We all love minions (or we should) but sometimes, particularly at paragon and above, it can be hard to find a good use for them. We might throw sixteen minions instead of four but the result is the same – a blood bath with hardly a scratch on the PCs.
Today we’re going to look at unique ways to use minions for greater effect. These ways go beyond simply swarming your PCs hoping to get that tiny 7 damage hit in. Instead, we look at unique ways for minions to challenge your players. Let us begin.
Aid Another
One often forgotten tactic that offers little for creatures OTHER than minions is the “aid another” action. Say you have a nasty monster that has a particularly powerful attack. He might order his minions to grab the arms of one of the PCs before he attempts it. The minion makes a basic melee attack against AC10 (a pretty easy hit to make) to grant the bigger monster a +2 bonus to hit. These bonuses are untyped and thus stack. So two or three minions might pile onto someone to give that vampire lord a much greater chance at his nasty domination. Use a readied action to make it even more powerful. The minions ready an action that, as soon as the big bad nasty shouts “now”,they will all simultaneously grab the PC just as the big nasty inflicts his powerful attack.
Heal Check
This is one I heard about on Radio Free Hommlet’s “House Rules” episode. Like “aid another”, minions can perform a heal check to help larger creatures. Say you have a powerful solo creature who just got stunned or dazed by your PCs. Instead of keeping it on its back for a round or more, have one of your minions run up and perform a heal check on it to give them a free quick saving throw with a d20+level+wis mod vs. DC15. A few minions might give the monster a few chances in a row since minions generally have many more standard actions overall than any other creature of the same experience budget.
Using Terrain Powers
The DMG2 added in a most excellent feature called the “terrain power”. These powers, tied to specific terrain elements, are designed for PCs and creatures to fire off new and interesting effects. While you should generally intend for PCs to use such powers, every so often giving one of your little goblins a chance to throw the big log down on top of the PCs can add quite a bit of dynamic excitement to the encounter. For greater fun, make it clear that, should any minion reach the switch, life will end very badly for the PCs. Now instead of just killing swarms of minions, they are killing them with clear suspenseful purpose.
Use DMG2 Damage
For a final tip, make sure to update all the minions you use with the new minion damage chart on page X of the DMG2. This will make your minions quite a bit more challenging. Also be sure to use six minions at paragon and eight at epic instead of the normal four as also outlined in the DMG2.
With these tips, you might find quite a bit more utility and your PCs will find a bit more of a challenge when facing the hordes that come their way.
Excellent post. I’m a huge fan of Aid Another in particular. It’s one of the best manoeuvres in the game whatever side of the table you’re sitting, and deserves a lot more love.
Mind if I toss a couple more tricks into the midst?
@Greywofl: Not at all! those are some great ideas.
Whenever possible, try to pair minions up with a capital-L Leader monster. Most minions (or so it appeared in my last tour through the Monster Manuals) have a corresponding leader that can give them some extra benefit, such as out-of-turn movement (good for getting out of start-of-turn auto damage) or an extra attack when the minion is killed. If there is no corresponding leader, or the corresponding leader doesn’t make sense for your encounter, try to give some monster in the group a “leadery” power, like a beneficial aura, that will help out the minions.
Aid Another can also be used to provide an untyped +2 bonus to defenses, perhaps preventing the boss from becoming stunned in the first place. And don’t forget Aid Another for skills. The boss might like help hiding, or jumping, or climbing, or performing the last step of a ritual. Minions can also just make skill checks on their own. (“Where did he go, you fools?” “I see him, Master! He’s over here! He’s overGAAAK.”)
Finally (for now) it’s possible that minions using Heal could allow a monster to spend a healing surge. Most monsters don’t have a “second wind” but they do have healing surges, so it makes sense that a DC 10 Heal check by a minion would let them spend one.
Thank you for this! I like tossing minions at my wizard player, but obviously it’s going to get old fast if they’re never anything more than a mild speed bump as he marches through the dungeon. These are some good ideas to help me keep them around (since they play to his strength) but still make them useful to me in combat.
Really good ideas here – I particularly like the use of Healing Minions (Healions?). A few skill trained minions could really give PCs a run for their money when facing a nice solo monster. I’m sort of envisioning the handlers for the Rancor ala SW:RotJ…
Top tips there. More stuff to remind me I should really buy DMG2 though. *grins*
I love the “Lurching Sacrifice” power that pack zombies have: whenever an adjacent non-minion ally is hit by a melee attack, the zombie dives in front of the strike and takes 5 points of the damage. He dies immediately and the main target takes reduced damage.
I’m working on an encounter now where a large creature (ogre, maybe?) will be literally throwing one or two small minions at the party on each turn. On a hit, the target takes some damage and is knocked prone, and now has a minion standing nearby. On a miss the minion lands one or two squares behind the party…and is now in a position to start flanking.
Can’t wait to start using Aid Another!
Aid Another will happen the next time my PCs encounter a group with minions.
Good idea.
The suggested minion damage chart is on page 133 of DMG2. I’m not sure it’s much more than they had before, if any. It will however make it easier for you to design your own minions.
With my melee-heavy party, one tactic I found very effective was ranged minions. I had a couple bandit minions with crossbows standing back and firing at everyone. The group took some significant damage from them while they were dealing with the main bad guys. That was months before DMG2 or MM2 and alternate minion roles.
Thanks for the suggestions as to how to make them more useful, especially Aid Another.