Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
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- Book Fort
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- They/Them
Just don't metagame, sounds like a skill issue
Edit:
[X] Lore Update
[X] have Kei work out a satisfactory implementation that doesn't offend any allies. It's either a trivial solve, or it contributes to her leadership unstagnation.
But also, I assume the oaths in question aren't "never pass a message again for the rest of our lives no matter what no backsies". We planned to deal the Akatsuki and Co back to business as normal. Seems crazy for the oaths not to have any exit conditions(even if hazo fumbles things, Kei and the bosses in question aren't likely to overlook this).
I don't know what the exit condition would be, beyond "we both agree to release it". "we defeat the Akatsuki" sounds sensible for a second, but decisively removes 7th path coordination as a tool for fighting Akatsuki, gives issues if the last Akatsuki member goes to ground, ect.
Overall, I'd expect the solution space around "get Kumokogo to agree to a new vow that allows the Oro-message and takes effect as soon as the old vow is released, then release the old vow" to work, but Kei isn't acting like that's the case and it's unclear to me why not, so I can't actually solve the problem.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Why can't we just put a package down and put a big sign next to it that says "FOR SNUNCLE"
When it's go time Oro could do something similar. Eye catching sealing effect like a lantern or w/e. Idk how often Kagome checks in with Kumo. Once a week? When such an effect is presented Kagome and Kumo can go over to it and see what Oro left us.
Why do we need an Arachnid to pass word along at all?
When it's go time Oro could do something similar. Eye catching sealing effect like a lantern or w/e. Idk how often Kagome checks in with Kumo. Once a week? When such an effect is presented Kagome and Kumo can go over to it and see what Oro left us.
Why do we need an Arachnid to pass word along at all?
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Seconded. One caveat here is that I don't recall what exactly we had Kumokogo swear. Is it just that she doesn't pass on any word? If yes, well, she'd been perfectly willing to get out of oaths on technicalities, so if we just tell her not to touch the giant eye-catching sign, she won't.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
I broadly agree, though I'll caution that the impression I have from the update is that Arachnid culture isn't keen on using technicalities to get out of oaths either. This doesn't change the nature of the task at hand, we still need to know the exact wording so that we can construct a request that they'll accept without burning any bridges, but I'd fudge upwards on the error bars for how unambiguous it ought to be. We've seen that Kumokogo is willing to stretch oaths to save her people from extinction, but in Arachnid that may have been an action on par with Mist allying Leaf after the USoUD: a taboo broken out of unwavering pragmatic necessity.
Having had a look, it seems like the reason you don't recall what exactly we had Kumokogo swear is that we don't know what exactly we had Kumukogo swear. The totality of the description in the relevant plan was:
And in the corresponding chapter:
There might have been discussion earlier that goes into more detail - I didn't look all that hard - but I don't think the exact wording was ever specified in a plan or described in an update.
Honestly, I'm with @Left-Hand Mutant on this one. The purpose of the oath is to prevent people (Akatsuki, themselves or via proxy) from contacting us; there's no reason at all for us not to be able to send messages, as long as we can't receive them. Because of that, it seems as though there should be no reason at all not to (at minimum) include a clause in the oaths that Hazō can release the oathsworn from their oaths at any time; and I think the relevant Clan Bosses would have suggested that themselves even if Hazō, Kei and Kagome had somehow all failed to think of it. They take oaths seriously on the Seventh Path, and therefore it seems likely that they would know to minimize the risk of getting stuck in an oath even after it's served its purpose.
[X] (Interlude) Snowflake's Perspective on the Goketsu Missing Nin Experience
[X] Lore Update
[X] Any Interlude
[X] Lore Update
[X] Any Interlude
While this seems like a neat solution in character (though I'm not sure it would be nearly difficult enough to contribute anything towards unstagnating her leadership domain), iirc the GMs don't like it when we vote in plans that boil down to, "Have an NPC (read: GM) figure out the solution for us." While we could vote in "have Kei deal with it for us," and write out a proposed plan to give to the GMs out of character, I don't think at that point there's much of a difference between that and just having Hazou come up with the plan. It also doesn't resolve my main concern with having us come up with the plan in general, which is that it will likely involve lots of pings at the GMs as we ask them to clarify what exactly the (apparently not entirely clarified) oaths fully entailed.
As @Kyreneryk and I discussed, exiting an oath that Kei, Kagome, and a clan boss set up knowing it would need to be exited seems like it should be trivial.
If it isn't trivial, then addressing it in detail with an insightful player-made plan would require the full text and minutiae of the oaths. This requires the QMs to write the kind of oath that represents the carefulnes of a Frozen Skein user thinking very hard on the subject. That sounds like a lot of work for something I think no-one is excited over.
Buy punting it to Kei, the QMs can gracefully choose between "oops, yeah, I thought about it for 5 minutes and it's totally solvable, done", or "it's hard but also boring, Kei will deal with it off screen", or "Kei will give you an effable explanation of the problem so that you can actually try to solve it". Seems like the best solution.
