(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Yesterday our Greyhawk DM tried something interesting: using 13th Age-style mooks instead of minions.
In the 4e game I'm running, I don't use minions much, as two PCs have encounter powers that deal AoE damage without needing any sort of attack roll and another has a daily that can do that for the entire battle, so I'm unlikely to use minions unless they're orcs (final attack when "killed"). In the Greyhawk game, my PC is a wizard who frequently dishes out Stinking Cloud, a mobile damage-dealing zone which is obviously going to slaughter minions, although it's primary function seems to be to cripple archers (and also give our monk something to throw bad guys into, plus my own PC's Thunderwave and Spectral Ram).
So the Greyhawk DM created "mooks". He took regular monsters and cut all their stats in one quarter. This resulted in probably too little damage, but that's an easy fix to make. I thought it worked out pretty well. Because they were dealing flat damage, they dished out damage fast and took it fast too, but could each survive at least one round in the mobile zone of strangling poison gas.
Following the 13th Age rules, mooks share hit points in a pool. The mooks attacked in groups of four, and if you overkilled one the damage carried over to another mook in a pool. However, this seemed to make AoE and multi-target attacks really strong against th em, since apparently hitting three mooks in a pool deals triple damage. It didn't come up, but damage would have been pretty satisfying if anyone had a power like Cleaving Strike. I couldn't figure out if AoEs work that way against mooks in 13th Age.
In the 4e game I'm running, I don't use minions much, as two PCs have encounter powers that deal AoE damage without needing any sort of attack roll and another has a daily that can do that for the entire battle, so I'm unlikely to use minions unless they're orcs (final attack when "killed"). In the Greyhawk game, my PC is a wizard who frequently dishes out Stinking Cloud, a mobile damage-dealing zone which is obviously going to slaughter minions, although it's primary function seems to be to cripple archers (and also give our monk something to throw bad guys into, plus my own PC's Thunderwave and Spectral Ram).
So the Greyhawk DM created "mooks". He took regular monsters and cut all their stats in one quarter. This resulted in probably too little damage, but that's an easy fix to make. I thought it worked out pretty well. Because they were dealing flat damage, they dished out damage fast and took it fast too, but could each survive at least one round in the mobile zone of strangling poison gas.
Following the 13th Age rules, mooks share hit points in a pool. The mooks attacked in groups of four, and if you overkilled one the damage carried over to another mook in a pool. However, this seemed to make AoE and multi-target attacks really strong against th em, since apparently hitting three mooks in a pool deals triple damage. It didn't come up, but damage would have been pretty satisfying if anyone had a power like Cleaving Strike. I couldn't figure out if AoEs work that way against mooks in 13th Age.