ok I'm still new at running SW EOTE and I'm having a problem. 2 in fact.

1. The marauder is melee and very powerful. She usually sweeps like 3 minions a pop. Now her character is very intimidating and melee oriented. So she like to get up and tear things up. But I keep running into the problem of: "oh if she engages we get a black dice to combat checks while she's engaged with the target-- so let the shooters shoot first. So it can end up with all dead minions and her just yawning and waiting for some action to come again. Lame. Now here is a question; if she engages the minion group since they are a minion group-- is she technically engaged with the whole group or just one dude in the group so only setback to the one dude she is engaged-- but than is it thematically oriented if she does 1 kill and enough crits to kill more minions? Or is that only working if she is technically engaged with the whole minion pack?

2. how do I fix the problem of her getting benched because initiative roll is almost a group effort which PC can slot into a PC a lot on the initiative order because they always vote shooters first melee last because a dinky black dice. She gets sidelined even though she years through minions better than the whole group.

Thanks for help

Question 1: As the GM "you tell me".

You could have the minion group all be in engaged range of each other or they could be spread out, or whatever the story says.

Question 2: That sounds like a classic "talk to your Players" problem.

Though I have zero idea where you got "the black dice" issue from. Nothing about being melee forces a setback unless it is an attachment/modification that added it, and then it is their own fault.

Question 1: As the GM "you tell me".

You could have the minion group all be in engaged range of each other or they could be spread out, or whatever the story says.

Question 2: That sounds like a classic "talk to your Players" problem.

Though I have zero idea where you got "the black dice" issue from. Nothing about being melee forces a setback unless it is an attachment/modification that added it, and then it is their own fault.

Actualy, it's a red die, not a blak die. On a despair, the could hit their marauder friend.

I thought it is a setback dice to shoot into engaged targets? Hence black dice? So you're saying its arbitrary about the engaged rule being one target and or the whole minion group

Your correct it is an upgrade dice to the check and despair is used to hit the ally -- thanks on that one.

Despair hits the ally only if the attack actually hits also.

It sounds like you need to throw in more enemies, or change up how they are operating. If your Marauder can easily deal with a minion group in a turn or two maybe they run at one group and the other players shoot at another? If they are always running into multiple minion groups and/or rivals, I think it would help alleviate the problems, especially if they are as formidable in combat as you say. They shouldn't suffer too much if they divide their focus.

Ya thinking a few more minion groups at lesser numbers per group

It sounds like you might just want to add more targets for your PCs to attack.

If your players don't want the melee fighters to engage a target, are the ranged ones attacking literally the same target as the melee? Add more than one group of minions...

Something like two tough Rivals and three groups of minions should be a challenge for your PCs, especially if the enemies have a variety of ranged and melee attacks as well. If all 3-6 of your PCs are always attacking the same target at once, give them reasons to split up their fire!

Sounds good thanks...I just got done with game 2 this was my first written game so I had to try and see how minion groups would be against them. 1 nemesis with 3 groups of 4 minions was really giving them a fight -- oh because the nemesis was shooting from cover and manuevering to break LoS...the minions were just getting massacred. Other wise group of 4 was just nothing to them...2 groups of 4 was meh...the NPCS could get a hit in but nothing to scary.

Also init? Do the minion groups get added dice for that? That is...added side for being in a group of minions.

For initiative you typically roll vigilance. The minion group would get one roll. If vigilance is not one of their skills, it is green dice equal to their willpower. If vigilance is their skill (should be rare with minions), their skill rank in vigilance is +1 for each minion past the first (4 minions means rank of 3) and you build the pool normally.

Also something to keep in mind is the combat is supposed to be rapid and fluid. Yes, people take turns, but in actuality many of the things are happening at the same time. I wouldn't let my players shoot, hide, shoot, hide blocking sight for return fire, and likewise I wouldn't run an adversary that way. Let them hit the nemesis, just give it high soak and WT .

ok I'm still new at running SW EOTE and I'm having a problem. 2 in fact.

