I still think they should gain Mettle and Evasion.
I would still suggest simplifying the overall math of keeping track of minions. Unless you do 1 hit = dead minion, you will have some tracking to keep. I still like the concept of minion hp = CRx5 with the additional caveat that damage done to them is rounded to the nearest multiple of 5. It solves a lot of problems with the minion concept (PCs knowing the minions right off the bat, miracle survivals, and such) and is an ad hoc way of giving minions a virtual number of hits that they can take before going down. Tracking the math is quick, as computing multiples of 5 in your head is easy.
Combining this with minions always only get one attack max per round, and you have very simple, workable minion rules.
I statted up some minions today, and there are numerous problems I didn't even think off, damage is still a huge problem, as is treasure. A minion still has the equipment and treasure of something of it's original CR, so using minions gives treasure 4x faster than normal. Their CMB/CMD stay as high, so a few together are overwhelming, and fast-healing can be wonky.
A minion should have its treasure adjusted to its new CR. Probably should add that in explicity. This leads to minions having worse gear. A level 5 fighter minion will have the gear of a level 1 fighter.
I would still suggest simplifying the overall math of keeping track of minions. Unless you do 1 hit = dead minion, you will have some tracking to keep. I still like the concept of minion hp = CRx5 with the additional caveat that damage done to them is rounded to the nearest multiple of 5. It solves a lot of problems with the minion concept (PCs knowing the minions right off the bat, miracle survivals, and such) and is an ad hoc way of giving minions a virtual number of hits that they can take before going down. Tracking the math is quick, as computing multiples of 5 in your head is easy.
Combining this with minions always only get one attack max per round, and you have very simple, workable minion rules.
I don't mind tracking health for minions. I hate keeping track of health from one round to the next. A minion gets hit with a fireball, but saves against the flame strike, then catches an arrow from the archer, now the fighter charges them. Easy to track when there are only a few NPCs in combat, when you start getting 10 or more NPCs you get bogged down really fast with keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds.
I still think they should gain Mettle and Evasion.
The only problem I have with giving them evasion is that it overrides any evasion they may have from another source.
With this method, if you have a level 2 rogue minion, they have 3 + con mod health and evasion. While a level 2 fighter minions will have 4 + con mod health and no evasion.
The only problem I have with giving them evasion is that it overrides any evasion they may have from another source.
I fail to see your point.
I don't mind tracking health for minions. I hate keeping track of health from one round to the next. A minion gets hit with a fireball, but saves against the flame strike, then catches an arrow from the archer, now the fighter charges them. Easy to track when there are only a few NPCs in combat, when you start getting 10 or more NPCs you get bogged down really fast with keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds.
But if they don't die to one attack, you are still keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds. You have to keep track of the health throughout the round you are in, and then do it again the next round. Then the next. Ad infinitum until they do enough damage to kill it.
The only problem I have with giving them evasion is that it overrides any evasion they may have from another source.I fail to see your point.
Not giving blanket evasion to all minions preserves the identity of the minions base class.
A level 2 rogue minion would be weaker to melee damage, due to lighter armor, and less health. They would be stronger against AoE spells, due to having evasion.
A level 2 fighter minions would be stronger against melee damage due to higher armor and having more health, but they would have no evasion. A strong enough AoE spell will kill a fighter minion even if he makes his save.
But if they don't die to one attack, you are still keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds. You have to keep track of the health throughout the round you are in, and then do it again the next round. Then the next. Ad infinitum until they do enough damage to kill it.
I don't mind tracking health for minions. I hate keeping track of health from one round to the next. A minion gets hit with a fireball, but saves against the flame strike, then catches an arrow from the archer, now the fighter charges them. Easy to track when there are only a few NPCs in combat, when you start getting 10 or more NPCs you get bogged down really fast with keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds.
No, fast healing. The minion will heal to full health at the beginning of their next turn. I have to keep track of everything that happen since the last time the minion had a turn after that their health resets to full.
No, fast healing. The minion will heal to full health at the beginning of their next turn. I have to keep track of everything that happen since the last time the minion had a turn after that their health resets to full.But if they don't die to one attack, you are still keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds. You have to keep track of the health throughout the round you are in, and then do it again the next round. Then the next. Ad infinitum until they do enough damage to kill it.
I don't mind tracking health for minions. I hate keeping track of health from one round to the next. A minion gets hit with a fireball, but saves against the flame strike, then catches an arrow from the archer, now the fighter charges them. Easy to track when there are only a few NPCs in combat, when you start getting 10 or more NPCs you get bogged down really fast with keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds.
So you are just not bothering to write down any damage done to the minion between turns?
No matter how many times you say "he heals back to full health at the start of his turn," you don't magically negate the fact that there stands a chance that he might not die while being attacked by the PCs, even if it is hit. Multiple times. Therefore requiring you to do bookkeeping every round.
