phluks said:
First: Upgrades don't show, since battlerating only takes EL into account. Say you have a charater who wants to save a village from a goblin raid. He hires a gang of mercenaries, he then digs deeper into his pockets to upgrade their armor from leather to scalemail, and he also equips them with masterwork longswords and large steelshields. These enhancements will not change anything in this system (as far as I understand). No doubt the character would feel that they should. I would like to add the armor class to DC and weapon bonus to Battle check.
As mentioned in the opening pages, the more modifiers you "pull out" of the EL system, the less reliable the system becomes. You are invariably going to over-value those factors you pull out of the system and under-value the ones you leave in.
You could, in fact, extrapolate this to its logical conclusion: Count every feature of every creature's statblock.
But that defeats the purpose of a mass combat system-- you'd end up playing out huge combats again.
I guess keeping it simple is very much the heart of this system, while upgrades are very important to d20.
It's not that the system is trying to be simple (although it is, and it's nice). It's that the system is predicated on an inherent trust that EL is an accurate predictor of "average outcomes" over many, many iterations of combat. (Which of course is precisely what the EL system purports to do.)
The EL system assumes that combatants are equipped appropriate to their level. If they have vastly less equipment or vastly more equipment than their level indicates, it might change their CR, which would in fact change the results of the system.
But it would have to be a pretty big change, because equipment in general isn't going to greatly impact CR.
What's the CR of a goblin in leather? What's the CR of a goblin in studded leather? The answer is-- the same. It's not a big enough difference to make an impact where CR/EL is concerned.
By the same rationale the GM can't just throw tougher monsters at the party because they all upgraded from leather to chain shirts.
Now, if you don't trust the EL system to generate "average and accurate" results, then the whole system does, in fact, come undone.
Second: Circumstantial modifiers don't show. Such as "higher ground" and "cover".
Such conditions are subsumed into the strategic scale, in which case one side or the other, or both, might be considered "fortified."
Mentioned but not explained:
The different kind of formations are only hinted at, under different subheaders. They seem to be: open, close, tight and skirmishers.
Unless I somehow dropped a page in the PDF, these are explained. Generally speaking tighter formation is better against melee and worse against missile weapons, and vice versa. If I had the document handy I'd give you the page number, but for now, please accept a "look again."
Rules for tactical advantages such as "flanking".
Indeed, these rules are subsumed into the formations. Tighter formations do not permit flanking, while more dispersed formations will permit flanking. Remember that we're speaking of units, so you can't really flank a unit with a unit-- however, if your unit is in open formation, there is assumed to be enough room between combatants for the enemy to "overlap" or penetrate into your formation and flank. Hence, the +2 bonus in melee against dispersed formation.
Retreat and Withdraw moves should also be available for battles WITH a battlemat.
They are-- just move off the battlemat.
Wulf
