From the frozen lands of the north .... KISLEV

[Chris]

Would your blockers be better off with armour 9?

Bear wise. If its a bear it should have really stupid as bears are good at a range of things. Football isn't one of them though....

Is there something similarily big that would understand games so would perhaps make more sense?

[Kuosa]

Love the idea. The blockers are cool, wrestle + SF seems like a nice combo for an st3 team.

I love the Bear! Wild Animal seems better than Really Stupid, as RS would indicate that someone is handling the bear, while WA means that they just let it roam on the pitch, biting, grabbing, clawing and just roaring most of the time. Give the bear Grab!

2 blitzers, 2 runners, 4 blockers and a Bear... that leaves the team with only 2 linemen. So linemen are basically linefodder and are too cheap for that duty, I would give a semi-useless skill for linemen (fend?) to increase the cost as this team would have it to easy on LoS casualties (only my humble opinion).

[plasmoid]

I like the basic idea.
I wonder if you could describe what the team is about, other than "being kislev".
Also - I like the bear, but would prefer grab over claw. If a bear gets Claw, then I think there are other players that ought to have it too. Like RatOgres.

[Steam Ball]

Grab means the bear is smart enough to know where to push people to maximum effect. It should be Tentacles (or Prehensile Tail), as it loves to hug people.

[plasmoid]

We're already assuming the bear is pretty well trained.
Nobody has suggested roll a d3 for push-back procedure

[Steam Ball]

Loner with Wild Animal... and well trained? Uh? Well trained for a bear, but still not smart as an human.

Also, I tried to see what the skill does, not what the name says, as sometimes they are poor matches, or just representations (pogoer has VLL and Leap, because it got a stick with spring). Grab is more like pick&place or precision pushing. So if the thing is "hugs", then the skill that match are those that make people going away harder.

[Kuosa]

What you are describing is a bear with Tentacles skill. Will Japan make the miniature?

I still say it should have grab, maybe not completely realistic but it makes for a fun and unique Big Guy. And realism in a game of orcs and frogmen is not 100% important.

[Steam Ball]

Rule writers just try to simplify and look at the effect, beyond the plain word. The manual itself says No Hands can mean busy hands, and left other cases no so well explained. Pogo has no long legs but it jumps with a spring, fanatic high ST isn't because he is a big guy but the drugs and the big ball, Hail Mary Pass in the dwarf stars means bazookas, and so on. Even many BB minis don't represent things 100% as per the word, but more per the essence, like Pug's three guys with a huge log ("treemen").

So you want Grab? Put Grab, just don't try to convince me that's an animal thats so "well trained" it wastes RRs half of the times. One thing is a fantasy world, and other kicking in-world realism at will. Grab would fit the world in those books/movies with the talking armoured bears (forgot the name).

It would make a powerful and less unreliable BG, maybe too powerful.

[Nikolai II]

I don't think it's that outdated. Very few teams don't match the point cost given, and those that don't match it, are usually not off by much. Dwarfs are an exception to it all.

Current rules used give these basic costs before additional balancing:
(These are also spread as having been the rules used to make the teams, rather than an attempt at reverse-engineering)
---
Creating your own team for Blood Bowl
General Team Rules:
1) No team can have AG 4 and ST 4+ players (unless the ST 4+ players are a Big Guy or Vampire)
2) Total Strength of the 16 highest ST players should not exceed 54
3) Take all players over 100k in price that are not Big Guy stock. Subtract 100k from each of their price and multiple
this amount * the maximum number allowed. Total this amount for the team. This amount cannot exceed
60k. (Example the Chaos Dwarf team has 2 non Big Guy players over 100k. The Bull Centaurs are 130k.
Subtract 100k from each and multiple by the 2 they are allowed and you get 60k so that team is okay.
4) No team should have more than 2 0-16 slots or more than 6 different positions (including the lineman slot)
allowed on the team. (Example the Orc team has 6 different positions).
5) Slots not set at 0-16 are limited to 0-6 maximum allowed.
6) A team cannot have Agile player types and Blocker player types on the same roster.
7) Team Re-roll prices should not be set at less than 50k.
No player's ST + AG should be more than 7.

General Rules for creating players:

1) If the player's initial calculated price is over 100k. Divide the amount of the player's price over 100k by 2 to
determine the player's final calculated price. So a player worth 140k when calculated would have a final
calculated price of 120k. (note if after this is done the player in to an even 10k increment then you need to
apply rule 2 below before you have the true final calculated price).

2) If a player's calculated price is not a round 10k price. Round down 5k amounts over 100k and round up 5k
amounts if under 100k. So a player worth 35k when calculated would have a final price of 40k while a player
whose price was 135k after applying the divide by 2 rule above would have a final calculated price of 130k.

