If you care about how creatures, including Minions, interact and live in the gameworld, yes.MartinHarper wrote:That doesn't bother me. Should it?
What roles do monsters actually have?
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SphereOfFeetMan
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@SphereOfFeetMan: Yup, that's about the sum of it for me.
@MartinHarper: Contrary to your assertion, the Minions thing *doesn't* rely on the GM not picking high-level minions in opposition to low-level parties. It relies on:
1) The GM actively preventing low-level parties from seeking out low-level minions and decimating them for the purpose of garnering shit-loads of experience points, which is what I would personally do if I lived in a world where they existed. Yeah, it means you're going to have to do some clever planning in order to avoid getting splatted by whatever powerful creature they generally hang out with, but the payoff is huge and it could totally be done.
2) Those minions never encountering anything hostile that isn't also a minion. Or even, you know, going out in a heavy hailstorm. Some of these creatures are friggin' warriors by profession; how do they ever learn their craft if they die the instant they get a scrape?
The team of Azer minions slowly heaved the statue onto the plinth. "Put your backs into it you worthless scum!" roared the Fire Giant slavemaster, cracking his whip across their shoulders to punctuate his words.
"Oh... crap," whimpered the Giant as the minions all fucking died and the statue crashed to the ground.
@MartinHarper: Contrary to your assertion, the Minions thing *doesn't* rely on the GM not picking high-level minions in opposition to low-level parties. It relies on:
1) The GM actively preventing low-level parties from seeking out low-level minions and decimating them for the purpose of garnering shit-loads of experience points, which is what I would personally do if I lived in a world where they existed. Yeah, it means you're going to have to do some clever planning in order to avoid getting splatted by whatever powerful creature they generally hang out with, but the payoff is huge and it could totally be done.
2) Those minions never encountering anything hostile that isn't also a minion. Or even, you know, going out in a heavy hailstorm. Some of these creatures are friggin' warriors by profession; how do they ever learn their craft if they die the instant they get a scrape?
The team of Azer minions slowly heaved the statue onto the plinth. "Put your backs into it you worthless scum!" roared the Fire Giant slavemaster, cracking his whip across their shoulders to punctuate his words.
"Oh... crap," whimpered the Giant as the minions all fucking died and the statue crashed to the ground.
Last edited by Amra on Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RiotGearEpsilon
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Jesus christ, people, minions are a game abstraction. Minions are only minions in the presence of the player characters because /nothing exists as a game mechanical concept in the absence of the player characters/!
Of all the things in 4e to be furious about, Minions are NOT IT. The only thing that kills a minion in one hit is a player character.
Of all the things in 4e to be furious about, Minions are NOT IT. The only thing that kills a minion in one hit is a player character.
Last edited by RiotGearEpsilon on Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The point is, its a *stupid* abstraction that takes more away from the game then it adds.
The big problem is that it, and a lot of other things in 4e, exist as exceptions, abstractions and exploits for the characters in the world rather than the players and the GM.
Its in the same vein as Frodo jumping off 100' cliffs because he knows the plot (and the falling damage rules) won't let him die.
It would have been simple enough to have functional and interesting minion rules, and there are a couple of places where the current ones aren't offensively stupid. The giant rat minions are the one example I can think of- even a 2' rat is going to die if you stab it with a sword. And 12th level kobold minions? Totally acceptable things to one-shot (or they would be if damage scaled properly), but these stupid mixed parties of minions and real monsters that the game assumes have to go. They aren't threats, they aren't believable and they aren't relevant. They're essentially mobile pieces of the terrain that inexplicably grant combat advantage to real monsters, and you occassionally have to waste an action to destroy them. The really insulting thing is thats the wizard's actual job. The area spells are only good for blasting minions.
The big problem is that it, and a lot of other things in 4e, exist as exceptions, abstractions and exploits for the characters in the world rather than the players and the GM.
