16 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

And in that same situation, I would rule that he saved all three since they are a single minion group, and thus a single unit, just by his using the Strength upgrade alone.

And you would feel screwed over by a GM who ruled the other way?

11 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

They're a squad of troopers, a group, that's a single unit. They attack as a group their enemies, and thus are affected as a group, Just because they're your allies doesn't change this. If they're set up as a minion group, then they are a single unit.

I know what a squad is, as well as a platoon and a regiment. That's not really the point. The point is that they don't need to be deployed as a group, so those 3 minions could be 3 individuals walking along the path and not be grouped as a minion group. Even if they are part of a squad.

The story is also better served by a failure. It highlights that not everything can be done with the force and it gives impetus for personal growth on the side of the force user. That and it opens up for a path to the dark side, through feelings of inadequacy and failure, which is pretty much always a decent story opportunity. The dark side should be tempting through the promise of all the good you could do if you just had that power, not the inclination to burn down orphanages for no reason.

23 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

They're a squad of troopers, a group, that's a single unit. They attack as a group their enemies, they use skills as a group , and thus are affected as a group, Just because they're your allies doesn't change this. If they're set up as a minion group, then they are a single unit.

What if the minion group has 12 minions in it? 20? Is there a limit to this madness?

48 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

So, whoever is interested answer the following: in the case of the Move what is the reason for not treating a Minion Group as a single target?

If I had a player who just decided to try and solve every problem with "I fling swarms of minions at it", and disregards any requests for restraint and decorum for the storytelling aspect of things. I personally don't really foresee this actually happening at my table, as I've known my players for 20+ years, so we're all on the same page about how we try and play the games.

50 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

What result are you trying to achieve? How will your change achieve this result?

Trying to curtail a Munchkin Min/Maxer. By making it harder for them to actually pull off the desired action so easily. If they invest in enough Magnitude to pick up 5 single objects (or single minions), then kudos to them for being that focused on a method of attack. At that point though, there isn't any need to "nerf" them, as they would be spending the reasonable amount of pips to accomplish it like anyone else.

52 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

Is it going to set a president that is going to cause a problem in the future? And finally how are your Players going to feel about it?

Maybe? I mean it's possible that somewhere down the line, this could cause a problem, but sitting here, typing this, I can't think of it.

One player, the one most likely to actually try to do this, would likely complain some about not feeling powerful or some such. But this is the same guy, on the very first session after getting FR 2, was able to Move 2 sil 2 Rival beasts that I sent at them, and flung them into each other for a large amount of damage, killing one, and harming the other. He didn't feel terribly weak after that point, so I doubt it would actually be an issue. Not being able to hurl minions as one object is a very small, and specific problem, that is easily remedied by the multitude of other things a good GM would have lying around that he absolutely COULD hurl to his little heart's delight.

An easy way to resolve this I think, is if you ever end up giving them a minion NPC group as support, turn around and have an enemy Force user use the "minion group is one target" right back at them, and see how quickly their minions die. The rule cuts both ways. If they suddenly find themselves sans the entire minion group with one action, and try to be like "hey that's not fair!" You can easily turn it back in their face and say "I'm sorry, but yes it is, you guys flung dozens of my minions around with the same rule. Don't like it? We can always consider them single targets going forward. If not, be ready to lose your minions to this guy whenever he shows up. Because he's watched you guys use it as a strategy to deal with his mook army, and he sees how effective it is."

3 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

What if the minion group has 12 minions in it? 20? Is there a limit to this madness?

If they were that many, I'd require strength upgrades by increasing the Silhouette. However, a standard minion group is typically only four or five members . And, given that skills don't go up above 5 ranks, the maximum effective minion group is a six man team. Any more than six members in one group and it's pointless. So, yes, there is a built in limit.

I think I may have misrepresented what I meant with my questions. What I'm looking for isn't examples but what possible reasons Mechanically because you are essentially creating a new mechanic.

So let me rephrase and give an example of what I mean:

Q: In the case of the Move what is the reason for not treating a Minion Group as a single target, what specifically do you think is bad? I'm concerned that it's too easy to Move such a large group and will do too much damage.
Q: What result are you trying to achieve? Not allowing PC to kill entire Minion Groups by throwing them around.
Q: How will your change achieve this result? If I make it harder to do it'll be less likely to kill the whole Minion Group.


The reason I'm bring this up is because most of the examples I've read are kinda: it just doesn't make sense that you can move that many individuals without an upgrade. But since it's only possible to do damage of 10 x Silhouette the rest is just narration. So what is the real problem and how does making it more difficult solve that problem?

