, while the quick way, a area effect spell, can hurt you in a later encounter that day)

Minion Fights in 4E are no pointless. You roll a lot of dice, but you actually risk death or at least serious resource expenditure.
The fact that you can die in combat at all is off course an important difference from books or movies. But playing smart (good teamplay, tactics, and possibly using metagame resources like action points) can minimize the risks, and leads to a satisfactory experience - just as the protagonist in the novel, you outsmarted (or at least outfought) your adversaries.


----------



## Andor

Hussar said:
			
		

> Heh, I reject your version of reality and submit my own:




QFT.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> YOu have a strange sense of consensus.




Do you even recall the discussion we are having? 



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> It's sad because there is absolutely no way to do this in 3e. If I send 30+ enemies at the PC's, even if I go a 5+APL on the EL, the mooks are going to be so low on the CR scale that they are not any challenge.
> 
> And, wasting time at the table while the players roll endless d20's with absolutely no threat of failure is not my idea of fun.
> 
> ________________________________________________________
> Umm, no you couldn't. How do you make a creature with 2 hit dice only have 1 hp? And, while you complain about the unrealism of minions, you have no problems with hundreds of people having only 1 hp?
> 
> Let's see you create a 10 hit dice creature, with 1 hp, and a +15 attack bonus in previous editions. I'll wait.
> 
> ________________________________________________________
> The mechanical solution you provided doesn't work either. You gave it 10 hit dice, but no feats, no skills and no CR. And, you cannot simply decide, in 3e, that a creature has less than 1 hp/hit die, unless you drop it's Con below 10. Which doesn't really work on a 10 hit die creature anyway.




Would you care to find me a single person in my rules forum thread  that said a GM was forbidden in 3e from assigning a monster any HP or attack he pleased?

You claimed that if a gm wanted to use a mook horde for plot reasons in 3e it couldn't be done. I reitterated my dislike for minions but pointed out the absurdity of claiming a GM couldn't do anything he pleased with a monster and posted an example minion and a minion template for 3e. You claimed it was unworkable because it violated the rules. I posted a thread in the rules forum asking if anyone agreed with you. No one did. Indeed the same post you quoted also said _"The DM is allowed to change the rules of the game whenever he wants. It's written in the DMG. So changing HP or HD or anything else is allowed by the Rules As Written."_ The closest anyone in that thread comes to agreeing with your claim that a monster in 3e cannot be lawfully adjusted to suit the plot is some cautions to be wary of CR changes and unforseen results.

So yes, I stand by my statement that the consensus is that a 3e DM can indeed make any damm monster he wants into a minion or not for plot purposes.

I also stand by my position that doing so in way that make the world seem inconsistant from the viewpoint of the characters is detrimental to the game.


----------



## Hussar

> You claimed that if a gm wanted to use a mook horde for plot reasons in 3e it couldn't be done.




Citation please.

What I stated was that, using 3e RAW, a mook horde was a complete and utter waste of time, because, in order to use that many baddies, you have to go so low on the CR scale that they are no longer a threat.  Sure, you can do it, but, it's boring and piss poor adventure design.

I never, not once, stated that you couldn't do it.  I stated that you couldn't do it BY RAW.  I even emphatically stated that you could do what you are claiming.  

I'm not sure what you are arguing anymore since your points are so far removed from what I've stated that I don't think you are actually arguing with me.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Andor said:
			
		

> You claimed that if a gm wanted to use a mook horde for plot reasons in 3e it couldn't be done. I reitterated my dislike for minions but pointed out the absurdity of claiming a GM couldn't do anything he pleased with a monster and posted an example minion and a minion template for 3e. You claimed it was unworkable because it violated the rules. I posted a thread in the rules forum asking if anyone agreed with you. No one did. Indeed the same post you quoted also said _"The DM is allowed to change the rules of the game whenever he wants. It's written in the DMG. So changing HP or HD or anything else is allowed by the Rules As Written."_ The closest anyone in that thread comes to agreeing with your claim that a monster in 3e cannot be lawfully adjusted to suit the plot is some cautions to be wary of CR changes and unforseen results.



Seriously?  That's like saying that someone could run a modern adventure with no magic, no healing, and no classes and instead only a house ruled point buy system for abilities instead.  It's like saying that if you wanted to play soccer with your friends in your back yard that it would be perfectly acceptable to have one player who was able to carry the ball around and throw it whenever he wanted(who wasn't the goalie).

Sure, you can change whatever you want.  But the POINT of the 3e monster rules is that you DON'T do that.  The point is that monsters and players all play by the same rules.  When monsters go up levels, they get hitpoints, attack bonuses, saves, skills, feats, and so on.  Same thing with players.  The idea being that if you have a monster who is 15th level and a player who is 15th level, their characters should be "balanced".  If you break this and just make up monsters using whatever rules you want, you aren't using the 3e D&D rules any longer(at least in terms of what a monster can do).

