Garions Rules Finished

[dode74]

I have previously done so, and we reached the limit of our agreement in his previous thread: hence my lack of further input. Some of the stuff I think is great and have said so before - taunt, for example, I think would be a lot of fun - and I genuinely hope these rules work well for him. I've stated what my issue was with a small part of this thread, though, so I am done

[Darkson]

Darkson - I would really like to hear more - What do you like about these rules and what don't you like? Cheers. I expect you liked the mutations part after reading your crazy mutations in LRB ARRBL

When I get a chance to have a proper read, I'll let you know.

Don't confuse "ARBBL goes Chaos", with it's wacky mutations etc., with LRB ARBBL - they were to different things. Our LRB was a hybrid of the good stuff from LRB5 (TV, journeymen and others) with the good stuff from LRB4 (skills, some rosters, other bits and pieces), plus a few things taken from other places, and some stuff we made up for ourselves. Unfortuantely, I can't find a copy on my PC - I have a horrible feeling I lost it when a hard-drive died.

[Rhyoth]

Sorry for the late answer, but i need to add a few comments :

Traits :

doubles rolls should never be ignored

Why ? Because the dice says you can have an abnormal player if you want ? What if you don't want an abnormal player ?
Still, i think some players don't have enough "good" options on a double, but that's a minor problem, since those players usually have already plenty of skills to choose from in the first place.

My feelings are clear on this one and luck off the field of play is something i am perfectly happy with

Can't say i share this feeling : in find extremly frustrating to play an entire season, just to see the team with the best improvements rolls win in the end, and it's also extremely unachieving for the winner as well.

Traits do lead to more diverse development paths by limiting normal skill selection.

less choice = more paths, don't you think it's a weird logic ?
Unfortunately, it is indeed, in some rare case, verified : when a player run out of "good" skills, and is forced to choose between 2 skills he does not want. Hopefully, with your rules, it will only happen to Big Guys (since they have only 4 skills to choose from, or 5 for the lucky troll...), for all other player, it will just limit their choices, and incidentally, their paths of devlopment will be even more narrowed and standardised.

Also by getting a Trait on a player people end up creating far more interesting and unique players

No they don't : they can, and most of the time do, create the same player without Traits ; at best, Traits force them to change a little the order in which the skills are taken.

Dont you get sick of playing leagues at the moment and every time everyones team ends up looking exactly the same as the last league you played in???

Yes, i do. And Traits only make it worse : with or whithout traits, you build the same kind of player, the only changes Traits bring are :
_ some build are seen less often because of the double requirement
_ the other "classic" build are seen even more often
With Traits, you don't create new builds (except when you force a mino to choose between Thick Skull and Multiple Block... ...for 30k, hurray!), you still use the same ones (but since some of them are now a rarety, they just feel more precious).

Now, if you find a rule which incite coaches to consider taking Fend over Block, Side Step over Dodge, Grab over Guard, HMP over Accurate... THAT would make team/player development more diversified and exciting.



Amazons :
First, you seemed to make a lot of your decision based on fluff, i'm fine with that, but remember fluff is always exagerated, especially in Blood Bowl.

Now, in what i read, amazons are pictured as wild, agile, quick and mobile players, while raw strength isn't their best point. So, seeing some of them starting with S skill is already weird.

OTOH, i never read anything about them, having an extraordinary strong/heavy/massive/large body, nor them being "as immovable as a rock/tree", neither did i read anything that suggest they should be harder to push than a Dwarf/Orc/Beastman... (but some of the things i read actuallly suggest the opposite).
So, imo, Stand Firm is absolutely out of the question, but skills like Side Step or Fend fit perfectly.

Also, i never read anything about them wearing heavy armors (yeah, considering human standard, AV8 is an heavy armor) : they tend to bet on their natural quickness and agility more than on a heavy armor that limits their moves (if they ever know how to craft a decent heavy armor).

Sure, i may not have read as much fluff as you, but if you have read anything that goes against what i mentionned, i'm quite curious to read it.

