Talk Fantasy Football

In some Leagues, Piling On isn't considered a fun skill to play against, especially when it is combined with other damaging skills like Mighty Blow and Claw. I don't want to get in to the ins/outs of whether it is fair or not, but I did want to propose the following house rule:

Simply, that Piling On only works for Blocks, not Blitzes, like Grab and Multiple Block.

The idea being that you can actually manage to protect your better players from the POers, and that if you want to use a PO player then you need to take some risks with him (contact with opponents). It should lead to more strategic play and should also make the fend skill a bit more useful. It should also mean that Piling on players are most useful in bash vs bash games where lots of players are in contact with each other, and should also tone down Blitz wars - where players use the Blitz action purely to try and take out opponent players rather than strategically.

Do you think that would be a balanced rule? Would it still be worth taking Piling On in this case? Would it be fun to play with / against?

Thanks for your thoughts.

I think it would certainly change the way you used the skill but I don't like it personally. I definitely think it devalues the skill, particularly against teams like Elves (of any type) or Amazons.

I might do it the other way around- Piling On can only be used on Blitz actions. I'd still take it on at least one guy, which is more than I can say for some other skills.

I was pondering a house rule where using it for AV = prone and using it for injury = stunned .. not doing any mechanics changing rules in our league for awhile but curious if and how this might affect it's use.

sounds like they should not be playing Blood Bowl bunch of whining cry babies

Grod, in simple answer to your question, I don't consider your proposal to be a balanced way to reduce the popularity of Piling On, if that's what you want to do. Piling on on a Blitz requires other skills to be truly effective, such as Frenzy and/or J-Naut, as well, of course, as Block, M-Blow (and Tackle). It requires a hard won skill stack on one player. That player can be put in the dugout, temporarily or permanently.

I suggest there are other ways to tinker with Piling On without doing great violence to the current rules, and without necessarily changing the degree of violence of the skill in itself. For example, you could require the Piling On player to go prone before he rolls any Armour dice.

Hope that helps.

I like the idea because it is easy to handle and would have a great effect.

At this points on fumbbl groups can add additional (optional) rules to tournaments where PO can't be used with other modifiers after it has been used. This is a good way, too.

There are a lot of good options around - i like that! (that's a very rare situation)