Minions Improved

A pack of gnolls is led by a one-eyed archer with five long scars, surrounded as always by a line of spear-wielding warriors.

A maddened elemental walks across the land, dripping pools of fire that come alive and attack anyone who approaches.

The Leader of the GoodLight Cult never leaves their Throne of Luxury, carried about by swarms of poor and emaciated followers.

There's a lot of the time when you have some great character to unleash on the players, someone who is much improved by having some lesser people with them.

However, DnD's standard approach of knowing a lot about every character means that as you add minions you usually get a lot more to keep track of as a DM and add a lot of cognitive load, without really having the minions work as a cohesive group or story element, and most of what you know about the minions doesn't really matter, either.

Here's a bit of a simplification I've come up with that makes minions much easier to design, create, and track, and makes them all work together flexibly to fulfill whatever story and mechanical role you like.

They'll be operating as a group, so make one and clone it as many times as the situation calls for.

Basic Rules:

Let's begin with the central conceit:

Special Rule: 'Minion' - a minion who takes damage while wounded immediately dies.

No more tracking Hit Points - just track if they are wounded or not.

When building minions, we'll set their HP so that players can - but not necessarily will - kill minions in one hit. It's an action economy reward: if a player can hit hard enough to kill in one hit, they don't have to spend another attack on the minion.

Current minion balance is HP = 1d6 * party level.

When placing minions you can have a set number from the start or have them be generated or brought in somehow.

They are designed to enhance other challenges (both leaders and environmental challenges), so there is no set number you should put down to get a given CR.

A group of minions shares a single intitiative. On their turn, they all use their movement in any order, then they all take their action in any order.

If they have bonus actions to take, they take them in any order after their actions.

Reactions are given to the group as a whole - they do not have individual reactions.

By default, they can perform a single attack of opportunity per round. (That is, if one minion uses an attack of opportunity, no others will until the next round)

They share perception and make single perception and stealth checks.

Align mechanics and story role:

Minions are created by taking a basic stat block (below) and adding whatever mechanics it needs, such as cold immunity, a fly speed, or darkvision, as well as a couple of mechanical fudges such as +2 to attack or -4 to wisdom saves.... though the exact numbers don't really matter, just go down the list adding one or two in the stat blocks. The stat block isn't that important, most of the work is done by flavour rules.

Create flavour by special rules that add leader interactions, additional options for actions or bonus actions, and contingencies such as "on death" or "when created".

When creating special actions or bonus actions, you can give each the option individually or create a number of charges between the group.

Use these rules to create the challenge environment that you want.

Bonus Action: A group of clockwork contraptions might have the following special rule, in this case allowed for every minion rather than having a number of shared charges.

Self-Detonate: A Clanging Charger Minion can use bonus action to explode, dealing 1d6 electricity damage to all adjacent squares. Reflex save DC 11 for half. Using this bonus action kills the minion.

Leader Interaction: A leader, such as the Gnoll Pack Leader mentioned above, might have this special action:

Ready Spears: the Gnoll Pack Leader grants his followers three additional shared reactions that they can use for attacks of opportunity.

Note: this would allow one minion to opportunity attack three times, provided an attack of opportunity was triggered three independent times.

Action Option: This special rule example would work well for a group of trickster minions, such as fey.

Baleful Blink: A Winged Greyling Minion can use their action to teleport 40ft, taking another character with them. If the character is not willing, they can attempt a DC 14 charisma save to negate the effect. This can be used up to two times per turn by the Winged Greylings.

Note: This time, we limit the number of total uses available... otherwise, ten of them could try to teleport a player over a cliff, essentially just waiting for them to roll low.

Contingency: This special rule is something I would apply to living-ice style monsters, to make a situation where an open environment becomes harder and harder to navigate.

Deathfreeze: when a Chill Figure dies, they leave a patch of liquid ice in the space they occupied. Any who step in it take 2d6 cold damage (no save).

Just so you can see how this works, here's the basic stat block and a worked example.

BASIC TEMPLATE: Level X Minion.

For a standard encounter, they should be the same level as the party.

Minions have the same proficiency score as a PC of their level.

Size: whatever you want.

HP: Xd6

AC: 10 + proficiency.

Attack: Pick a weapon from the PHB. They have those, they do that damage, the attack bonus is proficiency * 1.5. If your minions use their bare hands or natural attacks... just pick a weapon that sounds like it does something similar.

For every three levels, add +1d6 to minion damage. Don't forget you can make some or all of their damage elemental damage or necrotic or whatever.

Speed: 30ft

Skills: + proficiency bonus, though not actually proficient if a rule asks about it.

Ability scores: All 10. One point of ability damage is a wound, anything more kills it.

Save proficiencies: pick two or three as seems right.

Damage vulnerabilities, resistances and immunities: as appropriate.

Condition immunities: can it be poisoned? does it have a mind?

Senses: passive perception = 10 + proficiency bonus.

Note: these are basically low-scoring all-rounders. It's an approximation used to keep the cognitive load on the DM to a minimum. They don't use their scores much anyhow, especially ability scores.

Clanging Chargers Example:

"You'll never take me alive!" - those were the words of the vengeful gnome tinkerer as she ran inside her home. As you follow you can see that she has pulled open cupboards and wardrobes and all kinds of spaces.... now filled with an ominous humming. At the end of the hallway, she stands with the activation stone in one hand a light crossbow the other.

These minions are designed for a level 1 party, to add a 'race against the clock' element to a fight, and to present a bit of a dilemma in cramped spaces (the gnome's home).

Roll initiative for the group of minions at the beginning of the fight. Two more appear from random containers at initiative 20 every turn. They will try and stab enemies with their spear, and will use the detonate bonus action if they are wounded.

Note: When creating monsters like this, a simple idea of "what actions does it want to take" makes everything much easier.

From the wardrobe on your right you hear a humming, and then a doll-like figure runs out! It has the janky steps of a clockwork creation, is a little smaller than the tinkerer herself, and buzzes ominously. It is painted to resemble the tinkerer, and holds a thin metal spear in its hands

Clanging Charger (basic stat block fudged to be a bit more warrior-like, and to be easy to hit to rapidly introduce the explode-when-wounded idea)

Size: Small (as gnome)

HP: 4 (I added one)

AC: 11 (I removed two, wanted them to be easy to hit)

Attack: spear thrust + 3, 1d6 damage

Speed: 25ft (gnome-like)

Skills: +2

Ability scores: All 10. One point of ability damage is a wound, anything more kills it.

Save proficiencies: int, wis, cha. (wanted them to seem singleminded, like the tinker. Play up in flavour when describing their actions.)

Damage vulnerabilities, resistances and immunities: vulnerable to electricity, immune to poison

Condition immunities: immune to poisoned.

Senses: passive perception = 12

Self-Detonate: A Clanging Charger Minion can use bonus action to explode, dealing 1d6 electricity damage to all adjacent squares. Reflex save DC 11 for half. Using this bonus action kills the minion.

Minion: A minion who takes damage when wounded immediately dies.

Note: If you want to know what made me think of this, see the two fights with Duggar in Critical Role Campaign 3: Episode 3 after the break, Episode 5 also after the break.

Matt Mercer had made a number of simplifications to help himself keep track, but still relied on his skill level at DM'ing. Not something I could have matched.