What about eliminating the negatraits for a new SPP chart?

[Luger]

I think big guys are good as they are. The are stupid, they eat their teammates, the stand alone in the dark wood, they are always fun.

I think they have to be unreliable. I like them. Never forget the troll eating the little goblin in turn 16 while my oponent trys to throw him.


It's the fantasy part of the game. And in our league you can get rid of the negatrait with a double. I think they don't have that much impact on the game. I think dauntless works very well aginst them. It really does.

Just my opinion.

[BlanchPrez]

Face the facts, BGs need to be scrapped and totally redesigned to work in the game. Neg traits were added because they were too unbalanced, so do a complete chnage to balance them, not a band-ade solution.

You know, Torg, at first I wasn't for this idea, but the longer the whole BG debate goes on, the more I think this is a good idea.

Chris

[Baron Ollie]

I think the negas are mostly fine the way they are. OFAB may need some tweaking, and WA needs to balance a little more, but I think they go a long way to making BGs fit.

I think BGs are important to the overall feel of BB. I don't think they are broken in general either. One thing I see a lot of you saying about them is that they should be made more the same. Many have suggested giving them all a variation of bonehead. That would be boring. Variety is what makes them neat. One of the big problems with WA for example is it takes away the unique role that Minos and Rat Ogres filled. Now they have to stand on the line like Treemen, Trolls and Ogres even though that is not what they are for. That is what needs to be fixed: their niche in the BB scene.

On the subject of other "overpowered" positions like Mummies and Wardancers: they don't need negatraits because they are balanced in the context of the team. YOU might be scared of facing them, individually, but think about their context. There are a max of 2 Wardancers who are as brittle as anything else out there with the exception of Halflings, and the rest of the elves are easy to get to. Will a Woodie team win with 2 WDs and nothing else on the pitch? I doubt it. Mummies: they play on what may be the slowest team in the league. Zombies and Skellies are dog-slow, and Mummies are worse. Wights are the slowest blitzers in the game. They may be hard hitting, but Mummies are sorely limited by the team they play on. If you don't like them, run away out of their reach!

[Boblo_Jellyroll]

For example, an Ogre should cost at least 140,000 gp. The Bonehead negatrait brings that down to a more reasonable 120,000 gp.

A Troll should cost at least 150,000 gp and not 100,000 gp (assuming Regeneration isn't more expensive than any other skill or trait, which I would think it is).

A Minotaur should cost at least 210,000 gp and not 110,000 gp. The two negatraits a Minotaur gets slapped with really bring its cost down.

A RatOgre should cost at least 200,000 gp and not 130,000 gp. The Wild Animal negatrait saves a Skaven coach a whole heap of cash.

And so on and so on...

At a rough guess, the negatraits ante up like this:

Bonehead -20,000 gp
Always Hungry -20,000 gp
Really Stupid -20,000 gp
Wild Animal -80,000 gp

That's a really rough guess, since it isn't even consistent within your own post. What would make you think that Bonehead balances with Really Stupid? And thanks for ignoring Take Root completely, I guess if it's on a team that you don't play then it's not worth considering. IMO the treeman has two disadvantages, Take Root and MA2.

The fallacy is to try balancing Big Guys with each other, while ignoring all the work that's been made trying to balance non-BG teams with BG teams. If all you do is make BGs more expensive, then that just means that those teams are even more overpowered once they've had a bit of experience. The teams with no BGs are left in the dust. Or consider rookie coaches who want to have a BG on their starting team. Should they not be able to afford one just because you didn't like missing out on using your Minotaur every round? Consider the very expensive experimental players that have come and gone before, like the Questing Knights and Vampire Lords. They couldn't exist in the game because without a handicap they were unstoppable.

Another mistake is to compare the BGs with the normal sized players. How on earth would you think that a Witch Elf or Trollslayer couldn't have more control than a Minotaur? They don't have cow heads, that's one thing. Sure Wardancers rock, but that AV7 makes them very tempting targets. These positions exist because without them the rest of their team would be smashed by teams whose coaches forget the purpose of the ball. I think it's only the smashy coaches that need BGs for their tactics anyway.

