3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I depends on the purpose. I'm running a campaign now where the PCs have command of a squad of clone troopers, and I don't want the Clone Troopers dying constantly because I want them to be characters. Hence squad of characters. That said the (lowercase) squad will not really be in an (uppercase) Squad, I'll just use Minval groups and formations.

These special clones you want to have character and personality? Those sound like rivals to me, not minions. They can have some nameless clones under their command to ensure that they survive battles using these rules.

11 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I depends on the purpose. I'm running a campaign now where the PCs have command of a squad of clone troopers, and I don't want the Clone Troopers dying constantly because I want them to be characters. Hence squad of characters. That said the (lowercase) squad will not really be in an (uppercase) Squad, I'll just use Minval groups and formations.

What you may want to do is take a step back here. I did this once and here's how it worked:

You have your minions, and a handful of character notes, nothing more than something like:

Hudson: Smart mule, tends to panic when things go wrong, cracks jokes and one liners.

Frost: Always cool, rarely talks, and usually short and to the point, sometimes overly blunt.

Patch: Most friendly and relatable. Tends to get too attached to his squad mates, takes losses kinda hard.

You don't need many, 5 for a campaign is probably enough.

Now, play the game, as stuff happens, find opportunities to apply these character notes to a minion here and there. See who the players react to positively. As things move on and those characters stick around, eventually upgrade the character to a Rival when the time comes.... Or kill them... Or both, whatever the story requires.

I did this in a New Republic campaign. The players really latched onto the Minion I was playing as the crusty old guy that was on the cusp of retirement. He was a minion for most of season 1, and eliminated by a sniper in early in Season 2. Since eliminated Minions don't have to be D-E-D dead, and the players were able to medivac him, a couple Adventures later and the guy comes back grouchy as ever and as a Rival.

15 hours ago, Daeglan said:

No. No no no...you are missing the point. You add a squad to the clone ypu want to live. Now you can have faceless clones die while the PC ones dont.

No. No no no... you are missing the point. I'm making a (lowercase) squad of NPC characters that are supposed to stick around and work with the PCs (not die every 2 seconds). In short, I'm not really using an (uppercase) Squad, I'm simply adapting the Formation rules. This is for a particular campaign in a particular circumstance, not a general use thing. Most of the time, it would be largely be just vanilla Squads.

12 hours ago, KRKappel said:

These special clones you want to have character and personality? Those sound like rivals to me, not minions. They can have some nameless clones under their command to ensure that they survive battles using these rules.

Hence Minval. The thing is, I want them to be mechanically treated like minions for the sake of cutting down on initiative slots and die rolls, but I want them to be like Rivals in other ways, such as wound threshold and character in order to enhance survivability and PC attachment.

4 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

What you may want to do is take a step back here. I did this once and here's how it worked:

You have your minions, and a handful of character notes,

Now, play the game, as stuff happens, find opportunities to apply these character notes to a minion here and there. See who the players react to positively. As things move on and those characters stick around, eventually upgrade the character to a Rival when the time comes.... Or kill them... Or both, whatever the story requires.

I did this in a New Republic campaign. The players really latched onto the Minion I was playing as the crusty old guy that was on the cusp of retirement. He was a minion for most of season 1, and eliminated by a sniper in early in Season 2. Since eliminated Minions don't have to be D-E-D dead, and the players were able to medivac him, a couple Adventures later and the guy comes back grouchy as ever and as a Rival.

Yeah, with a few minor differences, that's more-or-less what I'm trying to do.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No. No no no... you are missing the point. I'm making a (lowercase) squad of NPC characters that are supposed to stick around and work with the PCs (not die every 2 seconds). In short, I'm not really using an (uppercase) Squad, I'm simply adapting the Formation rules. This is for a particular campaign in a particular circumstance, not a general use thing. Most of the time, it would be largely be just vanilla Squads.

So do what Keith suggested. Make the named NPC clones rivals. Assign minion squads to them. That way the minions die first and keep the squad leaders alive.

And as the pcs advance make them into nemesis npcs with bigger squads as they rank up.

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

So do what Keith suggested. Make the named NPC clones rivals. Assign minion squads to them. That way the minions die first and keep the squad leaders alive.

No. They are the PC Sergeant's soldiers. Maybe some of them get promoted at some point, but they start out as the PC's soldiers.

