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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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It's also a little weird to go two-ish years with no progress, no new abilities, to suddenly having a level 30 or three level 20 jutsu in a new element overnight.
 
Shrooms said:
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.
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I would assume that, given this fact, Elemental Affinity doesn't have the 3-6 months requirement. I'd like to point out that Sealsmith and Chakra Weaver both say in their description that they require "typically 3-6 months of dedicated training", while Elemental Affinity does not include such a requirement.

Shrooms said:
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!
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Kanna was a jounin, unless you have information that searching for "Kanna Element" (not in quotes) doesn't find that reveals that she had multiple elements as a chuunin. Reo is a chuunin, but also a ninjutsu spec. Both of these fit into what I said.

Shrooms said:
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.
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As above, you (probably) don't have to not spend any other XP while learning the Element, so your growth is only slowed, not eliminated. That said, you're correct that it would be a suboptimal choice - unless you're a jounin who's past the initial death rate spike, so that most missions are not hugely dangerous to you; or a ninjutsu spec chuunin for whom the benefits are much greater. Plus, remember that you can remove stagnancy barriers in advance; if you have two domains, you could unstagnate both of them a barrier in advance and not have to worry about stagnancy for the whole time you're learning the element, if you monofocus on it. Even with just a combat domain, if you unstagnate in advance you'll only be a little stagnant by the time you finish the element, at which point the element will (presumably) help you unstagnate combat.

Shrooms said:
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.
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You could - but why would you? Level 10 in those skills gets you basically nothing; level 10 Genjutsu might ensnare a fresh Academy graduate, level 10 TH just about allows you to produce techniques on the order of "make mud hut" or "till field", and if you try to do anything with level 10 Sealing you'll just kill yourself in a sealing failure. (Like, literally anything; I think explosive tags are TN 5? Even timeladdering down twice, you'll still fail the infusion on a -12, and if you try to make them in quantity you'll hit that sooner rather than later.)

Shrooms said:
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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To get access to, yes. As I explained, once you consider the cost to level them even to 40-ish, you could have a new Element, a level 50 attack technique, and a level 30 support technique for about the same cost; and level 40 TH or level 40 Sealing still don't help your combat strength much. Plus, they're a lot more likely to kill you than elements are.

Anyway, I need to go to bed - but please do consider the point. Yes, Elements are expensive. Yes, buying one as a genin is probably suicidal. But they're not unreachable.
 
Kyreneryk said:
I would assume that, given this fact, Elemental Affinity doesn't have the 3-6 months requirement. I'd like to point out that Sealsmith and Chakra Weaver both say in their description that they require "typically 3-6 months of dedicated training", while Elemental Affinity does not include such a requirement
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It's much weirder than that.
Velorien said:
  1. You must find a teacher who has the element. This generally isn't hard if you live in a ninja village.
  2. You need to find one or more jutsu of the element. Typically the teacher will supply these.
  3. You need to put in 30 days of training over the course of 90 calendar days. Narratively, it's assumed that you've been doing a lot of work in advance.
  4. Each day of training is 4 hours. More doesn't help, less doesn't count.
  5. Over the course of your training you spend 1000 XP, 30 XP per day with the balance due on the last day.
  6. If you do not complete your 30 days within the 90 day window then your XP investment is lost and you need to start over. You weren't studious enough and the basics got mushy, chakra is weird, blah blah blah, whatever, it's a balance thing.
  7. As soon as you complete the training you get 500 XP back, which must be immediately spent on one or more jutsu of the relevant element. (The ones you were studying.) Any that are not immediately spent are lost. In-universe this sudden acquisition of levels is justified as "you've spent so long learning the jutsu that you know it inside out, and now you are actually able to power it
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You basically need to bank the XP ahead of time. Since you can't expect to generate 1000XP during 30 days. It's fucking strange.
 
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Something worth mentioning for learning multiple elements earlier on being likely to get genin killed: many of them do die! Most in fact! So, like, sub-optimal build paths are common. We get miscellaneous comments that don't make sense together (Zabuza saying any good jonin should have all 5 while Itachi is only shown so far to have 3), but overall I can see a bunch of genin wanting more of the things making them powerful and special, and a bunch trying for that. Most die, some survive, it populates the probability space. Heck, our ninjutsu spec only has one, while our ranged weapon user has two, so it isn't already cut and dry.

