Garions Rules Finished

[garion]

again in red -

- I think the dauntless+horns combo was too good in LRB4 - it's just silly with gutter runners who can 2d blitz everyone. Skavens are good enough without it. It wasnt too good, it was loads of fun. But do you really think you will see much of that now that Mutations are random??? I don't Also Gutter Runners need a double to get mutations then randomly select. that is a 1 in 6 then 1 in 12 chance of them getting horns.
- You are missing "l" in prehensile taiL in the mutation list on p. 8 Cheers
- Very long legs: "If they already have Ma1 then" guess you are missing a 0 there - Im a bit worried about that one, again the gutter runners.. again 1 in 6 then 1 in 12 chance
- Chaos gifts: Frenzy (gift of Korne) - missing "h" in Khorne cheers
- I like your new mutations, adds nice flavour, but I'll probably think twice about taking one on a CD good
- I think you should pay more for traits/double skills Just No, I hate that about this edition, there is too much balance in team building. I want traits and doubles to be always take skills
- Hthark is already really good in CRP, I think giving him ST6 is too much
- The Count is too good with blodge ST5, AG4 (at least for necro and undead teams) No they are not, they had these skill set since third edition, it is compeltely lame how he got nerfed, they are meant to be amazing star players, why ruin the fluff???-
- Don't think woodies need Deeproot yes they do. Fluff, and fun are more important than anything in this game, he is a treeman star player, he should be able to play for wood elves.

[garion]

Again comments have been put in red.

OK, so I am not going to pick you up on spelling


1- bringing back secret weapon rolls and argue the call... brilliant Yup, they just should never have gone

2- IGMEOY had it's fans, I have no problem with its return It is also vital for a number of other changes i made, such as the ref that you comment on below. The whole fouling revamp in my opnion makes fouling a very tactical affair which is a good thing imo. In CRP it is just toothless and only really gets used by teams that area already cas leaders. The ref should protect teams against this ,

3- advanced ref - decent house rule. See my points above. Yeah it is a nice house rule, but it would also be a better full rule for the tactical fouling it brings to the table.

4- Bank at 150k - I like Yeah JJ really messed up not letting this rule go through

5- kick off table changes, not sure needed but ok Again overwhelming good feedback for this change and it just makes better sense that the biggest game breakers are the least probable

6- traits - as before no thankyou I will add this to my rationale below

7- Leader into General category - not in favour of this. It always used to be a General Trait, LRB5 was when it got moved to passing. It goes back, any team can have a captain that plays any position. it shouldnt have to be a thrower, and moving it from throwers for a General Trait means Throwers are more likely to be built as throwers and not as Leader caddies, which I personally think is just a really boring way to build a player

8- saying a skill is the LRB4 version is lazy as I personally did not keep copies of the rules so don't know the difference. Changed that

9- removal of nega-traits - useful house rule, shouldn't be official Not sure, I quite like it as official as it can make Big Guys into really unique stars, diverse player development is one of the main goals of the rule set, and it will never make a big guy truly reliable because they still have Loner, but it would be a nice buff for Vampires too, but at a high cost.

10- taunt - should be part of "Two Heads" imo, as Two Heads has not been improved. I would never take it as a separate skill.... ever. You would never take Taunt or Two Heads? Two heads you cant pick, it is random, and I would take Taunt on Elf teams, it could be incredbily annoying for cage breaking and pulling people towards your killer players etc...

11- juggernaut change is bad, it would be too strong It is a Trait remeber, but I have made it less good.

12- Wild Animal table is too complicated in game. Yeah I give up on this and have removed it.

13- love mutations being random.... love that Yes, I am really really happy with how I have handled the mutations now. For me this is the best they have ever looked.

14- gifts - instead of being normal for some of the skills, maybe increase effect by +1 where possible. I dont want to do this, the advantage of Gifts is you get to pick your self, the random nature of Mutations makes this a big boon, even if the selection is limited to 8 choices, also a number of the Gifts are Traits, so it really helps Chaos teams in that way.

