Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[Velorien]

Light Relay Seal

Summary:

The Light Relay (LR) seal has a 4"-diameter detector spiral on the left and a 4"-diameter emitter spiral on the right. If the detector receives enough light of a specific color (chosen at infusion time) then the emitter sends out a constant amount of light of a specific color (chosen at infusion time).

Note: This seal is a complete pain in the ass for the QMs. There are a crapton of physics questions that can be asked and we have neither the background nor the spoons to deal with it. We've done our best to answer as many of them as we can and we are going to do our best to be consistent about applying those answers. That said, if we forget something and do it wrong or if we have to make a judgment call and it ends up being inconsistent then chakra be trollin', yo.

Details:

The blank for the Light Relay (LR) seal is 12" wide. It has one 4"-diameter spiral in its left third, a bunch of stuff in the middle, and another 4"-diameter spiral in the right third. The one on the left is the receiver and the one on the right is the emitter. Don't read too much into this as far as seal theory goes; we're only specifying the shape to make it easy to talk about. Please don't poke too hard at the relationships between shape and function.

Treat the detector spiral as being mostly equivalent to a real-world light sensor that only reacts to a particular color of light and has a threshold for activation. If that threshold is passed then the emitter spiral lights up.

At infusion time you choose what color the seal is sensitive to (e.g. 'leaf green') and what color it emits (e.g. 'robin-egg blue'). If a sufficient amount of light of the specified color strikes the receiver, the emitter will emit light of its specified color at the same intensity as a Harumitsu's Outstanding World-Saving (HOWS) seal.

Only the ink that forms the detector spiral absorbs light. The entirety of the detector spiral must be exposed. If you fold a corner over it or place a straw across it then it stops working. Chakra being chakra, the exact limits on this are fuzzy; a single speck of dust won't deactivate it, but a sufficiently heavy sprinkling of dust will. The seal does not need to be lying flat; you can fold it in half and it will still function. The emitter spiral does not have this restriction; it works like any normal light source in that if you block part of it then the light from that part is blocked but the light source does not shut down.

Chakra being the troll that it is, close investigation of how much light is enough to activate an LR yields inconsistent results. (i.e., the QMs refuse to get too deep in the physics weeds and will use their best judgment.) As general benchmarks:

• Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern seal is roughly 900 lumens
• Haru's Outstanding World-Saving seal is roughly 300 lumens, which we are treating as bright enough to comfortably read by at arm's length at night under a clear sky (i.e., not daylight but not pitch black)
• HOWS is sufficient to activate an LR at 3 meters. Because we don't want to mess around with this, we'll assume that it's sufficient to activate an LR at 3m during daylight or at night. It might not be sufficient if the area is exceedingly bright, exceedingly smoky, etc.
• To find out the activation range of any light-producing seal for LR, take the distance from which you can comfortably read by the seal in question and multiply by three.
• Again, the QMs do not have the spoons to faff around with physics on this. We'll do our best to be consistent but if we have to make a judgment call and it ends up being inconsistent then chakra be trollin' yo.

The receivers are roughly as sensitive to color as the human eye and they will only activate for the color that was chosen at infusion time. Using this color list for reference, if you set it to detect "Amber (SAE/ECE)" (#ff7e00) then it will not activate for "Blood Red" (#f35336). At the same time, it's not completely precise, so at least some of the time it will activate for "American Orange" (#ff8b00).

Fortunately, the color emitted by an LR is stable, so if you have an LR seal set to emit American Orange then it will always activate another LR that is set to detect American Orange.


Q: Can you verbally describe a color to another sealmaster such that they can accurately create an LR that detects and/or emits that color?

A: No, but if they see the color then they can do it. (NB: There might be some exceptions if people have color blindness or other conditions that distort their color perception.)

Q: Can a sealmaster reliably reproduce a color that they used in the past?

A: Yes.

Q: What direction(s) do the seals emit in?

A: The same sort of hemisphere that you would get from the top face of a glowing-hot flat piece of metal. (The seals are heatless unless specified otherwise; we are only referencing direction here.)

Q: What is a distance that something in the way of the seal will reliably not block functioning? An inch?

A: Sure, why not. If something is 1" from an LR then it can be discounted for purposes of whether or not the seal works. Again, chakra be troll and inconsistent yo.

Q: Do transparent materials (like a perfect glass or water) blocking the spirals prevent activation?

