Forgive me if this has already been addressed bit how to force powers affect minion groups? Are they treated as one target or multiple targets?

Aside from the shared Wound Threshold and skill pools, minions are generally treated as individual characters, even when being part of a group. They can be spread out as far as you like, Blast affects them individually (so using grenades against clustered minions = good idea), etc. So you can grab one minion with the Move basic power and Strength upgrade, but need to use the Magnitude upgrade if you want to Move more than one minion.

Edit: however, if you use the Move power and Control upgrade to hurl a rock at a minion group, it works just like any other combat check. This would be the same for any other damage-dealing (or Wound/Strain inflicting) effect.

I think it comes down to whether or not the Force power/effect uses the word "target" to indicate who or what is being affected.

Using Bind (which says "immobilize a target") would probably affect the entire minion group, since the minion group is treated as a single target for purposes of attacks. Same with Battle Meditation ("number of engaged friendly targets").

Move on other hand indicates "object" as opposed to "target," so my thought would be that you'd only be able to pick up one individual within the minion group with the basic power, but as Away said if you're going to hurl something at them via the "hurl objects" Control Upgrade, it'd be targeting the entire group, with the upgrade itself using the world "target."

Now, that being said, i could see some instances where GMs might feel that "target = entire minion group" is too good of an effect, particularly for something like Heal/Harm or inflicting wounds via Bind. I don't see it as being a major issue myself, and would simply treat the damage dealt as I would an attack with a blaster against a minion group.

In general therms, I consider minions as a simple target. Off course probably would be a few exceptions.

For example: 3 Stormtroopers (minions). You use Influence on on the group. Even if they are three, if you Success on the roll, the three troops go away.

So, again, minion group would count as one for cinematic effects, but probably some cases cannot fit in this description.

Take care

Now, that being said, i could see some instances where GMs might feel that "target = entire minion group" is too good of an effect, particularly for something like Heal/Harm or inflicting wounds via Bind. I don't see it as being a major issue myself, and would simply treat the damage dealt as I would an attack with a blaster against a minion group.

My GM friend found that Misdirect felt very powerful targeting the whole minion group as a single target, especially since the magnitude upgrades for that power are so potent.

In our group we treat a whole minion group as a single entity, and after discussion of this from the edge beta days, we came up with some more specific "rules" for minion groups. For instance, to be a group, the minions need to be engaged with each other. This helped several of the players who didn't like the idea that shooting a minion at short range could neutralize a minion at long range, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. 3 minions at long range can't just reduce their difficulty to short range because of a spotter. (We understand the psychological strain idea, and that there are plenty of narrative reasons, but spending advantage to say disarm a minion felt very false when you disarm a minion from a range with a melee attack, etc.)

Having minions engaged also removed pesky concerns with a power like influence (or Bind, or any of the new ones) being used against a target at short range, but affecting a minion at medium range.

I've seen some good arguments against the approach of treating X number of minions as a single "target" for force powers, namely that magnitude upgrades become much more valuable using this approach. But you can get into some strange circumstances, say if you bind a minion, and the rest of the group attacks, can that minion not participate in the attack removing their die upgrade and avoiding the strain damage from the control upgrade? If only one minion in a group is immobilized, how does that impact how the group operates?

For our group, we found answering these questions made more sense if all the minions were targeted as one in the same, but if your group feel confident with those kinds of questions, I say play the way that makes sense to you. The rules are sufficiently ambiguous (the entry in adversaries specifies attacks, not targeting effects, and an attack is defined as a combat check in chapter 6, which is a separate action from say activating a force power) so I would default to the rules adjudication entry under chapter 9, and say your group should develop what feels right to them, and then follow that as consistently as possible.

Well, a minion group is generally meant to be a speed bump for the PCs to travel over on their way to completing whatever the objectives are of the adventure. That's why I don't see it as being a huge deal if powers such as Bind or Misdirect can affect the entire minion group without needing to activate any Magnitude Upgrades.

If anything, a minion group is there so that the PCs can look awesome taking down the bad guys in various ways (be it Force powers, autofire attacks, or a successful social interaction check to make the minion group back off, go bug someone else, or simply "move along") while still letting the GM have other tiers of opponents (Rivals and Nemeses) to use to really challenge the PCs.

As a GM, I wouldn't require the party face to have to make successful Deception checks for each guard in a four person minion group to bluff his way past them; one Deception check with a setback die for more than one person that needs to be deceived is sufficient, maybe more setback dice depending on the circumstance. Nor would I required the team leader to make separate Leadership checks to inspire/rally for each minion that's in the squad they're commanding; again a single Leadership check, with possibly setback dice based upon the situation.

As a GM, I wouldn't require the party face to have to make successful Deception checks for each guard in a four person minion group to bluff his way past them; one Deception check with a setback die for more than one person that needs to be deceived is sufficient, maybe more setback dice depending on the circumstance. Nor would I required the team leader to make separate Leadership checks to inspire/rally for each minion that's in the squad they're commanding; again a single Leadership check, with possibly setback dice based upon the situation.

Agreed, though leadership checks actually don't have any written rules for addressing multiple targets (aside from advantage being used to affect bystanders). A seasy leadership check can rally a squad of up to eleven troops according to the squad formation rules in the GM kit for rebellion. So limiting the Saint Chrispin Day Speech to one soldier seems... silly.

Same with deception, as that skill also doesn't specify a number of targets that can be affected with a single check. In fact the skill description specifically calls out affecting multiple targets in groups ("multiple subjects").

Intimidation is a little different, but that skill also directly calls out affecting groups of targets simultaneously.

So those may not be the best examples for differentiating between actions that specifically affect only a single target such as combat checks, and more narrative skills that are open ended and more versatile.

As I said, my GM friend runs it differently than I do. This has been largely reinforced by the F&D beta, as the Misdirect user in his party made much more of an effort to gather the magnitude upgrades to sneak past Large groups of minions and Rivals.If minion groups were treated as a single "target" per this power, he would never have gotten that second magnitude upgrade (with one magnitude upgrade providing a total of 5 targets for that power), because it's unlikely he would need to disappear from more than that many targets under most circumstances.

Me personally, I treat Minion groups as a single target because IMO that prevent three stooging minion group heads together with the move power. But that's just something that bugs me. Not that there is anything wrong with it.

I just think consistency and logical application is best, and making sure the game experience is good for everyone (good defined and immersive and satisfying).