Secret Weapons

[Falc]

How about a middle ground between permanency and freebooting? If you fail the penalty roll, the player using the weapon is ejected and the weapon is confiscated, ie. lost.

So, a team buys a weapon. Very nice, costs money, write it down in a separate part of the team roster so you can keep track of things for your Team Rating.

If they want to use the weapon, they need to give it to a player. I'm not quite sure whether anybody should be allowed to carry a weapon. Giving it to a good player would ensure better use of the weapon, but of course if he gets ejected your team could suffer...

Since weapons are separate from players then you could maybe start tinkering with them, like adding a scope to a blunderbuss, or removing some bits to make it easier to conceal, or put a turbocharger on a deathroller... Would of course cost money, and well, there's always that chance of seeing it all go *poof* when the ref spots it.

[Mestari]

Which is not a bad idea at all, Falc. I could live with the weapon being removed only when it has been sent out. But then we have to carefully examine the penalty rolls if they are sufficiently hard to pass.

Or, in addition to the weapon being confiscated on being sent off, we could say that in addition, one has to roll a d6 for every weapon after the game. on 5+ it has been confiscated - this should make it sufficiently likely that the teams can't hold them for long.

The idea of add-ons might be too much to make it universally liked, but as an optional addition it's certainly worth thinking about.

[Colin]

Actually, I like the idea of confiscating weapons, this would make it so that not every team will have one in their line up.

[Falc]

Well, let's examine those Penalty rolls then, eh?

Ball & Chain, 8+, 15/36
Bomb, 8+, 15/36
Chainsaw, 8+, 15/36
Blunderbuss, 10+, 6/36
Death Roller, 7+, 21/36
Poisoned Dagger, 10+, 6/36
Pogo Stick, 10+, 6/36

Now, if you remember that these rolls have to be made after every drive... It looks to me that most of these don't stand much chance of actually surviving one game. Especially that Deathroller, which is more likely to be confiscated than to remain with the team... In other words, coaches must carefully consider when they will be putting these things on the field.

Another idea I've just had... Remove Penalty Rolls, and mark the use of a Secret Weapon in a block the same as a Foul, ie. use the regular Fouling rules whenever a player uses a weapon in a way that might injure another player. Getting spotted results in being sent off and the Weapon being confiscated. Of course, this is possibly be even harsher than the current Penalty rolls, since those guarantee getting a whole drive out of a weapon at the very least.

More thoughts to follow...

[Grumbledook]

The penatly rolls are there for a good reason, having suffered at the hands of a dwarf team with 2 death rollers its nice to know that they arn't able to do it all match, got one off with 2 mummies and a vampire thankfully ;]

The secret weapons are a tad more nasty than a foul and lets face it, how hard is it to see a foul as opposed to notice a running chainsaw, or exploding bombs. Having had a goblin team for a number of years I think the rules work fine as far as the star players with them go, just need some good balenced rules to buy the items for you normal linemen.

[Munkey]

I have to agree that allowing the weapons to be freebooted only would mean they were used for the occasional match without being overused or always present.

This seems a more balanced idea than permanent additions and prevents the 'arms race' that already exists with Big Guys.

The only team I would be happy to see with a few (and I mean only a few) permanent secret weapons would be the Goblin team in an effort to make them a little more competitive (and possibly for the same reasons the Halfling team if the right weapons were found) and the rules Grumbledook has outlined for Knives and Pogo sticks probably cover this.

I guess the prices would have to be set and tested carefully to allow a reasonable amount of use from the items without constantly seeing them.

One question, would there be any scope for interaction between skills and the weapons, as they could now be given to players with a wide variety of skills (although this could get very complex without care).

Hopefully this can be worked on some more to get a balanced set of rules as Bloodbowl should have the odd Chainsaw I always thought