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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Paperclipped said:
So, we want to ask: what do you want us to do in this situation?
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So, to start off, my specific opinion on the "tweak ES" thing is that I never really got all the hubbub about trying to avoid BoC 30 in the first place. Like, yeah it would be convenient to not spend the XP and AB slot on it, but it's not a huge burden. And this is already the toned-down requirement instead of leveling Earthshaping itself to (probably) 60, costing way more XP and a much more valuable AB slot. So I've always quietly been in the camp of "maybe give it a shot if we get the opportunity, but otherwise just bite the bullet" while being a little bemused at how desperately people seemed to want there to be a third, even less expensive option after we went to Orochimaru of the Sannin to get a cheaper method in the first place.

But if I consider the question as an example of how and when simulationism should flex and bend for player enjoyment... I don't really think there's much to be gained from bending here. Like, with the lump sums of substrate we had, it wouldn't be much of a restriction on us to spend that down as we invest in BoC until we can make it ourselves. We couldn't afford to when our XP was spoken for by the need to hit PS softcap, but if we're going to be put in a less agency-deprived gamestate from here then I think we simply have everything we need to get what we want. Well, aside from the fact that we can't reach our substrate now that we're dead, but even if we had to reach BoC 30 before resuming runecrafting, that doesn't strike me as too onerous now that we're not in the researchmaxxing race. Heck, it wasn't much of a problem to hold off on runecrafting while we were back in Leaf, we've done this before.

So, all in all, I don't think player agency is being significantly restricted by the fact that we need to level BoC to obtain a renewable substrate supply, stockpile or no. If it was predictably the case that our ability to pursue a fun and engaging storyline once we returned to the land of the living required immediate access to runecrafting, then there'd be a case. Then you'd be able to say "things would suck a bit if you had to wait here, so we'll try to figure out a way that you won't have to". But if anything, being bereft of runecrafting for a time would force us to put the main quest on pause (if there's no ticking doomsday clock, a la the rift race) and choose some other objective to engage with while we raise BoC to the necessary level. That is to say, it's quite possible that bending simulationism to give Hazou easy substrate generation would be counterproductive to the goal of promoting player agency and engagement. (Though that's heavily context-dependent, definitely not the whole of the conversation)

As such, here's my thoughts about each proposed outcome:
  1. Should we keep the target changes ~impossible (think: >TN70) as we think they should be, and have Hazō-pilot just say that he doesn't think it can be done?
  2. Should we make the target changes accessible within Hazō's TH skill (TN30s-40s) and ignore the implied setting consequences if analogous changes are similarly very easy? (That is, make this a Hazō-exclusive privilege)
  3. Should we declare that tweaking jutsu is actually really easy, set the TN in an accessible range, and quietly make THers everywhere much more powerful?
  4. Should we 'compromise' somehow, setting the TN high but not beyond what Hazō could potentially reach (e.g. TN 50s?)
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Respectively:
  1. No objections here. As I covered above, I do not consider this particularly onerous to player agency and enjoyment even if it'd be nice in a different sense to save the XP and AB slot.
  2. I might have been amenable to this literally an hour ago, but hearing that Bones of Creation was already a Sannin's efforts at optimizing ES for this purpose makes me feel like there's just no plausible excuse for why Hazou's results would be so much better. If it were an open question I could buy "chakra be weird yo" or something similar, but as things stand now it would have to be a pretty blatant break. If it were desperately needed to keep the fun together I might pinch my nose and go along with it, but given my breakdown above my stance is a hard "no" to this.
  3. As mentioned by Stompy, I kind of thought that the difficulty of a tweak was already a lot lower than the difficulty of the jutsu itself, but if I ask whether it should be even easier to the point where any half-decent THer should have tricked out every jutsu in their toolkit no matter how complex... I find myself not super drawn one way or the other. The relative power scaling of the TH essies out there feels intuitively as something in your domain and not something for me to care about except insofar as I want to assemble an accurate model so as to make better-informed choices. Yet again, I don't feel like this is necessary, but if a change is deemed to be needed this is much more palatable than option 2 IFF the QMs also find it palatable.
  4. Much like 2, I do not like the idea of Hazou being given an advantage like this with no plausible reason for it. That said, being a higher TN makes it feel more reasonable that such a plausible rationale could exist, and therefore I'm less against it.
Overall my preference ordering is 1 > 3 > 4 > 2, and I have one last thing to say pursuant to the "game difficulty" side of the equation: if we have everything we need to succeed, BoC and the XP to invest in it, and we consciously choose to not do that despite not having any reasonable expectation that a better outcome is possible, and then find that we need substrate and don't have it, that's entirely on us. Even with less high-octane difficulty we should not have blatant mistakes be outright forgiven because "consequences are unfun" or something. This isn't, to be clear, an indictment of our delaying it until now, as we had good reasons to allocate the XP elsewhere and good reason to believe we had plenty of substrate stocked up, and it's also only sensible to try the Tweak before committing to the no-Tweak route... but going forward, if we don't fiat the Tweak route into viability, it's our own responsibility to make sure we invest in BoC before we need it and it'd be our own fault if we don't.
 
