[House Rule] Tougher minions

[whydirt]

For my planescape game, I wanted to use tougher minions since the setting is a little more mysterious and gritty than a typical silver-age comic. To this end, I'm testing out a rule that replaces the one-hit-and-you're-out rule of standard MnM with a variant in which all minions make normal damage saves like other characters. However, for each hit, minions receive a -2 penalty to future saves in place of the standard -1. Combining this with the fact that most minions will be weaker than the PCs still makes them fall faster than more powerful villains, but gives them a little more umph.

Thoughts?

[Strand0]

Thoughts?

Give it a try. At a guess I think they will go down almost as fast.

If I was making tougher minions, I'd just give them a higher (+3 or 4) damage save. The extra book keeping might not be worth the reward.

[whydirt]

Give it a try. At a guess I think they will go down almost as fast.

If I was making tougher minions, I'd just give them a higher (+3 or 4) damage save. The extra book keeping might not be worth the reward.

I'm running this as a play-by-post game online, so book-keeping isn't really an issue considering the slow pace of play. Thanks for the feedback!

[horned god]

Here is an evil thought, how about an extra which adds Rapid Takedown to Area Effect, thus blowing away hordes of minions. Call it simply 'extra: Going Rambo'.

[Anthony]

For my planescape game, I wanted to use tougher minions since the setting is a little more mysterious and gritty than a typical silver-age comic. To this end, I'm testing out a rule that replaces the one-hit-and-you're-out rule of standard MnM with a variant in which all minions make normal damage saves like other characters. However, for each hit, minions receive a -2 penalty to future saves in place of the standard -1. Combining this with the fact that most minions will be weaker than the PCs still makes them fall faster than more powerful villains, but gives them a little more umph.

Thoughts?

A major purpose of minion rules is to make minions easier to keep track of, and causing minions to take hits defeats this goal.

I suggest just making it so minions ignore any 'hit' result, and are knocked out/disabled on any 'stun' result.

[whydirt]

Here is an evil thought, how about an extra which adds Rapid Takedown to Area Effect, thus blowing away hordes of minions. Call it simply 'extra: Going Rambo'.

It is an evil thought. I like the idea, although I don't see how this Extra makes minions tougher. If anything, it seems to do the exact opposite.

A major purpose of minion rules is to make minions easier to keep track of, and causing minions to take hits defeats this goal.

I suggest just making it so minions ignore any 'hit' result, and are knocked out/disabled on any 'stun' result.

Interesting idea, and it would certainly be easier to use for live games. You could even re-write your idea as just giving minions damage saves at DC 10 + damage and have them disabled/knocked out upon any failure.

As I mentioned, bookkeeping isn't much of a factor for me since I am free to take my time and can access my computer while I play, but I appreciate the feedback.

[Novac]

Let us all know how this works out. I had a PC with Minions for a while, they were just for background effect (they looked like the Little Green Men from Toy Story), but it would have been neat to see them all tackle someone. Egads, 130 LGMs mauled Trogdor!

[The BLur]

I agree with strand's idea, give them all a slightly better damage save, i think this would be the best way to do it

[Gamer X]

Egads, 130 LGMs mauled Trogdor!

...and 130 tough Minions meet with burnination as Trogdor Goes Rambo!
(sorry, but I can't pass up a Strong Bad reference)

On topic, I like the idea of a better class of minions, but I think raising the Damage save to require a Stun result would work best for me.

There's enough book keeping to do as it is, and sometimes (in other game systems) I avoid using minions just to avoid the added score keeping. M&M's minions are fine, if a bit glass-jawed.

G-X

[slaughterj]

I like simply increasing the Damage Save for the sake of simplicity.

On other alternative I like, e.g. for Power Armor minions, would be to have them not fall if they take 1 hit (still fall for a stunned, etc. result), but fall if they fail a second damage save by any amount.

[Strand0]

I like simply increasing the Damage Save for the sake of simplicity.

On other alternative I like, e.g. for Power Armor minions, would be to have them not fall if they take 1 hit (still fall for a stunned, etc. result), but fall if they fail a second damage save by any amount.

