Removing A From Elf Linos

[gandresch]

Hi,

what I initially wanted to know is, why evles, dwarves and chaos linemen do have multiple access, while others races' linos don't. And why do the positionals of this races do not have "more access" than the linos. For me a positional stays a special player, that should be able to access more skills than a lino from the same team.

After thinking about that situation, i believe, we won't get any good results here. So the problem must be somewhere else. The question is where?
We have 5 categories and removing one of them for the elves or the dwarves would be horrible for the play. So let's take a look at the skilllist and think about it.
- The most extreme choice could be, that you put all skills in one category. Then everyone would have access to everything.
- The opposite of that is, that every player gets a list of skills he can learn and for every type of player, this list would be different. (Goblins maybe: Sidestep, Thick Skull, Hail Mary, Pro)

The reality is somewhere between this. We have 5 categories and the types of players have access to one or several of them. Taking away A or G from elves wouldn't be an option, because it would make elves too weak. So the thing to discuss is, do we have too less categories? How many cateogries are good to keep the game transparent.

I will make an example, what i am thinking about. Let's imagine, we do not have 5 cats, but 10. Each cat is split into two (General I and II, Strength I and II, ...), which not neccessary have to be equal in size of the skills they include. There may be skills in both of the split cats, but this is not neccessary.
Now you could change the teams, so that
1. linos are nearly equal in access
2. the variety of the skills, that can be accessed is increased
3. there is more variety in the teams, because of different access.
4. and so on

Let us take dwarf:
Blockers may take General I, Strength I + II
Blitzers may take General I + II, Strength I + II
Runners may take General I + II, Passing II, Agility I

For other teams, this would look different. Perhaps a Norse team could have linos with General I + II, Strength I, while Amazons would have linos with General I + II, Agility I

The disadvantage of this is clear. You would have more cats to differentiate from. But the players you can create are much more interesting. You could even give Gobos General I access, without giving them acces to ... let's say Block, Wrestle and Tackle. This offers much more possibilities for the teams and so for the coaches. You can even give elf blitzers Stength access, without giving them all possibilties Orcs, Dwaves and all that other teams have.
Beside this, all teams would be in some way equal, without totally losing their identity.

What do you think? Too complicated or a useful idea?

Greets,
gan

[Alamar]

I like the flavor that your splitting the categories up in gives. I agree it would be more annoying to keep up with what is where but I like the idea of more categories and tailoring access to the category more finely by position.

[Asperon Thorn]

We could call Strength I, Agility I, General I - skills
And Strength II, Agility II, General II - traits. .

I think further we could require doubles for all of the tier II skills to reflect their game changing nature.

Asperon Thorn

[Alamar]

We could call Strength I, Agility I, General I - skills
And Strength II, Agility II, General II - traits. .

I think further we could require doubles for all of the tier II skills to reflect their game changing nature.

Asperon Thorn

I'm not sure that I'd require doubles for any/all players to access Tier2 skills but the idea is something cool to think about.

[Asperon Thorn]

We could call Strength I, Agility I, General I - skills
And Strength II, Agility II, General II - traits. .

I think further we could require doubles for all of the tier II skills to reflect their game changing nature.

Asperon Thorn

I'm not sure that I'd require doubles for any/all players to access Tier2 skills but the idea is something cool to think about.

Well, after putting more thought into it. It would simplify things a whole lot.

Players could only get Tier II skills in categories that they have Tier I access. . on doubles.

Players that don't have Tier I access could never get Tier II skills of that type.

For Example, an elf could never get a Tier II strength skill. . .a dwarf could never get a Tier II agility skill. . etc.

Then you limit certain skill completely away from certain types of players while at the same time making it so you don't have to make some sort of crazy chart for players.

Asperon Thorn

[Alamar]

I was thinking that certain players should be able to get Tier2 access normally ... For example maybe Wardancers get both AG 1 && AG2 without having to roll doubles ... maybe BOBs could get access to ST1 & ST2 without having to roll doubles.

EDIT: One thing we have to be careful of is to make sure that if players can get Tier2 access to something that it doesn't break the system. For example if Elves never could possibly get Guard that might make Guard too good for ST teams. I haven't thought about it much but I imagine that's something to be considered.

[Asperon Thorn]

Well I think Guard and Mighty blow would stay tier 1. They are good but not completely game changing. . .And fun to see a smattering of on all teams.

But skills that can really be awful if totally spammed would be things like Stand Firm. That should probably be tier II. Or Frenzy.

Asperon Thorn

[mattgslater]

Ugh. This brings up memories of the Bad Old Days.

[Asperon Thorn]

Ugh. This brings up memories of the Bad Old Days.

Hush YOU.

Asperon Thorn

[mattgslater]

How about instead of hushing...

There are a bunch of different kinds of potential problem skills. Some skills are just powerful (Dodge, Guard, Block), and they become common because, well, the more the merrier. Some skills are really potent if applied judiciously (Frenzy, Wrestle). Some are more potent if spammed (Stand Firm, Side Step, Mighty Blow).

Why not have two different modifiers for skills: one flat 10k TV add for non-doubles skills that are very good in small numbers, and one add for 10k add for some skills in multiples (say, beyond one for doubles, and two for non-doubles)? Since there are only two modifiers, you can resolve it with an asterisk and a dagger. For instance:

Nerves of Steel adds 20k/30k if you have/don't have access.
Kick* adds 30k, access or no.
Stand Firm† adds 20k/30k for the first two/one and 30k/40k after that.
Guard*† adds 30k for the first two/one and 40k after that.

