Hello,

I couldn't find this anywhere. My question is in regards to the blast effect and a minion group. Specifically how is soak applied to the blast damage and how many times does the blast damage effect the "group".

Example: Stun grenade thrown into a group of 4 minions with a soak of 4. No successes but enough advantage to trigger the blast effect.

#1: Is the group considered one enemy so it is affected by the blast once or is it affected 4 times due to there being 4 minions.

#2 If they are affected 4 times (due to there being 4 minions) do they get their soak once or once per minion?

Rules as written I think that each minion is hit by the blast and they soak once as a group.

How do other people run it

Blast and Minions

Question asked by Darth Pseudonym :

Should a group of minions be treated as a group of individuals who happen to share one wound pool, or as a single entity?
That is to say, if a blast goes off in the middle of a group of minions
-- should each minion, individually, take the blast damage, soak it, and apply the remainder to their shared pool, or
-- does the group as a whole get hit by the blast, take the damage, soak it once, and then apply the remainder (and if so, then does the group being the primary target exclude the group from being affected by the blast)?
Or is there some other methodology?

Answered by Sam Stewart:
The first option would be more thematically appropriate. That being said, if the minions were particularly spread out (if you had a group of four with two each behind two separate barricades, for example), I'd rule that some of the minions couldn't be hit by the blast damage. It does make grenades quite effective against minion groups; but that's sort of the idea in any case.

So to clarify the above post says that each minion gets its own individual soak? If so that will make most blast weapons very ineffective against minion groups. A frag granade being blast 6 would only do two damage per minion in the above example. That total damage of 8 dropping one minion and maybe wounding another. That doesn't seem very effective. If you were going against something with a soak of 5 (Like stormtroopers and many "fighty" minions) then you wouldn't even drop one.

If you missed. If you hit the primary target it's Blast + uncancelled successes, so even a noodle arm should be able to put a hurt on folks if they actually hit the primary target.

The above example I gave was without an actual hit, just a blast activation on advantages. Yes I know if you hit the primary target it is weapon damage + uncancelled successes, not blast damage +uncanceled sucesses. The blast quality does not activate unless you have the advantage to do so, or using a triumph to activate.

Then I don't see the problem. Doing some damage when you technically 'fail' the roll seems pretty fair to me.

You understand when you hit the primary target, and activate Blast, the Blast effects the allies engaged with the primary target and damage is calculated Blast + uncancelled successes, correct?

You are missing the point. I am trying to figure out answers to very specific questions on how three game mechanics interact; Minions, Soak, and the Blast effect as noted in the original post. Thanks for your view on it though.

To answer your question yes I am well aware that uncancelled successes add to the blast damage if the blast is activated.

The dev post does answer your question, it's kinda however you want to handle it. So there isn't going to be anymore specific answers then the one from Sam.

Here is how I run it, it's RAI to the best of my knowledge.

If you hit the group, but don't activate blast then they suffer the hit like normal, Damage+Success-Soak.

If you hit and trigger blast then they suffer more. This is complex to write but I designate a single minion as the original target, then all other Minions that are judged to be in range of blast suffer an individual blast hit, each applying Soak. So 1 Damage+Success-Soak, plus M-1 (where M is the total number of minions) Blast+Success-Soak in Damage. When you have calculated the total amount of damage done to the minion group you apply it to their pool of wounds like normal.

If you missed entirely but trigger blast then the group suffers Mx(Blast-Soak) Damage. For high Soak minions this can significantly reduce the effectiveness, but considering you missed it's a bonus just to do any damage.

Keep in mind that the Thermal Detonator does Blast 15, there are two grenades with Blast 10, two grenades with Blast 8, and two more grenades with Blast 7.

That’s a fair amount of options to choose from. And that’s without getting into explosives that can do increasing amounts of blast damage based on how many charges are included.

So to clarify the above post says that each minion gets its own individual soak? If so that will make most blast weapons very ineffective against minion groups. A frag granade being blast 6 would only do two damage per minion in the above example. That total damage of 8 dropping one minion and maybe wounding another. That doesn't seem very effective. If you were going against something with a soak of 5 (Like stormtroopers and many "fighty" minions) then you wouldn't even drop one.

A frag grenade is legal for civilians to own and has damage 6/blast 8. A concussion grenade, described as being a more military-grade weapon, is 8/10.

A miss with Blast against a 5-minion squad each in Engaged range of the original target will deal:

• Blast 6 Frag vs Soak 3/6 WT Thugs: 15 damage, killing 2 (40%)
• Blast 6 Frag vs Soak 5/5 WT Stormtroopers: 5 damage, killing 1 (20%)
• Blast 8 Concussion vs Soak 3/6 WT Thugs: 25 damage, killing 4 (80%)
• Blast 8 Concussion vs Soak 5/5 WT Stormtroopers: 15 damage, killing 3 (60%)

• Blast 8 Frag vs Soak 3/6 WT Thugs: 27 damage, killing 4 (80%)
• Blast 8 Frag vs Soak 5/5 WT Stormtroopers: 17 damage, killing 3 (60%)
• Blast 10 Concussion vs Soak 3/6 WT Thugs: 37 damage, killing 5 (100%)
• Blast 10 Concussion vs Soak 5/5 WT Stormtroopers: 27 damage, killing 5 (100%)

Thanks everyone for the input!

Where are you guys seeing these grenade damages? The damage for the frag grenade in my EotE base book is 8 damage with 6 blast and the stun grenade is 8 damage with 8 blast.

...er, that's what I've used? Successes add to the Blast damage.

Thanks everyone for the input!

Where are you guys seeing these grenade damages? The damage for the frag grenade in my EotE base book is 8 damage with 6 blast and the stun grenade is 8 damage with 8 blast.

You add successes to the damage, and activated blast damage.

Simple throw a frag grenade at a group of minions and assuming you trigger blast.

You miss the attack you do 6 DMG - soak against your original target and everyone engaged with him. So with a group of 4 and 3 soak. Each minion takes 3 DMG for a total of 12 DMG against the group (3 DMG *4 minions) if it were soak 5 then its only 4 DMG total

You succeed with 3 success on the roll. You've done 11 DMG against the target and 9 DMG to each engaged so same example with 3 soak minion group of 4 , you do 8 DMG on the target and 18 DMG on the remaining 3 for a total of 26. Probably killing the entire group, soak5 would be 6 DMG against hthe original target with 12 against the rest for 18 DMG.

They're getting the damages from other suppliments which list more options than what is in the core book. The biggest selection is in Dangerous Covenants, a sourcebook for Hired Guns, but there might be other grenades in other suppliments.

They're getting the damages from other suppliments which list more options than what is in the core book. The biggest selection is in Dangerous Covenants, a sourcebook for Hired Guns, but there might be other grenades in other suppliments.

Or the “Grenade” section at http://swrpg.viluppo.net/equipment/weapons/category/5/