TABBL House Rules

Here we go again....

The 3rd Season Edition of Blood Bowl has come and with it there've been many rules that require clarification. Ole James Workshop has given us another opportunity to flex our ability to read the rulebook and then to divine the outcome of the rules as well as we hope we can.

On this page, we'll go over a couple house rules and rules clarifications from the 3rd Season Edition to help coordinate our play.

Modifying the Dice Rolls

The Problem:

The rulebook has included a line on Page 33 stating that a D6 can not be modified below a 1, regardless of modifiers. Historically, Blood Bowl has relied upon an interpretation of dice roll targets that was the integral sum of the target of the agility test and the modifiers that are placed on the target. For example, an Agility 3+ player dodging into a tackle zone that is marked by another player would receive a -1 to the dice roll. This means that in order for that Agility 3+ player to pass their test, they need to roll a number that could absorb the negative modifiers and then to still meet the target of the skill test. E.g. To pass a skill test of 3+, with a -1 modifier, the player must roll a 4.

Because of the line included on Page 33, those negative modifiers cannot reduce the dice roll below a 1. This means that a player whose target for the skill test is a 1+ would always succeed their skill tests as long as a 2+ or better is rolled on their test. In case that doesn't quite make sense, imagine the following scenario: Jordell Freshbreeze is attempting to dodge into a zone with 5 Tackle Zones marking the square. By following the rules as written in the book, we would interpret the test in the following way: Jordell's Agility is a 1+, so the modified dice roll must meet 1 or better. The player rolls a 2+ for the agility test. The result is then calculated with the following formula ({[D6] ± [Modifiers]} ≥ (Agility)) with the caveat being that the lowest possible value that the value on the D6 can be modified to is 1. In this case, this would look like ({[2] - 5} ≥ 1+). We know that 2 - 5 would be -3 but because this would modify the dice roll to a negative value, we set the value of our modified dice roll to 1. Our final calculation would then be (1 ≥ 1) and Jordell would pass the agility test if we are following rules as written.

This obviously breaks many aspects of the game if we permit players to pass any agility test on a 2 if their agility score is 1+.

The House Rule:

TABBL will observe the modified dice rolls as historically been done in Blood Bowl. Our justification for this is namely that Jordell's special rule makes no sense in the game if the rules as written was the intended interpretation for the text that has been included in the game. Further, the nature of this as being so gamebreaking means that we will proceed cautiously and allow GW to define this in a future errata if this was the intended meaning.

Animal Savagery

The Problem:

The rules as written do not indicate whether a player who has failed their Animal Savagery roll can continue their activation if they lash out at another player.

The House Rule:

Given the ambiguity of this section in the book, and that the book does not indicate that the player becomes distracted when the roll is failed if they lash out, we will continue to play Animal Savagery as has historically been played. If a player is able to lash out at another player, their activation will continue.

Jumping

The Problem:

The rules as written do not indicate any limitation to the number of times a player can jump, whether with pogo or otherwise.

The House Rule:

TABBL will play this with rules as written. No limitation will be present on the number of jumps a player can perform during a single activation. The limitation will be set on movement as historically has been done.

Hiring and Firing Players

The Problem:

Currently, the rules as written do not permit players to fire positional players that have been injured. This is a result of the hiring step being denoted as occurring prior to the firing step on the page. This would mean that a player who suffers an injury, such as a wardancer, but is not removed from the roster from that injury (i.e. death) cannot be replaced until the post-game sequence of the next game that is played by that team.

The House Rule:

We will be observing this rule as implemented in TourPlay. Currently, TourPlay allows a coach to move around the ordering of the firing and hiring sequence without regard to the text as written. TABBL will remain consistent with TourPlay.

Prayers to Nuffle

The Problem:

Prayers to Nuffle are currently set to a maximum of 3 per player and cost only 10,000 Gold to induce. These currently affect the duration of the entire game and can have often times gamebreaking effects for a team. Further, having up to 6 of these active in a single game can lead to difficulty tracking the state of the game and keeping sense of what is going on, not to mention being potentially overpowered.

The House Rule:

TABBL Tabletop will not permit Prayers to Nuffle until more insight is gained on their effects on the state of the game. Other leagues in the PNW are permitting PTN and proceeding with RAW and we will be monitoring their performance in those leagues. At the mid-point of Season 5, we will review and implement them if appropriate.

Can I choose not to use Dodge when my player is blocked?

Or, how do Active skills work?

