Solos, Elites, Minions and Monster XP.
I’ll be gone for an extended weekend, so I thought I’d post a long one
Probably one of the more radical things 4e has changed is the conception of monsters, both how their difficulty is determined and their position within a combat. 4e has embraced the concept that DMs have instinctively figured out for years, that to beat a team, you need a team. As such, monsters have taken on a whole new dynamic, but how well does that play out?
Monster XP
4e has replaced the CR system with an additive XP system, and I’ll be honest…this is one of my favorite things about the new edition. The XP system is clean and very easy to use. I take my group’s level and numbers of players that gives me an XP total for a standard encounter. I pick monsters I want until their XP adds up to said number. And…I’m done. Further, once the encounter is done and I need to award XP, it’s already done! I think this system is vastly superior in concept to the CR system.
But form must follow function, and the ultimate question is, does it work? In my experience so far from levels 1 through 6, I would say yes. I’ve done a lot of mathematical modeling in my time, and I’m sure others will agree with me when I say that there is an eternal battle between ease of use and accuracy when you are designing things. I think the system works as well as can be expected considering you are boiling down a monsters entire set of stats and abilities and then boiling down all of the stats and abilities of the PC party it will face and throw that together into a single number. Now there are always exceptions, monsters that don’t work as advertised for their XP (needlefang drake swarm, I’m looking at you), but ultimately I think the system does a great job of estimating challenge in an easy to use manner.
Elite Monsters
While 4e’s main design is to have 5 players against 5 monsters, the system uses monster types to both increase variety and to maintain the flavor of specific monsters. The most basic of these is the elite monster, which is worth two regular monsters.
Another point about modeling, the further you push something away from the core model, the more likely the concept will break down. A game system is no exception. The model is designed for 5 monsters, so moving away from that is innately going to cause issues.
I think the elite monster is the most solid of the various monster types. So far in my experience you don’t have to treat elites that differently from a regular creature. You can simply substitute one elite for two monsters, and go. Their challenge seems appropriate; they last long enough in a fight but not too long, and PC powers tend to work as advertised against them. I think the elite concept has been designed very well.
Minions
The next push away from the core model is the minion, which is worth ¼ of a regular monster. There are loads of controversial threads about the minion, so if nothing else, the concept has sparked a great deal of thinking about monsters.
From a flavor perspective, I love the concept of minions. Every fantasy genre has the “mook”, the characters that are just there to make the main characters look good. Whether it’s your regular orcs in LOTR, or a ton of Agent Smiths in the Matrix 2, the minion theme is strong in fantasy.
Some game systems treat the minion of window dressing. They literally don’t do anything except die in horrible ways. That’s a fine way to go, but 4e went a different direction. It gave the minion abilities, and XP, and that means there is a higher expectation to the minion. It’s not just there to die, it’s there to provide a balanced challenge in its own way. I’ve seen a lot of threads arguing that minions should just die with little challenge to a party, but from a mechanical standpoint that simply isn’t true. The XP system promises that 500 XP to a 5 person 1st level party should be a regular encounter, whether that’s a horde of minions or 5 regular monsters, and so the minion concept has to be able to handle that.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve played from levels 1 to 6,with a short one shot at early paragon, so that’s my current experience with minions. So far, I’ve found that you can’t treat minions like you can an elite. You can’t plug in 4 minions for one monster and just go, minions are most effective when used in certain ways. Here are some tips I’ve picked up from playing with minions.
1) Spread them out. Have them attack from different sides or come in waves. Further, have them attack different party members, don’t all focus on the same one.
2) Sometimes minions are at their strongest when there is only one. This seems counterintuitive, but I have found it to be true for my group. When there is a group of minions to kill, players happily blast them with a big effect, laughing as they kill hordes of creatures. But when it’s just one minion…well killing that one feels like a waste, especially when there are bigger creatures to kill. In many battles I have seen players rip through ¾ of the minion population in the first round, and then the last few just sit there the whole fight, doing bits of damage that actually add up to be quite a lot, just because the player didn’t want to waste their attack.
3) Use leaders. Leaders and minions go hand in hand. Leaders tend to provide area benefits, and the more creatures you have, the more benefit.