Its in the same vein as Frodo jumping off 100' cliffs because he knows the plot (and the falling damage rules) won't let him die.
It would have been simple enough to have functional and interesting minion rules, and there are a couple of places where the current ones aren't offensively stupid. The giant rat minions are the one example I can think of- even a 2' rat is going to die if you stab it with a sword. And 12th level kobold minions? Totally acceptable things to one-shot (or they would be if damage scaled properly), but these stupid mixed parties of minions and real monsters that the game assumes have to go. They aren't threats, they aren't believable and they aren't relevant. They're essentially mobile pieces of the terrain that inexplicably grant combat advantage to real monsters, and you occassionally have to waste an action to destroy them. The really insulting thing is thats the wizard's actual job. The area spells are only good for blasting minions.
Last edited by Voss on Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RiotGearEpsilon
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I don't think that minions are meant to exist as an 'in-setting' conceit - a 12th level minion is a minion that gets its ass kicked by 12th level characters, not a 12th level entity that inexplicably only has one hit point.
In my brief experience running 4e before I got sick of the dry mechanical flavorlessness of it all, I had a lot of fun with minions. Hewing through a dozen or more bitches in as many seconds is pretty awesome. I think it's probably the best mechanic they've had yet for making 'extras'.
In my brief experience running 4e before I got sick of the dry mechanical flavorlessness of it all, I had a lot of fun with minions. Hewing through a dozen or more bitches in as many seconds is pretty awesome. I think it's probably the best mechanic they've had yet for making 'extras'.
Except that it's just as easy to have damage scale so that bosses don't take 20+ rounds of taking a hacksaw to them, and then make minions have hit points less than any level-appropriate attack. Now they don't die to loud noises, but still die in one hit from a player unless they're noticeably lower level and shouldn't be one-shotting them to begin with.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
EXPLOSIVE RUNES!
But then minions' attack bonuses and such approach the edge of the RNG at one end or the other. We still need something to represent creatures that threaten en masse and get slaughtered en masse. We can either write up some sort of stupid swarm template or be stupid and videogamey with our setting. Make imps be minions that only appear in Hell, at which point they lose no granularity, since they will always be binary enemies once you get to the lower planes.
Of course, Frank already wrote up perfectly reasonable minion rules for TNE.
Of course, Frank already wrote up perfectly reasonable minion rules for TNE.
How is it not an in-setting conceit? They exist in setting. Kobold A can get smacked in the face with a greatsword twice before it drops, and you can drop Kobold B with a thrown rock!
They explicitly have 1 hit point. Whether its a first level kobold or a 25th level legion devil. Either way small children with rocks can kill the 'terrifying' monsters. And simple traps that automatically do (low) damage can wipe out whole armies of the things.
The need to pretend that these things somehow *aren't like that* when the PCs aren't around tells me straight up that this is a stupid implementation of a basic idea.
They explicitly have 1 hit point. Whether its a first level kobold or a 25th level legion devil. Either way small children with rocks can kill the 'terrifying' monsters. And simple traps that automatically do (low) damage can wipe out whole armies of the things.
The need to pretend that these things somehow *aren't like that* when the PCs aren't around tells me straight up that this is a stupid implementation of a basic idea.
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Username17
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Because the rules literally only apply when player characters are on the scene. Abyssal Ghoul Myrmidons don't have only 1 hit point when PCs are not in the room. In fact, they don't have hit points at all if the PCs aren't present.Voss wrote:How is it not an in-setting conceit?
Exception Based Design! 4e handles the problems of rule/physics interactions by simply refusing to have any interactions. Rather than answer the 3e questions of how life could survive with Balors having those printed stats, they simply deny that Balors have those stats (or any stats) when they aren't fighting the PCs.
