I wanted to get some clarification on how minion groups work in combat.

Q1 - Attacking minions where the attack has enough advantage to trigger the critical value of its weapon more than once.

There's a little example blurb on page 158 that says "Example: Multiple Critical Injuries. Pash the smuggler fires his blaster at a Rodian mercenary, generating a total of three Critical Injuries! Pash rolls one Critical, but adds +20 to the result." The bullet point description of minions says that "Minions are killed by Critical Injuries". If Pash had shot at a group of 4 minions, would his (her?) attack have instantly killed three minions (assuming that's what the player had chosen to spend their advantage on)?

Q2 - Running up and punching a group of gun toting thugs in the face.

So once again, we've got a group of 4 minions armed with blaster rifles. On his turn, Randy P. Knifeweilder runs up and stabs one of them for no particular effect. The next time the minion's turn comes up, how should it be handled?

Option 1. The minion group is really just treated like one entity. Randy P. K. is now engaged with that group, so they will attack Randy as a single character would and will suffer the penalty for firing a ranged weapon at close range while engaged with an opponent.

Option 2. Randy is now engaged with one individual minion who will return fire all by himself as a character weilding a ranged weapon whilst engaged. The remaning three minions will act as a group and shoot at the pairing of Randy and Minion Q. Suddenlyfeelingveryalone suffering the penalties for shooting into an engagement.

Option 3. Something else I didn't think of?

The book says 'Minions can fight as a group', but I'm curious if other people would split groups up (or combine groups of stragglers) as situations warrant, and if so, how would you play that situation?

Q1: I think as you can only crit once, only one minion would die. So there would be no effect from triggering multiple crits on minions and one should use the advantages for other effects. But I could be mistaken. That is how I did it until now, because then some Weapons would kill minion groups even faster.

Q2: Option 1 is the right one, but as you are the GM you could also split them up if you wanted. But as far as the rules suggest I think Option 1 is right.

Q1: I think as you can only crit once, only one minion would die. So there would be no effect from triggering multiple crits on minions and one should use the advantages for other effects. But I could be mistaken. That is how I did it until now, because then some Weapons would kill minion groups even faster.

Q2: Option 1 is the right one, but as you are the GM you could also split them up if you wanted. But as far as the rules suggest I think Option 1 is right.

Q1: Luthor has the Rules as Written. Some GMs allow each additional crit kill an additional minion. Our group ran that way for a while but we found it to be excessive and too easy to mow down minions, especially with a modded up knife that can crit on 1 Advantage.

Q2: I agree with Luthor. For sake of simplicity my GM usually keeps minion groups engaged with each other so when the PC charges in they are engaged with everyone. One thing to remember is that each round is a full minute. So, if this was a movie, the PC would be dancing around all of the minions and plunking some hits on all of them, while they try to shoot him. That's why they are all considered as one entity.

Q2: It's probably easiest to simply have the minion group spend a maneuver to disengage the PC and then fire at short range. If the PC happened to generate two threat on the attack, the enemy could get that maneuver for free and the GM might describe it as the minions clearing out a circle and surrounding the PC. Then on their turn, they take aim, gain a Boost die, and focus their fire at point-blank range on Randy P. K.

Q1-This has come up more than once so I sent in a rules question.

Q2-I would disengage and fire from short range.

Forgot to mention something, there is nothing that says a group of minions has to be deployed engaged with one another. They could be spread out in a skirmish line 15 feet in between them. There might be some on a catwalk above others. The rules do not require them to be neatly grouped together on a single level to make life easy for the melee character.

You can only crit once per target. Minion groups are not a single target. We allow multiple crits on minions. It makes crits more fun with minions and speeds up combat. It also fits with what we see in the movies as Jedi mow through many minions in a few seconds.

To go with the only one minion per crit makes guns too good against minions as melee weapons are often less powerful (in terms of raw damage), particularly once mods and the like get applied. It's hard to make melee do more damage with mods, but it's fairly easy with blasters. Our outlaw tech does a minimum of 15 per shot with pistols. In most cases that's at least two minions, if she's double fisting she gets four most rounds. A marauder needs a sweet roll to get four advantage with his mono-filament knife.

At the end of the Day a GM has as many minions as he wants. If the PCs are killing them too fast, just add more. Why risk combat turning into a slog fest as the Marauder kills them one at a time? Ten rounds later...