Talk Fantasy Football

The BBRC's unwillingness to introduce new skills has a sound base of reasoning behind it. However, Ithilkir's suggestion of new skills which require a combination of two or more existing skills to take is a good one. They would have to be called something different: suggestions might include Feat, Perk, Mastery, Talent, Gift, Exploit, Sense, Power or Quality. For the moment, I'll call them Talents.

A decision would have to be made whether to treat Talents like skills or traits in regards to whether you need a double on a skill roll to get them, or have a mix of both depending on the power of the skill. It might also be considered that some Talents might only be available to players who do NOT possess a particular skill and/or can not subsequently take it: e.g. for those with Focus as described below, you can't take Guard; or those with Soft Hands can't take Block.

I would like to hear some suggestions for new skills which have prerequisites. I'll list my Talent ideas here:

Soft Landing (General Talent - requires Leap and Sure Feet)
The player may re-roll the dice if he falls over when trying to leap.

Pressure (General Talent - requires Tackle and Shadowing)
The player has spent a lot of time practising his defensive skills. To represent this, opposing players must subtract -1 from the dice roll if they attempt to dodge out of the player’s tackle zone.

Stomp (General Talent - requires Dirty Player and Kick)
The player has made a career out of putting the boot in when opponents are down. Add +2 to injury rolls on fouls made by this player.

Captain (General Talent - requires Leader and Pro)
This player has matured with experience to become an onfield general whom the fans love. The coach may reroll the result for their team made when working out the kick-off results of Get the Ref, Cheering Fans, Brilliant Coaching, Throw a Rock and Field Invasion. The coach may also reroll when deciding the direction of crowd throws.

Focus (General Talent - requires Dauntless and Nerves of Steel)
The player may ignore modifiers from Foul Appearance when picking up, passing or catching the ball.

Long Jump (Agility Talent - requires Jump Up and Leap or Very Long Legs and Leap)
The player may move three squares instead of two when he attempts a leap. If the player does use this skill, the leap costs 4 squares of movement and the Agility roll has a -1 modifier.

Soft Hands (Agility Talent - requires Catch and Diving Catch)
A player with this talent may add +1 to his catch rolls.

Stonewall (Strength Talent - requires Block and Stand Firm)
When the player is blocked by an opponent and neither player is knocked down, treat it as if the defending player gained a pushback on the attacker, resulting in the attacker being moved away from the defender to a square of the defender's choosing using the normal three-square template. Side Step can not be used by the attacker to affect this talent. The attacker remains upright, and a turnover is not caused.

right soft landing i don't want to see anything other than a trr used for rerolls on landing, its one of the few ways wardancers get hurt

Pressure, i can't see a lot of players taking this due to the need to have shadowing

stomp- this is just heading back to the 3rd edition foul wars

captain- is anyone going to spend 3 double rolls to get this?

focus- again 3 doubles and useless against most teams

soft hands- don't see anyone really picking this either NOS would be better

stonewall- might see this on some dwarfs but i think i would rather take dauntless

i think its a good idea

some alternate skills to think about

snatch ball (pre-req strip ball) (general skill)

when you successfully knock the ball free from an opponent, you get a chance to take it on a -2 before it scatters. This is niether a catch nor a pick up, it is a snatch, so only team rerolls may be used to reroll failure, but nerves of steel do apply. If the snatch fails, the ball scatters as usual.

high mark (pre-req catch & pass block) (agility skill)

your amazing athletic ability gives you +1 to intercept and catch attempts if there is another player from either team in base to base contact with you when you make the attempt. However, because you are leaping on their shoulders to get even higher, a landing roll (like leap) is required to keep your feet once you have made the intercept attempt.

The landing roll for an intercept is in the opponents turn, so you cannot reroll any failures. However, if you fail a landing roll the intercept is still valid, but the ball scatters as usual. The landing roll is before your teams turn, so failure does not result in a turn over.

readying for impact(pre-req block and dodge) (general skill)

Your cunning and experience have taught you how to avoid being injured. A player can declare that they are readying for impact in a particular turn and a token is placed on their base. A player can only ready for impact if it is the only thing they do in that turn. The result of readying for impact is that your are anticipating the contact and your armour value increasese by 1 during your opponents next turn.

At the beginning of a turn a player must remove all of the readying for impact markers before they make any movements, or their opponent can call them for an illegal procedure.

shovel pass (pre-req sure hands) (passing skill)

You are an experience ball handler and you have learnt the art of dishing the ball off very skillfully. To this end you can make a hand off action from one square away from the reciever, as opposed to an adjacent square like a normal player.

jumper holding (pre-req dirty player) (general skill)

You are a crafty character who bends the rule as much as possible, because sometimes you get away with it, you grab onto your opponents jumper to try and stop them getting away from you.

