CRP+ & Narrowing the Tiers
 [Changelog 2012] [NTBB Rosters & Summary] [NTBB inducement hand-outs]

The NTBB (Narrow Tier Blood Bowl) Rules consists of 2 components - each can be used without the other, but I recommend using them together:
1) The CRP+ List: 8 house rules to improve CRP Blood Bowl and 2 buffs to the underwhelming tier 1 teams (Humans and Khemri) - all co-written and approved by the two most prominent members of the BBRC, Tom Anders and Ian Williams.
2) The NTBB Rosters - house rule roster tweaks to 10 of the BB teams, to put all of the teams on more equal footing.

1. CRP+
 To my mind, changing the rules for Blood Bowl is not a neccessity - but that's not to say that Blood Bowl couldn't be improved, with a few hand picked rules. Some might argue that it would be better to rebuild BB from scratch, but such an effort would also be monumentally controversial. I'd rather deal with the most hotly debated issue with CRP, namely the slant towards bash. Galak StarScraper's (Tom Anders') had already produced a list of things, he'd have loved to see playtested had the LRB still been 'Living' - so I discussed that list with the two most active (both then and now) members of the now disbanded BBRC (Tom Anders and Ian Williams) - and we eventually managed to agree on everything on the list presented below.

Bashing
These first 4 rules are intended to shift some of the power to inflict damage away from the 'killstack' (Claw + Piling On + Mighty Blow) towards the generally available fouling.

1. Claw: Claw works on an armor roll of 8 or more before modification.

2. "Pile On (Strength): The player is adept at landing a second blow on a player who is already incapitated. The player may use this skill after he has made a block as part of one of his Block or Blitz Actions , but only if the Pile On player has just made an injury roll and is currently standing adjacent to the victim. You may re-roll the Injury roll for the victim. The Pile On player is Placed Prone in his own square -- it is assumed that he rolls back there after flattening his opponent (do not make an Armour roll for him as he has been cushioned by the other player! ). Pile On does not cause a turnover unless the Pile On player is carrying the ball. Pile On cannot be used with the Stab or Chainsaw skills."
 

These 2 rules reduce the efficiency of the bash stack considerably - changing their increase in efficiency from an exponential growth into a more linear development. The change is particularly prominent for AV7 targets (including Claw-victims). This should make both non-bash tactics and non-bash teams more viable. For comparison I'm presenting the odds of causing a 'KO or better' and a 'straight Casualty' (KO+/Cas) on a knockdown in CRP and CRP+
 
  POMB vs AV9 POMB vs AV8 POMB vs AV7 POMB vs gobbo CPOMB vs AV9 CPOMB vs AV8 CPOMB vs AV7
CRP 31.5/14.2 45.0/20.5 58.5/26.8 68.8/37.9* 58.5/26.8 58.5/26.8 58.5/26.8
CRP+ 21.1/9.5 32.1/14.6 45.4/20.8 52.2/28.7* 34.4/16.4 34.4/16.4 45.4/20.8

 
3. Fouling: A generic +1 modifier now applies to the armor roll when fouling.

This rule serves two purposes. First, it replaces some of the carnage which is lost with the change to Piling On. Secondly, it makes it just a bit easier to retaliate against players who rely heavily on Piling On. If he is on the ground, you can foul him easier - and if he is still standing, you can attack him in the normal manner... and then foul him if you want to.
 
4. "Sneaky Git (Agility): The player is a sneaky silver tongued git. He'll argue the call, get the referee drunk, don a disguise or just plain sneak back onto the pitch - anything to get back to the game after being sent off for an infringement. To represent this, whenever a Sneaky Git is sent off by the Referee (including for carrying a Secret Weapon) he is sent to the K.O. box of the dug-out, and may recover in the normal manner."

Fixing weak skills is not really on the NTBB agenda - but buffing fouling is. The first SG fix I've tried was not a hit with the playtesters. SG has therefore been rewritten completely. It should now appeal to teams with secret weapons, teams with expensive linemen, dirty players and teams that often get outnumbered.