"You can change the rules to whatever you want" isn't a rule of the game.  Its simply a statement of the obvious.  And it's been a tradition for a long time for DMs to change the rules.  So much so that any version of D&D that simply omitted this one statement would have a portion of the community up in arms that D&D doesn't let you have house rules anymore.

However, I can assure you that my players would be up in arms if I made a creature like that.  I would be yelled at for breaking the rules.  Same thing would happen if I wrote that for a published adventure of any kind, including Living Greyhawk.  If I got that submitted to me as an editor, I would reject it as well.  Officially, WOTC considers D&D to be all of the books they have released without any rule that starts in "If you wish" or "You can, if you want".  All of those are considered "optional" rules and not part of the core rule set.

Without the use of the "You can change the rules, if you want" statement in the 3e DMG, it is impossible to make a minion in 3e.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> "The DM is allowed to change the rules of the game whenever he wants. It's written in the DMG. So changing HP or HD or anything else is allowed by the Rules As Written."




Bertrand Russell did this better than you.


----------



## Andor

Bertrand Russell quoted *Desert Gled* better than I did?


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Bertrand Russell quoted *Desert Gled* better than I did?



 Indeed he did. Because unlike you, he would have inserted the rest of the post, which runs as follows.



> ... However, once this is done, the DM is now making up his own rules. He is not following the rules that anyone else would find written in the books. He is not following the Rules As Written. The DM is now literally following the Rules As Written while breaking the Rules As Written.
> 
> Simply put: By the RAW, the DM is not required to follow the RAW. That does not make his houserules RAW.




Please stop claiming that breaking the RAW is the same as following the RAW, because you will make the baby Bertrand Russell cry.


----------



## Andor

Majoru Oakheart said:
			
		

> Without the use of the "You can change the rules, if you want" statement in the 3e DMG, it is impossible to make a minion in 3e.




This is flat wrong. As I pointed out before, it's perfectly possible to make an orc horde where the swarm of 1st level Orc Warriors are still capable of hitting higher level PCs due to a series of buffs from some mid level Orc with levels in classes that buff like clerics, marshals, bards, and dragon shamans. 

Is that more work than using the minion rules in 4e? Yep.

Does it work for all monster types and woolly mammoths? Nope.

Is it something you want to use every session? Nope.

Are minions therefore easier to do in 4e? Yep.

So minions can only be used in 4e? Nope. See above.

If you want the PCs to carve their way through a horde of weaker, but still dangerous mooks in 3e on their way to the climactic boss fight it can be done. With Orcs or any humanoid as I suggest above. Or with undead using some of the stuff from liber mortis. Or with any weak creature by assigning an arbitrary morale bonus to hit as a blessing from their Dark God. 

And it will be a big climactic battle that the pcs will remember and will violate not one damm RAW.

If you want to throw a horde of soap bubbles shaped like orcs/angels/demons/mammoths/dragons/random-prostitutes at the party every week? You need 4e. But I'm willing to bet the PCs won't remember any one mook horde as standing out from all the other mobs of the week.

Does that make 3e better than 4e? Nope. 

Does it make 4e better than 3e? Who knows? I remain to be convinced.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> This is flat wrong. As I pointed out before, it's perfectly possible to make an orc horde where the swarm of 1st level Orc Warriors are still capable of kitting higher level PCs due to a series of buffs from some mid level Orc with levels in classes that buff like clerics, marshals, bards, and dragon shamans.




And this is relevant because...?


----------



## Andor

hong said:
			
		

> And this is relevant because...?




Because it's the topic under discussion? Whereas your post is relevant to what exactly?


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Because it's the topic under discussion?




No, my dear. The topic under discussion, or to be precise, the sub-topic under discussion, is whether the rules framework allows the existence of creatures like minions. This is entirely different to whether a random DM can throw minions into their campaign.



> Whereas your post is relevant to what exactly?




Why, it is exactly as relevant to the topic as yours.


----------



## Andor

Um. Wow. The point of the minion rules, as has been claimed repeatedly in this thread, is to present an easily killed foe which still must be dealt with by the PCs because they are capable of hitting the PCs AC, and thus dealing an amount of damage that the PC cannot safely ignore. <- If you disagree with this.... I have no idea. Explain then what you think the minion rules are for.

Therefore an easily killed foe which presents a credible threat fulfills the role of the minion. Which is why this _"This is flat wrong. As I pointed out before, it's perfectly possible to make an orc horde where the swarm of 1st level Orc Warriors are still capable of kitting higher level PCs due to a series of buffs from some mid level Orc with levels in classes that buff like clerics, marshals, bards, and dragon shamans."_ is relevant to the thread, and Bertrand Russell is not.


----------



## hong

Andor said:
			
		

> Um. Wow. The point of the minion rules, as has been claimed repeatedly in this thread, is to present an easily killed foe which still must be dealt with by the PCs because they are capable of hitting the PCs AC, and thus dealing an amount of damage that the PC cannot safely ignore. <- If you disagree with this.... I have no idea. Explain then what you think the minion rules are for.




