Garion's CRP 2nd Edition WIP

[garion]

one step... and if he hits a player use my rules? and what if he goes off the pitch? Just straight to reserves or stops?

[GalakStarscraper]

A quick look. For the most part I'm trying to staying out of this thread because Garion and I have a very fundamental difference on what BB should play like and this is his dream child. There are some things I like ... but a lot more I just really cannot agree with.

There were some things that made me want to add a comment:

The whole point with the Star Players was that each team should have an equal number that they had access to for fairness. So why does every team now get 7 but Khemri and Lizardmen only get 6? Let's spread that love a bit better eh?

An appeal ... if you are going to make this more the player's edition for what you'd like to see ... can we drop calling them werewolves on the Norse team and go back to the original term that everyone uses for them other than GW?

Chaos Dwarf is already a kick-butt team ... we removed them having a Troll for CRP because of that. This is a team that really does not need a reliable soak up damage piece for the LOS.

I really don't like the Amazon's Big Guy. The whole point was we tried to make Amazons and Norse be different from CRP. And then you add a Big Guy that the closest comparison is back to the Norse big guy ... just really think it should be more different if it is to be there at all. What about doing an Ogress based on Bertha ... so something like: 5/5/2/9 Loner, Bone-head, Break Tackle, Thick Skull 140k

Wild Animal ... yeah ... we get to go back to the days when players would use re-rolls to try and get their Wild Animals to fail their rolls so they could get a 2nd blitz action for the turn.

Do you really need to overcumber the rules with the write up for the Ball&Chain player. It was a delibrate that the player could only get 4 useable skills without rolling doubles. Another point of the rulebook was not to overcomplicate it .... this seems to go in that direction.

Losing a Nega-trait should be worth 50k. That also matches up with taking +1 ST. 30k is way way way too little.

Your rules will be more streamlined if you create an Extraordinary skill called Big Guy and give it to players. Then you can have all the rules for that under the skill and avoid cumbersome rules like ... these are Big Guys and .... include these other guys without nega-traits as well. Its a cleaner presentation of the rule.

I'm not a fan of playing much above TV 200 ... I think the game loses a lot as you move past this point ... so the Spiralling Expenses seemed aimed for pixel hugger which is unfortunate.

I think bringing back Bad Kick was a mistake. The point of High Kick was to balance good for defense (Blitz!, Perfect Defense) with good for the offense (High Kick, Quick Snap). Bad Kick to me shifts the Kick-off table to be more better than Defense which I'm not sure is needed (yeah it gives ball in hand more often ... but it is also negated a lot by the common Kick skill).

I've seen a lot of players do very well with the Slann in league play ... I don't think their Blitzers need a -10k based on that. I'm not violently opposed but I seriously wonder if a team that has the ability to be really good in the right hands needs more help.

I really don't like the Up and Under skill at all. I think that is an uber-gift to teams like Wood Elf, Skaven and Slann that can penetrate deep quickly. Those teams already score often on defense and now you are going to give them gifts like this? Heck ... I can even see Halfling teams taking it on doubles because I've scored many a time where a ball was in the backfield unguarded in one turn with my Halfling team. And I don't consider that a good thing to be a common tactic.


Tom



Tom

[IronAge_Man]

Two points - I'd suggest Garion call this the GRP ruleset (3 guesses what G is for?)

Tom - Garion does have a point with the Stars; while the number of them is currently consistent for all rosters, their utility and value is not. Garion has made a big effort to bring in more of the old lesser Stars (really, more Freebooters than proper Star Players), for games where the TV gap is not so wide. They would compete more with a mercenary choice than a Star Player choice.

[GalakStarscraper]

Tom - Garion does have a point with the Stars; while the number of them is currently consistent for all rosters, their utility and value is not. Garion has made a big effort to bring in more of the old lesser Stars (really, more Freebooters than proper Star Players), for games where the TV gap is not so wide. They would compete more with a mercenary choice than a Star Player choice.