When you use this skill before dodging away from you, an opponent rolls an IGMEOY dice and if you are spotted, the eye goes onto your team (if it wasnt already) but the player is not sent off and the skill cannot be used. If the player avoids detection from the umpire, he holds onto his opponents jumper and effects a -2 to the dodge.

high tackle (pre-req dirty player and tackle) (general skill)

You are a mean spirited old blood bowler and you are always trying to take players down and hurt them.

A player declares this skill before a block is made and if they knock the player over, it is because they got in a high shot. A +2 is added to armour or injury roll because of the dangerous contact. But because it is quite an outragous violation of the rules, the opponent makes an IGMEOY roll with a +1 modifer against the player who made the high tackle because the crowd are so incenced by their player being taken down illegally, the ref is looking extra hard.

more to come, i just cant remember them at the moment

I REALLY like this idea in principle. Really like it. My opinions of the suggested Talents (great name too!):

m0nty_au wrote:Soft Landing (General Talent - requires Leap and Sure Feet)
The player may re-roll the dice if he falls over when trying to leap.

As Grumbledook mentioned, this might be a too-good, no-brainer choice for warprancers. Leap is too powerful to be in anyway reliable. Should clearly be an Agility Talent, were it ever to exist.

m0nty_au wrote:Pressure (General Talent - requires Tackle and Shadowing)
The player has spent a lot of time practising his defensive skills. To represent this, opposing players must subtract -1 from the dice roll if they attempt to dodge out of the player’s tackle zone.

Balanced, and could be useful. Not spectacularly appealing though, in all honesty.

m0nty_au wrote:Stomp (General Talent - requires Dirty Player and Kick)
The player has made a career out of putting the boot in when opponents are down. Add +2 to injury rolls on fouls made by this player.

Er, no way! So this player would be getting a +4 modifier to Injury rolls? Ugh.

m0nty_au wrote:Captain (General Talent - requires Leader and Pro)
This player has matured with experience to become an onfield general whom the fans love. The coach may reroll the result for their team made when working out the kick-off results of Get the Ref, Cheering Fans, Brilliant Coaching, Throw a Rock and Field Invasion. The coach may also reroll when deciding the direction of crowd throws.

KO table should never be rerolled for any reason.

m0nty_au wrote:Focus (General Talent - requires Dauntless and Nerves of Steel)
The player may ignore modifiers from Foul Appearance when picking up, passing or catching the ball.

Not worth taking. Maybe ignore tackle zones when picking up the ball, requiring NoS and Sure Hands?

m0nty_au wrote:Long Jump (Agility Talent - requires Jump Up and Leap or Very Long Legs and Leap)
The player may move three squares instead of two when he attempts a leap. If the player does use this skill, the leap costs 4 squares of movement and the Agility roll has a -1 modifier.

Could be workable.

m0nty_au wrote:Soft Hands (Agility Talent - requires Catch and Diving Catch)
A player with this talent may add +1 to his catch rolls.

Like it!

m0nty_au wrote:Stonewall (Strength Talent - requires Block and Stand Firm)
When the player is blocked by an opponent and neither player is knocked down, treat it as if the defending player gained a pushback on the attacker, resulting in the attacker being moved away from the defender to a square of the defender's choosing using the normal three-square template. Side Step can not be used by the attacker to affect this talent. The attacker remains upright, and a turnover is not caused.

Would have to be playtested. Can't see it being that useful.

I basicly agree with Nazgit.

Also suggest "controlled Frenzy" Frenzy and NOS
The player can choose whether to frenzy or not.
If that isn't useful enough, they could also take a block at a player who has pushed them back and followed up.

As a concept, I think this is a very good idea . I'll leave the details to those who care about such things but I'll certainly be keeping a close eye on how this develops.

And noone can argue, that it is something completely new and should therefore stay out, because there is already a skill with a preq:
Mighty Blow (Preq: ST3+)

Ok, a few things in reference to suggestions both here and at FUMBBL.

First, a sound gameplay mechanic has to be behind Talents if they are to be balanced correctly. The aim of Talents would be to discourage conformist skill progression by offering rewards for picking skills that are seen as underpowered, and to encourage specialisation, particularly for linemen. This is why I think most Talents should be available to those with General skill access, even if only on a double. Blood Bowl should be mostly about the linemen, in my opinion, which is why I'm a big fan of nerfing big guys.

As an aside, to promote balance, perhaps some skills with prerequisites should be available on a normal skill roll, called talents, and some on a double, called gifts, depending on their perceived value. This might be seen to be too complex, of course.