An abyssal ghoul doesn't have 1 hit point when he fights a low level party, because the same guy is generated as a boss monster when he fights a lower level party and generated as a minion when he fights a higher level party. The stat lines have no correspondence to the game world at all. They are literally generated as required by the game. It's like how in Warhammer your opponent always gets the same number of points as you. It doesn't matter if the Empire is titanic and Sylvania is a postage stamp, because that all happens in magical teaparty land: everyone just writes fanfiction and whoever's is the coolest becomes canon. In any battle in the game, both sides will always bring about the same amount of power worth of troops.
So it is with 4e. If you want to accomplish anything, you have to wave your hands and write fanfiction and try to push your vote count. The rules just cover fights between the PCs and monsters who are generated at need in roughly the appropriate levels. It's like combat in Oblivion or Disgaea.
-Username17
See, I don't mind it in a competitive game between two people, like Warhammer. Stuff happens in the background with different sized armies all the time, but I'm comfortable for the norm (though it isn't all games) for competitive games to be equal points. Its part of the point of competition, in the same way you don't put Michael Phelps up against fat kids with missing limbs.
I'm puzzled by the Disgaea reference though. That game has no trouble slapping you down with absurdly higher level enemies if you stick your nose into places you can't handle. (rank fights, item world, etc. Even some of the story fights are a tough place if you don't go grinding some levels first).
But, back to what you're saying, that still doesn't work, even by the stupid design conceits they're using. Because you never escape the basic situation where a first level party is expected (if not required, if by nothing other than need to have some variety in the fights) to fight mixed groups of real monsters and minions that are level appropriate for them. So during the entire span of 240-300 encounters that it takes you to get to level 30, you're constantly fighting things that range from ~20 to ~300 hit points, accompanied by other monsters that that have either 1 hit point or 40-600 hit points (depending on level).
So even ignoring the stupid idea that everything goes into sleep mode when the PCs aren't there, it still remains fucked up when the PCs *are* there because monsters of race <X> are on a bizarre range that jumps from 1 to approximately level*8 and jumps again to level*16, plus those other monsters that are alone and have HP that are inexplicably ~level*64.
It simply never makes sense as anything but a pure game conceit, but the *characters* somehow have to deal with the fact that the first monster they hit may go down with swing, while they have to hack at other monsters for 20 odd rounds, and as far as they know, there isn't any real difference. All they know is sometimes creatures die (and everything but them *dies* at 0 hp unless the gm decides a creature is special and doesn't) really easily. And there seems to be no in-game explanation for whats going on, either for the characters or the monsters, but there are still in-game consequences for all of it.
Its like the designers read the parody aspects of Order of the Stick and decided that was a good idea for actual, serious world design. Its probably why the guy isn't switching to 4e. It isn't a joke anymore- its actually whats happening.
I'm puzzled by the Disgaea reference though. That game has no trouble slapping you down with absurdly higher level enemies if you stick your nose into places you can't handle. (rank fights, item world, etc. Even some of the story fights are a tough place if you don't go grinding some levels first).
But, back to what you're saying, that still doesn't work, even by the stupid design conceits they're using. Because you never escape the basic situation where a first level party is expected (if not required, if by nothing other than need to have some variety in the fights) to fight mixed groups of real monsters and minions that are level appropriate for them. So during the entire span of 240-300 encounters that it takes you to get to level 30, you're constantly fighting things that range from ~20 to ~300 hit points, accompanied by other monsters that that have either 1 hit point or 40-600 hit points (depending on level).
So even ignoring the stupid idea that everything goes into sleep mode when the PCs aren't there, it still remains fucked up when the PCs *are* there because monsters of race <X> are on a bizarre range that jumps from 1 to approximately level*8 and jumps again to level*16, plus those other monsters that are alone and have HP that are inexplicably ~level*64.
