3rd and final suggestion to improve racial diversity

[Smeborg]

A third, and hopefully final, suggestion from me to improve racial diversity a little (in perpetual leagues at high TV, elsewhere this is not an issue as far as I am aware):

"Piling On may be used to re-roll Armour rolls only, it may not be used to re-roll Injury rolls. All other CRP rules remain unchanged."
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The main effect is to tone down the quantum of damage achievable from ClawPOMB (or POMB vs. AV7) as follows:

CAS goes from 31% in the CRP to 20%.

KO+ goes from 58% in the CRP to 44%.

Stun+ remains unchanged 83%.

There would of course be other more subtle effects caused by P-On being used less often in certain situations (I suspect it might well continue to be used extensively at the set piece LoS), or by P-On being taken less often. It is easy to speculate about effects on practical play.

Player survival rates would increase across the board, which I suspect would benefit the AV7 teams most (but this is speculative).

But the most important effect, I suggest, would be to subtly change the ratio of SPP acquisition away from CAS towards other forms of SPPs. This is the important driver of long term balance IMO. I also speculate that the killy teams would still do well, Orcs and Dwarfs might improve a bit, but not to their former level of glory (Claw is still there to get them, and they will acquire fewer SPPs per game from CAS).

There are yet more subtle effects which relate to the number of Deaths and Crippling Injuries per game in relation to the number of Apothecaries (normally one of course). While I do not have the statistical skills to model this accurately, I suspect the proposed change would favour (somehwat at least) the more casualty-prone teams in this area.

Under the proposal. maximum CAS and KO rates from knockdowns fall to below that of a foul with D-Player, and close to that of a crowd surf. This seems intuitively right to me. KO+ goes from above 50% to below 50%, which also seems intuitively right to me. The chance of the victim remaining prone (unstunned) remains unchanged at approximately 1 in 6 (nice transparent and familiar BB odds).

The proposal has the merit of great simplicity (I dislike the idea of attempting multiple concurrent changes in such a subtle area of the game). No rookie player has the Piling On skill. The proposed change would also remove two (IMO) anomalies from the game:

(a) The anomaly whereby a player who has Piled On gains safety from being prone (a foul being less lethal to him than a knockdown by a ClawPOMB player).

(b) The anomaly whereby Piling On can miraculously cure a KO by converting it to a Stun.

As ever, comments most welcome. Hat tip to all the lovely comments on the other threads.

All the best.

[plasmoid]

- coincidentally known as LRB 4 PiOn
But I like the stats for this far better than for your other suggestions (as well as for Galak and Ians suggestions).
I think this is where pion needs to be.

With my idea of PiOn being identical to Mighty Blow (except for follow up & go prone), you get very similar stats. But PO=MB has (to my mind) the advantage of the attacker going prone less, which I think is a good adjustment, now that the stats are significantly worse.

You can check out the stats on the NTBB site, if you want.
http://www.plasmoids.dk/bbowl/NTBB.htm

But, in a nutshell, I think this would be good for the game.
Cheers
Martin

[Dr. Von Richten]

I would accept this as a houserule in a league in which I was playing.

[dode74]

I'd looked at LRB 4 PiOn (i.e. this) before, and like Plasmoid I prefer the numbers to the current setup. The thing I don't like about it (and do like about current PiOn and both Plasmoid's and my suggestions) is that there is no longer a decision to make if the player is already stunned. What I like about the current setup is that you can choose to not use it if it is tactically unsound to do so (e.g. you've not broken armour and losing your TZs would be disadvantageous) but can then change your mind if you get a little lucky (e.g. you find you've stunned your opponent so going prone is no longer unsound) and use it opportunistically.

Many people use PiOn in different ways and under different circumstances, but I know there are various rules of thumb out there ranging from "use it whatever" to "only use it if the opponent is stunned and you didn't use MB on the AV roll". Your version would restrict those considerably, and the loss of the ability to use it opportunistically would, I think, be the biggest nerf to the skill. There was some FUMBBL data somewhere which showed how often certain skills were taken, and I don't think this one was on the list much at all; I suspect this change would see that happen again.

Edit: found it: http://fumbbl.com/skills.php
Generated July 28th, 2004, so I think from before LRB 4...

[DoubleSkulls]

Like I said in the other thread, I don't think your objective can be achieved just by tweaking the damage causing skills.

I think this version of PO is awful because it makes it a "never take it skill" or one that gets taken by those BBers who only want to kill the opposition team.

[Smurf]

I don't think this is necessary.

One is the overtly gameyness of the TV bloat. Linos who get too many skills worry, well actually a good lino has 2-3 skills. People just fire them.

What I have noticed is that points in TV is not equlised by inducements.

You know the league you are joining likes POMB and CLPOMB combo. Start thinking of ways around them... Wrestle, Fend and Dodge.

Recognise the opponent has a preferred hard hitter, well keep hitting it.

Work out if the opponent is a 'dice thrower' or a 'thinker'. The people I have met in games who want to hit and hurt tend to be the former.