1. The marauder is melee and very powerful. She usually sweeps like 3 minions a pop. Now her character is very intimidating and melee oriented. So she like to get up and tear things up. But I keep running into the problem of: "oh if she engages we get a black dice to combat checks while she's engaged with the target-- so let the shooters shoot first. So it can end up with all dead minions and her just yawning and waiting for some action to come again. Lame. Now here is a question; if she engages the minion group since they are a minion group-- is she technically engaged with the whole group or just one dude in the group so only setback to the one dude she is engaged-- but than is it thematically oriented if she does 1 kill and enough crits to kill more minions? Or is that only working if she is technically engaged with the whole minion pack?

2. how do I fix the problem of her getting benched because initiative roll is almost a group effort which PC can slot into a PC a lot on the initiative order because they always vote shooters first melee last because a dinky black dice. She gets sidelined even though she years through minions better than the whole group.

Thanks for help

Just because you have a gaggle of minions using the grouping feature, does not mean they are standing within engaged range of one another. An 8 man squad of Stormtroopers could be spread out 50 meters from one another, with some on a catwalk above others. The grouping feature of minions does not require them to be within 15 feet of one another. So depending on how you have them set up a Marauder engaging does not have to automatically trip the upgrade if the minions are spread out a bit.

1. The marauder is melee and very powerful. She usually sweeps like 3 minions a pop. Now her character is very intimidating and melee oriented. So she like to get up and tear things up. But I keep running into the problem of: "oh if she engages we get a black dice to combat checks while she's engaged with the target-- so let the shooters shoot first. So it can end up with all dead minions and her just yawning and waiting for some action to come again. Lame.

Yup. That is exactly what happened with my Wookiee Marauder/Heavy/Doctor. Sometimes all the bad guys would be dead before the end of the first round, thanks to all the people in the party that had ranged weapons. Thus leaving my Wookiee with nothing to kill.

Now here is a question; if she engages the minion group since they are a minion group-- is she technically engaged with the whole group or just one dude in the group so only setback to the one dude she is engaged-- but than is it thematically oriented if she does 1 kill and enough crits to kill more minions? Or is that only working if she is technically engaged with the whole minion pack?

The way we did it, you engage with the whole group, so anyone shooting into the minion group have to upgrade the difficulty of their check, and if they get a Despair, then they hit me with at least one shot.

The most damage my Wookiee has ever taken in a single round was when he got shot in the back by his Klatooinian buddy who did auto-fire into a group where he was Engaged.

2. how do I fix the problem of her getting benched because initiative roll is almost a group effort which PC can slot into a PC a lot on the initiative order because they always vote shooters first melee last because a dinky black dice. She gets sidelined even though she years through minions better than the whole group.

It’s her choice as to when she goes. She can choose to let the Ranged fighters go first, or she can go before they do.

That’s one of the things I like about this system — just because you go last in one round doesn’t necessarily have any impact at all on when you go in the next round.

Depends, does that person wear a ring on the ring finger?

In all seriousness, the marauder can use an init order whenever she wants. Thus sometimes the wookie might just say "I got this group" and charge on in there, taking the groups attention while party deal with other things,

For initiative you typically roll vigilance. The minion group would get one roll. If vigilance is not one of their skills, it is green dice equal to their willpower. If vigilance is their skill (should be rare with minions), their skill rank in vigilance is +1 for each minion past the first (4 minions means rank of 3) and you build the pool normally.

Also something to keep in mind is the combat is supposed to be rapid and fluid. Yes, people take turns, but in actuality many of the things are happening at the same time. I wouldn't let my players shoot, hide, shoot, hide blocking sight for return fire, and likewise I wouldn't run an adversary that way. Let them hit the nemesis, just give it high soak and WT .

Gotcha thanks-- ya I was using that game as a trial to see how they handle X number of minions in X groups gauging their power. I don't want to hand wave groups because they just tear through them anyway. I want to find a balance of danger and fun. Slaughtering minions in one round is kind of like a speed bump on a road with a posted speed of 50...a pain.