Norse :
I don't understand why you're so focus on the norse Throwers : it's not like he is broken or anything, and a lot of Norse coach just skip him anyway.
So, why do you want to spoil the fun of the few Norse coach who like to develop a Norse Thrower ? (don't tell me they still have Runner if they want to pass, you perfectly know it's a massive waste of potential and TV, plus it costs you one of your 2 best potential receiver)

Even with a thrower, Norse will never be passing specialists, and they still focus on bashing : sure the fluff don't mention Norse throwers, but i never read anywhere that Norse team never ever hired a thrower either (BTW, i never read about Amazons being notably good at passing either, after all they learned Blood Bowl by playing against lizards, right ?). Last but not least, Amazons, Norse and "standard" Humans all belong to the same race, so while they have their differences, they should also have their similarities. So, as humans, imo, Amazons and Norses should still have that "all-rounder" feeling (even if they're not properly speaking all-rounder).

On a sidenote, if you think too many positionnals in a team is a problem, it's more urgent to look at Orcs and Dark Elves rosters. Besides, if you think 8 positionnals is already too much, you should probably also remove players from Humans, Skavens, Amazons, Necromantic, Undead, Khemri, High Elves, Pro Elves, Wood Elves, Slanns, Nurgle, Chaos Dwarves...


Apart from that, a couple of other itemsbother me :
Kick off return : why can you move twice as far during a bad kick ? I don't see how a missed kick from your opponent make you run faster.

Dolfar Longstride : he already has a nice cost/effectivness ratio (for a Star player), why improve him ? Also, I don't see how Wrestle fits his gimmick, he is suposed to be a "true kicker", right ?

[garion]

no problem, again answers in red.

Sorry for the late answer, but i need to add a few comments :

Traits :

doubles rolls should never be ignored

Why ? Because the dice says you can have an abnormal player if you want ? What if you don't want an abnormal player ?
Still, i think some players don't have enough "good" options on a double, but that's a minor problem, since those players usually have already plenty of skills to choose from in the first place. Okay, so I may have exagerrated my point, but my feelings are doubles are not worth celebrating like they were in lrb4 now all people take is Dodge or Jump Up on non agile players and MB PO and guard on agile players. It is very boring and linear and this was not a problem in lrb4 because of the traits system. Yes people may not take doubles sometimes, but i would like that to be the case far far less of the time, and i would like a double to be exciting again for the new opportunities it provides.

My feelings are clear on this one and luck off the field of play is something i am perfectly happy with

Can't say i share this feeling : in find extremly frustrating to play an entire season, just to see the team with the best improvements rolls win in the end, and it's also extremely unachieving for the winner as well. I disagree with your points, better skill rolls does not mean auto win, by any means. sometimes getting a double skill can slow down the usual development path they would take. The traits I have added bring an extra tactical element to positional play that has been vastly reduced in CRP and something that I deeply miss from lrb4.

Traits do lead to more diverse development paths by limiting normal skill selection.

less choice = more paths, don't you think it's a weird logic ?
Unfortunately, it is indeed, in some rare case, verified : when a player run out of "good" skills, and is forced to choose between 2 skills he does not want. Hopefully, with your rules, it will only happen to Big Guys (since they have only 4 skills to choose from, or 5 for the lucky troll...), for all other player, it will just limit their choices, and incidentally, their paths of devlopment will be even more narrowed and standardised. This is not correct, after studying a huge amounts of teams in lrb6 and lrb4 and looking at the most common development paths in lrb4 and the way doubles were used. I can say that LRB4 did have more diverse skill selection. Though you are right that this is because of skill limiting. But again I do not have a problem with this, in fact i think it is a good thing.

Also by getting a Trait on a player people end up creating far more interesting and unique players

No they don't : they can, and most of the time do, create the same player without Traits ; at best, Traits force them to change a little the order in which the skills are taken. Second part is correct, disagree with first. If a player takes a trait then their subsequent skill selection will change as a result so the new skills they take support that skills ability and so they can stack their traits with other skills to make them more effective.

Dont you get sick of playing leagues at the moment and every time everyones team ends up looking exactly the same as the last league you played in???

Yes, i do. And Traits only make it worse .... disagree, points have already been covered, traits do not make it worse, and LRB4 has the data to back this up.


Amazons :
First, you seemed to make a lot of your decision based on fluff, i'm fine with that, but remember fluff is always exagerated, especially in Blood Bowl.

