A new Big Guy/Negatrait approach

narkotic · Post by **narkotic** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 5:12 pm

Just made up my mind as I think that all Big Guys should be somewhat comparable in their Negatrait and tweaked over Skills/Price.

For this approach:

Pro is a General Trait, and

there are only two Negatraits: Bonehead and Really Stupid

Bonehead= LRB Bonehead but you need a 3+
Really Stupid= LRB Really Stupid but assist gives only +1 (=+4/+3)

That gives:

Kroxigor: 6 5 1 9, Mighty Blow, P. Tail, Thick Skull, Big Guy, Bonehead 120K

Minotaur: 5 5 2 8, Mighty Blow, Frenzy, Horns, Thick Skull, Always Hungry, Big Guy, Throw Team Mate, Bonehead 130K

Ogre: 5 5 2 9, Mighty Blow, Thick Skull, Big Guy, Throw Team Mate, Bone Head 120K

Rat Ogre: 6 5 3 8, Mighty Blow, Frenzy, P. Tail, Big Guy, Bonehead. 140K (Alternatively AG2 & 130K)

Treeman: 2 6 1 10, Mighty Blow, Stand Firm, Thick Skull, Big Guy, Throw Team Mate, Woodhead 120K

Troll: 4 5 1 9, Mighty Blow, Always Hungry, Big Guy, Regeneration, Throw Team Mate, Really Stupid. 100K.

Prices are calculated with the cost calculator and tried to keep the old LRB price relations, whereas the Ogre was my base.

Bold printings are diferences to LRB 3.0, Woodhead=Bonehead

What do you think? It's just an idea, no crusade or something like that.

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 6:29 pm

Like the idea of making bonehead a 3+ roll.

I would like to see a variety of negatraits if that is workable though.

narkotic · Post by **narkotic** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 6:48 pm

The problem is that different Negatraits don't seem to work: Most coaches say that Bonehead is too weak and current Take Roots is crippling. Formerly WA was too harsh, now many coaches say it a worse version of Really Stupid.

That's why I came up with a 3+ Bonehead for all Big Guys. And after all, it makes Negatraits simpler IMHO, ok less variety but it tries to answer the problem that some Negatraits aren't negative enough, whereas some others are the opposite.

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 7:11 pm

I like the new WA, it makes the players do what they are meant to: get stuck in. If they don't, you lose out.

Another option would be to make all big guys Really Stupid. But say that if another player uses his action "telling him what to do", then he automatically passes the RS roll. The player giving the orders would have to move next to the BG and do nothing else that turn.

Alternatively, you could give different BGs different "default" actions for when they fail their RS roll. Treemen would stand still, but could still block. Trolls would wander off in a random direction (scatter 3 times?). Minotaurs and RO might have to perform a foul action. Bonehead might just be relegated to a move action.

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 7:27 pm

The more I think about this, the more I like it.

This is how it might work:

Change Big Guy itself to:

Big Guy (Racial Characteristic)
The player is a Big Guy! All of the rules that apply to Big Guys apply to this player.

Before taking an action with a Big Guy, you must first roll a D6. On a 4+ the player remembers what he is supposed to be doing, and you may carry on with his action as normal. However, on a 1-3 the player reverts to his instinctive behaviour, as detailed in his particular negative trait.

If you wish, one of you players can try to encourage a Big Guy to do what he is supposed to. The player must declare a special "Order Big Guy" action. The player may move his normal MV allowance, but may not do anything else for the turn. If he ends his move in an adjacent square to a Big Guy, the Big Guy will pass his roll on a 2+ rather than a 4+.

Change NegaTraits to:

Bonehead (Racial Characteristic)
If the player fails his Big Guy roll, then he may only take a Move action for the turn.

Really Stupid (Racial Characteristic)
If the player fails his Big Guy roll, then he cannot do anything for the turn. He loses his tackle zone until he manages to pass his Big Guy roll at the start of another action.

Take Root (Racial Characteristic)
If the player fails his Big Guy roll, then he may only take a Block action for the turn.

Wild Animal (Racial Characteristic)
If the player fails his Big Guy roll, then he may only take a Foul action for the turn.

sean newboy · Post by **sean newboy** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 8:52 pm

Now thats a system that could use some testing, good job.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 1:05 am

sean newboy wrote:Now thats a system that could use some testing, good job.

