New Idea (new thread)

[NightDragon]

* PRO: C
* DIRTY PLAYER: B
* PILING ON:
* MIGHTY BLOW: A
* CLAW: A
* STUNTY: C

The only thing I don't follow is why piling on has to change. Is it too powerful? If so I would go for A in that category.
The point I would make is that BB is/should be a violent game. We seem to be more happy to lose players through things like aging(sorry), but can't accept honest thuggery and so have to reduce its power. Strange. DD.

[Dangerous Dave]

OK I posted on the 2nd or 3rd page of this new thread a note which basically said:-


Why are we considering overhauling a number of important skills purely to eliminate 1 very simple table (the Casualty table) and a few simple exceptions.


One writer agreed with my note, PH has been against from the start and now some more are querying the change since there are significant changes to the game (casualties fall for medium TR Strength teams, Piling On is radically different etc).


At the start of the first thread, Chet asked:-


What if I told you I could wave a magic wand and accomplish the following?

* Eliminate IGMEOY.
* Eliminate the AV/INJ re-roll exception.
* Eliminate the Casualty definition exceptions.
* Eliminate the "no plusses to the same die roll" exception that exists solely for AV and INJ rolls.
* Eliminate the Casualty table.


Aside from the fouling part (which I consider to be a separate issue) and changes made as the topic was discussed, this equates to:-

* Eliminate the AV re-roll exception.
* Eliminate the Casualty definition exceptions.
* Eliminate the "no plusses to the same die roll" exception that exists solely for AV rolls
* Eliminate the Casualty table.
* Make significant changes to a number of skills affecting one of the most important aspects of the game - blocking.


Chet - I really would like some feedback justifying why we need to go through a lot of rule changes (which impact the game) purely to eliminate this one table and 3 pretty simple exceptions.



Still waiting......



Dave

PS I would prefer to see more effort in bringing in new / additional things to the game (eg the Kicking rules etc) rather than tinkering with things that are not IMO broken

[Marcus]

My 0.02 Euro:

* PRO: Option B, Move to trait. I'm not all that keen on pro-ing armour rolls tho. I liked 4th ed taking armour rolls out of the coach's hands. I'm also not fond of the 2+ option at all. the 4+ reroll works nicely for me.

* DIRTY PLAYER: Option B, Guarding foul. We houserule this already. I also liked the idea of having no bonus to fouling but allowing the player to more easily evade being spotted. More a sneaky player than a dirty one.

* PILING ON: Option C +2/+3/+4 I like. I'm dead against using rerolls for this as well. I'd prefer to just see a clarification to Diving Tackle and Piling on that specifies you decide before the diceroll. BB is a gambling game and I love the risk/reward ratio here.

* MIGHTY BLOW: +1 works for me

* CLAW: Option C, +2/-1. Bags of flavour and a good tradeoff. Could lead to some interesting tactical situations when blitzing the ball carrier.

* STUNTY: Option C for skinks works for me. Giving skinks general moves them from bad team to good team but they're still reasonably balanced. I've played a season through with 4th ed Lizardmen (access to general) and they fared slightly worse than my usual team selections but still did well.

Interesting ideas all round. There's a lot of discussion about relative casualty rates but little discussion of how a higher number of stuns affects relative field position. A little harder to quantify of course but an increase in overall armour breaches has the effect of loosening game play. Something that should be factored in. No I haven't run the numbers on this yet, just flagging it for consideration.

Marcus

[Mestari]

There's a lot of discussion about relative casualty rates but little discussion of how a higher number of stuns affects relative field position. A little harder to quantify of course but an increase in overall armour breaches has the effect of loosening game play. Something that should be factored in. No I haven't run the numbers on this yet, just flagging it for consideration.

It certainly is harder to factor in.

Casualty rate calculations give a clear picture how the amount of casualties caused will change. Even a slight decrease and we'll find ourselves introducing more aging.
Also, as I've noted, strength teams have less to expect from advancing their players.

Stun rates - I'm excepting the exhaustive numbers that Chet promised, but the true effect of stuns can only be understood by playtesting: while the effect of casualty rates are easier to understand, it'll be interesting to see how the increased amount of stuns effect the gameplay and team balance.

[Acerak]

Prove me wrong when I say that even though attrition might go up somewhat thanks to AV rerolling, experienced strength teams would suffer as their skills are no longer as effective as they used to be.

Right now, only playtesting can prove anything. There's only so much you can do with numbers, because there are other factors (as Marcus noted, as I've noted) that don't translate well without an on-field demonstration.

