22 hours ago, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

So one of my players asked me a question about using Force move on minion groups. More specifically to throw one group of minions at the other. I do understand that normally on a minion the check would just be a force die roll. I think this would be a discipline roll with difficulty 1 since they are silhouette 1?

Also, do the minions being thrown take damage as well as the targeted minion group?

But what if the minion group is 5 minions. In my head it seems like that would be larger than silhouette 1 even if the minions were normally sil 1. Which I guess in itself is another part of the question.. I read the book and it doesn't say anything about changing the sil of minion groups, if it does I can't find it.

Hopefully this question makes sense, thanks guys!

Can the player do this? Yes as far as I'm concerned. For all mechanical purposes, minions are considered one target. I see no reason to exclude Move from this rule. Some may disagree, but I don't see it that way. Rule how you wish though.

It's been a while since i've looked at the Move as Ranged combat rules, but IIRC, yeah, since the weapon of choice (minions in this case), are Sil 1, I do believe the ranged attack difficulty (base) would just be 1. However I would say that some setback die are likely appropriate in this situation. Flinging 5 dudes at 5 other dudes isn't the easiest of things to try and do. So I would say 1-2 setback for the complexity of what they are trying to do would be fitting. However if they have bought into the multiple objects upgrades, and are willing to spend the extra pip to trigger that upgrade, I would probably ignore the setback, reflecting their better utility with juggling multiple objects with their mind. But if they are just trying to use the Basic Move ability, without any upgrades, I'd still let them do it, it just wouldn't be easy. Remember, as a Ranged attack, the various factors the target (the minions being attacked in this case) might have for defense would still apply. Like cover, and armor, soak, etc.

That's my take anyway.

22 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

RAW says that a minion group attacks as a single unit . It says that a minion group is attacked as a single unit . It says that a minion group shares the same pool of wound points . It says that a minion group shares the same pool of skills . etc. So, yes, a minion group is treated as a single unit for everything .

No, a minion group isn't treated as a single unit for everything. The book lists exactly what it is treated as a single unit for: they share a single wound threshold; they make one attack per group, not per individual; they are attacked as a whole group; and are allowed to use skills, depending on their skill list. They are also required to be the same minion type (so no deploying stormtroopers and Bith musicians in the same minion group). Minions in minion groups otherwise function the way that the rules outline earlier in the chapter. IOW, minions deployed in groups don't suddenly stop being characters when they're placed into groups. They still exist as discrete minions; you can still number them, describe them, separate them into different groups, etc.

According to the rules, minions deployed in groups are not required to:

• Talk as a group
• Pee as a group
• Have identical hair color
• Have identical equipment
• Move as a group
• Enter a room as a group
• Have the same chiropractor
• Be perceived by other characters as a large, incoherent blob of mass
• Be unable to interact with the game world, or the player characters, as individuals
• Be affected by the game world, or the player characters, as individuals
• Stay in their group

@Tramp Graphics feel free point to any place in the rules where any of this is contradicted by the rules.

Minions are there to be minor obstacles to the PCs, and the grouping rules are there to make the game easier for the GM. The GM is well within his rights to treat minions as a single object for the Move Force power (even moreso if he thinks that will make running the game easier), but the rules don't spell that out to be the case. Since the minions in a minion group are still minions, that is, still characters in and of themselves, they can be targeted and moved as individual objects using the Move power, rules-as-written. It's okay if a GM wants to rule it differently, but the rules do allow for this to happen.

Pretending this isn't the case is like saying the rules only allow for Toydarians to eat cheese, and they can't eat anything but cheese. (In other words, you're making stuff up )

4 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

No, a minion group isn't treated as a single unit for everything. The book lists exactly what it is treated as a single unit for: they share a single wound threshold; they make one attack per group, not per individual; they are attacked as a whole group; and are allowed to use skills, depending on their skill list. They are also required to be the same minion type (so no deploying stormtroopers and Bith musicians in the same minion group). Minions in minion groups otherwise function the way that the rules outline earlier in the chapter. IOW, minions deployed in groups don't suddenly stop being characters when they're placed into groups. They still exist as discrete minions; you can still number them, describe them, separate them into different groups, etc.

According to the rules, minions deployed in groups are not required to:

• Talk as a group
• Pee as a group
• Have identical hair color
• Have identical equipment
• Move as a group
• Enter a room as a group
• Have the same chiropractor
• Be perceived by other characters as a large, incoherent blob of mass
• Be unable to interact with the game world, or the player characters, as individuals
• Be affected by the game world, or the player characters, as individuals
• Stay in their group

@Tramp Graphics feel free point to any place in the rules where any of this is contradicted by the rules.