Lucien Swift/phil recommend the same thing over a year ago. But doesn't mean that bringing it up again isn't without value.

Now that Pro is a trait, I really don't see the issues with Really Stupid and Bonehead. Wild Animal okay might not be the best, but I think the new onpitch Take Root will be good. So in general they are okay ... however this idea is not without some merit.

Galak

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 5:06 am

I like it, and it seems a clear solution to the problem if the BBRC is looking to simplify the rules.

Dark Lord (retired) · Post by **Dark Lord (retired)** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 6:13 am

I say we burn down the negative traits altogether! WOOT!

narkotic · Post by **narkotic** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 8:47 am

Are you guys talking about my idea or the suggestion of Nazgit?

Bifi · Post by **Bifi** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 10:01 am

GalakStarscraper wrote:Now that Pro is a trait, I really don't see the issues with Really Stupid and Bonehead. Wild Animal okay might not be the best, but I think the new onpitch Take Root will be good. So in general they are okay ... however this idea is not without some merit.

The new on-pitch Take Root won't be official, will it?

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 3:59 pm

narkotic wrote:Are you guys talking about my idea or the suggestion of Nazgit?

I was talking about your original idea. I like making negatraits mostly the same, as it does balance out the big guys and cuts 4 different strange rules down to 2.

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 4:05 pm

Bifi wrote:The new on-pitch Take Root won't be official, will it?

Expected timeline: OnPitch Take Root added to playtest vault before the end of the year. Made official in 2004 Rule Review.

This is the way it is SUPPOSED to work. What happened with Wild Animal was to be honest the BBRC not following their own rules on how rules changes occur to the game.

Galak

Circular_Logic · Post by **Circular_Logic** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 4:38 pm

OK.. as everyone throws in his BigGuy soltution, I will throw in anotherone.
Basically I think, rolling for a player to check if he makes his action plainly sucks.
That´s the reason, I appreciate the old WA-rule. Noone could ignore this rule by plain luck and just rolling 2+ or 4+ all the time.

So the suggestions...
WA:
Player has to move first. If he is in a TZ of an opposing player, he has to block him (though he may then move on as part of a blitz-move). If he isn´t in another player tacklezone, he has to declare a move-action and move so that he end up in a TZ of an opposing player of the coaches choice. If no opponent is in reach, then he has to move straight towards the nearest opponent.

Bonehead:
This player is quite slow and unable to react with the same speed as the rest of the team. To represent this, this player is always moved last on the moving teams turn. After a player with bonehead has moved the turn ends. If there are 2 or more players with bonehead, you have to move them one after the other in an order you choose, but your turn still ends after the action of the last bonehead-player.

Really Stupid:
A player with this trait suffers the same effects as a bonehead-player. In addition, if there is more than one possible target of a block and no friendly player adjecent, the opposing coach may choose, which one is blocked.

Take Root (or Woodhead):
A Treeman is a creature which is not in a hurry at all. Following the lightning-fast plays of BloodBowl such as a dwarven 8-turn-grind is quite hard for them. To represent this, a coach has to announce the action, the treeman will next turn, at the end of his previous turn (so you declare the action of turn3 at the end of turn2). The only exception from this rule is at kickoff as during the breack between the drives his teammates give him an situation-update ("We have already scored.")

That´s my understanding of a negatrait. Noone has to roll the dice and everyone suffers equally from it.
Comment??

Lucien Swift · Post by **Lucien Swift** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 4:44 pm

GalakStarscraper wrote: Lucien Swift/phil recommend the same thing over a year ago. But doesn't mean that bringing it up again isn't without value.

same spirit, different implimentation... my suggestion was always that all big guys fail their negatrait roll on a 1, but that failure is a turnover... not as frequent as this failure, but more drastic... really made big guys a bit more of a risk, and it also applied the negatrait system absolutely evenly accross all of them, with the differences only in the flavor text of what they did when they failed the roll (ogres look stupid, minos roar in rage, etc)...

for what it's worth, though, i think i like the direction of this proposal, making the difference between an individual or a directed big guy different might be something worth testing for a while, jsut to see how it feels... i think the specifics of the mandated actions could be cleaned up a little, but the concept of limiting the failed player to one action option has merit potentially over the idea of denying them specific actions instead...

an interesting idea, i'd like to see it developed and tested...