A: If you have sufficiently clear and flawless glass (i.e., sufficient for eyeglasses) then no, it does not block activation. The Aburame are among the very, very few people in the setting capable of making glass of this quality, and only in small amounts. There is no practical way to safely put a seal underwater to test if that would be an issue.

Q: What happens if you shine light parallel to the seal paper? So light is touching the absorption spiral but moves across instead of into it.

A: The same thing that would happen with a real-world light detector, to the limits of the QM's understanding, memory, blah blah blah.

Q: If you write the seal on transparent paper and you shine light from behind the absorption spiral. What happens?

A: There is no such thing as transparent paper in the setting, nor would Hazō be willing to scribe a seal on glass.

 

[MadScientist]

Okay, fair enough. I don't think any of us are willing to outright rule that this is impossible, so you're welcome to take a stab at it. Fair warning: it's going to be HIGHLY non-trivial.

Click to shrink...

Alright. Are there any mechanics we could use to represent it being harder to teach civilians than ninja?

Suggestions to save your spoons:

• Civilians need to pay more XP for Sealing levels than ninja do. Instead of being double-cost it's triple-cost or higher.
• Civilians need to purchase an additional stunt to even begin learning Sealing (aside from the Sealmaster stunt, which is obviously worthless to them).
• Hazou needs to purchase levels in a Teach Civilians Sealing skill (that may itself be more than single-cost), and he can only teach up to the level he has this skill at (civilians can still learn on their own after level 10 as normal).
• Hazou needs to purchase a stunt to be able to describe sealing theory in a way the civilians would comprehend.
• Some combination of multiple of the above.

 

[OliWhail]

Katon: Flame Aura
Requirements: Control x 2, Resolve x 2
Activation requires a Combat action and (3xLevel)CP, maintenance requires a quick action and (Level)CP each round. (may be revised)

The user wreathes themselves in Katon chakra, adding (2 + round up(Level / 3)) dice to Taijutsu contests and taking a (2 + (Level x 3)) dice penalty to Stealth.

The technique may be activated at less than the user's maximum level, reducing the costs and bonuses/maluses to the level of activation.

The technique ends either at the user's discretion or when the user suffers a wound. If ended unwillingly, it deals an additional A-class wound in the form of a burn.

---

Suiton: Hiding in the Mist
Attributes: Control * 3, Wits * 3
Chakra Cost: 10 per gallon vaporized if real water, 15 per gallon worth of vapor created by chakra construct

A vaporized gallon raises 1000 cubic meters (a 10mx10mx10m cube) of a thick bank of chakra-laden fog. The center of the fogbank can be anywhere within (Level x 5) m of the caster. The fog persists for several minutes in still air, less in the presence of wind or other interference, especially area-effect Futon and Katon jutsu.

The technique penalizes the Awareness of those without appropriate extrasensory techniques (Sharingan users are impacted, Byakugan users are not) by a number of dice equal to half its level (round up) when those individuals are beyond melee range from each other. It allows individuals to add stealth to TacMov rolls to attampt to escape a combat.

This technique requires that the user first master the "Condense Water" chakra cantrip.

 

[Velorien]

PSA: About SC Resolve unlocks

Good news: Making a Resolve check when Shadow Clones pop which risks a Consequence on -3 or lower is sufficiently challenging to count as a Resolve unlock.

Edited in accordance with a later ruling.

 

[Velorien]

PSA: Rules change! Collect bonus!

Various people (most recently @Shrooms) pointed out that the elemental affinity stunts are priced high enough that they aren't worth buying, yet for some reason there are still tons of jōnin and S-rankers who have multiple elements. We got some good suggestions on how to fix this issue and we're doing it. Don't worry, the change is to your benefit.

Narratively, learning a new chakra affinity is very difficult. It needs a good teacher who knows the element, and a lot of disciplined study where you meditate to get a feel for the new element, and attempt, over and over, to execute a small handful of its jutsu until you finally make it work.

Mechanically:

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."

Practicing for a new element requires that you have chakra regeneration capacity so that you can see how it feels to transform the chakra while your totals are changing. That means that Shadow Clones cannot be used for this study. Tobirama was very aware of this issue, spent a great deal of time trying to fix it, and was not able to. Nor was Hiruzen or any other technique hacker who ever looked into it. It's safe to assume that this is a quirk of chakra that cannot be gotten rid of or worked around.