Minions are there to be minor obstacles to the PCs, and the grouping rules are there to make the game easier for the GM. The GM is well within his rights to treat minions as a single object for the Move Force power (even moreso if he thinks that will make running the game easier), but the rules don't spell that out to be the case. Since the minions in a minion group are still minions, that is, still characters in and of themselves, they can be targeted and moved as individual objects using the Move power, rules-as-written. It's okay if a GM wants to rule it differently, but the rules do allow for this to happen.

Pretending this isn't the case is like saying the rules only allow for Toydarians to eat cheese, and they can't eat anything but cheese. (In other words, you're making stuff up )

Of course, none of the things on that list are game mechanics.

4 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Of course, none of the things on that list are game mechanics.

Moving is a game mechanic. Range bands are a game mechanic which affect distance and audibility, among other things. Perception (whether audio, visual, tactile, or "disturbances in the Force") are all tied up in various game mechanics. Equipment often has game-mechanical significance.

So...there's quite a lot of game mechanics in there, really.

4 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

Moving is a game mechanic. Range bands are a game mechanic which affect distance and audibility, among other things. Perception (whether audio, visual, tactile, or "disturbances in the Force") are all tied up in various game mechanics. Equipment often has game-mechanical significance.

So...there's quite a lot of game mechanics in there, really.

To a point, but going to the bathroom, seeing a chiropractor, etc. aren't. My point was, that from a purely mechanical perspective, a minion group is always considered a single entity. If they split up, then they're not a group anymore.

If I shoot a minion group they are treated as a single entity. If I do enough damage they all die.

Not seeing how throwing them would change that.

Or throwing an AT-At leg I pulled off last turn and then hurled at a minion group would mean I suddenly would only damage one of the minions.

11 minutes ago, Decorus said:

If I shoot a minion group they are treated as a single entity. If I do enough damage they all die.

Not seeing how throwing them would change that.

Or throwing an AT-At leg I pulled off last turn and then hurled at a minion group would mean I suddenly would only damage one of the minions.

Exactly.

On 8/29/2018 at 6:25 AM, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

So one of my players asked me a question about using Force move on minion groups. More specifically to throw one group of minions at the other. I do understand that normally on a minion the check would just be a force die roll. I think this would be a discipline roll with difficulty 1 since they are silhouette 1?

Also, do the minions being thrown take damage as well as the targeted minion group?

But what if the minion group is 5 minions. In my head it seems like that would be larger than silhouette 1 even if the minions were normally sil 1. Which I guess in itself is another part of the question.. I read the book and it doesn't say anything about changing the sil of minion groups, if it does I can't find it.

Hopefully this question makes sense, thanks guys!

I haven’t read the thread, but I House rule that minion groups are a single target with a silhouette 1 higher than they would have as an individual. But I do require that any target who is damaged by the power must be a “target” as defined by the Magnitude Upgrade.

So to mush 2 minion groups together requires at least 3 Force Pips (Basic, Strength, Magnitude). Each group suffers 20+Success-Soak Damage.

I honestly don’t care if a player wants to smash minions all day long, there’s always going to be as many minions as the story requires. Besides they will be collecting Conflict along the way

4 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

To a point, but going to the bathroom, seeing a chiropractor, etc. aren't. My point was, that from a purely mechanical perspective, a minion group is always considered a single entity. If they split up, then they're not a group anymore.

No, they are not. Only when you choose to group them as a minion group. You were disingenuously trying to assert that there are rules about when and how minions are grouped, there are not. Or that there are rules for when and how that occurs during an encounter, there are not. You were asserting 'for everything' as RAW, which is not what the book says at all. You also conveniently fail to address the utter lack of common sense in regards to needing Magnitude upgrades to throw a pair of benign inanimate objects but not for throwing a half dozen stormtroopers. From a purely mechanical perspective not all mechanical possibilities are covered by the rules, but you were trying to assert via your childish bold type and dishonest and repetitive use of the acronym RAW that these issues are covered, and they are not.

So what your saying is they fire as a single unit, take damage as a single unit, combine skills together as a single unit, but count as different targets all in the same round?

How does that work?

I think we all understand the mechanic of a minion group. What I have a hard time grasping is how easy it is to toss 5+ people/beasts/etc.

Imagine this, a player has 4 magnitude upgrades and they throw 4 minion groups of 5 minions each. That just seems so much more difficult to do than 1 difficulty discipline rolls with force die = to force rating.