The nemesis, Val Reed- pirate with monkey lizard on shoulder, hit a player (my fiancé) and literally triumph crit and KO'd her in one nasty shot. So I tried to break the LoS with the baddy because she was the only one visible and I didn't want to be dark and just empty lasers into her until she crit died. So I had a squad try to narratively end the battle by attempting to grapple her and try to hold her hostage. They failed. And the PCs decimated that group and dragged her away.

Depends, does that person wear a ring on the ring finger?

In all seriousness, the marauder can use an init order whenever she wants. Thus sometimes the wookie might just say "I got this group" and charge on in there, taking the groups attention while party deal with other things,

If they are anything like my players, they all sit there and strategize/commiserate/optimize who goes when all the time. So my guess would be any time the Wookiee tries to go first, the other players are like woah woah woah hold up, and then they outvote her.

1. if she engages the minion group since they are a minion group-- is she technically engaged with the whole group or just one dude in the group so only setback to the one dude she is engaged-- but than is it thematically oriented if she does 1 kill and enough crits to kill more minions? Or is that only working if she is technically engaged with the whole minion pack?

2. how do I fix the problem of her getting benched because initiative roll is almost a group effort which PC can slot into a PC a lot on the initiative order because they always vote shooters first melee last because a dinky black dice. She gets sidelined even though she years through minions better than the whole group.

Some great advice in this thread. Just thought I'd throw my two credits in.

1. It's up to the GM to decide if they are all engaged or not. There is nothing in the rules that minion groups need to be engaged with each other, or even in the same room for that matter. My group found minion rules a little odd and weird, so we just played with them all doing the same thing (such as all being engaged with the marauder) but you can spread them out if you'd like. Just be aware of the oddity of when the marauder kills more in the group than what is engaged. RAW is that minions in the group keep dieing until all wounds are used up. This could lead to some great narration, or you could rule (and perhaps "nerf" the marauder) by saying that melee attacks against a minion group can only affect engaged minions. Some people split up minion groups on the fly. If half become engaged, let the unengaged ones split off. That would clean up some of the oddities.

2. Come up with reasons why the marauder would want to be engaged. Story reasons. Such as tying up the bad guys so they can't run after someone they are trying to capture. An example in one of my games was that our group was trying to run to our ship and escape. Stormtroopers were charging at us from a different entrance into the hanger. Everyone ran towards the ship except the marauder. The marauder charged the Stormtroopers to tie them up and buy the rest of us time to get to the ship and get it powered up.

Depends, does that person wear a ring on the ring finger?

In all seriousness, the marauder can use an init order whenever she wants. Thus sometimes the wookie might just say "I got this group" and charge on in there, taking the groups attention while party deal with other things,

If they are anything like my players, they all sit there and strategize/commiserate/optimize who goes when all the time. So my guess would be any time the Wookiee tries to go first, the other players are like woah woah woah hold up, and then they outvote her.

One way to fix that is to require a maneuver from the players involved if they want to discuss tactics in the middle of a firefight (to be automatically taken during their turn). Yes, speech is a incidental but strategy and a discussion is not. Or simply hurry them along during their rounds until there is a good narrative break in the combat where they could reasonably discuss tactics.

Depends, does that person wear a ring on the ring finger?

In all seriousness, the marauder can use an init order whenever she wants. Thus sometimes the wookie might just say "I got this group" and charge on in there, taking the groups attention while party deal with other things,

If they are anything like my players, they all sit there and strategize/commiserate/optimize who goes when all the time. So my guess would be any time the Wookiee tries to go first, the other players are like woah woah woah hold up, and then they outvote her.

This. Half are all about numbers. The other half are big hitters -- one assassin one marauder. So they always vote the assassin ...the not so good shooters next than let the poor marauder come in...I can see her dismay when there may be one little guy left or nothing at all. So if the init slot is gathered by the group she may say I wanna go in and crack heads because hats my character ...but she gets out votes because of the upgrade and she sits on the bench.