4) Use aid another. Even a low levels, minions quickly become capable of autoaiding their allies. Two minions next to the boss can give him a +4 bonus, which often translates into a stronger attack than if the minions attacked themselves.
So with just a bit of strategic use from the DM, I’ve seen minions work with good success. And as a player, I do enjoy getting to cut through swarms of guys once in a while. Some argue the metagamey concept of minions, that players treat minions differently than regular monsters. I personally don’t think this is anything different than what you see in books and movies. How often do you see a hero joke and laugh when surrounded by a group of guards (minions), but become deadly serious when confronted by the main villain? I’m personally in the camp that says let players know their facing minions, let them try out tactics and abilities that they wouldn’t normally use against regular monsters, and have fun. And then once in a while, use the tactics I mentioned above, use the big hoard, and remind players that minions have a bite all their own.
Minions at high levels
There is a growing movement on the boards that the minion concept starts to break down at higher levels. I haven’t seen that at the levels I play, but studying the mechanics I can understand the concern. High level combat is full of auto damaging effects. For normal monsters, its just one more source of damage to deal with. For minions, its deadly business. Given this, I completely agree that a high level minion does not have the survivability of its lower level cousins.
Many house rules have been proposed, especially regarding minions and auto damaging effects. I do not believe that is the solution…yet. I think there are simpler solutions that can keep the concept of the minion intact, without forcing the system into new mechanics.
1) Decrease the XP that minions are worth at higher levels. If minions die faster, then let’s have more of them! If players can kill 10 minions without breaking a sweat, then let’s try 15 or 20. Right now minions are worth ¼ of a regular monster by xp, so I propose changing that to 1/5 of a monster at paragon, and 1/6 at epic. Or, maybe even more.
2) Get smarter with monster design. Instead of looking at the minion concept, let’s look at the monster. One of my favorite abilities for high level monsters is the Pit Fiend’s “Irresistible Command”. It allows a pit fiend to turn a minion into raw damage, and the concept could be applied to minions in general. For example, create a minion that releases a cloud of toxic gas when it dies. That means whether it lives or dies, the minion is having an effect on the encounter. Or have a minion that when it dies, makes a saving throw. If it passes, it resurrects on the spot…a nice ability for a high level zombie perhaps.
As more monster books are released, I hope that we will see more of this. Epic minions are more than just lower level minions with better stats, they have to be “epic” in their own “mookish” way.
In Conclusion: I want to close on minions with this final praise. I love that the designers created a creature that requires no bookkeeping, and ultimately that is the best thing about the minion to me. I do agree that the conception is not perfect, and I do agree there are higher level issues to address. But ultimately I think any solution has to keep bookkeeping out of the mix. With that in mind, I hope to see lots of new and interesting minions in the upcoming monster books.
Solos
On the opposite spectrum from minions we have the solo monster, one designed to take the place of 5 monsters.
From a flavor standpoint, the solo monster is a fantasy icon, as is the solo dragon that heads this monster type. I think with 4e’s push towards monster teams (which I believe is a solid design choice), it is important to maintain this category of monster to ensure the proper flavor for monsters like dragons.
From a mechanics standpoint, the 4e designers learned an important lesson from previous editions. A single monster….just doesn’t work, at least not without help. The action economy is the heart of power in a turn based game, and a single monster with a single rounds worth of actions just doesn’t cut it. The BBEG encounters of previous editions often fell flat for many people as they watched their favored villain gets slaughtered without even getting in a shot.
4e’s design has taken a lot of these factors into account. For example, the designers realized that a solo monster has to be a threat to the whole party all it once in order to create tension. To that end, most solos have the ability to create large damaging areas and hurt several party members at once….but WITHOUT doing large amounts of single target damage. That is very important. DMs have often tried compensating for a single monsters action weakness by simply making it more powerful. Problem with that is the monster focuses its power on one character, who doesn’t have the defenses to stop it. The character is killed, and the monster moves to the next one and so forth. With a solo monster, damage is spread out among the group. Every one is in danger, but no single person is in mortal peril…well, not until the solo gets going at least
The 4e designers also greatly increased the durability of solo monsters to ensure that they survive even a full barrage by a determined party. Ultimately this has met with mixed results. There are many threats that say solo monsters have too many hp. I have been a few solo fights, and I have seen solos go down in a suitable amount of time, and I have seen one that dragged on for quite a while. I think the issue with long solo fights is partly a problem with another part of the system (which I will discuss in a later article). Still…I think the problem with many solo fights is that they aren’t innately dynamic enough. With a normal fight, the number of monsters change, some are bloodied, some aren’t, they are moving around, etc. A solo doesn’t change much throughout the fight. Many have a bloodied ability, but then the fight returns to a slug fest. I think this is once again a product of monster design more than it is the concept of the solo. Solos need ways to change the terrain, or gain/lose different abilities as they are hurt, something to keep the combat engaging. Now good dms can use terrain and other effects to keep the combat memorable, but I think some work can be done with solos as well.