Big Guys have always unbalanced the game, because they are casualty machines. The combination of high ST with Mighty Blow is bloody dangerous. Coaches start thinking that they need a Big Guy just to oppose the BG on the other side of the LOS. If you take away the negatraits, then you might as well take the normal-sized players out of the game and we can call it Rat Ogre Bowl.

[Full_Block]

Because Big Guys have always been the big, casuality machines that are unrealible on the pitch, as far as I know of.

But why should they be? Why should an Ogre be any more unreliable than a Goblin? Why would a Goblin pay more attention to training than an Ogre?

Treemen do have a negatrate, Take Root is a negatrait, weither you want to ignore it or not. Is it negative enough? Topic for a different conversation.

But it’s an off-pitch negatrait, that’s the thing. Take Root won’t effect a Treeman if they show up. So why aren’t Treemen unreliable (on the pitch)? Aren’t they Big Guys? This, if nothing else, shows that the negatraits are not meant to make Big Guys unreliable; they are merely there to bring their cost down.

Minotaurs and RatOgres are are more like big animals rather than just big stupid guys, like trolls. Thus the Wild Animal negatrait.

WA is pointless when they have Frenzy. It should be Frenzy and Bonehead/Really Stupid. And Minotaurs and Rat Ogres are not animals any more than Beastmen and Skaven are (also known as Beast-Men and Rat-Men). Do Beastmen and Skaven get the Wild Animal trait because they’re not wholly human? A crossbreed between a rat and an Ogre surely cannot suffer more than an ordinary Ogre.

And yes, Goblins, Orcs and Beastmen are more intelegent than Ogres and Trolls. Thus the reason they have "kingdoms" and armies. Are they as smart as a human? Probably not, but that's not the same as being really stupid or boneheaded.

But according to the fluff, Ogres form mercenary units and like working with each other and other people/armies (so should we get rid of the no TRRs rule?). Ogres are capitalists and value money that can be used almost anywhere. Orcs and Goblins are monarchists who use their own teeth as money and can’t keep a kingdom together for five minutes. Ogres fight for money, Orcs/Goblins fight for fun. Who’s to say who is the more intelligent?

And if Orcs are less intelligent than Humans, is there a sliding scale? Elves are smarter than Humans, who in turn are smarter than Orcs, then Goblins, Ogres, and finally Trolls? Should Elves get a positrait for being so smart? Should Orcs and Goblins get a negatrait, Ogres a meganegatrait, and Trolls a superdupermeganegatrait? Of course not. Why not? Because negatraits have nothing to do with fluff! They’re solely meant to decrease a high cost.

No, Big Guys should have negatraits (note, I don't find that the same as being "punished") because they are Big Guys. Mummy's are not. And yes, I do think that an AG of 1 combined with a MV of 3 help to balance out the ST 5. Now, allowing 4 mummies on the team is, again, a topic for a different conversation.

Mummies are Big Guys in all but name. They have no actual negatraits but their negatraits are the low MA and AG. They cost the same as the average Big Guy, they have a similar ST/AV and skills.

Basicly, I disagree with you that getting rid of negatraits and changing the SPP range is a good idea. I've seen it done before, and it didn't work well.

Adding in an increased cost? I don't know if that would work. My understand of the negatraits was to balance the players on the pitch, not to adjust cost or anything else.

It has very little to do with game balance and in the case of Treemen nothing to do with “on the pitch.” If it did then we’d see Wardancers, Mummies, Witch Elves, and all the other overpowered players getting slapped with negatraits. The fact is, if you work out the cost of Big Guys without negatraits most of them average out at the 150k+ mark and some top the 200k+ mark. That’s too expensive and so most coaches won’t spend the money and so you would hardly ever see Big Guys. The solution was to bring the cost down.

I'm with you on this. How dominant would an Ogre be if he was 10 games behind everyone else? If you boost the cost by enough that you need to play a few games first it will reduce their impact. An Ogre against a no skill Skaven Lino is one thing, but vs. a Str 5 Blocking Bob, or a Dauntless GR with Horns is another. Hell, give a few guys Guard and Block, and a rookie Big Guys isn't at all tough negas or not.

