Apologies if thus was asked before. My Google-fu was lacking.

How does Light Side Mastery for Battle Meditation work with Minions?

Example, player has 3 ranks in Ranged Heavy and is next to a 3person minion group. Normally the minion group would by YYG with Ranged Heavy. Presuming the player has the means, and uses the Mastery Power, would minion group simply change to YYY as the group is treated as 1 entity or does it start out as YYY and the two additional minions provide upgrades to make it YYYY (YYYG then YYYY)?

Additionally does the player have to reach all 3 minions for the power to have an effect or like above, the minion group is treated as one entity and therefor only the total number of minion group's count?

My call is:

Minions groups would be YYY, as the group counts as one entity and minions cannot possess skill ranks alone. Yes FFG breaks this rule in the beginner games, but by the time you're using BM Mastery you're beyond the intent of the beginner game's "Rinions" anyway.

Unless you're doing something weird, if you can reach one group member, you can reach them all. This is both for "one entity" reasons, and the fact that most group member will be kept engaged to each other to avoid weird effects and GM headaches.

For number of targets affected, I would count each minion group as one target. If the minion group is split into more than one range band, then they are no longer one group, and I would adjust accordingly. So if a player could affect 9 targets, then it could affect 9 minion groups.

As for the skill, I would do the following:

If the skill of the user of battle meditation (or an affected character who isn't a minion) is higher than the current skill value the minions have due to size, I would let them use it, but I wouldn't let a non-minion character benefit from the current skill level of a minion group. Otherwise I see potential for abuse.

So in your example, doing what I suggest, the minion group would have YYY. If there were 5 minions, they would be YYYG, and the player would still be only be Ranged(Heavy) 3.

So if the player had a Presence of 2, with the above understanding, the minion group would count as one target leaving the player free to choose one additional target. Correct? So the player does not have to choose all three minions in the group separately?

Interesting point about using a minion group of 6+ as the source of the racks instead of a PC. I would not think it would be OP. As once the minions start dropping, the gifted ranks would drop add as well. And considering that they are minions, that could drop pretty fast.