One issue I have seen discussed about solos on the boards are powers that stun versus a solo. And at mid to high levels they become more and more commonplace. With minions and auto damage, at least there are usually more to kill. With a solo once I’ve stunned him, well that round goes to the party. Once again I wonder if this is a mechanical problem with the solo, or simply that solos need better monster designs. For example, one of my least favorite solos is the dragon ironically enough. My favorite is the hydra. The hydra is big and in your face, and has a very clever way of dealing with stun effects that allows the player to still have an effect while allowing the hydra to carry on with its wonton destruction. Another is the Berbalang who brings his own “personal” army with him.
I do think that ultimately for solos to work as a concept, they have to have some way to handle action denial effects. Seeing what I have from the Hydra and Berbalang, I think it can be done with smart monster design. However, the dragon needs some help in this department in my opinion, and as the most iconic of the solos (as well as the namebrand itself), I hope it gets some.
Lastly, I just wanted to mention I find it amusing the MM doesn’t really treat the solo as a solo at all. In fact, if you look at most encounter guidelines in the book, the solos are always teamed with other monsters. Does this ultimately say that even the designers feel that even solos can’t really stand up on their own?
Conclusion: I think the solo concept does need a bit of polish. Ultimately I think it works, at least at the low levels. While the occasional solo fight can become boring, I think solo fights can provide a lot of fun as well. Ultimately we will see what new solo monsters are released, and how their mechanics handle some of the problems talked about above.
I’ll be gone for an extended weekend, so I thought I’d post a long one
Probably one of the more radical things 4e has changed is the conception of monsters, both how their difficulty is determined and their position within a combat. 4e has embraced the concept that DMs have instinctively figured out for years, that to beat a team, you need a team. As such, monsters have taken on a whole new dynamic, but how well does that play out?
Monster XP
4e has replaced the CR system with an additive XP system, and I’ll be honest…this is one of my favorite things about the new edition. The XP system is clean and very easy to use. I take my group’s level and numbers of players that gives me an XP total for a standard encounter. I pick monsters I want until their XP adds up to said number. And…I’m done. Further, once the encounter is done and I need to award XP, it’s already done! I think this system is vastly superior in concept to the CR system.
But form must follow function, and the ultimate question is, does it work? In my experience so far from levels 1 through 6, I would say yes. I’ve done a lot of mathematical modeling in my time, and I’m sure others will agree with me when I say that there is an eternal battle between ease of use and accuracy when you are designing things. I think the system works as well as can be expected considering you are boiling down a monsters entire set of stats and abilities and then boiling down all of the stats and abilities of the PC party it will face and throw that together into a single number. Now there are always exceptions, monsters that don’t work as advertised for their XP (needlefang drake swarm, I’m looking at you), but ultimately I think the system does a great job of estimating challenge in an easy to use manner.
Elite Monsters
While 4e’s main design is to have 5 players against 5 monsters, the system uses monster types to both increase variety and to maintain the flavor of specific monsters. The most basic of these is the elite monster, which is worth two regular monsters.
Another point about modeling, the further you push something away from the core model, the more likely the concept will break down. A game system is no exception. The model is designed for 5 monsters, so moving away from that is innately going to cause issues.
I think the elite monster is the most solid of the various monster types. So far in my experience you don’t have to treat elites that differently from a regular creature. You can simply substitute one elite for two monsters, and go. Their challenge seems appropriate; they last long enough in a fight but not too long, and PC powers tend to work as advertised against them. I think the elite concept has been designed very well.