Beyond that, I think it's an issue of access to power. Sure, TH is useful, especially for stunts when you're already strong, but it need to afford to have someone teach you, and we know it is expensive enough even two clan heads Noticed. More rare and esoteric skills needs people to teach them, and often there just aren't a lot of people to do that. However, everyone's born with an element, so access to instruction is much easier and cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised at all if many Kei ninja try learning a second element too early, just out of lack of alternatives to get stronger or more versatile.
 
Imagine if telling genin that 'any good Jonin has five elements' is actually a psyop designed to weed out ninja who can't properly plan their builds.
 
Sir Stompy said:
You basically need to bank the XP ahead of time. Since you can't expect to generate 1000XP during 30 days. It's fucking strange.
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Yeah. This is a crazy small amount of time. This is not how stunts have been run historically

Assuming time parity with the other major stunts (3 to 6 months), to generate that xp within 6 months you need a base rate of at least 5.6 XP a day to generate 1000 xp in time...

And the narrative has most certainly not presented learning an element like it's a multi year thing IMO. Especially if you're trying to like, half-spend half-save.

Kyreneryk said:
Kanna was a jounin, unless you have information that searching for "Kanna Element" (not in quotes) doesn't find that reveals that she had multiple elements as a chuunin. Reo is a chuunin, but also a ninjutsu spec. Both of these fit into what I said.
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(FWIW Kanna is also a ninjutsu spec.) Kanna's Interlude explicitly states she was promoted to Special Jonin after learning 4 elements. She later became a full jonin with all 5 IIRC.

Kyreneryk said:
As above, you (probably) don't have to not spend any other XP while learning the Element, so your growth is only slowed, not eliminated. That said, you're correct that it would be a suboptimal choice - unless you're a jounin who's past the initial death rate spike, so that most missions are not hugely dangerous to you
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We've been told a few times that learning new elements is something done to PREPARE for being a jonin, not something you get around to after a few years of being one. Asuma was recommending Akane get more elements as a chuunin for this same reason.

Kyreneryk said:
You could - but why would you? Level 10 in those skills gets you basically nothing; level 10 Genjutsu might ensnare a fresh Academy graduate, level 10 TH just about allows you to produce techniques on the order of "make mud hut" or "till field", and if you try to do anything with level 10 Sealing you'll just kill yourself in a sealing failure. (Like, literally anything; I think explosive tags are TN 5? Even timeladdering down twice, you'll still fail the infusion on a -12, and if you try to make them in quantity you'll hit that sooner rather than later.)
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The point isn't that this is some incredible build decision, it's that it's as easy to learn three very different esoteric arts as it is to learn a single element which is supposedly "typical" - at the very least, there's more people who know multiple elements than there are specialists in all of these arts.

Kyreneryk said:
To get access to, yes. As I explained, once you consider the cost to level them even to 40-ish, you could have a new Element, a level 50 attack technique, and a level 30 support technique for about the same cost; and level 40 TH or level 40 Sealing still don't help your combat strength much
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I don't find this argument persuasive at all. There's barely any chuunin sealmasters. Half or more of all sealmasters just print explosives and paper tags. Of the remaining half, most are genin and die two or three projects in. That's like 10 people in a village who actually get this far, all of whom are highly likely to have made their explicit career doing research and are only investing in Sealing.

Meanwhile, minimum 50 jonin have learned two or more new elements, some indeterminate amount of chuunin have learned one or two, and Clan genin are learning elements for their clan techs.

They're not comparable build decisions. A sealmaster can afford to raise their Sealing extremely slowly - that's all they are doing for the rest of their career, just sitting at home and printing or researching. Meanwhile if you aren't actively investing in the combat arms race the meat grinder eats you alive

Halberdier said:
Snip
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1: the status quo is mostly to our benefit because we are among the only people who could actually hope to afford it in a reasonable amount of time. I just think this doesn't really match up with how learning elements has been depicted narratively. But if it remains unchanged, well, sucks to suck everyone else should've gotten a 15/day income

2: this is why we call everyone else idiots

3: having multiple elements is cool. I just think it should be something available to more than us and the other elites :V
 