[Darkson]

Humm, why don't we leave it as it is? I'd perfer the current "all skills open to all" than that idea.
(Though I'd perfer to go back to Traits, a la LRB4)

Oh, and removing A from Elf linos and ST from Chaos Beast are bad ideas(TM)/
Dwarfs deserve too lose ST access on their Linos though.

[mattgslater]

As much as I totally agree with Darkson, this is the House Rules forum. So, trying to be constructive:

1) There is a wrong way to do skill tiering. I have no clue if there is a right way. Tom and Co. went way way way out of their way, tinkering and modifying the skill balance for years and years, so that there are a few tracks for multi-category teams that build with a rough parity.

2) I doubt strongly that many coaches think Chaos is in any way overpowered, or that removing S access from Beastmen will change the opinion of anyone who does think they're overpowered. Possibly if you gave the team some more positions and knocked the TRR cost to 50k, or knocked the Beastmen to 50k and bumped TRRs to 70k. I think you're mistaking "an asset in a careful balance" for "a problem."

3) Having been part of many, many such discussions on this site, I think that most coaches, and most statistical analyses, seem to be in agreement that three of the four elf teams are merely "competitive" as opposed to "problematic." Removing A from the team just makes them boring to build, without solving the concerns of the teams' critics. Look at Wood Elves, maybe, but even then you're, uh, barking up the wrong tree. Nerf WDs, perhaps, or take away the Tree, or take Sprint off the Catchers, or make the Catchers 0-2. I think only the first two will have a huge effect.

4) Access comes at a cost. Look more carefully at team balance, and you'll see that there are a lot of places where a team suffers a quality hit just so it can take a new category (Wood Elf Throwers, Dark Elf Runners, Amazon Catchers, Norse Throwers, Pestigors, Ghouls, Stormvermin... the list goes on). Chaos and the Pacts are in great part defined by the price they pay for two advantages, one of which in each case is the teams' broad skill access. Just look at what they give up! A Stunty team with Animosity, an AV8 bash team with 3x ST5 but 3x Anti-Skills and no other skills (oh, okay, a Goblin...), and an AV8 bash team with 4x really good blockers, but no skills and only 5 positionals. For the elf teams, they pay an across-the-board 20k for a good universal advantage, which is in itself a modest hindrance because the extra cash gives them serious money problems. For this modest hindrance, and for the total lack of S access, they get universal A access.

[Patchwork]

what I initially wanted to know is, why evles, dwarves and chaos linemen do have multiple access, while others races' linos don't.

I'd say that's to give different rosters different flavors and is part of the balance of the overall roster.

For me a positional stays a special player, that should be able to access more skills than a lino from the same team.

I'd still say the positionals on all the elven rosters and dwarves are the star players on their teams.

For the elves the higher stats and beginning skills make the positional the stars, not skill access (except with throwers where it is the skill access). The extra movement that most of the Blitzers and Catchers come with makes a huge difference. The linemen can still pull off some amazing plays themselves true but that's from having 4 agility, not skill access.

For the dwarves the linemen are vital but the Blitzers and Runners will be scoring the majority of their touchdowns and the troll slayers really stand out with frenzy and dauntless in a team lacking high strength. Sure a lineman could learn both of those and begins with tackle but the Troll Slayer would still have one more movement, which is valuable on a team as slow as the dwarves and should have picked up some skills himself to still stand out compared to the lineman.

Chaos is a bit different. The Chaos Warriors are always going to be stars on the team but with only them and a minotaur as postionals, some of the beastmen are always going to step up in importance as well but that goes well with mutations, which is the fun of the Chaos Roster for me.

What do you think? Too complicated or a useful idea?

Seems too complicated to me and would have an impact on the balance of more then just the elves, dwarves and chaos. I'd prefer just taking general access off both elven and dwarven linemen... and you know I don't like that idea either

[gandresch]

Hi,

something about that Skill/Trait thing. I don't like it!
Different teams could have different access, but getting skills from all the categories should stay as it is now. The II-cat is not an upgrade to the I-cat, it is an addition with whole new skills, that are not in I and the other way round.
So making the old skill/trait thing would be against the whole idea. Of course you can give the different positions different skill access on doubles, but it is not meant the way, that you get I as skill and II as double. I could imagine teams, where linos get the II-cat while other teams' linos get the I-cat. This would offer more variety for different teams.
We do not have to keep the name I and II. We could call it something like Strength Defensive and Strength Offensive, with Stand Firm, Thick Skull and perhaps Break Tackle in Defensive, while all others are in Offensive.
You could make General to General Ballhandling and General Blocking, with Fend, Kick, Kick-Off Return, Pass Block, Strip Ball and Sure Hands in one and all others in the second.

After that, you could say for example, that a dwarf blocker could get Strength Offensive and Defensive and General Blocking and a Norse Lino could get General Blocking and Ballhandling and Strength Defensive. A dwarven blitzer would for example have additional access to General Ballhandling and so on.

More categories mean more effort to keep everything in mind, but offer a great option to make teams more variable and would solve some of the problems, we had in this discussion at first.

Greets,
gan