Minions
The next push away from the core model is the minion, which is worth ¼ of a regular monster. There are loads of controversial threads about the minion, so if nothing else, the concept has sparked a great deal of thinking about monsters.
From a flavor perspective, I love the concept of minions. Every fantasy genre has the “mook”, the characters that are just there to make the main characters look good. Whether it’s your regular orcs in LOTR, or a ton of Agent Smiths in the Matrix 2, the minion theme is strong in fantasy.
Some game systems treat the minion of window dressing. They literally don’t do anything except die in horrible ways. That’s a fine way to go, but 4e went a different direction. It gave the minion abilities, and XP, and that means there is a higher expectation to the minion. It’s not just there to die, it’s there to provide a balanced challenge in its own way. I’ve seen a lot of threads arguing that minions should just die with little challenge to a party, but from a mechanical standpoint that simply isn’t true. The XP system promises that 500 XP to a 5 person 1st level party should be a regular encounter, whether that’s a horde of minions or 5 regular monsters, and so the minion concept has to be able to handle that.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve played from levels 1 to 6,with a short one shot at early paragon, so that’s my current experience with minions. So far, I’ve found that you can’t treat minions like you can an elite. You can’t plug in 4 minions for one monster and just go, minions are most effective when used in certain ways. Here are some tips I’ve picked up from playing with minions.
1) Spread them out. Have them attack from different sides or come in waves. Further, have them attack different party members, don’t all focus on the same one.
2) Sometimes minions are at their strongest when there is only one. This seems counterintuitive, but I have found it to be true for my group. When there is a group of minions to kill, players happily blast them with a big effect, laughing as they kill hordes of creatures. But when it’s just one minion…well killing that one feels like a waste, especially when there are bigger creatures to kill. In many battles I have seen players rip through ¾ of the minion population in the first round, and then the last few just sit there the whole fight, doing bits of damage that actually add up to be quite a lot, just because the player didn’t want to waste their attack.
3) Use leaders. Leaders and minions go hand in hand. Leaders tend to provide area benefits, and the more creatures you have, the more benefit.
4) Use aid another. Even a low levels, minions quickly become capable of autoaiding their allies. Two minions next to the boss can give him a +4 bonus, which often translates into a stronger attack than if the minions attacked themselves.
So with just a bit of strategic use from the DM, I’ve seen minions work with good success. And as a player, I do enjoy getting to cut through swarms of guys once in a while. Some argue the metagamey concept of minions, that players treat minions differently than regular monsters. I personally don’t think this is anything different than what you see in books and movies. How often do you see a hero joke and laugh when surrounded by a group of guards (minions), but become deadly serious when confronted by the main villain? I’m personally in the camp that says let players know their facing minions, let them try out tactics and abilities that they wouldn’t normally use against regular monsters, and have fun. And then once in a while, use the tactics I mentioned above, use the big hoard, and remind players that minions have a bite all their own.
Minions at high levels
There is a growing movement on the boards that the minion concept starts to break down at higher levels. I haven’t seen that at the levels I play, but studying the mechanics I can understand the concern. High level combat is full of auto damaging effects. For normal monsters, its just one more source of damage to deal with. For minions, its deadly business. Given this, I completely agree that a high level minion does not have the survivability of its lower level cousins.
Many house rules have been proposed, especially regarding minions and auto damaging effects. I do not believe that is the solution…yet. I think there are simpler solutions that can keep the concept of the minion intact, without forcing the system into new mechanics.
1) Decrease the XP that minions are worth at higher levels. If minions die faster, then let’s have more of them! If players can kill 10 minions without breaking a sweat, then let’s try 15 or 20. Right now minions are worth ¼ of a regular monster by xp, so I propose changing that to 1/5 of a monster at paragon, and 1/6 at epic. Or, maybe even more.
2) Get smarter with monster design. Instead of looking at the minion concept, let’s look at the monster. One of my favorite abilities for high level monsters is the Pit Fiend’s “Irresistible Command”. It allows a pit fiend to turn a minion into raw damage, and the concept could be applied to minions in general. For example, create a minion that releases a cloud of toxic gas when it dies. That means whether it lives or dies, the minion is having an effect on the encounter. Or have a minion that when it dies, makes a saving throw. If it passes, it resurrects on the spot…a nice ability for a high level zombie perhaps.
