QUARTA edizione 4th - estratti monster manual i MINIONS

un simpatico dietro le quinte che spiega la logica di alcuni mostri
con 1 hp :)

Excerpts: Minions
4th Edition Monster Manual

In today’s preview, R&D’s Stephen Schubert guides us through the
development of 4E’s minions. Although they may not stay in the fight
for long, they now have a more useful role than ever!

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The evil baron calls for his guards, the orc chieftain leads a
screaming horde in a terrible charge, the necromancer animates a dozen
skeletons that rise to fight the PCs. The D&D game is full exciting
scenes and encounters where the PCs must face a potentially
overwhelming number of foes. In previous editions of the game, these
encounters might have been filled with low-level “mooks” who would be
promptly ignored by the PCs, since the PCs usually possessed
sufficient AC or saving throws that they could ignore attacks from
dozens of CR1 goblins or skeletons.

In the 4th Edition of D&D, we wanted to capture the concept of those
creatures, but provide a rules framework that let them be a relevant
part of the encounter. To this end, we created the minion role as a
rules construct to allow a DM to more easily include such monster
hordes.

Goals of the minion:
Drop in one hit: the minion essentially does his job if it can keep a
PC occupied for a turn. Depending on its level and role, a typical
monster might take four to six basic attacks to knock out. To provide
the same amount of challenge, a group of four to six minions should
take about the same number of actions. For a while, we considered
giving minions some small amount of hit points, a small enough number
that they would drop in one hit. But then we ran into a few situations
where the minion would take only a few points of damage, forcing the
DM to track minion hit points anyway. Eventually, we realized that the
best way to make sure they go down in one hit is by giving them a
single hit point. (You could think of it as if you are always doing
enough damage to kill it.)

Have sufficient defenses: A PC should hit a minion at about the same
rate as that PC would hit a typical monster of the same level. If the
PC only misses on a natural 1, then that part of the fight becomes
trivial. Thus, the minion’s defenses are set using the same scale as
other monsters of its level. Similarly, while minions are meant to be
easily dispatched, we didn’t want it to be too easy, so we decided
that minions shouldn’t die when missed by an attack roll, even if that
attack would normally deal damage on a hit. Of course, they might
still die if they take damage from other sources, like walking through
a wall of fire or getting hit by a Cleave from a fighter.

Have a meaningful attack: Minions shouldn’t automatically fail at
their attacks, or always be hoping for a natural 20. Their attack
bonus should be similar to monsters of their level, though their
damage is a fraction of other monsters. One minion attacking a PC is
more of a nuisance, but a group of them can be as dangerous as any
monster. The damage for minions is always flat instead of rolled,
which again helps speed up play as the DM only needs to roll one die
for each minion.


Using Minions
A cool aspect of the minion idea is the way that you can scale your
encounters as PCs progress through the Heroic, Paragon, and Epic
tiers, while still using similar creature types throughout the
campaign. An 8th level encounter might involve battling ogres, but
later in that campaign you might have an earth titan that has enslaved
an ogre tribe, and thus create a 16th level encounter with an elite
earth titan and a bunch of ogre bludgeoneer minions. You can create
fun Paragon-level encounters using abyssal ghouls (16th level
skirmishers with 156 hp), then a few levels later stock your Epic-
level encounter with abyssal ghoul myrmidons (23rd level minions).

When you use minions, you should use those of a level appropriate to
the encounter you’re building. The concept of minions is to provide
fun filler for encounters, not to provide a way for a 1st level
character to gain 1,000+ XP for defeating a 23rd-level abyssal ghoul
minion by rolling a natural 20. Minions are a rules abstraction, and
one of the many tools a DM has to build exciting encounters.

Also keep your party makeup in mind when using minions, as well. PCs
with attacks that target more than one enemy or that target an area
will love fights against minions, and it provides a nice contrast
with, say, a solo monster fight where those abilities are less useful.
--Stephen Schubert

[size=18pt]DEVILS[/size]

From the Monster Manual Glossary:

Minion: Minions are designed to serve as shock troops and cannon
fodder for other monsters (standard, elite, or solo). Four minions are
considered to be about the same as a standard monster of their level.
Minions are designed to help fill out an encounter, but they go down
quickly.

A minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage. Damage from
an attack or from a source that doesn’t require an attack roll (such
as the paladin’s divine challenge or the fighter’s cleave) also
destroys a minion. However, if a minion is missed by an attack that
normally deals damage on a miss, it takes no damage.

[url=http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/Minions.zip]Download the Legion
Devil Minion PDF[/url]

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--
Fabio
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