Combining this with minions always only get one attack max per round, and you have very simple, workable minion rules.
I am leaning towards that. I wanted to keep natural attacks for flavor, but I think something like a tiger minion that can pounce and still make 5 attacks is probably a little much.
No, fast healing. The minion will heal to full health at the beginning of their next turn. I have to keep track of everything that happen since the last time the minion had a turn after that their health resets to full.But if they don't die to one attack, you are still keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds. You have to keep track of the health throughout the round you are in, and then do it again the next round. Then the next. Ad infinitum until they do enough damage to kill it.
I don't mind tracking health for minions. I hate keeping track of health from one round to the next. A minion gets hit with a fireball, but saves against the flame strike, then catches an arrow from the archer, now the fighter charges them. Easy to track when there are only a few NPCs in combat, when you start getting 10 or more NPCs you get bogged down really fast with keeping track of health for every minion across multiple rounds.So you are just not bothering to write down any damage done to the minion between turns?
No matter how many times you say "he heals back to full health at the start of his turn," you don't magically negate the fact that there stands a chance that he might not die while being attacked by the PCs, even if it is hit. Multiple times. Therefore requiring you to do bookkeeping every round.
Yes, you have to keep track during the round, but that is a lot easier. You can use an easy rule of thumb like minion 1 is the one farthest to the right, and number them from there. The problem with this approach is that when the minions move around is the moment the bookkeeping gets crazy. Minion 3 is now the farthest to the right, minion 2 is where minion 8 was, minion 1 and 7 are dead, etc.... With this method, the moment the minions move is that same moment when their health resets. You move the minions to their new locations, and renumber them accordingly.
Number 2 is dead, long live number 2!
Combining this with minions always only get one attack max per round, and you have very simple, workable minion rules.I am leaning towards that. I wanted to keep natural attacks for flavor, but I think something like a tiger minion that can pounce and still make 5 attacks is probably a little much.
Paper tigers eh?
Paper tigers eh?Combining this with minions always only get one attack max per round, and you have very simple, workable minion rules.I am leaning towards that. I wanted to keep natural attacks for flavor, but I think something like a tiger minion that can pounce and still make 5 attacks is probably a little much.
Touche. That reminds me I need to make a magic item that is an actual glass cannon.
Yes, you have to keep track during the round, but that is a lot easier. You can use an easy rule of thumb like minion 1 is the one farthest to the right, and number them from there. The problem with this approach is that when the minions move around is the moment the bookkeeping gets crazy. Minion 3 is now the farthest to the right, minion 2 is where minion 8 was, minion 1 and 7 are dead, etc.... With this method, the moment the minions move is that same moment when their health resets. You move the minions to their new locations, and renumber them accordingly....
This does explain alot about your minion design. And just bolsters my inherent opposition to it.
I think an issue with this minion design is that there is a very specific amount of bookkeeping involved that is somewhere between the minimum required and what would normally be required.
I think people are thinking "why bother?" when they are presented with your template that only reduces bookkeeping by 10-25%, but introduces a whole new set of minion rules.
I know that personally, I wouldn't bother with a new set of minion rules unless it reduced the bookkeeping by at least 90%. Damage is the big one, of course, but anything you have to modify about the creature off of the bestiary version is extra work. Reducing the number of rolls is also something that should probably be striven for.
Bill Dunn wrote:
I personally am not fond of the fast healing idea. Imagine a fight with some minions in which a weaker melee-character like a rogue or bard ends up trying to hold off a creature that happens to be a minion while more powerful damage-dealers are shoring up party defenses from another direction. That minion will probably never go down.I actually like that. PCs that don't work together or don't focus on targets will actually find minions to be very challenging.
I'd have to say my take on minions runs directly opposite that. Appropriate targets for PC dogpiles are the non-minions like the main villains. Minions should be within reasonable single-combat range of most PCs. While ganging up on them would greatly speed the process, I don't see it as being necessary or even something I'd encourage by making the minion too tough.
I think an issue with this minion design is that there is a very specific amount of bookkeeping involved that is somewhere between the minimum required and what would normally be required.
I think people are thinking "why bother?" when they are presented with your template that only reduces bookkeeping by 10-25%, but introduces a whole new set of minion rules.
I know that personally, I wouldn't bother with a new set of minion rules unless it reduced the bookkeeping by at least 90%. Damage is the big one, of course, but anything you have to modify about the creature off of the bestiary version is extra work. Reducing the number of rolls is also something that should probably be striven for.
This is well said, and fits my appraisal of the OP's proposal. And it forms the basis of my proposal to the OP, which is to say to keep the minion concept as simple as possible. The simple fact of reducing their HP will by extension make tracking easier by the simple virtue of they die easily and may not need to be tracked from round-to-round. It also has the added benefit of not fundamentally changing the original monster with rules like evasion, mettle, fast healing and so on:
My suggested minion rules:
1. you can apply the minion template on any creature with a CR of 1 or greater. The minion's CR is = to 1/2 its original CR, which affects xp and treasure gained.
