Remember a turn is suggested to represent a minute of action. Now, I personally find this outdated (this is very like AD&D) and rediculous (a lot more can happen in a minute than it allows), and the totally abstract nature of it means you can treat it however you like, but I don't even think visualising minion groups as distinct entities works under the system. You don't have them scattered (or even engaged) they are just one entity. When someone engages them, this doesn't just represent them charging at one guy, but charging about, furiously murder-hoboing their way through all the stormtroopers. If you want distinct things to track, just have several separate minion groups, or run each group as an individual guy.

borithan said:

Yep, that's pretty much the way I run it. I assumed that seeing as they share their action, they share their maneuver as well, and are pretty much treated as one entity. When we use minis I just use a single mini to represent a group of minions, and I certainly wouldn't split them across range bands.

It's easy enough to use separate groups of minions if you want them at different range bands.

However, the rules aren't 100% clear on this, and could stand to be clearer.

gribble said:

Agree on this point.

Not expecting to see it in the final Weekly Update, but something to certainly consider for the final version.

LethalDose said:

The example you keep using is what triggers the problem I'm seeing. (Emphasis added to the quoted section above.)

Let's say your minion group is spread out such that they aren't all in the same 'zone' (same range increment from any given target). If you move to engage one of them, you *by definition* can't move to engage all of them since some of them will be at 'Engaged' distance, others might be at 'Close/Short', or even 'Long', depending.

At that point, the melee fighter who dishes out 12 points of damage to the single minion he could Engage with, kills that minion, and one other who isn't anywhere close to being in range of his weapon.

Would you allow a tank to split up so that the turret is at Close range while the body is at Long? By virtue of the 'minion group' rules, the minion group is a single entity, just like the tank is.

If your minions can be at differing range increments from a single target, they're not a single entity any more, they're a bunch of separate entities.

If one minion can turn left at an intersection, and the other can turn right, they're not a single entity any more.

This isn't a 'weird and infrequent condition', it's *any* encounter where you have a melee combatant fighting a minion group. Ranged combat disguises the issue, but doesn't eliminate it. If you allow a minion group to be spread across multiple range increments, part of the group can be out of range, creating another impossible multiple-kill scenario.

Allow me to illustrate:

You've got a fight occurring near an intersection of a hallway (or cave system, or the like). If one member of your 4-minion group can be completely out of the line of fire (due to walls), while another has cover at the corner, and another is in the middle of the intersection, and the last is standing behind the PCs, you've got multiple different entities, not one. Again, unless you think all combat has to occur in the middle of a big open space, this isn't a 'weird and infrequent condition' either.

In short, if your minion group can't be located in one spot on the 'battle map', they're not a single entity any more. If a PC can be Engaged with one minion, but not the rest in the 'group', they're not a single entity any more. They're a bunch of individual minions. There's nothing wrong with that, but they shouldn't be getting the advantage of having skill ranks.

Another example:

You allow a minion group to be spread across multiple 'range bands' (close and long, for example).

My Vibro-axe wielding Wookie Marauder moves in on and Engages the minion group by way of the one, lone minion of the group who was at close range, and manages to dish out *exactly* 5 damage (after soak), dropping that single minion. The Wookie Engaged the *group* (a single entity). That single entity still exists in the game, so he is still Engated with it. However, the remaining portion of that single entity is now at Long range, so he is now Engaged with a group which currently *out* of melee range. Or the Wookie, still Engaged with the minion group entity, is now physically standing at Engaged range to the rest of the group, allowing him to move *several* maneuvers worth of distance for free.

In short, it is NOT just the actions of a minion group which can influence whether they are a group.

@Voice

I guess we just see it differently. I'm sorry your melee character has to move again to engage more minions. That's the system. I definitely disagree with your magical teleporting wookie interpretation:

Voice said:

(emphasis mine) I think this is, at best, a vast over-interpretation and/or distortion of the rules into something is just silly.

As I've stated before, my interpretation doesn't violate RAW, and your rebuttal doesn't seem to invoke much of the RAW, but instead how you feel the RAW should work, in that the individuals in the group must be united in all possible ways.

Basically, the RAW only state that the individuals in the group:

1. Share damage as a group. (though it IS explicit that each minion has an individual wound total)
2. Make actions as a group.

That's it.