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Inferno Vulpix said:
So, to start off, my specific opinion on the "tweak ES" thing is that I never really got all the hubbub about trying to avoid BoC 30 in the first place. Like, yeah it would be convenient to not spend the XP and AB slot on it, but it's not a huge burden. And this is already the toned-down requirement instead of leveling Earthshaping itself to (probably) 60, costing way more XP and a much more valuable AB slot. So I've always quietly been in the camp of "maybe give it a shot if we get the opportunity, but otherwise just bite the bullet" while being a little bemused at how desperately people seemed to want there to be a third, even less expensive option after we went to Orochimaru of the Sannin to get a cheaper method in the first place.

But if I consider the question as an example of how and when simulationism should flex and bend for player enjoyment... I don't really think there's much to be gained from bending here. Like, with the lump sums of substrate we had, it wouldn't be much of a restriction on us to spend that down as we invest in BoC until we can make it ourselves. We couldn't afford to when our XP was spoken for by the need to hit PS softcap, but if we're going to be put in a less agency-deprived gamestate from here then I think we simply have everything we need to get what we want. Well, aside from the fact that we can't reach our substrate now that we're dead, but even if we had to reach BoC 30 before resuming runecrafting, that doesn't strike me as too onerous now that we're not in the researchmaxxing race. Heck, it wasn't much of a problem to hold off on runecrafting while we were back in Leaf, we've done this before.

So, all in all, I don't think player agency is being significantly restricted by the fact that we need to level BoC to obtain a renewable substrate supply, stockpile or no. If it was predictably the case that our ability to pursue a fun and engaging storyline once we returned to the land of the living required immediate access to runecrafting, then there'd be a case. Then you'd be able to say "things would suck a bit if you had to wait here, so we'll try to figure out a way that you won't have to". But if anything, being bereft of runecrafting for a time would force us to pu the main quest on pause (if there's no ticking doomsday clock, a la the rift race) and choose some other objective to engage with while we raise BoC to the necessary level. That is to say, it's quite possible that bending simulationism to give Hazou easy substrate generation would be counterproductive to the goal of promoting player agency and engagement. (Though that's heavily context-dependent, definitely not the whole of the conversation)

As such, here's my thoughts about each proposed outcome:

Respectively:
  1. No objections here. As I covered above, I do not consider this particularly onerous to player agency and enjoyment even if it'd be nice in a different sense to save the XP and AB slot.
  2. I might have been amenable to this literally an hour ago, but hearing that Bones of Creation was already a Sannin's efforts at optimizing ES for this purpose makes me feel like there's just no plausible excuse for why Hazou's results would be so much better. If it were an open question I could buy "chakra be weird yo" or something similar, but as things stand now it would have to be a pretty blatant break. If it were desperately needed to keep the fun together I might pinch my nose and go along with it, but given my breakdown above my stance is a hard "no" to this.
  3. As mentioned by Stompy, I kind of thought that the difficulty of a tweak was already a lot lower than the difficulty of the jutsu itself, but if I ask whether it should be even easier to the point where any half-decent THer should have tricked out every jutsu in their toolkit no matter how complex... I find myself not super drawn one way or the other. The relative power scaling of the TH essies out there feels intuitively as something in your domain and not something for me to care about except insofar as I want to assemble an accurate model so as to make better-informed choices. Yet again, I don't feel like this is necessary, but if a change is deemed to be needed this is much more palatable than option 2 IFF the QMs also find it palatable.
  4. Much like 2, I do not like the idea of Hazou being given an advantage like this with no plausible reason for it. That said, being a higher TN makes it feel more reasonable that such a plausible rationale could exist, and therefore I'm less against it.
Overall my preference ordering is 1 > 3 > 4 > 2, and I have one last thing to say pursuant to the "game difficulty" side of the equation: if we have everything we need to succeed, BoC and the XP to invest in it, and we consciously choose to not do that despite not having any reasonable expectation that a better outcome is possible, and then find that we need substrate and don't have it, that's entirely on us. Even with less high-octane difficulty we should not have blatant mistakes be outright forgiven because "consequences are unfun" or something. This isn't, to be clear, an indictment of our delaying it until now, as we had good reasons to allocate the XP elsewhere and good reason to believe we had plenty of substrate stocked up, and it's also only sensible to try the Tweak before committing to the no-Tweak route... but going forward, if we don't fiat the Tweak route into viability, it's our own responsibility to make sure we invest in BoC before we need it and it'd be our own fault if we don't.
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Yeah I want to second all of this. It sucks that we gotta level BoC but ultimately it's <250 XP. I don't care that much. I'm happiest with keeping things as they are by default (option 1)
 
Or, alternatively, roll with the "Hazou invents a new ninjutsu that rolls ES as its attack, but any inherent Advantages scale off of the new jutsu's AB/stats/level.
 
I do not really understand what Tweaking (as opposed to Jutsu Creation for a Jutsu Similar to One You Already Have) even means. Are we talking about the THer permanently altering the mechanics for a jutsu they know, losing the previous mechanics unless they hack it back? Are we talking about the THer creating a stunt for the modded version of the jutsu — effectively a different version of its mechanics that they can substitute in at will, choosing which version they use when the jutsu is cast?
 
MadScientist said:
I do not really understand what Tweaking (as opposed to Jutsu Creation for a Jutsu Similar to One You Already Have) even means. Are we talking about the THer permanently altering the mechanics for a jutsu they know, losing the previous mechanics unless they hack it back? Are we talking about the THer creating a stunt for the modded version of the jutsu — effectively a different version of its mechanics that they can substitute in at will, choosing which version they use when the jutsu is cast?
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Paperclipped said:
A Tweak, which is a slight modification of an existing ninjutsu.
  • A tweak is a stunt, which will usually cost between 0 XP and 50 XP to learn.
  • A tweak cannot be shared with others.
  • A tweaked ninjutsu uses the level of the ninjutsu it is based on. When casting a ninjutsu, you may choose to use the ninjutsu's original spec or any tweak you've learned.
    • You cannot use two tweaks at once to modify a ninjutsu as you cast it.
    • If you want to combine tweak effects, that requires researching a new tweak.
  • For example: Hiruzen is tired of Water Dragon Bullet taking his Supplementals every time he casts it. He makes a tweak which changes the cast time from Full Round (-20 strain) to Standard (+0 strain), in exchange lowering the attack bonus from +AB (+30 strain) to nothing (+0 strain). The resulting stunt, Rapid Water Dragon Bullet, costs 5 XP to learn.
    • If he wants to cast the original Water Dragon Bullet, he can.
    • He can also cast Rapid Water Dragon Bullet at the same level as Water Dragon Bullet. This costs 2 CP less, and takes a Standard instead of a Full Round.
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I've always been quite dubious about the whole "ES is actually really complicated" thing. The description Cannai gave us of the jutsu made it sound like ES was instead primitive, like it was something that actual combat jutsu were invented from.
ES as a nonspecific attempt at earthbending that turned out to suck, so people went on to invent jutsu with less versatility but all the downsides removed.