2. The minion template changes the original creature as follows: HP = CR x 5. Further, a minion may only make one attack maximum per round. If it has more than one mode of attack, it may choose which attack to use each round.
3. Damage done to a minion is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5. For example, if a minion is hit by an arrow which does 6 points of damage, it takes 10.
4. Everything else stays the same.
I think an issue with this minion design is that there is a very specific amount of bookkeeping involved that is somewhere between the minimum required and what would normally be required.
I think people are thinking "why bother?" when they are presented with your template that only reduces bookkeeping by 10-25%, but introduces a whole new set of minion rules.
I know that personally, I wouldn't bother with a new set of minion rules unless it reduced the bookkeeping by at least 90%. Damage is the big one, of course, but anything you have to modify about the creature off of the bestiary version is extra work. Reducing the number of rolls is also something that should probably be striven for.
10%? I think that is a little low.
First, the minion isn't going to be taking 20 hits in a single round and surviving. A 20 d12 HD minion with a 20 con has 2.5 * 20 + 5 = 55 HP. A level 20 player is going to chew through that in about 3 or 4 hits maximum. I have a level 6 character that hits for 25 damage a swing on average....
Second, Minion tracking from round to round has been eliminated completely. This method removes the need to remember what has happened to a minion from prevous rounds and allows you to reindex the minions of easier tracking.
Third, moving to 1 attack per minion, and minions cannot critical. Even if you still have to roll damage dice, this eliminates a lot of the minion's attack rolls.
I would say about 40-60% of the book keeping has been eliminated. Could you eliminate more? Yes, but I am trying to avoid making minions too easy to metagame. If you eliminate 90% of the book keeping associated with NPCs for minions, a lot of players will figure out in the first round which NPCs are minions. Round 2, all the minions will be dead.
I think an issue with this minion design is that there is a very specific amount of bookkeeping involved that is somewhere between the minimum required and what would normally be required.
I think people are thinking "why bother?" when they are presented with your template that only reduces bookkeeping by 10-25%, but introduces a whole new set of minion rules.
I know that personally, I wouldn't bother with a new set of minion rules unless it reduced the bookkeeping by at least 90%. Damage is the big one, of course, but anything you have to modify about the creature off of the bestiary version is extra work. Reducing the number of rolls is also something that should probably be striven for.
This is well said, and fits my appraisal of the OP's proposal. And it forms the basis of my proposal to the OP, which is to say to keep the minion concept as simple as possible. The simple fact of reducing their HP will by extension make tracking easier by the simple virtue of they die easily and may not need to be tracked from round-to-round. It also has the added benefit of not fundamentally changing the original monster with rules like evasion, mettle, fast healing and so on:
My suggested minion rules:
1. you can apply the minion template on any creature with a CR of 1 or greater. The minion's CR is = to 1/2 its original CR, which affects xp and treasure gained.
2. The minion template changes the original creature as follows: HP = CR x 5. Further, a minion may only make one attack maximum per round. If it has more than one mode of attack, it may choose which attack to use each round.
3. Damage done to a minion is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5. For example, if a minion is hit by an arrow which does 6 points of damage, it takes 10.
4. Everything else stays the same.
I have a BBEG and 15 identical minion models on the table. I look at my notes. I have that minion 3 and 6 have taken 26 damage, minion 8 and 11 have taken 13 damage, minions 2, 4, 7 haven't been touched, and the rest of the minions are dead. Now, I have to figure out which model corrilates to which minion in my notes. Your idea does absolutely nothing to address that problem.
All your idea does is make it easier to add up the damage, so now I have to remember that minion 5 has taken 10 + 10 + 15 = 35 damage after 3 rounds of combat and movement, instead of having to that minion 5 has taken 6 + 7 + 12 = 25 damage.
The problem I have with minions get fast healing = to max hp is that what of the off-chance a given PC can't kill the minion in one hit? Suddenly, unless the party can gang up on the minion, it is invincible. For instance, if a fighter is staggered during the course of a battle, and isolated from the rest of the party for a small amount of time, against a couple of minions, that particular PC can't kill an appropriate minion unless he can do full damage to it with one hit. I do realize that it may rarely ever come up, but I bet it will come up at least once during the course of a campaign.
And what about a minion with 10 hp getting hit once by a PC hanging out in the back of the party plinking arrows into the melee. He shoots one round doing 9 hp of damage, the minion lives. Next round he hits again doing 9 hp of damage. The minion lives again!
I'd have to say my take on minions runs directly opposite that. Appropriate targets for PC dogpiles are the non-minions like the main villains. Minions should be within reasonable single-combat range of most PCs. While ganging up on them would greatly speed the process, I don't see it as being necessary or even something I'd encourage by making the minion too tough.