I don't think we've ever seen/read canon or not, anyone toss that many people. Maybe I'm wrong and I haven't delved that deeply into the star wars universe. It just seems really difficult to do. But the mechanics of the game make it not so. Which is okay to play it that way! By all means play RAW.

I just want something like that to feel more incredible and rewarding than the books presents us with. Not something Pc's with move can do every encounter with minion groups.

Maybe my players won't abuse it, but I feel like the chance to do 50+ wounds is very tempting.

39 minutes ago, Decorus said:

So what your saying is they fire as a single unit, take damage as a single unit, combine skills together as a single unit, but count as different targets all in the same round?

How does that work?

Very well.

25 minutes ago, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

I think we all understand the mechanic of a minion group. What I have a hard time grasping is how easy it is to toss 5+ people/beasts/etc.

Imagine this, a player has 4 magnitude upgrades and they throw 4 minion groups of 5 minions each. That just seems so much more difficult to do than 1 difficulty discipline rolls with force die = to force rating.

I dunno, I don't think it's any more difficult than trying to hurl a silhouette 4 ship. Try thinking of it as juggling, once you know how, it's really not that hard to keep several objects up at once. You really don't even think about it that much as it becomes muscle memory. I have some slight skill in juggling so I'm speaking from personal experience with this. I'm not juggling flaming chainsaws or anything, but I can juggle without much difficulty. I also don't really see this as being any more difficult as someone charging the same group of minions with a sword, and simply because they rolled a lot of damage, are able to cut down 3-5 people with a single action, which narratively might only take a few seconds. Or the same scenario with a ranged weapon. They are all equally difficult from a realistic viewpoint, but nobody ever suggests making it harder for those rolls. The Magnitude upgrade could simply be the mechanical representation for someone who has actually practiced on multiple target Moving, so for them, it's not that difficult. Why? They've been learning how to juggle minions, or little geese, whatever floats your boat.

Now I know I said above, to maybe add in some setback, but that was simply a suggestion. I can equally see it just being rolled as is, and only factoring in regular negative factors like any other ranged attack.

29 minutes ago, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

I don't think we've ever seen/read canon or not, anyone toss that many people. Maybe I'm wrong and I haven't delved that deeply into the star wars universe. It just seems really difficult to do. But the mechanics of the game make it not so. Which is okay to play it that way! By all means play RAW.

You clearly haven't played the Jedi Knight games, or the Force Unleashed games then My preferred method of combat in those games, was hurling stormtroopers at other stormtroopers. Force Unleashed made it super easy actually, as your Force Grip/Move ability was sort of an AOE effect, and could grab multiple people, and then you could easily hurl them at others.

Not that canon actually matters in any way, when it comes to gaming.

34 minutes ago, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

I just want something like that to feel more incredible and rewarding than the books presents us with. Not something Pc's with move can do every encounter with minion groups.

Maybe my players won't abuse it, but I feel like the chance to do 50+ wounds is very tempting.

Why would it be 50+ wounds? If they are considered as 1 object/target for every other purpose, then they would also count that way for damage, in my book anyway. Which means a cluster of Sil 1 minions would only cause a base of 5 damage, + whatever the attack roll resulted in. Which could potentially kill several minions, but it's hardly 50 points. Say it will also knock the targets prone (both groups) as a result, if you think your players might complain that it's too weak to be worth it. Personally being able to temporarily knock down 2 minion groups with 1 action, I think, is pretty powerful, even if it doesn't crush them to powder as a result.

And honestly, if you want to try and use canon to justify it, pretty much every time we see the Force used to Move somebody, it never kills them directly. Or at least I can't think of any examples. It always just knocks them back, knocks them down, and kind of dazes them for a few moments. When used on people, it is pretty much always effects them like a really strong tackle. So do that instead if you're worried about it being broken. Does no more damage than any other kind of attack, possibly less with soak, but it knocks them around and keeps them from hurting your party for a round or so. Seems well within the ballpark of a newb Force user with a small bit of power with Move.

It could be that many wounds with the magnitude upgrade, by targeting several minion groups at once, then throwing them all at one group or enemy.

As far as canon goes, I really don't care at all. It seems a lot of people on here do, but I really do not. That was just my way of justifying going against RAW.

Good grief. It seems some are forgetting what the mechanics are for. They exist to facilitate conflict resolution, they're not supposed to be a taxonomical straightjacket. So you can deal with "minion groups" and "move" however you see fit. If you want a Force Unleashed game, by all means treat the group as one target. If you want something a bit more like the movies or shows, each minion is a separate target (regardless of their combat configuration), so to affect more than one you'd need to apply magnitude upgrades.

