Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

coldcutconvict · Apr 27, 2024

Have the power to do gold backed scrip for real, now. International fiat currency. Backed by AMITY. When other countries try to do a bank run, surprise - the gold exists. Tap the Nara to extract the most value from the expected bank run. Akatsuki buy in + forewarning. We will not go forward if Akatsuki says it is economic warfare. They smacked Fire pretty hard. They have the choice to balance things. Side with us, take a stick to bank running countries instead. Punish us if we lack the gold. Possible distraction from necromancy, draws Akatsuki members to predictable places at predictable times.

Buggy · Apr 28, 2024

But why bother with gold-backed scrip/representative money? Why not just use gold coin? We can dig up so much gold with ES that we could crash all the economies, so there's no difference.

To my non-economist knowledge, IRL, fiat currencies exist for a few reasons. For one, there just isn't enough gold to back all the money anymore, and two, modern financial systems are ludicrously complicated and requiring a physical coin for currency would be impractical in quite a few ways. None of these reasons apply in the EN.

Cariyaga · Apr 28, 2024

Buggy said:
But why bother with gold-backed scrip? Why not just use gold coin? We can dig up so much gold with ES that we could crash all the economies, so there's no difference.

To my non-economist knowledge, IRL, fiat currencies exist for a few reasons. For one, there just isn't enough gold to back it all anymore, and two, modern financial systems are ludicrously complicated and requiring a physical coin for currency would be impractical in quite a few ways. None of these reasons apply in the EN.

To bait our enemies into overextending themselves.

Buggy · Apr 28, 2024

Cariyaga said:
To bait our enemies into overextending themselves.

Couldn't we just go into the woods at a neutral location, dig up seventy metric tons of pure gold with ES, and then quietly leak that location to all the major hidden villages?

Let Akatsuki chew on that for a while as a distraction.

Zampano · Apr 28, 2024

i know voting is closed, but i felt very silly that my fork to preserve wordcount XP got 6 votes and would have resulted in additional chapters of meetings about meetings. My preferences would have been more effectively met if I'd done the opposite fork instead:

[X] Action Plan: Stompy's plan but only the last scene
Word Count: 266

Have a meeting with Mari, Kei, Snowflake, Noburi about Naruto's research mission.
- Details to be voted in a future plan
Approach the Toad Sages about training and LORE bootcamp, using the approach that Noburi, Mari, Kei, and Hazo deem most likely to be received well.
- Hazo's suggestions included:
  - Explain the situation with Akatsuki on the Human Path. Akatsuki's dominance, Pain's inexorable pressure, the EN's impotence, Naruto's desperation.
    - Give them Naruto's recommendation letter
  - Hazou has had to leave Leaf on a long-term research mission to keep Akatsuki from dropping by and discovering runes by accident
  - We need your help to save the Human Path as we helped save the Seventh Path, but rather than your strength, we need your knowledge.
  - Under your tutelage Jiriaya grew into a titan, possibly the strongest human fighter of his time.
  - We are coming to you on a bended knee to beg you for the same sort of training he received.
  - We have some ideas to replicate a fraction of your power, but we would much rather learn from you instead.
  - This is not insanity. We have good reason to think we stand a chance against Akatsuki, in time.
  - If they seem interested, explain chakra filtering runes and chakra potential runes
  - We have the keys to rediscovering Minato's way of combining TH and Sealing, but we're about to lose access to our teacher. Could you teach a human TH?
  - (Do not mention in front of Kagome) We have cracked a way of using Noburi's power to make Shadow Clone training vastly more efficient.
  - Would you accept us as your disciple(s)?

(the only change relative to Stompy's actual plan was removing the sentence about being "desperate" while i was flattening the outline indentations)

Sir Stompy · Apr 28, 2024

Buggy said:
To my non-economist knowledge, IRL, fiat currencies exist for a few reasons. For one, there just isn't enough gold to back all the money anymore, and two, modern financial systems are ludicrously complicated and requiring a physical coin for currency would be impractical in quite a few ways. None of these reasons apply in the EN

I think it's mostly that fiat currencies can target 2% inflation each year, and that's a very good thing compared to relying on a never-increasing pile of gold in Fort Knox.

Cariyaga said:
To bait our enemies into overextending themselves.

Our foreign enemies won't be significantly hampered by this. It will mostly mean that their civvies starve. Not to my taste.