Now a number of you believe that Strength teams will be negatively impacted. But I've heard this before. We all have. We all heard that the sky was falling when Fouling was brought down. And we heard it again when MB was changed from AND to OR. And you know what? Strength teams still survived. In fact, they still do just fine.

I can draw three possible conclusions from this:

1. Strength teams were overpowered all along.

2. Taken as a whole, the laundry list of changes that occured at the same time as the changes to DP and MB kept the entire system balanced.

3. It's just coincidence.

I'm inclined to disregard #3. I think #1 has a lot of truth to it, but trying to compare the current version of the game to 3E...well, they're different worlds entirely even if the name remains the same. And some people won't believe #1 even if it's true.

I'm inclined to trust in #2, especially in regard to this change. Hey, if I run such a league and the strength teams clearly can't compete, I'll say, "Well, that went too far," after which I'll try out MB at +2 or go back to the drawing board. But these changes are not all about MB. Or Strength teams. And I'll bet both items will still be as valuable as ever.

I'll keep you posted.

-Chet

[wesleytj]

Strength teams still survived. In fact, they still do just fine.

I can draw three possible conclusions from this:

1. Strength teams were overpowered all along.

2. Taken as a whole, the laundry list of changes that occured at the same time as the changes to DP and MB kept the entire system balanced.

3. It's just coincidence.

You left out #4 imo. #4 would be that the only reason they still do fine is through good coaching. I've seen guys post winning records with halflings. I think that hides a lot of weaknesses in a lot of teams. Good coaches can beat good teams with bad teams.

And some people won't believe #1 even if it's true.

Well my experience told me otherwise. I always thought that the best team in vanilla 3rd ed. BB was Wood Elves. Not by a lot mind you, the balance was very good.

In my favorite game ever I think, it was the BB final between my wood elf team and the meanest, most viscious, most evil chaos team ever the KKK (Kaos Krypt Keepers). This was a TR 400 team that had 2 Morgs and 2 Grashnaks, and every CW had piling on and fangs, and half the beastmen had claw. I think the other half had DP and he fouled every turn. He did at least have 1 scorer guy, the coolest beastman I ever saw. Ag4, Block, Sure Hands, Dodge, Big Hand, Regenerate. If there has ever been 2 more opposite teams I don't know about it. It sort of symbolizes the 2 opposite playstyles.

Anyway, I won 4-3. I scored all of my TD's in the first half, mostly due to my AG6 catcher who would leap into 2 tackle zones, pick up the ball, leap out, and hand off to a guy who would pass to a guy who would score. Classic rude elf ball.

But by the time halftime came around, my roster of 16 was down to 5, and I was kicking off to him. I tried to slow him down as much as possible while still keeping my guys out of tackle zones so he could only hit one a turn. And he scored 3 times against very modest defensive opposition and I won.

Classic game of speed/agility vs strength/fouling. And the speed won. Anyway I'm not trying to brag or anything, I'm just trying to point out that based on that game and a bunch more like it, I think the agility teams were always better than the hitting teams. And that was back in the days with no referee, no casualty table, no star player limits, no (fill in favorite new rule to weaken strength teams). Just pure vanilla 3rd ed blood bowl.

I'm inclined to trust in #2, especially in regard to this change. Hey, if I run such a league and the strength teams clearly can't compete, I'll say, "Well, that went too far," after which I'll try out MB at +2 or go back to the drawing board. But these changes are not all about MB. Or Strength teams. And I'll bet both items will still be as valuable as ever..

Well I have 2 responses to that:

1. Economists refer to something called the 'ratchet effect'. It relates to wages, and goes something like this. It's much easier to raise a wage than to lower it. IE you can't give your employees and 10% raise and then the next week say "oops we can't afford that, we'll have to take that back and only give you 5%". People will throw a fit even though they're still getting a 5% raise. Once you ratchet something up, it's tough to reverse it. I worry about that. People will whine that their goblins are getting hurt more than they used to (even tho it is still less than it was before that)

2. Well as you said the math isn't everything, but teemu's math (sorry I always call him teemu, I always think of teemu selanne when I see his posts not his username) did show the merits of the +2 and the horrid weakness of +1. I think the math isn't everything, but it's certainly SOMETHING!

[Mestari]

Prove me wrong when I say that even though attrition might go up somewhat thanks to AV rerolling, experienced strength teams would suffer as their skills are no longer as effective as they used to be.

