Revising the Treeman

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 4:22 pm

Okay all the treads about Take Root being revised seem to agree that Martin/Plasmoid has a good idea for revising the negatrait. Chet's been gone a while so I passed it by him to see what he thought.

Based on our conversations here was the result:

Take Root:
Before taking an action with a player with this characteristic that is neither prone or stunned, roll a D6. On a 2+, he is fine and may continue his action as normal. On a 1, he takes root into the pitch and loses his action for this turn. For the rest of the drive, he cannot move and loses his Tackle Zone due to his lack of mobility. However he can still block adjacent players (no follow-up), catch/pass/intercept the ball, or use Throw TeamMate on following turns. If this player is knocked down, then he may resume play as normal when he stands (ie the earlier Take Root failure is cancelled).

Price of the Treeman is raised to 120k to compensate for the lesser negative trait.

Galak

kaboom · Post by **kaboom** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 4:31 pm

i think its a really good thing.you had good idea.
because threeman was essential for halfing team.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 5:42 pm

thats hardly much of a negatrait, its better than bonehead now. Rooting him to the spot aint going to much either seeing as they can only move 2 anyway.

martynq · Post by **martynq** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 5:53 pm

I think it is worse than Bonehead. It says that the treeman is rooted into the pitch for the rest of the drive. I presume this means he has lost his TZ for the rest of the drive, while the ogre can at least regain his TZ when he next rolls 2+.

Can the treeman still perform an action on turns when he has rolled a 1 for the Take Root roll? (I think I would hope that he cannot.)

Cheers,
Martyn

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 5:58 pm

Oh yer i mis understood, seemed a bit silly for chet and galak to let something like that to have slipped through their gaze.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 6:07 pm

Grumbledook wrote:Oh yer i mis understood, seemed a bit silly for chet and galak to let something like that to have slipped through their gaze.

We try ... I was trying to avoid being wordy. I added more words to it .. better now?

Galak

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 6:12 pm

Heh it was just me being stupid thinking turn instead of drive.

MickeX · Post by **MickeX** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 6:18 pm

I think it's the right direction, though no TZ doesn't seem very inituitive. How about giving him TZ but increase the risk of taking root? Say 3+ to not Take Root, and lower the price a bit to compensate?

If you want more chaos in BB, a houserule could be that a player that has taken root stays in the same square even between the drives...

starting your next offense with a huge treeman standing in the middle of your LOS could be... challenging!

Micke

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 6:52 pm

Actually MikeX ... Chet said the same thing about a player being able to block that has no Tackle Zone being outside the rules.

Actually its not. Goblin Fanatics have no Tackle Zones either and can block (and its been that way for almost a decade), so the whole active player still able to do things without a TZ is a current part of BB already. Just because of Bonehead and Really Stupid coaches now relate a lost TZ to being to do nothing.

Also if you remove the loses TZ for the rest of the drive ... its not really much of a nega skill. The goal with the Treeman is that it should NOT be an automatic purchase for Old World and Wood Elf teams. By losing his TZ that means that all adjacent players can run away from him with ease and then since he has no movement he really just becomes an blocked square for the rest of the drive. If you could push someone (Frenzy? on Old World with a Troll Slayer) back into his TZ, he could hit them. For Flings, it leaves them the Tree still able to be used as a stationary TTM player. But otherwise, you've effectively lost him for the drive (especially on a team like the Wood Elves ... which is a good thing since they didn't really need him in the 1st place).

But I've played Flings now for a year in and out of the MBBL, and I'm discovering that Take Root still really is too negative. By the time, the Treeman shows up for the 2nd half, you just don't have enough Flings left to do much with him/them at all. Also with the big push for COFAB, this would mean that Take Root is the only off-pitch negatrait ... something I'd like to see changed as I don't think any of the negatraits should be off-pitch.

Galak

Munkey · Post by **Munkey** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:11 pm

GalakStarscraper wrote:But otherwise, you've effectively lost him for the drive (especially on a team like the Wood Elves ... which is a good thing since they didn't really need him in the 1st place).

Something I've been saying for a while, why should Wood Elves, the Uber Elf team have something as slow and ungainly as a treeman, other than for fluff reasons?

To get back on subject I think the new ruling for treemen is great, hopefully it will help out the Halflings a bit and would make me think twice about using it in a Wood Elf team. Just adding my support basically

MickeX · Post by **MickeX** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:15 pm

GalakStarscraper wrote:Actually MikeX ... Chet said the same thing about a player being able to block that has no Tackle Zone being outside the rules.

I know it's not outside the rules, it's just not very inituitive. It'd be easier to explain it and avoid rule questions if you keep the TZ:s. But I generally like vanilla solutions, and I know other people often say that the small special rules add flavor to the game.

GalakStarscraper wrote:Also if you remove the loses TZ for the rest of the drive ... its not really much of a nega skill.

Well, that part could be avoided by making the die roll 3+ or even 4+ if you want the rule really harsh, and at the same adjusting the cost.

You're the halfling coach here, but it seems to me that no movement and no follow-up would be a rather harsh effect in itself. It can't be too difficult to avoid a player that can't even move a single step, can it!? Especially since the rest of their team mates are rather light-weight

And in the worst case, after the first hit your unlucky player is probably smashed outside that TZ anyway...

But I guess you halfling coaches have your ways of forcing the rest of us into those treemen in one way or another. I haven't played against halflings much.

Micke

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:29 pm

MickeX wrote:I know it's not outside the rules, it's just not very inituitive. It'd be easier to explain it and avoid rule questions if you keep the TZ:s. But I generally like vanilla solutions,

Problem is there is no vanilla solution ... even your bumping the roll up to 3+ or 4+ after a failure is an additional rule (ie not vanilla), so one way or the other I end up adding stuff to the description.

You're the halfling coach here, but it seems to me that no movement and no follow-up would be a rather harsh effect in itself.

Yes it is ... but not as harsh as having zero treemen for the 1st half (25% chance) and having no team left when they show up 8 turns later.

This way each drive I have useable BGs .. the fact that they may become useless doesn't change the fact that at least they were there to help. Finally any Treeman on a Halfling team is usually a TTM threat ... even one that cannot move.

Galak

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:47 pm

Must say I like the idea.

MickeX · Post by **MickeX** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 8:10 pm

GalakStarscraper wrote:Problem is there is no vanilla solution ... even your bumping the roll up to 3+ or 4+ after a failure is an additional rule (ie not vanilla), so one way or the other I end up adding stuff to the description.

Just to avoid any misunderstandings; I just meant that the 2+ roll to avoid taking root could be a 3+ or even 4+ roll instead.

In any case, with or without TZ:s it's a much better solution than the current one.

Micke

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Thu Dec 12, 2002 8:14 pm

I misunderstood MikeX ... okay that makes more sense ... but IMO makes the traits almost worse than the original Take Root ... at 2+ its a nice gamble.

Galak