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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Left-Hand Mutant said:
I mean, it seems like Cannai might have just overestimated Hazou's combat power? pretty reasonable, tbh.
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It's possible he modestly overestimated it, but the degree can't be large - not only does Hazou lack a jounin aura, but he and Cannai had a conversation about this very topic in an earlier update where Cannai acknowledged that Hazou wasn't Kakashi, wasn't a major combat threat but still contributed enormously via his economic benefits, social organizing (the Crusade), and so on.

Even without this, it seems extremely unlikely given Boss-level senses and Cannai's long familiarity with Hazou for Cannai to grossly overestimate Hazou's combat skill. He knows Hazou is a sealmaster foremost, not a combat jounin.
 
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Sir Stompy said:
Would he be happy with deposing the Leopard Boss and having their next leader swear neutrality in the Dog-Hyena-Pangolin conflict? That way he gets a buffer state (until the Pangs invade at least)

This seems more feasible to me than full extermination or Trail-of-Tearsing them to Cat. But also I'm not a Clan Boss and their whole Land gobbledygook is probably a factor here.
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The hypothesis that jumps out at me as a reason why Cannai isn't doing that is that it would require him to go deep into Leopard territory to fight the Leopard Boss on their own turf.

As someone (I forget who) raised, exterminating Leopard probably does mean killing the Leopard Boss, so it might at first seem like it'd be easier to just kill the Boss without going through their whole clan first. However, if Cannai is willing to claim all of Leopard, then he can incrementally claim more and more land while always staying next to the edge of his own territory. That way, if Hyōhakken shows up, Cannai can (probably) immediately retreat across the border, at which point it becomes a contest of two Clan Bosses at a territorial boundary; both of them are on their own land, it's (presumably) an even fight. Cannai can further stack that confrontation in his favour by having a bunch of strong Dog combatants with him at all times, though Hyōhakken may or may not be capable of bringing some number of Leopards with him at Clan Boss speeds.

Contrast the requirements for an assassination strike on Hyōhakken in his own territory. If Cannai went himself, he'd be far from his own territory and unable to retreat to it in a hurry, while Hyōhakken would be on his territory and could very likely overwhelm Cannai and whoever he brought with him. Even if Cannai managed to assemble a force strong enough to kill Hyōhakken on his own ground without the aid of a territory-boosted Clan Boss, nothing obviously stops Hyōhakken from just running - again at Clan Boss speeds - and coming back with a bigger force faster than Cannai & co could retreat, though that might allow Cannai to claim ground in Leopard and make the fight more even again.

I think this is probably why Cannai hasn't already considered the idea of assassinating Hyōhakken directly; it seems likely that it just isn't a viable option unless you could make a force big enough to kill Hyōhakken and high-tier enough to do it before he can decide to run away and stealthy enough to sneak up on him despite whatever undefined Clan Boss landsenses he might have (or else you end up dealing with the aforementioned "Hyōhakken grabs a bigger army and then comes back" problem).
 
ProperAttorney said:
It's probably worth wrapping up any lingering seals we have on the docket first (Banshee Lovers, Lightning Rod, Banshee Fuckers, the Lightning Emitter and Blocker from the Cloud jonin). Maybe the anti-fire jutsu seal array, but it's borderline unusable so maybe not.
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OtOH, changing stunts now means better Runes for attacking the rift/defending Leaf.
I could be convinced to delay for really high-impact stuff, but a lot of the things on that list aren't priorities for our time right now, and can probably wait until we buy sealing again.

I think my ideal case is we either
  1. Buy DoB right away
  2. Finish the riftwar, then spend both SSA tacks researching Army of One(Hazou pattern) and Force Armour, then buy DoB
 
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Iris-Iven-Ibis said:
It difficulty is Kei
As she automatically become bloodlusted knows your location at all times and is allowed to cheat
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Yuno becoming a Jashinist was surprising but plausible in retrospect. Turning Kei into a favoured of Jashin would be an amazing accomplishment.

Edit:

KEI [reluctantly putting on Jashin amulet]: When I said I was concerned about becoming a more intelligent Akatsuki, I was imagining myself as a superior Uchiha Itachi, or perhaps Konan. I might even have accepted Kisame. Hazō, I promise I will inflict extensive, nay, egregious violence upon your frail flesh for this slight.

HIDAN: Yeah, now you're gettin' it.

KEI: [facepalm]
 
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charlesrwest said:
Random thought:
What would it take to tweak shadow clone? Could we get ma/pa involved or no because opsec?

It's been stated many times that shadow clone isn't meant for training. What if we could make one that was?
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This is probably what Itachi did when he turned SC into a combat viable jutsu. Tweaked it so he can control how the jutsu distributes chakra.