1 hour ago, FuriousGreg said:

Okay folks, let's try another tack.

I think we all agree that the RAW allows the whole Minion Group, regardless of the number of individuals within that group, to be affected using the Move Power without a Magnitude upgrade. We also agree that the GM can adjudicate it differently and require a Magnitude upgrade or some other remedy if they think its necessary. The point of contention seems to be when is it necessary and at what point does it feel like the GM is arbitrarily screwing the Players.

So the questions I ask myself when I'm about to change the RAW for whatever reason is why am I doing it, what result am I looking for, and is it going to screw up something later in the game, and what effect is it going to have on my Players (no I'm not having a long, philosophical, internal dialogue every time but this is my basic thinking).

So, whoever is interested answer the following: in the case of the Move what is the reason for not treating a Minion Group as a single target? What result are you trying to achieve? How will your change achieve this result? Is it going to set a president that is going to cause a problem in the future? And finally how are your Players going to feel about it?

No, we don't agree. I think it's exploitive bullsh*t to say players need Magnitude upgrades to move 3 fire hydrants but not a group of 3 battledroids.

There is no rule that makes the minion group static within an encounter. There is a rule that says you shouldn't take advantage of loopholes, so no, we don't agree.

45 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

No, we don't agree. I think it's exploitive bullsh*t to say players need Magnitude upgrades to move 3 fire hydrants but not a group of 3 battledroids.

There is no rule that makes the minion group static within an encounter. There is a rule that says you shouldn't take advantage of loopholes, so no, we don't agree.

There's nothing being taken advantage of. Whether you're Moving a minion group or a single minion, the results are the same. It's the same amount of damage done to the minion(s) being thrown, as well as to the minion(s) being hit. There is no mechanical difference.

There is a mechanical difference because if you play cherry pickin rules lawyers games like you, a player can pick up 10 stormtroopers and chuck em off a bridge without any Magnitude upgrades. Don't tell me this isn't rules lawyering with minion rules because it is.

This isn't the first time I've had problems with the Minion group rules. The other was with Blast weapons. Normally, on a hit, Blast does not effect the original target of the attack. With Minion groups, I ruled that, on a hit, the weapon does normal damage and--assuming Blast is activated--it is also applied against the Minion group. While I don't necessarily see Minion groups all packed into a super tight box, I just figured they are grouped to some extent and an area effect weapon should probably have some advantage against them. It's not RAW, but it makes more sense to me than the RAW, so screw the RAW.

Example: A hit with Frag Grenade does 8 + Successes damage and another 6+ Successes damage if Blast is activated. Soak applies against each of these two hits. On a miss, Blast can still be activated (at increased Advantage cost) to do 6 (base Blast rating) damage.

It's still probably not enough. Maybe I should reduce the Advantage cost by 1 when activating Blast against Minion groups?

2 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

There is a mechanical difference because if you play cherry pickin rules lawyers games like you, a player can pick up 10 stormtroopers and chuck em off a bridge without any Magnitude upgrades. Don't tell me this isn't rules lawyering with minion rules because it is.

No, it isn't. It's the way the rules are designed. Minions are supposed to be easy to deal with. And, as I've already pointed out, there is no practical reason for a GM to create a minion group larger than six members , because the group gains no further mechanical benefit, particularly in skill ranks. The largest minion groups I've seen contain five members each. Can they do so? Sure, but why would a GM do so? And, if you're that worried, that's what Strength upgrades are for.

Just to throw this out there for you to ponder. Silhouette is essentially on a Log(10) scale. So 10 troopers would be silhouette 2; 100 troopers silhouette 3 etc. So IF you were going to use strength upgrades for this (rather than magnitude), this would seem to be a ballpark way to do it.

Personally, I'm going to use the autofire rules with magnitude upgrades. But everyones table will be a little different.

Edit: ha ha and what about the dead trooper minions on the ground. They are handy projectiles. Are they part of this "single unit"? #corpsesarepeopletoo

43 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

There is a mechanical difference because if you play cherry pickin rules lawyers games like you, a player can pick up 10 stormtroopers and chuck em off a bridge without any Magnitude upgrades . Don't tell me this isn't rules lawyering with minion rules because it is.

You can't actually do that because you can't generate enough damage with your attack roll kill that many troopers. Narratively you could pick them up and say you want to chuck them all off the bridge but mechanically you are limited to the results of your attack roll. In the examples I posted before I tried to show that no matter how many individuals there are in a Minion group you are limited to how much damage you can do with your attack and that damage tells you how many get tossed off that bridge. The rest can land anywhere you want within Short Range (or more if you have the range upgrade) but not off that bridge or dead. Thats the RAW, what you have described is not how it's supposed to work.