Bill Dunn wrote:
I personally am not fond of the fast healing idea. Imagine a fight with some minions in which a weaker melee-character like a rogue or bard ends up trying to hold off a creature that happens to be a minion while more powerful damage-dealers are shoring up party defenses from another direction. That minion will probably never go down.I actually like that. PCs that don't work together or don't focus on targets will actually find minions to be very challenging.
Ganging up is not the right word. Finishing off quickly is more appropiate.
A wizard casts a fireball on a bunch of minions, half save, half fail. The half that failed are dropped. The half that save live. Now the bard goes. He can shoot one of the injured minions or one of the uninjured minions. Which do you think is the smart choice?
The problem I have with minions get fast healing = to max hp is that what of the off-chance a given PC can't kill the minion in one hit? Suddenly, unless the party can gang up on the minion, it is invincible. For instance, if a fighter is staggered during the course of a battle, and isolated from the rest of the party for a small amount of time, against a couple of minions, that particular PC can't kill an appropriate minion unless he can do full damage to it with one hit. I do realize that it may rarely ever come up, but I bet it will come up at least once during the course of a campaign.
And what about a minion with 10 hp getting hit once by a PC hanging out in the back of the party plinking arrows into the melee. He shoots one round doing 9 hp of damage, the minion lives. Next round he hits again doing 9 hp of damage. The minion lives again!
A level 4 human fighter minion has 8-9 HP depending on Con. A level 4 rogue minion has 6-7 HP. Minions do not have a whole lot of health. 10 health is a level 7 rogue minion, or a level 4-5 fighter minion.
Do you have level 5-6 players actually have problems dealing more than 9 damage in a single round?
At level 5, 4 out of 6 players in my current group can dish out 15+ damage in a single attack without using power attack/deadly aim. A level 5 magic missle does 3d4 + 3 = 10.5 damage on average. A level 5 fireball does 5d6 = 17 damage on average, 8 damage on a successful save. A level 5 rogue does 10.5 damage from sneak attack alone.
I have a BBEG and 15 identical minion models on the table. I look at my notes. I have that minion 3 and 6 have taken 26 damage, minion 8 and 11 have taken 13 damage, minions 2, 4, 7 haven't been touched, and the rest of the minions are dead. Now, I have to figure out which model corrilates to which minion in my notes. Your idea does absolutely nothing to address that problem.
All your idea does is make it easier to add up the damage, so now I have to remember that minion 5 has taken 10 + 10 + 15 = 35 damage after 3 rounds of combat and movement, instead of having to that minion 5 has taken 6 + 7 + 12 = 25 damage.
It's very simple… label the models. Write the number on the model and cross-reference w/ your hp sheet. If you're loath to write on your models write it on a piece of tape and place on model. Honestly, I don't see how keeping track of this is difficult. It doesn't matter where the model goes, it's very easy to reference.
I think you should try out some of these ideas posters have been throwing at you including your own and see how they actually play out. It's the best feedback you could get IMO at this point. :)
I have a BBEG and 15 identical minion models on the table. I look at my notes. I have that minion 3 and 6 have taken 26 damage, minion 8 and 11 have taken 13 damage, minions 2, 4, 7 haven't been touched, and the rest of the minions are dead. Now, I have to figure out which model corrilates to which minion in my notes. Your idea does absolutely nothing to address that problem.
All your idea does is make it easier to add up the damage, so now I have to remember that minion 5 has taken 10 + 10 + 15 = 35 damage after 3 rounds of combat and movement, instead of having to that minion 5 has taken 6 + 7 + 12 = 25 damage.
It's very simple… label the models. Write the number on the model and cross-reference w/ your hp sheet. If you're loath to write on your models write it on a piece of tape and place on model. Honestly, I don't see how keeping track of this is difficult. It doesn't matter where the model goes, it's very easy to reference.
I think you should try out some of these ideas posters have been throwing at you including your own and see how they actually play out. It's the best feedback you could get IMO at this point. :)
Excuse me guys, I need 15 minutes to label my models for this battle....
I play warhammer fantasy. I have 6 or 7 ARMIES(50-100 models) worth of models. I always try to use the right model to the situation and thus I don't have a standard set of models I use for every battle. Further, most of my players also play WH fantasy, and thus they have a love of large battles. I have tried that method, but it doesn't work well on the fly.
I would much rather get concrete reasons why people don't like this design. You don't like a minion that can theoretically live forever against a weak hitting PC. I understand that, it is a possible issue, but IMO it would be very rare and is easily rule zeroed. Do you have anything else?
A level 4 human fighter minion has 8-9 HP depending on Con. A level 4 rogue minion has 6-7 HP. Minions do not have a whole lot of health. 10 health is a level 7 rogue minion, or a level 4-5 fighter minion.
