Opinion on this house rule please.

If I understand the Minion rules correctly, the minion group makes ONE attack for the entire group. Which is fine, I can see the hail of fire from multiple minions being one attack. And the ranks in skills for more minions makes them more effective as they can cover more angles and bring more firepower to bare.

What struck me, is if it’s a group of 4 minions, and just ONE of them ends up in Melee, it seems as though the choice becomes:

A: The rest of the minions shoot at unengaged targets, with their ranks of skills as per RAW.

B: The group makes one attack in Melee, with ranks in skills as per RAW.

What bothered me, is that this felt like the entire squad of minions just.. stopped shooting, and watch their mate fight in melee, and this somehow helps the lone guy fighting hand to hand.

So my houserule so far is thus (using a Squad of 4 Stormtroopers as example)

The Squad can shoot using 3 ranks of Skill (Ranged Light)

One of the troopers is subsequently engaged by a single player, while the rest remain unengaged.

The Minion group now have TWO attacks (As opposed to one), one being a single NO SKILL RANKS Melee, against the engaged player, and the other being a ranged attack by the rest of the Minion Group (But this time at 2 ranks of Ranged Light, as the engaged trooper is not supporting his comrades)

Equally, if another trooper joins the same Melee, so they are fighting 2 on one:

The Melee attack is now at 1 Rank of Melee skill

The Ranged attack is at 1 rank of Ranged Light

(Additionally, if the Engaged Trooper wishes to continue to fire with his squad, it would add a setback die to the roll, to indicated his lower effectiveness due to Melee, but the group maintains their 3 ranks of Ranged Light)

What do you think?

Would this make Minion Groups much easier to defeat, by simply splitting them up and reducing their effectiveness (Which makes sense in my head), but that can be counteracted by increasing the size of the Minion group.

Thoughts?

RD

You're overthinking this, you don't need a house rule, just regroup the minions on the fly. You can do this any time.

So if one of four minions gets charged in melee, that one minion is in melee, and the other three are in their own group with the now reduced dice pool. They can then shoot or do whatever.

Since the minion group is typically moving together, if a PC moves to Engaged range on one of them, he'll be Engaged with all of them. So all the minions are in melee with the PC and, thus, they are all fighting together (rather than watching but not helping).

[EDIT] Beat me by one minute.

Or, spend the maneuver, disengage, and shoot.

I wasnt aware I could regroup them at will....

So in essence I could fire 1 shot a turn, with 3 ranks in Ranged Light

Or 4 shots a turn with No ranks in Ranged Light

or anything in between.

So ive house ruled something that is RAW... Duh

Yep. It makes sense to be able to regroup them, because they might get scattered by events, or through attrition two groups might be down to a couple guys each, then they regroup as one unit. The latter would make most sense for combat-capable minions like stormtroopers, whereas random thugs probably wouldn't be as likely.

Fantastic insight.... thank you all.

Ive house ruled something I didnt need to!

I am assuming that the initiative slots remain the same, and the troopers act all at once, rather than having to re-roll for a new slot.

Either way, I wouldnt bother doing that, its bookkeeping I can do without!

I would use the same initiative slot but I would burn a maneuver to represent the regrouping.

Oh if i was regrouping them, indeed that would make sense, I was refering to 'splitting' a group in combat to represent my above house rule and decide to let them fight as smaller groups.

Would I want to roll a new initiative slot for the new group? (Not really - why add more paper work?)

If I was certainly combining two groups, a maneuver would make sense, as per moving together, or a ranking member taking charge.

If they haven't acted yet in the turn I would just use the maneuver and split them and have them share the initiative slot. Minion groups are really more about convenience for the GM and maintaining some sanity in a combat as opposed to having to strictly follow some A to Z rules.

And that, 2P51, is why I am liking this system... given my unstable sanity, and my group of players, anything that helps is a boon!

Or just imagine them moving around and engaging in melee as a group, taking turns, getting multiple punches in, but doing the one Attack roll's worth of damage.

This is how it works with ranged attacks as well. It's not that 4 minions are standing there watching their buddy shoot at you with a blaster rifle. It's all 5 minions taking shots and the results are one Attack roll's worth of damage.

Definitely regroup the minions if you want to go to that trouble, but I'd argue that conceptually a melee fight with minions isn't any different than a ranged one.

Personally, I don't allow minions to combine into larger groups without a leader, like a sergeant, lieutenant, etc. I will split them if necessary, but generally if only 1 ends up in melee, it doesnt last long enough to matter.

As others have said it's fine and RAW to split and regroup Minions on the fly, I've done this myself for exactly the reason you've mentioned (the Minion group was spread out a bit and one entered melee). I wouldn't split them if they were all Engaged or otherwise close enough and unobstructed that one could reasonably argue that a PC could reach them all in a few steps. I would also suggest though that you split off the one(s) before any rolls are made.