E1 gives a nice example: Qui Gon can blast several battle droids at once, while Padawan Obi can only hit one at a time...clearly he doesn't have the pips to handle more. In TCW, Mace can annihilate squads of battle droids along with some droidekas for good measure...maxed magnitude applied several times.

4 minutes ago, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

It could be that many wounds with the magnitude upgrade, by targeting several minion groups at once, then throwing them all at one group or enemy.

Well if your players are regularly taking on that many minion groups at once, given the numbers I'm guessing 25+ (5 minion groups of 5 rouhgly, plus the target group, so 6), then are they really low level characters? Cause that's a LOT of damage flying around. But it's no different really than one of them doing the same thing with that sil 3 ship that you mentioned was in the background, and one of them grabbed and tossed on the minions' heads.

And if they aren't "low level" characters, then they probably should be powerful.

Sometimes they do end up against a lot of minions. It doesn't happen always, but it certainly could. It is a little different however from the ship than the minion groups. One is a 1 difficulty roll while the other is 3.

I'm starting a new campaign so this won't be too much of an issue.. yet, but my players in the campaign before were around 600 xp or so.

6 hours ago, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

I think we all understand the mechanic of a minion group. What I have a hard time grasping is how easy it is to toss 5+ people/beasts/etc.

Imagine this, a player has 4 magnitude upgrades and they throw 4 minion groups of 5 minions each. That just seems so much more difficult to do than 1 difficulty discipline rolls with force die = to force rating.

I don't think we've ever seen/read canon or not, anyone toss that many people. Maybe I'm wrong and I haven't delved that deeply into the star wars universe. It just seems really difficult to do. But the mechanics of the game make it not so. Which is okay to play it that way! By all means play RAW.

I just want something like that to feel more incredible and rewarding than the books presents us with. Not something Pc's with move can do every encounter with minion groups.

Maybe my players won't abuse it, but I feel like the chance to do 50+ wounds is very tempting.

And you are correct. Having to have Magnitude upgrades to pick up 3 teddy bears at once in toy store, and then not needing it to launch 3 wookiees across the cantina is stupid.

It's text book rules lawyering, cherry picking the rules from one section, or in some cases a sentence, to bypass the rules about another. In this case Move and the minion grouping rule, with the latter supposed to be about ease of bookkeeping for the GM and to provide a scaling usable dice pool, as opposed to something for PCs to exploit in order to effect large numbers of individuals in a way that bypasses other rules.

2 hours ago, 2P51 said:

And you are correct. Having to have Magnitude upgrades to pick up 3 teddy bears at once in toy store, and then not needing it to launch 3 wookiees across the cantina is stupid.

It's text book rules lawyering, cherry picking the rules from one section, or in some cases a sentence, to bypass the rules about another. In this case Move and the minion grouping rule, with the latter supposed to be about ease of bookkeeping for the GM and to provide a scaling usable dice pool, as opposed to something for PCs to exploit in order to effect large numbers of individuals in a way that bypasses other rules.

This is my biggest issue with this discussion. Just because something CAN be done by the rules doesn't mean it should be. But I have always taken that stance as a GM and luckily, I am lucky to play with a group of player/gms who also use this. I find that we do the rules-lawyering thing much more in Pathfinder than I do with Star Wars but your point is valid. If you need Magnitude upgrade Pips just to pick up three lightsabers and have them move around you ala Traya, it doesn't make sense to pick up 3-5 minions without it.

I also won't fault other GMs for choosing differently so to each his own. All of my players usually agree that the GM makes the final call.

It also assumes that the players in question aren't capable of showing personal restraint and maturity, as if the GM is just wrangling a bunch of ego stroking children, who simply can't say NO when some bit of rules could be exploited. Granted, there ARE gamers like that, more than we'd all like to admit I think, but I've yet to have a case, when I just sat with my players and asked them to show some freaking restraint and not try and solve every problem with a scorched earth policy, where they didn't go "Ok yeah, that's cool, I understand."

11 hours ago, Decorus said:

So what your saying is they fire as a single unit, take damage as a single unit, combine skills together as a single unit, but count as different targets all in the same round?

How does that work?

It works as necessary for the player and GM to advance the plot and tell an engaging and fun story.

