Hi guys,

I'm new at Star Wars RPG and read the core rulebook, also chapter about enemy types. I will be GM and I don't understand, how minions work. For example I have read the beginner set and we will start with this adventure in mos shuuta. First encounter will be with gamorrean ruffians and there are as many as player characters set (in this case: 4 players = 4 gamorreans). But also there is stated minions act as one character and they are strong in crowds. But when I try to imagine how this works in a battle ... 4 gamorrean attack 1 player? Does a single minion do a separate action like attack Player 1 and another minion could attack player 2? And if so, do I downgrade it's dice pool, if one acts alone (because dice pool depens on involved minions)

Also in which order do they act in a round? In Beginner set is said (if successfully hidden): Slot 1 - 3 SCs; Slot 4 NSCs; Slot 5 SCs. Refered to my first question: Are there 4 single gamorrean actions and afterwards the last player ?

Thanks in advance

I think it helps if you think of minion groups as a single NPC. There's no action for each individual minion, they act as a group, take damage as a group, and are meant to represent the faceless mooks that PCs can mow through quickly. While you could split them into different groups, they lose their effectiveness in doing so - but if you chose to do so, downgrading the dice pool is certainly an acceptable way to do it.

Minion groups take a single initiative slot just like Rivals, Nemeses, and PCs. So, all 4 Gamorreans would act in a single turn, and the action and result would reflect the efforts of all of them working together. It's up to the GM and the players to narrate the result in an appealing way; it's not a direct one-for-one correlation, more a summary of the action.

For example: 4 gamorreans jump a PC to fight them. They roll Brawl to punch, once, and score a hit with 2 successes. That represents all 4 gamorreans swinging, missing, tripping over themselves, etc, but eventually one lands a punch.

I hope this helps, and welcome to the forums!

The minions are treated as a single character. They increase their skills according to their numbers, so 1 Gamorrean would roll ggg for melee, two would roll ygg for melee, three would roll yyg for melee, four would roll yyy for melee, and five would roll yyyg for melee. For skills where they don’t have ranks, they don’t get these upgrades. 10 Gamorreans would roll g for computers.

As for damage, they act as one entity as well. The way I understand it, you add the wound thresholds and kill one each time you pass a multiple of their WT. I’m going to use stormtroopers for this example because I don’t remember Gamorrean stats off of the top of my head. Stormtroopers have Soak 5 and WT 5. This means that 3 stormtroopers are treated as one person with Soak 5 WT 15. Once the group has 6 wounds or more, one dies. Once the group has 11 wounds or more, another dies. Once the group has 16 wounds, the last one dies. You cannot, however, do enough damage to kill multiple stormtroopers. You also defeat one Stormtrooper for every critical injury.

Example: You have 3 Stormtroopers with a total of 3 wounds so far. You then hit with an attack that deals 9 damage and a crit. That means you 4 wounds, puttng the group’s WT to 7. That kills one stormtrooper. Using the crit, you also kill a second stormtrooper, essentially increasing the group’s wounds to 11.

Now, these rules are designed to save time, since there’s no need to keep track of each Gamorrean when they’re all the same for the purposes of the story. However, I believe that the damage rules are unnecessarily confusing, so it might be better to let each one take damage individually if that makes more sense.

1 hour ago, Yaccarus said:

Example: You have 3 Stormtroopers with a total of 3 wounds so far. You then hit with an attack that deals 9 damage and a crit. That means you 4 wounds, puttng the group’s WT to 7. That kills one stormtrooper. Using the crit, you also kill a second stormtrooper, essentially increasing the group’s wounds to 11.

This is, I think, the most common hang-up most new GMs have with minions in this system. But to Yaccarus you should listen. He laid it out pretty succinctly.

9 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

HE laid it out pretty succinctly.

Dang, I knew I should have finished my first cup of coffee before replying! ?

1 hour ago, Yaccarus said:

Example: You have 3 Stormtroopers with a total of 3 wounds so far. You then hit with an attack that deals 9 damage and a crit. That means you 4 wounds, puttng the group’s WT to 7. That kills one stormtrooper. Using the crit, you also kill a second stormtrooper, essentially increasing the group’s wounds to 11.

Result: Unhappy Stormtrooper Minions

I'm so sorry. Just the first thing that popped into my head when reading the title.

11 minutes ago, Varlie said:

Result: Unhappy Stormtrooper Minions

The one on the left looks the one that is hurt and then gets attacked, the one on the right looks like the one who just dies because of the crit when the other one is attacked, and the one in the middle is the one survives long enough to go “Wow, this sucks.”

The one in the middle is the one that bonks his head during the boarding skirmish.

4 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

The minions are treated as a single character.

Only for the purposes of making checks and having checks resolved against them (e.g., shooting at others and being shot in return). For other purposes, four minions are still four people.

8 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

You cannot, however, do enough damage to kill multiple stormtroopers.

Is this accurate? There isn't any language in the RAW that supports this, at least not in any CRB.