3) Any player's final calculated price may be modified by 10k more or less from the calculated
price to achieve overall team balance. This is pretty important to balancing a roster in the long run.

4) If a player's price is adjusted down from the final calculated price then this amount should be multiplied by the
number of players in that slot. No team should be allowed to have this total amount for all players exceed 40k
total for the team. Players made more expensive than their calculated price should not be factored in.
(Example if the 0-16 slot for a team calculated to 60k and the price was adjusted to 50k then this would be
16*10=160k of discount and would be disallowed.) (Remember that all discounted players needed added.
So if the team has two 0-4 slot players and each player is discounted 10k then this would be 80k of team
discount and the team should not be allowed to be created.)

5) No weapon players should be allowed to be created and placed on teams (other than Stab). So no Secret
Weapon, Bombardier, Chainsaw, Ball & Chain players created new for rosters.

PLAYER TYPES:

1) BASIC PLAYER
This player type starts as:
6/3/3/8 No Skills -- 50,000 gold
This type is allowed for 0-16 slots or 0-6, 0-4, 0-2 slots
No player of this type should be priced for less than 30k
Skills disallowed to this player type:
Right Stuff, Stunty, Titchy, Always Hungry, Throw Team-Mate, Loner, Bone-head, Wild Animal, Really
Stupid, Take Root
All skills add 20k to the player's price other than the following:
30k: Regeneration
20k: Having Block and Dodge on the same player (this is on top of the 40k the player paid for Block and
Dodge already)
10k: Horns, Pass, and Thick Skull
5k: Leap and Very Long Legs
-5k: Decay
The following stat changes are allowed to this player type:
MA 4: -20k
MA 5: -10k
MA 7: +20k
MA 8: +30k
ST 2: -30k
AG 2: -20k
AV 7: -10k (if the player has NO other skills or stat increases)
AV 7: -20k
AV 9: +10k

2) AGILE PLAYER
This player type starts as:
6/3/4/8 No Skills -- 70,000 gold
This type is allowed for 0-16 slots or 0-6, 0-4, 0-2 slots
No player of this type should be priced for less than 60k
Skills disallowed to this player type:
Right Stuff, Stunty, Titchy, Always Hungry, Throw Team-Mate, Loner, Bone-head, Wild Animal, Really
Stupid, Take Root
All skills add 20k to the player's price other than the following:
30k: Regeneration
20k: Having Block and Dodge on the same player (this is on top of the 40k the player paid for Block and
Dodge already)
10k: Horns, Safe Throw, Thick Skull, and Very Long Legs
-10k: Decay
The following stat changes are allowed to this player type:
MA 7: +10k
MA 8: +20k
MA 9: +40k
ST 2: -30k
AV 7: -10k (if the player has NO other skills or stat increases)
AV 7: -20k
AV 9: +20k

3) STUNTY PLAYER
This player type starts as:
6/2/3/7 Dodge, Stunty -- 30,000 gold
This type is allowed for 0-16 slots or 0-6, 0-4, 0-2 slots
No player of this type should be priced for less than 20k
Skills disallowed to this player type:
Always Hungry, Throw Team-Mate, Loner, Bone-head, Wild Animal, Really Stupid, Take Root
All skills add 20k to the player's price other than the following:
40k: Block
30k: Regeneration
10k: Right Stuff
0k: Titchy
-10k: Decay
The following stat changes are allowed to this player type:
MA 5: -5k
MA 7: +15k
MA 8: +30k
ST 1: -15k
AV 5: -20k
AV 6: -5k

4) BLOCKER PLAYER
This player type starts as:
4/4/2/9 -- 80,000 gold
This type is allowed for 0-6, 0-4, 0-2 slots
No player of this type should be priced for less than 80k
Skills disallowed to this player type:
Block, Claw, Dodge, Right Stuff, Stunty, Titchy, Always Hungry, Throw Team-Mate, Loner, Bone-head, Wild
Animal, Really Stupid, Take Root
All skills add 20k to the player's price other than the following:
10k: Thick Skull, Disturbing Presense
-5k: Decay
The following stat changes are allowed to this player type:
MA 3: -20k
MA 5: +10k
MA 6: +30k
ST 5: +40k
AG 1: -20k
AG 3: +20k
AV 7: -30k
AV 8: -20k
AV 10: +30k

5) BIG GUY PLAYER
This player type starts as:
5/5/2/9 (Loner), (Negatrait), (Damage Skill) -- 160,000 gold
A team should only be allowed to have one Big Guy type on it