Dislodging Bash

5. Bank: A coach may stash up to 100K cash in his Bank at the end of the post game sequence (or when creating his team). This cash is unavailable until the next post game sequence - where it is immediately moved back into the treasury, (and can be affected by Spiralling Expenses). Cash in the Bank does not count towards TV, but cash in the treasury does.

In the current Blood Bowl rules teams were intended to eventually float around a Team Value cap of roughly 220 TV. Sometimes they would venture over it, and sometimes they would dip back under it. One of the mechanisms to ensure this was the above described Bank rule, which was part of the CRP playtest, but which was nixed by JJ at the last minute. Part of the bash slant in CRP is that some of the heaviest and bashiest teams can stay above the cap for very long periods of time - and they do that by going in with massive treasuries. The Bank rule was and is intended to prevent that.
 
6. Spiralling Expenses: The recommended Spiralling Expenses should be set at a starting point of 180, with steps of 10.

Slightly harsher Spiralling Expense settings should help bring down the cap a bit. The SE levels are entirely optional anyway, but any league commissioner changing them to something higher should know that he is making things easier on the big basher teams.
 
7. Concessions: The team that receives the concession no longer gets the conceding team's cash. The cash is just lost.

The cap works by restricting the cash flow. Giving away extra cash whenever you bash an opponent into submission just wasn't a good idea.
 
8. Wizards: Wizard price increased to 200K

The wizard has been one of the main ways for finesse teams to win in face of the bash onslaught. 2+ to pop the ball, take the lead and then hope for the best against the bash. Now that the bash has been curbed, this main weapon of finesse teams has to be curbed too. The price has been upped to 200K

CRP+ Rosters
GalakStarscraper and DoubleSkulls agree that both the Human and the Khemri team are somewhat underpowered for tier 1 teams - and suggest the following changes.

9. Humans: Ogres reduced to 130K. Catchers get AV8 for no additional cost. (Galak wouldn't mind testing 80K blitzers on top of this)

The Human team gets 10K off the ogre, but the Human Catcher also gets an AV increase for free. This will make him the toughest catcher in the game, which is only fitting because he sure ain't the most reliable. This should stop him from being too much of a target and thus more likely to see play.

10. Khemri: BlitzRas and ThroRas get Thick Skull for free. Tomb Guardians become AV8, lose Decay and gain Break Tackle for +10K

The Khemri BlitzRas and ThroRas are overpriced because they used to be on a very powerful team. It no longer is, so they gain Thick Skull, to better match both their Linemen and their Price Tag. Tomb Guardians exchange the no-fun Decay for a basic AV8, and gain Break Tackle for an additional 10K - which should make the team rather more interesting to play.

2. Narrowing the Tiers: Why?

The different teams in Blood Bowl were never designed to be equally powerful!
This disparity originated in first edition and has carried over into 2nd edition, 3rd edition, the LRBs and finally into the current rules - the CRP. Somewhere in 3rd ed. the Blood Bowl community dubbed this the 'tiers', and sorted teams into tier 1, 2 and 3. When the current rules for Blood Bowl were developed, the BBRC decided to tie the tiers to specific win percentages, and made minor modifications to the official team lists - essentially reeling in the top teams and bringing up the rear.

I think this was a brilliant and bold move by the BBRC.
Even so, I wish they would have made the tiers a lot narrower.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want all teams to be equal. Heck, they can't be truly equal. What I want is for teams to suck or shine by a narrower margin.
Or to face the grandaddy of all strawmen head on: 'I don't want every team to become 0-16 6338 linemen' and 'I don't want BB to become chess'.
My ambition is the exact opposite! I want more variety and more fun, by having more teams widely played - I want the joke teams to be funny on the pitch, rather than just in the back of the rule book. And I want a wider field of contenders in tournaments and short leagues - rather than too many duplicates of the strongest starters.

