A simple rule question.

A group of 4 minions (WT 5, soak 3), is affected by a Blast 4 area. How is it solved?

Group single creature: that means damage 1 wound (4 from Blast - 3 from soak) against the combined WT 20.

Group separate creatures: that means all targets get 1 wound, thus, it means 4 wounds against the combined WT 20.

First option seems the natural as rules written, but the second one makes more sense to me...

If, after soak, the blast deals 1 damage to each target, then the 4-minion group would suffer 4 wounds. Your first interpretation would devalue blast vs minions.

The way I've always done it from the Star Wars RPG campaigns I've run and played in would be applying soak once to the Blast effect, so the first minion takes 1 wound. The rest of the minions would take 4 wounds for a total of 13 wounds against this minion group, plus the original damage from whatever weapon (probably a grenade) did to the group.

And if you think about it in a cinematic way, grenades / blast weapons should be your minion killas. Its fun! =)

Z

3 hours ago, Solkar77 said:

Group separate creatures: that means all targets get 1 wound, thus, it means 4 wounds against the combined WT 20.

This one.

4 (damage) - 3 (soak) = 1 x 4 (number of minions) = 4 total damage.

20 WT - 4 Damage = 16 CW. No one dies.

1 hour ago, Bellyon said:

This one.

4 (damage) - 3 (soak) = 1 x 4 (number of minions) = 4 total damage.

20 WT - 4 Damage = 16 WT. No one dies.

20 WT with 4 current wounds. Unless an effect specifically reduces WT it doesn't decrease (cf. the despair option for the curse spell, page 217, or divine health for the augment spell, page 216). Wounds count up, not down.

Oh, I've missed that small detail. I've changed WT to CW - current wounds.

3 hours ago, Solkar77 said:

A simple rule question. ...

*falls over laughing*

My friend, this has never just been "a simple question".

This scenario has been puzzled over in the Star Wars rules for years now, and here's what Sam Stewart has decreed in those forums...

Quote

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.

And then this one...

Quote

How does blast damage work against minions?

Answered by Sam Stewart:
How blast damage works against minion groups depends on whether the minions are engaged with each other or not. If a group of minions is spread out across a room, and I throw a grenade at one, then the Blast quality cannot affect the group. In that case, the grenade deals direct damage to the minion group's combined wound threshold (if it deals 9 damage, and the minion has a soak of 3 and wound threshold of 4, then one minion drops, and the group still has two additional damage. This may represent random flying shrapnel, but could just as easily represent the stress of seeing a comrade killed).

If multiple minions are engaged with each other, then the damage from the Blast quality can do damage to as many additional minions as are engaged with the first minion. (Grenade hits a three minion group who are all engaged with each other. The grenade deals 9 damage, plus 7 blast damage, against the same minions as described earlier. Since the blast damage hits each individual separately, they apply their soak to it in every case, but the damage is still enough to wipe out the entire minion group with 2 damage left over).

All in all, grenades are a great way to take out tight clusters of faceless mooks; as they should be.

Just remember that net successes from the attack roll are also added to the Blast damage too.

I go with each minion on a blast would suffer/soak individually then the wounds applied to the pool.

Thanks for the replies !!