Now, in what i read, amazons are pictured as wild, agile, quick and mobile players, while raw strength isn't their best point. So, seeing some of them starting with S skill is already weird. Yes but they already have 4 players with St access, I have reduced that to 2 for the reasons you have given. This is mainly because they arent an ag4 team and need it. But that is slightly wrong they are initially described as having Strength (an ogre, they didnt have any of this before so not sure why it was usd to describe them), Agility(Dodge en masse) and Speeds (their new runners, they didnt used to have any of this so not sure why they were described this way)

OTOH, i never read anything about them, having an extraordinary strong/heavy/massive/large body, nor them being "as immovable as a rock/tree", neither did i read anything that suggest they should be harder to push than a Dwarf/Orc/Beastman... (but some of the things i read actuallly suggest the opposite).
So, imo, Stand Firm is absolutely out of the question, but skills like Side Step or Fend fit perfectly. Yeah Side Step is another option i considered but Stand Firm works as well and fits their fluff more on two points.1, 'The amazon Blitzers are almost impossible to take down' - direct quote. 2. 'gracefully dodging between staring opponents' - direct quote. So - impossible to take down; yeah Side Step fits that just as well as Stand Firm. the second quote supports the LRB4 use of stand Firm. Anyone that played LRB4 to the extent I did or more will know that Stand Firm players often tried dodging through groups of players because it would not cause a turn over. This fluff actually lends its self to making them Ag4 really, but they are not an ag4 team and I wouldnt want another ag 4 team, so Stand Firm makes this bit of fluff that is very specific a feesible tactic.

Also, i never read anything about them wearing heavy armors (yeah, considering human standard, AV8 is an heavy armor) : they tend to bet on their natural quickness and agility more than on a heavy armor that limits their moves (if they ever know how to craft a decent heavy armor). Giving their Blitzers av8 is just for balance reasons, so they can hopefully compete a little better at a high TV, the big guy is not an amazon, she is an ogress. They already have an Ogress in their star player list. this just allows them to take one in their startign roster. This is again for balance reasons, and also to move away from the tedium of 6337 dodge on every players. Finally, i thought i read you question why i have made them good at passing somewhere, but now i cant find it, the reason for that is again the fluff, direct quote says 'they are gifted with natural dexterity'



Norse :
I don't understand why you're so focus on the norse Throwers : it's not like he is broken or anything, and a lot of Norse coach just skip him anyway. I dont think he is broken at all, I just do not think he fits in the team, and i also wanted to make the three human races more individual and the two specialist one actual specialise in their area more than being more of the same
So, why do you want to spoil the fun of the few Norse coach who like to develop a Norse Thrower ? (don't tell me they still have Runner if they want to pass, you perfectly know it's a massive waste of potential and TV, plus it costs you one of your 2 best potential receiver) its not about spoiling the fun, as posted before, it is to make the rules consistent, runners have P access like Dark Elves. It is more to give them the choice of going down the Dump Off route and specialising in the running game as per their fluff and not the passing game.

Even with a thrower, Norse will never be passing specialists, and they still focus on bashing : sure the fluff don't mention Norse throwers, but i never read anywhere that Norse team never ever hired a thrower either (BTW, i never read about Amazons being notably good at passing either, after all they learned Blood Bowl by playing against lizards, right ?). Last but not least, Amazons, Norse and "standard" Humans all belong to the same race, so while they have their differences, they should also have their similarities. So, as humans, imo, Amazons and Norses should still have that "all-rounder" feeling (even if they're not properly speaking all-rounder). I disagree, although they are all humans, they all come from very different parts of the world, brought up in completely different conditions, learning to play against different opponents (although zons and norse are rumoured to have learnt to play against each other, again why i wanted them to be polar opposites).

On a sidenote, if you think too many positionnals in a team is a problem, it's more urgent to look at Orcs and Dark Elves rosters. Besides, if you think 8 positionnals is already too much, you should probably also remove players from Humans, Skavens, Amazons, Necromantic, Undead, Khemri, High Elves, Pro Elves, Wood Elves, Slanns, Nurgle, Chaos Dwarves... incorrect, Norse are the only team in the game to have 6 different player types, except for Orcs and Chaos Pact, but thats only because of the 3 big guys. personally I would like to remove goblins from Orcs, but it goes against the fluff so i wil not. I want to touch the rosters as little as possible I agree the elves are a little to similar as well but I also dont have a problem with any of their rosters from a fluff perspective.