I'm totally fine with what he is trying to do this front Colin and in fact I'm not saying he should not suggestion extra lower cost stars at all (in fact we tried to make sure almost all the new stars we added to LRB 5.0 were in the under 250k category) ... but take it home and do both goals at once. Just because he has a 2nd goal does not preclude the first from being mantained.

That's like me telling my kids that they they each get two scoops of ice cream. They tell me they'd like more choices of syrups and toppings. So I add strawberry sauce and sprinkes to the chocolate syrup and hot fudge ... but then I tell one of my two boys that now he only gets 1 scoop of ice cream because of it.

IE ... A is not causal to B and as such it is invalid to suggest that A is not important because you do B.

In fact ... page 50 of the Icepelt rulebook (or from the Khemri team background of the LRB 5.0 Handbook). Bring Khonsu into the rules:

Khonsu ... plays for Khermi and Lizardmen: 170k 6/4/2/7 Loner, Nerves of Steel, Pass, Regeneration, Strong Arm, Sure Hands, Thick Skull

There done and dusted and completely from the game's already established background. Then both A and B are fullfilled.

Tom

[IronAge_Man]

I think I'll stay out of this one too - I've been skimming somewhat and likely missed a slew of things. Didn't intend to rile up Tom, I have much respect for his achievements and sacrifices.

I don't think this will progress beyond Garion's own immediate sphere - I recall telling him (or someone) long ago that everyone would have to be onboard at the beginning to gain widespread acceptance. However, it may serve some useful purpose, so I see no reason for him not to beaver away at it.

[GalakStarscraper]

Didn't intend to rile up Tom, I have much respect for his achievements and sacrifices.

All good.

I'm not against the discussion of "how do we make BB better" from anyone. I just know there were certain ideas we did with CRP that I think are very important for the fact that most players who play in tabletop consider it the best ruleset ever. So I'm not against change ... but I do think there are some core concepts that keeping around is a good idea. One of those is the same number of Star Player allowed to each team.

Tom

[garion]

Thanks for the feedback, galak, Im perfectly happy for you to lay into the rules as much as you like though, please do not hold back! But of course keep it constructive as you so far have been It is always nice to have an well informed opinion of it all from someone that has played this game longer than myself and been through verions including second ed rules etc..

As you say, we have differing opinions about what we like from the game, (except flings, which we both have an equal love for ) and thats fine very few people do have similar feelings for this game, like the random mutations, alot of people have said they really love them, others like to be able to pick all their skills so there will always be contentious points.

So anyway first - Star players, yup with you on the star players was always my intention to have 7 each, at the moment crazy igor is filling in for lizardm as their 7th but not too happy with that, needed Khermi, just been busy reading through everything fluf wise from 1st ed onwards, boy is there a lot of fluff to get through :S but will certainly use the guy you posted does he have second name? My concern with using that guy for liz is that adding another possible St4 player to the roster of lizardmen may make them too effective when they can induce another St4 player. They already get a huge boost when Slibli can play and would hate to see them using both slibli and his guy, but I will definately use him khemri. Is there a weaker player Lizardmen could use?

Norse - Yup agree, they shouldn't be called werewolves, will change that. Forgot to change dwarf blockers to longbeards again too now you come to mention it.

Zons - Yar sort of agree, it is very norse like, I did consider an Ogress as welll funilly enough, in the fumbbl thread by a similar name, but people seemed to prefer the Marpiguary. The thing I don't like about the Marpinguary is the Claw, as I wanted the focus for zons to be more about passing. Though a help later on it is a bit too bash oriented.

CDs - This is just going to be one of those differences of opinion- I'm personally happy with them having a troll, I really miss my troll between LRB4 and CRP, but also I have dropped thick skull from their blockers so their best players arent quite so resilient.


Big Guy- yup will maek that change, it makes it cleaner.

Ball and Chain - again Im just going to leave that as is.

Losing a negatrait - yup it possibly is too little, i want the decision to be a tough one between the +st, block, and removal on negatrait, and a few peopel feel that is too easy a pick atm, so will make that change.

