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3 years ago ::
Jun 13, 2010 - 1:57PM
#31
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Date Joined:
Feb 21, 2010
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Yesterday I DMed an encounter using 4 lvl 13 Canoloth Harriers against a level 10 party. Before it, I told them I was going to test out the idea of giving them a saving throw against any damage. If they make it they live, if they don't they die. Aside from those particular monsters having very high defenses, it went surprisingly well.
One of the minions died the first time they got hit, the second took two hits... the third I removed with DM caveat after I succeeded the third save in a row. The fourth was where I think this kind of system succeeds best. The cleric hit the area with a flame strike, killing that first minion outright. The fourth didn't die, but since he was hit he had the ongoing fire damage. He died at the start of his turn from the auto-damage.
The player of the cleric didn't like the saving throws, because he's pretty inflexible, but the rest of the players like how it went down. It was simple and while I made the saving throw on that fourth minion three times in a row, it made them think more about how they wanted to spend their resources.
The goal isn't to make minions hard, it's to make the fight more fun for everyone.
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3 years ago ::
Jul 06, 2010 - 10:17AM
#32
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Date Joined:
Oct 22, 2002
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Okay, so. It looks like there are three schools of thought on how regular minions can be improved: 1-hit: Saving throw at-will to ignore autodamage. 1.5-hit: Saving throw 1/encounter to ignore any damage. 2-hit: Saving throw at-will to ignore any damage. ("Ignoring damage" can mean either negating the damage, or respawning elsewhere. Balance-wise, the two are nearly identical.) Each has its pros and cons, and I think we've come close to the point where pure theoretical discussion isn't enough to choose one over the others. What we need right now is more playtest reports, like Draconobalen's just above. Repeated in bold, for visibility: We need playtest reports.
Although... the discussion's not done just yet. My reasoning here is that regular minions simply aren't a legitimate challenge to my players. Bearing in mind of course, that I use this system because it fits my group of players with our playstyle. As I've said, my players are pretty good at figuring out the system, and it is very difficult for me to challenge them without changing some rules.
[...] This may be colored on my pre-existing opinon that it's nearly impossible RAW to challenge players without presenting a nearly overwhelming encounter (which is true for -my- group, but I understand that this may not be the case for most groups).
Yeah, that's reasonable. I know well how hard it can be to challenge a party of optimizers.
On the other hand, not everybody is an optimizer. If your minions are a good challenge for your players, is there a chance that they'd be too much for the average player?
I think the saving-throw-live-or-die method is slightly superior to damage thresholds, simply because it takes much less time and effort to roll a d20, check the number, and see if it's higher than 10 or lower, as opposed to a player's damage roll (is he still getting that damage bonus from bob? Does he do more damage on bloodied opponents? Well, roll the dice, add them up, wait don't forget the temporary +2, etc etc).
Agreed. For standard minions, at least. And ditto for hard thresholds, like resist all. But an elite minion with a soft threshold, like my suggestion above, might be more reasonable. After all, you'll usually know the ballpark value of your attacks: my controller deals 1d6+10 most of the time, your rogue deals 4d8+22. I'll never one-shot an elite minion with 45 hp; my friend might if he rolls high. Whatever. We don't care about our exact damage rolls: all that's important is whether our first attack killed it or not. After the first attack, we don't need to roll at all: either it's dead, or the next attack will kill it.
As far as "real elite minions" I don't think you need a "equal to one-half of a monster" sort of power level. [...] You generally want either a monster, a particularly powerful monster, or filler that is pretty easy to steamroll (without being totally ignorable).
Sir, I beg to differ! Y'know how in martial arts movies, the hero starts by fighting waves of basic unarmed mooks, but then after a while the BBEG sends out his "best warriors", who have weapons and armor and take more than one punch to put down? They're strong enough that they might take out some of the hero's unnamed NPC allies. Elite Mooks, the TVTropers call them. The Crazy 88. The Persian Immortals. Clonetroopers, maybe.