Right now, only playtesting can prove anything. There's only so much you can do with numbers, because there are other factors (as Marcus noted, as I've noted) that don't translate well without an on-field demonstration.

This one is clear: if MB remains at +1 to AV only, players with MB will make 31% less casualties than they used to. No need for playtesting to say that.

If under the new rules, MB players somehow manage to compensate this by blocking more or managing to knock down more opponents, fine. That could come up with playtesting, but I'm not sure if there's anything that would indicate such a change in on-field play mechanics.

To support you Chet, however, I must say that the increased number of AV breaks (however note that a MB player without a TRR or PO would still make as many AV breaks as he used to), which naturally causes an increased amount of stuns, MIGHT benefit the strength teams by keeping the opponent down better and thus allowing to play the strength game better. STILL the non-strength teams also get this advantage (through TRR's on AV rolls), so it might not be beneficial after all. This needs to be verified by playtesting. But the amount of casualties (assuming non-biased rolls) per downed player is simply probabilities.

However - I don't like the increased amount of stuns. There are enough of stunned players on the pitch already, there's no need for a single more.
And we don't need playtesting to show that the potential for increased amount of stuns exists under these new rules, just math. Playtesting would be required to define how much people use TRR's to reroll armour, but they'd certainly be used.

Now a number of you believe that Strength teams will be negatively impacted. But I've heard this before. We all have. We all heard that the sky was falling when Fouling was brought down. And we heard it again when MB was changed from AND to OR. And you know what? Strength teams still survived. In fact, they still do just fine.

In what way does this merit a change that makes them even worse?
Is there a reason why experienced ST teams should be toned down?
And note the 'experienced' part - rookie teams are not affected, which is a point to remember when playtesting.

Hey, if I run such a league and the strength teams clearly can't compete, I'll say, "Well, that went too far," after which I'll try out MB at +2 or go back to the drawing board.

Sure, they still could compete. But they'd certainly be less strong. I'm not claiming they'd suddenly fall to the level of halflings or something, I'm saying that they'd definitely get weaker, as their strength skill choices would become clearly less effective.

I'm asking why would a change that weakens ST teams be a bad change only if it makes them unable to compete? Isn't it enough that it makes them worse?

[Acerak]

I'm asking why would a change that weakens ST teams be a bad change only if it makes them unable to compete? Isn't it enough that it makes them worse?

No, it's not enough. If that were the measuring stick, no one could ever change a single rule in this game. It's easy to argue that a rule that affects all players, such as the increased niggling injuries on the SI table, has a bad effect on low-AV teams, because they take more injuries. And if we listened to that rhetoric before October, we wouldn't have made the change.

That line hasn't stood the test of time, of course. And I doubt this will, either. I'm taking a holistic view and incorporating the increased fouls into the picture. That's going to have a benefit for strength teams. If you choose to ignore that, or claim it's a separate issue, that's your prerogative. I don't see it that way, that's all. Same with Piling On.

I think the current rules have some problems when it comes to AV and INJ and fouls and such, and I'd like to try to address them if possible. Here's a small list as I see them:

1. The Casualty die is a kludge. It wouldn't be necessary if the game didn't have modifiers to INJ, and it does nothing to make sure KOs or Stuns are in the "proper ratios" as defined by the unadulterated table. Plusses to the INJ table are a broken feature of the game that necessitate this patch.

2. We have a prohibition against combining plusses to the same die roll. This affects only AV and INJ rolls, because without this rule, the game would start sinking. And why? Because we have no more than 2 skills that affect any other die roll - in fact, we have only one for a lot of them so long as you leave out mutations - yet we have an overabundance of redundant skills that affect AV and INJ. Originally, I proposed toning them down and letting them combine. I'd like to see some of them do something other than "add yet another plus to this AV or INJ roll," and from that we got the AV-reroll idea.

3. Because of #2, you can combine Mighty Blow and Piling On, but you can't combine Claw and Piling On. I think that's proof of a problem.

4. We have an unecessary prohibition against re-rolling AV, and possibly against re-rolling INJ as well. These are holes in the rule that you can re-roll any die roll made by your player.

You might see those differently, but I've read the responses through 20+ pages of this thread. A lot of you - even some of you questioning the effect of these changes on strength teams - see things more or less like this. The argument from the con side is "Mighty Blow, Mighty Blow, Mighty Blow." But it's not about MB alone. It's a known concern, I've already said that. You're not going to convince me that this is a bad idea just because one skill will be negatively affected, and I'm not going to convince you that it's a good idea despite this fact. That's where playtesting comes in.