Allowed:
If the team has any ST 3+ players (other than the Big Guy) then 0-1 allowed
If the team's strongest other players are ST 2 then 0-2 or 0-1 allowed
If the team's strongest other players are ST 1 then 0-6, 0-4, 0-2, or 0-1 allowed
No player of this type should be priced for less than 110k

Skills disallowed to this player type:
Block, Dodge, Right Stuff, Stunty, Titchy
Loner: If the team has no other players with ST over 2 than the Big Guy should be allowed to have Loner
removed (if desired) for no increase to his price.
Negatraits (a Big Guy must have one of these):
Bone-head and Wild Animal do not change the price
Really Stupid subtracts 20k from the price
Take Root subtracts 30k from the price
Damage Skill (a Big Guy must have one of these 2 skills):
Mighty Blow does not change the price
Claw adds 10k to the price

All skills add 20k to the player's price other than the following:
10k: Thick Skull, Throw Team-Mate
-10k: Always Hungry skill (Note: a Big Guy MUST have Throw Team-Mate to take Always Hungry)
-10k: Decay

The following stat changes are allowed to this player type:
MA 2: -90k
MA 3: -50k
MA 4: -20k
MA 6: +30k
ST 6: +50k
AG 1: -20k
AV 8: -10k
AV 10: +20k

6) SPECIAL PLAYER (and other notes)
Vampire 110k 6/4/4/8 Blood Lust, Hypnotic Gaze, Regeneration
0-6, 0-4, 0-2, or 0-1 allowed
No modification or extra skills allowed to this player type

Other Notes:
1) The above will allow you to create almost all of the official Blood Bowl teams along with
balancing of teams folks want to create to try something new.
2) Please note … the above rules will NOT allow you to create 4 of the official teams … namely the Dwarf, Goblin, Chaos Pact
and Lizardman teams. The Goblin and Dwarf teams because they have weapons on
the roster, Chaos Pact because they have too many slots (7) and the Lizardman team because it has 70k of
team discount (10k discount each on the 0-6 Saurus and the 0-1 Kroxigor).
3) If you want to allow teams to add in Vampires (which would be fun) a very easy way to program in the Blood
Lust skill would be to allow them to attack any member of their own team that does not have Regeneration (a
very easy modification that will have the skill work perfectly and allow the Vampire player to be added into
other teams).
4) Note on prices for the Big Guys. The starting price still gets divided by 2 for the amount over 100k when
you do the first price calculation.
Example: So a base Big Guy with MA 6 and Loner, Bone-head, and Mighty Blow would be 160k+30k=190k.
Divide the 90k by 2 = 45k. 190k-45k = 145k. Round down and the final calculated price of the Big Guy would
be 140k.
5) If you to try and have the most balanced teams possible. I strongly recommend not making changes to any
stats (Move, Strength, Agility, Armour) other than the ones I listed for each player type

[Nikolai II]

Loner with Wild Animal... and well trained? Uh? Well trained for a bear, but still not smart as an human.

Well trained would go better with really stupid (still usually needs a handler) than wild animal.

[plasmoid]

Hi Steam Ball.
Let me elaborate.

Well trained enough to not need a trainer to tell it where to go.
When to attack and when not to.
To do pushbacks that are tactical.
And about a gazillion other fairly complex things.
But somehow pushbacks done with Grab is a stumbling block?
I just don't get it.
Cheers
Martin

[Steam Ball]

Well trained enough to not need a trainer to tell it where to go.
When to attack and when not to.

Except when it goes grumpy and decides to roar and ignore your command. It also got Wild Animal.

To do pushbacks that are tactical.
And about a gazillion other fairly complex things.

Except when it's fails and then wastes a RR because it doesn't play so well after all. It also got Loner.

But somehow pushbacks done with Grab is a stumbling block?
I just don't get it.

I got it time ago, it's well trained, except when it ignores coach commands. And Grab rocks so much. We can agree a strong guy that can pick and place enemies for extra blocks is really nice. We will just have to agree to disagree it's a bear.

[plasmoid]

I think we pesudo-agree.
It's not as well trained as a human player, but apparantly it has no problem with figuring out where to go or where to push. Which is why I can't see it having a problem with Grab.

That being said, I don't think Grab really represents a bear hug, so it isn't a great fit.
I just really don't think Claw is appropriate either.
Maybe juggernaut or piling on?
Cheers
Martin

[Afroman]

Since we are being creative here let me present to you the Bear Hug!


[Extraordinaire] Bear hug:
instead of a block, this player may choose to give his opponent an excruciating bearhug.
Take this players ST- opponents ST+legal defensive assists. This modifier is then added to a normal AV roll. If the roll passes roll for injury as normal. The player is not awarded any spp for casualties made this way.

[inkpwn]

Why doesn't he just have stab instead?
Just say its a hug.