Apart from that, a couple of other items bother me :
Kick off return : why can you move twice as far during a bad kick ? I don't see how a missed kick from your opponent make you run faster. Because the ball is in the air twice as long, giving you more time to reach it

Dolfar Longstride : he already has a nice cost/effectivness ratio (for a Star player), why improve him ? Also, I don't see how Wrestle fits his gimmick, he is suposed to be a "true kicker", right ?No he needs to change, at the moment you may as well just hire a merc with Kick, there is no value add from taking Dolfar. Wrestle at least means he can function in a team and may come of some use in the course of a game, otherwise a merc is just better use of your inducement money.

[garion]

Darkson - I would really like to hear more - What do you like about these rules and what don't you like? Cheers. I expect you liked the mutations part after reading your crazy mutations in LRB ARRBL

When I get a chance to have a proper read, I'll let you know.

Don't confuse "ARBBL goes Chaos", with it's wacky mutations etc., with LRB ARBBL - they were to different things. Our LRB was a hybrid of the good stuff from LRB5 (TV, journeymen and others) with the good stuff from LRB4 (skills, some rosters, other bits and pieces), plus a few things taken from other places, and some stuff we made up for ourselves. Unfortuantely, I can't find a copy on my PC - I have a horrible feeling I lost it when a hard-drive died.

Thats a shame, was it ever uploaded anywhere? It sounds like some of the goals of that rule set are the same as mine. Let me know if you find it, and I look foward to hearing your feedback on these rules.

[dode74]

This is not correct, after studying a huge amounts of teams in lrb6 and lrb4 and looking at the most common development paths in lrb4 and the way doubles were used. I can say that LRB4 did have more diverse skill selection.

I am curious if you have some actual comparative data regarding this now, as we have discussed this before. If you do then please share.

[the.tok]

About the issue of taunt being underpowered, what about fusing it with Fend?

Like, when you have fend, you choose whether the attacking player follows up or not

could be powerful though

[voyagers_uk]

I suppose that is indeed the other side of the coin for Fend, you do have the choice over whether the opposing player can follow up, I suppose make it the choice of whether they should follow up is an easy extension.

It would make Fend really strong, but is that a bad thing

[Hitonagashi]

Fend and "really strong" don't really go together .

[WildDogs]

sounds like a good way to buff it then

[voyagers_uk]

I agree

[the.tok]

I think it would require testing though. It is a general skill now, so basically any player can get it very easily, and it can raise different issues.

I fail to imagine the nightmare it could be to play against a mass fend bash team like Cdwarves, or sidestep fend elves :/
If it proves too strong, it can always become a general trait, or an A/S skill

Seriously, you imagine taking Fend on a double?

[Rhyoth]

_ Dolfar : he costs the same as a merc with kick, but comes with 3 bonus skills (sure they're not outstanding skills, but hey, they're free), so how can he be a bad deal ?
So, unless you make mercs cheaper, there is no reason to change him (or at least, not for free).

_ Amazons :
Again be careful about fluff quotes, they're often exagerated : in this case, they just mean zons start with Dodge.
Now, just because they're good at dodging doesn't mean they should receive any kind of bonus to dodge : obviously they don't deserve to get Two Heads for example.
The same goes for Stand Firm : if Stand Firm gives a bonus to dodge, it's to represent the fact that the player is too strong/large/heavy to be tackled effectively : that's why it's a Strength skill, requiring a Strength roll, and why only slow but strong and heavy player like Deathroller, Treemen or Flesh Golem have it as a starting skill (and i bet those players aren't exactly "graceful" when they "dodge").

AV 8 : since giving those girls an AV increase clearly goes against their fluff, then it should used only as a last measure, only if all other options available failed (unless you find a suitable concept for an AV8 piece : like some kind of dangerous monster from Lustrians jungles, or maybe some kind of armored male slave used as human shield...).



