I'm confused about how to attack with minions. (I think I understand how they take damage.)

Say a group of five stormtroopers attacks one player with their blaster rifles (Ranged Heavy skill, Damage 9, Crit 3). They have agility of 3. So the troopers get a Ranged-Heavy skill of 4 (one less than the number of troopers). That means they roll 3 yellow proficiency dice and one green ability die, yes? If they inflict a critical hit, I assume they inflict only one. But how much base damage do they do? Just 9? Or 45? So if they roll one net success, they do 10 damage, or 50? It's gotta be 10, right?

Likewise, I'm not sure how to handle the brawling Bark Rats in "Beyond the Rim" (p. 46). They have Brawn 1, and the Brawl skill activates only in a group. Their "equipment" includes "Teeth and Claw" (Brawl, Damage 3, Crit 5). Suppose four rats attack using this equipment. They roll 1 yellow proficiency die and 2 green ability die, yes? How much damage do they do if they roll, say, one net success? Is it just 4 (weapon damage of 3 plus the success)? Or 5 (Brawn plus weapon damage of 3 plus the success)? The CRB (p. 166) says sometimes you just use the Brawn skill as the base damage, unless the "weapons description indicates otherwise", or if there's a "plus symbol" indicating that you combine Brawn and Weapon Damage rating. I don't see a plus symbol here. So in this case, I ignore Brawn and use the Weapon damage instead? And again, do I multiply the damage by 4 rats?

Thanks in advance.

No you don't multiply the damage by the number of minions in the group.

The rats claws don't have a + in front of them so they do a base of 3.

Also note minions don't have to be grouped, they can be run independently.

Many thanks. Sounds like I've been playing it right. And thanks for the reminder about running minions independently.

I don't think you're calculating your upgrades correctly, though you got the first one right by accident. The pool is not based on "one less than the number of minions". The base pool is the characteristic, and you upgrade a number of times equal to the number of minions - 1.

So, five storm troopers have a base Agility of 3, so the pool is GGG, and you will upgrade that 4 times: YGG > YYG > YYY > YYYG

But four bark rats have a base Brawn of 1, so the pool is G, and you will upgrade that 3 times: Y > YG > YY

So the final pool for bark rats is not YGG, but YY.

Hmm, are you sure about that? I was following the general rules on building a dice pool on p. 19 of the Core Rule Book. It says to compare skill rank to the linked characteristic rating. Then the "higher value of the two" determines how many green Ability dice are added to the pool. Once you do that, you use the lower value of the two to determine how many dice to upgrade from green to yellow.

So, using my four rats as an example, the skill rating is 3 (because there are 4 rats), so that's the base pool. Then you upgrade 1 die (since the linked characteristic, Brawn, is just 1), for a pool of GGY. Or using my five stormtroopers, the base pool is 4 (5 minus 1 being their Ranged-Heavy skill), and the linked characteristic is Agility, which is 3, so 3 of the four are upgraded, to GYYY.

I don't see anything in the Minions rules (p. 390) that changes this method of building the pool: higher number (skill or characteristic) gives you your base set of green dice, and lower number (skill or characteristic) tells you how many to upgrade. The minion page just gives an example of 4 stormtroopers and says they have 3 skill ranks in the skill is being checked. IWhat am I missing? (And boy, do I wish FFG had given us a more extended example of minion combat.)

Frog is correct, Pg 390, "minions can fight as a group" entry, final two sentences.

You start with the listed ability, and upgrade skill ranks once for each added minion.

I must be missing something. I've read those two sentences a dozen times, and I still don't see how they alter the usual rules for forming a dice pool. They say: "A minion group gains one skill rank for each member of the group beyond the first, if that skill is on the minion's list. So, a group of four stormtroopers would count as having three ranks (for the three troopers after the first) in any checks the group is called on to make." How does that alter the usual dice-pool rules?

So in my example of 5 troopers, the troopers have 4 ranks in Ranged-Heavy, and they have Agility of 3. If this were a single NPC (with skill 4 in Ranged-Heavy and Agility of 3), it would build a pool of 4 green dice (reflecting the skill level of 4) and upgrade three of them (reflecting the Agility of 3). I don't see a different procedure outlined on page 390. The minion group has a skill of 4 and a linked characteristic of 3, right? Doesn't that mean GYYY? Where on page 390 does it say "don't use the usual dice-building rules"?

Never mind, I reviewed the dice pooling and it appears you are correct. Get so big on the advanced parts of the rules it's easy to miss the little things...

Hmm, are you sure about that?

Not anymore I'm not sure where I got the "upgrade for each extra minion from", but that is clearly wrong. It's skill ranks, as you said. Dang, I wanted bark rats to be more dangerous...

Well, we can make bark rats more dangerous by spawning more of them!

Thanks for all your replies. This discussion has helped me a lot.

And 6 years later , reading your posts in this thread has not only clarified my question "should you Add Brawl to damages from Minions/rivals/Nemesis which don't have a + in the equipment stats", it has also highlighted that I was upgrading the stats incorrectly. Like the Ghostofman and Whafrog initially described.

Thank you all! 🙂