Greetings All,

Does a condition like disorientate affect just one minion, or all of the minions in a group when they perform an action together?

I dunno how you'd give one minion a setback die while not giving it to the rest of his group. So...I'd say yeah, it affects the whole group, since a bumbling comrade could easily put the rest of his group in danger.

How? If you remove the minion from the group so that the single minion operates independently.

Having said that, when it came up in the session last Saturday, I applied it the way you have suggested because it made sense to me at the time.

I just wanted a clarification because I couldn't find an explanation in the rules. I'm glad I'm getting a grip on these rules so that my judgements seem to be confirming to the way people with far more experience than I think

Remember that striking at Minions does not mean you only hit one Minion, and one attack roll does not mean one swing. A character can easily wade into a group of minions with a gaffi stick in hand and just start bonking them all in the head, or you can throw a flashbang grenade and impact all of them.

That said, it makes perfect sense that what you've done to one Minion impacts them all in some narrative way; for example, you stun one, but he falls into an ally and distracts him.

Just some food for thought as this game is narrative.

How? If you remove the minion from the group so that the single minion operates independently.

What's more, giving the NPCs an extra action is kinda punishing the PCs for using the (relatively underpowered) Disorient ability. So all in all, IMO it's not the best option.

I agree with what you are all saying for the record, and its how I implemented it "in game", I was just looking for options.

I also feel that if the situation warranted it, the entire minion group can act individually, its just that they loose the ability to "combine" their efforts.

Example 1: A group of 4 Rebel Soldiers (Minions). They are cornered, their backs against a blast door which leads to the ship they arrived in, and their commander (perhaps a PC) is unconscious next to them. Stormtroopers are also firing at them, and advancing on their position. The door is locked, but they have the security code. One of the soldiers applies a medpac to the commander, one enters the pass-code and opens the door, and the other two fire down the corridor. They are doing different actions, but only take up the one initiative slot. If the troopers had 3 Agility and Ranged (Light), they would fire down the corridor with GGY rather than their normal YYY.

Example 2: A group of 4 Stormtroopers are firing on the PCs who are fleeing down an alley. One of the stormtroopers has been hit by the PCs, and has become disorientated. The trooper who is suffering from the disorient condition takes cover to recover from the disorient, thus giving the group GYY rather than the normal YYYS. The troopers still all act in the same initiative slot, just doing different things. When the trooper has regained his composure, he later rejoins the group, not being able to "combine" with his friends until he is within short range of the others.

My point is that Minions are not some type of amorphous blob. They are individuals, its just that acting individually, they are fairly ordinary, but when able to combine with their chosen skills, they only then become a threat.

Thoughts?

1. great setup, and makes sense
2. I think if a group of minions is "together" they would all suffer from the condition, and seperating them after the effect was applied would not alleviate the effect. but if they where separated to begin with, when the effect was applied, then it should only apply to those in range of the effect.

so in example 1 above, if the oncoming squad threw a flash bang into the rebels, they would all suffer the effects as they are all within range even though acting separately.

in example 2 the whole squad should suffer the disorient quality, unless that trooper was separated when he received the effect, say he had been lagging behind and was at medium due to the outcome of an earlier encounter.

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Yeah, as long as you're willing to track and adjudicate all that's going on, I think that's totally cool.

However, I would be careful with this, since it can allow minion groups to do some pretty cool things, and minions are designed to be cinematically inferior to the PCs. Shooting, performing first-aid, and slicing all at once is really cool and smacks of a bunch of rivals acting during the same initiative, not of a single minion group.

Doesn't mean you can't narrate stuff. But I personally would limit any one minion group to one skill check per turn. If it's an "elite" minion group, maybe borrow from the advanced Nemesis rules from the EotE GM Kit and allow the minion group an "extra turn" at the end of the initiative order. That's how I'd do it, anyway.

i think in the example only one skill check was being made, the shooting part, the other 2 minions where punching in a key code or stabbing someone with a stim pack. but your right on the money, some could do basic manoeuvre/incidental things while the others do the action part of the round. you would need to be careful with movement as well, making sure no individual does more than they should, so one calling in backup while behind cover as the rest shoot is ok, but if the squad is on the run double moving then no one should be doing anything else.

Yeah, and I mean nobody says you can't split up a minion group at will and just hand wave an extra initiative slot for the "new" group you've created.

Either way, it's not a big deal, and it can be a really interesting way to play the NPCs; I would just make sure that they are not more interesting than the PCs.

Depends on the effect imo and how far apart the minions are deployed from one another.

I don't see the need for an extra initiative slot. It just happens all at the same time within the one slot. The downside obviously is that each minion in the group that is doing something else, reduces the dice pool by one.

If they get separated by more than short range though (and I think this was discussed during the Order 66 Podcast), they should turn into a separate group, moving to the end of the round until they rejoin the group they were initially attached to.