Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Minions with Damage Thresholds?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 9204138" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>Sure! Your question is "why not use simple 1 hit point minions and be done with it?" That's simpler certainly!</p><p></p><p>I have three clusters of answers: <strong>Objections </strong>(problems to address)<strong>, Creative Play Encouragement </strong>(positive goals to move towards)<strong>, </strong>and <strong>Player-Facing Rules </strong>(happy side effects). I suspect you have not encountered the same objections I have, but you <em>might</em> see value in the other categories.</p><p></p><p>To be clear, I'm assuming the counterargument "minion" is just a monster with 1 hp.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: rgb(251, 160, 38)">Objections: </span></strong>There's 3 objections I have come across (both from players & from me) in my experiments with minions across 4e and 5e, and this experiment with damage threshold is attempting to address those in a way that opens up some creativity...</p><p></p><p>1)<strong> "My damage is "wasted" on minions." </strong>This was a player complaint – sort of the opposite of [USER=7035894]@Clint_L[/USER] 's feedback about my house rule disfavoring monks – that heavy hitter PCs weren't as valuable against minions. Basically, by taking HP completely out of the equation, players with PCs doing high-damage felt they weren't able to contribute as meaningfully.</p><p></p><p>2) <strong>All minions go down equally, irrespective of the monster being modeled</strong> (i.e. 2 damage takes down the firenewt minion or the ogre minion). That can lead to cognitive dissonance for some players/groups – why is the big bulky ogre dropped as easily as the sinewy firenewt? Similarly, a <em>fire bolt</em> dealing 2 damage could kill a firenewt minion – and that's working against the expectation we have that "firenewts are resistant to fire damage." This was both a player complaint and my complaint as the GM.</p><p></p><p>3) <strong>Minion-clearing tactics influenced by meta-game, rather than story. </strong>For minions, it doesn't matter whether they roll a saving throw against an effect dealing half damage, so spells like burning hands suddenly are more valuable against minions. They just die. Same thing with auto-damage effects (Magic Missile, Cloud of Daggers, etc). This was my complaint as the GM.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: rgb(251, 160, 38)">Creative Play Encouragement: </span></strong>All of the above led to a certain repetition of strategy when the players were facing minions. At first, it was novel, but when it became repeated the excitement of using minions quickly lost its luster. In trying to kill two-birds-with-one-stone, I also wanted these "minion traits" to provide interesting weaknesses / workarounds for players that emphasized the minion monster's story, in an effort to break up the repetitive strategies I've seen in past experiments using minions.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="color: rgb(251, 160, 38)">Player-facing Rules: </span></strong>Finally, in the back of my mind - not immediate to my project - I was thinking about how my damage threshold minion experiment might benefit longevity of the game on the player side... For example, this "damage threshold" concept could be used as an easier way to manage a PC's conjured critters without making them feel like fragile piñatas.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 9204138, member: 20323"] Sure! Your question is "why not use simple 1 hit point minions and be done with it?" That's simpler certainly! I have three clusters of answers: [B]Objections [/B](problems to address)[B], Creative Play Encouragement [/B](positive goals to move towards)[B], [/B]and [B]Player-Facing Rules [/B](happy side effects). I suspect you have not encountered the same objections I have, but you [I]might[/I] see value in the other categories. To be clear, I'm assuming the counterargument "minion" is just a monster with 1 hp. [B][COLOR=rgb(251, 160, 38)]Objections: [/COLOR][/B]There's 3 objections I have come across (both from players & from me) in my experiments with minions across 4e and 5e, and this experiment with damage threshold is attempting to address those in a way that opens up some creativity... 1)[B] "My damage is "wasted" on minions." [/B]This was a player complaint – sort of the opposite of [USER=7035894]@Clint_L[/USER] 's feedback about my house rule disfavoring monks – that heavy hitter PCs weren't as valuable against minions. Basically, by taking HP completely out of the equation, players with PCs doing high-damage felt they weren't able to contribute as meaningfully. 2) [B]All minions go down equally, irrespective of the monster being modeled[/B] (i.e. 2 damage takes down the firenewt minion or the ogre minion). That can lead to cognitive dissonance for some players/groups – why is the big bulky ogre dropped as easily as the sinewy firenewt? Similarly, a [I]fire bolt[/I] dealing 2 damage could kill a firenewt minion – and that's working against the expectation we have that "firenewts are resistant to fire damage." This was both a player complaint and my complaint as the GM. 3) [B]Minion-clearing tactics influenced by meta-game, rather than story. [/B]For minions, it doesn't matter whether they roll a saving throw against an effect dealing half damage, so spells like burning hands suddenly are more valuable against minions. They just die. Same thing with auto-damage effects (Magic Missile, Cloud of Daggers, etc). This was my complaint as the GM. [B][COLOR=rgb(251, 160, 38)]Creative Play Encouragement: [/COLOR][/B]All of the above led to a certain repetition of strategy when the players were facing minions. At first, it was novel, but when it became repeated the excitement of using minions quickly lost its luster. In trying to kill two-birds-with-one-stone, I also wanted these "minion traits" to provide interesting weaknesses / workarounds for players that emphasized the minion monster's story, in an effort to break up the repetitive strategies I've seen in past experiments using minions. [B][COLOR=rgb(251, 160, 38)]Player-facing Rules: [/COLOR][/B]Finally, in the back of my mind - not immediate to my project - I was thinking about how my damage threshold minion experiment might benefit longevity of the game on the player side... For example, this "damage threshold" concept could be used as an easier way to manage a PC's conjured critters without making them feel like fragile piñatas. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Minions with Damage Thresholds?
Top