15- star player table. re-insert "Mega Star" 126-200 at 6 rolls and take Legend up to 201+ Im not bothered by the 7th skill really, but this is such a minor point anyway really.

16- also please explain how much +ST taken for a 6th skill costs is it 50k +30k or just +30k it is confusing.... I have explained with a little note below the table now, cheers

17- Wizard back as he should be... I don't know what the optional team spells are though so cannot comment There are no optional spells, that line was just copy and pasted from another document i did a long time ago where i updated all the 2nd ed spells for CRP just for fun, but i forgot to delete that line but yeah as you say, my version is definately how the wizard should be,

18- teams, as have been mentioned above by others not sure if your team suggestions are fully thought out so would be pleased if you could post a justification for each one.. couple of lines for each would be enough. They have been thought out alot alot alot, and I will post a rationale for those changes and the traits below. Also they have been play tested as well, though not nearly enough to know anything other that it doesnt make the teams too good or rubbish.

overall a fab effort Garion. Thanks for the feedback

[garion]

Rationale
Okay here is a rationale for the changes that are going to cause the biggest rifts. Roster Changes I will leave traits for now, unless someone wants a post this long about them.

I will start with the easy Roster Changes.

All Ogres and Minotaurs are cheaper
I have knocked the price down of a number of Big Guys. Quite frankly they are just too expensive now. In LRB4 Ogres were 120k, I would personally prefer to make them that cheep again, but opted to make them only slightly cheaper in mine 130k for Ogres and Minos. Even in LRB4 when Big Guys were cheaper there was still debate about whether or not they are worth taking at all. Now apart from a few Big Guys, many believe they are just not worth their value at all, especially because of how important TV management has become in Leagues. Cheaper Big Guys is also a little boost to Ogre teams, Humans, rookie Chaos Teams etc, teams that could do with just a slight helping hand early on. Also the Big Guys that could only have mutations on doubles now get them on singles, it fits the fluff better, but they didn’t used to have this option for balance reasons. Now that Mutations are random this is no longer a concern.

Vampires gain P access.
Vampires are meant to be the perfect Blood Bowl player according to their Fluff; they are great all round star players but they are seriously hampered by their Blood Lust. It has always been my belief that they should have access to all the skill categories to represent this. There should be no restriction placed on how they are developed as they are a supreme being. They are just cursed with their Thirst for Blood. It is a tiny change and it just gives them a nice option to develop in a slightly different way, making each time you play with them a more unique experience.

Norse changes.
Norse have too many positional players now imo, so I removed their Thrower and gave their Runners P access. This is for a few reasons. First of all the Norse thrower is widely regarded as the worst positional in the game. It also makes the game more consistent between races. Dark Elf Runners have P access. They do not have Runners and Throwers in the same team. Also throwers do not fit the Fluff...
There are three Human teams in Blood Bowl Humans, Norse and Amazons. Humans according to their fluff are the all-rounder, capable of switching styles to beat teams and for this they are well designed to play in this way. Amazons are described as a dextrous team but they are not that (more later), so they should be best at the passing game and Norse are described as the running bash teams. Throwers don’t fit their Fluff they are meant to be a team that picks the ball up back field and smashes a hole in their opponent’s defensive line (hence their runner having Dauntless) and scoring. The removal of a Thrower is not for balance reasons it is for Fluff reasons, the reason the Runner got P access is for uniformity between races. It also means if you want to have Norse passing players you still have that option. But in all likely hood who ever gets Ag 4 first will likely be that player anyway and not your thrower. Also Norse are typically a strong starter team and a good tourney team, so if this is viewed a tiny short term nerf to them then that is fine with me.