There are simply no restrictions about where the minions are allowed to stand while they take that action.

In short, you can run your games your way, I will run mine with my interpretation.

-WJL

More clarity and examples would hopefully alleviate some of the gray areas. Let's hope we get that in the final book.

Absolutely no idea what happened with the formatting here. I've tried several times to fix it, to no avail.

LethalDose said:

@Voice

I guess we just see it differently. I'm sorry your melee character has to move again to engage more minions. That's the system. I definitely disagree with your magical teleporting wookie interpretation:

Voice said:

My Vibro-axe wielding Wookie Marauder moves in on and Engages the minion group by way of the one, lone minion of the group who was at close range, and manages to dish out *exactly* 5 damage (after soak), dropping that single minion. The Wookie Engaged the *group* (a single entity). That single entity still exists in the game, so he is still Engated with it. However, the remaining portion of that single entity is now at Long range, so he is now Engaged with a group which currently *out* of melee range. Or the Wookie, still Engaged with the minion group entity, is now physically standing at Engaged range to the rest of the group, allowing him to move *several* maneuvers worth of distance for free.

(emphasis mine) I think this is, at best, a vast over-interpretation and/or distortion of the rules into something is just silly.

As I've stated before, my interpretation doesn't violate RAW, and your rebuttal doesn't seem to invoke much of the RAW, but instead how you feel the RAW should work, in that the individuals in the group must be united in all possible ways.

Basically, the RAW only state that the individuals in the group:

1. Share damage as a group. (though it IS explicit that each minion has an individual wound total)
2. Make actions as a group.

That's it.

There are simply no restrictions about where the minions are allowed to stand while they take that action.

In short, you can run your games your way, I will run mine with my interpretation.

-WJL

Well, so long as you don't have any characters in your game who specialize in melee (Marauders), and you never have melee combat which ends up involving a minion group, then you'll be fine. But realize that your *interpretation* of RAW allows Minion groups to do things that no other entity in the game can do. Not even a Nemesis can disengage from a melee opponent as a non-action simply by taking 5 points of damage. No other entity in the game can potentially be Engaged by/with multiple other game entities which are at Long, or even Extreme range from one another. My interpretation of RAW is that the minion group is a single entity within the game, and as such, it cannot turn two different directions at the same time, nor can it move to two different locations at the same time.

And for the record, *I* disagree with the 'magical teleporting Wookie' interpretation, as well. Unfortunately, it's the only interpretation of events which is consistent with both the engagement rules *and* your interpretation of the minion group rules.

First, your presumption I haven't run into this and "oh as soon as I see it I'll agree with you" is just wrong. I have a melee character (a Wookie Doctor) in my game. The situation with him engaging a single minion in a spread out group has happened repeatedly, in fact we built and played through a few scenarios at the beginning of beta just to understand the rules better. We resolved it exactly they way I've described, and it runs smooth as silk. All you have to do is acknowledge that there are no rules that restrict movement on the minions in group.

Voice said:

No, it isn't the only interpretation. You've made it abundantly clear that, for whatever reason, you can't or won't accept the interpretation that the minions are essentially individuals and are only treated as something other than individuals for actions and damage allocation. So trying to explain it to you further is a waste of time.

-WJL

Voice,

I think your biggest problem here is that you're trying to enforce a tactical mindset on a game system that is very much not a tactical RPG. A few players in my Saturday gaming group had a similar issue the first couple sessions we played of Dresden Files, which has even less codified ranges than EotE does. If most of the RPGs you've played previously have been tactically-based with ranges measured in exact increments (be they feet, meters, squares, or hexes), then it's not always an easy change to make.

Quite simply, it's really not going to work out all that well, as your experiences have shown.

One suggestion on how to handle the issue is, if you're the GM, simply keep your minion groups close together (no further than Short Range) rather than spreading them out all over the scene. This way, there's less of the "magical teleporting Wookiee" (which admittedly would be a pretty cool sight for a less-serious game) issue, and you can just consider the Wook to have the Cleave and Great Cleave feats built-in when attacking minion groups. Considering he has to use one or more maneuvers just to get into smacking range while the PCs with blasters can use their maneuvers to Aim and/or seek cover, giving the Wook an extra minor move under a specific circumstance isn't horribly unbalancing, and still plays within the spirit of the rules.