A more relevant question: Why not just say that if a minion gets hit, they die? Because that is what will happen 90+% of the time if HP are this low in relation to APL level. I don't see how differentiating a 2 hp difference between a level 4 rogue minion or a level 4 fighter minion is helping your cause. They both die in one hit by the average level 4 PC. At level 7, the level 7 rogue or fighter minion dies that much easier as the hp don't scale well.
A level 4 human fighter minion has 8-9 HP depending on Con. A level 4 rogue minion has 6-7 HP. Minions do not have a whole lot of health. 10 health is a level 7 rogue minion, or a level 4-5 fighter minion.A more relevant question: Why not just say that if a minion gets hit, they die? Because that is what will happen 90+% of the time if HP are this low in relation to APL level. I don't see how differentiating a 2 hp difference between a level 4 rogue minion or a level 4 fighter minion is helping your cause. They both die in one hit by the average level 4 PC. At level 7, the level 7 rogue or fighter minion dies that much easier as the hp don't scale well.
Because they die in 1 hit to an average PC. They do not die in 1 hit to an average magic missle, or one hit from an PCs level 1 hireling. That 2 health difference means the fighter survives a level 5 fireball on a successful save, but a cleric minion would not.
Also the difference grows as you get into higher levels where more characters have multiple attacks per round. Level 10 barbarian minion with 12 con has 28 hp when in a rage. Level 10 rogue minion with 12 con has 16 hp. from the DPR olympics, most level 10 that focus on dealing damage generate 40-60 damage per round. With 2 damage dealers in the party, you should be dropping 3-5 minions a round.
Excuse me guys, I need 15 minutes to label my models for this battle....
I play warhammer fantasy. I have 6 or 7 ARMIES(50-100 models) worth of models. I always try to use the right model to the situation and thus I don't have a standard set of models I use for every battle. Further, most of my players also play WH fantasy, and thus they have a love of large battles. I have tried that method, but it doesn't work well on the fly.
I would much rather get concrete reasons why people don't like this design. You don't like a minion that can theoretically live forever against a weak hitting PC. I understand that, it is a possible if very rare issue, and is easily rule zeroed. Do you have anything else?
Hmm… so do I (Wood Elves, and regularly play vs. orcs & goblins, lizard men, and undead) and have used the same models for larger battles :) One particular battle I remember running was using undead grave guard models to represent undead wights in my now ended AOW campaign. The battle involved 20 of these guys and a model to represent a unique creature called a boneyard, vs. a party of 5 PCs. I know where you're coming from.
If you don't want to take "15 minutes" to label your models, and you use warhammer models often for larger battles, that tells me you might be a modeler of sorts… why not make little "trays", each one numbered that you would place a given model on? Given that warhammer troops come on two basic base sizes (20 & 25 mm) just make sure you they accomodate both. Sure it will take time to make these trays, but you only make them once. They could be as simple as a square piece of cardstock cut 25mm square with a little tab indicating the number, so when you place the model on the tray, you can still see the number. Or heck, buy a bunch of 25mm bases and label them and have them handy. Then, no matter what model you decide to use, just place them on these numbered bases for large battles. Heck, even I could simply paint a number on 20 bases in 15 minutes.
EDIT: You know, I might just do this myself.
What about doing the opposite of fast healing? If a creature is wounded, at end of turn it's reduced to 1 hit point. Yes, it requires bookkeeping turn-to-turn, but it's a single boolean value - either it's hurt or not. Shouldn't be too hard, and you can use markers on your model on the fly, when they get hurt - since the PC's will know it anyway.
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Hit points is a big issue with the effectiveness of minions for sure. I tried with 1 hp and they became less of a threat because of it at higher levels, things like great cleave and multi-target spells wiped out the equivilent of 2 CRs worth of creatures in one round and that just didnt make sense.
looking at your numbers however does give minions alot more survivability and requires more book-keeping and increased threat to the NPCs.
looking at the top end a CR 17 ancient blue dragon would have (24*2) +7 (con) 55 hit points (suitable as a minon to a CR 20 creature)with a 37 AC. Thats alot of hit points to get through with a very high AC to beat without large damage spells. Agreed the party could gang up on it and drop it in one round but with 4 of them on the playing field thats 4 rounds of dealing with a CR 17 creature thats soaking up 100% of the parties resources during those rounds.
My system of 1 hp per HD would drop the dragon down to 31 hps which would hopefully require less resources to kill but would still require some degree of tracking.
My concern is the fast healing to eliminate tracking. I agree the instant kill is not an option and my only solution I can come up with is as follows...
Fast Healing rule still used in this solution.
Minions have 1 hit point per HD plus its Con modifier. In addition minions gain a hit threshold. A minions hit threshold is equal to the minions CR (not HD).