I think if you're going to all that trouble, you might as well use 4E. Saves an awful lot of trouble.



> Therefore an easily killed foe which presents a credible threat fulfills the role of the minion. Which is why this _"This is flat wrong. As I pointed out before, it's perfectly possible to make an orc horde where the swarm of 1st level Orc Warriors are still capable of kitting higher level PCs due to a series of buffs from some mid level Orc with levels in classes that buff like clerics, marshals, bards, and dragon shamans."_ is relevant to the thread, and Bertrand Russell is not.




Well, I do apologise for taking seriously statements like

a GM was forbidden in 3e from assigning a monster any HP or attack he pleased?​
a 3e DM can indeed make any damm monster he wants into a minion or not for plot purposes​

Is the GM forbidden by the RAW from altering a creatures attacks and saves by assigning bonuses and penalties whether ha calls them Morale, or Insight, or Because-I-said-so?​
Orc Minion
HD: 10
HP: 1 (Because I'm the GM and I said so.)
Attk: +15 1d10+5 (Including Because I said so bonus)
AC: 32 10 base 4 armour 2 dex 16 GM said so​
Because clearly, "because I'm the GM and I said so" does not mean what I thought it meant.


----------



## pemerton

As a great admirer of Russell (my Bertrand Russell shelf in my office is about one-and-a-half metres) I have to approve of his introduction into this thread.

He is also currently in play in one of the several ongoing alignment threads (I think the CG one).

I suspect that he would have dismissed D&D as a juvenile passtime (he certainly disapproved of Wittgenstein's love of Western movies), but was nevertheless a great man, and the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century.


----------



## pemerton

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Minions are still a method of putting rubber bumpers and training wheels on your encounters, in an effort to make players feel like they accomplished something by popping soap bubbles disguised as opponents.



If minions present a tactical puzzle which has to be resolved, then the players did accomplish something in defeating them.

If the minions present a thematic opportunity which the players take advantage of, then the players did accomplish something in defeating them.

If the minions represent a horde that has to be defeated, then the PCs did accomplish something in defeating them.

So whether I look at this at the metagame (gamist), metagam (narrativist) or the ingame level, your assertion makes no sense.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> They are still not innovative, because it was done _ad nauseum_ in other systems



They are new to D&D. Who has asserted that the idea is new to roleplaying?



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> it amounts to really nothing more than giving monsters one hit point, which was trivial to do in previous editions.



As others have said, the game rules of previous editions did not support this at all.

So, there is no skipping.  "Minion rules make no sense in the game world, and you could trivially make minions in previous editions."



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> it Further, trying to emulate popular fiction or movies with a role playing game will ultimately lead to frustration, because they don't have the same underlying constructs.  Protagonists in media don't mow through henchmen because the henchmen are fragile.  They plow through because the plot requires it.  The authours aren't sitting at home rolling dice to see how things turn out.  If you give PCs the same total script immunity, you are no longer playing a game.



How many RPGs besides D&D are you familiar with? Even in OGL Conan, a game that is mechanically almost identical to D&D, the PCs have script immunity (via a Fate Point mechanic). I've never heard it suggested that those who play OGL Conan are not playing a game.


----------



## Andor

I give up. Communication is clearly impossible. *ahem*

4e cures cancer and brings world peace while 3e kills puppies and feeds on the tears of children.

Happy now? *facepalm*


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully

Andor said:
			
		

> I give up. Communication is clearly impossible. *ahem*
> 
> 4e cures cancer and brings world peace while 3e kills puppys and feeds on the tears of children.
> 
> Happy now? *facepalm*



Not entirely. You forget to mention that 4E is also a far better system then 3E. Please stay until you understood and accepted this truth, too.


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Before I begin, don't take any of this as applying to you personally.  I don't know if you hold any of the views I refer to.  Most of it is general argument using your points as a springboard.



			
				Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> I am not a big fan of the bolded part, either. But I think the reasoning goes something like this:
> _So, you prefer 3E over 4E(, and might even think the designers are not doing good work). But 3E didn't have X. You tell me I can houserule X, if I want it.
> SO, if Y is something you don't like in 4E, just houserule it. See, 4E is just as great as 3E. _



Except that is backwards.  From the first information about Golden Wyverns, the proffered solution was always "change/houserule it".*



> Off course, there is also the matter of how difficult it is to houserule something. Taking out magical +X items from 3E while preserving game balance? Very hard. Taking out magical +X items from 4E while preserving game balance? Astoundingly easy.



Conversely, taking out at-will powers from 3.x?  Astoundingly easy.  

But the point is this:  You claim taking out magical weapon bonuses from 3.x is very difficult.  Except, the article previews state you can do this in 4e by giving players a boost to the attack every few levels.  Well, again, this isn't unique to 4e.  Do the same thing in 3.x, and miracle of miracles, _you get the same outcome_.

