Situation: a Nemesis surrounded by a group of his minions.

One of the PC throws a stun grenade targeting the minion group: it's defense is much lower than the Nemesis', and the chance to hit and generate 2 advantages or to miss and generate 3 advantages (to activate the blast) is MUCH higher than the chance to hit the Nemesis with a "direct throw" of the grenade.

This is all by the rules, correct?

If the Nemesis was alone, could the PC target the "floor" near the Nemesis? (hoping to activate the Blast)

If the Nemesis is Engaged with his Minions, it's a valid tactic to target them over him and catch him in the Blast. (A conservative tactic though - all the weapons I can find have a lower Blast rating than their base damage.)

If you need a rationale for this, imagine that as they're so close to one another, the Minions are getting in the way, stopping the Nemesis from dodging out of the way in time.

If he's by himself they'd have to target him, but they could still activate Blast if they miss (zero net successes) but still generate the Advantages.

In the case of targeting the minion group, that is correct.

As for throwing the grenade to land "adjacent" to the Nemesis, that I'd have to say no on that one. That the Blast quality can be activated on a failed attack roll already accounts for situations like that, where the explosive was just a little off to the side, but the boom still goes off and catches the original target in the explosion.

As for throwing the grenade to land "adjacent" to the Nemesis, that I'd have to say no on that one. That the Blast quality can be activated on a failed attack roll already accounts for situations like that, where the explosive was just a little off to the side, but the boom still goes off and catches the original target in the explosion.

Yes, but this condition (the triggering of the explosion of a missed grenade) is linked to the defense of the target... that's what can generate "strange results".

In the example above if the grenade was thrown at the Nemesis, then both the Nemesis and the minions had a lot of chances to remain undamaged; if the grenade was thrown at the minion group, then both the Nemesis and the minions had a lot of chances to get damaged.

This seems... strange to me.

People assume a group of minions equals a parade formation or a football huddle. There is nothing in the rules that says a minion group needs to be within any required range of one another at all. They could be spread out over medium range or longer, in fact it's pretty much day 1 tactical formation training that you aren't grouped closely precisely to avoid high casualties from a single blast. Consequently there is nothing that says a squad formed with a Nemesis needs to be standing right next to them. Honestly taking minute of angle into account it makes more sense for a grouped minion formation to close distance between an attacker and the Nemesis to be able to block more shots.

To keep it simple, let's assume the previous examples are with a Nemesis and a single friendly Minion remaining (engaged).

If the "weirdness" and "metagameiness" of aiming for the easy target simply to catch the hard target in the blast bothers you, then you might consider a house-rule like the following:

When attacking a group of enemies with a weapon possessing the Blast quality, the attack roll is always made against the most difficult target (i.e. the enemy with the highest Defense, the most ranks in the Adversary talent, et cetera is always the primary target of the attack roll).

I'm not sure whether this is a good rule or not overall; but it would eliminate the issue you're describing. Effectively, it treats the enemy group as a single target (for purposes of Blast weapons) with a defense equal to the best defense in the group.

Moreover, in a nod to "realism" (for those who care about such things) it makes Blast weapons behave a little more like they do in "real life". Namely, such weapons are almost never aimed at anyone per se - rather the are aimed at areas and the groups that occupy them. The "zone" is the target (not any specific occupant), and such weapons are so "big" that the idea of deliberately aiming for any specific individual is rather foolish anyway.

Matt's suggestion seems straightforward, and it also matches up with the Auto-Fire quality, which has a similar restriction, requiring you to aim first at the most difficult of the targets you want to hit.

In the squad rules in the AoR GM screen, I think that if a squad is in a loose formation, it increases the Advantage required to activate Blast. This could be one tool GMs use to represent squads that are more spread out.

Wow OverMatt, that was elegant, thoughtful and simple. I am not a huge fan of house rules, well, because most of they time they don't really make anything more simple or even better, usually they are things like I hate how this character is getting "too powerful", and I have to limit him, or I hate "classes" so this game sucks, and I have to make it better, or I don't understand the rules, so I am just going to make up my own force rules based on other games I have played, because I am too lazy to read that section.

Anyway, I digress. This is really a good idea. I may have to adopt this one day.

But for me, if my group were to tell me they try to hit the Minion group, not the BBEG with the grenade, I would not really look at it as "Metegaming". I look at that as a strategy to take out as many opponents as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible. Usually kind of the object of a fight. (Before your house rule, I would have had two defense rolls; Minion, Nemesis compared against one attack roll.)

