> Actually I saw it the other way: I read the description of the Bat
in
> Cults of Terror and thought "omigod it's lethal" - but then I
thought,
> "but Argrath has the exact same combat factor (4), so what are _his_
> stats going to be like? And as for Harrek and Jar-eel, they're five
> times more powerful than the Bat... eek!".
> Stephen
I think that stats have a limited power to simulate a monster or a superhero. The main difference (apart from the fact that the bat is difficult to control without speaking about its feeding habits) is that a monster is a machine guided by instinct or by a narrator (who is usually not very much interested in playing such a monster).
So a monster needs a huge stat representation to be really dreadful.
A superhero is usually guided by brains and more often than not by a player's brains. It is trained to fight monster in a creative manner and he can usually be prepared before actually fighting the bat.
So even if his/her stats are ten times lower than the monster's, he can be deadlier (and the player can usually bet on his narrator's good will to spare the hero and to let him win over the monster against impossible odds).
In a board game (like WBRM) all these possibilities are simplified and so you need a counter stronger for Harrek than for the Bat in order to encourage Harrek's player to survive an encounter with the bat. The game's mechanics don't allow for the creativity/initiative a RPG allows.
Ciao,
Gian
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