For any successful attack that does not drop the minion to 0 hit points reduces this threshold by 1. An attack is defined by a players turn, not the number of attacks that character actually makes in a round. this includes spells with an area of effect, spells such as magic missile or iterative attacks. even if some of the minions are not within an area of effect they still receive reduced hit threshold. SR is considered avoiding an attack and does not reduce the threshold.
If a minion is killed outright the threshold is not reduced.
All minions in a single encounter share the same threshold.
When the Minions threshold is at 0 its hit points are reduced to 1.
Example: Xill Minion (CR6) x8 vs party level 8.
The Xill Minions have 11 hit points each and a hit threshold of 6. The fighter engages and hits two of them with his greatsword cleave doing 20 damage each killing two. the minions threshold is not reduced but two Xill's are removed from the field.
Next wizard unleashes 2 scorching rays doing 18 damage to one but only 9 damage to another. The minions now have a threshold of 5.
Next the rogue moves in and attacks a xill doing 5 damage. the threshold is now 4.
There are 5 xills left at the end of the round with a threshold of 4 each regenerates to maximum hit points (11).
The fighter moves and attacks but misses.
The wizard uses a well placed lightning bolt on 4 of the xills but only 1 fails its SR. one xill is slain but the threshold remains at 4.
the rogue is able to full attack and kills one more. the cleric decides to enter the melee and hits one for 5 points of damage dropping the threshold to 3.
There are now 3 Xills with a threshold of 3.
The fighter gets a glancing blow on one for 9 points of damage and fails to finish it with his iterative attack. threshold is now 2.
the wizard decides use a cantrip to hit one of the xills and does minimal damage to it (4) but drops the threshold by to 1.
the rogue attacks the same one as the fighter finishing it off.
The cleric hits one with his mace but only does 6 damage. but reduces the threshold to 0.
At the end of this round there are still 2 Xills alive but their threshold is now 0 meaning that both of them only have one hit point each.
The fighter and wizard finish them off with little trouble.
If the same scenario included 12 xill minions, their threshold would be reduced to 0 with 6 xills still on the battle field with 1 hit point.
Yes there is a little extra tracking involved with the threshold but its global and doesnt require you checking in relation to each miniature. a single 6 box or tally record is all thats required to manage the kills.
Just thought about a possible feat or ability for BBEGs with minions. perhaps a feat or ability that increases the hit threshold of minions under the BBEG by 2 (or increases it to match the BBEGs CR) this would add a little bit of variety and restrict metagaming to some degree.
Maybe a "monster" feat that uses the leader's Charisma bonus as a morale bonus to all minions' hit threshold?
Another approach similar to fast healing, is damage resistance, and if exceeded the minion dies. This makes for interesting cases of certain minions and different types of DR, but I like the approach either way in regards to record keeping and avoiding the 1hp and you dead affect.
Another approach similar to fast healing, is damage resistance, and if exceeded the minion dies. This makes for interesting cases of certain minions and different types of DR, but I like the approach either way in regards to record keeping and avoiding the 1hp and you dead affect.
I wanted to avoid outright damage resistance because it hurts the fast light hitters a lot more than the heavy hitters.
A level 5 greatsword fighter hits for 15-25 damage in a single hit, and can easily drop a DR 5 or 10 minion in a single hit.
A level 5 two weapon fighter or archer is hitting twice a round for 5-10 damage per hit. Against a DR 5 or 10 minion, these guys are going to struggle a lot.
Just thought about a possible feat or ability for BBEGs with minions. perhaps a feat or ability that increases the hit threshold of minions under the BBEG by 2 (or increases it to match the BBEGs CR) this would add a little bit of variety and restrict metagaming to some degree.Maybe a "monster" feat that uses the leader's Charisma bonus as a morale bonus to all minions' hit threshold?
Very nice idea.
Hit points is a big issue with the effectiveness of minions for sure. I tried with 1 hp and they became less of a threat because of it at higher levels, things like great cleave and multi-target spells wiped out the equivilent of 2 CRs worth of creatures in one round and that just didnt make sense.
looking at your numbers however does give minions alot more survivability and requires more book-keeping and increased threat to the NPCs.
looking at the top end a CR 17 ancient blue dragon would have (24*2) +7 (con) 55 hit points (suitable as a minon to a CR 20 creature)with a 37 AC. Thats alot of hit points to get through with a very high AC to beat without large damage spells. Agreed the party could gang up on it and drop it in one round but with 4 of them on the playing field thats 4 rounds of dealing with a CR 17 creature thats soaking up 100% of the parties resources during those rounds.
At level 20, any decently optimized damage dealing character is going to be able to drop that minion is one full round attack. A level 20 wizard will kill him in a single spell if he fails his save(20d6 = 70 average damage, or maximized fireball for 60 damage).
My system of 1 hp per HD would drop the dragon down to 31 hps which would hopefully require less resources to kill but would still require some degree of tracking.