If you are using maps, since there's not attacks of opportunity and no precise measurement of movement, simply place the Wook so that he's adjacent to multiple minions (which would probably be spaced no more than one or two squares apart, with adjacent figures being considered as "engaged"). This way, no movement needed when the Wook deals excessive damage to a minion group.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I have to respectfully refute this argument. It isn't Voice bringing a certain perspective to the game; the game itself is doing that. That added level of tactical granularity is written into the combat rules. It is not a matter of perspective.

I started this thread to call attention to this very conundrum. The game is narrative, but has very specific conditions that must be met to carry out certain actions and effects in combat. As a gamer, I expect that if the game's rules are going to become more detailed in certain situations, the designers will make the added layers of detail clear so that I understand how all of the various rules fit together. For the most part, they are. There's just a few cases where I'd like to see things stated specifically that currently are not.

I believe a GM does need to know how far apart enemies are, because enemies who are at engaged range to each can be affected by weapon quality rules such as Blast and Auto-fire. This is not done out of a failure to grasp that the game is a narrative-focused RPG, but out of a desire to fairly and correctly apply the rules for such abilities both for and against the NPCs that he is controlling.

What would help to clarify matters is a more detailed definition of what a minion group is. Is it a single entity, as some have suggested? Can this "group entity" therefore only take a single maneuver and a single action? Can it use its Soak only once? If it is a single entity, then I would contend that grenades which do Blast damage would not apply it against the minion group, because Blast states that it affects "each character engaged with the original target", and I'd want to treat a minion group as one character. Or, I could treat the minion group as a number of characters equal to the number of minions within it, but then I would want to treat them as separate characters in all respects, and if the minion group only gets to make one attack, perhaps the rule should be worded to say "only one character in the group can make an attack in each round", so it's a bit more clear. If the intent is that the minion group is made up of multiple characters who are required to remain at engaged range to each other, great, that would clear up a few things. Currently the rules don't contain any such stipulation.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that we really just need a little added clarification on how groups of enemies work. I do understand that this is a narrative game and I'm sure Voice does as well, but the reality is, the games rules DO get granular for combat and we just want to know how to make the rules all work together properly.

Venthrac said:

Just read from pg 195 to the end of the first column 196. I believe these are the entirety of the rules regarding minions. The tone of the entire section makes it very clear (without actually saying it), the grouping mechanism is meant as a book-keeping and effort-saving device for the GM (which is needed in these games!), and a way to increase the threat of a minion, but has absolutely no implication beyond these points.

It works great the way it is written, I think more rules will only serve to obfuscate how it works.

If you want to "treat a minion group as one character", fine. But don't mistake your prerogative for RAW.

-WJL

Yeah, I wouldn't do that, I'm just describing my gut reaction and feelings based on what is (and isn't) written in the rules. The thing is, though, sometimes you are forced to go with a prerogative because no rule is written that covers the particular situation.

I'll follow your lead, Dose, and re-read the whole section. Maybe another look will provide additional clarity and illumination.

And let me add, it's been both useful and enjoyable to have these kinds of rules discussions and share opinions with you guys. I hope the designers have found us to be a good beta community that has helped them develop them game. I certainly do appreciate all the insight and perspective that the other testers have provided. It has been a very constructive process overall.

Donovan Morningfire said:

With all due respect, Donovan, the point I'm making doesn't rely on a tactical mindset at all. It simply relies on setting the scene for your players so that they can understand what's going on.

The rules say:

1. If you attack a minion group, you drop one minion for every 5 points of damage you deal to the group.
2. A melee character can only attack something he is Engaged with.

If a minion group consists of 4 minions at opposite corners of a warehouse, or even opposite corners of a *living room*, they're too far apart for a melee combatant to attack more than one of them. If the melee combatant deals 10 points of post-soak damage, how does the other minion die? Yes, people have suggested a stray shot from a dropped blaster, but what if the minion isn't *armed* with a blaster?

Reading the rules as LethalDose does, presents a simple situation where one of those two rules must be violated. And it's a situation which will become *very* important as soon as a player decides to go the Marauder route. If a minion group can be at Engaged, Short *and* Long range, what's the difficulty of attacking that minion group? The easiest? Hardest? Average? What if one minion in the group is in range and the others are out of range? What if one minion is in the open and the rest are behind a reinforced wall? Can I still kill the entire group with a single high-damage attack with my heavy blaster pistol?