Cheers.

-Chet

[voyagers_uk]

Well, enough talking as far as I am concerned, I am commish for the next season and we will see how this plays.

Spread of teams
2 Dwarf
1 Chaos Dwarf
1 Amazon
1 Dark Elf
1 Skaven
1 Norse
1 Orc
1 Halfling

possibly an Undead or High Elf team to be added later we shall see.

I will be taking

MB: +1 to AV only
Piling On: AV reroll
Dirty Player +1 to AV only and Guard
Claw +2 to AV only (RSC becomes Claw - no-one in our league has both)
Pro 3+ and move to trait (treading the middle ground here)
Stunty: remove +1 to injury goblins to AV6

also allowing
SPP's for fouling
AV rerolls with TRR
remove IGMEOY and revert to 6+ ref roll

as I have stated elsewhere we use the rules on Galak's site for Weapons/ Apothecaries/Personal Apo's/trainers and the rules for cheerleaders and assistant coaches plus allies and on pitch spellcasters.

we love them all too much to strip them out.

kick off in a couple of weeks or maybe next Tuesday, we shall see.....

[Marcus]

This is reiterating a little bit but I think it's worth bringing up.

For the record I am very keen on the idea of removing the modifiers to injury rolls. Never liked the bloody things as it's too easy for some muppet to make a cookie cutter casualty team that doesn't do anything but fsck your shed up Real Good.

I mentioned an increase in the number of stuns by allowing rerolls to armour &/or allowing AV roll modifiers to stack. I think this is generally a good thing. It keeps the focus off wiping out the other team and back on scoring touchdowns where it belongs.

I think a lot of players who adopt a "kill first, score later" approach may find themselves gravely disappointed as they flail around praying for casualty rolls. I also don't think this would mean a weakening of strength teams.

Lucien and (modesty aside) Yours Truly demonstrated what you can do with a power team without relying on casualties. Simply knocking the opponent down and stunning them gives you a lot of room to work with that a good coach should be able to convert to touchdowns. Improving the ability to break armour and diminishing the ability to injure lessens the strategic element of the game and makes it more tactical which I think is an improvement.

I'll reserve judgement on the ways and means this is achieved when I get time for a good playtest. Might run it past the ECBBL and see if we feel like giving it a testdrive.

Marcus

[voyagers_uk]

forgot to say that :

Claw would also be the -1 to ball handling (we only have a unicorn with RSC so far and no-one with Claw so as it affects no-one I can comfortably make this change

No lizard teams so the general skill access for Stunty is not an issue.

Pro can reroll AV I have no real problem with this due to the few players with Pro at this stage, and the high casualty rate in our games anyway.

Last season we averaged above 4 casualties a game. No-one was using Pon and very little MB came into action.

We already house ruled in favour of SPP's from pushes out of bounds.

there, that should do for now.....

[wesleytj]

No, it's not enough. If that were the measuring stick, no one could ever change a single rule in this game. It's easy to argue that a rule that affects all players, such as the increased niggling injuries on the SI table, has a bad effect on low-AV teams, because they take more injuries. And if we listened to that rhetoric before October, we wouldn't have made the change.

I still don't get the reasoning behind that either, btw. You already added aging, the primary effect of which is more nigglers.

1. The Casualty die is a kludge.

I don't know that it's as bad as you are making it. I always think it's pretty exciting when that 1 die is rolled that determines a guy's fate. Sure, last game I had 2deaths and 2nigglers out of 4 total casualties taken, but other games I'll have 5BH and nothing else too. Makes for a real tense moment, more so equivalent to the ability of the player whose fate is at stake.

3. Because of #2, you can combine Mighty Blow and Piling On, but you can't combine Claw and Piling On. I think that's proof of a problem.

4. We have an unecessary prohibition against re-rolling AV, and possibly against re-rolling INJ as well. These are holes in the rule that you can re-roll any die roll made by your player.

Well I for one think that's unnecessary right now, with or without all your changes.

A lot of you - even some of you questioning the effect of these changes on strength teams - see things more or less like this. .

Put me in that group. If I didn't think the basic idea was potentially meritous, I would have stopped posting to it a long time ago. It's not like I don't have better things to do.

[NightDragon]

As usual most of this argument is way above my head. For example, having read through all this I still don't understand why strength teams have to be weakened in the first place. I have tended to find that the best teams through all the editions of BB have been the fastest most agile teams. If anything it is these teams which need to be weakened surely?!!!
Laters DD.

