A better suggestion to improve racial variety (perpetual)

[Smeborg]

Hat tip: Doubleskulls.

I propose the following rules change to improve racial variety in perpetual leagues, not to mention bringing about World Peace . It remains merely to be play tested...

"Only one of the 3 skills Claw, Mighty Blow and Piling On may be used by a player in resolution of a knockdown. Which skill to use is at the discretion of the owning player's coach."

First some numbers:

1. REFERENCE POINTS
---------------------
(a) Crowd surf or simple foul: KO+ 42%, CAS 17% [=unchanged]
(b) Foul with Dirty Player: KO+ 58%, CAS 28% [=unchanged]
(c) Knockdown damage by rookie teams: (various) [=unchanged]

2. MAXIMUM KNOCKDOWN DAMAGE IN CRP vs. AV7/8/9
----------------------------------------------------
(d) Stun+ 83%, KO+ 58%, CAS 31+

3. MAXIMUM KNOCKDOWN DAMAGE AS PROPOSED
------------------------------------------------
(e) vs. AV7: Stun+ 76%, KO+ 42%, CAS 18%
(f) vs. AV8: Stun+ 58%, KO+ 34%, CAS 15%
(g) vs. AV9: Stun+ 51%, KO+ 25%, CAS 11%

Note that the skills still work in combination, in the right circumstances. But the effect is more additive than multiplicative. And there is a law of diminishing returns as regards the stacking of skills (but each skill and skill combo is still valuable in the right circumstances). Each skill retains its character even in combination.

Injuries taken by knocked down AV9/8/7 players with no damage skills used is in the proportion 6:10:15. Under the proposed rules change, the maximum knockdown injury possible will change to a proportion of approximately 6:8:10 (flatter, but not completely flat as in the CRP). I suggest this is about enough to curb the AV9 teams, but without making the Claw teams dominant (either by number or by style). Somewhat better skill retention is implied for all teams. Killer teams would still be valid IMO, but would perhaps not be seen as a default option (more skill would be required in both play and development, SPP acquisition would not be quite as fast).

Many benefits would flow from this, I suggest, not just racial variety, but also development and tactical variety. I could go on, but I think this post is already quite long enough.

[Edit: for the boffins, please note that the above numbers are not cumulative, since it depends whether you are aiming for a KO or a CAS (when using Piling On).]

Comments most welcome.

[dode74]

Is this for matchmaking/open or scheduled perpetual leagues?

[Smeborg]

Is this for matchmaking/open or scheduled perpetual leagues?

It is intended for any perpetual league, regardless of other format(s) within that perpetual league. It would, I expect, be tested first in a small, open, unscheduled tabletop league without TV matching and with all inducements (including cards).

Hope that helps.

[dode74]

Ok, thanks. In those environments, which teams do you think are played too much and which too little? Where are you getting the data?

(I'm trying to understand what you think the problem is and why you think it. Currently we have a solution but no specified problem.)

[Ullis]

I think this goes too far. First, I'm working on the premise that any player takes Mighty Blow first before Claw or Piling On. This is obviously different for Snow Trolls and Werewolves that start with Claw but doesn't really matter in this sense.

Now, when you have Mighty Blow, Claw only works for AV9 or, mostly theoretical, AV10. For AV8 MB and Claw cancel each other out and MB is clearly superior. So this would be a clear downgrade on Claw for most teams.

Piling On also becomes much more marginal. You would only use it when you a) don't break armour in the first place or b) break armour without the help of MB or Claw and only stun. For a) cases, it would only make sense to use PO against soft (AV7 and less) targets because for others the chances of breaking armour don't outweigh the hindrance from going down. Against AV9 it would be silly to use PO if you don't break armour and breaking armour against AV9 naturally, without the help of MB or Claw, is already low. So PO would be clearly much less useful against AV9.

In conclusion, MB would still be the first skill pick before Claw or PO. But Claw and PO would both be much more worse. You would follow up MB with Claw if you face a lot of AV9 and PO if you face a lot of AV7. Nobody would go for the MB, Claw, PO combo before taking Block. Instead what would you take? Guard, Tackle or Stand Firm most likely. Life would suddenly be much more difficult for light teams.

If going down this route, I think the best option would be to just tone down PO. Say by dictating that MB and PO don't stack. That would cut down on the KO's and casualties from PO. The more extreme version that MB and Claw don't stack with PO would, I think, be too much as it would only make PO worthwhile against soft targets.

[dines]

Think I agree with Ullis, but what about a medium version, where you can only use one skill at each roll. That would still make the skills interesting, but less damaging than now.

[Chris]

Think I agree with Ullis, but what about a medium version, where you can only use one skill at each roll. That would still make the skills interesting, but less damaging than now.

That is I beleive the suggestion above.