SE - Im not sure, the reason I make the starting point a little higher, was so that teams could have a little bit of cash outside of the bank as well before SE hits. But the increments make it tougher to maintain a higher TV than the break even point for long periods of time which i have seen a few teams manage quite succesfully, this may be a difference of environments we play most our games though? It may also be because the lack of the bank rule?

Bad Kick - I'm not sure I agree, for me, bad kick makes Kick off return a little less useful because it cancells out the effect of kick off return somewhat. I wanted that skill to be a little more useful?

Slann - I know where you are coming from, but the problem I have with slann is - I find them to be more effective when they do not have their blitzers than when they do that is until their blitzers reach their third skill, which is the point where I find they become very effective players. For me at the moment they are too much of a TV bloat and I prefer to play 1 krox 4 catcher starting roster and play them more in the style of Skaven. With Wrestle and strip ball on a few linemen and wrestle tackle and other utility skills on the others your team is already very effective at what it does best, I just don't think you get enough value add from the blitzers at the moment and when you start with them in your roster they leave a huge hole at the moment if they are killed early on in a league.

Up and Under - (flings cant take it, but i get your point) Yup it is a very good skill and a new addition in the last couple of drafts, but thats two strong oppositions to it now do you not think it is enough making it a trait? and making bad kick and kick off return counters to it? I liked the idea of bringing it back, but how could it be toned down? want a trait for General though, can you think of any others that could be brought back. The only remaining skills i can think of are incorporated into the game in other ways.

Finally Wild Animal... yar that is a tough one, as said it isnt fully formed yet, but it is very very tough to get this right, the reason I moved it down to a 2+ was to stop people trying to fail it for a second blitz as you say, but I dunno. Any suggestions on how to make the wild animal thing more Wild?

any more feedback please feel free to dive in. The more the better.

[GalakStarscraper]

The Slann change would need tested ... I don't have enough to say for sure if it is an error. My biggest concern is this ... if you make the Slann too good ... leagues will drop the 3 new teams as being power gamer teams. So I think you have to keep in mind that the Slann, Underworld and Chaos Pact should definitely stay in the 40% to 50% win bracket or you'll have big problems.

I'm not a fan of the 60k re-rolls for the Underworld for the same issue.

The 3 new teams HAVE to stay out of the top part of Tier 1 or you'll completely lose their wide acceptance. I 100% believe that one of the reasons the 3 new teams were so world-wide accepted was because they were not power-gamer delight teams that automatically vaulted the player using them to the top of the league. They have great abilities but they are not power-gamer dream teams ... so you need to be VERY VERY VERY careful doing anything to make those 3 teams better. You like them ... I like them ... many other players are just looking for a reason to not allow them in the league.

Also ... don't put Goblins on Ogres .... the secret weapons are not enough to make them different. You have Goblins on 4 different teams right now ... you don't need them on a 5th ... really don't need them on a 5th. Personally for the Ogre team ... I'm fine with the Snotlings being MA 6 for no price increase but moving the team to 8 Ogres is moving them in the direction of old Khemri (ie who cares if we win ... I'll just destroy you) ... I don't think that is a good thing. I'd just make the Snotling MA 6 and end it.

Up and Under ... no .... I don't see a way to save that skill ... sorry ... having the offense start late is a massive change to the game and while it is a Trait ... it is a trait for the teams that can most easily abuse it. Temporal Instablity was a cool 2nd edition skill ... I don't think that means it needs to come back to the game.

Wild Animal. I spent about 3 months running so many polls and discussion groups on Wild Animal that all I felt like I did was analyze Wild Animal. Here is what we found out. If you allow the player to Blitz ... its a bad thing ... players will play to make it happen to abuse it (like pushing into a cage with Stand Firm and hoping not to fall down so they can hope to fail the next turn). On the flip side if you force them to block or move ... opponents will play the Wild Animal and that is really not a good thing. You'll hate the answer but at the end of the day ... we found out that making Wild Animal truely Wild creates abuses either for the player with the WA or the player playing against it. We had to remove those abuses to make the skill not create the screams of injustice from the players. So while WA is not massively Wild ... it really is the best a LOT of players worked with to come up with.

