Its geometric (or rather pseudo-logarithmic) and this is kind of reinforced by the Community Support Table (except that the CST doesn't maintain a consistent scaling).
After a bit of noodling around in the archives of this list, the rules list and the GlorWar list, I've dug out the scaling factor of +5 per doubling that Julian Lord suggests is the closest fit to the HQ contest mechanics - so if you want to confront 8 PC heroes with a couple of tough guys that they need to gang up on, then the NPCs need to end up with final abilities 10 points higher than the abilities they'll be facing for it to be a 50:50 fight per the rules. See Rob's post about analysing your PC heroes and figuring what sort of totals they tend to work up to.
Note however that the augmenting rules can throw up some interesting second order effects as you move up the power scale. If you say that most people have up to three 'always on' augments applicable to a typical contest for their profession, but that they can double this number with a bit of notice or get up to a 10-12 augments if they *really* pull the stops out and have plenty of time to do appropriate rituals and gather support, then that means that a starting hero (5w in base skill plus augments from abilities of 13-1w) generates an ability rating that ranges between:
Suprised 6w - 10w, midpoint of 8w Some Notice 11w - 17w, midpoint of 14w Full Ritual Prep 18w - 10w2, midpoint of 4w2
Thats a range of about 15 points between best and worst readiness states. So if this guy is up against his peers and catches them napping he's evenly matched against two of them if he can do some prep or as many as eight if he has enough notice to fully buff up. Bump the power level up to the 'notable in the clan' sort of level (5w2 with typical augments coming from abilities in the mid-to-high single mastery) and the final ability ratings range between:
Suprised 8w2 - 17w2, midpoint of 13w2 Some Notice 18w2 - 7w3, midpoint of 2w3 Full Ritual Prep 8w3 - 9w4, midpoint of 18w3
That's a range of about 25 points between best and worst readiness states. So if this guy is up against his peers and he catches them napping, he is evenly matched against *four* of them with a bit of notice and if he has time to gather allies and do lots of ritual preparation he can take on up to 32 of them with an evens chance of prevailing. For a combat challenge that last is basically a weaponthane doing a whole bunch of 'Arming of Orlanth' stuff, gathering his four winds about him and then having a go at trashing the warriors hall of an enemy clan with all of their weaponthanes inside - if his enemies haven't got word of his ritual preparations and put two and two together, then he's go an even-odds chance of getting away with it.
This stretching of the numbers and how it varies with the Hero's readiness level continues to increase as the masteries mount up. Under this rule of thumb a Hero's final total is likely to be around two masteries different depending upon their readiness whilst a Superhero could be operating in a 45 ability point range between 'just walking around' and 'herolight fully shining'. Clearly it pays increasingly large dividends if you can wrong-foot your enemy's hero/superhero assets and catch 'em with their pants down - it would seem from this that a large fraction of strategy at the tribe/nation/empire level is devoted to shadow-boxing, intel and counter-intel around the big-hitters on each side. This is only going to get more intense as the Hero Wars really start to get going...
Regards
Luke
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