 

[Jello_Raptor]

Standard EM Model Analysis: Part 1

(Part 2 of the analysis)

Here's one suggested way of modelling things more concretely, that answers some of these questions. Elemental Mastery creates a zone. As gaseous molecules enter the zone, or as the zone fades in during casting, they gain or lose energy equal to the temperature delta.

Click to shrink...

This is actually a really interesting way to model EM, largely because it's symmetric. With a cold zone molecules will lose energy entering the area and gain it back as they exit, vice versa with a hot zone. This is functionally identical to there being a sort of potential energy within the zone that gas particles can gain or lose, and that means we can reason about an EM zone like any other area of high or low potential. In particular potential energy is just another form of energy, and energy is conserved. I'm not feeling up to doing all the math at the moment, but we can get a lot of useful analysis by just exploiting the structure of the problem.

The same way that a ball loses speed/energy as it moves up a ramp (trading kinetic energy for gravitational potential energy) a gas will lose temp/energy as it moves into a cold EM field (trading kinetic energy for "jutsu potential").

It doesn't really matter whether the "jutsu potential" field exists in any deeper sense, as long as these symmetries are present the system will act as if there's a new form of potential energy.

Here's a quick diagram of what would look like for a cold EM field. Hot EM fields are basically the same if you flip the various arrows and labels. Moving into a cold EM zone will feel exactly like moving out of a hot EM zone and vice versa.

Spoiler: Diagram of EM zone potential energy.

Being able to look at this as a potential field means we can easily figure out where all the interesting questions are. Basically, if the potential field is flat things are boring and normal. A flat tabletop is a flat tabletop no matter what altitude it's at.

There's a few places where the field isn't flat:

• The edges of the EM area of effect. (The derivative of the field with respect to position is non-zero here)
• Places where things affected by the field interact with things that aren't affected by the field. (This is analogous to field being zero when a solid or liquid is there)
• When the field is starting up or drawing down. (A non-zero time derivative also counts as non-flat)

Also because cold and hot fields are symmetric, I'm going to focus on the cold ones.

The first of these non-flat areas, the edge of the EM zone, basically has to work like a ball rolling up a ramp for particles that can make it over the hump. If a gas particle has enough "heat" to be able to lose 10 degrees, then it'll lose that heat energy and move into the field's area of effect. The interesting part is what happens to the particles that don't have the energy to make it into the cold area. The diagram assumes they're reflected back but there's broadly four cases:

• Low energy particles are bounced back: This doesn't add any new energy to the system but it still manifests as a pressure differential. A cold EM zone will naturally have a lower air pressure than the external atmosphere even after you account for cold air being lower pressure than warm air. Likewise a hot EM zone will have a higher air pressure than expected. Seeing the actual magnitude of the pressure difference would require figuring out what value the jutsu potential field needs to have. I'll leave figuring the numbers out to @Radvic or someone else. At least this should be a good framework to get numbers easily.
• Low energy particles are given enough energy to make it into the zone: This does add new energy to the system and would make for an even stronger anomalous temperature differential. Since the field is adding energy to particles as they enter (mostly as jutsu potential) but not removing that spare energy as the particles exit, you'd get a wind of hotter than ambient gas leaving the zone. That zone of gas would make it harder to particles to enter the EM zone again lowering the air pressure inside the cold zone. The symmetry here is interesting since it means that trying to pump particles out of a Hot EM zone to lower the pressure would lead to the same wind of hot gas blowing into the warm zone. Even in the EN heating things is easy, cooling things is hard.
• Energy is added and removed in a balanced manner as particles enter and exit: This one is an interesting option largely because it's a decent workaround to the issue of an inherent pressure differential. Problem is that adding energy to a particle entering the cold zone and then stealing energy as it leaves the zone should be statistically identical to doing nothing. It should be the same as just having particles bounce, though I'd need to poke harder at the maths to be sure of that.
• Particles are added or removed to the zone to maintain/control pressure: This is basically a mulligan in terms of actual physics analysis. Pick what numbers you want, set other numbers so that the numbers are the correct numbers. Easy.

Next we have places where objects affected by the field (nominally gasses) interact with things that aren't. We can model this as the jutsu potential being 0 over any solid/liquid, but that still leaves the exact boundary condition. I see two major options here.

