56 minutes ago, WHW said:

Minions are removed from fight after receiving more Damage than their Resilence. They either die or not, depending on deadliness of your weapon, but they don't come back to fight another day.

Wrong. Go read what's actually on page 190.

They suffer the incapacitated and unconscious conditions if the severity is not ≥7. Both of which can be cured in scene by their allies.

• Unconscious can be removed with a TN2 medicine (fire) check as an action.
• incapacitated can be removed, as I noted, by advantage on water stance and the catch your breath no-roll action on any stance, twice in water.

It's not the same as being unable to come back, and it's very different from "Dead or not at the player's choice" of Star Wars' mechanics.

Also remember - minions of a group go on the same initiative, in any order desired. (p 191), and may opt to help each other or take separate actions, so ,say Samurai Moto Jakubu is facing 8 goblins.

• Round 1
  • he hits one, it survives.
  • Minions 2& 3 remove the unconscious on 1
  • Minion 1 takes the catch a breath action while stepping back
  • minions 4-7 attack Jakubu
• Round 2
  • Jakubu hits 2
  • Minions 3 & 4 heal 2
  • 2 steps back and catches a breath.
  • 1 catches breath again
  • 5-7 attack Jakubu
• round 3
  • Jakubu hits 3
  • 1 steps in an aids the medic.
  • 4 (aided by 1) heals 3 of unconscious
  • 2 and 3 catch breath, 3 stepping out.
  • 5-7 attack Jakubu
• etc.

Jakubu is in for a LONG fight,

Most GM's won't work the rules as written, and will treat Incapacitated & Unconscious as "out of the fight", but that's not actually what the rules say and do.

Agreed, with a couple of observations:

• Minions don't benefit from stances other than determining what ring they use, so even in water stance an incapacitated minion would still only get 1 Calming Breath a turn.
• Minions can't spend advantage on anything not listed in their profile (Unsightly Rabble, in the case of Goblins)
  • Purely my own lack of knowledge - where is the 'advantage' to un-incapacitate yourself?
• Removing Unconcious is a TN2 medicine check - with neither the 'medic' nor his 'orderlies' having the Medicine Skill, expecting 2 minions to reliably pass each turn is a bit risky.
• I can't see any reason jakabu can't follow up by moving up and thumping the injured goblin again; there's no specific attack-of-opportunity for moving away from an opponent, is there?
• That's a guy facing 8 seperate NPCs, which should take a while, not a squad; the 'point' of a squad is the recommendation to have them do 1 action with multiple assists rather than mixing and matching (and the recommendation for minions squads topping out at 6 people).

52 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• Minions don't benefit from stances other than determining what ring they use, so even in water stance an incapacitated minion would still only get 1 Calming Breath a turn.

They can, now:
" p. 190, Minions: Remove the third bullet point (which previously disallowed minion NPCs from receiving passive stance benefits)."

Quote

• Minions can't spend advantage on anything not listed in their profile (Unsightly Rabble, in the case of Goblins)

"Shouldn't", not "Can't"

Ah. Good spot. Stance effects do make minions a lot more dangerous.

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed, with a couple of observations:

• Minions don't benefit from stances other than determining what ring they use, so even in water stance an incapacitated minion would still only get 1 Calming Breath a turn.
• Minions can't spend advantage on anything not listed in their profile (Unsightly Rabble, in the case of Goblins)
  • Purely my own lack of knowledge - where is the 'advantage' to un-incapacitate yourself?
• Removing Unconcious is a TN2 medicine check - with neither the 'medic' nor his 'orderlies' having the Medicine Skill, expecting 2 minions to reliably pass each turn is a bit risky.
• I can't see any reason jakabu can't follow up by moving up and thumping the injured goblin again; there's no specific attack-of-opportunity for moving away from an opponent, is there?
• That's a guy facing 8 seperate NPCs, which should take a while, not a squad; the 'point' of a squad is the recommendation to have them do 1 action with multiple assists rather than mixing and matching (and the recommendation for minions squads topping out at 6 people).

Minions, since update, can use stances.

It's not advantage - it's a no-roll action, from the update. In Water stance, you can do it twice.

2 minions using fire is 3r+0S k3. See the rules on assisting.

You're dead wrong about squads.

Given facts in the box on 191:

• Squads use only one NPC template
  • That template may be either a minion one or an adversary one.
• Squads share an initiative slot and act in any order desired within it.
• Squads share a stance.
• "If you want to reduce the number of rolls the squad makes, simply have all members of the squad but one take the Assist action targeting the one member who performs a different action. "
  • Note the lack of must, and the big qualifier at the front. Combined with the any order... it's clear to me that it's an option, not a requirement.
• Strife explicitly may be tracked individually
  • Group Strife may be used, using 2x or 3x the composure of a single member
• The limit on squads is very soft - it doesn't actually preclude larger squads, but notes that anything more than 6 is a problem in terms of number of dice
  • Since goblins in Fire stance have a ring of 2, and have Martial 1, Scholar 0, the 5 assisting limit seems appropriate, and results in 7 ring 1 skill, keep 7 for the max...
  • A larger squad should be making two separate attacks...
  • there's no requirement for them to gang up, either - a squad of 6 can make 6 attacks, or less, as desired, with those not attacking doing other actions, possibly

As for why not go after the 1? you definitely render him unconscious if you hit him again, but the other 7 now gang up. The assist limit is weakly implied to be 5 - larger squads should probably make two slightly smaller attacks. So, if he moves to put injured guy above threshold + 10... not that easy unless using a big weapon ... Also note: goblis are skilled help on attacks; 7 minions is likely to be split into two attacks - 2r+(2+3)s k(2+3) and 2r+(2+2)s k(2+2) ... 2 black, 5 white, keep 5, and 2 black 4 white keep 4. That is almost assured to hit even an air stance target. If you don't go after the downed one, and the GM is the type to recycle, you've only got 5 paying attention - 2 are helping the downed bakemono, 1 is the downed, and those two helpers stay busy the whole time... as you carve them down to size.

Also - Assist is a no-roll action. Thus, You can assist while incapacitated. And in a squad, there's no chance for others to end the helper before the roll is made. And when the other guy rolls, if you have the skill, he keeps an extra die while rolling an extra skill die... that's pretty potent. (see p 15)

Squads are powerful, and may explicitly be all adversary instead of all minion.

Given that the way your objections reads matches up with expectations from Star Wars... it's a different game, and the terms may be the same, but the rules are definitely not. Minions in the RAW are REALLY potent.