I recently wrote about a lack of minion creation rules in 4th Edition, and now, in the latest official D&D podcast, minions are brought up. One of the hosts answers a question about feedback received from players, and what he feels isn’t working in 4th Ed. He goes on to say he’s “dubious” about minions, and he talks about Epic level minions in particular.
At his table, minions aren’t worth 1/4 the XP value of a regular monster. He mentions 1/8th or 1/10th being a more realistic budget. And in fact, he houseruled it already.
Are we smelling another mechanics revamp official errata somewhere down the road, like the Skill Challenges one? Why are they avoiding minion creation rules? It could have certainly been a Dragon article by now, 6 months after the release of the system.
What bothers me is that he is referring to Epic Minions being somehow different than other types of minions. How can we know that when there are no rules to create them? When I created my Bugbear Scrub, I just played a guessing game… I gave him the same weapon, 1/2 regular weapon damage, and took it from there…
So I ask fellow DM’s out there… do you use minions in your games? Do you follow the rules, or have you houseruled it? Do you create your own? What system have you developed?
www. Newbie DM .com 
rekres
November 25, 2008
I use minions all the time, especially if the encounter includes a ‘leader’ who can make use of a particular minion type.
The only house rule I have in regards to minions is that I give them hitpoints equal to their level.
Doesn’t really change the low level minions much, but when facing an epic minion, they’ll take at least two hits to bring down.
davethegame
November 25, 2008
The reason epic minions are different than high level minions is because the PCs by that point have more access to automatic damage attacks that greatly reduce their efficiency for their level.
I use minions as is, and don’t have a problem with them at the heroic tier that we’re playing with. Though the players did note last game that Thunderspire (H2) seems to completely lack them.
Donny_the_DM
November 25, 2008
My biggest problem was having a wimpy low level area effect power down 3-6 of them at a whack. It strained believability to say the least.
I have heard some folks use the “two hits” mwethod, but the bookkeeping is a pain in the ass.
Personally, I only have a couple in a mixed forces fight. I don’t allow the players to know which are minions, so it increases the tension a bit to see a room with 20 goblins in it, instead of a room with 4 slyblades, 3 warriors, a hexer, and a bunch of sword lube.
You don’t HAVE to include them either. I just ran a 3 wave successive encounter that had no minions whatsoever, and it was a blast.
newbiedm
November 25, 2008
Do you find the excess hitpoints to have the same effect in higher levels, as in epic tier?
@Donny:
My players metagame minions because:
1. I use a different type of token for the minions
2. I describe them as smaller, wimpier versions
I just got an 100% unofficial response from a Wizard’s designer, who said to giver their weapons 1/2 damage, as a static number.
And that’s it…. This was one of the top top designers, but since he said 100% unnofficial, I don’t want to say his name, just in case…..
jonathan
November 25, 2008
For creating minions, I usually simply shemp/recast what is already in the MM so that I can have whatever type of critter I want – and that way i don’t need to worry about whether I’m making the creature “correctly”.
Bilbo
November 25, 2008
I wonder if using a Saving Throw for epic level minion damage would do the trick? That would approximate the 2 hit rule and eliminate the bookkeeping, I think.
newbiedm
November 25, 2008
@Bilbo:
What do you mean? Who rolls the save?
dicemonkey
November 25, 2008
My players love it when they take down a guy in the room in one hit, then realize that there’s minions in the room. They go nuts, swinging at everything, taking down a few minions at a time. Until they get to the boss of the room. It makes him that much more epic when they take one swing, and the baddie doesn’t go down. Then the light goes on that they’re in trouble…
Jeff Greiner
November 25, 2008
I use minions a lot in my games. They do what they need to do. They make for a fun combat…but they do require a stronger suspension of disbelief than non-minion enemies. In a game where everything is tougher it’s harder to accept minions as something that exist if you think too much.
My suggestion, if you use them, don’t think so much.
As for design, I’ve designed several monsters and NPCs for 4e already and find the system easy, intuitive, and generally good. But I have not specifically designed a minion before. So I’m not sure what pitfalls I might find in that process.
newbiedm
November 25, 2008
Do you guys find players metagaming minions a lot?
Dead Orcs
November 25, 2008
I’m not sure I’d call minions “broken”, but I think there’s a good point to be made in the efficacy of Epic minions. I think an argument for some kind of “ratcheting up” mechanic could be made. For me, this might mean, Heroic minion: as is, Paragon minion: hit points per level, Epic minion: hit points per level and you can’t kill them in one shot. Just my two cents, of course. I haven’t really had the opportunity (as a DM) to use the higher level minions.
Neubert
November 26, 2008
The problem is mostly (from what I have heard) automatic damage, which players has too much of at later levels.