Regardless of who's interpretation is correct (mine or Lethal's), the rules need to be clarified, to either specifically state that a minion group is a single entity, or to clear up what happens when a minion group is spread across multiple range bands.

LethalDose said:

If you want to "treat a minion group as a bunch of individual characters", fine. But don't mistake your prerogative for RAW.

See, it cuts both ways. We both read the RAW. We both have different interpretations of what it means. The question that needs to be resolved is *which* interpretation of RAW is actually RAI.

Voice said:

Come up with another explanation (like a shot from someone else's blaster), and then get the hell over it. Or allow DM's 'rolling cleave'. Or don't play this way.

Voice said:

Character attacking the group is subject to difficulty determined by whatever individual minion they want (usually closest is preferred, but exceptions could occur). The group takes the highest difficulty and may only take actions as a group that are valid for all minions a group. For example, if not all minions in a group can move to engage a target and perform a melee attack, then the group as a whole must either:

• Not take the action, because it's not legal for all minions
• Redefine themselves into 2 or more separate groups, each of which MAY take actions together as allowed, and accept the reduction in skill ranks.

The inconsistency is a 'penalty' for operating the group like this. And its fine!

My way allows everyone to legal maneuvers and resolve the results in fair ways. There are some… odd results, but nothing that can't be worked around. Some rules get bent, but this happens in all the time in RPGs to improve gameplay!

As far as this…

Voice said:

Yeah, it cuts both ways. First, I wasn't even talking to you; I was giving advice for someone to keep an open mind when I recommended reading the relevant rules. But if you insist on making a line in a response to someone else about what I said to you, fine. I never said your way was wrong or violates RAW (go look at all the times I say "run you game however you want"). What IS wrong is your bloody absurd insistence that my interpretation can only lead to stupid situations because of rules you made up!

-WJL

Just a thought here, but it might be best if you two gents simply agree to disagree on this one. As long as the designers see this thread and the confusion it's creating among some of us then I think we've achieved our goal here.

I'll preface this by acknowledging I've yet to get my hands on the rules, and what I have to say may have little baring on the reality of the game:

Given the abstract nature of the range bands would it be possible, or perhaps even desirable, to consider them as some what mutable? Particularly in the case of the 'Engaged' Range. I've personally interpreted the ranging relative not only to distance, but posture, particularly when you consider the actual length of a round.

For Example, a fire-fight in the Falcon's main hold might serve to highlight this mutability of ranges. We find a group of storm troopers (a minion group) moving up the corridor and into the hold. Taking cover near the rear of the hold, Luke swaps blaster fire with the storm troopers at Short Range (I don't see ranges aboard the Falcon ever exceeding Short). Han, noticing the troopers carbines and feeling guttsy, moves forward towards the group dodging between troopers and obstacles, causing the troopers to be hindered by their larger weapons at Engaged range. Chewie, currently unarmed, dives straight in and begins clobbering minions, again at Engaged range. Over all, the range differences between Luke and the Troopers, and Han and Chewie and the Troopers is relatively small, almost negligable. In fact, some of the troopers near the back of the group still coming up the corridor are likely as far from Hand and Chewie as Luke is from the closest troopers. In such small quarters and given a minute long round, Chewie and even Han could easily move between all of the troopers despite the fact that they could be describe as short range apart. Luke, not getting in their face, not making it difficult for them to bring their carbines to bare, is (clearly from my own perspective) at Short range. Han and Chewie, by means of their posture, are engaged with the entire group of Storm troopers. In this case, distance is only a small factor of Range, and different members of the group could easily be described as a short range apart given their distances, but relative to Han and Chewie, they are all engaged. The farthest Troopers, assuming Luke can see them, are still just at short range to him.

Though I could be wrong, this is an idea that I believe has underlined more than a few people's perceptions of engaging groups of minions in previous posts, they just haven't been describe such a manner. Given this mutability of range, a PC fighting melee could be engaged with an entire group of minions despite a potential range band or so of separation between minion members. I would also think this mutability shrinks the more steps of separation (of range bands), but that is a little less relevant.