Can you make an argument for why I shouldn't do it? My perception is that most your arguments tend to be something along the lines of "If it isn't in the book, you can't do it" and that isn't very helpful.

30 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No. They are the PC Sergeant's soldiers. Maybe some of them get promoted at some point, but they start out as the PC's soldiers.

Can you make an argument for why I shouldn't do it? My perception is that most your arguments tend to be something along the lines of "If it isn't in the book, you can't do it" and that isn't very helpful.

Ummmm there is no reason not to though. Dont get hung up on the names. To accomplish your goal making them rivals will work better. Im trying to tell you how you can accom p.k lish what you want to accomplish. And the best way to do minor named NPCs yiu want to survive is to make them a rival. They are slightly more survivable that way. And rivals make good squad leaders undee a sergeant which sounds like what.yoh want to accomplish. Why house rule something when you can do ot raw if you apply the tools the system gives you t ok accomplish the task.

12 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

To accomplish your goal making them rivals will work better. Im trying to tell you how you can accom p.k lish what you want to accomplish. And the best way to do minor named NPCs yiu want to survive is to make them a rival. They are slightly more survivable that way.

I am sort of making them Rivals, I take some of the qualities of a Rival, and some of the qualities of a Minion. Hence Minval. It is not a good idea to have 8 Rivals cluttering up the initiative order.

14 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

And rivals make good squad leaders undee a sergeant which sounds like what.yoh want to accomplish. Why house rule something when you can do ot raw if you apply the tools the system gives you t ok accomplish the task.

Sergeants lead a squad, so I'm not sure what your point is. I'm combining the tools the RAW give me to make something that works in this particular situation.

I mean, you should do whatever works best for your table. I think what we're trying to say is that the rules kind of already do what you want them to without changing anything. But if you want to change them, have at it.

I think one thing you might be getting hung up on is the narrative squad vs the mechanical rules squad.

A rival clone with 3-4 minion clones in their mechanical squad has very high survivability, the minions under him and the leader all go on one initiative slot. Narratively speaking, he might be leading a fireteam or element, not an actual full squad.

If doing a little extra work gives you a better feeling for it, I think that's fine. But I would encourage you to run the rules as written a few times first, and then house rule them if you still feel its necessary.

15 minutes ago, KRKappel said:

I think one thing you might be getting hung up on is the narrative squad vs the mechanical rules squad.

I've been using (lowercase) squad to denote narrative squad, and (uppercase) Squad to denote mechanical Squads.

18 minutes ago, KRKappel said:

A rival clone with 3-4 minion clones in their mechanical squad has very high survivability, the minions under him and the leader all go on one initiative slot. Narratively speaking, he might be leading a fireteam or element, not an actual full squad.

Okay, now I get what you are saying. I thought that @Daeglan was saying that they led squads, rather than Squads (ITS SO CONFUSING!), so I hadn't realized he was talking about basically leading fireteams or whatnot. What I intend to do is fairly close to that, but I'll probably use my idea anyway because I think it fits a little bit better for my intentions and it doesn't really add all THAT much complexity.

On 8/13/2019 at 3:45 AM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I depends on the purpose. I'm running a campaign now where the PCs have command of a squad of clone troopers, and I don't want the Clone Troopers dying constantly because I want them to be characters. Hence squad of characters. That said the (lowercase) squad will not really be in an (uppercase) Squad, I'll just use Minval groups and formations.

If your players are fighting as a squad they do that with their actions, they are not using the Squad Formation rules - those are for NPC units fighting alongside them.

In fact the Clone Career includes a tonne of Talents that trigger off being engaged with allied characters - representing the Player Squad.

The Formation rules serve a purpose of upgrading a player with NPC allies, but I think they don't go far enough personally. So I made them slightly better offensively as well as a defensive option. I also apply it both ways, so a Nemesis with a Squad is also slightly better attacking as well as more survivable.

7 hours ago, Spartancfos said:

If your players are fighting as a squad they do that with their actions, they are not using the Squad Formation rules - those are for NPC units fighting alongside them.

No, it's not that the players are fighting as a squad, it's one PC leading a squad of NPCs.

7 hours ago, Spartancfos said:

The Formation rules serve a purpose of upgrading a player with NPC allies, but I think they don't go far enough personally. So I made them slightly better offensively as well as a defensive option. I also apply it both ways, so a Nemesis with a Squad is also slightly better attacking as well as more survivable.