There were no minions in 3.x _because nobody needed them_.  Those that did had a system in place.  As I, and others, have demonstrated, you can drop a 3.x monster to 1hp, quarter the CR and amazingly, you have a 4e style minion.

I haven't had the time to scour the forums, but here is what I am getting at:  There was no outcry for the things 4e is 'fixing' until the previews at the first of the year.  For example, with all the open content, and the millions of players out there, I would have expected dozens of systems for creating minions/mooks in D&D.  There were what, two?  Three?  Where was the clamour for 'easily dispatched but still dangerous monsters'?  Where are the endless flamewars over diagonal movement?  Why were most of these things unheard of until recently?

I contend that nearly everything that 4e promises to improve on is based almost entirely on fictitious claims about 3.x.



> But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be mechanics that allow me to easily replicate certain aspects of books or movies. Mooks (lower level NPCs & monsters) in 3E are pretty pointless. You roll a lot of dice and the end result - you win - is still obvious. (The worst thing possibly is that the best way to handle mook fights is to send your melee warriors to deal with them, since this will most likely not cost you any important resources, while the quick way, a area effect spell, can hurt you in a later encounter that day)
> 
> Minion Fights in 4E are no pointless. You roll a lot of dice, but you actually risk death or at least serious resource expenditure.



How is "You roll a lot of dice and the end result - you win" any less obvious in 4e?  Minions have one hit point, but otherwise, the same stats as a similarly leveled monster.  It's the exact same in 3.x, when you drop a monster down to 1hp.  They still have a good chance to injure the characters, and they go down in one hit.  In a previous post, I listed a statblock for an Ogre Mage minion.  1hp, 2CR, otherwise, the same as any other Ogre Mage.  How is that different than 4e?

Additionally, you contradict yourself.  In the 3.x example, you list "while the quick way, a area effect spell, can hurt you in a later encounter that day" as a detriment, but in 4e, "you actually risk death or at least serious resource expenditure" as a benefit.  If resource expenditure is a detriment, it is a detriment in both.  As well, if it is a benefit, it is a benefit for both.



> The fact that you can die in combat at all is off course an important difference from books or movies. But playing smart (good teamplay, tactics, and possibly using metagame resources like action points) can minimize the risks, and leads to a satisfactory experience - just as the protagonist in the novel, you outsmarted (or at least outfought) your adversaries.



Which is excellent advice for any game.  

Unfortunately, minions undermine that idea.  You aren't outsmarting or outfighting them.  They aren't individually a threat, because they are too fragile.  They are paper targets.  They are training wheels.  They are toddlers with foam bats.  Mechanically, they are no different than Wandering Damage.  They don't even have a mechanical damage threshold to surpass, just a simple attack roll.  I don't see how to derive a sense of accomplishment from rolling 12 or better on a d20.  It's not like everyone has to work together to overcome them.  Everyone will put one down per hit.  In fact, it discourages teamwork, because concentrating more than one person on a minion is a terrible tactic.  The Wizard will plink at least one per round with Magic Missile.  The Eldarin Rogue will drop one, teleport and drop another.  Finish off the minions, take your healing surges and get to the real fight.  I can't think of much that is less tactically interesting, or has a greater sense of 'obligatory fight scene'.

I have heard theories that the new edition aims to challenge the character and not the player, where previous editions were the opposite.  I don't see how minions even really challenge the characters.


*Which is problematic when fluff gets entangled in the rules.  I can give everyone a static +1 to saves every five levels, and the only thing it skews is a bit of math at higher levels.  But if I don't want tieflings to have such goofy names, or hail from the forgotten empire...  I'm kind of stuck, because new players to my table will have expectations for tieflings.


----------



## Mallus

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Finish off the minions, take your healing surges and get to the real fight.



This of course neatly ignores that minions are intended to be _*part of*_ the 'real fight', ie used simultaneously along with non-minion opponents. In which case a class of opponents that goes down easy and yet is fully capable of damaging the PC's represents an interesting addition to tactical play.



> I can't think of much that is less tactically interesting...



Note that you can use any games rules the wrong way to generate boring and/or undesirable results. This proves what, exactly?


----------



## LostSoul

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How is "You roll a lot of dice and the end result - you win" any less obvious in 4e? Minions have one hit point, but otherwise, the same stats as a similarly leveled monster. It's the exact same in 3.x, when you drop a monster down to 1hp. They still have a good chance to injure the characters, and they go down in one hit. In a previous post, I listed a statblock for an Ogre Mage minion. 1hp, 2CR, otherwise, the same as any other Ogre Mage. How is that different than 4e?




(The CR should be normal monster's CR - 4, not quartered.)

It doesn't work because the rest of the system doesn't expect a group of monsters that can challenge a party to only have 1hp.  In order for it to work, you need to have attack rolls for spells like Magic Missile and Fireball.


