When I hear someone talk of Hydra-Minions or Dragon-Minions I cringe, as this goes against the very idea of what Minions should actually be.
In a monster that is also a race (Orc, Bullywug, Elf) with a social structure to match and any likeness to encounter a lot of them, there should be a Minion varaiant to make more appropiate encounters.
When the PCs storm the camp of the Gnolls, they find 8 opponents and the rest is non combatant?! With Minions they could face 20 opponents, which is much more realistic.
For this to fly, Minins should be fast and easy, a threat but not deadly.
Leaving Minions with any amount of HP's above one is not in the spirit of Minions. You have your bookkeeping all along and even clunky mechanics as fast healing.
So I would propose that:
* Minions can only be humanoids creatures that have an organisational structure
* Minions drop to 1 HP
* Minions loose all attacks except one. Any variable on this attacks (damage, duration..) is always minimized.
* Minions loose all Spells and Spell like abilities
* Minions gain Evasion
* Minions gain a Saving Throw against all Spells and Effects that cause damage to avoid this damage, even if this effect usually does not allow one.
Leaving Minions with any amount of HP's above one is not in the spirit of Minions. You have your bookkeeping all along and even clunky mechanics as fast healing.
On that, I very much disagree. I think it's one of the places where 4e's implementation of minion/mook rules is deficient. Minions and mooks shouldn't be particularly durable, but they shouldn't crumple at the weakest of hits either.
Things seem to be getting a little bogged down with rules and options here. As a dm i dont want to have to track shaken/panicked 50% hp, half hit threshold each round or the like and I think these go away from the principle idea of minons. minions are supposed to die in one hit they only survive if you miss them.
I don't really thinks so. You are only tracking 2 things.
1. How much damage has the minion taken this round?2. Was the minion injured in a previous round?
Once the minion becomes panicked they flee, and are effectively out of the combat.
Here is where I am at.
Minion Template(CR-4)
Minions are weaker creatures made strong by the presence of a leader they fear or believe in. This template can be added to any creature that is capable of receiving morale bonuses.
Alignment: Any
Type: Creature's types does not change. This template can only be applied to creatures with a well defined social structure.
Hit Points: The creatures hit points change as follows
Each d6 HD the base creature has the minion will have 1 hp. d8 HD gives 1.5 hp, d10 HD gives 2 hp, and d12 HD gives 2.5 hp. Add the creatures con modifier to this amount once(not per HD).
Attacks: Minions are unable to make full attack actions. Minions are unable to get critical hits.
Spells: Minions that can cast spells lose access to their highest level of spells.
Defenses/Qualities:
Tis but a scratch: Minions gain fast healing equal to their hit points. This healing goes away if the creature becomes staggered or dying.
No its not: If a minion is injured, they receive the injured condition at the beginning of their turn when they are healed by their fast healing ability. Injured minions halve their maximum health, and become shaken. The shaken effect can be applied multiple times, but the effects of multiple injuries do not stack.
Special attention: The injured condition can be removed by magical healing, or a successful first aid(heal DC15) check. This will also remove any shaken or panicked effects that were received from injures.
Weak willed: Minions become shaken if there are no non-minions within 30 feet or line of sight to lead them.
Stacking morale: A minion who is shaken and receives the shaken condition becomes panicked.
New feat Inspiring Presence - Requires Leadership, Chr 13. You add your charisma bonus to the maximum health of any minions within 30 feet or within line of sight.
Upon thinking it through, the fear conditions don't really do much. Game-wise it essentially ends in the same net result as if you just said: if an injured minion is hit again, it dies. I also don't like it from the stand point that once the players realize how these rules work, they'll try to ignore the minions and concentrate fire on the non-minion(s) leading them.
DR = starting HP seems just as off as giving minions 1 HP, just in a different direction.
I just don't see the minions lasting long enough in the fight to warrant all this rules-wrangling. In your example of the 8 minions, 5 were gone by round two for instance.
Don't get me wrong, I like your concept of adding minion rules, which is why I keep posting my opinions.
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I agree. I'm looking for the ideal minion rules myself. I don't want to have to track hp for them from round to round though is the key requirement for me.