Now on the other hand, if they say they are going to target the "square" adjacent to the Nemesis to get the lower "defense" or difficulty. I would just stop them right there and let them know, that is not my play style, that this is not Saga Edition, and Soldiers in combat don't look at their different targets and try to throw the grenade at the "weakest" one or a weak "area" next to they baddie. They do try to get the grenade on point, so it can do as much possible damage to the whole area as possible.

This is not Saga where they have the magic "Defense" number based on level and Class. This is about how difficult it is to hit that person based on range and obstacles. (Not ship combat, I know.) If they do have ranks of the Adversary Talent, by "aiming" at the ground next to them can't negate the fact that they still have these talents. If I have/had players try to do this, I will explain that is not my style of game, and that kind of gaming is not welcome at my table. That is very much the definition of Meta Gaming. If you choose to use that style of gaming, then no XP will be awarded.

Anyway, I have to say this is probably the first house rule that I have seen on here that I actually like.

I would have them make a separate roll against the nemesis, so his defense, talents, etc come into play.

If they knowingly target the minions with the intent of getting an easy hit on the nemesis, that's metagame abuse of the rules and i dock exp for rules abuses like that. It's definitely not in the spirit of the game.

If the Nemesis is Engaged with his Minions, it's a valid tactic to target them over him and catch him in the Blast. (A conservative tactic though - all the weapons I can find have a lower Blast rating than their base damage.)

It really isn't that conservative for the correct character. There are three Powerful Blast talents in the Demolitionist tree and a basic frag grenade only does two damage less on the blast. A good Demolitionist will actually do one more point in the blast because of those talents. Even more if he also goes Saboteur for the two Powerful Blast talents in that tree.

If the Nemesis is Engaged with his Minions, it's a valid tactic to target them over him and catch him in the Blast. (A conservative tactic though - all the weapons I can find have a lower Blast rating than their base damage.)

It really isn't that conservative for the correct character. There are three Powerful Blast talents in the Demolitionist tree and a basic frag grenade only does two damage less on the blast. A good Demolitionist will actually do one more point in the blast because of those talents. Even more if he also goes Saboteur for the two Powerful Blast talents in that tree.

Sounds like a fun mad-bomber-what-bombs-at-midnight build. May be cheaper to just buy up lots of ranks of Ranged: Light for the success-based damage.

If the Nemesis is Engaged with his Minions, it's a valid tactic to target them over him and catch him in the Blast. (A conservative tactic though - all the weapons I can find have a lower Blast rating than their base damage.)

It really isn't that conservative for the correct character. There are three Powerful Blast talents in the Demolitionist tree and a basic frag grenade only does two damage less on the blast. A good Demolitionist will actually do one more point in the blast because of those talents. Even more if he also goes Saboteur for the two Powerful Blast talents in that tree.

Sounds like a fun mad-bomber-what-bombs-at-midnight build. May be cheaper to just buy up lots of ranks of Ranged: Light for the success-based damage.

SPOON!!!

err... um... You get successes on the blast damage as well, so yeah buying up Ranged: Light would help do more damage as well. Actually, in my group the player is buying up Light, Heavy, and Gunnery. Bow and arrow is his primary weapon (knockdown is awesome), he throws grenades (and uses grenade arrows), and just picked up a grenade launcher. He also uses mechanics to set explosives. So just buying up the skill to do more damage gets pretty expensive.

It's an interesting build to watch especially since his answer to every problem is asking if he can blow it up. Need to steal a car? Blow up the door to get in. Need to convince people to join the rebels? Blow them up until they join. Our group is a little unhinged and very much like a "bad" action movie at times. Guardians of the Galaxy pretty much nailed our characters on the head.

When attacking a group of enemies with a weapon possessing the Blast quality, the attack roll is always made against the most difficult target (i.e. the enemy with the highest Defense, the most ranks in the Adversary talent, et cetera is always the primary target of the attack roll).

So, I’m thinking about this, and it occurs to me that the problem that you’re trying to solve here is that you’ve got one attack roll that is being used against multiple targets.

It is just one attack, so it should have the same opportunity to have the same behavior for all sets of targets, but some of those targets might be better equipped mentally or physically to avoid some of the effects. This is different from auto-fire where it is multiple blaster bolts or projectiles, and each bolt or projectile is separate and distinct from the others.

Perhaps it would be better to have the attack resolved separately against each class/group of targets?

So, still just one positive roll on the main attack, but then separate difficulty rolls for the Minions versus the Nemesis? Or maybe you roll the Minion difficulty roll first, and then add the appropriate difficulty di(e/ce) for the attack against the Nemesis?

