Quote from: thedungeondelver;436395I myself don't know that I'd do that as a DM, but I'm not violently opposed to playing an AD&D game with those mechanics in place.

I think I was wrong.

If you make it a mechanic, say at "Fighter HD-4" for the fighter instead of "sub-1HD," then you're completely modifying the feel of the game for the worse.

If you just go you know, in the game, "hey, these gnolls there, they're eligible for your multiple attacks," then you're basically applying some sort of game or narrative logic onto the game, thinking of the monsters as in fact "mooks" as in pawns on a board, or stormtroopers in Star Wars.

That just doesn't fit the game.

No.

The real solution is not to change the rules or adjudicate exceptions on the spot, the real solution is to use more sub-1HD creatures for the fighter to have the occasion to use those multiple attacks.

Quote from: Benoist;436396The real solution is not to change the rules or adjudicate exceptions on the spot, the real solution is to use more sub-1HD creatures for the fighter to have the occasion to use those multiple attacks.

Is there a formula for an "appropriate" number of sub-1HD creatures for such situations?

Quote from: ggroy;436397Is there a formula for an "appropriate" number of sub-1HD creatures for such situations?

I guess it'd depend on the particulars of the group makeup (who's a fighter, who's not, at which level, which means X attacks per round in theory) applied to a particular set of circumstances (are the fighters out in the open, or standing two by two/three by three in a corridor? Who's got polearms? How high the ceiling? How many enemies can fight the guys at once? Who are the sub-HD creatures fighting with? How long do you want the fight to last? And so on).

But here's the thing. The 0-level guy man-at-arms, the sub-1HD creatures, those are the "normal guys" in the world, see? That's a throwback to Chainmail, where Heroes could attack normal guys X times and so on. The multiple attacks of the fighters are a direct descendant from the Heroes status of Chainmail. So, for this aspect of fighters to really shine in the game, you need to set up Chainmail situations of tactical warfare in game play.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;436387You know what?

I have said stupid things...

And still continue to do so on a very regular basis.

I don't completely agree with Doom that minions are absolutely useless.  At the same time, they are often mostly useless.

* The damage is so low that it is rarely a factor.  Often times, it is too low to even get past temp HP or negative effects from marking.

* The XP for minions is 1/4 normal which is way too high considering what little threat they pose.  It should be something like 1/10 normal in order to give you a large enough number to really threaten PCs with (which would have made the math easier too).

* Ranged minions are only effective so long as there is a phalanx of enemy infantry blocking the PCs from getting LOS on them (sadly, this means I will hear endless whining about how "unrealistic" LOS rules are when they can't target past the phalanx; oddly, this complaint never comes up when they block enemy fire from hitting their rear line).

* Melee minions are only effective if you have at least a dozen of them AND are on a large, open battlefield.  They are useless in a dungeon where the tanks can block them from getting to anyone else and can cut through them like butter.


For me, the exception that proved the rule of "minions suck" was this example from my own campaign:

The PCs were on a very small island (something like a 12 squares diameter).  There were only four or so of them.  2d6 Drowned One minions appeared from all sides (out of the water), with an additional 1d6 appearing each turn until they were able to complete a magic ritual skill challenge to close the demonic portal causing the dead to appear.

Despite a near TPK, the PCs were able to hang on and kill something like 30 minions and complete the ritual.  Now that was cool, but it was such a rare case and set of circumstances.  The more normal fights with minions showed them to be an utter non-factor in the fights.

And that I can agree with. Minions certainly don't work as advertised, and the rules as written are, as you've noted, wrong on many levels.

The only way I've gotten them to work is pretty much like you have, with "minion generators"...not always satisfying, but with minions randomly appearing from a generator, they are a bit harder to trivially wipe out.

Pretty sure the best one was when I had ghoul minions (a few levels higher than the party) appear on 4 different generators, spread out.

But this still doesn't change the fact that in the vast majority of cases, minions simply don't work right.

I know the 4E minion subject has come up before and there was a suggestion that the hit points of minions should be equal to their level as a "fix". Has anyone tried this? What was the result?

Quote from: jeff37923;436526I know the 4E minion subject has come up before and there was a suggestion that the hit points of minions should be equal to their level as a "fix". Has anyone tried this? What was the result?

Tried this one.  It didn't make much of a difference at the heroic and lower-mid paragon tiers, unless one's damage rolls were really crappy.

At level 10, the damage one does is usually at least +7 (+5 from primary stat adjustment, +2 from magic item bonus).

I don't think minions need fixing.

They're only meant to add a sense of over-the-top action to an encounter. if you feel like you need an encounter where the PCs have to fight off 36 goblins, Minions are an easy way to do it.

if you wanted to do this in AD&D, you just use a fighter.

Minions are also kind of bad-ass when you use a generator type of setup:

Most of the times I actually dropped PCs at DDXP was by minions. This is the final encounter in SPEC3-1 (if you know LFR): Spoiler alert- the one with the heart.

The mini-oozes (minions) do 6-10 damage each on a hit. The sludge pool generates 1d4/1d6 a round and starts with 8. As the action starts to ramp up, you surround the lead PC (whoever is in front) and mob him and pretty soon you are doing 40-50 acid damage in a round. There was one run where I had 3 out of 5 PCs unconscious and 1 bloody just from the minions, and one dogged dwarf hanging on, pounding away at the giant heart of corruption thing.

Yeah, AM came pretty close to killing us all off in that one. My shaman is an epically crappy healer but he is epically fun to play, which is of course what matters.

I will second the call for waves of minions. It really fixes the whole thing where you kill a bunch of minions first round and it feels like something you have to get out of the way. Waves of minions makes life interesting and complex; I've seen it in a few scenarios now and I've used it in my home games. Scattering in some non-minions is fun too.

Minions are lame meta-gaming constructs born of player empowerment.

Quote from: 1989;436757Minions are lame meta-gaming constructs born of player empowerment.

I think they're born more of genre-emulation as opposed to world-emulation.  They fit in perfect with a more pulpy Big Damn Heroes game, which 4e obviously is.  As to whether they work as advertised in 4e, I have no idea.

The ones in WFRP3 are a lot tougher but the group mechanics for them necessitate a very abstract approach to combat, which WFRP3 is designed for.

I prefer world-emulation with more concrete combat, so neither game really does it for me in the combat area.

Minions aren't great but they fill a hole that other RPGs have been doing for years with very similar mechanics, since the mid 80s at least. They are a much better rule that the AD&D level attacks on sub 1hd creatures that fighters used to get because that is just a crap rule that not only seems silly but invalidates the entire combat system used the rest of the time (a 10th level fighter gets 10 hits against goblins that are trying to defend themselves but only 2 hits against a sleeping dragon or a door that is like well asleep or an inanimate object made of wood.... and don't get me started on archery or thrown weapons......)

well, to be fair, just how often does the 10th level fighter meet goblins, and moreover, how often is he going to be adjacent to 10 of them?

I mean, it's a valid complaint, but something of an edge case, eh?