If we cause an economic disaster for the Hyuuga, maybe it would be fine? But once we have 6 E-Jounin combatants in the clan, we can largely stop caring what they do...

coldcutconvict said:
We can raise both with the relevant planners.

What is a fair way to distribute chakra for FOOM and who gets to know about FOOM? Should Naruto copy the adoption ticket system? Give clans chakra vouchers to sell between each other? They decide how to split chakra between SC users in the clan? Gets around accusations of discrimination when Naruto takes longer to approve SC for one person than another and takes micromanaging who gets how much chakra off his plate. Can clans without SC users price their chakra fairly?

Large clans will want to lock in chakra from their members for themselves. KEI is the largest chakra source. Noburi makes everything possible. How much chakra can be taken from lower ranks without damaging their training? SCs need 80 chakra per training block.

We don't need to be worrying about this. Let Naruto make these decisions. Truth be told, I don't envy him.

Paperclipped · Apr 28, 2024

Sir Stompy said:
We should be proactive: promise cooperation and share our training optimizations[1] with Naruto in exchange for benefits, such as retaining first priority on chakra.

IC representations of our spreadsheet work; it's presumably highly valuable and took significant effort and trial-and-error.

Could someone please identify these spreadsheets or training optimizations? It's hard to judge what value these bring without understanding what is being discussed.

RandomOTP · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
Could someone please identify these spreadsheets or training optimizations? It's hard to judge what value these bring without understanding what is being discussed.

Didn't Kei ask Hazou to write a textbook explaining his insights into training for KEI? IIRC, she said that KEI lost such insights when the likes of Kakashi and Gai died.

That implies that the training insights are super valuable, and some version of them are known by Essies (Gai and Kakashi have been described as the lowest ranked S-rankers by the narrative, before).

Paperclipped · Apr 28, 2024

RandomOTP said:
Didn't Kei ask Hazou to write a textbook explaining his insights into training for KEI? IIRC, she said that KEI lost such insights when the likes of Kakashi and Gai died.

That implies that the training insights are super valuable, and some version of them are known by Essies (Gai and Kakashi have been described as the lowest ranked S-rankers by the narrative, before).

Okay, and what are those training insights?

RandomOTP · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
Okay, and what are those training insights?

That depends on where the mechanics meet the narrative. In that same scene, Kei admitted to not understanding how training up one stat allowed her to train up another, but that Hazou's years of success allowed her to simply take it on faith.

Mechanically, it would be the existence of the skill pyramid. That if you train up a skill to X9, but lack the room for another stat in the next AB, then you won't be able to progress that skill and further. You'll hit a "wall," and won't progress --no matter how much you focus on that skill.

Narratively (and this is me musing aloud, here, not confirmed by QMs or the wider playerbase) perhaps it is the realization that certain knowledge lends itself to other skills. Knowing about geometry and surface area can help you know how much spice/sauce a dish needs based upon its surface area to volume ratio. That knowing something like color theory can help you know what clothes to wear when you go haggling at the fish market.

So Hazou-the-character, whose training plans are full of cross-skill-training, has a bunch of those insights in how all those skills relate to, and expand upon, each other.

Sir Stompy · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
Could someone please identify these spreadsheets or training optimizations? It's hard to judge what value these bring without understanding what is being discussed.

Hazou's primary insight into SC training was twofold, that Noburi could refill Shadow Clones, and that you can use Shadow Clones to train clone sickness resistance.

So that a jounin with Resolve 40 might be able to get to a +1.0x modifier, but with Resolve training they could double that to +2.0x modifier.

There has also been a lot of fiddly calculations into exactly how close to the edge you can push clone sickness before you suffer Consequences (take exactly 4 stress on a -6).

I don't know exactly how this is expressed IC, I assume there are some sort of notes(?).

cog-nito · Apr 28, 2024

Sir Stompy said:
Hazou's primary insight into SC training was twofold, that Noburi could refill Shadow Clones, and that you can use Shadow Clones to train clone sickness resistance.

So that a jounin with Resolve 40 might be able to get to a +1.0x modifier, but with Resolve training they could double that to +2.0x modifier.

There has also been a lot of fiddly calculations into exactly how close to the edge you can push clone sickness before you suffer Consequences (take exactly 4 stress on a -6).

I don't know exactly how this is expressed IC, I assume there are some sort of notes(?).