I posted a comment on another blog about minion house rules (http://gamedesignfanatic.blogspot.com/2008/11/minion-house-rules.html), which resulted in the following post: http://gamedesignfanatic.blogspot.com/2008/11/minion-house-rules-option-e.html
In short, you give minions a saving throw whenever they would normally take automatic damage. On 10+, they live, otherwise they die.
Also, I am wondering whether to let my players know which opponents are minions and not. I have so far, but I could also imagine that it makes for a more interesting battle if the players can’t tell them apart (as mentioned above). I usually describe what armor and weapons they are carrying, and after the first kill of a minion, they know which tokens are the minions.
But I suppose if I did not tell them, a lot of guesswork would start, based on how much damage my players take.
newbiedm
November 26, 2008
@Neubert:
My only issue with that is adding another die roll to the mix in a system with drawn out battles as it is, I am weary of adding more rolls…
As an aside, I was looking at the epic minions in Draconomicon…. Consider the Blade of the Pharaoh, a level 28 minion:
Melee: Bronze Pike +33 vs. AC; 11 damage
Ranged: Breath of Sand; Close Blast 5; +31 vs. Reflex; 6 fire damage
Special: If a target takes breath of sand damage from multiple
blades in the same round, this attack has additional eff ects.
These eff ects are cumulative, and each requires a separate save.
Two Blades: Ongoing 10 fi re damage (save ends).
Three Blades: Slowed (save ends).
Four or More Blades: Blinded (save ends).
Any opinions?
Neubert
November 26, 2008
True. It is not perfect, but most fixes would take up game time. As mentioned in the link above (or in earlier comments), some other fixes were to have a damage reduction so a low amount of damage won’t kill it, but that has it’s own disadvantages as mentioned. Giving minions hp would defeat the entire purpose of minions in my mind. So there are no easy solution and I think any fixes will be based on the liking of the individual DM.
Scott
November 27, 2008
It might help to change the way you think about minions. At heroic levels, a minion might just be a particularly fragile goblin or kobold, yes. At paragon levels, minions are the monsters the PCs used to fight at heroic levels — regular goblins, kobolds, orcs, etc., who the party just cuts apart with their vastly superior skill. At epic levels, minions are things like ogres, trolls, lesser demons, and mid-level undead, that used to challenge them at high heroic/low paragon levels.
In order for the minions still to pose some challenge, of course, they have to have appropriate attack and defense values, not the ones that those lesser creatures would have had during the heroic/paragon tiers. But there’s usually some means of explaining that in-game, whether it’s a magical effect, fanatical morale, or just the benefit of a good leader. And conceptually, it’s gold. Players get a kick out of seeing things that were once tough opponents fall left and right to their swords and spells. It gives them a real sense of having progressed in power.
As for actually creating them, what I do is find a monster that’s similar. I change its damage to a flat average (rounding down to a multiple of 5 if I’m feeling lazy), change its hp to 1, and get rid of all but one power. Instant minion.
newbiedm
November 27, 2008
@Scott:
that’s the best explanations of minions so far.
It makes complete sense.
MJ Harnish
November 28, 2008
“Broken” is a really loaded term that indicates that the rules are seriously flawed or impede game play. Minions aren’t either. Having listened to the podcast episode, the only impression I got was that they feel that Paragon/epic level minions are worth too much XP given the ease at which PCs can take them down. Nowhere did they say “we don’t use them because they screw up the game” or “Wow, they simply don’t work as intended.”
newbiedm
November 28, 2008
It’s a little odd that a designer houserules his own game after release…
IMHO anyway…
ChristopherA
November 30, 2008
In response to the blog entry question about how to design a minion of a given level, I responded on my blog:
http://gamedesignfanatic.blogspot.com/2008/11/minion-balancing.html
Doug
December 1, 2008
I plan to house-rule my minions so they have some hit points. Hit points per level sounds about right. The problem I have is that my players really like to see how much damage they deal. It is really anti-climactic when they start to roll damage and I stop them short to remove the figure. I try to describe the hit as much as possible, but they still miss rolling the damage.
Maybe I’ll just rule that any damage dealt that doesn’t deal their level in damage makes them damaged. Any further damage kills them outright. This would still give the players a sense of accomplishment when they destroy another minion in one hit, or cleave through a few of them.
dragonballgo
November 12, 2015
Even though this spinoff lacks the flare from its “Despicable Me” originators, Minions is still a laugh-out-loud good time. The film’s outrageous humor, that’s suitable for both children and adults alike to understand and enjoy, ultimately drives this animated delighted.
dragonballgo
November 12, 2015
The Minions crave a strong parental figure but, as creatures of pure mischief, they don’t need hugs — and their antics quickly become tiresome.