Minions that can with stand any first hit?
Bah!
If you can have armor like this, I want in for my regular villains.

[slaughterj]

I like simply increasing the Damage Save for the sake of simplicity.

On other alternative I like, e.g. for Power Armor minions, would be to have them not fall if they take 1 hit (still fall for a stunned, etc. result), but fall if they fail a second damage save by any amount.

Minions that can with stand any first hit?
Bah!
If you can have armor like this, I want in for my regular villains.

Nope, as I said, they wouldn't simply fall if they took a first hit, but would still fall if the damage result was a stunned effect, etc. By "hit", I mean the technical term (i.e., miss your damage save by 1 to 5), not simply being hit.

[Strand0]

I like simply increasing the Damage Save for the sake of simplicity.

On other alternative I like, e.g. for Power Armor minions, would be to have them not fall if they take 1 hit (still fall for a stunned, etc. result), but fall if they fail a second damage save by any amount.

Minions that can with stand any first hit?
Bah!
If you can have armor like this, I want in for my regular villains.

Nope, as I said, they wouldn't simply fall if they took a first hit, but would still fall if the damage result was a stunned effect, etc. By "hit", I mean the technical term (i.e., miss your damage save by 1 to 5), not simply being hit.

I don't follow you. That is already the way I run Minions. Heroes hit them, then they get a Damage save.
Are you saying that you have not been giving them a Damage save?
No wonder they were puny humans.

[slaughterj]

I like simply increasing the Damage Save for the sake of simplicity.

On other alternative I like, e.g. for Power Armor minions, would be to have them not fall if they take 1 hit (still fall for a stunned, etc. result), but fall if they fail a second damage save by any amount.

Minions that can with stand any first hit?
Bah!
If you can have armor like this, I want in for my regular villains.

Nope, as I said, they wouldn't simply fall if they took a first hit, but would still fall if the damage result was a stunned effect, etc. By "hit", I mean the technical term (i.e., miss your damage save by 1 to 5), not simply being hit.

I don't follow you. That is already the way I run Minions. Heroes hit them, then they get a Damage save.
Are you saying that you have not been giving them a Damage save?
No wonder they were puny humans.

Argh!

IIRC, if a minion is hit, the minion rolls a damage save. If the minion fails this save *at all*, they fall.

In contrast, my suggestion for a tougher minion would be that if the minion is hit, they roll a damage save (like normal). If the tougher minion makes the damage save or if they fail the damage save by -1 to -5 (i.e., the same as when a super takes a "hit", not like a normal minion), then the minion stays up. But if the tougher minion fails the damage save by more than -5 (i.e., into the "Stunned" range) from any hit, they still fall, and *any* subsequent time in which they are hit and take a "hit" after the first "hit", they fall.

Here's a chart for the tougher minion idea I had:

Minion gets hit:
1. If Minion unhurt and makes damage save - no affect
2. If Minion unhurt and fails damage save by -1 to -5 - takes a "hit"
3. If Minion unhurt and fails damage save by -6 or more - minion falls
4. If Minion hurt (i.e., already took a "hit" - see #2 above), and fails damage save - minion falls

[Strand0]

Oh! Good we are doing it the same way.

[GL_Rayner]

I say that they should just get an increased damage save since they are really easy to take down as of now. Oh, and hey, just joined.

[Argos]

A rule I'm going to try out is this:

A minion can take a number of hits equal to their power level. If those hits are stun hits, or a combination of stun and lethal hits, they're out. If those hits are lethal hits, they're dead.

We also use a house rule that states that if a damage save is failed by more than 15, the character is unconsious (stun) or dying (lethal); in addition, the character takes an additional hit for each point the roll failed by over 16. Additionally, the Fort save to avoid death is 9 + current lethal hits - makes things a bit grittier. Had to, since I'm running a game converted from GURPS Cyberworld w/metas.

[slaughterj]

A rule I'm going to try out is this:

A minion can take a number of hits equal to their power level. If those hits are stun hits, or a combination of stun and lethal hits, they're out. If those hits are lethal hits, they're dead.

Hmmm, I don't bother giving minions a PL, I just give them:
BAB, BDB, Saves/Prot, and Weapon damage.