Dwarf changes
This change again is not made because I think they are too good, or not good enough. Getting rid of Tackle from the blockers and giving it to the Blitzers is just because it makes sense. It is just stupid that the lineman have more skills for taking people out than your Blitzer especially a skill that is so typically used by Blitzers. Having spoken to probably hundreds of Dwarf lovers and haters, this is the only change the roster change that both can agree on. Dwarf haters thing it is a minor nerf that will mean they aren’t quite so annoying to play against. It is also a short term nerf that stops them performing quite so well when they are a TV underdog. On the flip side, Dwarf lovers quite like it because their Blitzers should be better than Blockers at Blitzing. It also means their most mobile players start with a good anti elf skill, this is actually a bit of a boost for them and makes it tougher/scarier to tie up their Blitzers with Blodge players early on. Do I think it is a buff or a nerf... Neither really. I think it boosts them and nerfs them in different ways, but it does fit the fluff better and it makes their players more in keeping with their role in a team. Play testing has shown little impact and they still perform incredibly well, though play testing has been limited. I would expect it to push Tackle down to third or fourth skill on a dwarf blocker/Longbeard, which is no bad thing. Especially when I have re-designed the SPP to TV cost system to encourage building balanced rosters and even skill distribution more important than building 4 or 5 star players then leaving the rest of your team as scrubs. The new system for TV would have otherwise helped dwarves even more, had I left them alone.

Amazon changes (the big one)
Amazons in CRP and all editions previous have always been (IMO) a cookie cutter team, a team that is very easy to play, with little to no thought. They are also the roster that received the most votes in TFFs very own poll asking which roster needs the biggest change. Most people i speak to seem to agree they would like them to get the Norse/Nurgle face lift, so I have given it a go. Based purely on their fluff my aims with this team were-

1) To make the team have a focus around passing plays.
2) To keep their theme of dodge en masse, but also try and make less of a pain for everyone.
3) To make them a little more effective against Dwarf and Chaos Dwarf teams.
4) To make them a little big tougher at a high TV.
5) To make them a little bit worse against everyone other than Dwarf and Chaos Dwarf at a low Tv.
6) To make them a little more interesting to play against and with.
So how have I tried to achieve this.

1. Passing – Amazons are described in their fluff as dextrous. This means good at passing and catching. By giving their throwers accurate and their catchers diving catch they now have a 2+ 2+ passing game with one free re-roll. So they are just as effective as Elves at passing plays really.

2. Dodge en masse – I have kept Dodge on all of their players except their Catchers. The idea is that their catchers are players trained solely for running and catching. They are not trained in the art of avoid tackles like the rest of the team, their whole focus is on moving into a position to catch the ball and score touchdowns. This also moves catchers away from their current nonsensical role in a team which is get Blodge and Side Step and tie players up. Again this is against their role. This is what the Blitzers are meant to do according to their fluff. The rest of the team is there to protect them.

The Blitzers also lose Block, this means the team loses some reliability in the 2-1 grind and the mid field blocking battles that zons are currently so good at even though their fluff says this is not what they are about. Their fluff describes them as players that are very hard to knock over, not a team that is very good at knocking other teams about. So in American football terms the team on the whole runs interference and the Blitzers now called blockers get in the way tie opponents up and make room for the catchers to score. But getting rid of Block means they will no longer be so effective at the bash game and they shouldn’t be. Norse are meant to be the human team that specialise at that.

3. To make them a little more effective against Dwarf and Chaos Dwarf I have done a few things. Firstly dwarf no longer have Tackle en masse, which helps. Also the Blocker gets Av 8. This just adds a little more toughness to the team. The big change that helps them is having up to 4 Av8 players with 2+ catching. Having player 2 against dwarves I have drawn twice 1 – 1 which i found encouraging, I have only played Chaos Dwarves once and lost 1-0. The higher movement just makes passing around them a lot easier and also means that the dwarves have to be a little more stand offish in case you break away from the pack with your Ma8 players. Having a Big Guy also helps. It means you can actually hurt them with a little luck, and an Ogress is a good way to tie up a couple of players.