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[X] (Interlude) Hazou's Research Results
Question for people - what's the plan for Kagome's training? I know we don't control it; but in the long run, it seems likely that both we and he will want him to learn PS, which will require Earth Element. Given that that takes 1000 XP, I assume we want to get him able to FOOM first, so the goal is to push up his SC, Resolve and CR first. Do we know if he's doing that at the moment? (Last I remember he was levelling CR to be able to cast SC, and then I think he did cast SC but can't do it without the pool effect, so presumably he's back to levelling CR?)
For that matter - have we tried to see if we can get access to Kagome's sheet? It requires him to be willing to tell us literally everything he can do, in complete detail, and Kagome - being famously paranoid - might not be willing to do that, even for us; but it would be enormously helpful for optimizing his FOOM, once he gets the stats for it and we get back to a position where we have the chakra available. Right now we don't even know if he needs pyramid support to hit the minimum requirements for FOOM.
- Note that these may include finishing Remote Explosive, which would be nicely upbeat.
Question for people - what's the plan for Kagome's training? I know we don't control it; but in the long run, it seems likely that both we and he will want him to learn PS, which will require Earth Element. Given that that takes 1000 XP, I assume we want to get him able to FOOM first, so the goal is to push up his SC, Resolve and CR first. Do we know if he's doing that at the moment? (Last I remember he was levelling CR to be able to cast SC, and then I think he did cast SC but can't do it without the pool effect, so presumably he's back to levelling CR?)
For that matter - have we tried to see if we can get access to Kagome's sheet? It requires him to be willing to tell us literally everything he can do, in complete detail, and Kagome - being famously paranoid - might not be willing to do that, even for us; but it would be enormously helpful for optimizing his FOOM, once he gets the stats for it and we get back to a position where we have the chakra available. Right now we don't even know if he needs pyramid support to hit the minimum requirements for FOOM.
I really don't, actually.
Runes make WMD creation extremely easy. There's a reason the sage/companions didn't pass on the art of Runesmithing.
So, no I don't want to teach it to anyone without a damn good reason.
And another small but import factor on those scales is that Kagome's terrible infosec makes him a bad person to safeguard metaphorical nuclear codes.
Perhaps; but I think the increase in risk of losing control of runesmithing from teaching Kagome is relatively low. Remember, having an exact model of the Great Seal stored in the Iron Nerve was only barely ruled to be enough reference material to figure out PS. Granted, multiple simple runes might be much easier to learn PS from than one massively complex one; but the fact that 3D sealing is possible is already too widely known to really keep it secret, and the fact that we can do it will become obvious to anyone who asks "hey, how does Leaf suddenly have access to super-powerful defenses" and puts it together with the fact that they know we were working on 3D sealing. Information leakage is not a huge deal; what we want to stop from happening is the leakage of sufficient reference material to learn the discipline, and rogue runemasters teaching PS outside our control.
I don't think Kagome is very likely to do either of those things. His verbal secrecy is terrible, but his ability to keep written notes secure is probably among the best in the Clan, and I really don't think he's going to try to teach runesmithing behind our back. (Especially given that his aforementioned problems with verbal secrecy means he may not be able to keep such a project secret from us, even if he wanted to.) The only remaining concern is Kagome personally going rogue with runesmithing, and again, I think that's unlikely.
On the other hand, the advantages are significant. Trivially, it means we can hand off projects to Kagome (who might actually be better than us when you discount DotB), and more generally get more rune research output. It probably helps with Kagome's status as the Arachnid summoner if he's actually able to help with the Great Seal directly, or even known to Kumokogo to be learning how to do that. And perhaps most importantly, it means that if we die, Oro is not left as the only runemaster in Leaf. (Granted that I'm not generally a fan of making plans in case we die, given that that would be a quest end or at least a dramatic quest transformation; but in character, Hazō would consider it, and we might end up taking control of someone close enough to Leaf (and/or getting Hazō resurrected) that having appropriate preparations would still be useful to us.)
Plus, Earth Element is a decent choice for Kagome to pick up anyway. It helps with perimeter defence (MEW, ES, etc.), gives access to Pangolin Earth Armour (and Kagome has taijutsu as his main combat stat), and generally complements Lightning well. I don't think it would be a waste for him to pick it up even if he never learned PS, given that he has to level CR anyway for FOOM and Summoning.
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- Location
- Liverpool
Leveling CR, then SC, and likely resolve, then learning a new element (maybe just going straight to BoC at least), then leveling PS, on stagnant rates, on a character that we don't control the sheet of? I say we just let him be. If he wants to learn it, he can ask in character and we can seal with that then.
Edit: "Seal with it" was an unintended pun, better than I could possibly do on purpose.
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- Location
- Texas
With Kagome's XP rate, he is years away from getting to this point and he has never trusted us to handle his training schedule. It's not worth arguing about tbh.
Given that the upsides won't kick in until long after the Akatsuki crisis, I find most of them very unconvincing compared to the additional risk surface area created*.
This, however, is extremely convincing.
*
Oro is nearly unassailable(especially compared to Hazou) and hordes his power, so the risk area is mostly composed of Hazou. There is technically a sense in which Kagome doubles the risk area, but if the enemy has good targeting, they could go for Hazou almost as easily, so it doesn't really change the threat model much. Then again, defending against the same risks over twice the area is harder, and even small increases in X-risk are extremely bad.