Would you be willing to share?

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yeah, with a few minor differences, that's more-or-less what I'm trying to do. 

So it sounds like you may just need to recognize that even though your a minion doesn't mean you're faceless.

CT-0426 "Hudson" can stick around as long as you need even though he's only a Minion. If he gets shot, he's just wounded and KOed. Removed from play but not D-E-D dead. When you move on to episode 2, Hudson is all healed up and ready to rejoin the squad.

Minion is only a mechanical designation and lump of numbers.

As you go you can personalize things as required. Making Hudson a Rival is an option, but you can also tweak things like applying talent like effects or something to get a bonus while minimizing garbage to track. So like Hudson, though still a minion, provides a rank of Bypass Security to the squad when either the leader or squad makes a check due to some bypass kit he carries or just his innate Hudsonness.

At the end of the day remember the Squad option is kinda like Minion Grouping in that half the whole intent is to represent a lot with as little as possible. Resist the temptation to over-detail things that don't really matter just because it feels like you need to for one reason or another.

A character like Hudson is less about his stat block, and more about what he says in a given situation. So while his "role" within his unit would be that of an infantryman with some tech skills, things like Mission Specialist and D-points allow him to accomplish that without needing to be a rival, have skill ranks, or specialized listed equipment in his inventory, so you can still run Hudson as a Minion. Hudson can still mouth off in briefings, bicker with the support gunner, and freak out when the mission goes awry, but he doesn't need any stats at all to do that.

When you do you Adventure and Encounter design, if you want Hudson to stick around, then you just include that in your outline and encounter numbers. Make sure there's ample "faceless" troopers on the player's side when it comes time to use the Squad rules, so that Hudson won't start an encounter alone. He can always be part of a minion group or squadded up with a Player, so any one casualty in his group won't have to remove him specifically. If Hudson's group gets "removed from play" anyway due to player action or just bad luck, then when the encounter ends, have Patch say it was just a flesh wound and shock and use a stimpack to get Hudson back up.

A good comparison (and why I used Hudson) is to look at the film Aliens. The Colonial Marine platoon starts with a dozenish characters that all have a military role within the unit. There's medics, techs, and so on all baked in. But form the actual perspective of the film itself... almost all those Marines can be represented by Minions using Group and Squad rules. Lt. Gorman and Sgt. Apone might be Rivals. Hicks is likely a Player considering his place in the narrative. But Vasquez and Drake were a pair of Minions in a group of two, both armed with heavy weapons. And then you've got troopers like Wierzbowski, Crowe, Frost, Hudson, Dietrich... who are all minions and either grouped or Squadded as the Players and GM see fit. Narratively they all had a specific function in the platoon; Dietrich for example was a medic. But she never needed to do anything that required a roll, or if she did, the Mission Specialist would have covered it. If she were killed and the players wanted to salvage her med kit, you don' tneed to list it on her, or apply bonuses when she used it because she was never supposed to be that detailed of a character, so allowing a D-point expenditure to cover that would do. Even Ferro and Spunkmeyer, who really had no rolled activities in the film-as-adventure, could have easily been minioned if the GM decided he really needed to make a roll for them.

So there you go. As a GM I can run that Adventure with Ripley and Hicks as players, Gorman, Apone, Bishop, Newt, and Burke as Rivals, and the rest as minions. Then when I do my Adventure and Encounter design I can do things like make sure I never have to use all of them together in a single encounter, or at least not all in initiative, and designate targets in each Encounter to increase the probability of certain characters getting removed from play or getting specific conditions applied at specific milestones.

Okay, that makes sense. I still want to boost their health some though (maybe 10?), so that they can stay in it a little longer even if they do get hit, but in general I think you make a good point. For the record though, I have never watched Aliens (though I intend to at some point eventually maybe), so I have only a basic grasp of your example, but I get your point.