Thanks for the support and your comments on increasing other players so they’re threat to rookie Big Guys is spot on. Of course, if we do increase the cost of Big Guys then two things happen: one, nobody takes them because they’re too expensive; and two, some coaches (such as Orcs or Chaos) are discouraged from taking them because by the time you can afford them, you probably already have three or four ST5+ players, none of whom have negatraits.

As for Full Block's arguments about wardancers and mummies, they do carry some weight. All I can say is that each team is balanced overall (more or less), using more than just per-player costs, but overall player availability (for example, the DE thrower costs 10k more than the HE one), reroll cost, team AV, and big guy/star player availibility.[/qoute]
I really strongly disagree that all teams are balanced overall but that’s another topic. Anyway, if I get your gist correct, what you’re saying is that it’s not just the Big Guy’s stat line or skills or skill access that you have to consider when doling out the negatraits but also the team make-up, is that right? After all, the Dark Elf Thrower only costs 10,000 gp more than the identical High Elf Thrower because of the rest of his team, right? The slight cost increase is to balance out the team, yeah?

So shouldn’t Big Guys cost different amounts depending on whom they’re playing for? Shouldn’t, by that logic (and I’m not saying I disagree with you, I’m just pointing out a flaw in the system), an Ogre cost more for a Dwarf team (higher ST, MB, and higher MA) than it does for a Human team (higher ST, MB, lower MA) and even less for an Orc team (slightly higher ST, MB, similar MA)? Do you see what I’m getting at? I’m all for applying team balance (that’s why Khemri can have four Mummies, after all) but it has to be applied across the board and not just to some teams. And to apply both it and negatraits? No way.

Why do big guys need to be unreliable? I am all for keeping them balanced, but unreliable? Thats what the DICE are for.

Exactly. Big Guys don’t have to be unreliable. There are only three possible reasons I can think of for them being so:

1. Fluff. Not likely. If this is why, then it’s applied fairly irregularly. But then who would want to play an Orc team that suffered from the Animosity negatrait?

2. Game Balance. Possible but unlikely. If an Ogre that costs 110,000 gp has three negatraits (two plus no TRRs) then why doesn’t a Wardancer that costs the same?

3. Cost (and money-making for GW). Very likely. Without negatraits, Big Guys would cost 150k to 200k or more. No coach is going to buy that expensive a player.

Face the facts, BGs need to be scrapped and totally redesigned to work in the game. Neg traits were added because they were too unbalanced, so do a complete chnage to balance them, not a band-ade solution.

Agreed, although I’d like to keep them in the game and I have no idea how to fix them satisfactorily.

At the end of the day, just to do away with the whole game balance argument, if Big Guys are restricted to certain teams to create game balance then why do Wood Elves get one? Wood Elves are considered by most (not me!) to be the strongest Elf team and Elf teams are considered very, very good. So why do they need a Treeman? For fluff or for balance?

[Joemanji]

Trolls, Ogres etc are part of BB. They need to be included in one form or another. As far as negatraits go, I think bonehead and RS work pretty well, WA is still a problem, and hopefully take root will be fixed when it goes "on-pitch".

Taking away General access for BGs is too harsh. Making Block a trait for them is the most sensible suggestion I have seen on this thread. They are meant to be strong, not skillful...

[Full_Block]

That's a really rough guess, since it isn't even consistent within your own post. What would make you think that Bonehead balances with Really Stupid?

Okay, sorry, I guess my math was a little off (I multiplied by ten at the last stage rather than by five). But my point still holds true. I’ll try to explain.

Following JJ’s method, the Big Guys without negatraits cost this much:

Kroxigor: Approximately 140,000 gp, depending on how you value Mighty Blow and Thick Skull.
Minotaur: c. 160,000 gp.
Ogre: c. 145,000 gp.
Rat Ogre: c. 160,000 gp.
Treeman: c. 170,000 gp.
Troll: c. 135,000 gp.

With me so far? Hang in there. Now we need to know the actual cost and work out the difference. From there we can guesstimate the cost of the negatraits. (Bear in mind that no negatrait should reduce the cost by more than 20,000 gp, which is in accordance with JJ’s guidelines.)