Ah well. If we're set on ES actually being a masterwork technique that was left lying around and made publicly available by paranoid ninja, then I guess it makes sense for tweaking it to be largely useless.
 
I would say that tweaks should have their difficulty determined by how different you want to make the jutsu rather than how masterful the jutsu already is.

So making ES fast enough for ninja combat sounds really difficult, sure, but tweaking ES as a general principal shouldn't be harder than tweaking any other jutsu to a similar degree.
 
RandomOTP said:
Or, alternatively, roll with the "Hazou invents a new ninjutsu that rolls ES as its attack, but any inherent Advantages scale off of the new jutsu's AB/stats/level.
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I like this idea. it's essentially making a 1.5x Cost Jutsu that uses two slots, which is a rather interesting mechanical direction to go.
 
"ES should give us veterancy/practice with other earth jutsu" is a good idea, but I think it's already provided by the halfcosting of other earth jutsu.
 
Cariyaga said:
I like this idea. it's essentially making a 1.5x Cost Jutsu that uses two slots, which is a rather interesting mechanical direction to go.
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Obviously I'm a bit biased, but i like it, too :p

The "rolls a different stat" part is balanced by the fact that the range, AoE, and any AB bonuses would still scale off of the newly-created ninjutsu, rather than being a complete piggyback of ES, like a Tweak would.

It's a nice middle ground, I think.
 
I personally like the idea that the MIN allows much-faster casting of every jutsu: replaying chakra manipulations instead of physical movements.

Modifying ES for use in combat is basically impossible: what you create is just too slow. Unless you're Hazo, in which case Multiple Earthshaped Wall is a viable combat technique and you're going to find yourself encased in diamond if you don't watch out.
 
I posted this in discord but RandomOTP said it's worth posting an extended version here as well.

I think there's a solid case for Earthshaping being the answer to itself as far as hacking/tweaking it goes.

It is basically baby's first ninshu, seeing as it lets you commune with earth, which could plausibly help you hack earth jutsu like Earthshaping much easier than the usual elemental bonus you get. It is the only jutsu we've seen or even heard of that changes qualitatively as you go up ABs, and there's a good chance that we're the first ninja in history to level it to 50 other than the sage (or his companions). It is not unlikely that this is a quasi-jutsu created by the Sage himself, rather than being created by someone on the level of Tobirama (I don't think Earthshaping is similar to any other of Tobirama's jutsus?). All of this is to say that Earthshaping is definitely special, and there's enough narrative juice behind it to keep it special without having to consider things like Efficient Ninja Hypothesis... much.

From that you could build a cool narrative of Earthshaping actually being one of those rare jutsu/ninshu hybrid teaching aids, that The Sage created to help people understand ninshu better. The sort of teaching aid that is hard as shit to create from scratch, but (almost) infinitely configurable once you have a respectable amount of TH. To the point of being potentially a capstone jutsu that you'd pair with TH, and every new AB you'd create a tweak of ES that performs in a specific way that only rolls the Tweak instead of rolling the original jutsu TN. I could see a progression like this:
  • ES 10, TH 10: a tweak that makes something similar to Earth Pillar, rolls at ES + TH without bonuses
  • ES 20, TH 20: a tweak that creates something like Bleeding River Impalement, rolls at ES + TH without bonuses
  • ES 40, TH 40: when you start getting into more big boy effects like earth surfing, hiding like a mole, earth bullet, etc.
  • ES 60, TH 60: ES maxes out, giving you the ability to evolve it into something like enhanced earthshaping, without being as OP
  • ES 80, TH 80: When you can finally actually evolve it into Enhanced Earthshaping
Tweak the difficulty curve as you see fit, but imo there's a way to keep Earthshaping fun and special without being more setting-breaking. This also calls into question whether or not similar jutsus should exist for other elements (Airshaping, Fireshaping, Watershaping anyone?), and the answer imo should be yes. Such jutsu should exist and there's also a case to be made for some smart jonin from some other village figuring out that these jutsu (which should be slightly more combat viable than Earthshaping) are easy to tweak into effects that aren't as strong as a jutsu of similar level, but still viable and more importantly versatile.
 