For the medic, by the way, I gave him an emergency medkit, so he can perform medchecks with out penalties, but he doesn't get any bonuses, and I gave the radio operator a trimmed-down tool kit that allows him to perform Mechanics checks without a penalty, but it adds a Setback. I figured that was the best option for not padding their stats too much or giving them expensive equipment. I'll look into talents for the NPCs, I'm thinking I'll treat the Medic as more of a rival, so he might get Stimpack specialist 1 and Surgeon 1. I'm not sure what else I'll do. My original plan was for each one or groups of two to have 1 skill rank in 1 or 2 additional skills (i.e. Sap [a sucker with a truncheon] and Shadow [a stealthy sort] both have Melee 1 and Stealth 1[both have G.I. knives, like the rest) Chatterbox (the radio operator) would get 1 Mechanics and 1 Computers, and Fixer (the medic) would get Medicine and Skulduggery (Fixer because he cheats at cards [with Sap being his primary victim], and fixes people up [I love puns]). There are also a couple others, but I didn't detail them here.

I'm thinking I'll probably just treat them more narratively, only really using their skills when they are independent in some way (i.e. sitting around after a day of fighting, Fixer does a medcheck or two, Chatterbox fiddles with the radio while complaining to no one in particular, and Shadow slips off to check the perimeter. If I were to separate them into Rivals and Minions (though I think that they'll all be Minvals) Fixer, Chatterbox, Sap, and Shadow would be the Rivals (coincidentally, they all have a DC-15A, so I could easily group them if I wanted to.

Run things as you like, but I really think you're overthinking things, and making a couple possible mistakes.

45 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

For the record though, I have never watched Aliens (though I intend to at some point eventually maybe), so I have only a basic grasp of your example, but I get your point.

Dude.... if you are doing any Sci-fi military RPG, this is required viewing. It's essentially a Vietnam War tale in space and is arguably the best Alien film in the series. Arguably only because the first film, Alien, was a sci-fi horror film and Aliens is a genre jump to Sci-fi Action and so direct comparisons aren't really fair.

I also really think Aliens is especially well done for a sequel as it stands extremely well on it's own. You don't need to watch Alien to know what's going on in Aliens, like at all. You should watch Alien, as it's a very good movie and there's some elements of Aliens that will have more weight if you've seen Alien. But if you're not a huge horror fan, you won't feel like there's critical information, character, or relationship notes you're supposed to already be aware of if you skip the first movie.

That said... Alien 3 onward... not that great.

45 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I still want to boost their health some though (maybe 10?), so that they can stay in it a little longer even if they do get hit

Work on your Encounter and Adventure design and run some checks. I think you'll find this isn't needed, or at least not to the level you think.

45 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

For the medic, by the way, I gave him an emergency medkit, so he can perform medchecks with out penalties, but he doesn't get any bonuses, and I gave the radio operator a trimmed-down tool kit that allows him to perform Mechanics checks without a penalty, but it adds a Setback. I figured that was the best option for not padding their stats too much or giving them expensive equipment.

This is probably overthinking. The system is designed with a more cinematic theme, meaning stuff can exist without needing to be present. Individual minions don't need something like a medkit to not take penalties on medicine checks if you as the GM feel like at least one of them would have a basic medkit, or something like it. You can add one later, or on the fly, or whatever, but if it's not a critical day-to-day encounter-to-encounter thing... don't worry about it until it actually is required.

This is part of the whole system, dumping the mundane book keeping in favor of action, that's why things like Extra Reloads just work forever. It's not important exactly how many spare blaster packs the character has, just that it's known they have enough. It's not important that you know what's in every pouch on a Stormtrooper or Clonetroopers utility belt, only that the utility belt is there, and so there's a narrative source for small items that might suddenly be required for the story to move forward, and would logically be present.

Again, think about it less from a world--continuity-management perspective and more from that of a Movie Director. I've got a cop who needs to look like a cop, and come in and shoot the bank robber, and then his part in the movie is done. For that he needs his uniform, gun, key visible objects (cuffs, radio, belt with pouches for stuff) and.... nothing else. This doesn't mean that technically in-universe he doesn't also have spare ammo, gloves, a baton, a taser, keys, a wallet, personal money, ID, a body-cam, a car with a million other things sitting out front, or other small items he would logically have, just that I'm not going to bother putting it into the script or demand the property and costume departments make it, and the actor wear/carry it. Until the script changes requiring such items be visible and relevant to the overall films story, it just doesn't need to "exist."