• Gasses see the field as flat: This is both the boring and the exploitable option. It's boring because there's no experiment you could do to tell whether you're inside or outside the field. A hot iron block in freezing air would cool identically inside the field and out. The exploitable cases only happen when you're moving solids in and out of an EM field, whether it's physical movement or having the field raise and lower. In a more global sense any energy moving from the solid to the gas gets the base potential of the EM field added for "free". (At least when you're calculating how heat moves no energy is created or lost here) Moving a hot iron block into a cold EM area would cool it down quickly, cause the particles in the zone to warm up, and produce a slight warming of gasses leaving the zone. The EM zone wouldn't create or destroy heat because of these interactions, but you do get a powerful heat pump in a world with no air conditioning.
• Gasses have to deal with boundary potential before interacting with solids: In this case a gas particle has to basically exit the EM field in order to interact with a solid. This option basically says you can't bring a solid or liquid into an EM field in a meaningful way. EM would be reduced to a way of moving gasses around by exploiting the pressure differentials it creates. Maybe if you level it up enough you could create a high enough temperature and pressure to make a open-air fusion reactor. Don't do this. It would make Hazou sad. @eaglejarl: You don't want to make Hazou sad, do you?

Finally we've got the places where the EM field is starting up or shutting down. I see two broad ways it could work:

• Particles in the zone are given free jutsu potential: Here particles won't gain or lose energy as the field starts or ends, they just gain some magical jutsu potential for free. The air would actually have to cycle out of the zone before a change in temperature is felt. In a cold zone the initial air coming out would be hotter than ambient, and vice versa in a hot zone. Nothing much happening here.
• Particles act like they are crossing the spatial edges of a zone: Here we'd apply whatever would happen as a particle crosses physically into a zone, except over time instead. So generally the cooling or heating would be felt instantly, with whatever other effects happening as the initial particles cycle out, spread out over the jutsu's startup/shutdown, or as a single burst.

I think that broadly covers the space of how @Veedrac's particular variant of EM could work. It doesn't apply to other variants of EM though the broad principles of this analysis should still be useful. When you don't have the symmetry of this model you'd have to actually crunch numbers to figure out which effects win out. I mostly did this because it was a really fun way to illustrate how far you can get in trying to understand physics by exploiting just the basic structure of the problem.

Edit: I'd really appreciate it if someone could figure out the equation for "jutsu potential" is with respect to temperature differential. Should be able to toss that at the kinetic energy equation and ideal gas laws to figure out which of the influences on zone pressure is dominant.

 

[OliWhail]

Pangolin Techniques (as approved 9/10/17)
The following techniques are all available and you're able to choose from them. Please note that other techniques were considered but rejected for one reason or another -- either they were overpowered, ambiguous, or they left us too many questions about how we would apply them in various edge cases. The following techniques were rejected: Scaled Mind Technique Hacking Training Jutsu.

---

Pantokrator's Communion:
Requirements: Control * 2 Intelligence * 2

Allows the caster to create a telepathic link with their target(s) via which each party can communicate to each other by intentionally sounding out words in their head with the link in mind.

Range is equal to level * 5 meters, and number of targets they have in a link at the same time is equal to level / 5 rounded up. Keeping a link open requires a Quick Action from the caster each round. Creating a new link to one person or adding people a person to an existing link costs a Combat Action for the caster. The caster must know where the target is to create a link. A given person can only be included in one link at a time and all thoughts sent to the link are heard by all participants -- there is no 'private channel' ability.

Cost: 1 CP per round (3 seconds) per person linked to

---

Pantokrator's Hammer Technique

Quick Action
(Con*2, Str*2, Sta*2, 20CP to cast + N additional, quick action)

The user summons the strength and speed of the Pantokrator, granting a brief moment of godlike physical power.

At time of use, the user spends extra chakra over and above the 20CP casting cost, gaining CP/3 extra dice up to a max of PHT level, in a pool that can be allocated over the turn. The user cannot have more than one pool at a time. The pool clears at the end of the round and any remaining dice are lost. The chakra from those dice is not recovered.

During the round that the technique is active, the user may allocate dice from the pool to any physical skill. The amount of dice that can be allocated to a skill is capped at (round_down(skill level / 3)), instead of the usual (round_up(skill level / 4))

You may not use normal chakra boost on the same turn that you become the Pantokrator's Hammer.

