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Nice. We're going to playtest it next session, along with other additions I've written (horses, crafting and the dreaded dual-wielding, which I think is coming along quite nicely).

I quite like to keep it cinematic. so I think this will work well.

E.

Another option is to introduce minion monsters like they do in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. Basically the monsters would fight in groups of 2-4 and each group would make a single attack. Individually the monsters have no skill dice but for each additional one in the group they get a skill die (so 1 skill die for a groups of 2, 2 skill dice for groups of 3, etc.). Also the groups would take damage as an individual and for every 5 posts of damage or so one of the groups members would be killed. So an attack that does 11 points of damage to a group would kills 2 and leave 1 damage to the rest of the group. This way multiple attacks are narrated without multiple rolls.

Yes, Edge of the Empire is other rpg we're playing. Using the Minion rules from that is not a bad idea at all. I will give it some thought and see what I can come up with. Thanks for the idea.

E.

Ok, how about this from the top of my head:

How to use groups of enemies as a single entity:
1. Start with the highest Attribute Rating from the creatures making up the group
2. Add one for each extra enemy in the group
3. Add one Success die to each type of attack for each extra enemy in the group
4. This is limted by 6, so you can never have more than a total Attribute Rating of 6 and 6 Success dice.
5. Total the Endurance for the group. The group is eliminated when loses all Endurance.
6. For every Wound the group takes, one member of the group i killed. Remove one Success die and one Attribute Rating. If this reduces to group to the Attribute Rating for the original creature, only one enemy is left. Treat this as a single enemy.

So, five Goblin Archers would become:

A Rabble of Goblin Archers
Attribute Rating: 6
Endurance: 40
Bow of Horn: 6
Jagged Knife: 5

E.

Ferretz wrote:Ok, how about this from the top of my head:

How to use groups of enemies as a single entity:
1. Start with the highest Attribute Rating from the creatures making up the group
2. Add one for each extra enemy in the group
3. Add one Success die to each type of attack for each extra enemy in the group
4. This is limted by 6, so you can never have more than a total Attribute Rating of 6 and 6 Success dice.
5. Total the Endurance for the group. The group is eliminated when loses all Endurance.
6. For every Wound the group takes, one member of the group i killed. Remove one Success die and one Attribute Rating. If this reduces to group to the Attribute Rating for the original creature, only one enemy is left. Treat this as a single enemy.

So, five Goblin Archers would become:

A Rabble of Goblin Archers
Attribute Rating: 6
Endurance: 40
Bow of Horn: 6
Jagged Knife: 5

E.

Interesting, but I see some (unwanted?) consequences:
1- shields becomes almost useless for heroes: attacks with 4-6 dies will hit anyway. Same for defensive stance.
2- Great Spear galore. High damage is the king in this system. Only 2-handers are worthy.
3- hatred don't add, so Intimidate foe is far more powerful (maybe this is a feature).

This is just my gut feeling from reading it, prolly I missed something

Ah, good point. Hate should be added too. Pluss one for each extra enemy in the group, to a max of 6.

Shields.. well, when fighting five enemies at once, a shield wouldn't make a big difference anyway, I think.

As for the damage, attacking a group would represents attacking several times. High damage would be a great advantage, but you would be even less protected without a shield.

Any other thoughts? Trying to root out the nasty surprises before I spring this one the unsuspecting players.

E.

Ferretz wrote:
(...)
Shields.. well, when fighting five enemies at once, a shield wouldn't make a big difference anyway, I think.

Nor would a sword, for that matter.
You need an hand grenade, if you are angling for realism.

From a gaming pov, though, the shield is an hefty piece of equipment (up to 5 encumbrance): with this rule you are ditching it (at least, Bardings need a new reward for their now useless Tower Shield).

Ferretz wrote:
As for the damage, attacking a group would represents attacking several times. High damage would be a great advantage, but you would be even less protected without a shield.
(...)

Again. Shield, stance, anything is useless when the opponent got 6 die (maybe favored, too). Going from memory alone, the best parry for a starting character, probably, is a Woodman in the woods ( ): Wits 7, +3 favored+ 3 great shield, +12 defensive stance: defense total 25.
The average roll for a 6 die enemy is around 26, circa.
These Goblin archers of yours are scoring 32, in average.

Net result= all in forward/open stance, sans shield, with 2-handed spears (the armour don't add, so a low injury roll isn't a problem ).

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that once your players grok the system, the combat risk becoming more flat and uniform, because many options are useless

Good points. How about this:

For each extra enemy in the group, each attacks damage rating goes up by 1 on a successful attack. So the goblins would still only roll 2D with their bows, but a successful attack would do 8 in damage instead of 4.

E.

Ok, I toned it down a bit. Here's the text I wrote for my players:

E.

GROUPED ENEMIES

To make lesser foes more of a threat, and to speed up combat, enemies can be organized into groups that act as a single entity.

To calculate the statistics for a group of enemies, start with the single enemy with the highest Attribute Rating, or choose one, if they are all the same. Now, add one to the Attribute Rating, Hate and Damage rating for each attack, for every extra enemy in the group. Next, add half of the Endurance for every extra enemy to the total.

When adding extra enemies to the group, the maximum Attribute Rating is 6. When this Attribute Rating is reached, no more enemies can be added to that group. Enemies with an Attribute Rating of 6 or more cannot act in groups.

Example: A group of five Goblin Archers would have a total Attribute Rating of 6 when acting as a single entity. This group would have a Hate of 5, an Endurance of 24 and inflict 14 points of Damage for every hit with their Bows of Horn, which are their favoured weapons.

This looks interesting.

Some other suggestions you can tinker about:

-normally only 3 opponents can attack a PC at once. So maybe you can limit your groups of mooks to three members. As a side benefit, with only 2 "adds" it's easier to balance things out. And being overwhelmed 3-1 is already enough

-another thing you can "add" is the Edge number (on the logic that more opponents=more wounding hits). Maybe not +1 for every extra opponent, but just every two...

So, for example, a mob of 3 Goblins can have +1 edge, +2 hate, attribute and damage, +100% endurance... Etc.