<< Why? Its more story. While I think that the statistics are useful, I
think that when you're dealing with armies and masses of magic, one
should rely on story rather than the clatter of dice.
>>
I really have to disagree with this. The same argument could be used for absolutely everything - don't resolve any conflicts at all -let the story decide. I say pah! to that. It seems to me that you should just give it a number, Raven Banner 5W4, say, and then see what it can do, according to the story. The interactive story part lies in generating the narrative that justifies the numbers and the AP results. Next thing we know people will be saying that Runequest didn't scale up very well to Heroes and Red Emperors and neither does Hero Wars.
We have a rough guide to Red Emperor power, one can argue whether he is a minor god, petty god, better than Gunda, weaker than Jar Eel, but end up around 10W4 (IMO).
Getting back to the Raven Banner, to use it the objective of the contest in which it is used would be to "win the battle and die" as opposed to a more normal objective of "win the battle and stay alive". Using the Raven Banner to achieve this objective would either give a large improv. modifier (-80say, if you want it difficult, and rather pointless using the Banner) .
If the Red Emperor and all of the forces under his command want to fight this battle, win it, then it seems likely that the Raven Banner guy will die, nothing is going to stop him . IF the Red Emperor want to fight the battle, win it, and capture the Raven Banner guy alive in order to torture him and do horrid stuff to him then the contest result might need narrator decision/narrative flow to determine if they succeed or not at which pat of their objective.
Then again, I think the whole of the Hero Wars could be resolved by a Simple Contest if it were a minor part of the story.
Brief History of Genertela in Simple Contests:
Unity Council vs Horse Nomads of Peloria
Creaton of Nysalor vs Natural Resistance of the Cosmos
Arkat vs Nysalor
EWF vs Dara Happa
Godlearners vs the Cosmos
Carmanians vs New Moon Goddess
Sheng vs Dragon Emperor
Sheng vs Red Emperor
Pharoah vs Only Old One
Sartar vs Quivini
Tarsh vs Sartar
Keith Nellist
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