The Problem:

Historically, Blood Bowl has allowed a coach to elect whether their player chooses to ignore a "Stumble" result when their player is blocked. This can be situationally quite powerful as a player might choose to put a body in a square to avoid a blitz, stop chain pushes, or to just avoid a surf altogether. Further, the text explicitly stated that this was an option for coaches.

In Blood Bowl 2025, GW has introduced a distinction between "passive skills" and "active skills":

An Active Skill can be used by a player at any time, so long as they are Standing and are not Distracted. If an Active Skill can be used by a player that is Prone, Stunned or Distracted, then it will be stated in that Skill's description. If an Active Skill allows a player to declare a Special Action, then they may still declare the Special Action whilst Prone, so long as the Special Action allows them to first make a free Move Action to use the Special Action.

But this does not clarify the exact terms of what Active means for each individual skill. For example, the Defensive skill is classified as "Active" but does not clarify the terms when a player may or may not elect to use it. We've included the exact text on the left. This means that the rule book is treating "Active Skills" to mean something different than what we might normally think of it. A coach may want to think of "Active" as, "I can always choose to use this skill or not" but this is simply not supported by either the wording of the skills in the text nor the description of active skills. We would need something stronger to justify that position. Such as, "An active skill can be used by a player at any time and always at the coach's discretion". But this wording is not present.

We're instead left to opt for the more parsimonious interpretation something like this:

An Active Skill is one that is eligible for use as long as the player is not Prone, Stunned, or Distracted. (Disjunctive)
An Active Skill is one that allows the coach to choose to use the skill if, and only if, the skill description itself states that a choice is able to be made.

Caching out the 2nd of these claims is, admittedly, more difficult than appears at first glance. A reasonable person would start asking (and should ask) which skills can a Coach choose to use or not and when? But for the sake of brevity, we'll avoid this lacuna of clarity by awaiting an errata from GW that will hopefully end that argument before we need to have it. In the meantime, we'll simply focus on individual skills and when can we use them. If you have individual questions about a skill, please reach out to the League admin and we'll do our best to answer.

So then, with perhaps more detail added than is necessary, to answer our initial question: Can I elect to not use Dodge to avoid a chain surf, chain push, etc?

The House Rule:

As it stands, the Rule Book does not state that a player can use dodge to avoid a stumble. The text on page 62 merely states "If the target player has the Dodge skill, then this result becomes PushBack as described above. Otherwise, this result becomes POW as described below." In the past, the rule book has indicated that the dodge skill was optional and that the coach may choose to ignore the Stumbles result or not. But this is no longer present in the text. We can only then conclude that GW has chosen to remove this option from the coach who controls the player with dodge or that this was an oversight from the rule writers.

In this case, TABBL will observe the rules as written:

When dodging, the active coach may choose to reroll (or not to reroll) a failed Dodge attempt on their team turn.
When being blocked, if a Stumbles result is applied to a player and the player has Dodge then the result is treated as a Push Back. The coach may not choose to accept the pow.

Should this change in a future errata, TABBL will change its position.

Can I reroll a successful result?

The Problem:

There's been an active question in the Blood Bowl community about whether or not it's permissible to reroll successful rolls. And while the cases wherein you might want to do that are rare, they aren't nonexistent. For example, imagine that you've successfully found your way to a 2d Block on your opponent's ball carrier. But to get there, you introduced an assist so that you have 2 players standing around the square that the ball is bouncing from. As luck would have it, Nuffle has decided that you rolled the exact square that you didn't want, the ball has bounced into the magnetic hands of your Human Lineman, and he has, of course, rolled a 6 to catch the ball. Now your attempt at the ball is over, you're unable to do anything else, and your chance to score is officially over.

A coach might, in this case, think to themselves "If that lineman didn't roll a 6, the ball might hit the ground and then my Human Thrower could run, pick up the ball with Sure Hands, and attempt a throw with his newly nerfed 3+ passing stat to my catcher who can then score..." So, can a coach use a team reroll to reroll a successful skill test?

The House Rule:

As it stands, the rulebook does not offer clarity on this point. The rulebook neither states that it is a requirement that the skill test is failed nor that the skill test must be on the activated player nor that you cannot reroll a test if it was successful.

For this reason, TABBL will permit the rerolling of successful rolls if a coach decides it is appropriate and that it meets the criteria listed to the right. In so far as this is the case, as Myles from Thunderbowl has said so recently, feel free to chase that dragon of rerolls.

More added as necessary

We'll save this space for any additional rule changes that may occur for the 3rd Season Edition of Blood Bowl!

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