I should have been more specific. Circus Skiff is overpowered compared to other spells of its level. It's far too fast for its maneuverability. In 1e and 3e it's far slower, 30 mph or less.
While I dislike that approach, that could work. Master Horseman's Techniques makes it inexhaustible. Don't forget the Ride charms that allow you to use reflexive and supplemental charms on your mount.
Ride gets some good options for matching something like Cirrus Skiff, but they take a lot more xp than the sorcerer (and an appropriate concept; my Master Horseman isn't going to want to get a giant mount that can ferry the party around). The sorcerer just needs to spend a spell's worth and then can go off to something else.
Wouldn't you just simulate that with more health/better soak in the zombies/killbots? Or specific exceptions to certain abilities ("Death orbs kill all non-magical creatures within radius x")? The fact that they apparently haven't done that is bad, but it's not like the current method can't work.
The problem with Cirrus Skiff is relative to spells like Stormwind Rider and Conjure the Azure Chariot, not Solar Ride. It's essentially strictly superior to the former.
They don't really need to spend more. All they need is a Strix(giant owl), a Ride Excellency, and Flashing Thunderbolt Steed, and they have an obscenely stealthy mount that can fly at 80 mph. That's just 1-2 charm purchases.
The core assumption appears to be that morale is a factor in most combats, and thus attempts to address that situation best. And, having checked the rules, the concept of perfect morale doesn't seem to take up much space (2 paragraphs) or rules adjustments (auto-pass one check, can't make another type, +3 bonus to a stat). I haven't looked too long, but I'm not sure how "wonky" the rules get with perfect morale units.
It depends on how expansive things are. It's essentially the same trade-off every abstraction a simulation makes. The less abstracted it is, the more accurate, but the more time and effort. The more abstracted, the less accurate, but the easier/simpler. And any pnp RPG is going to make compromises somewhere: the size of the Exalted rule book isn't because it contains a fully detailed table top game in the vein of Warhammer fantasy. Another layer could be a huge thing, or it could be relatively minor, not significantly more work than the current system(where only one extreme is noted, and that extreme has a few relatively minor hacks).
Yes, because obviously when people start using an abstraction their first step is to figure out how to not use an abstraction and instead do everything.
A sane system that doesn't use blob units, has individually targeting magics, and is made for mass combat? That seems like a bunch of mutually contradictory design goals.
Which seems way too small, even if you assume a Solar can easily kill a dozen common soldiers in the blink of an eye. Then again, it would fit the apparently logarithmic relationship between the number of combatants in a battle group and how many health levels it has.
Actually, I don't think it will. Whatever actually happens when a Solar launch a mechanically-ordinary attack on a battle group, it's clearly not this.
I thought this was about how difficult/rewarding the mechanics are in practice, not how difficult it is to set up. Because the latter is pretty useless metric for how it works in play.
No, though sniping officers and important people on either side isn't really the biggest test for a mass combat system(if you're inclined to have one).
What's facepalm worthy about trying to keep a consistent topic? Normally, that's considered a good habit to be in. And the topic certainly started regarding how this worked in play.
Remind me to work on my hack of GURPS Mass Combat when I have free time. Of course, while GURPS does use blob units, if you go into mass combat as opposed to regular combat, the heroes are also treated as blob units. If you were talking about Solars, then GURPS would have one army be smaller but could have lots of tricks like Stealth, C3I (War Charms!), Fire(Archery Charms! Sorcery!) Armor(Dodge Charms! Resistance Charms! Artifact Armor!) Recon (Awareness Charms!) Artillery(Sorcery! Archery Charms!), possibly Nuetrailize C3I/Artillary/Recon and obviously Hero and Super-Soldier.
No, I'm saying that when a Solar makes an ordinary withering or decisive attack against a battle group, perhaps boosted by an excellency or similar charms, whatever he is actually doing is not something that a reasonable observer would describe as a single-target non-magical attack.
Well then we're clearly arguing different things, as my posts have been regarding how the current/past systems can/can't work in practice.