So, if my Wookiee with 2 Agility and 2 ranks of Ranged Light were to throw a grenade from Short range at a Nemesis and his Minions, I might roll just two purple dice for the attack effects against the Minions (and be more likely to get a hit plus a blast activation), but then add a third or fourth purple die for the attack against the Nemesis?

What this could simulate is the fact that the Minions are not as well defended as the Nemesis, and the Nemesis is more likely to dive behind one or more of the Minions at the last moment and potentially avoid the blast damage.

Just thinking out loud here, but I do think this is a better solution.

Use the squad rules. The only target is the Nemesis. and they can slough the hit onto a minion. less likely to be enough advantage to activate blast. results in less weirdness.

Perhaps it would be better to have the attack resolved separately against each class/group of targets?

Yes, this would also avoid the original issue.

It would, obviously, require a little more die rolling and a slightly non-standard rule (a single set of positive dice against multiple sets of negative dice); but that's probably no big deal.

Although how would you handle the Blast quality activation with this rule? For example, suppose you roll the defense of the minions and are left with enough advantage to activate Blast. And suppose you also roll the higher defense of the nemesis but are not left with enough advantage to activate Blast. Is Blast activated? And if so, who does it hit?

Use the squad rules. The only target is the Nemesis. and they can slough the hit onto a minion. less likely to be enough advantage to activate blast. results in less weirdness.

What is the effect on a squad if the Blast quality is activated?

Use the squad rules. The only target is the Nemesis. and they can slough the hit onto a minion. less likely to be enough advantage to activate blast. results in less weirdness.

What is the effect on a squad if the Blast quality is activated?

It affects everyone who's engaged with the target, so if you as the Squad Leader assign the hit to one of the squad members, the blast quality affects every character engaged with that squad member.

There's also a formation designed to make it harder to blow up squad members this way.

Barring the Squad rules, if a group of minions is easier to target and leads to the Nemesis getting caught in the blast, it can be seen as the Nemesis' minions "getting in the way."

Like an "I'm surrounded by idiots!" situation.

It would, obviously, require a little more die rolling and a slightly non-standard rule (a single set of positive dice against multiple sets of negative dice); but that's probably no big deal.

I’m thinking it would be multiple partial sets of negative dice — you might start off with two negative dice for the Minions, and then for the Nemesis you roll a second pair of negative dice to add to the first pair.

Although how would you handle the Blast quality activation with this rule? For example, suppose you roll the defense of the minions and are left with enough advantage to activate Blast. And suppose you also roll the higher defense of the nemesis but are not left with enough advantage to activate Blast. Is Blast activated? And if so, who does it hit?

In this case, I would think that Blast was activated against the Minions, but there must have been some minions standing in the way or something that prevented the Blast from being activated against the Nemesis.

I’m thinking it would be multiple partial sets of negative dice — you might start off with two negative dice for the Minions, and then for the Nemesis you roll a second pair of negative dice to add to the first pair.

In this case, I would think that Blast was activated against the Minions, but there must have been some minions standing in the way or something that prevented the Blast from being activated against the Nemesis.

What do you think about this? Why not increase the Activation cost for Blast per ranks of Adversary if you want to catch the Nemesis in the blast? For two Advantages you set off the blast and hit all of the minions. That Adversary 1 guy caught in the blast? Gotta spend 1 more Advantage to hit him as well.

With something like this, it might be good to allow half damage to the Adversary if caught in the blast but not enough Advantages were spent to fully include him in the blast damage.

Why not increase the Activation cost for Blast per ranks of Adversary if you want to catch the Nemesis in the blast?

That's not a bad thought.

Indeed, you might, as a general house rule, apply the same idea to any active secondary weapon effect. i.e. In order to Burn/Ensnare/Knockdown/Et Cetera an opponent, you must roll the normal required number of advantage plus one additional advantage per rank of Adversary. Likewise, you would probably also apply this to the Crit ratings of weapons - to inflict a critical hit requires a number of advantage equal to the Crit rating of the weapon plus one per rank of Adversary had by the target.

This would make opponents with Adversary significantly harder to cripple, impair, and ultimately defeat since it would be quite difficult to inflict any secondary effects or critical hits upon them. They wouldn't be immune; but they would be quite resistant.

Whether such resistance is a good thing or a bad thing for the game would depend on one's preferences, I suppose.

That kind of thing seems like it'd get out of hand quickly

I wouldn't make it a blanket house rule, but it's something good to consider for the occasional bad guy, and mimics already-extant game mechanics anyway (like the Massive quality or the Center of Being talent).