Also in-character it's presumably Hazo's insight that lets team uplift know the exact amount of Shadow Clone training they can do without risking a Medium consequence from Clone sickness

Buggy · Apr 28, 2024

More generally, I suppose that you could argue that since we have perfect knowledge of the exact mechanics of training, and by extension Hazo does (or at least acts as if he does), then the value of our trade to Naruto is exactly the difference between his knowledge of training and the actual facts of training.

Paperclipped · Apr 28, 2024

Sir Stompy said:
Hazou's primary insight into SC training was twofold, that Noburi could refill Shadow Clones, and that you can use Shadow Clones to train clone sickness resistance.

So that a jounin with Resolve 40 might be able to get to a +1.0x modifier, but with Resolve training they could double that to +2.0x modifier.

There has also been a lot of fiddly calculations into exactly how close to the edge you can push clone sickness before you suffer Consequences (take exactly 4 stress on a -6).

I don't know exactly how this is expressed IC, I assume there are some sort of notes(?).

So:

Clone sickness resistance can be trained.
Use as many clones as you can without running risk of serious injury.

That sums it up?

coldcutconvict · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
Okay, and what are those training insights?

Resolve steps. Maxxing SC hours without taking Medium Consequences. Raising Chakra Reserves + SC 40 to single cast all clones - without dying. Yamanaka training jutsu interaction with SCs. Detours. How long it takes to pay off XP spent on SC and Resolve.

There was one player really into them.

Paperclipped said:
[X] Training Keiko: Resolve
Resolve 23: 66 XP
Save 7 XP

This allows Keiko to maintain 4 SC training blocks per day instead of 3.

[X] Shadow Clone SOP: FOOM

Dedicate all clones to training Resolve.

Number of training blocks = 3 + (current Resolve - 20)/3

Add 1 training block at Resolve 40 and Resolve 80

Add 1 training block at SC 40, 50, ...

If SC >= 40, have as many clones do 3 training blocks as possible, and any overflow pop themselves once done training.

Spend FP to reroll -9/-12 on the dice iff there's something important (high-stakes social event, field missions, etc.) the next day.

If you take Consequences, lay off training proportionally.

Currently (while Resolve < 60), taking a Mild Consequence means using 2 less clones until it's healed.

Currently (while Resolve < 30), taking a Medium Consequence means using 2 less clones until it's healed.

Currently (while Resolve < 30), taking a Severe Consequence means using 3 less clones until it's healed.

[X] Shadow Clone SOP: Keiko FOOM
Follow FOOM plan as above.

Currently, Keiko is at Resolve 20. She will train for 3 training blocks (not hitting any chakra limit)
She will make a check with 26 vs. TN 29, and gain 1.3x XP

[X] Shadow Clone SOP: Akane FOOM
Follow FOOM plan as above.

Currently, Akane is at Resolve 20. She will train for 3 training blocks (not hitting any chakra limit)
She will make a check with 26 vs. TN 29, and gain 1.3x XP

[X] (Doggo) Ask Cannai if there are any tracking dogs that can find traces of blood on a summon scroll a hundred years old
[X] (Doggo) A stealth dog
[X] (Doggo) Ninjutsu-spec (buff specialist)

(copied here because Vote Tally with username votes is weird)

Paperclipped said:
Suppose you can handle X training blocks without any risk of Consequence (meaning that even on a -12, you cannot take even a Mild Mental Consequence). For Kei, X=14, for Akane, X=13, for Hazou, X=5.

In the long run, what's the optimal number of Shadow Clone training blocks?

X:

Always X training blocks.

X+1

There's a 1/81 chance that you take a Mild Mental Consequence (on a -12).

For simplicity's sake, assume that you do not take any training risks on days when you have a Mild. This removes 1 training block.

For Resolve < 60, this reduces your number of training blocks by 1 for 3 days.

For 60 < Resolve < 120, this reduces your number of training blocks by 2 for 3 days.

This happens around 1 in 81 days, and when it happens, affects your training time for 3 days afterwards. We can treat this as an 84 day cycle, with 81 days of (X+1) and 3 days of (X-1) or 3 days of (X-2) depending.

81/84 (X+1) + 3/84 (X-1)

Effectively X + 0.928 training blocks.

81/84 (X+1) + 3/84 (X-2)

Effectively X + 0.893 training blocks.

X+2

There's a 5/81 chance that you take a Mild Mental Consequence (on a -12 or -9).

For simplicity's sake, assume that you do not take any training risks on days when you have a Mild. This removes 1 training block.

For Resolve < 60, this reduces your number of training blocks by 1 for 3 days.