And to the OP, does the Beginner Game explicitly say that the Gamorreans are in a group? Because while minions can be deployed in groups, they don't have to be. (This does make for extremely weak enemies, but that would be appropriate for the first combat encounter of the Beginner Game.)

13 minutes ago, DarthHammer said:

Is this accurate? There isn't any language in the RAW that supports this, at least not in any CRB.

Maybe not. Ummm... anyone here an expert on minions taking damage?

2 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

Maybe not. Ummm... anyone here an expert on minions taking damage?

I'm an expert on a great many things.

You certainly can kill multiple Minions with a single hit. A good shot of a heavily modified blaster rifle doing 16 damage will put 11 through stormtroopers' soak, the sixth point drops one of them and the eleventh point drops a second one. A critical hit can take out another, but you can only score one such critical per hit of the attack (generally only once without multiple weapons, Linked, or Auto-fire).

I stand corrected.

On 11/16/2018 at 5:11 PM, HappyDaze said:

I'm an expert on a great many things.

You certainly can kill multiple Minions with a single hit. A good shot of a heavily modified blaster rifle doing 16 damage will put 11 through stormtroopers' soak, the sixth point drops one of them and the eleventh point drops a second one. A critical hit can take out another, but you can only score one such critical per hit of the attack (generally only once without multiple weapons, Linked, or Auto-fire).

The way I've done this, rather than saying that the minions are lined up perfectly and one blaster bolt, swing of a vibroaxe, etc, goes through several of them, is to say that the attack represents several shots fired in rapid succession. Thus there's a logical explanation for downing two or three minions with one attack.

It makes no difference mechanically, it's only for narrative purposes. And yes, I realize that soak only got applied once, but that's the way the rule for minions is written.

9 hours ago, the mercenary said:

The way I've done this, rather than saying that the minions are lined up perfectly and one blaster bolt, swing of a vibroaxe, etc, goes through several of them, is to say that the attack represents several shots fired in rapid succession. Thus there's a logical explanation for downing two or three minions with one attack.

I'm pretty sure that's how it is laid out in the rulebooks too.

Also, throwing my opinion behind the Gamorreans (sp?) not being grouped in that first combat of the starter. I think the idea is to show combat a little before getting into something that can be complicated. That process is repeated throughout the adventure.

On the topic of grouped vs non-grouped: Grouped get the advantage of rolling yellows for any skills they are trained in, not possible for single minions. They also have to be attacked separately and make separate attacks. Conversely, grouped minions can lose several members to a single attack.

In my opinion, minions are intended to add cinematic feel. Rather than your group of PCs being trouble by a single squad of Stormtroopers, they can take on a Sergeant and two squads and expect victory. It was an early design concept for the SWTOR RPG also.

On 11/16/2018 at 4:11 PM, HappyDaze said:

You certainly can kill multiple Minions with a single hit. A good shot of a heavily modified blaster rifle doing 16 damage will put 11 through stormtroopers' soak, the sixth point drops one of them and the eleventh point drops a second one. A critical hit can take out another, but you can only score one such critical per hit of the attack (generally only once without multiple weapons, Linked, or Auto-fire).

Definitely! I've heard many a live-play that agree as well - I think people get hung up on "one roll = one pull of the trigger" but in reality, it's probably a bunch of shots. Not linked or autofire, sure, but someone ducking out from cover and pulling the trigger multiple times seems to fit a narration of this effect.

When you consider the round to be up to a full minute, there can actually be a lot of narrative action in any one roll. Say you're engaged in melee combat against a 3 man minion group of Stormtroopers, and you do enough damage to take out 1 of the minions with a few points left over to injure another one, activate a crit to take out the 3rd one, and have 2 threat left on the roll.

Narratively, that can be described as the following: I leap in the middle of the group of Stormtroopers, sweeping the legs out from under one of them before dropping the blade of my vibroaxe through the center of its helmet (the crit). I then spin around, catching a second Stormtrooper square in the chest, dropping him to the ground in a spray of blood (kill via damage). The third Stormtrooper catches me in the back with a butt strike from his rifle (I suffer 1 strain), causing me to stumble as my blade catches him on the side (ST suffers a few points of damage, I have a setback die on my next attack due to being off balance).

You most definitely can kill multiple minions with a single attack. Because an attack doesn't necessarily represent a single shot/swing as mentioned earlier. It can represent multiple rapid shots/swings, a lucky ricochet, the troops were lined up, etc...

It is helpful that there are few weapons which would represent a single attack/shot when used, and those that are are often explosive or very powerful meaning that it is more believable that a single shot could down multiple foes.

The more powerful guns also tend to be ones which most definitely fire multiple rounds. Blaster rifles and carbines are most certainly what is referred today as a Select-fire weapon(a firearm which can be toggled between Single shot and burst/full-auto) so you can fire multiple shots quickly. Even a blaster pistol attack will easily represent 2-3 rounds fired in a burst.