I'm sure this has probably been answered, as it has been partially answered in the FAQS. The FAQ says:

"Soak is applied only once, and then the remaining damage applied to the group’s wound threshold. In this example, the group hit for 10 damage suffers 5 wounds. No members of the group are defeated, as the total wounds suffered has not yet exceeded an individual trooper’s wound threshold. If the same group were instead struck for 11 damage, the group would suffer 6 wounds and 1 trooper would be defeated. If the same group were instead struck for 15 damage, the group would suffer 10 wounds and 1 trooper would be defeated. When a trooper is defeated, the total wound threshold and wounds suffered by the minion group does not change, but the group loses the benefits of that additional minion on skill checks."

So in the case of 17 points of damage, after you apply the 5 points of soak, the remainder would be a total of 12 damage. This is more than twice the wound threshold of the stormtroopers.

Does this mean that 2 troopers would therefore bite the dust?

I see the predicament.

I believe 11 would get two of 'em. The damage is being applied to the group's Wound Threshold, the breakdown's just to see how many drop, yeah?

So is damage greater than an individual's WT? Yeah. Is it greater than WT x2? Yeah.

If the wound threshold is 5, then only one would be down because you have to exceed the wound threshold to put someone down. So a wound threshold of 5 requires a 6 to down and a 12 to down two people.

I know almost nothing, so when I am corrected by someone else, then it will be a learning experience for me too.

OK, that **** maths! I've edited my initial question to be 17 total damage.

The math:
17 damage - 5 soak = 12 damage
12 damage - 6 wounds (5+1 to exceed the wound threshold) = 6 damage (remainder)
6 damage - 6 wounds = 0 (with 2 remainder)

Therefore 2 Stormtroopers die.

Can I also assume that 2 more wounds would be applied to the next stormtrooper as it exceeded the total wound threshold of two stormtroopers (10 wounds) by being 2 more than was required (i.e. 12).

My head is starting to hurt :S

Where would you get the extra 2? the wounds to exceed are "spent" already. The 12 total damage dispatched/defeated/eliminated the 2 Storm Troopers, you cannot spend damage again, it is gone. It went through their armor and ended up in their chest/arms/face/wherever.

The way I'm reading it, the minion group has a single combined wound threshold and as you exceed each benchmark, they drop one at a time. 11 damage after soak would down 2 storm troopers because the minion group would be left with 4 wound threshold (assuming a minion group of 3). I'm away from book right now so I can't look over the section to see if there is verbiage there that would change my understanding.

11 damage would drop 2 stormtroopers and take one damage off a third. 4 more would drop the third.

This is how I see the process occurring (and please correct me if I'm wrong):

STEP 1: Calculate Damage

STEP 2: Reduce damage by the amount of soak a target (or in the case of a minion, an individual target) has.

STEP 3: Reduce damage by the amount equal to the wound threshold of the target (or in the case of a minion, an individual target).

STEP 4: If remaining damage is equal to or less than 0 (i.e. -1 or less), apply damage to target's wound threshold, and move to next action.

STEP 5: If remaining damage is greater than 0 (i.e. 1+), remove the target from play.

The next steps apply to minions only

STEP 6A: If the remaining damage is greater than 0 (i.e. 1+), but less than the wound-threshold of an individual target minion type, apply remaining damage to minion group's total remaining wound-threshold, and move to the next action in the combat round.
STEP 6B: If the remaining damage is greater than 0 (i.e. 1+), but more than the wound-threshold of an individual target minion type, take the wound-threshold of an individual target minion type from the remaining damage, and remove a member of the minion group from play.

STEP 6C: Repeat Steps 6A and 6B until the remaining damage is 0 or less, or there are no further members of the minion group in play.

Please note that this is based on the simple rule contained on page 390 of the Edge of the Empire Core Rule Book which states "Indi­vidual members of the group are defeated one at a time, each time the total wounds suffered exceeds that group member's share of the wound threshold." Also, RAW indicates that any of the adversary types could still operate on 0 wounds remaining as the total damage has not exceeded the adversary's total wound-threshold.

This is how I see the process occurring (and please correct me if I'm wrong):

STEP 1: Calculate Damage

STEP 2: Reduce damage by the amount of soak a target (or in the case of a minion, an individual target) has.

STEP 3: Reduce damage by the amount equal to the wound threshold of the target (or in the case of a minion, an individual target).

STEP 4: If remaining damage is equal to or less than 0 (i.e. -1 or less), apply damage to target's wound threshold, and move to next action.

STEP 5: If remaining damage is greater than 0 (i.e. 1+), remove the target from play.

The next steps apply to minions only

STEP 6A: If the remaining damage is greater than 0 (i.e. 1+), but less than the wound-threshold of an individual target minion type, apply remaining damage to minion group's total remaining wound-threshold, and move to the next action in the combat round.

STEP 6B: If the remaining damage is greater than 0 (i.e. 1+), but more than the wound-threshold of an individual target minion type, take the wound-threshold of an individual target minion type from the remaining damage, and remove a member of the minion group from play.

STEP 6C: Repeat Steps 6A and 6B until the remaining damage is 0 or less, or there are no further members of the minion group in play.

Please note that this is based on the simple rule contained on page 390 of the Edge of the Empire Core Rule Book which states "Indi­vidual members of the group are defeated one at a time, each time the total wounds suffered exceeds that group member's share of the wound threshold." Also, RAW indicates that any of the adversary types could still operate on 0 wounds remaining as the total damage has not exceeded the adversary's total wound-threshold.