It simply never makes sense as anything but a pure game conceit, but the *characters* somehow have to deal with the fact that the first monster they hit may go down with swing, while they have to hack at other monsters for 20 odd rounds, and as far as they know, there isn't any real difference. All they know is sometimes creatures die (and everything but them *dies* at 0 hp unless the gm decides a creature is special and doesn't) really easily. And there seems to be no in-game explanation for whats going on, either for the characters or the monsters, but there are still in-game consequences for all of it.
Its like the designers read the parody aspects of Order of the Stick and decided that was a good idea for actual, serious world design. Its probably why the guy isn't switching to 4e. It isn't a joke anymore- its actually whats happening.
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angelfromanotherpin
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This isn't entirely true. There are asymmetrical scenarios where the sides have different material and/or positional and/or straight VP advantages. Playing a strictly unfair fight is kind of a waste of time.FrankTrollman wrote:It doesn't matter if the Empire is titanic and Sylvania is a postage stamp, because that all happens in magical teaparty land: everyone just writes fanfiction and whoever's is the coolest becomes canon. In any battle in the game, both sides will always bring about the same amount of power worth of troops.
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RiotGearEpsilon
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This is true at the wargaming table or the roleplaying game table. This is one thing that DnD 4e got right - fights in-setting are a game and should be fun over all else.FrankTrollman wrote:Playing a strictly unfair fight is kind of a waste of time.
Last edited by RiotGearEpsilon on Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MartinHarper
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I don't have a problem with kobold skirmishers/slingers taking a few hits to kill, while kobold minions die in one hit. Skirmishers and slingers are (badly) trained warriors. Kobold minions are pensioner kobolds who throw their walking sticks at you and call it a "javelin".
16 minions is supposedly a level appropriate challenge for a part of 4 level 1 PCs. Are 16 minions too easy, relative to 4 regular level 1 monsters?Amra wrote:It relies on ... The GM actively preventing low-level parties from seeking out low-level minions and decimating them for the purpose of garnering shit-loads of experience points.
Last edited by MartinHarper on Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Unless the party is composed of absolute idiots, yes they are. Because not only are the hit points non-existant, damaged is also fixed at a low point. So not only do they automatically die, they can't actually hurt you unless the attack dice fluke out way beyond statistical likelihoods. You'd need about 48 minions to actually threaten someone.
And, by the by, you're retconning things so they aren't as stupid. Those aren't the default assumptions for the slingers, skirmishers and minions.
RGE- but 4e fights *aren't* fun. So thats a fail. Its also mindless, which even if you can find it fun in the first place, quickly becomes dull. It also doesn't work as the only consideration.
And one of you needs to fix your quote tags.
And, by the by, you're retconning things so they aren't as stupid. Those aren't the default assumptions for the slingers, skirmishers and minions.
RGE- but 4e fights *aren't* fun. So thats a fail. Its also mindless, which even if you can find it fun in the first place, quickly becomes dull. It also doesn't work as the only consideration.
And one of you needs to fix your quote tags.
Last edited by Voss on Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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SphereOfFeetMan
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...and we're back to 3e.RiotGearEpsilon wrote:In my brief experience running 4e before I got sick of the dry mechanical flavorlessness of it all, I had a lot of fun with minions. Hewing through a dozen or more bitches in as many seconds is pretty awesome...
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
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RiotGearEpsilon
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Draco_Argentum
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Thats pretty much expected in a world where humans range from a few hitpoints to however many a level 30 has. This is explicitly part of the setup, some individuals are totally, fucking hardcore compared to their race as a whole. The problem is that minions are easy for anyone to drop when they should only be easy for people of the appropriate level to drop.Voss wrote:How is it not an in-setting conceit? They exist in setting. Kobold A can get smacked in the face with a greatsword twice before it drops, and you can drop Kobold B with a thrown rock!
So here's a mechanic for you that isn't quite as obviously stupid, at least to me...