CaramilkThief said:
Watershaping
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KEI: Noburi, what are you doing?
NOBURI: Using the new jutsu Hazou got me. It lets me move water very very slowly.
KEI: More slowly than the water just falls back down again, you mean?
NOBURI: More slowly than that, yes.
KEI: Which is why you look like you've just been sitting in front of a puddle for an hour.
NOBURI: It lets me move the water into really complicated shapes.
KEI: Shapes that then immediately slosh back into their highly-entropic puddle-state.
NOBURI: I don't know what "entropic" means, but yes.
KEI: And how much chakra is this costing you?
NOBURI: Multiple jonin per day.
KEI: I see.
HAZOU: [from across the training ground] Get a move on and level it to sixty, bro! I'm pretty sure we can make deuterium with this!
 
Sir Stompy said:
So, no. But it's an interesting concept. There is a bonus for the highest AB jutsu in that Element, so Hazou gets a +6 on all his Earth ninjutsu TH rolls since his highest Earth ninjutsu AB is 6. Now we could also add [jutsu] AB to the roll for Tweaking as well, so he'd get another +6 for an effective +12.


I think my thoughts here sort of depend on the difficulty of Tweaks in the first place. My understanding was that they were significantly easier than hacking the jutsu from scratch. Such that a TN 90 jutsu to create could plausibly have a TN in the 40s for Tweaks. Mostly because I thought the difficulty of the Tweak was mostly based on the change and not the difficulty of the jutsu.

But if I'm miscalibrated that's fine. I'd probably prefer either of these options.


Just IC information that it can't be done and we can move on.
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I'm about in agreement with all of this. Tweaking being easier, especially on familiar techniques, makes sense to me, and explains why jonin or ninjutsu chunin would pick it up. Otherwise, your best bet would be to START as a technique hacker, to get the best techniques and tweaks before you level many up, and we don't really see that, in a way we see for something like sealing or healing.

So yeah, maybe an extra +AB, based on the technique itself, to reward being really familiar with it? Though this is going to let essies with TH personalize their kits hard. Though I suppose that's also what we see, with kisame and Jiraiya being described as having very powerful, personalized techniques for a variety of niche situations to go with extremely strong fundamentals and deep reserves.

And finding out that Orochimaru's best new attempt at a modified masterpiece have us BoC does indeed give a good (if unfortunate) sense of scale.

RandomOTP said:
I propose the following:
  • Tweaking ES to further supplement its "noncombat" modules is within the realm of TH 30, but only if you min/max what you're going for. If you're tweaking ES to better optimize producing substrate, then you remove its sculpting/filtering/craftsmanship abilities, stacking on chakra costs and other such disadvantages.
  • Tweaking ES into a "combat" jutsu is possible at TH40, but its best results are going to be suited towards establishing Blocks or Debuffs, rather than direct attacks.
  • Hazou, at TH 40, is able to make an attack jutsu/stunt that rolls its attack using Earthshaping level, rather than its own, but any advantages the jutsu has (such as +AB to attack) scales off of its own level/AB.
    • In LotRoL, Chidori is a similar jutsu that rolls Taijutsu. This example is less powerful that that, in that it uses another jutsu's level, rather than a main combat stat's level.
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I'm on board with tweaking something being based on how much it changes, rather than just how hard it was originally, but maybe a combination of the two? Otherwise a high TH on a really powerful technique gets something absolutely broken.

