Hello there.

I've got another question to my fellow Jedi:

How does Sarlacc Sweep interact with Minion Groups? Can I target minions separately to get increased hits in?

From what I've understood, that would be a no, minion groups are targeted as a single entity.

If that's right, is it better for me to get 2 Lightsabers instead of getting the talent? The situation where SS is better (3+ engaged enemies) seems so rare from my play experience, and being able to get double damage on single target seems amazing.

Rules as intended seems to be similar to blast: If the minion group is not spread out you can use Sarlacc Sweep and create multiple hits. If they were smart enough to spread out you can only create one hit and might be better of drawing that second lightsaber.

If they're grouped together then yes, it can hit several minions. Soak is still applied on each new "hit" but hardly matters with breach. Its's pretty dang sweet when you manage a 9 damage hit with 4 advantages and bring down the entire group in one attack.

4 hours ago, WickedWicks said:

Hello there.

I've got another question to my fellow Jedi:

How does Sarlacc Sweep interact with Minion Groups? Can I target minions separately to get increased hits in?

From what I've understood, that would be a no, minion groups are targeted as a single entity.

If that's right, is it better for me to get 2 Lightsabers instead of getting the talent? The situation where SS is better (3+ engaged enemies) seems so rare from my play experience, and being able to get double damage on single target seems amazing.

Since minion groups are treated as a single target for purposes of combat checks, then using Sarlacc Sweep you'd only get one hit per minion group, since per the talent's full wording in the Talents chapter you can only score a single hit per target when using Sarlacc Sweep.

Per RAW, even if that single minion group is spaced out so that they're not engaged with their fellow members, said minion group still counts as a single target.

As for scoring increased damage, you're probably better off using two lightsabers, or delving into Ataru Striker for the Saber Swarm talent to add the Linked quality to your Lightsaber (Agility) combat checks.

I've played a Shii-Cho Knight in a friend's game, and I was able to make use of Sarlacc Sweep fairly often simply through a combination of creative positioning and GM's permission to use my free maneuver each round to simply engage with another enemy target that's within short range while still remaining engaged with a current target. Or simply just asking if by engaging with one minion group that's within short range of a second minion group can I engage with both in the same maneuver, something that my friend has been quite willing to allow.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Since minion groups are treated as a single target for purposes of combat checks, then using Sarlacc Sweep you'd only get one hit per minion group, since per the talent's full wording in the Talents chapter you can only score a single hit per target when using Sarlacc Sweep.

Per RAW, even if that single minion group is spaced out so that they're not engaged with their fellow members, said minion group still counts as a single target.

As for scoring increased damage, you're probably better off using two lightsabers, or delving into Ataru Striker for the Saber Swarm talent to add the Linked quality to your Lightsaber (Agility) combat checks.

I've played a Shii-Cho Knight in a friend's game, and I was able to make use of Sarlacc Sweep fairly often simply through a combination of creative positioning and GM's permission to use my free maneuver each round to simply engage with another enemy target that's within short range while still remaining engaged with a current target. Or simply just asking if by engaging with one minion group that's within short range of a second minion group can I engage with both in the same maneuver, something that my friend has been quite willing to allow.

I like your friend's interpretation, but that really is the only way I can see this talent shine. Honestly I am a bit disappointed that such a specific talent has this troublesome activation, maybe they were afraid of mixing pseudo autofire with lightsabers?

Anyway, thanks for your insight!

2 hours ago, WickedWicks said:

I like your friend's interpretation, but that really is the only way I can see this talent shine. Honestly I am a bit disappointed that such a specific talent has this troublesome activation, maybe they were afraid of mixing pseudo autofire with lightsabers?

Anyway, thanks for your insight!

If they were afraid of that they shouldn't have allowed for the combination of Hawkbat Swoop with Saber Swarm. Because that thing will murderelize minion groups like Mace Windus favorite word.

49 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

If they were afraid of that they shouldn't have allowed for the combination of Hawkbat Swoop with Saber Swarm. Because that thing will murderelize minion groups like Mace Windus favorite word.

Well, that's also a fair investment of XP to get both talents, to say nothing of the sheer volume of advantages needed to trigger both Linked (Saber Swarm) and Sarlacc Sweep's pseudo-autofire effect. So it's not like it's something that just anyone can accomplish.

3 hours ago, WickedWicks said:

I like your friend's interpretation, but that really is the only way I can see this talent shine. Honestly I am a bit disappointed that such a specific talent has this troublesome activation, maybe they were afraid of mixing pseudo autofire with lightsabers?

I suspect a part of why Sarlacc Sweep has these "issues" it might be the feedback from the community about the regularly appearing issues with standard autofire, and not wanting to exacerbate it by combining Breach 1 weapons with autofire.

During the Beta, I did some test combats of a Shii-Cho Knight (300 earned XP, Brawn 4, Lightsaber 4, basic lightsaber modded for +1 damage, -1 crit, +1 vicious) vs. a Warlord-themed Inquisitor with a double-bladed lightsaber, but using Sarlacc Sweep as regular autofire. The Inquisitor got reamed pretty badly in the opening round of each fight, including a couple that ended with the Inquisitor getting gacked via some brutal critical injury results.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

During the Beta, I did some test combats of a Shii-Cho Knight (300 earned XP, Brawn 4, Lightsaber 4, basic lightsaber modded for +1 damage, -1 crit, +1 vicious) vs. a Warlord-themed Inquisitor with a double-bladed lightsaber, but using Sarlacc Sweep as regular autofire. The Inquisitor got reamed pretty badly in the opening round of each fight, including a couple that ended with the Inquisitor getting gacked via some brutal critical injury results.

Using it as regular autofire would definitely be bad design, it would mostly be used as a single target damage multiplier. I was thinking something like 1 advantage to hit additoional targets or not increasing the attack difficulty.

As it is, it is a worse and limited version of a game mechanic, not that exciting if you have seen Autofire in action.

3 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

If they were afraid of that they shouldn't have allowed for the combination of Hawkbat Swoop with Saber Swarm. Because that thing will murderelize minion groups like Mace Windus favorite word.

Yeah that combo is so strong. Had a player deal 72 damage in one combat check because of a Saber swarmed Hawkbat swoop to the BBEG in the final arc of a campaign. The villain had a lot of defensive tricks but was getting worn down. 18 damage (before soak cuz cortosis weave) 4 times was more than enough!