4. A little bit tougher at high Tv, this is tough, but the Av8 of the Blockers a Big Guy should help in theory.

5. Make them a little worse against everyone other than the dwarves - The lack of block anywhere makes them a little easier for teams like Humans, Undead etc... to deal with them, while the Dodge en masse still helps them deal with their natural enemy Lizardmen. Also the lack of Dodge on their star players (their catchers) means the tactics now change to hunt the catchers in a similar way that teams hunt skinks when playing Lizardmen.

6. Make them fun to play with and against.I have certainly achieved this goal at low TV, whether they just don’t work at high TV or in perpetual leagues I can’t answer really. But my main concern is low Tv play and also make them unique from any other team and I have achieved this goal. Any further changes can only come from play testing.
Reason for an Ogress. I went with an Ogress as the big guy because the Zon fluff says they hate all other races and males from any race. So we cannot have Korxigors as they hate them. Also zons already have an Ogress playing for them the Star Player Bertha, so they clearly have no issues with female ogres.

[dode74]

Garion, I think you've done a lot of work here and it's great that you're willing to put the effort into making a set of house rules which appeal to you, and doubtless to others - kudos.

My personal opinion is that this version isn't for me - as we've established, our expectations for BB differ somewhat. As such I've pretty much stayed out of this one. Where I do start to object, though, is where you start straying into the territory of calling them "full rules" instead of house rules.

Yeah it is a nice house rule, but it would also be a better full rule

No thanks.

[voyagers_uk]

Hey Dode, I am not sure if you have said the same thing to Martin.... Just that if you haven't then this was very condescending of you...... If you have, point me in the direction.

[voyagers_uk]

unless of course I have misread the "tone" of your message....


that is possible too

[Darkson]

I agree. While there's a lot in these that I don't agree with, these are closer to "full rules" than Plasmoid's for me.

Horses for courses I guess.

That said, neither are as good as LRB ARBBL.

[dode74]

Hey Dode, I am not sure if you have said the same thing to Martin.... Just that if you haven't then this was very condescending of you...... If you have, point me in the direction.

I don't think Martin has suggested that NTBB is anything other than a house rule. If he has then I've missed it and apologise.

[garion]

Great Dode, really interesting. Please don't post in this thread, at all preferably, but especially not in such a condecending and insolent way. So ignoring that lovely post ...

Darkson - I would really like to hear more - What do you like about these rules and what don't you like? Cheers. I expect you liked the mutations part after reading your crazy mutations in LRB ARRBL

Voyager - I have made a few small changes, I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Thanks,

[voyagers_uk]

nice one Garion, overall I like what I see now,

I still have an issue that Juggernaut is not quite right, but that may just be a personal thing

plus my own personal preference for 7 skills makes me kind of want to insist that you take the bands back to 3ed where they belong.

last things is the cost of skill stacking on a player seems detrimental to team building which we all know we love. having to increase TV by 80k for a ST increase on a legend seems rough, surely you could cap it at 50k?. i.e. most you pay is 50k for any skill advance at any level.

taunt is still the weak link for me, I would never take it... there are just too many skills that would be useful first on both offense and defense. adding that ability to Two Heads would fit and make two heads a more attractive mutation... one head is always taunting etc.

i take two heads as it is, but then I am not a Claw addict

good job, I look forward to further refinements

[garion]

I understand Taunt on two heads and I could add Taunt to two heads as a sort of value add. But I do like it as a skill on its own. It can be very useful for taking players out of position etc... But yeah its certainly not a top tier skill, but it stacks nicely with SS Diving Tackle etc.. and also bash teams for pulling people next to your tentacles big guys etc...

As for the increasing TV of players with number of skills this is how i prefer it. I like this for a number of reasons. In LRB4 it used a similar system except SPP directly effected TR which ws wrong, it meant you paid a lot for a player when they were 1 spp short of getting a skill. So I have changed that so that it is only when they gain a skill that they pay with SPP. Also in LRB4 after they had gained all 7 skills they still paid more TR as they contiued to gain SPP after reaching their maximum skill allowance, this was also wrong. However on the good side, lrb4s system encouraged even skill distibution in a team rather than developing 4 or 5 star players while the rest remain scrubs, which in my personal experience seems to be how the majority of good coaches now build teams.