The main reason I am resisting that idea is because I hate the idea that a wizard minion and a barbarian minion will both have the same health. The barbarian should be tougher IMO.
other stuff
No a bad idea, but it sends you back to square one on book keeping. Might as well just use minimum hp at that point.
An alternate idea may be, if a minion is injured in a round, but not killed, they are at half health until they can receive healing. No you only have to track if the minion has been injured or not. Still more book keeping than I would like, but it means that healing a minion means something. I love having minions drink potions, it pisses the players off soooo much "Hey, he's drinking our LOOT!!!!!"
An alternate idea may be, if a minion is injured in a round, but not killed, they are at half health until they can receive healing. No you only have to track if the minion has been injured or not. Still more book keeping than I would like, but it means that healing a minion means something.
I like the idea of a hit threshold where if a minion takes more damage than the threshold, it dies. If it takes less than the threshold it is injured. Hitting an injured minion should kill it (or perhaps lower it's threshold by half to make it more vulnerable to being killed, but this leads to the possibility of the invincible minion so I'd rather see an injured minion who gets hit die).
It would be pretty easy to use 'injured' markers to slip under the models to indicate which are injured and which aren't -- I suppose you could even put one 'injured' marker under a minion each time it is injured and just cut it's threshold in half for each injury. So if a minion has a 20 hit threshold and it is injured, you place a marker under it and the next time it is hit is has a 10 hit threshold..if it doesn't die you place another injury marker under the model and it's hit threshold is reduced to 5. I think I prefer death on a hit of an injured minion, but I suppose it would be easy bookeeping to track multiple hits/reduction of threshold too.
An alternate idea may be, if a minion is injured in a round, but not killed, they are at half health until they can receive healing. No you only have to track if the minion has been injured or not. Still more book keeping than I would like, but it means that healing a minion means something.I like the idea of a hit threshold where if a minion takes more damage than the threshold, it dies. If it takes less than the threshold it is injured. Hitting an injured minion should kill it (or perhaps lower it's threshold by half to make it more vulnerable to being killed, but this leads to the possibility of the invincible minion so I'd rather see an injured minion who gets hit die).
It would be pretty easy to use 'injured' markers to slip under the models to indicate which are injured and which aren't -- I suppose you could even put one 'injured' marker under a minion each time it is injured and just cut it's threshold in half for each injury. So if a minion has a 20 hit threshold and it is injured, you place a marker under it and the next time it is hit is has a 10 hit threshold..if it doesn't die you place another injury marker under the model and it's hit threshold is reduced to 5. I think I prefer death on a hit of an injured minion, but I suppose it would be easy bookeeping to track multiple hits/reduction of threshold too.
And if the minion recieves healing, remove an injury token.
The only problem with this approach is the tokens have to come out from behind the screen, and players can metagame that minions are involved.
And if the minion recieves healing, remove an injury token.
The only problem with this approach is the tokens have to come out from behind the screen, and players can metagame that minions are involved.
Combo it with the Fast Healing idea? CR10 minion has DR20. One hit for 21+ and the minion dies. Any other hit, it lives, but now has DR10. A hit of 11+ kills it, but any other hit drops it to DR5. Now it's 6+ to kill, or drop all DR. So 3 hits kill it no matter what.
Of course, this means spells would have to be treated as 1 attack, and players could meta-game to hitting guys twice and having an archer plunk everyone left with 1 attack.
At this point, I think a little extra bookeeping is a good thing.
A little book keeping is fine. I am more interested in hiding any special book keeping that I am doing from the players.
I am leaning to fast healing by turns.
You have 8 minions with 10 hp.
Round 1 -
Fighter charges one cleaves in in half.
Archer hits two with arrow doing 4 damage to each.
Mage drops a fireball, hits 4, 2 fail their saves and die. The other 3 save. One of the ones that saves was hit by the archer, and even though they saved, the damage is enough to drop them.
Cleric drops sound burst on 3 doing 3 damage and stunning 2, and killing one that got clipped by the mages fireball.
At this point, we have 5 minions down, 2 injured minions, and 1 unhurt minion.
Now the minions go. All minions heal to full, but the 2 injured minions are only at half maximum health. one of the minions is in a safe spot and drinks a heal potion to remove their injury. The other 2 minions attack the PCs.
Now the PCs go, they are facing 1 injured minion with 5 hp, and 2 uninjured minions with 10 hp. They should easily be able to mop them up.
As a side note, I am thinking about using minions rules to PC hirelings and followers, so I really do want them to be balanced.
And if the minion recieves healing, remove an injury token.
The only problem with this approach is the tokens have to come out from behind the screen, and players can metagame that minions are involved.
The metagaming doesn't really bother me. Players can do the same thing with regular game play: If they hit a low powered opponent and see that it dies when it took 20 damage, then a wizard drops a fireball and does 12 damage to 3 bad guys and kills another 3..then the archer knows the 3 remaining only have 8 or less hit points and can plunk each with 1 arrow to kill them. So metagaming is the same and the bookeeping of just placing an injury marker is so easy it's very appealing to me.
