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Next week I am running an assault on a fortress for the PC's. I wanted to use the gritty feel of a lot of enemies going down quickly so I imported the 4th ed. minions to the campaign. I was wondering if anyone here has done this or if any 4th edition players could pipe in and tell me about how minions are working for them.
I didn't think of just doing minimum damage. Thanks, too much damage was one of the power issues I was thinking of.
Minions?! Magic missile!
I would also add them Mettle (i.e. Evasion-like ability working with Fortitude and Will saves). Still... Magic Missile! <kills 5 minions>
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Remember that 4th edition mechanics require there to be a classification of minions given how everything in that scales.
So you can emulate that same effect just by having lower level (or hit dice) monsters there in more decent armor and get the same battle field effect.
Kobold warriors with shields still go down in about 1 hit by most higher level characters. Just brick off a chunk of the XP for the fight into lower level stuff and you should be fine.
The enemy soldiers are all sahuagin, and a lot of them. The players are all 4th level. For anyone that is curious I the players just finished The Final Enemy from the U-series AD&D modules. Pathfinderized of course. I decided to have the PC's involved int he sacking of the lair instead of it just being out of game, as it is written in the module.
Minions are supposed to be one and done.
2 hit points are guaranteed to be snuffed by a magic missile.
You should think about aquatic kobolds.
Maybe Piranha men. A swarm of them would be cool.
It would match the sharky theme of Sahuagin.
A quick and easy way to do this could also be to have any minion make a Fortitude save equal to 15+damage dealt. This should take out minions of any CR appropriate to the PCs. I would consider having all minions do minimum damage at all times and reducing the XP for them. I know that 4E has them set at 25% XP but I don't know how well that would translate into Pathfinder.
A quick and easy way to do this could also be to have any minion make a Fortitude save equal to 15+damage dealt.
I am afraid that would defeat purpose of minions as it would increase amount of rolls made - burning hands catching 5 minions? Five more rolls to be made *and* calculating save DC (some people are bad at basic maths, and I mean really bad).
This should take out minions of any CR appropriate to the PCs. I would consider having all minions do minimum damage at all times and reducing the XP for them. I know that 4E has them set at 25% XP but I don't know how well that would translate into Pathfinder.
I think that PF minions should give less than 1/4th of experience of equivalent level opponents. I might be wrong but I think PF has enough effects without attack rolls or Reflex saves to make minions overall combat value somewhat lower than in 4th edition.
Temple Fanatic sounds good. It isn't property of WOTC for one thing.
For another it matches the core concept of low level followers.
I'm thinking of a golem made of junk called a junker that can follow simple instructions but falls apart if it takes any damage. Yes, there was something like it in advanced.
Thanks for the links Charender, I will have to look through them. I tried a search, but 'minion' pops up in quite a bit of threads.
All I was planning was a simple 1 hp, minimum damage, everything else the same sahaugin. 4 = 1 sauhigin CR. I didn't want it too complicated and I want spells like burning hands to burn through them like a flamethrower, tossed alchemist fires to blow them up like grenades, great cleaving fighters to tear them up; that sort of thing. The BBEG's are going to be a handful enough all by themselves anyway and I thought it would be more fun to add lots of minions than one or two regular mooks.
Thanks for the links Charender, I will have to look through them. I tried a search, but 'minion' pops up in quite a bit of threads.
All I was planning was a simple 1 hp, minimum damage, everything else the same sahaugin. 4 = 1 sauhigin CR. I didn't want it too complicated and I want spells like burning hands to burn through them like a flamethrower, tossed alchemist fires to blow them up like grenades, great cleaving fighters to tear them up; that sort of thing. The BBEG's are going to be a handful enough all by themselves anyway and I thought it would be more fun to add lots of minions than one or two regular mooks.
I've had a similar idea for my players: they're going to be traveling across a wasteland-type plains region that I have populated with hordes of undead. Being that they're 2nd-level characters, I can't just throw lots of zombies at them, but I envision a nighttime battle involving wave after wave of undead horrors. After looking at everything people have said in multiple threads, I'm going to go with a less-than formal approach:
HP drops to 1. Take no damage from minimum-damage attacks (e.g., roll a 1 on your damage die, minion lives).
Attacks deal minimum damage.
Give them evasion and mettle so they take no damage on any successful saving throw.
Treat 4 minions as the same CR and XP as one normal creature.
I've seen versions where minions require a leader, but I find that not as useful for this kind of idea, where you just have loads of similar enemies.
I dunno. I just envision the PCs carving through waves of enemies like hot knives through butter, but without the enemies being so wimpy that they do nothing.