So what i have done is change the system so it is somewhere between the two. Stacking skills on a player always makes them more effective and it is my view that a player with 6 skills should be worth more than 6 players with 1 skill. I have also went through a great number of teams on fumbbl and worked out their skill cost this way and it suprisingly doesnt make a huge difference, because doubles and traits are free. So it encourages taking doubles and traits and also psycologically makes even skill distribution more of a team focus, which is a great thing imo.

Take a few players from my rules for example.

Beastman horns - Block, Mighty Blow, Razor Sharp Claw, Juggernaut , Dauntless, Multiblock,

Now that is a pretty awesome skill combo. Dauntless multiblock with horns and MB and RSC. That should clearly be worth more than 6 beastmen with Block.

Then take an agility player

Pro Elf blitzer block - Dodge, Side Step, Diving Tackle, Jump Up, Guard, Tackle

Again with each skill the player becomes more effective. one of him should definately be worth more than 6 Linos with wrestle imo.

My rules are written with TT league play, pepetual league play and online matchmaking in mind, and i am have tried to create a rule set that would be benefical to all of them. This is something the BBRC were not allowed to do, which was a shame, but it is certianly my goal. Take any team that is high TV and work out the difference in TV using my system and CRP system. The difference isn't that great except on teams that probably deserve to be paying more (the min max teams).

Finally I also loved that in LRB4 you couldn't/didn't want to just score with your best player every game, the best coaches made sure they scored with a variety of players consistently, it added a further tactical element to the game in a positional sense. trying to get your rookie players to an endzone was and is far more challanging than just leaving them to get hit every game.

I have no problem with 7 skills really, but I have done all my maths with 6 lol. If i do 7 I would probably need to change the steps of TV increase for skills. Also Im not sure if any player needs 7 really.

As for Juggernaut, that is just another nice weapon for bash against blodge teams, it is two skills in one, hence it beng a trait, and it also gives you good paths to develop your teams e.g. the one above. or going down the frenzy route - Beastman horns - Juggernaut, Frenzy, Stand Firm = awesome and this is far more likely to occur for mutation players becuase of the gifts system.

[voyagers_uk]

if we have learned anything from these discussions is that you will never get everyone to agree to everything you suggest...

this is great though and I look forward to results of play-testing

[garion]

if we have learned anything from these discussions is that you will never get everyone to agree to everything you suggest...

this is great though and I look forward to results of play-testing

agreed

It will never be possible to create a ruleset that is perfect for everyone. But I think this is as close to perfect for me as I could ever have things.

p.s. I just wish there was a way of making Wild Animal Wild without it being too complicated or just stupid. Its a shame, but i can live with it as it is i suppose.

edit: also I would like to give goblin chainsaw players right stuff so you can throw them, but I will leave it for now. It would be amazing, a troll eats one and must roll for their own av with a +3 modifer and if you throw him and he hits someone both players must add +3 their av rolls. It would be really funny, and often worth throwing your chainsaw star player in the final turn before they get sent off.

[dode74]

Great Dode, really interesting. Please don't post in this thread, at all preferably, but especially not in such a condecending and insolent way. So ignoring that lovely post ...

I was actually complimenting you on your rules. They are very well done if that's what you want out of BB: you've really put a lot of time and effort into them and I hope they work for you as house rules. I was being genuine in that first paragraph of my initial post in this thread, but if you can't take a compliment without going off the handle at a mild criticism of your wording then the problem would seem to be under-confidence on your part.

[voyagers_uk]

I cannot argue with Dode on this, his point is valid Garion, this is what YOU want (some agree/some don't) from BB.

that said Dode, maybe you could be a little more constructive regarding some of those areas not within the current rules. Be encouraging, after all we are all about the friendly...

You have added greatly to others initiatives, and I am sure you could help here to, even if you disagree with the thrust of the aim.