----------



## Dausuul

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Except that is backwards.  From the first information about Golden Wyverns, the proffered solution was always "change/houserule it".*




Of course, Golden Wyvern has been excised from the 4E Player's Handbook... thank God.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> But the point is this:  You claim taking out magical weapon bonuses from 3.x is very difficult.  Except, the article previews state you can do this in 4e by giving players a boost to the attack every few levels.  Well, again, this isn't unique to 4e.  Do the same thing in 3.x, and miracle of miracles, _you get the same outcome_.




Except for one thing: In 3.X, what level are you supposed to get a +3 weapon?

There's no answer, because 3.X doesn't have fixed expectations of "this is how much of a weapon bonus you're supposed to have at this level."  It just has a flat "this is how many gold pieces' worth of Magic Stuff you're supposed to have."  Depending on the character and build, you might have nearly all of that wealth sunk into your weapon, or some of it, or none.

Now, you can put together some reasonable assumptions.  My experience, for example, has been that most weapon-using characters put from 1/4 to 1/2 of their total net worth toward having a kick-ass weapon.  So you could take the wealth-by-level guidelines, determine an "appropriate fraction" to put toward your weapon, and adjust accordingly.

But that still leaves a lot of questions.  For one thing, a lot of the money people spend on their weapons goes toward getting cool special powers like Wounding, rather than on getting flat bonuses.   Should you consider that element?  Then, too, some parties have a caster who is willing and able to buff everyone's gear with _greater magic weapon_, which means investment in flat bonuses goes _way_ down.  Other parties lack such a caster.

And then there are the casters themselves, who generally don't use weapons at all.  Are you going to give casters a higher WBL than non-casters, in order to compensate for the fact that the non-casters no longer have to pay for their weapons?  If so, how do you plan to enforce treasure distribution to reflect this?  Or will you just let weapon-users get an effective WBL boost and call it partial compensation for the overall superiority of caster classes in 3.X?

Decisions, decisions... all these issues can be addressed if you're willing to take the time, but it's far from trivial.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> There were no minions in 3.x _because nobody needed them_.  Those that did had a system in place.  As I, and others, have demonstrated, you can drop a 3.x monster to 1hp, quarter the CR and amazingly, you have a 4e style minion.




I didn't have minions in 3.X.  You know why?  _I just never thought of it._  I was always vaguely annoyed by the amount of time it took to run big fights with lots of mooks, and tended to avoid such scenarios for that reason, but it never occurred to me to sit down and really address the issue.  Now the 4E designers have come up with the idea, it looks absolutely frickin' brilliant to me, and I'm champing at the bit to run encounters with big heaps o' minions.

And as others have pointed out, minionizing 3.X monsters is a kludge at best, with a number of problems (like AoE spells that don't have an attack roll or a saving throw involved).  I'd probably still do it if I were sticking with 3.X, but 4E is being built with minions in mind, which means they should be much better integrated into the system.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I haven't had the time to scour the forums, but here is what I am getting at:  There was no outcry for the things 4e is 'fixing' until the previews at the first of the year.




On the contrary.  Many of the things 4E is fixing, like casters ruling the roost at high levels, characters being unreasonably fragile at low levels, excessive save-or-lose effects, and so forth, are things that a lot of people have been complaining about for a long time.

Now, I agree that there has not been a general outcry for minions.  That doesn't make it a bad idea.  It's a new concept rather than a fix for an old one; it's showing people something cool they can do with their game that they just might never have thought of before.  If you don't like minions, you don't have to use 'em, but the system and the support are there for those of us who like the concept.


----------



## Scribble

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Except that is backwards.  From the first information about Golden Wyverns, the proffered solution was always "change/houserule it".




For some things like names of things? I think this IS the preffered solution. Names are pretty relative. It's impossible to make a name EVERYONE will agree is good. 

For rules, I'm with you that the preffered solution shouldn't just be house rule it. Eventually though, if you're in the minority, you have to accept the fact that the rule works for the majority and won't be changed... So you only have 2 solutions at that point really...




> But the point is this:  You claim taking out magical weapon bonuses from 3.x is very difficult.  Except, the article previews state you can do this in 4e by giving players a boost to the attack every few levels.  Well, again, this isn't unique to 4e.  Do the same thing in 3.x, and miracle of miracles, _you get the same outcome_.




Eh... I would argue it's not quite that easy. The types and kinds of bonuses vary so much and effect things in different ways. Certain characters would probably need bigger bonuses, while others would need a different type of bonus all together... It can be done sure... But so far it looks much easier in 4e. (and as a DM with not so much time on my hands for side projects... easier is better.)



> There were no minions in 3.x _because nobody needed them_.  Those that did had a system in place.  As I, and others, have demonstrated, you can drop a 3.x monster to 1hp, quarter the CR and amazingly, you have a 4e style minion.




Chicken or the egg? I used minions, but they never seemed to play out so well. Either it was too much of a challange and I had to fudge to reduce TPKs or too little of a challange, and I had to fudge to prevent premature gameoverulation.