_ Norse :

its not about spoiling the fun, as posted before, it is to make the rules consistent, runners have P access like Dark Elves. It is more to give them the choice of going down the Dump Off route and specialising in the running game as per their fluff and not the passing game.

it's what this rule will do : spoil the fun of a few number of player, for no good reason :
_ the Thrower does not make the team overpowered
_ the Thrower does not make the team too much "Pass-oriented", since a lot of ccoach just skip him anyway
_ there is no need to give Runners P skills, just like there is no need to give Elf Blitzers S skills : sure they have the same name, but they play in very different team, have different use, and thus different profile.
_ as far as the dumpster route is concerned, it's a more viable option for the current Thrower, than it would be for this Runner : for him, it simply requires too many sacrifices.

Now, if you were to change the Thrower, so that he would be more oriented toward Dump-off, i wouldn't complain (as much). example : Thrower 6 3 3 7 Block, Nerve of Steel - GP / 60 k (option : add another skill for +20 k)

Another solution for your dilemna would be to simply rename the Runner (into Hunter for example), that would solve all your Runner related problems, and even alllow you to turn the Thrower into a "proper" Runner like this one : 7337 Block, NoS – GP / 80 k *
(4 player with MA 7 may be to much for the team, but the Hunter-or-whatever-you-want-to-call-him can easily trade 1MA for 1 skill.)

incorrect, Norse are the only team in the game to have 6 different player types, except for Orcs and Chaos Pact, but thats only because of the 3 big guys. personally I would like to remove goblins from Orcs, but it goes against the fluff so i wil not. I want to touch the rosters as little as possible I agree the elves are a little to similar as well but I also dont have a problem with any of their rosters from a fluff perspective.

Ok, i get it, your problem is not the total number of positionnals, but the number of type of positionnals... .... euh wait, no, i don't get it, in what way is it a problem ?


More to come tomorrow about Traits...

[Rhyoth]

This is not correct, after studying a huge amounts of teams in lrb6 and lrb4 and looking at the most common development paths in lrb4 and the way doubles were used. I can say that LRB4 did have more diverse skill selection. Though you are right that this is because of skill limiting. But again I do not have a problem with this, in fact i think it is a good thing.

I think you're jumping to conclusion : a lot of changes affecting team player/development happened between Lrb4 & 5. Out of those changes, at least 2 had a major negative impact on the diversity of skill selection (probably much more than removing Traits) : Inducements and Spiralling Expenses.
Because of those 2 changes, "fun", "experimental" or "just-in-case" improvements tend to disappear, simply because they don't worth the TV increase, and put the team too much at a disadvantage.

So, comparing LRB4 and CRP data just can't prove anything here : you simply can't determine what is due to the Inducements system (or other changes), and what's specifically due to Traits. (Comparing 3rd ed and LRB4 data would probably be more accurate).
Also, using the "way doubles are used" as an indicator is irrelevant here : since removing Traits globally improve the variety of skill selection, by increasing the variety of skill selection on normal rolls, but reducing it on double rolls.

Finally, let's use a bit of logic and common sense : in most cases, reducing skill choices on normal roll can only have one effect : reducing the number of "viable" development paths available : in most cases, less skills available = less paths of development !

If a player takes a trait then their subsequent skill selection will change as a result so the new skills they take support that skills ability and so they can stack their traits with other skills to make them more effective.

Again, you would build the same player without Traits : if a player takes Frenzy, his subsequent skills will be the same*, wether or not he needed a double to acquire Frenzy in the first place.
Traits don't create new development paths , they just make already existing paths less frequent.
*'of course, with your Traits, this player will have 2 valuable option less to consider if does not roll a second double...

To conclude, if you want to really want to increase the diversity of skills/development paths, first you need to stop focusing so much on double skill choices, and start worrying about why coaches always take the same skills on normal rolls. Personnally i see 2 evident problems :
_ skills are inequally attractive
_ the inducements system and SE punish too much coaches for taking sub-par skills

Since Traits don't adress those problems, they can only have a very marginal impact on skill diversity.

[voyagers_uk]

that is an interesting point Rhyoth, any ideas on how to fix that?