50 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I figured that was the best option for not padding their stats too much or giving them expensive equipment. I'll look into talents for the NPCs, I'm thinking I'll treat the Medic as more of a rival, so he might get Stimpack specialist 1 and Surgeon 1. I'm not sure what else I'll do. My original plan was for each one or groups of two to have 1 skill rank in 1 or 2 additional skills (i.e. Sap [a sucker with a truncheon] and Shadow [a stealthy sort] both have Melee 1 and Stealth 1[both have G.I. knives, like the rest) Chatterbox (the radio operator) would get 1 Mechanics and 1 Computers, and Fixer (the medic) would get Medicine and Skulduggery (Fixer because he cheats at cards [with Sap being his primary victim], and fixes people up [I love puns]). There are also a couple others, but I didn't detail them here.

I'm thinking I'll probably just treat them more narratively, only really using their skills when they are independent in some way (i.e. sitting around after a day of fighting, Fixer does a medcheck or two, Chatterbox fiddles with the radio while complaining to no one in particular, and Shadow slips off to check the perimeter. If I were to separate them into Rivals and Minions (though I think that they'll all be Minvals) Fixer, Chatterbox, Sap, and Shadow would be the Rivals (coincidentally, they all have a DC-15A, so I could easily group them if I wanted to.

This is the part that I think you need to think about long and hard. Nothing hugely wrong outright, but there's some red flags that suggest serious pitfalls in play may be about to happen.

- If you're going to add this level of granularity to the characters, then just Rival them. Making a hybrid works against the mechanics of Minions that are there specifically to make things easier for the GM. Being a Minion isn't about names or job titles, but the role you play in the story. How many lines you have, how important you are, and how much of your actions are both difficult and important, and how much of it you do on camera. If your only function is to say some stuff, back up the Hero, and do things off-camera or of little narrative consequence on-camera, you can probably be a Minion. If you need specific gear and skills, that implies you'll be doing things on-camera that matter to the larger narrative and can't just be handwaved.

- But... if you're not going to do that, you're spending WAAAY too much time thinking about it. Ok... Fixer's going to slap on some band-aids while Chatterbox checks the encryption keys and Shadows goes off to be emo somewhere... Why do they need to make checks to do that? Can't they go and just do that? Game-play this speeds things along and keeps focus on the Players, and narratively it allows you to just push the story forward, no sweating over if Chatterbox fails and loses commo, either he won't, or he will because the story you've outlined will demand it. which leads to my final, and largest concern...

- It sounds like you have some bit-players that you may be giving way to much screen time too. Every GM worth his salt has been there, they get so excited about the next campaign and all the NPCs, they lose sight of the Player's story. NPC Clonetroopers should, for the most part, be bit players. A comment here, a remark there, a shout here, and a smoking body over there. You'll have your exceptions to the rule like Cmdr. Cody, but for the most part your Clonetroopers will be the faceless legions of expendable assets. You can play with them, give them a little more personality or some extra lines, but the more you give a supporting NPC to say, the less screentime the Players get. Outlining this many Clonetroopers with the level of detail you're getting into suggests that you probably don't actually want them as NPCs, but as PCs...

4 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

This is probably overthinking. The system is designed with a more cinematic theme, meaning stuff can exist without needing to be present. Individual minions don't need something like a medkit to not take penalties on medicine checks if you as the GM feel like at least one of them would have a basic medkit, or something like it. You can add one later, or on the fly, or whatever, but if it's not a critical day-to-day encounter-to-encounter thing... don't worry about it until it actually is required.

I am not listing all their kit and every item on their persons, its just a general idea of "what can they do?" I'm not really even detailing what they have, its just getting straight in my mind their basic abilities.

4 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

This is the part that I think you need to think about long and hard. Nothing hugely wrong outright, but there's some red flags that suggest serious pitfalls in play may be about to happen.

- If you're going to add this level of granularity to the characters, then just Rival them. Making a hybrid works against the mechanics of Minions that are there specifically to make things easier for the GM. Being a Minion isn't about names or job titles, but the role you play in the story. How many lines you have, how important you are, and how much of your actions are both difficult and important, and how much of it you do on camera. If your only function is to say some stuff, back up the Hero, and do things off-camera or of little narrative consequence on-camera, you can probably be a Minion. If you need specific gear and skills, that implies you'll be doing things on-camera that matter to the larger narrative and can't just be handwaved.

