I still feel that anyone who rages against ClawPOMP lacks a historical understanding of the game. Consider that in 3rd edition:GalakStarscraper wrote: 3) We were already having many many many people scream at us that we were completely taking the blood out of Blood Bowl with the new rules. Constant barrage of accusations of making Pansy Bowl. ClawPOMB for all that it is ... it is still not RSC+RSF level of deadly as per the rules that came before it. So when you looked at the possible level of injury before compared to ClawPOMB ... it was actually lower odds for injury. Because of this ... ClawPOMB was discussed and felt like making it less of a thing would be making the possible blood level even less. The CRP process was to remove roster attrition from the off the pitch from the game and make it all on pitch so ClawPOMB was felt to be appropriate for that goal.
1) It was statistically more likely in some scenarios to kill someone rather than seriously injure them.
2) Fouls and push-outs granted SPPs.
3) You could stack modifiers if you had MB and RSC, or MB and Dirty Player, or Piling On (which granted +X to the armor roll where X was the players strength.)
4) Mighty Blow was +1/+1. Dirty Player was +2/+2.
5) Armor and injury rolls could be re-rolled.
6) To a lesser extent, the changes to Diving Tackle have reduced the number of blocks in the game somewhat.
7) Changes to Special Play cards mean the chance of having a player maimed, killed or otherwise forced off your team are much lower.
The game has become SIGNIFICANTLY less lethal since 1993, but in general, armor values haven't changed at all. Agilities haven't changed at all. The advantages of the power teams have been toned down but the same has not (always) occurred with the finesse teams.
I understand that at high TR levels, where every team can have ClawPOMB, it can get ugly, but frankly those situations don't show up that often, outside of online leagues. And a good league commissioner should endeavor to make sure it never happens in tabletop leagues. I think removing ClawPOMB would do more harm than good.