The middle round i think you are referring to is not being able to combine anything with piling on - so if you pile on you can't use MB and Claw on the re-rolled dice. A suggested boost to counter this is to allow pile on to be used when fouling (with various other ideas about how the ref spots it or not etc).

You would follow up MB with Claw if you face a lot of AV9 and PO if you face a lot of AV7. Nobody would go for the MB, Claw, PO combo before taking Block. Instead what would you take? Guard, Tackle or Stand Firm most likely. Life would suddenly be much more difficult for light teams.

Actually life would be easier for lighter teams as they would no longer be fearing an average set of dice rolls wiping them out. If the alternatives were better managers would get them first...

[dines]

Chris> Thats not how I understood this:

"Only one of the 3 skills Claw, Mighty Blow and Piling On may be used by a player in resolution of a knockdown. Which skill to use is at the discretion of the owning player's coach."

When saying "resolution of a knockdown" you have both armor and injury rolls to make. If you have all three skills:
- In CRP rules all three skills can be combined in any way
- Smeborg suggest that if you use claw on AV, then you can't do anything to modify the injury roll and the same with mb and po
- My suggestion is eg. claw on AV, then either mb or po on injury roll

In LRB4 you had quite some dominance of dwarfs and orcs at high TV/TR due to AV9. There claw and mb could be combined as in my suggestion, so with Smeborg/Doubleskulls suggestion we remove that additive effect I guess they will be at least as powerfull as in LRB4.

Regarding lighter teams I guess it depends on the teams you are looking at. Elves will likely do worse if bash teams take more tackle, guard and sf, but teams that can't dodge away as easily will be helped from taking less casualties.

[MKL]

@Smeborg/Doubleskull. Excuse me, maybe I got the math wrong, but I got a question:

in this system it looks to me that Claw is better than M-Blow only on a AV roll of (exactly) 8 against an AV9 (5 results on 36). In any other dice result, MB is better or equal (barring the rare AV10).
Against AV8 and 7 MB is always better. Against AV9 MB is better on AV rolls of 10+ (6 on 36 results).
I got it right?

[dode74]

If we're talking about the probability of causing a causalty, MB is better than claw at AVs up to and including 8. Claw is slightly better than MB at AV9 and better at AV10. PiOn is comparable in effect to MB when you are willing to use it on AV as well, but is worse than MB otherwise, and worse than claw against AVs 9 and 10. You can see all the probabilities on DoubleSkulls' site, here: http://ecbbl.doubleskulls.net/injury.php

[Ullis]

Actually life would be easier for lighter teams as they would no longer be fearing an average set of dice rolls wiping them out. If the alternatives were better managers would get them first...

Against Claw = all teams are light teams.

[MKL]

If we're talking about the probability of causing a causalty, MB is better than claw at AVs up to and including 8. Claw is slightly better than MB at AV9 (...)

Tanx for the link, Dode74

I'm aware that the “5/36 on AV” are better than the “6/36 on Injury”, but the way I wrote was misleading

Putting it correctly, against AV9 the chances to get ko/cas are 17,3% for Claw, 14,3% for M-Blow (circa).
The chances of a cas on AV9 are only 6,94% for Claw against 6,48% for M-Blow: almost the same.

I find the killerstack frankly boring and abused, but I'm wondering if Claw is really useful this way.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

It is a MASSIVE nerf to Claw as it means no-one will ever take it because it would only take effect on 5/36 knockdowns against Av9 - narrow or what !?
PO may be taken as a late skill on a Tackle MB player but effectively this proposed nerf deletes PO and Claw as viable skills, Claw being the only skill that makes Chaos or Nurgle worth taking over Orcs.
Horrible horrible idea!
Maybe saying 2 skills could be combined could be an ok idea, Chaos would have Claw MB and other teams could have POMB and sometimes Chaos could use PO too.

[DoubleSkulls]

Against AV8 and 7 MB is always better. Against AV9 MB is better on AV rolls of 10+ (6 on 36 results).

Yes. All the current permutations (or at least a lot of them) are here

BTW my suggestion is what dines wrote. You can use one skill on the Av roll, and one skill on the injury roll.

[DoubleSkulls]

It is a MASSIVE nerf to Claw as it means no-one will ever take it because it would only take effect on 5/36 knockdowns against Av9 - narrow or what !?

That's incorrect. Against AV9 you'd always use claw on a roll of 8 or 9, and save Mighty Blow for injury - which is 9/36 - or 1/4 of armour rolls.

The difference is that on a 7 you aren't able to add MB to get 8 and break av, so for all armour of 7 or more 1/6 of knockdowns no longer result in injury, meaning about 1/36 less casualties per knockdown for Claw/MB. At the moment Claw/MB gets a Cas on 14.35% of knockdowns, and this change would make it about 11%. I hardly consider that a massive nerf.

I thought they taught better maths than that at public school?