Tweaking it to either have less clone shock or better clone reintegration seems possible but probably only if you are Tobirama or Itachi. Certainly not with TH 10 or even 40.
Kyreneryk said:
The hypothesis that jumps out at me as a reason why Cannai isn't doing that is that it would require him to go deep into Leopard territory to fight the Leopard Boss on their own turf.
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Plausible
Kyreneryk said:
As someone (I forget who) raised, exterminating Leopard probably does mean killing the Leopard Boss
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This was me
Kyreneryk said:
I think this is probably why Cannai hasn't already considered the idea of assassinating Hyōhakken directly; it seems likely that it just isn't a viable option unless you could make a force big enough to kill Hyōhakken and high-tier enough to do it before he can decide to run away and stealthy enough to sneak up on him despite whatever undefined Clan Boss landsenses he might have (or else you end up dealing with the aforementioned "Hyōhakken grabs a bigger army and then comes back" problem).
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Since Cannai has the bodies to spend it seems to me that he could amass enough of an army on the border to grind through Leopard, claiming Hyōhakken's territory as he goes. Grinding his way to the Boss until Hyōhakken is forced to fight or flee (and therefore lose legitimately). Once he's defeated offer to let the Leopards keep their homes if the new Boss will swear neutrality.

This seems straightforwardly better than genocide
 
Sir Stompy said:
Once he's defeated offer to let the Leopards keep their homes if the new Boss will swear neutrality.
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This is predicated on Cannai trusting a Leopard. There's a healthy chunk of risk in there. We have some evidence that Bosses can't easily make binding promises: it would have made the whole Pantsaa-Conjura thing a lot easier.

Asking him if he's considered this course of action might be reasonable but I expect that his answer will be that you can't trust a Leopard, or that he can't given the current circumstances.
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
This is predicated on Cannai trusting a Leopard. There's a healthy chunk of risk in there. We have some evidence that Bosses can't easily make binding promises: it would have made the whole Pantsaa-Conjura thing a lot easier.

Asking him if he's considered this course of action might be reasonable but I expect that his answer will be that you can't trust a Leopard, or that he can't given the current circumstances.
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In general, there seems to be a whole thing about how swearing oaths on the Seventh Path is a much bigger deal than you'd naively expect. So this relies on that somewhat.
 
Sir Stompy said:
In general, there seems to be a whole thing about how swearing oaths on the Seventh Path is a much bigger deal than you'd naively expect. So this relies on that somewhat.
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I really want to ask Cannai why the clans war. As far as we can tell no one is starving and overpopulation isn't an issue, no one seems to care about resource extraction, so...why? That stuff isn't the only reason that countries go to war on the Human Path but it's a meaningful source of pressure.

I expect that it has to do with metaphysical Boss shit, but having that confirmed would be nice and also help us assess situations on the Seventh Path a bit better. Maybe any Boss with less than a certain amount of territory is basically compelled by nature to expand. Maybe some Bosses are just assholes.
 
ContextBot said:
He would like to keep dogs alive. He's willing to accept other outcomes, but losing manpower to leave the Leopards alive and then fight the Pangolin is a no-go for him. Even the Hyena alliance is a risk for him, he can't just tell his people to accept this without any kind of stratigic reason.
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This is the same strategy for total war. Just without the part where he kills/deports them all at the end.

So he's prepared to do this either way.

FaintlySorcerous said:
That stuff isn't the only reason that countries go to war on the Human Path but it's a meaningful source of pressure.
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In our modern day world people still go to war even though there are more than enough resources for everyone to live comfortably in peace. War destroys far more value than it brings to the people who wage it.

Why is that? People are assholes.

I'd bet anything it's exactly the same here.
 
Sir Stompy said:
In our modern day world people still go to war even though there are more than enough resources for everyone to live comfortably in peace. War destroys far more value than it brings to the people who wage it.

Why is that? People are assholes.

I'd bet anything it's exactly the same here.
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Cannai already established, at least towards Hazou, that he doesn't want the Land. And he doesn't want Leopards to be his slaves or workers.

So it's really not the same. Unless he lied to us.
 
PSA: Retcon to chapter 664

It was pointed out in PM that the level of warfare described in chapter 664 might go far enough to violate rule 2 of SufficientVelocity. As such, it has been toned down in order to avoid potential for another threadlock.

It wouldn't be the worst idea to edit your posts to remove mention of what used to be there. As we've seen in the past, even if chapter content is eventually deemed to be non-problematic, discussion of said content can be infraction-worthy.
 