Well narration isn't to hard for range and melee. Lots of blaster fire lots of dead minions. Same with melee we assume or narrate she whirl winds around slaughtering minions or like multiple slashes with crits etc.

Not to hard to assume this if she isn't totally engaged with whole group as if they are spread out they are in short and she could easily make a step or two to hit another with crit carry over just as if a shooter sprays shots killing multiple spread out minions.

Engaged has to be used to make that melee action which kind of sucks for the melee. Yes she literally does the most damage but always benched. They really are in shock when they pour fire first and if they all wiff she is last on roster she can slaughter a whole group of 4 solo.

Depends, does that person wear a ring on the ring finger?

In all seriousness, the marauder can use an init order whenever she wants. Thus sometimes the wookie might just say "I got this group" and charge on in there, taking the groups attention while party deal with other things,

If they are anything like my players, they all sit there and strategize/commiserate/optimize who goes when all the time. So my guess would be any time the Wookiee tries to go first, the other players are like woah woah woah hold up, and then they outvote her.

This. Half are all about numbers. The other half are big hitters -- one assassin one marauder. So they always vote the assassin ...the not so good shooters next than let the poor marauder come in...I can see her dismay when there may be one little guy left or nothing at all. So if the init slot is gathered by the group she may say I wanna go in and crack heads because hats my character ...but she gets out votes because of the upgrade and she sits on the bench.

Ugh. That sucks. You need to remind the other players that this is a game and everyone deserves their time in the spotlight.

Ya I know-- they know she hits hard because when they wiff she pretty much solos a group of 4

I may try and tweak for everyone maybe lowering the number of minions per group and expanding how many groups attack-- maybe 3 groups of 3 or 4 that way they are forced to split shots.

But than again my group are MMO and number crunchers and may want to focus fire /facepalm lol! But at that point they can't force her to make an action on her turn.

Here are some other things to try:

- vary the environment of the combat

- vary the objectives the PCs are after

- add significant NPCs to be protected

Environment

You can vary the environment of the combat to give the PCs more interesting options for directing their fire. A bounty hunter on a ledge with a jetpack (or a Toydarian with a blaster rifle flapping around) may not be accessible by the melee fighter, so your ranged fighters will want to shoot them. This opens up some of your minions on the ground for your melee PC to attack.

You can also change the environment DURING a fight. A blaster shot can close/open a drawbridge, a fuel explosion or a speeder crash can destroy terrain like bridges or catwalks, all these things can separate your PCs from each other or from their enemies and they'll need creative problem solving more than just "everybody shoot those minions. Nevermind, Wookiee, they're all dead."

Objectives

What are the objectives when the PCs are fighting? Just "kill everybody here"? Are they trying to escape? Trying to break into a compound and slice the computers? Trying to steal a valuable artifact? Rescue a prisoner? Capture an important enemy?

Just as an example, if they're trying to slice a terminal, perhaps there are melee enemies who would be attacking the slicer. Send the Wookiee in to engage with them--you don't want to shoot them since you might hit the slicer. Then give the ranged fighters some other enemies to fight.

Significant NPCs

The Wookiee might be ideal to protect and escort an NPC through some hostile terrain. If you're rescuing a captive or stealing a droid or something, the other PCs can lay down covering fire while the Wookiee stays with the NPC and helps them get where they're going. If that means chopping up a bunch of minions with a vibro-axe, so be it!

I'd recommend you (or your GM if that's not you) find Episode 7 of the Order 66 Podcast, called "The List". It gives lots of great examples of ways to make combat more interesting which can lead to a lot more options for your PCs than just "Everybody shoot those minions till they're dead."

Personally I would tell them to stop being a bunch of smelly willies and share the glory; Sometimes if you don't enforce that part, then some players will never share the spotlight. It might be worth having a bit of chat away from the table to remind them that it should be shared: So what she can kill a entire group solo, it leaves them free to deal with other groups.

I'm sure order 66 has good points...1 hour podcast and six minutes in and nothing I could do by fall asleep.