Overall, I'm fine with Tweaking Earth Shaping isn't viable in a relative timeframe. I agree with Stompy to keep it the same, or at least have it be quite difficult (TN 50s, if not 70s), for the sake of game balance, is fine. But I do think that some reflection for how much something is similar to the case technique, and how familiar you are with the technique should matter.

And as this generally applies to other cases as well: don't give us the easy power up, let us know that the things is going to be really difficult, for us to decide. But maybe give us a reason to try and strive towards a thing at all. Shift the probability space from impossible, to really difficult and unlikely.

(Though if potentially ES 60 gave substrate, and this technique is so amazing, I'd be REALLY curious what ES 70 would give us. But I can accept, sadly, that that will never happen.)
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
But if I consider the question as an example of how and when simulationism should flex and bend for player enjoyment... I don't really think there's much to be gained from bending here. Like, with the lump sums of substrate we had, it wouldn't be much of a restriction on us to spend that down as we invest in BoC until we can make it ourselves. We couldn't afford to when our XP was spoken for by the need to hit PS softcap, but if we're going to be put in a less agency-deprived gamestate from here then I think we simply have everything we need to get what we want. Well, aside from the fact that we can't reach our substrate now that we're dead, but even if we had to reach BoC 30 before resuming runecrafting, that doesn't strike me as too onerous now that we're not in the researchmaxxing race. Heck, it wasn't much of a problem to hold off on runecrafting while we were back in Leaf, we've done this before.
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This perfectly sums up my general stance on it.

I think my more general stance on simulationism is mostly in the vein that I don't want us to relax it so much that things "work out" for Hazou always, and I don't want it to even be that the deck as a whole isn't stacked against us. I think I do want the ability to either disengage with plotlines in ways that would make sense, or ways to rationalize that world ending threats that are way above our paygrade do not need to be handled by us, if we do not want them. There's a bit of satisfaction to be found in interacting with Oro. There's quite a lot to be found in being able to fight S-rank threats. There's less fun to be had when we don't get to actually recognize that we are competent in our domain and are not constantly punching up.

To phrase it slightly differently: "We needed weaker opponents".
 
Sir Stompy said:
FWIW, this is too far for me. ES is fundamentally a noncombat jutsu and turning it into one is jumping the shark.

Tweaking it to produce substrate at a lower level, fine that's what it does just a little sooner than otherwise.

Tweaking it to be more chakra efficient, also fine, it's a small modification overall.

Tweaking it into a generalized Earthbending jutsu 5 orders of magnitude faster, with no startup/shutdown cost, and no breaking painfully? It's not ES anymore. I say no.
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I think that creating a second jutsu that rolls ES level seems completely fine?

I just really like earthshaping as a jutsu and want to do more cool things with it. I'm fine if it requires a separate jutsu to do so.
 
Cariyaga said:
I think that creating a second jutsu that rolls ES level seems completely fine?

I just really like earthshaping as a jutsu and want to do more cool things with it. I'm fine if it requires a separate jutsu to do so.
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So there's no functional difference between this and a Tweak except perhaps the XP cost. Tweaks are supposed to be slight changes, not completely different jutsu!

This is just a downcheck from me. I don't like it and would prefer not to see it. ES is completely not a combat jutsu. Nothing about it is combat usable. That's what makes it cool, turning it into generic Earthbending is just not for me.
 
Honestly I like the idea of 'Jutsu evolve as you level them up' being applied to all Jutsu in general. Instead of '1 Jutsu does one thing if you want to do 2 things get 2 Jutsu' which is very MAD in exp terms.

Instead of Rasengan, Rasenshuriken, etc, Naruto just has a high level Rasengan then can be adjusted on the fly to different flavors of Rasengan.
 