Minions have a sensible number of hit points for their level. However, they have the "Vulnerable: heroes" property, so any attack from a character up to their CR -4 that requires a to-hit roll automatically does damage equal to their hit points. It stops Wizards wiping out a 3x3 area of them with an at-will power without needing to hit any of them (although if he does hit, he'll still drop them) and means that they can explicitly take a bit of punishment from anything that isn't a character, and from characters that ought to be too low a level to engage with them.
Trouble is, this still leaves you with the pretty daft situation where the PC's are facing a bunch of apparently-identical monsters, some of which will drop if you sneeze at them and some of which take 20 rounds to kill, even at 1st level. Still, it's better than gigantic, slavering, fearsome monsters that explicitly have only one hit point.
Minions have a sensible number of hit points for their level. However, they have the "Vulnerable: heroes" property, so any attack from a character up to their CR -4 that requires a to-hit roll automatically does damage equal to their hit points. It stops Wizards wiping out a 3x3 area of them with an at-will power without needing to hit any of them (although if he does hit, he'll still drop them) and means that they can explicitly take a bit of punishment from anything that isn't a character, and from characters that ought to be too low a level to engage with them.
Trouble is, this still leaves you with the pretty daft situation where the PC's are facing a bunch of apparently-identical monsters, some of which will drop if you sneeze at them and some of which take 20 rounds to kill, even at 1st level. Still, it's better than gigantic, slavering, fearsome monsters that explicitly have only one hit point.
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MartinHarper
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Why would you describe minions as identical to non-minions?Amra wrote:Trouble is, this still leaves you with the pretty daft situation where the PC's are facing a bunch of apparently-identical monsters, some of which will drop if you sneeze at them and some of which take 20 rounds to kill, even at 1st level.
If there are a horde of evil level 1 broomsticks to be destroyed, and some of the broomsticks are minions, then the minion broomsticks are made of plywood, while the non-minion broomsticks are made of oak.
YES. 16 minions absolutely are too easy compared to 4 level 1 monsters, particularly if the party pick up any definite-damage powers, which they will.MartinHarper wrote:16 minions is supposedly a level appropriate challenge for a part of 4 level 1 PCs. Are 16 minions too easy, relative to 4 regular level 1 monsters?
Because not doing so is fucked-up beyond belief and gives credence to the idea that there really are creatures occupying a "decades-until-adulthood-but-dies-if-it-cuts-itself-shaving" ecological niche in the game world.MartinHarper wrote:Why would you describe minions as identical to non-minions?
When the party are facing a bunch of evil halfling forest bandits - driven to a life of crime and brigandage because even kobolds laugh at them for being the suck - I don't want to have to describe half a dozen of them as being pasty-white and trembling. It lowers the tone.
Even further, that is.
I don't want any Human to have only one hit point; that makes classic bar brawls exceptionally unlikely (or exceptionally short), although it'd save on Kool-Aid if they joined a suicide cult because the leader could just have his lackeys open envelopes until they all died from paper cuts. I don't want an Ogre Thug with one hit point and I certainly don't want a Cyclops Warrior taken down by a lucky shot from a pissed-off rat.
On a barely-related note, am I the only one who finds it odd that there are six different types of Cyclops, each of which has a power called Evil Eye that comes in five different flavours, each with completely different ranges and effects? Only the Guard and the Warrior have an Evil Eye that does the same thing.
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MartinHarper
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Shaving cuts and paper cuts and (regular) rat bites don't inflict 1hp of damage.
4e bar brawls suck as written because the rules for non-lethal damage suck.
4e bar brawls suck as written because the rules for non-lethal damage suck.
Then describe the halfling minions as being regular halflings, and describe the halfling non-minions as being the leaders and the veterans. Or, if you want the brigands to all be equally resilient, don't make some of them minions and some of them non-minions, and make them all the same level.Amra wrote:When the party are facing a bunch of evil halfling forest bandits - driven to a life of crime and brigandage because even kobolds laugh at them for being the suck - I don't want to have to describe half a dozen of them as being pasty-white and trembling. It lowers the tone.