Dear players,

There is some debate among the QMs about where to draw the line regarding Hazō's agency vs the players' agency. As such, the mechanics for your newly-created Force Claws seal are below. You have until 10pm Eastern tonight to come up with ways to use these on your current venture with the dogs. All proposals must be something that Hazō and Kagome could have conceived and implemented within 24 hours of inventing the seal. You do not have time to do 'prepared ground' work for this combat, meaning that you cannot say "oh, we set up a bazillion traps all around the battlefield before meeting the cats." The ground is empty and you will have one round to prep things before the fight starts.

Hazō and Kagome had 24 hours of prep time before Hazō went to meet the dogs, so they could have prepared things then. As far as resources, they would have had whatever seems fair in their seals, including but not limited to reasonable amounts of tools, leather, cloth, canine saddlebags, skywalker reload slots (human use only), a couple of CHAOS suits (human use only), planks, ropes, etc. Between the two of them and Hazō's shadow clones they had time to make a few dozens seals.

The tight IRL timeline is intended to represent the limited time and resources that Hazō and Kagome had to conceive and implement their ideas. There are only two of them and many of you, so we feel this is fair.

(EDIT: For clarity, this is not a vote, so there's no need to write up plans. I'll read the discussion and use (at least some of) whatever seems reasonable and interesting.)



Mechanics for the Force Claws seal

The Force Wall seal, progenitor of this one, generates an invisible barrier 4m x 4m. The barrier is not actually two-dimensional but it's sharp enough that you'll lose your fingers if you try to do a pull-up on it. Force Wall requires two seals facing one another with relatively precise alignment and 4m apart.

Force Claws is intended as a combat tool and it needs to balance being effective with risks of friendly fire; you don't want a 4m blade sticking out the end of your arm, because it will catch on the ground. You don't even want a 1m blade sticking out the end of your arm, because there's a serious risk of cutting your own leg off if you move incorrectly. The key parts of this seal are a central point that acts as an emitter and a guide line pointing forwards. The force blade is generated tangent to the emitter in the direction of the guide line. The seal can therefore be applied to a curved surface but will not follow the curve. As a good compromise between effectiveness and safety, Force Claws are 10 cm (~4") long as measured from the emitter.

The fact that the blades are invisible provides an excellent surprise advantage. If a target does not know that you have them, Force Claws add +6 to Taijutsu or equivalent close-combat skill, or +3 if the target is aware of them. They are Weapon:4.

If used with a sword or other long weapon it is therefore most useful when applied to the end of the weapon, although this raises concerns about the seal being damaged in combat, either from being caught in an AOE ninjutsu / submerged in water / splattered in large amounts of blood / soaked in the rain / etc. (The seal is resistant to the last two but not immune.) Sufficient damage will cause the seal to shut down.
 
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eaglejarl said:
Dear players,

There is some debate among the QMs about where to draw the line regarding Hazō's agency vs the players' agency. As such, the mechanics for your newly-created Force Claws seal are below. You have until 10pm Eastern tonight to come up with ways to use these on your current venture with the dogs. All proposals must be something that Hazō and Kagome could have conceived and implemented within 24 hours of inventing the seal. You do not have time to do 'prepared ground' work for this combat, meaning that you cannot say "oh, we set up a bazillion traps all around the battlefield before meeting the cats." The ground is empty and you will have one round to prep things before the fight starts.

Hazō and Kagome had 24 hours of prep time before Hazō went to meet the dogs, so they could have prepared things then. As far as resources, they would have had whatever seems fair in their seals, including but not limited to reasonable amounts of tools, leather, cloth, canine saddlebags, skywalker reload slots (human use only), a couple of CHAOS suits (human use only), planks, ropes, etc. Between the two of them and Hazō's shadow clones they had time to make a few dozens seals.

The tight IRL timeline is intended to represent the limited time and resources that Hazō and Kagome had to conceive and implement their ideas. There are only two of them and many of you, so we feel this is fair.
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faflec.screaming.
 
Alright, I just got back from the dentist with three more holes in my face so I'm probably not going to be up for much thinking once this lidocaine wears off.

I pledge my vote to the good ol' dependable Noumero.

[X] @Noumero
 
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I think you want something like the following:

  • Unicorn Helmet: some sort of harness that allows the force blade to stick out from the top of the dogs head towards the snoot (this is on top of the dog's head). Ramming or tacking is now extra dangerous.
  • Some sort of harness that allows 1+ force blades to be on the side of the doggos head, near the mouth, pointing forwards. Bites are now extra dangerous.
  • Force Blades attached to some sort of innocuous stick that they are holding in their mouths. Thwacks and Fetch-based Dog Ninjutsu are now extra dangerous.
  • Harness projecting blades sideways (like on those saddlebags we already made): this might be okay but theyd have to be careful not to nudge.
  • A basketball based delivery mechanism. Dog Clan Technique: Who Says a Dog Can't Play Forceblade Ball
 
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