The main reason for them not to be a Rival is that I don't want them cluttering up the initiative order. I'm sort of thinking that I'll treat them as Minions in combat, unless Sarge yells "Call in some air support! We can't break that bunker on our own." or Fixer needs to fix somebody, etc. After some experimentation (or progression), I might switch some of them over to being Rivals full time though. Much of the stuff could just be handwaved, but in many cases it would make sense for Fixer to actually do a medcheck. Now, if he's just working on one of the minor NPC clones, it can probably be handwaved as it's most likely not integral to the story for the clone's WT to be recorded, However, if it is a major NPC or one of the PCs, than that's a different story and I think a medcheck would be in order. As far as fixing the radio goes, it would probably only be in specific situations, i.e. "Call in some air support! We can't break that bunker on our own." "Sorry boss, last droid shot it, it saved my life, but it might take a minute to fix." Now maybe I could handwave it by saying "oh, it'll take 3 rounds" but I think that it seems less like the game is on rails if you roll the dice for stuff like that. It also adds to the excitement to a certain extent.

4 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

- But... if you're not going to do that, you're spending WAAAY too much time thinking about it. Ok... Fixer's going to slap on some band-aids while Chatterbox checks the encryption keys and Shadows goes off to be emo somewhere... Why do they need to make checks to do that? Can't they go and just do that? Game-play this speeds things along and keeps focus on the Players, and narratively it allows you to just push the story forward, no sweating over if Chatterbox fails and loses commo, either he won't, or he will because the story you've outlined will demand it. which leads to my final, and largest concern...

I also largely addressed that in the last paragraph, but I'll do it directly here. Most of the time I wouldn't need to make checks for those things, that wasn't a great example, it was just off the top of my head. But with Fixer, rolling for medchecks might be necessary sometimes, especially if it is a PC, and Chatterbox fixing the radio, while not necessarily something that requires a check, could be if in a situation like I described above. A lot of the whole "NPCs making checks" thing is giving the players a little more confidence that the whole thing is set out before them on a predetermined route, as rolling the dice takes it somewhat out of the GMs control.

4 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

a smoking body over there.

😱 😭 😭 😭 😩 😭 😭 ... poor clones.

4 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

- It sounds like you have some bit-players that you may be giving way to much screen time too. Every GM worth his salt has been there, they get so excited about the next campaign and all the NPCs, they lose sight of the Player's story. NPC Clonetroopers should, for the most part, be bit players. A comment here, a remark there, a shout here, and a smoking body over there. You'll have your exceptions to the rule like Cmdr. Cody, but for the most part your Clonetroopers will be the faceless legions of expendable assets. You can play with them, give them a little more personality or some extra lines, but the more you give a supporting NPC to say, the less screentime the Players get. Outlining this many Clonetroopers with the level of detail you're getting into suggests that you probably don't actually want them as NPCs, but as PCs...

Okay, I'll keep that in mind and be careful. And also, almost every NPC I make, I want to be a PC. I might be a better player than GM in that regard. I'm trying to tone that tendency down though, and 4 of the 8 clones in the squad (#9 and the sergeant are PCs) aren't really fleshed out that much at all.

Ooh, the poor clones.

So do t have them clutter the order. Put them under the control of the pc. Run them like a pet.

5 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

So do t have them clutter the order. Put them under the control of the pc. Run them like a pet.

How do you run a pet?

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

How do you run a pet?

basically spend a manuever to direct your companion. There are rules in F&D Core or special modifications or Savage spirits. for various methods of running them. But in a nutshell you can add boosts or spend a manuever to give them an action. The Squad Rules is another way where they give you bonuses.

24 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

basically spend a manuever to direct your companion. There are rules in F&D Core or special modifications or Savage spirits. for various methods of running them. But in a nutshell you can add boosts or spend a manuever to give them an action. The Squad Rules is another way where they give you bonuses.

Okay. I'm not sure if that's what I need though.

The only way you are going to know what you need is to experiment. Run encounters with your players to try out various ways of running things. make up encounters with that are just throw away for your players where you try the squad rules, running them as companions etc. to find the method that works for your group.

17 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

The only way you are going to know what you need is to experiment. Run encounters with your players to try out various ways of running things. make up encounters with that are just throw away for your players where you try the squad rules, running them as companions etc. to find the method that works for your group.

Okay. I'll see how it goes.