Also an official rule on it makes it easier/possible to include them in things like official adventures, and settings and such. Doing this means more adventure options. More options means more fans being catered too. This is not a bad thing at all. More fans means more good for D&D.



> I haven't had the time to scour the forums, but here is what I am getting at:  There was no outcry for the things 4e is 'fixing' until the previews at the first of the year.  For example, with all the open content, and the millions of players out there, I would have expected dozens of systems for creating minions/mooks in D&D.  There were what, two?  Three?  Where was the clamour for 'easily dispatched but still dangerous monsters'?  Where are the endless flamewars over diagonal movement?  Why were most of these things unheard of until recently?




Selective memory? Talk about wanting this stuff I would say led to patches like mob rules and swarms. It was just an alien way of thinking to 3e with it's you fight x number of monsters in x number of encounters... 



> I contend that nearly everything that 4e promises to improve on is based almost entirely on fictitious claims about 3.x.




Easier to prepair and run. I've seen a TON of threads on enworld a lone complaining about the amount of time it takes to prep for 3e. Usually people asking for solutions and such.

Quicker battles. man I know I had an issue with that, and I KNOW a lot of hreads on enword were about battle length.

Plus there's also the "it's what we got so why complain" mindset. I played AD&D. It was fun. There were issues I had with the system, but I didn't spend all my time complaining about it. Had someone asked, I would have mentioned them, but still it was a game, it was fun, if I felt the need to bitch that much why would I play it???

3e is/was fun. It still had issues, many of which I find 4e to be fixing. 




> How is "You roll a lot of dice and the end result - you win" any less obvious in 4e?  Minions have one hit point, but otherwise, the same stats as a similarly leveled monster.  It's the exact same in 3.x, when you drop a monster down to 1hp.  They still have a good chance to injure the characters, and they go down in one hit.  In a previous post, I listed a statblock for an Ogre Mage minion.  1hp, 2CR, otherwise, the same as any other Ogre Mage.  How is that different than 4e?




It's not, but it fits the system better in 4e then the above would. I think in my eyes, they've fixed the overall issue I've had with monsters for a while. Minions are simply an outcome of that.



> Additionally, you contradict yourself.  In the 3.x example, you list "while the quick way, a area effect spell, can hurt you in a later encounter that day" as a detriment, but in 4e, "you actually risk death or at least serious resource expenditure" as a benefit.  If resource expenditure is a detriment, it is a detriment in both.  As well, if it is a benefit, it is a benefit for both.




I don't understand this paragraph.




> Unfortunately, minions undermine that idea.  You aren't outsmarting or outfighting them.  They aren't individually a threat, because they are too fragile.  They are paper targets.  They are training wheels.  They are toddlers with foam bats.




Yes they are. They can still harm you. They ahve the ability to hit you and do damage. (Which also is average damage so they're never going to do that oh... he only did a point of damage" shtick.)

Calling them insulting names will not change this. They might be less of a threat then say the BBEG controlling them, but they are still a threat to your character.

How is this hard to understand?



> Mechanically, they are no different than Wandering Damage.  They don't even have a mechanical damage threshold to surpass, just a simple attack roll.  I don't see how to derive a sense of accomplishment from rolling 12 or better on a d20.  It's not like everyone has to work together to overcome them.  Everyone will put one down per hit.  In fact, it discourages teamwork, because concentrating more than one person on a minion is a terrible tactic.  The Wizard will plink at least one per round with Magic Missile.  The Eldarin Rogue will drop one, teleport and drop another.  Finish off the minions, take your healing surges and get to the real fight.  I can't think of much that is less tactically interesting, or has a greater sense of 'obligatory fight scene'.




Except there is also the BBEG in the background doing fun things like dropping AOE powers on you, or ranged attacks. 

Sure, one goes down per hit. But they still take damage from the ones that didn't go down. Now the BBEG has one less healing surge to contend with.

They give DMs options. Why are options a bad thing???



> I have heard theories that the new edition aims to challenge the character and not the player, where previous editions were the opposite.  I don't see how minions even really challenge the characters.




I'm not sure what this means either. What do you mean by challange the character and not the player?




> Which is problematic when fluff gets entangled in the rules.  I can give everyone a static +1 to saves every five levels, and the only thing it skews is a bit of math at higher levels.  But if I don't want tieflings to have such goofy names, or hail from the forgotten empire...  I'm kind of stuck, because new players to my table will have expectations for tieflings.




Not so much difefrent for just about any edition fot eh game? There's always been people wanting to play something that I might not find "right" for my game. 

Oh you want to play a CE anti-paladin vampire 1/2 dragon drider with wings?


----------



## Storm-Bringer

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Of course, Golden Wyvern has been excised from the 4E Player's Handbook... thank God.



I hadn't heard that.  I agree, thank God.



