Narrow Tier BB - 2012

[fanglord13]

I am desperate to get a group of like minds together in WA for some playtesting, but no takers yet

Like nearly all the proposed changes, but the CPOMB sticking point is problematic. Is it possible that with the other changes that (inspite of statistics) it is being weakened? Obviously only playtesting will tell...

I still hold firm that Dwarf Blockers should have Stand Firm instead of Tackle and Vampire Bloodlust should be equivalent to a Stab attack rather than an auto injury roll.

Keep up the good work playtesters

[Juriel]

I still hold firm that Dwarf Blockers should have Stand Firm instead of Tackle and Vampire Bloodlust should be equivalent to a Stab attack rather than an auto injury roll.

Mass-Stand Firm would be more powerful than mass Tackle.

[Pluisje]

Mass-Stand Firm would be more powerful than mass Tackle.

Much more powerful against non-dodge teams, against (all-)dodge teams maybe more powerful, maybe not (ok more powerful, but a little less deadly). So it equalises them a bit against Amazons and Goblins compared to the other teams.

Edit: And there are more opinions a couple of topics down the list.

[Glamdryn]

Has anyone considered not changing Piling On, but instead just adding to the claw skill that you cannot use claw and piling on together? Or A player with Claw cannot learn the Piling On skill and vice versa?

I don't think the issue is currently with the skills individually, but rather with having all 3 together.

[koadah]

Has anyone considered not changing Piling On, but instead just adding to the claw skill that you cannot use claw and piling on together? Or A player with Claw cannot learn the Piling On skill and vice versa?

I don't think the issue is currently with the skills individually, but rather with having all 3 together.

Yes, loads of people.

But AV7 fans didn't like it.

[dode74]

Plasmoid already said he thinks the issue is the strength of MBPO vs AV7. My suggestion was to not let MB and PO stack (i.e. the second roll is made without MB). The issue with this (and I think it is minor as the nerf I suggested is fairly minor too) is that it makes ClawMB relatively more powerful than MBPO compared with how the are now, giving ClawMB players a bit more of an advantage.

[Tourach]

The newly suggested PION with the dubbles, roxx the boxx, just use that MARTIN!

[plasmoid]

Hi all,
sorry for disappearing - had a vacation coming up, and before one of those work always turns to sh*t.
glad it didn't (quite) kill off the thread, even if it's strayed a fair bit off topic

I'd better start with the only NTBB bit then, Garion said:

But I dont think Plasmoid is interested in this sort of nerf, he just wants the smallest possible change with a better outcome than what we are all playing at the moment. Which I think he already has really.

Well, thanks
And yep - that's the thing in a nutshell.
I'm not pretending that this approach will make it the best BB possible. Outlandish ideas sometimes get awesome results. But as these are house rules, I just don't have a clean slate. I'm trying to strike the balance between good results and wide appeal. Think (bastardized) John Stuart Mills here: I'm hoping for the best result for the most people, rather than a perfect result for a much smaller crowd.

OK, 3 issues I'd like to throw my 2 cents at:
Dode/Horns: I think horns could go back to it's old version. Chaos is a decent starting team anyway. I don't think it's pivotal in the CPOMB carnage though - at least we'd have to come up with something else to also get at the CDs.

PiOn: Lots of ideas for bashstack still floating around.
For me, I'm down to 3 options:
1) PiOn rerolls AV. Because my self imposed deadline forced me to make a choice, and that was it.
2) Ians version - if Galak likes it too, I'd go with it. The stats are good, and I'm looking to compromize.
3) My own doubles version. I love the stats, and I think the mechanic is simple (even if new). It deals with the stacking issues, and the built in penalty is that following up can be quite a problem when you can't voluntarily go prone. That being said, this is exactly the kind of thing that would make the NTBB rules alienate more people, so I can't really run with it.

Random Mutations: It's a fun concept, but I don't think it could be made to work for anything other than casual play.
Remember in 2nd ed? People took mutants despite the risk of sucky mutations because the mutants were star players added on top of the 8 stars any team could have.
For Random Mutations to even get taken, you'd have to have some pretty awesome mutations in there. Which means a step back towards lucky coaches having all the fun... Which isn't even that bad to me - what I don't like is giving a further edge to prolific coaches, who can just recycle until they land the powerskills on the right players. I just can't see it working.

Nerfing Claw might help... But I don't think that would really make the other mutations come magically into play. Just like nerfing Block wouldn't make the other 12(?) General skills appealing. It would make the next one or 2 more popular. But not a lot of added variety. (Admittedly, less clawbash would mean more variety in the tactics/team choice - I'm hoping to adress this with the general bashnerf).