With this understanding, even using a map with individual members of a group depicted, taking out multiple member with melee attacks seems reasonable, and need not involve much teleporting at all between range bands. On the flip side, taking out the 'closest' members of a group should not be alter the groups relative distance, say for instance from Luke in the example above, and certainly not from those engaged with them, such as Han and Chewie.

I'm raring to get my hands on a copy of the beta, I have one on the way, though I don't seeing it arriving in time for me to contribute to the playtest, but I do wonder what people think of my current interpretation of the rules as they are currently stated?

Crimson_red said:

This is perfectly fine and how the game is intended to work. Even if the storm troopers didn't form an engagement to start with (i.e. they weren't all close enough to interact), as you state, it's unlikely they were at greater than short range to each other (besides, it's stated friendlies can disengage from other friendlies without a maneuver). So if they are at short range to each other, and Chewie engages one of them then does enough damage in melee to kill three, three still die, and its not that hard to narratively explain.

One question that causes trouble here is "where is chewie afterward"? Is he engaged with the remaining troopers?

• I say no, he's short distance to the remaining troopers. He has to engage again.
• DM would say maybe, based on his "rolling cleave" interpretation.
• Voice says yes, they have to be engaged because a minion group can only be considered as a single entity in every conceivable respect.

The respective critiques of these results are:

• The WHOLE group was engaged before the minion died, and then the WHOLE group isn't engaged after the individual died and this is simply impossible. Or something.
• What is limit on how far a player can move as this "rolling cleave"
• There is absolutely no explicit or implicit rules that individuals in a minion group all must share the same engagement status, position, etc.

Because of this unclear engagement status, other issues crop up, mainly in the form of required maneuvers to re-engage and how to handle some weapons qualities (blast, walking autofire, etc).

-WJL

Another option- the additional minion eliminated by a melee attack actually just got demoralized and fled.

Thank you LethalDose, I think that helps to clarify where the discussion stands at the moment.

I think it may illustrate another gap in communication then, namely every time you talk of the melee combatant spending a maneuver to engage then attack, you always describe them as engaging and attacking one minion plus any others that might also be included in light of excess damage. It would be logical, given that description, that the attacker is not engaged with the others in the group, merely that he engaged an individual and through luck or skill managed to bring harm to a number of the target's allies. Since the attack had killed the target he engaged he ends his turn at short range to the rest.

Where the difference arises, I think, is when others describe the attacker engaging and attacking a group of minions, he is not attacking an individual, but the group as a whole. In the minute that comprises a round he is moving from one to the other, succeeding at slaying group members as the dice results dictate. The remaining members remain engaged because the attacker is still within reasonable reach of the whole group. This type of interaction would simulate DM's 'rolling cleave' in effect - though I don't recall if he suggested the attacker remained engaged or not afterwards.

In critiquing your own stance, its not that it is "The WHOLE group was engaged before the minion died, and then the WHOLE group isn't engaged after the individual died and this is simply impossible. Or something." but that the parameters of engagement were the whole group, not simply a part of it, and that would not change after the fact. Like the example, despite the distance between targets, its not unreasonable that the attacker can in fact pose a real threat to all members of the group, if so, there is little reason for the engagement to end.

In regards to "What is limit on how far a player can move at this "rolling cleave"," that might still be a bit of a pickle, but assuming mutable range bands, as above, that is actually a pretty large space all told. With a step or two removed, there should be little difficulty explaining the attackers mobility and leaving him in a position to threaten or engage the remaining members. Now if a group is spread over a much greater span than a couple of range increments then it might be time to reconsider treating them as a group, assuming one purpose of minion groups is to provide a single target to attack, or at least rendering it down to a single attack roll for the round.

As for the group being considered "a single entity in every conceivable respect," that might be a slight exaggeration of Voice's stance, albeit a fine one. For the purposes of attacking and for being attacked it certainly seems that they are a 'single entity' (although it may not be explicitly stated), but by extension, I would argue, being a single entity for the purpose of being attacked, for simplicity sake, it would reasonable to state they are a single entity for the purpose of being engaged, which is the first necessary step needed to be taken to attack within melee.

Anyway, I hope that made sense, and adds a worthwhile point of view to the mix. I think either interpretation has merit, but for me the whole purpose was to give a simple, easy means of attacking a group of lesser opponents over the course of an extended round (beyond the groups own attack benefits), and maintaining that state of engagement seems a logical mean of extending that purpose.

