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D&D Ideas — Minions for 5E D&D

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is minions for 5E D&D, which we discussed in our live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of minions for 5E D&D, in Devil’s Hospitality adventurers contend with a devious fiend and their minions before the contract they’re tricked into binds their souls forever. This and 54 other dynamic encounters ready to drop right into your game come straight Out of the Box here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates, info on how to game with Nerdarchy and ways to save money on RPG stuff by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons is amalgamation of every edition of D&D that came before it with a couple of new bits and bobs. Fourth edition D&D was probably the most controversial of the editions. Even still the designers snuck in pieces from that edition to 5E D&D quite a lot really.

One of the things I was surprised and disappointed that didn’t get added from 4E D&D is minions. Granted it’s not a big deal for those who are familiar with this edition and veteran Dungeon Masters who are used to tinkering with the rules. The sadness is for the new DMs or those unfamiliar with 4E D&D.

What are minions for D&D?

Minions are just like other monsters of equal challenge with a few exceptions. One, they only have a single hit point and are destroyed if they take any damage. If a minion passes a saving throw from an effect that causes half damage on a successful save instead they take no damage.

Those are the mechanical aspects of it. But what is the reason for it’s design? Minions allow a DM to pit hordes of monsters against adventurers and have it be meaningful.

In previous editions this never really worked. Either it wasn’t a challenge for the characters or these encounters would be overwhelming for them. The solution is a minion type monster. They aren’t any easier to hit than similar monsters of the same challenge. And they aren’t any less effective at attacking the party. At the same time they die easily. This is the perfect combination to create cinematic encounters. Characters are still in danger but at the same time they can stand against hordes of monsters. Every blow they fell another enemy. If they have abilities to strike more enemies then more enemies will be struck down.

To add minions to your game all you need do is drop a monster’s hit points to 1. Second, anytime a minion would take damage from a failed saving throw they instead take no damage.

From Ted’s Head

I am sure you can take the concept of fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons minions, creatures with only 1 hit point, and have fun with it or heck, you could even talk about using underlings and hirelings to get the job done but sometimes you need to just bring in the hilarity of the real world, so I want to talk about the Minions in 5E D&D. That is right. Little yellow creatures with blue overalls that are complete idiots but yet somehow survive their idiocy, can speak their own tongue as well as invent crazy things.

Their language — Minionese (a totally made-up language) — contains English, Spanish, French, Filipino and also a little bit of Italian. Needless to say they’re low key bilingual geniuses. Based on the movies they all seem to be proficient in at least one tool set and are always willing to try something new even if it is dangerous.

If you are playing with the artificer class in 5E D&D then these creatures, clearly from their own plane of existence, could be the ones to introduce it to your world. They would use these tools to fix things or make things if left to their own devices. And those devices they make should have a chance of working, failing or being something else entirely.

I feel any small beast stat block could work as a base. Bring the Intelligence up to at least 6 and maybe play around with those other mental ability scores. Given their proclivity for self destruction maybe their Wisdom needs to be lower than 10 as well, but they are just so darn cute, maybe they have a decent Charisma of 14, maybe?

These are the type of creatures that would deserve a random roll chart of gadgets and doodads, maybe a d6 or d8. Two items should be silly and worthless like a parachute with air holes or a water breathing mask that’s a fishbowl full of water. But then you could have other items that do a random damage type and one option that does less damage but covers an area.

Lastly I would consider that you rarely see Minions taking lasting damage. Do they regenerate, do they resist all damage types or maybe only the common types?

What do you think — are minions too ridiculous for 5E D&D? What kind of plane would create creatures like this? Do greater versions exist? Ones as big as humans and not as stupid and actually make beautiful works of art?

From the Nerditor’s desk

Between the live chat and Nerdarchists Dave and Ted’s editorial on minions in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons I feel we’ve covered the concept pretty thoroughly in terms of translating them from fourth edition D&D.

So for my contribution I’m going to share a fast and dirty method I use in my 5E D&D games to represent minions on the fly. No, not the creatures that are destroyed by taking any kind of damage but otherwise operate like any other creature. I’m talking about old fashioned minions — followers and subordinates of entities in power.

With a collection of a few key pieces of information you can bust out minions in numbers large or small any time conflict arises unexpectedly. Along with a dash of thematic flavor for your minions to line up with the forces they serve and a healthy dose of imagination and description you’re all set.

Minion Damage

• Tier 1 (1st-4th level). Minor: 1d10, Tough: 2d10, Deadly: 4d10
• Tier 2 (5th-10th level). Minor: 2d10, Tough: 4d10, Deadly: 10d10
• Tier 3 (11th-16th level). Minor: 4d10, Tough: 10d10, Deadly: 18d10
• Tier 4 (17th-20th level). Minor: 10d10, Tough: 18d10, Deadly: 24d10

The damage type should be whatever fits the minion. If it’s firing a crossbow it’s piercing. Slamming with a fist is bludgeoning and so forth. To flavor minions to their masters just make one or more of the dice deal an appropriate damage type. In the singular case of the Tier 1 Minor minion, it makes sense it wouldn’t do anything too fancy but if you want to imagine minions shooting flaming arrows just cut the damage in half between piercing and fire or whatever makes sense.

Minion Armor Class

• Tier 1. Minor: 10, Tough: 13, Deadly: 18
• Tier 2. Minor: 13, Tough: 15, Deadly: 20
• Tier 3. Minor: 15, Tough: 18, Deadly: 23
• Tier 4. Minor: 18, Tough: 20, Deadly: 25

Armor Class reflects whatever quality the minion ought to possess. The minor minions serving a Tier 1 villain are easily struck and defeated but by the time adventurers face rank and file minions of a Tier 4 villain even those mooks get outfitted with plate armor.

Minion Hit Points

• Tier 1. Minor: 1, Tough: 65, Deadly: 130
• Tier 2. Minor: 65, Tough: 130, Deadly: 210
• Tier 3. Minor: 130, Tough: 210, Deadly: 325
• Tier 4. Minor: 210, Tough: 325, Deadly: 650

Even for a capped out party at 20th level at some point a mob of AC 10, 1 hit point minions dealing 1d10 damage can be a problem. At the very least they take up space, making maneuvering more difficult and chipping away at character resources.

There are certainly many more components you can apply to minions in your 5E D&D game. Movement speeds like fly or burrow, cool special features and the like can make your secretly generic minions as spectacular as you want.

The key thing to remember with minions like these is they’re more representative of dramatic conflict and pacing than a tactical threat. I’ve use these ballpark attributes during games for things like weird flying animating cloaks to rival bounty hunters to demons of the Abyss.

Your mileage may vary and in a tactile, tactical game with precision players whose characters are put to the task at every turn these on the fly ad hoc minions probably won’t go over too terribly well. On the other hand breaking the tension, adjusting the pacing or simply reacting to unexpected character actions (because that never happens right?) gets a little smoother and easier with a quick way to challenge adventurers in combat.