However, if you require/allow the PC to use a Magnitude upgrade then you are would actually be adding more damage potential because for each rank of upgrade you add another target within the Minion group which means another 10x...

29 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

This isn't the first time I've had problems with the Minion group rules. The other was with Blast weapons. Normally, on a hit, Blast does not effect the original target of the attack. With Minion groups, I ruled that, on a hit, the weapon does normal damage and--assuming Blast is activated--it is also applied against the Minion group. While I don't necessarily see Minion groups all packed into a super tight box, I just figured they are grouped to some extent and an area effect weapon should probably have some advantage against them. It's not RAW, but it makes more sense to me than the RAW, so screw the RAW.

Example: A hit with Frag Grenade does 8 + Successes damage and another 6+ Successes damage if Blast is activated. Soak applies against each of these two hits. On a miss, Blast can still be activated (at increased Advantage cost) to do 6 (base Blast rating) damage.

It's still probably not enough. Maybe I should reduce the Advantage cost by 1 when activating Blast against Minion groups?

I believe Sam answered a question about this:

Quote

Blast and Minions

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 either way is RAW

Actually damage doesn't tell you how many get chucked off the bridge, because you can literally just chuck them all off the bridge with move. Or Pull them off the bridge, or juggle them in mid air and let them fall to their doom the next turn. Minion groups are considered a single target. If I want to use move on them it works as long as you meet the requirements for strength upgrades and distance. Minion groups are an annoyance and are not supposed to be an actual threat to the party....

Me personally I don't tend to do that, because I can chop them into itty bitty pieces all at once with draw closer if I absolutely postively want to massacre poor innocent storm troopers. Usually I just let the Otter with the Light Repeater jury rigged autofire do all the storm trooper killing. She has all the ranks of true aim, along with the entire heavy tree and likes gunning people down in the street with military grade weapons.

26 minutes ago, Decorus said:

Actually damage doesn't tell you how many get chucked off the bridge, because you can literally just chuck them all off the bridge with move. Or Pull them off the bridge, or juggle them in mid air and let them fall to their doom the next turn. Minion groups are considered a single target. If I want to use move on them it works as long as you meet the requirements for strength upgrades and distance. Minion groups are an annoyance and are not supposed to be an actual threat to the party....

Me personally I don't tend to do that, because I can chop them into itty bitty pieces all at once with draw closer if I absolutely postively want to massacre poor innocent storm troopers. Usually I just let the Otter with the Light Repeater jury rigged autofire do all the storm trooper killing. She has all the ranks of true aim, along with the entire heavy tree and likes gunning people down in the street with military grade weapons.

But thats not how Combat works. Your's and 2P51's examples are confusing narration with Combat mechanics. You can narrate it as you have but still need to do the actual damage for that narration to take effect during Combat.

So, unless your GM chooses to allow you to do as you've described you normally cannot kill an opponent without damaging them so only the ones you actually do enough damage to are going die, the narration does not matter. Mechanically you would have to roll each turn until you generated enough damage to kill all the members of the Minion group.

I know it sounds odd because it's hard to visualize it but that how it works and it works that way precisely to keep PCs from grabbing a Minion group of 10 troopers and kill them all with a single Move.

If you want to be able to kill 10 troopers with Move by throwing them off a bridge without handwaving it then you would need permission from your GM to allow you to upgrade your attack by adding either Magnitude or Strength (or both) to increase the damage potential to enough to overcome the total Wound Threshold of the Minion group.

8 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

But thats not how Combat works. Your's and 2P51's examples are confusing narration with Combat mechanics. You can narrate it as you have but still need to do the actual damage for that narration to take effect during Combat.

So, unless your GM chooses to allow you to do as you've described you normally cannot kill an opponent without damaging them so only the ones you actually do enough damage to are going die, the narration does not matter. Mechanically you would have to roll each turn until you generated enough damage to kill all the members of the Minion group.

I know it sounds odd because it's hard to visualize it but that how it works and it works that way precisely to keep PCs from grabbing a Minion group of 10 troopers and kill them all with a single Move.

If you want to be able to kill 10 troopers with Move by throwing them off a bridge without handwaving it then you would need permission from your GM to allow you to upgrade your attack by adding either Magnitude or Strength (or both) to increase the damage potential to enough to overcome the total Wound Threshold of the Minion group.

You're talking about the "fling them to do damage" option. What about the "move them a range band option" when that's over a cliff/off a bridge/straight into the air? This aspect is not damage based (even though the landing at the end of the fall can do substantial damage), so how many of them get Move(d)?