One thing I have been very tempted by, but have decided against simply because I think the impact would be quite massive, is the concept of pseudo-"traits": No doubles roll required or anything - just a few powerskills that add +10K TV extra to the cost of the player. Especially skills that work well in bulk. Something like Guard, Block, Dodge, Leader, Claw (and then still nerf PiOn).
Might even bother the hell out of some MinMaxers

Another off-the top of my head and probably I'll thought through idea is this:
Mutations get assigned 2 categories, both the M and then G, S, A or P.
You may only take a mutation if you have access to both categories (and a doubles roll will let you override 1 of them).
How would that fix anything... We stick Claw in M+A - after all a Claw is a Slaanesh thing
...I think that would make Claw require doubles roll for everybody except underworld goblins.
Might even force us to come up with a few new mutations (for P-players).
...Ah well

Cheers all,
Martin

[plasmoid]

Right - this won't make it into NTBB, but - I thought some more about that last idea.

I suppose I'd go something like this:
MG: Foul Appearance, Disturbing Presence, Very Long Legs
MS: Horns, Tentacles, Prehensile Tail
MA: Claw, Big Hand, Two Heads
MP: Extra Arms

...off the top of my head.
I like how it restricts access a bit, and adds a +10K fine to those players that are lucky enough to roll up those doubles.

Cheers
Martin

[voyagers_uk]

if you could find 2 more to fit in the MP category I would think this is perfect

[dode74]

Dode/Horns: I think horns could go back to it's old version. Chaos is a decent starting team anyway. I don't think it's pivotal in the CPOMB carnage though - at least we'd have to come up with something else to also get at the CDs.

Getting an easy 2d block allows easy positioning of all your other players. You can have all the guard you like but a corner can always be 2d blocked. The odds of even making the AV roll drop from 55% to 33% (block player vs block player) when you go from 2d to 1d, which will equate to a 40% reduction in the AV breakage rate (when talking about single beast blitzes), and therefore in the cas rate. This is particularly prevalent at higher TVs where CPOMB is more evident, and teams are taking skills such as guard.
At 1800TV+, from Koadah's data in B, mean cas caused per game:
Chaos - 4.23
Nurgle - 3.91
C Dwarf - 3.43
That's a 19% difference in cas rates between 1st and 3rd. It takes another 7 teams to see another 19% reduction (Necro @ 2.84) - quite a steep differential.
I don't expect a change to horns would see a 40% reduction to the Chaos/Nurgle cas rates as they can use the CWs or NWs instead, but I would expect to see a reduction based on the fact that it would no longer be easy to get an ST4 blitz.

[plasmoid]

Right. Off the top of my head:
MP - Very Long Legs: Adds +1 to leap, +2 to safe throw and +2 to intercept. (Changed)
MP - Eye Stalks: When measuring range for a pass, if the reciever touches a range divider, treat the pass as the shorter range.

...Ofcourse we'd then have to come up with a new G-Mutation. Or Regen could just return...

[plasmoid]

Hi Dode,
all I'm saying is we'd then need 2 fixes, because fixing horns wouldn't help with the chaos dwarfs. (And I'd still expect the Warriors to take some claw anyway). I'd prefer 1 rules change over 2 - but I agree that it could cause a small drop in the casrate, though the LOS would be unaffected, and that's where the slaughter begins

[Darkson]

(Should be sleeping, damnit!!!)

MG - Spikes. If an opposing player knocks this player down on a Block or Blitz roll one D6. On a roll o
f a 1 they are Placed Prone as they have got impaled on the spikes. This does not cause a turnover unless the blocking/blitzing player was the ball carrier.


You could put something in there about being harder to kick on the floor (foul) but then that would just make it a claw-saving skill.

[dode74]

Hi Dode,
all I'm saying is we'd then need 2 fixes, because fixing horns wouldn't help with the chaos dwarfs. (And I'd still expect the Warriors to take some claw anyway). I'd prefer 1 rules change over 2 - but I agree that it could cause a small drop in the casrate, though the LOS would be unaffected, and that's where the slaughter begins

- CDs have a 19% lower cas rate than Chaos. Do they need fixing? I guess I could look at the overall mean and SD of casualties so we can get some idea of a notional upper bound for the highest mean cas rate (yes, I know it'll become iterative if we keep doing that, but it'll also give us an idea of how far "out" we are now)...
- CWs may take claw, but I didn't think you had an issue with claw: I thought it was the effect of MBPO on AV7 which was the problem. Will people put CWs on the ground so readily.
- Slaughter begins on the LOS with any bash team.

Anyway, I think we're wandering OT now so I'll continue this in a different thread if needs be.