Why have such wide tiers anyway?
The number one argument for the wide tiers seems to be that some coaches love a challenge - or indeed need a challenge, and the tier 3 teams provide a challenge, that can be played 'balls out' as Galak Starscraper (Tom Anders) recently put it.
But why should a good coach be limited to so few options? How long before 'stunties and big guys' feels repetitive?
And why is it 'balls out' to play a team gimped by the rulebook - yet somehow not 'balls out' to play a team gimped by your league commissioner?
It's easy to nerf a team - and you don't run the risk of disturbing the overall balance in the process. Capping the number of rerolls, reducing the number of positionals or simply upping some prices will all do the trick. However, it would by much simpler to assign a Team Value handicap to the coach who needs/wants a challenge. Increase Team Value by 10, 20 or even 30 points, and let the inducement system take care of the rest.

With such a simple rule in place, there's no reason not to make all rosters reasonably competitive.
And the team lists presented here are my shot at doing just that, by fitting all of the former tier 2 and 3 into the bottom half of tier 1.
The team lists are based on lots of online discussion, as well as a touch of executive decision. I'm also running a 150 game playtest tournament from June 2011 to June 2012 to see how things turn out.

The NTBB Rosters
 a) All changes have been made in an attempt to pull the best teams back into the top of tier 1, and push the worst teams into the top of tier 2 or bottom of tier 1.
b) No positionals have been added or removed - your painted up team is still good. (The gobbo team is the lone exception)
c) No overhauls: The changes are intended to be small, simple and significant.

The Narrow Tier BB Rosters can be downloaded here, in pdf format. Included is the Bretonnian Team, which is not an official team, nor is it an integral part of the NTBB rules.
Also for download is a stack of inducement hand-outs to ease inducement selection when using the Narrow Tier BB Rosters.

A short resume of the changes (10 teams in total)

Tier 3 - the biggest boosts

Tier 2 - minor boosts

Tier 0 - minor nerfs
The BBRC seem to have managed to get all the tier 1 teams into the 55-45% win zone that they wanted. But a handful of teams start out stronger than this, then fall down into the tier 1 zone in prolonged league play. In tournament play and short league play these teams are at a notable advantage - so I've introduced some minor changes to lessen their short term power without weakening their long term performance. Of these 5 teams, Undead and Amazon performance drops off very sharply at higher TV, so I've added a long term buff to both, in order to not completely overnerf them.

Changelog - now Change-locked for 2012

After releasing my NTBB alternative rules, they sparked a fair bit of discussion. A few excellent points were made, and those in conjunction with the first 100 games played in the playtest tournament have prompted me to make a few changes. I hope to test these further in playtest tournament 2, scheduled for autumn 2012. The changes can be seen below, and as of february first, 2012, the NTBB rules will be locked down for at least a year, including Tournament 2:
  • Orc team: Instead of removing the thrower, Blitzers are priced at 90K.
  • Amazon team: Short term nerf (Wrestle Blitzers) and long term buff (all-A-access and Diving Catch on the Catchers for free).
  • Halfling team: Dryads are dropped, so is a rostered Chef. Instead, halflings are split in 2 positions (linemen 5237 and catchers 5246)
  • Ogre team: Buff not big enough. Snots become 6136, while ReRolls are dropped to 60K - and Titchy prevents Tackle from affecting the block dice.
  • Vampire team: Loses the ReRoll discount. Their buff is now simply Thick Skull on the thralls.
  • Right Stuff change: Moved to just Titchy - The other stunty sides get a 10K RR discount instead.
  • Wizard: Lightning Bolt returns, but price is increased to 200K (Approved by Galak and Doubleskulls)
  • SG: Isn't good enough. New version will be tested - see below (Approved by Galak and Doubleskulls)
    22/2 2012: Reaching total agreement on the rules with DoubleSkulls and GalakStarscraper has prompted me to make 2 post-deadline changes
  • Piling On: Piling on can no longer be used to reroll armor rolls. It's injury rolls only.
  • Claw: Works on a roll of 8 before modification, (meaning that it does not combo with Mighty Blow on the armor roll)