EDIT: I do see a group of minions as a single group ('entity' if necessary), and speak of them in terms of a group. I'll admit, this could be mistaken, at least until I get a chance to read the rules myself and am able to form a properly informed interpretation of my own.

Crimson_red said:

I have 2 points of rebuttal here:

1. When attacking with a melee weapon (knife, sword, axe, baton, chair, roast leg of gundark, whatever), you don't (or at least rarely) 'attack a group'. You swing/stab/hack/slash at a guy. At. A. GUY. Especially if his nearest friend is "several meters away" (the definition of short range). So the assailant IS attacking an individual. If he does excess damage, the bleed over is allowed to go to unengaged minions because thats fair and how the rules work. We explain away the 'oddity', because that's how the rules work in a narrative game; you get to say "something cool happened" and then keep playing the game.
2. The point of spreading the minions is to avoid having them in a single engagement to avoid making them too easy to kill. Asking the attacker to spend a maneuver to engage a separate enemy that is out of his range is a pretty small cost to pay, especially if they chose to play a melee fighter. That's just part of the game. (this also speaks to why I think melee damage should be dangerous as hell. I'll be keeping Vibro-axes as +6 weapons). If the minions have to stay in an engagement for no reason other than 'because they have to be in an engagement' makes them way to susceptible to area attacks like grenades.

I'll say it again: I don't have a problem if you don't . If you don't like how this works, don't use. I'll say this again, too: The RAW says minions allocate damage as a group, it does not say they are targeted as a group.

I do have a problem when someone insists that, based on a legitimate interpretation of the rules, I have to allow to stupid or absurd results because they vastly over-interpreted or just straight-up imagined rules:

Voice said:

Actually, his original interpretation was even more extreme. His original problem stated that just because a minion was engaged by and attacked by a character, that minion must be removed from the group and completely lost any ability to act as part of that group:

Voice said:

This is just wrong.

The converstation started to evolve in this broader discussion, but still with the insistence that PC actions could somehow force minions out of a group.

Voice said:

I've reconciled these problems in the posts above.

-WJL

Venthrac said:

As far as minions go: This is FFG. They write rules as if it was them and their mates playing the game. They presume people understand what they mean, and so they don't notice the wooliness in some of their rules, or forgetting that not everyone has experience of other similar rules sets. Looking at WFRP's "henchmen" (which were basically the same thing as minions) I would say in 99% of cases minions should work as 1 character. In WFRP they are tracked as a single "character stand up", with a lump of wounds based on the number of players and bonuses to their actions (which they always get one of shared between them, same for maneveurs) based on how much damage they have taken. This is based on on the fact that aside from the fact that star wars minions have 5 wounds per guy all the other rules are identical (where minion rules have been explicitly mentioned).

Now, there still remain oddities. Now, Soak isn't one of them, as Henchmen (and I think it states somewhere explicitly that it is the same for Star Wars minions… it not being in the same section as the rest of the minion rules would be true to FFG's ruleswriting tradition) carry over damage, ignoring soak. 9 damage is inflicted on a group of minions with 3 soak? 1 guy dies, and the one wound carries on to another guy. The problem comes with the other things you mention: blast. I am not sure if it was ever resolved whether WFRP actions that target "everyone in an engagement" just hit the minion group once, or once for every individual in the minion group, and it certainly is not explained in Star Wars.

Yeah, where things get tricky is when minion groups interact with certain other rules in the game. That's where the added clarity is needed.

LethalDose said:

Yep… You'd never say my way was wrong or violates RAW… Except for every time you say that *your* way is RAW and any other way is someone's prerogative', or a 'made up rule'. Please point out the rule I "made up". I suspect our sole bit of contention is our different interpretation of "the minions operate in concert". Your interpretation seems to be that they are in vaguely the same general vicinity and making attack rolls against the same target. My interpretation is that they're actually operating in concert. (Moving together, watching each others' backs, defending each other, etc.)

We have two different interpretations of the rule. I'm not the only one in this thread who has pointed out the inconsistencies and rule-bending that occurs with your interpretation. (I'll note that no such rule-bending occurs with my interpretation, because in my interpretation there's no way for a minion group to *not* be able to engage or be engaged as a single group.)