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

You're talking about the "fling them to do damage" option. What about the "move them a range band option" when that's over a cliff/off a bridge/straight into the air? This aspect is not damage based (even though the landing at the end of the fall can do substantial damage), so how many of them get Move(d)?

Well, the thing is what you've described would be up to the GM to allow because Combat doesn't actually have that as an Attack. The Move power has an Attack as described in the RAW, there is no "I move them over a cliff/off a bridge/straight into the air to their deaths" attack. Mechanically there is only one way to kill a target and that is generating enough damage through one's attack roll to exceed the target's Wound Threshold. Take out all the fluff, ignore the bridge or cliff or whatever, and just look at the mechanics of Combat. In every instance, every attack, damage is generated only by results of a die roll, there is no attack that kills without doing damage. The GM can supersede this at their discretion and say sure you drop them all to their deaths but that Deus Ex Machina not Combat.

But to your question as to how many get moved, well if the desired result ends in death then it's how much damage you do, you drop as many as have exceeded the WT. The rest are either still being held up or got dropped along the way but not hurt or whatever you and GM decide.

The point is Move isn't insta-death, no matter how you describe/narrate the action you are still limited by the damage you actually generate through your die roll.

4 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

If they were that many, I'd require strength upgrades by increasing the Silhouette.

Hmmm, that's not RAW. Now you're just doing what everyone else is doing: skipping RAW and applying your own judgement. Except you're waiting to apply it well past the point of reason.

27 minutes ago, whafrog said:

Hmmm, that's not RAW. Now you're just doing what everyone else is doing: skipping RAW and applying your own judgement. Except you're waiting to apply it well past the point of reason.

Well past

There is just the incurable power gamer out there that has no way of grasping rule lawyering, and can't be satisfied with spending like 40 lousy xp to be able to pick up with their minds and kill 5 stormtroopers as very good. It can't see how completely ****** OP it is to just skip the Magnitude upgrades, exploit the minion group rules, and be able to dispatch the entire group, which is by RAW, not a fixed number. It will then turn around and expect the Magnitude upgrades to juggle inanimate objects.

4 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

If they were that many, I'd require strength upgrades by increasing the Silhouette. However, a standard minion group is typically only four or five members . And, given that skills don't go up above 5 ranks, the maximum effective minion group is a six man team. Any more than six members in one group and it's pointless. So, yes, there is a built in limit.

There is no built in limit. Having more than six isn't pointless, it makes a dice pool that lasts longer. Being able to have a maxed out dice pool and absorb more hits is more effective, so a limit of 6 isn't the maximum effective group.

If in your world they cap at 6 then go ahead, spend the lousy 40 xp on Magnitude upgrades, throw 5 of them, and stop cheating.

47 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

The point is Move isn't insta-death, no matter how you describe/narrate the action you are still limited by the damage you actually generate through your die roll.

Tell that to the Bounty Hunter NPC that was after one of the PCs (a droid who stole all his master's shipping charts; did I mention she was a Black Sun Vigo?) after a different PC used move to lift the Bounty Hunter straight up in the air to Medium range and "let go". That was instant 30 wounds and 30 Strain.

You don't need to use the Hurl upgrade to do damage with the Move power.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

There is no built in limit. Having more than six isn't pointless, it makes a dice pool that lasts longer. Being able to have a maxed out dice pool and absorb more hits is more effective, so a limit of 6 isn't the maximum effective group.

If in your world they cap at 6 then go ahead, spend the lousy 40 xp on Magnitude upgrades, throw 5 of them, and stop cheating.

In high XP games, I've found Minion groups of 8 Stormtroopers (a standard squad for the Corps) to work wonderfully.

18 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

In high XP games, I've found Minion groups of 8 Stormtroopers (a standard squad for the Corps) to work wonderfully.

Point being a a couple few extra provides a nice meaty ablative shield in an encounter which helps a GM scale encounters.

5 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, it isn't. It's the way the rules are designed. Minions are supposed to be easy to deal with. And, as I've already pointed out, there is no practical reason for a GM to create a minion group larger than six members , because the group gains no further mechanical benefit, particularly in skill ranks. The largest minion groups I've seen contain five members each. Can they do so? Sure, but why would a GM do so? And, if you're that worried, that's what Strength upgrades are for.

There is definitely a reason for grouping them in larger groups than 5 or 6. If you want to make sure that they have their skills maxed out even when taking hits or make one that isn't just easily dispatched by one auto-fire burst, then it makes sense to make a bigger group. I have seen, and fought, a minion group of 40 which was great fun. Turns out that storming the inside of a AT-AT leads to quite a bit of fighting.