Wise Turtle Publishing

Page 123 states under Extras:

If you plan to field a lot of Extras as cannon
fodder against the PCs, it’s perfectly
all right to roll Initiative and declare actions
for them as a group.

How do I undestand this mechanicswise? In FFGs Star Wars for example, the wounds threshholds are added together as are skills somewhat. Handled this way, damage is carried over and the overall skill decreased for every Extra killed.

Now in OVA, let's say there are 5 Extras. 10 Health each. Would health sum up to 50 Health with damage carrying over? So to say dealing over 20 Damage would kill two extras outright, wounding a third one? And if this is the case, how are abilities handled when one action is declared for the whole group? Would five times attack +1 add up to attack +5 for one action? And would it be decreased if Extras are killed?

How would you handle the Putty Patrol in Power Rangers for example?

The intent here was that you can make all the extras act on a single initiative and roll a single time for something like, say, attacking. They do not add together or “buff” each other in any way—it just saves some time for dice rolling and keeps turn order from turning into a mess of inconsequential NPCs acting on different initiatives for no real reason besides “the dice said so!”

So a group of stock ninja can all act on Initiative 4 and can each attack using the same roll of, say, 6. This might miss some PCs, hit others, but you don’t really need to roll for 10 different goons.

I’m unfamiliar with the Putty Patrol. If you could summarize that encounter I can give my thoughts.

The putty patrol is something like the lowest minions appearing in numbers of 5+ to annoy the rangers and doing the lowest errant jobs. They are mostly easily defeated, even if the rangers are not morphed. Some mechanic to carry over damage from one defeated monster to the next, like in cleave attacks to dispose of them quickly would be nice to show the vast superiority of the Rangers vs those Extras.

You can either load up an Ability with Area Effect Perks or make use of the “Acting Multiple Times” rules of p. 108 to mow down grunts. Since PCs tend to outclass extras so much, you can take a lot of penalties before it really matters.

You can make it more “cleave”-like by allowing Players to make one attack roll, even if they are actually attacking 4 or 5 people.

Clay wrote:You can either load up an Ability with Area Effect Perks or make use of the “Acting Multiple Times” rules of p. 108 to mow down grunts. Since PCs tend to outclass extras so much, you can take a lot of penalties before it really matters.

This fits fine. It reminds me to reread the book more thoroughly the second time