A Kroxigor originally cost only 130,000 gp, so there’s a discrepancy of 10,000 gp. So lets assume that Big Guy and Bonehead each are worth –5,000 gp.

But the difference in cost for an Ogre is 25,000 gp and he has the same negatraits. So we have to assume that Big Guy and Bonehead are now worth -12,500 gp each.

Okay, a Minotaur has three negatraits and a difference in costs of 50,000 gp. If we assume that Big Guy costs around -10,000 gp, we can also assume that Wild Animal and Always Hungry are worth -20,000 gp each, right? This tallies with a Rat Ogre:, which has a disceprancy of 30,000 gp and the Big Guy trait (-10,000 gp) and Wild Animal (-20,000 gp).

Now a Troll has a discrepancy of only 35,000 gp, and if we assume Big Guy is worth –10,000 gp and Always Hungry is worth -20,000 gp, then Really Stupid is only worth –5,000 gp.

Okay…

Basically, the only two things that are really clear here is that: a) the negatraits are the unbalancing factor and need to be trashed; and b) that the costs of Big Guys has been reduced drastically and unfairly.

And thanks for ignoring Take Root completely, I guess if it's on a team that you don't play then it's not worth considering. IMO the treeman has two disadvantages, Take Root and MA2.

I ignored Take Root, not because I don’t play Wood Elves or Halflings (and I’ve tried both teams by the way) but because Take Root is an off-pitch negatrait! It has no effect on gameplay whatsoever. On your gameplan, yes, but on gameplay, no. And if you think the Treeman has two negatraits, then you must believe the Ogre has three and the Troll has four or five. Which they do, I guess...

[Boblo_Jellyroll]

Basically, the only two things that are really clear here is that: a) the negatraits are the unbalancing factor and need to be trashed; and b) that the costs of Big Guys has been reduced drastically and unfairly.

You don't get it. The BIG GUYS are the unbalancing factor. They're just so damned better than the normal sized guys. The negatraits are the attempt to rebalance things for teams that can't have BGs or don't want to use them. The prices haven't been calculated the same since it's a delicate balance of each BG's value to the teams that it plays for. I'd guess that Ogres are cheaper because they used to play for a lot of teams. Kroxigors are expensive because they play on teams that can already have 6 ST4 players.
And if you read JJ's guidelines carefully, you'd see that he doesn't compute any cost for Always Hungry since it's just fluff and rarely (never for the Mino) comes up.

I ignored Take Root, not because I don’t play Wood Elves or Halflings (and I’ve tried both teams by the way) but because Take Root is an off-pitch negatrait! It has no effect on gameplay whatsoever. On your gameplan, yes, but on gameplay, no. And if you think the Treeman has two negatraits, then you must believe the Ogre has three and the Troll has four or five. Which they do, I guess...

How do you guess that? I think you're making up numbers again.
I think Take Root should be an on-pitch negatrait, not just to equalize it with the other negatraits, but because even a motionless Treeman would still take up a spot on the LOS. Losing a key player for the first half of the game is far worse than not being able to move your Wild Animal for one round. At least he showed up and is scary enough for the opposition to stay away.

[Munkey]

Trolls, Ogres etc are part of BB. They need to be included in one form or another. As far as negatraits go, I think bonehead and RS work pretty well, WA is still a problem, and hopefully take root will be fixed when it goes "on-pitch".

Taking away General access for BGs is too harsh. Making Block a trait for them is the most sensible suggestion I have seen on this thread. They are meant to be strong, not skillful...

I agree that but I don't like the rules currently and we have dropped them from our league with great sucess until we come up with a version that we like better and can all agree on.

In my eyes the biggest advantage of dropping general access was to limit the access to Block, and the problem was that ST skills on their own are too limited. Reducing access to Block only by making it a trait (for BGs only) would be a very good solution IMO.

[Sixpack595]

Sounds like most of us could agree to dropping Negas in favor of making Block a Trait for BGs, and using the standard price calculations...raising their price.

Allways Hungry is pretty funny IMHO, and not a big issue, I prefer to leave it alone. No RRs for BG could go either way for me.

[Full_Block]

You don't get it.

I do get it. I get you point-of-view perfectly clearly. I just don't agree.

