The Bestial Howl action of the beastmen reads:

" Special : The beastman targets an engagement within close range. <...> "

What does that mean? At first, I played it as targeting either one player or more players standing together or one or more players fighting the same enemy. But then I thought about what engagement means and played it only if the players were in a melee with an enemy. But that sounded strange. Why would the beastman only be able to howl at fighting players? And then I the FAQ about egagements (page 12):

Do I need to spend a manoeuvre to

engage a friendly character?

If the friendly character is somewhere within close range and not
currently engaged with an enemy, and your character is not part of
another engagement, then you simply need to perform a Movement
manoeuvre to Move within Close Range.
In the situation where two friendly characters are within medium
range of each other, and neither of them is currently in an engagement,
one of the characters could perform a Movement manoeuvre
to Change Range Increment and move from medium range to
close range, ending up at a spot within close range where the two
characters would be considered engaged.
Essentially, changing your position requires a manoeuvre. Manoeuvres
used to specifically engage or disengage are best interpreted
as safely and securely moving into/out of close contact with
a group of people or an enemy.

If my ally and an enemy are engaged,
and I engage the enemy, am I also
engaged wi th my ally?

Yes. It’s helpful to think of an engagement as a rugby scrum. Everyone
in the engagement is theoretically adjacent to everyone else.
The participants aren’t standing statically – everyone is moving
about, jostling around, jockeying for position, doing their best to
protect themselves, etc.
In smaller scale encounters, this means a single engagement could
reflect as few as two characters, upwards of a dozen or more. For
larger encounters with even more participants, a GM may wish to
break engagements into smaller clusters to better reflect where the
focus of the participant’s attention and actions are at a given time.

So basically in game terms, as soon as one player "engages" a friendly person, I can target him. Sounds weird.

So am I right in assuming, that an engagement is anything from one single person to a whole melee-group, for the purpose of the Bestial Howl?

Oh, btw, I am no native-speaker of English. So I don't know every possible use of the word "engagement"...

"Engagement" is just another range band, sort of like "point blank". It's usually described as "close enough to whisper". Close range is essentially "in the same room".

An engagement can include as few as one, up to as many as the GM decides is reasonable for the space.

Friendly people must "Engage" each other in order to perform first aid, for example, or to pass items between them. Opponents that want to strike each other with melee weapons need to "Engage" each other. Etc.

So your interpretation would be: I can target anyone in close range, and should this person be engaged with someone, be it friend or foe, all enemies of the beastman would be affected. Right?

(As the action-description is worded, it can not mean engagement as a range-band, though, right? Because it says "engagement in close range". A range band in a range band?)

think of an engagement as any group of 2 or more players/npcs/creatures that are effectively touching at least 1 other person in the group.

some examples:

wood elf hitting a beastman with a stick = one engagement.

forrest gump carrying lieutenant dan over his shoulder = one engagement.

dwarf lying prone on the ground with a barber surgeon performing first aid while a thief attempts to pick the dwarf's pocket = one engagement.

thug shield bashing a henchman group of 5 ungors while merchant performs a basic melee attack on the 5 ungors and 1 gor is basic melee attacking the thug = one engagement.

a conga line of 6 drunken dancing dwarf miners = one engagement.

I get that.

But that would also mean, that the Beastman can't howl at a single player, but if that single player picks another player up, the howl will work. Sounds weird, doesn't it?

My point is: What is the intention of the wording? Since I am not that experienced with 3rd Ed yet, I can't really decide if it would be overpowered to allow Bestial Howl against single enemies.

So your interpretation would be: I can target anyone in close range, and should this person be engaged with someone, be it friend or foe, all enemies of the beastman would be affected. Right?

Yes.

(As the action-description is worded, it can not mean engagement as a range-band, though, right? Because it says "engagement in close range". A range band in a range band?)

An engagement is a range band ... but it is somewhat of an unique one. This is because you can have multiple engagements within the same "close" range band. So an engagement is like a 'localized' range band. Think of a medium sized ballroom, with several couples dancing. The whole room is considered Close range. Each dancing couple is an Engagement. So are each of the tables that are scattered around the edges of the room, which might seat anywhere from 1 to 4 or 5 people. You could have a dozen Engagements within Close Range, potentially. It is also possible to consider several pairs of dancing couples as a single engagement, depending on how close they are dancing to each other. That is up to the GM.

It says 'engagement in close range' because if the Beastman is at medium range, there could be engagements happening that are at medium range from him. So, an engagement is more about the localized range between two entities that are within Close range with each other, rather than the traditional range band distance like the others.

Personally, IMO as a GM, an individual can technically be its own 'engagement', and you do not need a second person to affect. An engagement is any "grouping" or entity or entities within close range, in which is takes a single maneuver to engage them. How close the entities are to each other will determine whether they are a single engagement or mutliple. It doesn't really matter IMO if it is a single person, or several.

If you've got 4 PCs in Close range of each other, depending on how close they are to each other they could be considered anywhere from 1 to 4 "engagements". If there was an enemy within Close range as well, and he wanted to engage one of the PCs, with a single maneuver would he engage just one PC, 2 PCs, 3 PCs, or all 4 of them?