Actually, by the time Kagome's ready to learn, Hazou will be Minato 2.0 while Kagome's combat stats will still be Chunin, so it actually will make abducting a runemaster *much* easier. That's a big deal.
Actually, by the time Kagome's ready to learn, Hazou will be Minato 2.0 while Kagome's combat stats will still be Chunin, so it actually will make abducting a runemaster *much* easier. That's a big deal.
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- He/Him
(pls change the element stunt to cost 500xp refund 250 so it has parity with the other big cost stunts like Sealing and genjutsu pls, it suits the majority of the setting's income way better)
Seconding this. Elemental affinity is way more expensive than anything else in the system.
I think the cost is reasonable, personally? It's not that exorbitant once you consider the cost of raising the (usuallly doublecost) skills unlocked by those stunts compared to the (halfcost except for the first) ninjutsu unlocked by Elements. For comparison, 1000 XP (plus or minus ten) gets you:
- Sealsmith (250 XP) + Sealing 24 (600 XP) + Calligraphy 17 (153 XP)
- Chakra Weaver (250 XP) + TH 27 (756 XP)
- Elemental Affinity (500 XP) + [Ninjutsu] 31 (496 XP) + (misc. ninjutsu with remaining 4 XP)
- Elemental Affinity (500 XP) + [Ninjutsu 1] 24 (300 XP) + [Ninjutsu 2] 20 (105 XP) + [Ninjutsu 3] 20 (105 XP)
- Sealsmith (250 XP) + Sealing 37 (1406 XP) + Calligraphy 26 (351 XP)
- Chakra Weaver (250 XP) + TH 41 (1722 XP)
- Elemental Affinity (500 XP) + [Ninjutsu 1] 50 (1275 XP) + [Ninjutsu 2] 30 (232.5 XP)
- Elemental Affinity (500 XP) + [Ninjutsu 1] 40 (820 XP) + [Ninjutsu 2] 36 (333 XP) + [Ninjutsu 3] 36 (333 XP)
I think the main problem with Elemental Affinity being 500 XP and refunding 250 is that, if it worked like that, it would massively change the distribution of who learns elements. At 1000 XP, picking up new elements is the kind of thing you do at chuunin if you're a ninjutsu spec, or at jounin if you're not; at 500 XP, it would probably make sense for most chuunin to have at least two elements for the sheer utility, and the world we see in MfD doesn't look like that.
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Okay, fair point, I didn't think of that, you're probably right about this.
EDIT: Shrooms responded to Kyrenryk and now I don't know what to think. I'm going to split the difference and say that Elemental Affinity should probably cost 2000XP.
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- He/Him
Consider that the average base rate of a ninja is 2 xp per day. To accrue 1000 XP takes five hundred days. A year and a half.
Consider that Kei and Noburi, who were considered upper quartile at 3 xp per day, would take 333 days to learn a new element (ignoring stagnancy which would take even longer.)
Hazou, who is jonin track with 4/day XP, would take 250 days, or 8 months, again ignoring stagnancy.
The way EVERY OTHER STUNT works is that you must accrue the xp you spend on the stunt in the time you're learning the stunt. This came up with Hazou's shadow clone training and TH lessons. For the major stunts like Sealing and TH, you get minimum 3 months maximum 6 months to get the xp and learn the stunt. But this is literally impossible to do for 99% of the setting learning just ONE element.
And yet learning elements is seen as so ubiquitous that not only do jonin learn it, but it's typical of chuunin too (I know you said we don't see that, but... we literally do tho? Nara clan, Kanna, Reo, etc.) Hell clans like the Nara require it even for their goddamn genin. People learn more than two, even!
Now imagine running missions for an ENTIRE YEAR not leveling any of your skills and also probably gradually stagnating, just to try and get one more element. This pretty much never makes sense in your career unless you suddenly get the excuse to do nothing for a year straight somehow.
For about this same sum and same amount of time you could learn Genjutsu, TH, and Sealing one after another and get them to level 10.
It is just far too overpriced for it to be anything that non-geniuses bother with IMO. No one who actually does missions can afford to not spend for an entire year.
EDIT: To your original point, learning another element is considerably more typical than learning TH, Sealing, and genjutsu which have all been depicted as rare and esoteric. And yet it's actually way easier to learn those things than a single element.
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What if stagnation was suspended when learning a new element but only for XP going into learning that element?
Before buying any new elements, in favor of prep daying a rune to make learning them easier.
Before buying any new elements, in favor of prep daying a rune to make learning them easier.
Simulationism this, textual consistency that. Lower the cost so Hazou can buy more cool elements. 😤
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- Book Fort
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- They/Them
I wanna see him in Pangolin Earth Armor, crackling with a lightning halo from SotS, ripping enemies to shreds with his titanium gauntlets ;-;
- Location
- The Void
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- She/Her
Plus to avoid being stagnant for 1000 XP your going to hit two barriers. Since most ninja are only going to have a combat domain that means your going to have to go into two combats without improving any of your skills. That's close to a death sentence for everyone who tries to learn a new element