> Except for one thing: In 3.X, what level are you supposed to get a +3 weapon?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Decisions, decisions... all these issues can be addressed if you're willing to take the time, but it's far from trivial.



I will grant that it isn't necessarily simple, but I hold that is the price for flexibility.  I understand not everyone enjoys that, but then arguing that simplicity is the ultimate goal rather presumes that it is the highest 'good' (not that you are doing that here).



> I didn't have minions in 3.X.  You know why?  _I just never thought of it._  I was always vaguely annoyed by the amount of time it took to run big fights with lots of mooks, and tended to avoid such scenarios for that reason, but it never occurred to me to sit down and really address the issue.  Now the 4E designers have come up with the idea, it looks absolutely frickin' brilliant to me, and I'm champing at the bit to run encounters with big heaps o' minions.



I will cede the point that it may not have been considered by most.  However, there were enough that would have or did think about it that there should have been comprehensive rules by now.  I understand Mutants and Masterminds has minion/mook rules.  While I wouldn't expect everyone to keep current on every RPG release available (the gods know I don't), it has been available in d20 form for some time.  Until pretty recently, however, no one seems to have really had a problem with them being absent.  Other genres had them, but sword and sorcery didn't seem to need them.  I hear claims about how they are integral to genre fiction, but I seem to recall that Aragorn and company knocked a few orcs around while Merry and Pippin were being kidnapped, then stalled.  Using minion rules, they should have caught up then slaughtered the whole troop of orcs and goblins.  Even the running count between Gimli and Legolas occurred across three books.  Conan, that I can recall, was not mobbed by dozens of guards.  I certainly don't have the depth of reading some have, but I am curious as to which specific books are being used as evidence to support the inclusion of minions.



> And as others have pointed out, minionizing 3.X monsters is a kludge at best, with a number of problems (like AoE spells that don't have an attack roll or a saving throw involved).  I'd probably still do it if I were sticking with 3.X, but 4E is being built with minions in mind, which means they should be much better integrated into the system.



It may be somewhat kludgy, but the end effect is about the same.  Take a monster, drop it to 1hp, and you have a minion.  A few fiddly bits need to be resolved, as you mentioned, but that really is the basic mechanic here.  In 4e, the damage output is flattened and lowered somewhat, but essentially, a 20th level minion is a standard 20th level monster with 1hp.



> On the contrary.  Many of the things 4E is fixing, like casters ruling the roost at high levels, characters being unreasonably fragile at low levels, excessive save-or-lose effects, and so forth, are things that a lot of people have been complaining about for a long time.



I would say those are arguably not objective problems, but I can understand that some have had problems with them.  That is a play style issue that 4e could have addressed without necessarily overhauling the entire system.  I don't agree, for example, that re-distributing the choice of powers Wizards had previously to all classes is the most elegant or best choice, from a design standpoint.  But not an opinion that needs to de-rail this thread.



> Now, I agree that there has not been a general outcry for minions.  That doesn't make it a bad idea.  It's a new concept rather than a fix for an old one; it's showing people something cool they can do with their game that they just might never have thought of before.  If you don't like minions, you don't have to use 'em, but the system and the support are there for those of us who like the concept.



I will grant it can reasonably called a new concept rather than my characterization of fixing the problem of 'no minions' in previous editions.  I would also argue that the solution 4e offers isn't particularly elegant, and more or less as much a kludge as the solution I have suggested for 3.x.


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## pemerton

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> taking out at-will powers from 3.x?  Astoundingly easy.



I assume this is sarcasm, but I don't quite get its point. If it's intended literally, then I don't quite get it either. Wouldn't most 3E non-spellcasters be hosed if their at-will abilities were taken away?



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> As I, and others, have demonstrated, you can drop a 3.x monster to 1hp, quarter the CR and amazingly, you have a 4e style minion.



Not really, because it dies automatically to fireball.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> In the 3.x example, you list "while the quick way, a area effect spell, can hurt you in a later encounter that day" as a detriment, but in 4e, "you actually risk death or at least serious resource expenditure" as a benefit.  If resource expenditure is a detriment, it is a detriment in both.  As well, if it is a benefit, it is a benefit for both.



The difference is contained in the phrase "can hurt you in a later encounter that day". Resource expenditure in 4e will frequently affect the tactics of a given encounter, but not the viability of future encounters that day.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> How is "You roll a lot of dice and the end result - you win" any less obvious in 4e?  Minions have one hit point, but otherwise, the same stats as a similarly leveled monster.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Unfortunately, minions undermine that idea.  You aren't outsmarting or outfighting them.  They aren't individually a threat, because they are too fragile.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's not like everyone has to work together to overcome them.  Everyone will put one down per hit.  In fact, it discourages teamwork, because concentrating more than one person on a minion is a terrible tactic.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't see how minions even really challenge the characters.