Tom

[IronAge_Man]

Finally Wild Animal... yar that is a tough one, as said it isnt fully formed yet, but it is very very tough to get this right, the reason I moved it down to a 2+ was to stop people trying to fail it for a second blitz as you say, but I dunno. Any suggestions on how to make the wild animal thing more Wild?

Wild Animal is my principal interest in this thread (as I gave Garion the idea in the first place!). What is the rule in it's latest form? I'm not sure which PDF to refer to, given they don't have version numbers!

The version I last looked at would rarely be worth rerolling to fail Wild Animal - I would like it to occasionally pay off as I like double-edged skills!

[garion]

Underworld - the reason I dropped their RR is because of random mutations, because they can't spam cpomb any more also PO is a trait. I don't think that will push them over the top. Agree slann thing needs testing though, and completely understand your reservations.

Yep I'm not going to put goblins back into ogres team for the reasons i said a few posts ago. I'm keeping the 8 ogres though, I'm happy with a team being like the old khemri except less reliable I used to enjoy playing them in LRB4, even though my team was often reduced to dust after (I used to play humans a lot back then, so it happened often even when i won XD )

Okay, will think about up and under and a possible general trait replacement. Hmmm

WA - thanks for posting that I never knew that was tested along the same lines (ish). it's quite interesting, I have also been going round in circles with that skill for a while now as well. It's been re-written many many times already, uincluding versions where they run off the pitch, have to pile on their own team mate, scatter rather than D8 template, hit the nearest player etc.. etc.. etc.. :S

One final thing if you don't mind, are there any other slann star players from fluff that you can remember, that could fit in to lizardmen, or a skink that could play for both maybe? because the only ones i can find reference to in old books are already in the game.

P.S. you never have to stay out of things like this I may be doing, if you want to lay into my ideas go for it... no holds bared, I'm sure I have annoyed the hell out of you on numerous occasions but dont think that I don't respect what you did for the game even if we aren't in agrement on this and that.

Edit: Colin - The one on this site is the most up to date. It changed a little earlier today.

[IronAge_Man]

Edit: Colin - The one on this site is the most up to date. It changed a little earlier today.

Got it - first post, best place to have it.

Right, there's a few issues - first, don't like the straight Av roll on contact. I can't imagine a Pact team's Troll or Ogre letting Bully roll them over without a fist to the hops. Make is a straight one-one-one block (however the skills pan out), disallowing assists for the Wild Animal. To encourage use of Block, Juggernaut etc, it could be a turnover if the WA fails their block, but a team-mate being knocked over would not. Enforcing skill use of MB, Claw, PO (and possibly Block, Juggernaut) etc. or not would be a balance issue, for testing.

You need to decide what constitutes a turnover and what doesn't, and put it in the skill description. Using the OFAB / Blood Lust rule, it would be one if the Wild Animal dropped the ball due to failing their Wild block, but taking out a team-mate would not (see above for reasons to differ).

Also to decide is what happens then? I'd suggest following up and stopping there - you don't want the WA wading through hordes of players, that would be a bit too Wild!

Stopping at the sidelines would encourage coaches to keep them wide, as they often are anyway. I liked the Throw In template idea to keep them moving.

[GalakStarscraper]

So anyway first - Star players, yup with you on the star players was always my intention to have 7 each, at the moment crazy igor is filling in for lizardm as their 7th but not too happy with that, needed Khermi, just been busy reading through everything fluf wise from 1st ed onwards, boy is there a lot of fluff to get through :S but will certainly use the guy you posted does he have second name?

Do you have an Icepelt Rulebook ... if not we need to get you one. Page 50 ... that was his only name.

My concern with using that guy for liz is that adding another possible St4 player to the roster of lizardmen may make them too effective when they can induce another St4 player. They already get a huge boost when Slibli can play and would hate to see them using both slibli and his guy, but I will definately use him khemri. Is there a weaker player Lizardmen could use?