As for criticisms of the talents suggested so far...
I expected Soft Landing to be difficult to justify, since it is quite unbalanced. I made it General because I didn't want it to be elf-only. I think Pressure is the best example of what a talent should be: it rewards a coach for picking a weak skill by turning it into something much more powerful. Stomp needs some work... I think a talent to create a specialised fouler is a worthy one, although I would welcome suggestions as to how to make it work, since they way I originally worded it was wrong. Captain is a hard skill to get, so its effect is very powerful. I may not have worded it perfectly - what I was talking about was not rerolling the kick-off result itself, but rerolling the d6 or 2d6 which is added to the FF or coaches or cheerleaders, depending on the result. Focus also needs some work... maybe make it ignoring tackle zones when picking up the ball, and change the prerequisites to Two Heads and Sure Hands so it's only available to chaos and skaven (who need it most). I think Long Jump is balanced - dangerous to use, and not attractive to one-turners. Soft Hands has the potential to be overpowered, but I hope making such a poor skill like Diving Catch a prerequisite makes it balanced. Stonewall is intended for LOS blockers and/or sideline specialists - I originally intended it to be an anti-Guard skill, although I suspect it might be used by bashy teams like dorfs to enhance their guarders and maintain cages, or by big guys.

Here is a list of the skills and traits I would see as being perceived to be underpowered, and thus worthy of being a prerequisite for great talents:
Leader, Pro, Shadowing, Strip Ball, Dump-Off, Hail Mary Pass, Break Tackle, Multiple Block, Piling On, Diving Catch, Diving Tackle, Sure Feet, Extra Arms, Horns, Prehensile Tail, Spikes, Thick Skull, Two Heads. Now, I think the guiding influence behind devising Talents should start with one of these skills and try to think of another existing skill which would combine with it to make a new talent which combines elements of both. For instance, take the two Diving skills:

Dish-off (Passing Talent - requires Pass and Diving Tackle or Pass and Diving Catch)
A player with this talent who is holding the ball and has exhausted his movement allowance may choose to dive into an adjoining square and hand off to a team mate. This counts as the team's hand-off for the turn, but it does not involve a Go For It roll, even if one is possible. The player making the dish-off is placed in a prone position without rolling for injury, as in a diving tackle, but this does not cause a turnover... unless the player trying to catch the ball fails, of course!

I'd love to see some other people try to think up new skills based on that strategy.

i can't see anyone wasting a skill roll on a cack skill like diving catch to have the possability to get another somewhat not that useful skill should they be lucky enough to get a double, its just TR bloat

the principle is good enough just the skills aren't ;]

Grum, how can you say that +1 to all catch rolls isn't useful? Granted, Soft Hands would only really be popular with non-elves, particularly the human variants, but non-elves need some help at high TR.

because on a double you could take NOS and then you will always be catching on a 2+ with ag4 anyway (foul app ignored of course but not often you are against that) or even still you could take guard which again would be more useful

You didn't read my post, Grum. I acknowledge that AG4 players wouldn't take Soft Hands, but AG3 players would find it invaluable. Also, not every coach will choose Guard when they roll a double. Sometimes a Catcher positional wants to actually concentrate on catching, not bashing.

no you didn't understand me it seems! ;]


ok ignoring ag4 players wanting that, assuming they still have access to ag skills (otherwise no one is going to waste 3 doubles to get it) so human catchers and the like.

normal skill rolls you take block and sidestep, then you need some players with shadowing and diving tackle, diving catch is still on the whole useless imho. At this point you have 4 skills on them now if some of them were doubles NOS is a better choice and also a couple of catchers with guard and jump up are useful as is dauntless

now you don't take those skills to bash you have them so you can open up a hole to run someone else through either from a pocket or you just passed too, guard is also very good on the defensive as well

there are also other skills like passblock and surefeet/sprint that people often take again limiting skill slots which one would have to be taken with diving catch and also a catcher with dauntless and then stripball and even tackle is also a handy weapon to have

I just don't see the space in the game for soft hands as you have it, if it were useful why don't you see many skaven players with extra arms which achieves the same thing but doesn't even need diving catch?!

Thank you Grumbledook, you've just proved my point. This is the sort of ruthless powergaming attitude which makes high TR games boring, and leads to conformist skill selection - and which talents would partially be aimed at puncturing. Saying that Side Step is an automatic choice for AG3 Catcher positionals is ridiculous. Some catchers might not even take Block either. And the reason skaven don't take extra arms is because they have 0-4 positionals with AG4.

In any event, Soft Hands can't afford to be too powerful, because if it was then it would lower the scoring ability between elves and AG3-at-most races too much. The point you're missing is that talents aren't supposed to be no-brainer choices, which every experienced coach will take as a matter of course. They are specialisations. They allow players to sacrifice other parts of their game in order to become really good at one thing. They allow diversity.

Then thats where we just differ at the end of the day, taking a skill like that is what i consider a waste of time and effort and I don't really want to waste my time doing that.

Maybe you and some others will take them, but I bet luck giving I would win should the two equal sides met.

I just can't see a case for it to make one player better at one thing only to have a detrimental affect on the rest of the team. There is no I in team.