Minion Pool

[Surrealone]

As far as cost goes, I would say anything that makes the 2 Variable Followers cost more than 16 regular Followers is probably a non-starter.

 

But in most cases will they be more than 50% different from one another?  If not, then the math, above, should work well?

[Ndreare]

I would just allow the player to buy his followers, and perhaps tell him the cost for double the number of followers will be reduced to 3 points (about a -1/2 limitation) after the second doubling.

Having 2 followers on scene out of for is not all that limiting, but having 2 on scene out of 32 is. This allows the player to pay full price for what he actually gets to use, but discount on what he cannot use.

Perks are already inexpensive because of their inherent limitation, do he should feel okay about it I would think.

[Nolgroth]

Perhaps I am not number crunching enough, but what do the followers do? Do they attack from different angles (Indirect attack)? Do they attack multiple times (autofire)? Do they soak up some of the damage from the fight (extra Body)? Controlling 16 minions is insane. Controlling 32+ is just not going to happen. My thoughts on the matter is that the Minion Squad is either bought as a single character construct with different powers to represent the functions it is supposed to be doing or as a VPP with some interesting modifiers. The key is going to be describing what your minions are doing without defaulting to the game mechanics. Trying to think outside the box in terms of cost to benefit. Sometimes the box is the best method and sometimes convention fails to suffice. Which is the case here?

[ghost-angel]

Perhaps I am not number crunching enough, but what do the followers do?

 

In the specific case of the PC involved here - mostly they just damage his cool.

 

The big key here to not just reduce them to SFX of abilities, they're all autonomous people who have their own motivations and other alliances within the campaign.

[bigdamnhero]

Perhaps I am not number crunching enough, but what do the followers do? Do they attack from different angles (Indirect attack)? Do they attack multiple times (autofire)? Do they soak up some of the damage from the fight (extra Body)? Controlling 16 minions is insane. Controlling 32+ is just not going to happen. My thoughts on the matter is that the Minion Squad is either bought as a single character construct with different powers to represent the functions it is supposed to be doing or as a VPP with some interesting modifiers. The key is going to be describing what your minions are doing without defaulting to the game mechanics. Trying to think outside the box in terms of cost to benefit. Sometimes the box is the best method and sometimes convention fails to suffice. Which is the case here?

I see where you're going. Yes they provide additional attacks and absorb some damage. But in this case, the main thing they bring to the table is really versatility in powers and in sfx: "I can't ______, but I have a minion who can" sort of thing. I suppose in theory I could build that as some kind of VPP, but it seems kinda silly to do so when there's already a mechanism for Followers.

 

And to clarify: the player has no desire to run 16 minions in combat at the same time; what he wants is a pool of different minions, from which he can choose 1 or 2 to join him per adventure. Up until recently, most of them were showing up mainly in bluebooking between sessions: "I send Minion X to infiltrate VIPER, while Minion Y investigates this thing and Minion Z keeps an eye on that guy." Good fun, tho the player has had some recent Life Changes that have severely cut down on his bluebooking time. But again, even if we played out each of those, they'd still only have 1-2 Minions per mission.

[bigdamnhero]

In the specific case of the PC involved here - mostly they just damage his cool.

Also that.   Have one minion blind the entire party with a poorly-placed smoke grenade and you'll hear about it for awhile. Have a second minion do the exact same thing in the same combat...

[Nolgroth]

So he is running them like Duty Officer missions in Star Trek Online. Got it. Interesting concept.