Anyway, those guys are elite minions. Minions are the unarmed mooks, and standards are the "level boss" guys that fight the hero in one-on-one duels. (This assumes a solitary hero; things get mixed up in larger groups.)
Yesterday I DMed an encounter using 4 lvl 13 Canoloth Harriers against a level 10 party. Before it, I told them I was going to test out the idea of giving them a saving throw against any damage. [...] It went surprisingly well.
One of the minions died the first time they got hit, the second took two hits... the third I removed with DM caveat after I succeeded the third save in a row. The fourth was where I think this kind of system succeeds best. The cleric hit the area with a flame strike, killing that first minion outright. The fourth didn't die, but since he was hit he had the ongoing fire damage. He died at the start of his turn from the auto-damage.
Sounds like that worked out well. One thing, though: Do you think your four minions provided as much challenge as 4/5 of a regular level 13 monster, or more? After all, it took 7 hits to kill them, whereas 4/5 of a standard would take 4. Plus, the fact that you had to DM Fiat the lucky third minion is a little worrying.
Some things to consider
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3 years ago ::
Jul 07, 2010 - 6:13PM
#33
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Date Joined:
Nov 15, 2008
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I'm a little late to this discussion but I have a different idea for Minions. (I use electronic record keeper so YMMV.)
I use HP = Level.
So, for the most part a hit on a minion is going to kill a minion. However, there is a chance that piddly at-will auto damage might not kill a high tier minion.
I have been doing this for 2 years now.
I love it.
Minions almost always go down on 1 hit.
But there have been those rare few times when a minion didn't drop on a hit, and the group knew these minions were serious. (Level 7 party vs. level 12 minions)
It does take record keeping, but it's so minimal, it just doesn't matter to me. The pay off is much worth it.
Viva La "what ever version of D&D you are playing right now!"
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3 years ago ::
Jul 07, 2010 - 7:49PM
#34
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Date Joined:
Oct 22, 2002
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Well... The second you give Hit Points to a minion is when the minion stops being what is was originally designed to be.
See, the thing about minion hit points is that the record keeping is not, in fact, minimal. Oh sure, they might die in one hit... but if, like many people, you use zones and autodamage to handle minions, they probably won't.
Imagine you're a level 20 druid. You drop a Flame Seed in the middle of a cluster of minions. The guy you hit takes something like 1d6+6 damage. Everybody adjacent to him takes maybe 7 damage for starting their turn in the fiery zone. Your wizard ally then catches your original target and one of the adjacent ones in the area of his Thunderwave, dealing 1d6+13 damage (minus the minions' resist 10 thunder).
Quick, tell me: who's dead?
If it takes you more than ten seconds to answer, you're taking too long.
Now, maybe your electronic record keeper takes care of the math, I dunno. Unfortunately, most people don't have electronic record keepers. Can you really recommend your method to the average DM?
Some things to consider
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3 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2010 - 2:30PM
#35
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Date Joined:
Oct 22, 2002
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I've updated the OP to be a bit clearer. Also, I think I was way too hasty in claiming earlier that save-to-live minions were the unanimous best minion systems. Looking back over this and other threads, it looks like Threshold, Save-to-Live, 2-Hits/Threshold Hybrid, and 2-hits/Condition Hybrid are all popular and supported to various degrees. Unless anybody wants to argue otherwise, I think those are our most likely candidates. We should focus on those four, comparing each against the others and picking the best, before we pick any specific variants. I've already made clear my views on all of these, but I'll reiterate briefly because why not.
- A pure Threshold system is a bad idea because it creates sharp divides in PC effectiveness if the threshold is low, and makes autodamage irrelevant if it's high.
- 2-hits/Condition Hybrid has the same problem as any 2-hits system: bookkeeping. Some variants might be appropriate for elite minions, but even those can get pretty fiddly.
- I favour Save-to-Live for regular minions, because it has no bookkeeping and my preferred variant also handles autodamage well.
- 2-hits/Threshold Hybrid is my favorite for elite minions, with a threshold of Con + 2*level. Not much bookkeeping, and elegant to boot.
Some things to consider
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