I was thinking something like Damage Resistance (like Damage Reduction but applies to ANY damage roll against them) equal to their CR (or HD, not sure). Damage Resistance reduces all damage they take from a source by the number given. After taking damage from any source, if that damage was not sufficient to kill them, they heal to full. So you only track damage from each individual source... the one time they take it. If its not enough to kill them, you effectively ignore it and don't track it.
I will say that the damage threshold idea is a nice one. But again it would be nice to see it somehow standardized to keep it simple.
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I'm thinking Threshold = HD instead of CR since some monsters have less than 1 full CR. Making it equal to HD means the minimum threshold for real low life minions would be 1HP as in 4E, whereas as monsters get tougher (more HD) their threshold increases accordingly. And you can always tell a monsters threshold very quickly by checking its HD.
You could always make up new feats for leaders that increase the threshold of their minions by some degree, but it doesn't change the overall mechanic.
Maybe a leader could also automatically sacrifice minions adjacent to himself when hit in combat... he shoves the lackey in the way of the sword etc. In that case the minions threshold is automatically bypassed and it gets whacked.
Just an idea :)
Upon thinking it through, the fear conditions don't really do much. Game-wise it essentially ends in the same net result as if you just said: if an injured minion is hit again, it dies. I also don't like it from the stand point that once the players realize how these rules work, they'll try to ignore the minions and concentrate fire on the non-minion(s) leading them.
DR = starting HP seems just as off as giving minions 1 HP, just in a different direction.
I just don't see the minions lasting long enough in the fight to warrant all this rules-wrangling. In your example of the 8 minions, 5 were gone by round two for instance.
Don't get me wrong, I like your concept of adding minion rules, which is why I keep posting my opinions.
The difference to me is that it took a full round action by the archer and fighter, a level 3 spell from the wizard, and a level 2 spell from the cleric to take out 5 minions. That is a significant expenditure of resources for a level 5 party as opposed to a level 5 sorcerer using a level 1 spell(magic missle) to drop 3 minions.
It is a balance between making them easy to drop, but not too easy.
On paper it seems like a lot, but I think in reality most minions will get dropped in a single round leaving you with very few injured minions to track.
I'm thinking Threshold = HD instead of CR since some monsters have less than 1 full CR. Making it equal to HD means the minimum threshold for real low life minions would be 1HP as in 4E, whereas as monsters get tougher (more HD) their threshold increases accordingly. And you can always tell a monsters threshold very quickly by checking its HD.
You could always make up new feats for leaders that increase the threshold of their minions by some degree, but it doesn't change the overall mechanic.
Maybe a leader could also automatically sacrifice minions adjacent to himself when hit in combat... he shoves the lackey in the way of the sword etc. In that case the minions threshold is automatically bypassed and it gets whacked.
Just an idea :)
sounds like another idea for a minion feat.
Cold Hearted - Prereq: Leadership. When you are hit in combat, you may attempt an Intimidate check (as an immediate action) to negate the hit. The hit is instead taken by an adjacent minion if your Intimidate check result is greater than the opponent's attack roll. Must have an adjacent minion to use this feat.
I based is loosely off of the mounted combat feat.
The only problem with the DR idea is that you could end up with a weak melee character hacking away at the minion for several rounds with no effect.
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sounds like another idea for a minion feat.
Cold Hearted - Prereq: Leadership. When you are hit in combat, you may attempt an Intimidate check (as an immediate action) to negate the hit. The hit is instead taken by an adjacent minion if your Intimidate check result is greater than the opponent's attack roll. Must have an adjacent minion to use this feat.
I based is loosely off of the mounted combat feat.
I like it, though, to reduce rolls and make it easier I'd just say "As a move action you can redirect damage from one source to an adjacent minion. This damage automatically kills the minion." or something. I don't want to be looking up intimidate scores or whatever in mid fight especially for a fun flavor moment like telling the PC's the leader pushes one of his thugs in the way of the scorching ray :)
The only problem with the DR idea is that you could end up with a weak melee character hacking away at the minion for several rounds with no effect.
Yeah, not sure how to get around wimps not being able to kill minions.. other than telling them to not be so WIMPY! :)
sounds like another idea for a minion feat.