I'm having a hard time determining if you are right because your method for applying damage after factoring soak is completely backwards from how I, and most others I know, do it.

I think things make the most sense when you keep a running tally of how much damage has been inflicted on you. Your threshold is merely that, a benchmark that indicates when your character will no longer be able to act. Subtracting your wound threshold from the damage just leads to weird and confusing negative numbers, at least when I am trying to figure it out. To instead track it as a running total of damage that cannot rise above a certain number is much easier to track.

The way I see it is if you end up hitting a negative number, you have either:

a) found the target's total wound threshold is greater than the damage dealt, and so are taking the damage from the target's total wounds; OR

b) have applied the damage to a minion group, have remove the required number of minions, and are taking the remaining damage, which is less than an single member of the group's wound-threshold, and applying it to the group's total remaining wound-threshold.

How is that confusing?

Or perhaps my brain works differently than some

The way I see it is if you end up hitting a negative number, you have either:

a) found the target's total wound threshold is greater than the damage dealt, and so are taking the damage from the target's total wounds; OR

b) have applied the damage to a minion group, have remove the required number of minions, and are taking the remaining damage, which is less than an single member of the group's wound-threshold, and applying it to the group's total remaining wound-threshold.

How is that confusing?

Or perhaps my brain works differently than some

It must, because in my head you are adding three extra steps

The easier way to do it is add damage till you exceed the wound threshold. Damage starts at zero and goes up till it reaches the wound threshold.

with minion groups you have stacked wound thresholds where when one is exceeded that minion is removed and the damage in excess gets applied tot he next one until you run out of minions.

Do not subtract. that is backwards.

Each to their own I guess. We still end up with the same result

Reminds me of THAC0. Heh heh.

Do not subtract. that is backwards.

Each to their own I guess. We still end up with the same result

To some extent, it doesn't matter whether you subtract from the WT or add from 0, as long as you're consistent.

However, the language in the book is adding from 0, so if you subtract from WT, you have more work to do in converting language. For instance, the book talks about "exceeding wound threshold", not dropping below 0. And then you're keeping track of excess wounds as negative numbers, instead of a number greater than the WT. And the difficulty of healing Med checks is based off of greater/less than half of the WT, which would be backward if you subtract from total instead of add to zero.

So the math technically works either way, but all the language the game uses is based on adding up from zero. So IMHO, it's more work to do it the other way, so just do the math as the devs designed you to do it.

Yet another 'you must unlearn what you have learned' for this system.

There are also conditions that can arise in the game which can change threshold values, even beyond the ones from Obligation or Mortality or the like.

In our games, we've had cases where the PCs were trekking across a desert for a few days or a week without much in the way of supplies.

In some cases like that, I'll tell them to reduce their strain threshold by 1 or 2.

This works if you run the rules as written and count upward from 0 toward a threshold, but it gets more complicated if you're counting from your threshold toward 0.

I think 16 damage would take out two minions if they have a Soak of 5. 11 damage exceeds the DT of the first guy, 6 damage exceeds the DT of the second. If the minion group had 3 folks in it the group is now down 1 special guy with 4 wounds left. If he then takes 9 wounds, he is at 0 Wounds but is still up. Although I would probably say he falls unconscious.

If the same group takes an Area blast of 10 damage. They would all be at 0 wounds.

So the feeling I'm getting is that I have to "unlearn" how I do wounds as I've clearly been playing Pathfinder too long. You all raise a good point.

Ultimately the consensus is that you can kill more than one minion per turn depending on the damage, but I've also learned a better (and correct way) to handle damaging characters/NPCs. This last point is important as I have to teach the players how the game works - as we haven't started playing yet.

Glad we could help

To that end, you certainly have. Many, many thanks.

I think the overall, simple question -that was not clearly answered in the book or FAQ - is this: does damage to minions "spill over" from one minion to the next within the same group, or is damage that exceeds a single minion's wound threshold simply lost?

[edit]: Please disregard. Missed a couple posts. The question was answered.

So the FAQ clearly states:

Now, my question is, Do the excess wounds just go away? So if you do 15 damage, soak drops it to 10 wounds, 1 trooper goes down. The new wounds pool is 10 (down 5 for one minion dying), but are the 4 prior excess wounds from the prior attack lost? I would think so. So the next PC attack would have to do 11 damage (to net 6 wounds to kill one more trooper), but if they did 16 damage (net 11) they would drop 2 troopers.

This thread is hurting my head, but I'm getting involved anyway.

"The minion group has a single wound threshold, shared by all members of the group." This group threshold is the individual wound threshold times the number of members, period. There are no excess wounds, and all wounds are tracked against that total threshold. In this case 3 stormtroopers with a wound threshold of 5 have a group threshold of 15. For the sake of simplicity ignore soak and focus only on the wounds after soak. At 6 total wounds the threshold of the first minion is exceeded and defeated, the second at 11 total wounds, the third and final at 16 total wounds.

For a critical hit apply the regular damage as well as "one minion's worth of wounds" for the crit, so it is quite likely you could defeat more than one minion with a good roll. Other threads beat this one to death.

If you recalculate a "wounds pool" you're overcomplicating things. The only thing that is recalculated is the number of ranks in the group skills (each additional member adds one rank).