You seem to be ignoring several things here. One is, as others have said, that the minions won't be the only foes on the table. A few others are (i) that optimising one's attacks against the minions may itself be a tactical matter, (ii) that part of this tactical optimisation may involve such things as getting to damage multiple minions per PC per round (eg via Cleave, or via the Rogue power that makes the monsters damage one another), (iii) that teamwork in 4e clearly involves much more than multiple PCs vs one foe, and includes the effective use of positioning abilities, battlefield control and the like, (iv) that doing all of the above things seems fairly well described as "outsmarting" or "outfighting".



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> There was no outcry for the things 4e is 'fixing' until the previews at the first of the year.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I contend that nearly everything that 4e promises to improve on is based almost entirely on fictitious claims about 3.x.



Leaving aside the fact that many of the rules changed were the subject matter of complaints, there is also the fact that 4e has been self-consciously designed to take into account the best of contemporary non-simulationist RPG design. We know this because Rob Heinsoo has told us so:



			
				Rob Heinsoo said:
			
		

> No other RPG’s are in this boat. There might not be anyone else out there who would publish this kind of game. They usually get entrenched in the simulation aspect.
> 
> Indie games are similar in that they emphasize the gameplay aspect, but they’re super-focused, like a narrow laser. D&D has to be more general to accommodate a wide range of play.




So 4e isn't just promising fixes. It is promising a better game. Integrated minion rules are part of that.



			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> I wouldn't expect everyone to keep current on every RPG release available (the gods know I don't)



Again I have to ask - Are you familiar with any of the contemporary RPGs that Rob Heinsoo has expressly said are similar to 4e? Because you frequently make assertions such a "An RPG with feature X is not a game at all", when in fact many of those RPGs do have features more or less resembling X. And they are clearly games, with players playing them.


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## Hussar

> Conan, that I can recall, was not mobbed by dozens of guards. I certainly don't have the depth of reading some have, but I am curious as to which specific books are being used as evidence to support the inclusion of minions.[\quote]
> 
> Have you read a lot of Conan?  I have and I can say that getting mobbed by all sorts of stuff is pretty part and parcel.  Cut your way through the temple guards, grab the comely sacrifice, and then wade your way back out.  Pretty much stock S&S.
> 
> Moorcock also features numerous minion style battles particularly in the Corum books and the War Hound and the World's Pain series.  Star Wars is replete with minions.  Granted not specifically fantasy, but, bloody close.  Boromir's death scene features scads of minions.  Steven Erikson's fight scenes frequently use single heroes cutting swaths through the enemy.  Even The Princess Bride shows a fight between Inigo Montoya and minions when he cuts down the four before pursuing Count Rugen.
> 
> In any case, I would actually turn the question around.  What fantasy novels or movies DON'T feature minion battles?


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## Family

> What fantasy novels or movies DON'T feature minion battles?



Pretty Woman.


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## IanArgent

Lizard said:
			
		

> It's an interative process, of course. One the story is in motion, narrative law predominates. But the setup and worldbuilding is my favorite part of DMing.




Gah - I hate setup (and to a lesser extent worldbuilding). I'd rather buy a world and make it my own than start from scratch. And I don't have _time_ to make sure that each of my challenges for the PCs are correctly crafted if I have to depart from the presupplied challenges. Give me the math, make sure it works in the majority of cases, and explain what cahnges are critical, and what changes are less so. That seems to be the design philosophy for 4E; so I'm buying it.


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## occam

Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, minions undermine that idea.  You aren't outsmarting or outfighting them.  They aren't individually a threat, because they are too fragile.  They are paper targets.  They are training wheels.  They are toddlers with foam bats.






			
				Storm-Bringer said:
			
		

> Everyone will put one down per hit.  In fact, it discourages teamwork, because concentrating more than one person on a minion is a terrible tactic.  The Wizard will plink at least one per round with Magic Missile.  The Eldarin Rogue will drop one, teleport and drop another.  Finish off the minions, take your healing surges and get to the real fight.




It really doesn't feel that way when you're getting swarmed by minions, smacked for 5 points of damage multiple times, and still only hitting them about half the time. Remember that minions are a real challenge to PCs in every way, except that they go down easier (with "1 hp" being an abstract stand-in for "too few hp to survive a direct hit, but enough to handle ancillary damage"). To me, in my so-far-limited experience with 4e, minions were plenty scary. Have you played 4e combats with minions yet?


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## occam

Andor said:
			
		

> This is flat wrong. As I pointed out before, it's perfectly possible to make an orc horde where the swarm of 1st level Orc Warriors are still capable of hitting higher level PCs due to a series of buffs from some mid level Orc with levels in classes that buff like clerics, marshals, bards, and dragon shamans.
> 
> Is that more work than using the minion rules in 4e? Yep.
> 
> Does it work for all monster types and woolly mammoths? Nope.
> 
> Is it something you want to use every session? Nope.
> 
> Are minions therefore easier to do in 4e? Yep.
> 
> So minions can only be used in 4e? Nope. See above.




Andor wins the thread.


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