[PnP] Mass Combat comments

[Alex Koponen]

In the archives on 2 May, 1998 Burton discusses Mass Combat. I have some
comments:

  Burton's Mass Combat adaptation includes:
TYPICAL SKILL TABLE
Troop Quality     CEL      Weapon EL
Elite                    10               7
Veteran                8               5
Seasoned              6               3
Average               4                2
Green                   2               1
Raw                     0               0

Actually if one looks at B4 Rule 1.1 and calculates Current Abilities and
the correlating Maximum EL for typical weapon skills one finds that most
normal humans have a maximum EL of 3, some up to EL6. Presumably most
combat units are comprised of normal humans with only the rare Character
Class human, typically in positions of authority. In keeping with B4 I
would suggest:
Troop Quality     CEL      Weapon EL
Elite                     7+              4
Crack                  5-6             3
Veteran               3-4             2
Seasoned              2               1             [I have seasoned =
average]
Green                   1               0
Raw                      0            -10 (untrained or partly trained)


Further on the post suggests the following skills:

Leadership: Initial: 50 NEL: x10 Max: (W+Em)/10
Strategy: Initial: 60 NEL: x12 Max: (I+Em)/10
Tactics: Initial: 50 NEL: x10 Max: (I+Em+W)/15

I think that leadership would default to Influence Chance / 10 (RD).
Further, since Eloquence would be an important part of Leadership it
should be part of the formula. I see no real reason to include Will nor do
I think the skill should be as expensive as listed.

Strategy and Tactics I think are somewhat overpriced.



Note: It would be nice to have the 'Reply' and 'Quote original message'
functions available. Though I can cut and paste to and from a word
processing program.

Many years ago I wrote, playtested, copyrighted and tried to sell to Steve
Jackson Games a set of Mass Skirmish rules suitable for miniatures battles
involving dozens to hundreds of GURPS PCs/NpCs/Monsters. They declined to
buy it.