[EX3 Mechanics] Minimum initiative gains

[Sandact6]

My play experience has pretty clearly been different from yours, so take this with a grain of salt, but that change worries me.

An an ST, the big advantage of battlegroups is that you can use them to beef up a fight easily, and unlike most "not a serious combat Exalt" stuff out there, they're not just pinatas full of Initiative. Dedicated combat characters don't like to "waste" attacks getting a single Initiative off of something which their allies can kill without them, less-fightey PCs get to look cool styling on a horde of mooks with simplified combat rules, Command actions and attacks on multiple PCs at once mean they do bleed resources and sometimes even create scary moments when people crash, and everybody wins. If they start giving out more than 1i per hit, there really is nothing you can put in a fight besides combat statlines fit to challenge the group's main bruiser, because everything else puts the whole battle into easy mode.

This is where I fundamentally disagree with you. I think the things you mentioned that keep battle groups a threat are that of poor game design for reasons I have outlined. Likewise I have been testing battle groups in this new paradigm for a year and a half and it's been going exceedingly well.

Saying "Think of the battlegroups" does nothing to me. Especially when I've been using them extensively since the first leak and found, to what I determine, several major design flaws that add up to be a large mess.

But let's go along and play with the assumption of RAW battle groups for a moment: Every time I've seen them used they're either things that devour PC's alive or are an annoyance that are quickly dealt with. Being able to farm initiative off of them, the resource that is the very cornerstone of combat and required not only for attacks but many other things in combat, gives a much needed reprieve towards those with lower soak values (Which battle groups disproportionally threaten).