Cold Hearted - Prereq: Leadership. When you are hit in combat, you may attempt an Intimidate check (as an immediate action) to negate the hit. The hit is instead taken by an adjacent minion if your Intimidate check result is greater than the opponent's attack roll. Must have an adjacent minion to use this feat.
I based is loosely off of the mounted combat feat.
I like it, though, to reduce rolls and make it easier I'd just say "As a move action you can redirect damage from one source to an adjacent minion. This damage automatically kills the minion." or something. I don't want to be looking up intimidate scores or whatever in mid fight especially for a fun flavor moment like telling the PC's the leader pushes one of his thugs in the way of the scorching ray :)
The only problem with the DR idea is that you could end up with a weak melee character hacking away at the minion for several rounds with no effect.Yeah, not sure how to get around wimps not being able to kill minions.. other than telling them to not be so WIMPY! :)
That is what the injury tracking was for. Wimp hits minion, minion is injured. Wimp hits minion again next round, minion runs away.
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Here's what I'm thinking so far...
Any intelligent yet weak-willed monster can be used as a "minion" for a much stronger monster or NPC.
Creating a Minion
“Minion” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature with an Intelligence score of 4 or more and a Wisdom of 10 or less. A minion retains the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
CR: As base creature -2.
Defenses/Qualities: It gains Damage Resistance (see below).
Special Abilities: A minion gains the following.
- Damage Resistance (Ex): Whenever a minion takes damage from any source that damage is reduced to 0 if it is equal to or less than the minions HD. If the damage is greater than their HD then the minion dies (or is knocked unconscious, at the attackers preference).
Strength in Numbers (Ex): Minions are more powerful and emboldened when in large groups. Each minions HD is treated as if it were one greater for every 5 minions present (counting themselves). This is only for determining the minions Damage Resistance.
Weak-Willed (Ex): Minions fight only so long as their leader is present and in charge. If a minions leader dies, is captured, or flees, minions gain the panicked condition. Minions who gain the shaken condition (for any reason) gain the panicked condition instead.
Attacks: Minions may only make one attack per round regardless of their normal number of attacks. Minions deal damage equal to their CR x 2 when they hit. Minions can not score critical hits.
The following feats are useful for leader (or boss-type) monsters.
Inspiring Presence
Prerequisite: Minions (you must have minions)
Benefit: Minions who follow you add your charisma bonus to their HD when determining their Damage Resistance.
Cold Hearted
Prerequisite: Minions
Benefit: As an immediate action you may redirect damage you take from one source to an adjacent minion instead. The adjacent minion is automatically hit and the damage automatically kills (or knocks unconscious, at the attackers preference) the minion. Any other minions adjacent to you gain the panicked condition.
I'm new here and so I figured I'd give you guys my 2 copper.
I've always liked using a "minion" concept in my games, since the old d6 Star Wars days, I hated firing at Storm Troopers all day long, when in the movies it was really a one hit, one kill type deal, so I started tinkering with it back then. Honestly never came up with a good system, I'd just keep certain people in the fight long enough, until I was board of them... Major NPC's I'd keep in till they died, but the rif-raf, meh, whatever.
I recently ran across Savage Worlds game though, and they use a very "minion like system" and I think I'm personally going to adapt it.
I will call it the damage threshold system.
for each HD I'll find a decent avarage damage dealt per level, I don't know what, but let's just say it's 4 base, and +1/HD. I'm riffing here, so the numbers aren't solid in my head yet. maybe an exceptional con would add another plus 1 or 2 to the threshold.
Anyway, so basically you turn the DT (Damage Threshold) into a target number based on the damage roll.
Let's say you have 4 3HD Goblins (I'll give them a DT of 5 (4 base, +2 for HD above 1, and -1 because their goblins, and I don't see them as being "all that and a bag of chips")
PC 1 (Fighter) swings, hits (AC and all other numbers are the same) and does 8 damage; that's over the DT 5 so it dies.
PC 2 (Cleric) swings and hits doing 4 damage; not over the DT 5, so you describe a soft blow.
PC 3 (Rouge) swings and hits doing 5 damage; just enough to trip the DT, and it goes down screaming as it dies.
