New (Old inspired) on-pitch spellcasters

[voyagers_uk]

I know there is History

The MBBL2 has run a very successful set of rules for decades. I am sure others have too.

I want to suggest something that "could" have a shot at getting into a ruleset


Spells

These are an 0-2 inducement worth 50k

you can buy them and give them to any player on your team.

they are successful on a 2+, but the player who has a spell embedded in his head gains BoneHead until he successfully casts a spell.

this takes it back more towards the 2ed idea of players who carry small pre-packaged spells onto the pitch.

I disagree with adding extra positionals for this purpose, I don't believe a Spell carrying player should be less armoured than his team mates...

I would like to see the ZAP! spell come back as an option as well as Lightning Bolt and Fireball.

So by making it an inducement it is optional.
making it not automatically successful and introducing a temporary negative trait, will see it used on non-key players who would not otherwise see pitch time...unless you want to take the risk.
keeping it cheap makes it more viable.

simple plan really.

[Darkson]

Didn't someone (Tom?) have an article for these published in the online Fanatic mag?
(Can't check, as they're all saved on my desktop, which my boy is using atm.)

[voyagers_uk]

it was in a BBmag. but like I said it was a lot of additional stuff to keep track of, whereas this is very simple.

[Joemanji]

Two problems with Tom's rules:

1) They are that they are totally unbalanced. For example, one spell requires a 2+ to double your movement for the turn (=free TD). Another is a 4+ to give one player +1 ST or something, but if you fail every single player on your team takes an AV roll (and this is on an AV7 team). Even you Simon must think that is a bit much.

2) They are very lengthy ... you are looking at 2-3 pages even without the extra MBBL2 racial spells.

These are an 0-2 inducement worth 50k

you can buy them and give them to any player on your team.

they are successful on a 2+, but the player who has a spell embedded in his head gains BoneHead until he successfully casts a spell.

Neat mechanism. However, I am a huge fan of positional spellcasters. Your mechanism might work for Magic Items. Also, the existing spells Fireball & Lightning Bolt are way, waaaay too powerful to have potentially 3 per game.

[Darkson]

Even you Simon must think that is a bit much.

I couldn't say what was in Tom's rules, as it's been ages since I read them - I just said that some had been published somewhere.

[voyagers_uk]

so come on Joe, take my mechanism and make it work.... hence Challenge.

[UncleBob]

Instead Bone-head the spells could backfire and hit the wielder (fhump!). If it's a fifty-fifty chance 50k seems fine, otherwise it seems a bit cheap, unless casting the spell is an action and bone-head could prevent it.
Is it an action or does it work like a wizard? Can the player pick up the ball, zap the player in his way and score a TD?

[voyagers_uk]

spell casting would have to be the action for that player that turn... movement could still be allowed.

[voyagers_uk]

successful casting would be a completion, worth 1 spp

[UncleBob]

When movement is allowed the spell would be a blitz action with a better chance of success (lightning bolt is 2+), 50k would be pretty cheap for that. I would allow it nonetheless, but include some problems like: bone-head, the chance that it not only fails but also backfires (TO) and cost around 80k (some or all of that).
Or the portable spells have only one (small) power that can be used once, like a lightning bolt hiting on 4+ without Mighty Blow. That would be 50k.

[voyagers_uk]

suggestions for spells and dice roll are good, I do not want this to be overpowered, just a flavour of the chaos..

I do not want to see race specific spells... too many balancing issues..

I would avoid spells that add movement (secret door etc)

so I would go with

Offensive spells

Fireball 3+ includes MB
Lightning Bolt 3+ simple AV check
Zap! 3+ Frog, see 3ed for stats

Defensive spells

Magic Hand - 3+ Intercept, still need a basic AG roll to catch
Trip - 3+ Diving Tackle/Tackle combo spell
Ghost - 3+ auto-Shadowing of ball carrier for 2 squares

50k inducements all. All come with Bonehead as previously stated

[UncleBob]

To work the spells could be agility based. Elves, good at magic (3+). Troll, not so good (6+).

And I would rather keep it simple, so only fireball, lightning bolt and perhaps Zap. Less is sometimes more. Although, I do see the temptation to bring all that weird stuff onto the pitch, like turning the ball into an elephant one second before it's caught, and such

[voyagers_uk]

I wanted to steer away from making it harder for some types of player to cast spells. They should imho be simple cantrips that fire on demand, but sometimes backfire...

How would you feel about 3+ success, 1-2 Failure = knocked over

Plus whilst I would steer away from race specific spells, but some defensive spells would be good to have.

[UncleBob]

1-2 Turnover, 3+ success, then lightning bolt hits on 2+, target down, normal Armour roll, once per match, for 50k.
Might work. The turnover on 1 and 2 will cause a lot of trouble.

Another thought; perhaps without the Bone-head skill, never really liked the negative traits. The risk of causing a turnover and wasting the spell, might be enough (in case of a failure the spell could always have MB). If it's not enough I would rather fix the costs.

I wouldn't steer too far from the Wizard as the inducement might get too big. Rules should always be as simple as possible.

And for testing, it might take some time before coaches going to pick it, so once you've got a ruleset, allow both coaches to use one portable spell for free. Until you've got it working, then sell it.

[UncleBob]

I took the liberty to come up with a rule myself, so this is the first attempt I would use:

Inducement
You can equip up to three of your players with a portable spell for 50.000 each, but not journeyman, mercenaries and star players, as those players won’t have anything to do with that bizarre stuff („We only work her, man“).
Each portable spell can be used once per match like a blitz action with the spell replacing the block, and counts as the blitz action for that turn. A player casting the spell can chose between the Lightning Bolt or the Fireball spell as described in the Wizard section. Once you’ve decided what you will throw at the opposite team, roll a D6 and on a 3+ the spell is successfully put into action. On a 1 and 2 though, the spell horribly malfunctions and the player using the spell is hit by the chosen spell himself. A casted spell can cause a turnover when any player of the active team is knocked down by it. Any kind of re-rolls can’t be used with portable spells.

But it still seems too powerful. If the team has no chance to avoid a touchdown, the risk of a TO isn't so crucial.