The BIG GUYS are the unbalancing factor. They're just so damned better than the normal sized guys.

No, they're not. They're all stronger, most have a better chance of causing injuries, and some have better armor, but practically all of them have a slow movement and all of them have poor agility (two of them have appalling AG). This, along with a high cost, balances them. The problem is that the negatraits do not balance the Big Guys. They make Big Guys unpredictable. That's not balancing, by its very nature.

The negatraits are the problem. That's what this thread is about, after all. This thread is not about getting rid of Big Guys (although that possibility has been raised once or twice) but it is about getting rid of or replacing the negatraits.

The prices haven't been calculated the same since it's a delicate balance of each BG's value to the teams that it plays for. I'd guess that Ogres are cheaper because they used to play for a lot of teams. Kroxigors are expensive because they play on teams that can already have 6 ST4 players.

So why does the Ogre cost the same regardless of which team he plays for? Why does a Troll cost the same for a Goblin team, which can have two, as it does for an Orc team, which can have one and 4 ST4 players? If a Big Guy's high ST makes him more expensive to teams that already have a large number of high ST players, the reverse must likewise be true, right? So a Treeman should be the cheapest Big Guy because his low AG contrasts with the high AG of a Wood Elf team. Of course, according to your theory he should cost a different amount for a Halfling team...

It's not a delicate balance at all. It's a bodge. JJ admits that. He says negatraits were a rushed idea. The cost of each Big Guy is not representative of their actual value. The negatraits therefore must bring the cost down. If the negatraits have been slapped on Big Guys to paper over the cracks then how can their pricing be delicate in any way?

And if you read JJ's guidelines carefully, you'd see that he doesn't compute any cost for Always Hungry since it's just fluff and rarely (never for the Mino) comes up.

Actually (and unless I'm reading an out-of-date source -- I'm going by the BloodBowl.net version), he doesn't say anything of the kind.

How do you guess that? I think you're making up numbers again.

No, I'm just going by your numbers... did you make those up? You said, and I quote (literally!):

IMO the treeman has two disadvantages, Take Root and MA2.

To which I replied that you must think an Ogre has three negatraits (i.e. Bonehead, Big Guy and his low AG) and a Troll might have four or five (i.e. Really Stupid, Big Guy, Always Hungry, AG1 and possibly also low MA). So, I'm not making up numbers, just going by your math.

I think Take Root should be an on-pitch negatrait

At last, something on which I will agree with you!

Losing a key player for the first half of the game is far worse than not being able to move your Wild Animal for one round. At least he showed up and is scary enough for the opposition to stay away.

Agreed but it's not like the other negatraits. If you (general you, not just you in particular) believe that the benefit of negatraits is that they make Big Guys unpredictable and thus balance them out, then Take Root does clearly neither. If a Treeman does show up he has no "unpredictable" negatraits to balance his advantages out (although he does have a slow MA and terrible AG admittedly but according to the arguments voiced here in favour of negatraits the low stats aren't balancing) and thus is a superstrong (stronger than any other Big Guy in fact) and heavily armored (the best AV) nightmare, yet no one's complaining that Treemen are overpriced, unbalanced, etc. etc. etc.

But I do agree that if Take Root is changed to the non-moving on-pitch effect then it will fulfil these criteria. It won't help the unbalancing, however...

[Boblo_Jellyroll]

Low AG is not a negatrait. If you're never going to play the ball, and most Big Guys don't, and you're just going to smash the closest opponent on the field, then AG ZERO wouldn't hurt you one bit. And if you were trying for some actual strategy with your BG and wanted to try a dodge, Break Tackle would eliminate that disadvantage right away.

The reason why I say that Treemen have 2 negatraits is because at MA2, you have to roll 4+ to stand up. Isn't that unpredictable?

[Sixpack595]

Low Ag may not be a Nega, but it does help balance them. I'd sure hate to try and stop a Mino charging doen field with the ball.

[Raven]

I don't particularly like the idea of slowing SPPs but something has to be done with Big Guys. Getting rid of negatraits is the first step.

[Uruk Hai]

I like the idea butt I would still vote for restrictng access to general skills to, such as block. That's just my opinion so don't everybody jump on me!