I'm not sure if I'd take him. 170k for an AV 7 Saurus without Block, Guard or Dodge ... glass house. Yeah the extra ST 4 is nice but I'm not sure I'd take it. So I think it is okay.

Norse - Yup agree, they shouldn't be called werewolves, will change that.

Thank you.

There were only ever 2 Slann stars mentioned in the rules. The other possible star you could try to make would be 'Diegi Maratona' (page 14 Icepelt rulebook). That is a star that could play for Slann and Lizardmen (as I'm not a fan of Deeproot playing for Slann) Not sure what stat line would work for him. Maybe ST 3 and MA 7 to represent his weight and then skills to taste ... maybe something like: 130k 7/3/3/7 Loner, Dodge, Sprint, Stunty, Wrestle (He used to be really fast so MA 7 + Sprint shows even fat he is still almost as fast as a rookie ... ST 3 and Wrestle makes him like a bowling ball ... he rolls into the cage and tries to knock down players now due to his size).

Then you could drop the idea for Khonsu, remove Deeproot from Slann and just make another lower priced player for the Khemri to use so everyone has 7.

[garion]

So anyway first - Star players, yup with you on the star players was always my intention to have 7 each, at the moment crazy igor is filling in for lizardm as their 7th but not too happy with that, needed Khermi, just been busy reading through everything fluf wise from 1st ed onwards, boy is there a lot of fluff to get through :S but will certainly use the guy you posted does he have second name?

Do you have an Icepelt Rulebook ... if not we need to get you one. Page 50 ... that was his only name.
yup I do just at work atm

My concern with using that guy for liz is that adding another possible St4 player to the roster of lizardmen may make them too effective when they can induce another St4 player. They already get a huge boost when Slibli can play and would hate to see them using both slibli and his guy, but I will definately use him khemri. Is there a weaker player Lizardmen could use?

I'm not sure if I'd take him. 170k for an AV 7 Saurus without Block, Guard or Dodge ... glass house. Yeah the extra ST 4 is nice but I'm not sure I'd take it. So I think it is okay.

Norse - Yup agree, they shouldn't be called werewolves, will change that.

Thank you.

There were only ever 2 Slann stars mentioned in the rules. The other possible star you could try to make would be 'Diegi Maratona' (page 14 Icepelt rulebook). That is a star that could play for Slann and Lizardmen (as I'm not a fan of Deeproot playing for Slann) Not sure what stat line would work for him. Maybe ST 3 and MA 7 to represent his weight and then skills to taste ... maybe something like: 130k 7/3/3/7 Loner, Dodge, Sprint, Stunty, Wrestle (He used to be really fast so MA 7 + Sprint shows even fat he is still almost as fast as a rookie ... ST 3 and Wrestle makes him like a bowling ball ... he rolls into the cage and tries to knock down players now due to his size).

cool that works thanks, I like Khonsu for Khemri will keep him about I know he should be playing for both but I can live with it if he doesn't, but for me he can't play for Lizardmen, just because the st4 scares me too much even if he is glass and Lizardmen are one of my favourite races (which you can probably tell from my playbook on plasmoids site )so I'm always very worried about touching them at all because they are so precisely balanced, agree with removing deeproot from slann though, that was another thing I never liked

Then you could drop the idea for Khonsu, remove Deeproot from Slann and just make another lower priced player for the Khemri to use so everyone has 7.

Thanks for all your input.

[garion]

OOOKay, done quite a few changes now, re-worked some of the old skills so they fit more, got rid of others, changed stat lines, added cas table and explanation of how passing blocking now works etc...

Closer to finishing it now, just need to sort out wild animal and then just the smalled details.



Thanks for all the feedback everyone!

[mattski]

Wow, suddenly players have more stats which I would love to see in operation. There is something really fun (for me) to have players who are more specialised in terms of what they can and cannot do but was this always part of the plan?

Just wish that I could test this online somewhere or as part of Galak's pbem program but I am interested in hearing feedback on this for sure.