Unless, of course, you're secretly one of the designers, in which case you should be busy making sure the clarification ends up in the errata and the final book instead of floating through here with your, 'I'm right and anybody who disagrees with me is a fool who is making up rules" attitude.

LethalDose said:

Your means of 'reconciling' the problems above is to have 'magic blaster bolts' happen when a melee combatant kills multiple minions even when he's only able to be Engaged with one of them and the rest are out of range (or even out of the room). To me, 'reconciling' rules doesn't include hand-waving away absurdities. It involves making sure the rules don't result in, or even force the absurdities in the first place.

As for your two points of 'rebuttal' from above:

"1) When attacking with a melee weapon (knife, sword, axe, baton, chair, roast leg of gundark, whatever), you don't (or at least rarely) 'attack a group'. You swing/stab/hack/slash at a guy. At. A. GUY. Especially if his nearest friend is "several meters away" (the definition of short range). So the assailant IS attacking an individual. If he does excess damage, the bleed over is allowed to go to unengaged minions because thats fair and how the rules work. We explain away the 'oddity', because that's how the rules work in a narrative game; you get to say "something cool happened" and then keep playing the game."

Let's flip that around to talk about ranged combat:

"When attacking with a ranged weapon (such as a pistol, bow, sling, thrown rock, whatever), you don't (or at least rarely) 'attack a group'. You shoot/launch, throw at a guy. At. A. GUY. Especially if his nearest friend is several meters away (the definition of short range)…"

I know, I know. You'll say you weren't talking to me. You'll also say that you can certainly target more than one thing with a ranged weapon in the time represented by a single round. But that holds equally true for melee combat. In fact, attacking a group in melee actually *ISN'T EVEN REMOTELY UNCOMMON*. Watch some people who are trained in various martial arts. Being able to defend against and attack multiple assailants over the course of "roughly a minute" (p128) is a basic consideration.

"2) The point of spreading the minions is to avoid having them in a single engagement to avoid making them too easy to kill. Asking the attacker to spend a maneuver to engage a separate enemy that is out of his range is a pretty small cost to pay, especially if they chose to play a melee fighter. That's just part of the game. (this also speaks to why I think melee damage should be dangerous as hell. I'll be keeping Vibro-axes as +6 weapons). If the minions have to stay in an engagement for no reason other than 'because they have to be in an engagement' makes them way to susceptible to area attacks like grenades."

The *entire* point of using minion groups is to simplify combats and make minions more dangerous while allowing GMs to include large numbers of adversaries (p196).

With your interpretation of the minion group rules, the only thing you have to have is a group of minions with the same gear present in the same encounter. They get all the advantages of being individual minions (independent positioning, ability to attack from and defend against different targets independently) as well as the advantage reserved for acting as a group (skill ranks). You haven't reduced any complexity, because your minions still have varying position and range, so you've got to keep track of each and every last one of them just like you would if they were individuals. The *only* thing that's simplified is tracking HP, but you've added the absurdity of a melee attack being able to kill minions dozens of meters away from the guy with the vibro-axe, even if there's a blast door between them.

(That's a scenario from my own Star Wars game last night. One character sliced the door controls to lock a door closed to keep a wave of minions from entering the room.) With your interpretation of the rules, some of those minions from the same group could have been on opposite sides of a blast door, and been killed by a guy with a vibro-axe. (It could just as easily have been a combat knife, or fists.)

If a minion group is treated as a single entity within the rules, there's no need for on-the-fly rulings about what range the minion group is at, or what happens when the melee combatant rolls well enough to drop 4 minions, but only one was in range and the rest were on the other side of a just-closed blast door. Or whether (and why) to grant setback dice because some minions in the group have cover and others don't. Or any of the other, *numerous*, scenarios that crop up if you allow minion groups to be a bunch of individuals who share a pool of common hit points.

The principle of KISS weights heavily toward a minion group being a single game-entity, because that *actually* simplifies things rather than adding additional complexity. Especially since simplifying things is the stated goal of the minion group rules.

Voice said:

This statement (especially the bolded part) indicates we have one of two situations:

1. We are unable to communicate about this topic in a transparent way.
2. You aren't reading my posts.

Either way, I'm done trying to fix it. I won't post here about it anymore.

-WJL