---

Accurate Snout Technique
Combat action to activate, Quick action to sustain
(Con*2, Wits*2, 20CP activation, 10CP / round maintained)

Chakra-enhanced olfactory sense. Grants +1 Awareness per level, stacking with other sensory jutsu. Allows the user to attempt tracking by scent and identification of known individuals by scent, even under henge (so long as that henge is their original species). Scent-based attacks against the user gain a [+AST level] bonus (i.e. the better you are at AST, the sharper your nose is, so the more effective scent-based attacks against you are when you are using AST).

---

Ghost Scales Technique
Combat action to activate, Quick action to sustain
(Con*3, Sta*3, 15CP to cast + N additional)

Rise, Strength of the Pangolin Clan! Rise and protect the clawmate of your Summoner!

The power of the Pangolin Clan encompasses you, creating chakra construct scales across your whole body. These scales are both armor and weapon; they grant a flat bonus of +3 dice to Taijutsu and also an N/3-point pool of ablative protection against attacks that hit you. These points only apply against attacks that would be affected by armor and are only half as effective against Lightning-element and other armor-piercing attacks. When the points are all gone then the Taijutsu bonus is gone as well.

Whenever the user takes a wound, subtract as many points as necessary from the pool to reduce the wound to 0, at which point the user is unharmed. (Note that usually ties go to the attacker but in this case they don't.) The points are used up in the process. The user has no choice about whether or not to use the points or how many to use. The maximum size of the point pool is your GS level.

The pangolin training jutsu goes under the scales so it will remain undamaged until all the Ghost Scales points are used up.

You can only have one set of Ghost Scales at a time.

Example #1: Hazō spends 51 CP (15 to start it, + 36 extra for points) to create a 12-point Ghost Scales armor. Bōsatsu wins initiative and attacks; the final result of the roll is 23, a B-class wound against Hazō. But wait! The Ghost Scales reduce that by 12! The final result is now 11, making it only an A-class wound. The points are now used up and when Hazō attacks on his own initiative he will have no extra protection nor will he have the +3 dice to his Taijutsu. It would have been nice if Hazō could have spent only 4 points instead of the full 12 -- that would have still reduced it to an A-class wound while leaving him the +3 Taijutsu bonus and an extra 8 points of protection -- but, sadly, the technique does not work like that.

Example B: Hazō spends that same 51 to get that same 12-point protection. Bōsatsu punches him again, but this time the final result is only 5. Five points are burned from the pool, leaving Hazō unwounded. On his initiative he will attack Bōsatsu; he will have +3 Taijutsu bonus and 7 points of protection in case he loses the roll.

Example Gamma: Once again, Hazō has 12 points of protection. The Raikage punches him in the chest with a Lightning jutsu of some flavor. Miraculously, the Lord of Lightning is having a really off day! He only scores a total of 55 on the post-formula result! Ordinarily this would leave Hazō a pile of cinders, but the Ghost Scales reduces the roll to 49 (remember, the Ghost Scales are half as effective against Lightning), a measly B-class wound! And the Pangolin Training jutsu that Hazō was very sensibly wearing under the Ghost Scales tanks the wound! Hazō is completely unharmed! And needs to go shopping for exclamation points! And clean pants!

"That the best you got?" Hazō asks calmly, staring the Raikage in the eye. "Keiko hits harder than that when I try to hug her." If you're gonna die, you might as well do it with style, he thought.

---

Earth Release: Pangolin Earth Armor Technique
Resolve x3, Control x2
The user generates chakra-construct granite scales around their body, forming a layered Doton defense that protects the user from attacks as well as providing an increase in strength to their blows. However, this comes at the cost of speed, as the sheer weight of the defense makes movement extremely difficult.

This technique takes up a Combat Action to activate the jutsu and a Quick Action to maintain it. While active, the user takes a [15 - level / 2] penalty (minimum of 0) to their TacMove. When rolling Taijutsu, the user adds min(Taijutsu, [Earth Armor level / 2]) die to their roll. This technique blocks up to two A-class wounds or one B-class wound before the technique breaks, as long as those wounds can be defended against by Armor. The hit to TacMov does affect your initiative the next turn. Chakra cost: 20 CP/min

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Water Release: Pangolin Bullet Rainstorm Technique
Stamina x2, Control x3
After kneading their chakra, the user fires off dozens of fist-sized water bullets at high speeds towards the enemy.