Ok, I am really liking the injury halves max HP angle.
Addendums. Injured minions become shaken. If they were already shaken, they become paniced.
This means you don't have to worry about unkillable minions. A minions that sustains injuries 2 round in a row without dying will drop their weapon and flee.
Ok, I am really liking the injury halves max HP angle.
Addendums. Injured minions become shaken. If they were already shaken, they become paniced.
This means you don't have to worry about unkillable minions. A minions that sustains injuries 2 round in a row without dying will drop their weapon and flee.
The shaken -> panicked thing may work but if you keep cutting the hit threshhold in half they will die eventually - I'm good with or without the panic option.
The shaken -> panicked thing may work but if you keep cutting the hit threshhold in half they will die eventually - I'm good with or without the panic option.Ok, I am really liking the injury halves max HP angle.
Addendums. Injured minions become shaken. If they were already shaken, they become paniced.
This means you don't have to worry about unkillable minions. A minions that sustains injuries 2 round in a row without dying will drop their weapon and flee.
I kind of like the morale option because they drop their weapons and run away, which is very fitting for most minions.
It also means that is you fight a group of minions without a leader, they are much easier to run off. They start off shaken, so any injury will make them panicked.
The morale also helps to hide that the minions have reduced HP from the players.
I like the idea of a hit threshold where if a minion takes more damage than the threshold, it dies. If it takes less than the threshold it is injured. Hitting an injured minion should kill it (or perhaps lower it's threshold by half to make it more vulnerable to being killed, but this leads to the possibility of the invincible minion so I'd rather see an injured minion who gets hit die).It would be pretty easy to use 'injured' markers to slip under the models to indicate which are injured and which aren't -- I suppose you could even put one 'injured' marker under a minion each time it is injured and just cut it's threshold in half for each injury. So if a minion has a 20 hit threshold and it is injured, you place a marker under it and the next time it is hit is has a 10 hit threshold..if it doesn't die you place another injury marker under the model and it's hit threshold is reduced to 5. I think I prefer death on a hit of an injured minion, but I suppose it would be easy bookeeping to track multiple hits/reduction of threshold too.
Following this idea and the one I proposed on the other thread, here is what I came up with:
• A minion gets 2 hp per hit dice of the base creature + its Constitution modifier (added only once).• A minion at full health that suffers a hit dealing 50% or less of its total hit points, is now considered “Bruised”. If the damage dealt exceeds 50% of its total hit points, the minion gains the “Injured” condition instead.
• A bruised minion sees its current hit points drop to half its total hit points and if it receives any additional damage that does not kill it outright, the minion is considered “Injured”.
• An injured minion has 1 hp left and will be slain when struck for damage of any amount.
• So a minion can either be at full health, bruised (1/2 hp) or injured (1hp).
It's a bit of bookkeaping but it looks bearable.
Will the shaken conditions for minions apply to minions normally immune to fear, such as undead?
Will the shaken conditions for minions apply to minions normally immune to fear, such as undead?
Not sure, I was noodling that. Mindless undead do not make very good minions in the sense that they are not exactly inspired by leadership. I would think a template based on receiving morale bonuses from a leader wouldn't work on mindless creatures(undead or constructs). I am more inclined to say that anything that is normally immune to fear cannot be made into a minion. That means no paladin minions....
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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 know that to work in 3.5 the 1 hit point idea doesnt work and that going to increased hit points per CR causes more issues but solves others (especially with spells) but I think for minions to work their needs to be a unique concept that doesnt use damage reduction, evasion, fast healing or the like.
I also think your worrying too much about the meta-gaming side, the idea of hit counters has merits. Players will always metagame, the moment you put a tiefling on the battle map the players are talking amongst themselves as to what its resistances are, after 2-3 orcs have been slain the players start telling you they hit instead of asking you if they have. its unavoidable and its up to the individual DMs to address it not for the rules to cover. the rules should just be there to make the DMs life easier.
anyhow heres my 3rd try at tracking minions health.
minions have hit points equal to their HD; 1d6 hd equals .5 hp/HD (minimum 1), 1d8 = 1hp/HD, 1d10 = 1.5hp/HD, and 1d12 = 2hp/HD.
Minions gain bonus hps equal to their con modifier plus miscellaneous bonuses (such as toughness feat).
Minons have a hit threshold equal to their CR+con modifier. Minons may receive bonuses to their hit threshold from leader abilities/feats.
Minions hit points are used to determine spells and effects based on hit points such as Power Word: Blind, they are not used to track damage.
Minions that receive damage in excess of their hit threshold during a round die, if the minion is still alive at the end of the round in which it took damage, its hit threshold is reduced to 1.
New Feat - Field Marshal
Req: Cha 13
You add your Charisma modifier to the hit threshold of any minions under your command.