Paperclipped said:
what do you want us to do in this situation?
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For every jutsu Hazo knows, spell out how challenging he thinks the technique was to invent from scratch, how much slack there is for further modifications, and maybe an example of a modification he thinks he'd be capable of doing. Doesn't have to be exact TNs - could do a ranked list, or group 'em into tiers or something. Likewise, example mods don't need to be at all strategically optimized. Include whimsical stuff like those spiraling whorls Furrowed Brow of the Earth Mother kept drifting into, or even wildly tactically counterproductive options which are somehow illustrative.

I have no opinion on whether technique hacking should be made less difficult, or more, because I have too little context on how difficult it currently is, and what factors aid or hinder. I suspect many others are in the same position. Only solution to that kind of thing would be sharing a heap of data, "shooting a pattern." Before I can say whether the room's lighting needs to be intensified or dimmed, I'd like to finish taking this blindfold off and look around.
 
Sir Stompy said:
So there's no functional difference between this and a Tweak except perhaps the XP cost. Tweaks are supposed to be slight changes, not completely different jutsu!

This is just a downcheck from me. I don't like it and would prefer not to see it. ES is completely not a combat jutsu. Nothing about it is combat usable. That's what makes it cool, turning it into generic Earthbending is just not for me.
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Er. I wasn't intending it be a tweak, but an entirely separate jutsu that is dependent on one's expertise in another jutsu to function. Which seems... reasonable enough to me?
 
Personally I think the large number of Jutsu that need to be leveled, is something that should be moved away from. A Jutsu specialist must master multiple and many Jutsu with a good chance that the Jutsu they've learned simply straight up going obsolete when they learn a better one. What I think is a better idea is converting most/all Jutsu from being levellable skills to being stunts instead, something you simply do in combat. Instead of leveling a jutsu, you level maybe the Element it's tied to.

Earthshaping could be an exception to this due to it's unique nature. It's a noncombat precision jutsu and shouldn't be THable into being a combat jutsu. Honestly I don't think Earthshaping should be THable at alldue to it's unique nature. It's a self-THing jutsu, basically.
 
Cariyaga said:
Er. I wasn't intending it be a tweak, but an entirely separate jutsu that is dependent on one's expertise in another jutsu to function. Which seems... reasonable enough to me?
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If it's a new jutsu then it should roll its own level. If it rolls ES level then it's exactly the same as a Tweak.

I don't get what the distinction you're trying to make is. Tweaks are Stunts that allow modifications to jutsu specs.

If this new jutsu just rolls ES level what's the point of ever leveling it past level 1? Mechanically, it's just a Tweak that isn't a Tweak.
 
Sir Stompy said:
If it's a new jutsu then it should roll its own level. If it rolls ES level then it's exactly the same as a Tweak.

I don't get what the distinction you're trying to make is. Tweaks are Stunts that allow modifications to jutsu specs.

If this new jutsu just rolls ES level what's the point of ever leveling it past level 1? Mechanically, it's just a Tweak that isn't a Tweak.
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Without leveling it its AB remains at 1. It's basically a way to, uh...

In incremental game terms, prestige a jutsu.

I suppose when it comes down to it, I'd be fine with hacking our own earthshaping-like jutsu that does all the same things as it does, if you're that averse to using earthshaping itself?
 
Cariyaga said:
Without leveling it its AB remains at 1. It's basically a way to, uh...

In incremental game terms, prestige a jutsu.

I suppose when it comes down to it, I'd be fine with hacking our own earthshaping-like jutsu that does all the same things as it does, if you're that averse to using earthshaping itself?
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It uses the AB of the highest leveled Earth ninjutsu.

Basically the only difference is that we cannot cast it at high Effect. Which isn't that impactful for an Earthbending jutsu since you don't need that much volume to create cover etc etc

I think hacking a new jutsu that we have to level is a waste of time and XP
 
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