This Medium Range technique is designed to take down an enemy or a group of enemies quickly, but its high chakra cost prevents this technique from being a sustainable attack. When in combat, the user rolls [level x1.25] against a single enemy, or [level] against multiple enemies.

Chakra cost: 80 CP (without water source), 60CP (with water source)

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Lightning Release: Pangolin Flash Technique
Resolve x2, Control x2
The user wraps Lightning Release chakra around their body, forming a shroud that increases both physical and mental speed. This technique takes up a Combat Action to activate the jutsu and a Quick Action to maintain it. While active, the user adds [level / 3] to any physical combat skill (meaning one where the user's strength and speed matter, as opposed to a Fireball ninjutsu or etc), and [level / 2] to each of TacMove and Awareness. The boosts to TM&A do not change the user's initiative on the round in which the jutsu is activated, but they do both apply to subsequent initiatives, meaning that every initiative after that will gain a [Flash level] bonus as long as the jutsu is maintained.

Chakra cost: 100 CP to activate, 10 CP/round to maintain

---

Wind Release: Pangolin Wind Blade Technique
Stamina x2, Control x3
The user fires blades of Wind Release chakra at any number of enemies. This Medium Range technique is designed to combat multiple enemies at once, and when used will roll [level] against all enemies in range.

Chakra cost: 25 CP

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Fire Release: Pangolin Firebolt Technique
Stamina x3, Control x2
Range: Long

The user kneads Fire Release chakra to form a wave of artillery fire capable of blasting enemies from even long distances. If this technique hits it splashes over a five-meter radius, dealing damage to all enemies in Melee range of the target. However, the technique can be dodged or disrupted by sufficiently powerful defenses, particularly Water Release.

When rolling, roll [level] against ALL individuals in Melee range of the target, and create a five-meter radius that deals A-class damage to anyone who stays in the radius at the end of each combat round. If this technique is disrupted or the conflagration put out (e.g., by Water Release techniques) the damage radius is nullified.

Chakra cost: 30 CP

---

Earth Release: Pangolin Tunnelling Technique
Control x3, Stamina x2

The user expends Doton chakra to 'push' surrounding earth up to 1m away from them, creating a tunnel that they can enter. Since they are underground, a large number of attacks will fail due to being unable to go through the ground (Taijutsu, Weapons, most elemental ninjutsu...).

Unlike Hiding Like a Mole, the created tunnel persists after creation. This has many implications for the technique, including the ability to breathe while underground and the ability for anyone else, allies and enemies alike, to enter the tunnel. Additionally, prolonged tunnelling in the same area will result in collapses, which can harm the user and anyone above the area.

Any underground individual gains [level] additional die in Stealth against enemies aboveground, but takes a [15 - level / 2] penalty (minimum 0) to TacMove. Both underground and aboveground individuals have 0 Awareness with respect to each other, barring unusual senses / sensory jutsu.

Chakra cost: 25 CP/min.

 

[Inferno Vulpix]

Article:

Stunt: High-Pressure Syrup 1
Cost: 75 XP
Prerequisites: "Syrup Trap" Jutsu at level 30 or higher.

By tirelessly increasing the sheer force the syrup is expelled at, the Syrup Trap attack can now reach people ordinarily too far to hit. The amount of force involved in such a feat, however, makes the technique harder to control, so the user may find their accuracy at such a range decrease significantly, and the user may find their movements limited by the technique, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

The user may use the Syrup Trap Jutsu on enemies one zone away with an Aspect Bonus *2 penalty "Too Strong to Aim". If the user is attacked during this turn, they also suffer an Aspect Bonus *1 penalty "Avoiding Whiplash" to their dodge or counterattack rolls.

Article:

Stunt: High-Pressure Syrup 2
Cost: 75 XP
Prerequisites: "Syrup Trap" Jutsu at level 40 or higher.

Through extensive practice at controlling the technique, the user of the Syrup Trap technique can more easily handle the intense forces the syrup is being shot at, allowing them to aim more precisely while retaining more of their mobility, making them less of a target as well as more of a threat.

The penalty for using Syrup Trap on enemies a zone away is decreased to Aspect Bonus *1, and the penalty to dodge and counterattack rolls that turn is reduced to Aspect Bonus *0.5

Article:

Stunt: High-Pressure Syrup 3
Cost: 75 XP
Prerequisites: "Syrup Trap" Jutsu at level 50 or higher.