If as a GM I need minions to be a group, they are a group. If as GM I need minions to be separate they are separate. And this might even happen in the same round. That "need" however isn't there screw over a player; if the player thinks they are being screwed over, I would listen to their arguments and adjudicate accordingly.

And if anyone cares, this is RAW in the GM section of every core book.

11 hours ago, Quigonjinnandjuice said:

I think we all understand the mechanic of a minion group. What I have a hard time grasping is how easy it is to toss 5+ people/beasts/etc.

Imagine this, a player has 4 magnitude upgrades and they throw 4 minion groups of 5 minions each. That just seems so much more difficult to do than 1 difficulty discipline rolls with force die = to force rating.

I don't think we've ever seen/read canon or not, anyone toss that many people. Maybe I'm wrong and I haven't delved that deeply into the star wars universe. It just seems really difficult to do. But the mechanics of the game make it not so. Which is okay to play it that way! By all means play RAW.

I just want something like that to feel more incredible and rewarding than the books presents us with. Not something Pc's with move can do every encounter with minion groups.

Maybe my players won't abuse it, but I feel like the chance to do 50+ wounds is very tempting.

Well in most cases I wouldn't have the minion group be considered a single, solid entity that does 50 damage; instead it would be one that does 10 damage 5 times (e.g. reduced by soak once per hit). And the hurl rules do have guidelines for how to adjudicate throwing multiple things at a target (e.g. autofire rules).

32 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

Well in most cases I wouldn't have the minion group be considered a single, solid entity that does 50 damage; instead it would be one that does 10 damage 5 times (e.g. reduced by soak once per hit). And the hurl rules do have guidelines for how to adjudicate throwing multiple things at a target (e.g. autofire rules).

Good point, I didn't even think about the fact of the autofire rules for multiple projectiles, which makes sense. I might be throwing 5 knives with one action, but it's still 5 different attempts at aiming and hitting, so yeah, autofire rules makes sense there too.

42 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

Well in most cases I wouldn't have the minion group be considered a single, solid entity that does 50 damage; instead it would be one that does 10 damage 5 times (e.g. reduced by soak once per hit). And the hurl rules do have guidelines for how to adjudicate throwing multiple things at a target (e.g. autofire rules).

Good point, that ruling totally slipped my mind. Which would definitely make it more of a challenge.

Although I'm not a fan of how he argues, TrampGraphics' argument is pretty much the RAW as I understand it. You can throw the entire minion group around without a magnitude upgrade because mechanically they are considered a single entity regardless of the number of individuals within it. However, as much as this may cause you brain to gurgle when those numbers get high you have to take into account the built in balancing mechanism of damage limitation (10 x Silhouette). This damage limitation is what's important, how you describe it is up to you. You as the GM don't have to change anything you just let the die results limit what the PC can do to the target group. Also, and this is important, if it makes sense you can always add Setback(s) to the the roll to increase the difficulty. The other thing to remember is when you add a magnitude requirement you are also adding to the damage potential because mechanically it's now two or more targets rather than a single one so make sure you can live with the results.

For example(s):

• The PC wants to take a Minion Group of five Stormtroopers who are in cover and throw them off a cliff and throwing them off that cliff will kill them. So unless they actually do enough damage to kill all five of those troopers some of them aren't going to go over the cliff. Further if they don't achieve at least one Advantage to knock them out of Cover those that don't die end up in cover at the end of the attack. How you as the GM narrate it is up to you but the end result is based on the die result. Remember the game is not on a grid so as long as they are all in the proper range band after the attack it doesn't really matter mechanically, move them or not it doesn't matter. I would not add setbacks is this case because the damage limitation is enough.
• You want to damage and move this same group of troopers from point A to specific point B, you want to move them to the other side of a chasm or behind a wall or into a busy street market so that you can escape etc.. Use the above method, but maybe add a Setback or two (depending on the size of the group) to move each individual so those that survive end up at B. You can narrate it as if all of the troopers move through the air or only some do and the others follow on foot to maintain unit cohesion or they freak out and run a bit, or whatever makes sense to you.
• You want to move this same group of troopers from point A to point B without doing damage. If this is what you want to do it's no longer a Ranged Attack it's going to be a Opposed Discipline vs Athletics check and it's perfectly reasonable to add some Setbacks depending on the size of the group. Success they end up where the Player want's them, failure they move a bit, maybe is some dramatic fashion, but the end result is mechanically no different than before the attempt, ie. narrate it any way you want but all the troopers are in the same range band and if they were behind cover they end up behind cover or whatever.
  
  The point is don't overthink it let the dice do the work for you. And don't have giant Minion Groups...