As more monster books are released, I hope that we will see more of this. Epic minions are more than just lower level minions with better stats, they have to be “epic” in their own “mookish” way.
In Conclusion: I want to close on minions with this final praise. I love that the designers created a creature that requires no bookkeeping, and ultimately that is the best thing about the minion to me. I do agree that the conception is not perfect, and I do agree there are higher level issues to address. But ultimately I think any solution has to keep bookkeeping out of the mix. With that in mind, I hope to see lots of new and interesting minions in the upcoming monster books.
Solos
On the opposite spectrum from minions we have the solo monster, one designed to take the place of 5 monsters.
From a flavor standpoint, the solo monster is a fantasy icon, as is the solo dragon that heads this monster type. I think with 4e’s push towards monster teams (which I believe is a solid design choice), it is important to maintain this category of monster to ensure the proper flavor for monsters like dragons.
From a mechanics standpoint, the 4e designers learned an important lesson from previous editions. A single monster….just doesn’t work, at least not without help. The action economy is the heart of power in a turn based game, and a single monster with a single rounds worth of actions just doesn’t cut it. The BBEG encounters of previous editions often fell flat for many people as they watched their favored villain gets slaughtered without even getting in a shot.
4e’s design has taken a lot of these factors into account. For example, the designers realized that a solo monster has to be a threat to the whole party all it once in order to create tension. To that end, most solos have the ability to create large damaging areas and hurt several party members at once….but WITHOUT doing large amounts of single target damage. That is very important. DMs have often tried compensating for a single monsters action weakness by simply making it more powerful. Problem with that is the monster focuses its power on one character, who doesn’t have the defenses to stop it. The character is killed, and the monster moves to the next one and so forth. With a solo monster, damage is spread out among the group. Every one is in danger, but no single person is in mortal peril…well, not until the solo gets going at least
The 4e designers also greatly increased the durability of solo monsters to ensure that they survive even a full barrage by a determined party. Ultimately this has met with mixed results. There are many threats that say solo monsters have too many hp. I have been a few solo fights, and I have seen solos go down in a suitable amount of time, and I have seen one that dragged on for quite a while. I think the issue with long solo fights is partly a problem with another part of the system (which I will discuss in a later article). Still…I think the problem with many solo fights is that they aren’t innately dynamic enough. With a normal fight, the number of monsters change, some are bloodied, some aren’t, they are moving around, etc. A solo doesn’t change much throughout the fight. Many have a bloodied ability, but then the fight returns to a slug fest. I think this is once again a product of monster design more than it is the concept of the solo. Solos need ways to change the terrain, or gain/lose different abilities as they are hurt, something to keep the combat engaging. Now good dms can use terrain and other effects to keep the combat memorable, but I think some work can be done with solos as well.
One issue I have seen discussed about solos on the boards are powers that stun versus a solo. And at mid to high levels they become more and more commonplace. With minions and auto damage, at least there are usually more to kill. With a solo once I’ve stunned him, well that round goes to the party. Once again I wonder if this is a mechanical problem with the solo, or simply that solos need better monster designs. For example, one of my least favorite solos is the dragon ironically enough. My favorite is the hydra. The hydra is big and in your face, and has a very clever way of dealing with stun effects that allows the player to still have an effect while allowing the hydra to carry on with its wonton destruction. Another is the Berbalang who brings his own “personal” army with him.
I do think that ultimately for solos to work as a concept, they have to have some way to handle action denial effects. Seeing what I have from the Hydra and Berbalang, I think it can be done with smart monster design. However, the dragon needs some help in this department in my opinion, and as the most iconic of the solos (as well as the namebrand itself), I hope it gets some.
Lastly, I just wanted to mention I find it amusing the MM doesn’t really treat the solo as a solo at all. In fact, if you look at most encounter guidelines in the book, the solos are always teamed with other monsters. Does this ultimately say that even the designers feel that even solos can’t really stand up on their own?
Conclusion: I think the solo concept does need a bit of polish. Ultimately I think it works, at least at the low levels. While the occasional solo fight can become boring, I think solo fights can provide a lot of fun as well. Ultimately we will see what new solo monsters are released, and how their mechanics handle some of the problems talked about above.