[Dangerous Dave]

Chet said

1. The Casualty die is a kludge. It wouldn't be necessary if the game didn't have modifiers to INJ, and it does nothing to make sure KOs or Stuns are in the "proper ratios" as defined by the unadulterated table. Plusses to the INJ table are a broken feature of the game that necessitate this patch.

Well, IMO its not a cludge. Yes its a fix to the old injury table. However, I firmly believe that Strength teams should be able to get more KOs and casualties than other teams (but not more SIs and Deaths). That is what skills such as Mighty Blow and Razor Sharp Claws are all about. So I do not see that we are fixing something that is broken.


Chet again

2. We have a prohibition against combining plusses to the same die roll. This affects only AV and INJ rolls, because without this rule, the game would start sinking. And why? Because we have no more than 2 skills that affect any other die roll - in fact, we have only one for a lot of them so long as you leave out mutations - yet we have an overabundance of redundant skills that affect AV and INJ. Originally, I proposed toning them down and letting them combine. I'd like to see some of them do something other than "add yet another plus to this AV or INJ roll," and from that we got the AV-reroll idea.

3. Because of #2, you can combine Mighty Blow and Piling On, but you can't combine Claw and Piling On. I think that's proof of a problem.

Well, I disagree. The point should be about the skill itself and whether it sensibly combines. Piling On adds +3 to the AV roll because the player slams on top of the opponent. Mighty Blow adds a plus to the injury roll because you are very good at hitting hard. I think that this does combine. IMO Claw should not combine with Piling On since you are not using the Claw when you choose to Pile On. Razor Sharp Claw can add to the injury since you rake him as you get back to your feet. I suppose it depends on whether you look at the game as pure stats or from a more realistic point of view.


Chet once more

4. We have an unecessary prohibition against re-rolling AV, and possibly against re-rolling INJ as well. These are holes in the rule that you can re-roll any die roll made by your player.

I say it depends on what the reroll is for. IMO opinion it is for players on your own team - not your opponent's. This means that the number of rerolls determine how well you block, pass, dodge etc (ie you can reroll failures here). I feel that there is a distinction between this and how badly hurt an opponent might be. If you have trained well all week then teams will be able to enhance their blocking, dodging, GFIs etc but not how badly injured a player will be from a block. OK you could argue that they spend all week learning about vulnerable parts of the body... but I don't buy that - with all the chaos on the field there is no time to target particular parts of the body.

On fouls Chet said:-

I'm taking a holistic view and incorporating the increased fouls into the picture. That's going to have a benefit for strength teams. If you choose to ignore that, or claim it's a separate issue, that's your prerogative. I don't see it that way, that's all. Same with Piling On.

I agree, of course it impacts strength teams. But fouling mechanics are different to blocking. Removing IGMEOY as part of this change to bring back more casualties in the game is IMO the wrong way to go. I would much rather have more blood from the core part of the game than an add on which is supposed to be illegal. IMO fouling is a very simple tactic - it takes no skill to surround a player and make the foul. IMO it is harder to create good tactical blocking positions against your opponent. So if the view is that there needs to be more blood then bring it in here. If we want the same level, then I prefer to see it remain mainly in the core with fouling adding a little spice. Therefore I don't accept the argument that justifies the decrease in strength skills by saying "well fouling is better".


Chet concludes:

You're not going to convince me that this is a bad idea just because one skill will be negatively affected, and I'm not going to convince you that it's a good idea despite this fact. That's where playtesting comes in.

I agree it does need playtesting. To me the emphasis of this change is all wrong. It downgrades Blocking and upgrades the ability to Foul. Not where I believe this game should go.



Dave

[Zombie]

This is in response to the original post by Acerak.

I haven't read the rest of the thread (or the one before for that matter), but i fail to see why you want to reduce casualties. There already aren't very many as it stands.

Since you're asking, here are my stands on the issues:

* PRO: Remains as is, but 2+ and trait seems ok too. Shouldn't work on armour rolls.
* DIRTY PLAYER: Remains as is, or +1/+1 and can give assists on fouls like guards on blocks.
* PILING ON: Remains as is, but (and this is very important) MUST BE PLACED PRONE BEFORE THE ARMOUR ROLL IS MADE.
* MIGHTY BLOW: Remains as is.
* CLAW: Remains as is.
* STUNTY: I'd like to see lizardmen get back their access to general skills. If it costs them stunty (and access to agility even), i don't mind.