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[] Protoplan: Lord of War
Word Count: <299
Intended Duration: Until we finish Ninja Radar or Mirror Dragon (until then/1.4 solar)
  • Optimize all with Uplift to avoid offending the Bosses
    • Hazou trusts Cannai to use skytowers properly, our primary concern is Kei being ordered to assassinate Hazou. Is that likely?
  • Kumokugo
    • Explain our dilemma about contacting Leaf to her. If we wait too long we can't help, and if we go back too soon what we have might not be enough.
    • Offer suggestions for solving it, either leaving a dead-drop for Orochimaru in a place where he's sure to get it, or we could release her (or another Arachnid) from their oath and have them swear a more specialized one.
    • Once Kumokugo approves, enact the drop, leave a copy of Force Dome research notes as payment.
  • Cannai
    • Hazou doesn't feel like he's doing enough for the war effort.
      • We will start spending our DoB rest days from as a messanger for Dog.
      • Our primary talents have always been as a Sealmaster, and not a fighter. Hazou is willing to start mass producing skytowers for the Dogs to use in Leopard.
        • Assuming Cannai can use skytowers as the Pangolins could. If not, we can give another seal.
        • With the understanding that these are gifts, Hazou is under no obligation to continue giving them if they're misused.
        • Hazou can train Dogs in their use who can then train others.
        • Speaking as a fellow Clan Boss, Pantsaa wouldn't order Kei to kill Hazou over this...right?
    • We know that the war with Leopard and your battle with Hyōhakken must demand most of your attention, and we emphatically do not want to distract from that.
      • Hazou knows there's significant backlash when Summons are forcibly dispersed.
    • It would be incredibly useful if we had an S-Ranked combatant willing to fight our pursuers.
    • Hazou can't summon Cannai with just his natural reserves. However, with Noburi overcharge, there's a good chance.
    • Assuming he says yes, wait until a DoB rest day and make the attempt. Take a Moderate from overcharge and a Mild from overdraw.
      • Noburi on standby for immediate treatment.
  • Research
    • DoB tracks: Ninja Radar, Mirror Dragon
    • Non-DoB track: Banshee Lover
    • Prep days: PLTR 125, Scry-and-Fry, Green Beast, Earth Enhancer, (2 more?)
    • Continue learning mednin
    • Prime scribes 5SB for Kagome to infuse.
 
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Shrooms said:
Yeah. This is a crazy small amount of time. This is not how stunts have been run historically

Assuming time parity with the other major stunts (3 to 6 months), to generate that xp within 6 months you need a base rate of at least 5.6 XP a day to generate 1000 xp in time...
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You shouldn't assume this. It's pretty reasonable to ask a ninja to generate 250 XP in 3-6 months. 1000XP? Nah. That's why learning Elements allows you to use banked XP. So the base rate is irrelevant really, you just need to bank 1k XP before starting, or maybe like 800-900.
 
Another thing to consider is unless you have access to stuff that totally outclasses what you have in your primary jutsu you're just better off investing the 1000XP into a new jutsu in your primary element
 
Sir Stompy said:
It's much weirder than that.

You basically need to bank the XP ahead of time. Since you can't expect to generate 1000XP during 30 days. It's fucking strange.
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It's 30 days of training over 90 days. So you dont have to have the full 1000XP on training day 1/calendar day 1.

And if you do bank the full 1000XP you can be putting that XP towards your other techniques presumably.

So in universe it's presumably more like "wow my teammate seems to be slowing down their growth recently… I hope they'll be alright." To "WOW! My teammate has just exploded in combat strength overnight and has these cool new techniques! So awesome…"
 
[X] Lore Update
[X] (Interlude) Hazou's Research Results

We're on a deadline to research rift runes. We'll give the QMs a chance to catch up on prep days so we can persue critical research, rather than impatiently advancing the clock.

7th path section looks good though, (especially Cannai). I'll look forward to voting for it next cycle.
 
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Spector29 said:
Imagine if telling genin that 'any good Jonin has five elements' is actually a psyop designed to weed out ninja who can't properly plan their builds.
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On the one hand, yes, very strange.

On the other, I always figured there would be a skill that would make learning multiple elements easier after learning two? We've only ever learned one*(?) element? So once you learn two, you get the *Learned Multiple Elements* skill or such, and each element only gets exponentially easier.

*shadow doesn't count, because, uh, it's not in the main five? (would help explain the relative rarity of exotic elements as well, like ice, wood, lava, etc and the commonality of the "big five")
 
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