The user's control of the high-pressure flow has reached perfection, and sending a high-pressure stream of syrup at long distances is now as easy as using them at close range. The flow of syrup goes only where the user directs it, and does not inhibit the user's motions in the slightest. The user's mastery over this technique is quite apparent.

The penalties for using Syrup Trap on enemies a zone away and for dodge and counterattack rolls that turn are completely removed.

What do you think? I tried to make this stunt more of a tradeoff than a simple upgrade, but left open the option to make it into a pure upgrade if you're willing to pursue it further. We were talking about how Noburi needs some ranged options, and I think that this might suit him well without being totally overpowered.

 

[Cariyaga]

@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail

So, preface: I would really appreciate it previously-priced stunts kept to the same price or less, rather than being increased to match, if they would differ.

Stunt Pricing

So, I was considering how to price stunts effectively and with as little spoons required as possible. My thoughts went back to their purpose in Fate, and how they were approximately as valuable as an additional skill level there. So:

Stunts should be priced according to how much effort they would take to learn, approximated to the scale of skill level:

Spoiler: Note on XP calculations

To calculate the cost of a given level of stunt, [level of skill it is approximated to] * [that number +1]/2 - [level of skill it is approximated to - 10] * [that number + 1]/2

The easiest stunts -- conceptually, to learn to use -- would be an adhoc number of XP below 55, and those that were level-10-skill-equivalent difficult to learn would be 55, each ten levels scaling it up another hundred XP:

Level 20: 155 XP
Level 30: 255 XP
Level 40: 355 XP

etc.

This is intended to represent solely the difficulty -- and more importantly, the time:talent ratio it would take -- to learn to use such a stunt effectively.

Time scaling of note:

Level 10 stunt requires ~20 days of training for someone of Hazou's Talent Coefficient, level 20 requires ~52 days, level 30 requires ~85 days, level 40 requires ~118 days, etc.

Incidentally, I think this illustrates quite effectively why someone wouldn't want to put time into learning a new fighting style or whatever.

However, note that it is substantially easier to be taught -- some -- stunts than to create one from nothing. This is easy to do during this system. For instance, it was stated that for Hazou and Mari to work out Kurosawa Social Techniques would be the work of dedicated months -- something like a level 50 stunt, which would cost 455 XP and take around 5 months of concerted effort. However, with Hana's help, it might take only weeks -- being the equivalent of a Level 10 Stunt.

Additionally, this gives a less ad hoc pricing mechanism for stuff like training additional Elements.

This pricing schema is intended to do the following:

• Make stunt XP pricing easier on the spoons of both players and QMs
• Make sense in accordance with how much time and effort learning to use a stunt would take.

Things this pricing schema is not intended to do:

• Price stunts according to power level. This is explicitly intended to be time-and-effort based, not power-level-based.

 

[MadScientist]

LIST OF SUGGESTED STUNTS
@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail

Ping me with additions, people.

Spoiler: Iron Nerve

• Advanced Iron Nerve (The user's IN-boosted skills now receive +3 or +AB, whichever is highest.)
• Iron Body Language (The user gets IN-boost to Rapport, Deceit, Presence, and Intimidation.)
• An Iron-Steady Off-Hand (The user can make twice as many seals at once by drawing with both hands simultaneously. Calligraphy debuff to initial roll with off-hand. Additional purchases of this stunt first reduce and then eliminate the debuff.)
• Iron Prediction (Martial Arts Style, roll Empathy vs Deceit. As with Roki, but the user spends their time predicting moves instead of devising feints.)
• Iron Archive (The user creates a manual indexing system so that they can store and retrieve sign-language documents. IN-boost to "lore/knowledge/intellect" skills such as MedKnow or Sealing.)

Spoiler: Miscellaneous

• Pure Chaos (Prerequisite: a CHAOS suit or similar. As an action, the user can use their Sealing AB number of seals.)
• Training Investment (The user spends time optimising their training of a particular skill. This skill now gets +10% XP put in a bank. At a cost of 100XP the investment would break even after earning 1000XP.)
• Resolute Stance of the Watching Dragon (When rolling one of {Alertness, Resolve, Taijutsu}, apply the aspect bonuses of the other two to the roll.)