PC 4 (mage) does an AOE against the other two; one saves one doesn't, the mage does 9 damage, enough to trip the DT of the one who didn't save, but the one who did, was safe by only taking 4 damage.
That Goblin attacks the mage, doing 3 damage, meh, whatever (all the attacks, ac etc, are the same, the minions just take damage differently)
now the mage swings his staff at the goblin, remarkably doing full damage of 6 tripping the DT and killing the goblin.
If you want you can even take it a step further and use the complete savage worlds system by using the shaken condition for anyone who takes equal to up to four above their DT (in the example the fighter, rouge, and cleric would have just shaken their goblins, but the mage would have killed the one who didn't save (and there would have been a lot more goblins there to fry...) thus using the "if a minion becomes shaken once more by an attack then it counts as being killed."
Changing it to look something like this from my example above:
PC 1 (Fighter) swings, hits (AC and all other numbers are the same) and does 8 damage; that's over the DT 5 but under 9 (5+4) making it shaken.
PC 2 (Cleric) swings and hits doing 4 damage; not over the DT 5, so you describe a soft blow. (no change, goblin is still alive)
PC 3 (Rouge) swings and hits doing 5 damage; just enough to trip the DT, and it barely becomes shaken.
PC 4 (mage) does an AOE against all of them, as none are dispatched, and two are shaken.
Of the non-shaken one saves one doesn't. The mage does 9 damage, enough to trip the DT (and passing it up by 4, and killing it) of the one who didn't save, but the one who did, was safe by only taking 4 damage.
Of the shaken ones, one saves and one doesn't. The 9 damage is also enough to go over the DT of the one who didn't save (and passing it by 4) thus killing it, and the one who saved still only get's 4 damage, not enough to make it shaken again, so it keeps it shaken status and lives.
(However if the damage would have been one more, to 10 points there would be some differences with the shaken rules in effect:
Of the non-shaken one saves one doesn't. The mage does 10 damage, enough to trip the DT (and passing it up by 5 (more than 4 over), and killing it) of the one who didn't save, but the one who did, became shaken by taking 5 damage.
Of the shaken ones, one saves and one doesn't. The 10 damage is also enough to go over the DT of the one who didn't save (and passing it by 5, more than 4 over) thus killing it, and the one who saved takes 5 damage, enough to make it shaken again, so with it's second shaken status it dies.)
This way there is no book keeping, it's just a question of did the attack do enough damage to trigger the effects, being death or shaken, or shaken that leads to death.
One disadvantage to this system is that if your players have a run of bad rolls a minion who was supposed to last less time then a "normal" of his type may end up taking much more damage... this can be mitigated by DM caviot, but as I said I'm just kinda working this up in my head as I go along.
I hope I made sense, and that I've added to the conversation rather than not.
I like the fast healing idea, allowing the DM to only take note of the damaged minions.
I think the HP should simply equal con score (Not mod) plus cr of the base creature, so a minion with 12 con that is a cr4, will have 16 hp. that's generally a one hit wonder, though if someone hits poorly then they're screwed.
additionally i think minions should keep weapon damage rolls, but should deal a size category smaller for any weapons. thus dealing less damage but still allowing the potential of heavy rolls.
their chance to hit should remain the same, and they should honestly not have any single template.
I can see a few minion templates in effect, each considered a different teir of danger
enslaved: These creatures blatently don't want to fight, they do so because they are forced to via intimidation or coercion. they take a -4 to all attack rolls and a -2 to all damage rolls.
Warband: These creatures gain bonuses and detriments on their attacks and damage based on the number of them remaining, their BAB is treated as 1/2, but they gain a +1/2 bonus for each ally they have in the battle or group, so a creature that has +10 to hit normally will have only a +5, and then adds 1/2 his total of allies to this number. So if he has 30 allies in the fight, he has a +25 to hit. this will be your "Army minion"
Cowardly: This creature takes horrendous penalties and tries to run if they feel outmatched.
Dominated: These creatures fight with no detriments and are considered mindless when dealing with compulsion and fear effects, when their master is killed they are freed from the spell (treated somewhat like mindless creatures when considering resistances, though they fight as their base creature would)
Ferverous: These creatures get +2 to damage and attack, and can not be intimidated.