For 60 < Resolve < 120, this reduces your number of training blocks by 2 for 3 days.

This happens around 1 in 16 days, and when it happens, affects your training time for 3 days afterwards. We can treat this as an 19 day cycle, with 16 days of (X+1) and 3 days of (X-1) or 3 days of (X-2) depending.

16/19 (X+2) + 3/19 (X-1)

Effectively X + 1.526 training blocks.

16/19 (X+2) + 3/19 (X-2)

Effectively X + 1.368 training blocks.

In summary, the benefits of running 2 extra training blocks are sharply diminished, especially past Resolve 60. However, it is still worth the tradeoff for now. With the diminished benefit, we may want to switch to only running 1 extra training block after Resolve 60, in order to better preserve OPSEC around SC-related headaches.

To uncap, you need to run a day of X+4.

Paperclipped said:
Build Plans v3: Pyramidier

TL;DR: Without uncaps, we don't need detailed routing for optimal WHOOSH. All that matters is always keeping Resolve as one of your three highest stat.

Because I'm awful, I did routing anyway. It's informative to have something to look at. As with all things Marked for Death, those WHOOSH routes are best described with a spreadsheet.

Hazou: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11z26FC-u-tJv8sij47TGUcY3YpGTc2o7lX9cAZHab_Q/edit
Akane: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JLseHEfmChJI8eyxtx2_G4fLPK2gez-FD8utODG6OfM/edit
Kei: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ru87mMiGknEVzHuIhdojnBh-bss4HaZMREPIDtE5m5k/edit

I've crunched a lot of numbers on what the optimal slot for Resolve is. If you only care about maximizing a single stat, you should have that stat in the top pyramid slot and keep Resolve secondary. If you care about exactly two stats, Resolve can be the third highest stat. If you would rather have three or more stats maximized, then Resolve should be the highest stat to maximize XP rate. An example of this is visible in Hazou's sheet: going Resolve 4th gets slower stat raises than simply going Resolve 1st.

I recommend Hazou go Resolve secondary, as he can hit critical Sealing thresholds months earlier than with Resolve primary. I recommend that Akane and Kei go Resolve tertiary, as it gets them up to a comfortable jounin statline (60/70/70 Combat/Ath/Alt) substantially faster, by around 16 months. Putting Resolve lower than tertiary slows growth too much to be worth considering.

For Akane and Kei, Resolve primary could make sense due to option-value preservation: Hazou knows that he needs to level Sealing and socials and a bunch of other things, but Akane and Kei may not have yet found the stats they want to level to the max (e.g. paper jutsu for Kei would be a strong option over RW). Higher Resolve would let them exploit these opportunities better if they find them

I'll go over the projections briefly now, but there's really no way to get this wrong. As long as Resolve stays in the top 3 stats (always in the top pyramid tier or just below it), WHOOSH will go well for us. Beyond that, even making this decision is more than a year out in-character. There's plenty of time for plans to go wrong. Will we want to hide our power and grow slowly or maximize Akane and Kei's strength? We'll know better in a year's time. In all cases, the specific stats raised are easily interchangeable.

I also generally assume that by Resolve 89, we're switching to exploiting and no longer leveling Resolve. If there's clearly a lot more quest to play at that point, that assumption may change. It's so far out in the future as to be irrelevant at this point now.

Hazou

In the previous projections, Hazou was almost building up to an ordinary pyramid anyway, since he wanted to raise so many different stats. Between Sealing, Calligraphy, Earthshaping, Resolve, Chakra Reserves, Athletics, Alertness, Taijutsu, Deceit, Empathy, Rapport, Presence, and various other jutsu and secondary stats, there's no shortage of things worth leveling on his sheet. The question has always been what to level.

"Resolve Secondary" is my recommendation. We hit:

Sealing 50 (eff 72) in 9 months

Sealing 60 (eff 82) in 1 year

Sealing 68 (eff 90) in 1 year and 6 months, if we focus it.

Sealing 70 (eff 92) in 2 years and 6 months

Sealing 80 (eff 102) in 4 years and 9 months

Compared to previous projections, Hazou's growth "peters out" after Sealing 70 (as he can no longer monocolumn), and it takes him more than a year longer than previously to reach all higher Sealing thresholds. Luckily, with SSA, this is more than enough to have Kage level skills – indeed, Kage level Sealing is achievable in his upcoming detour.

If we assume that Biosealing is MedKnow + Sealing and 3D Sealing is Earthshaping + Sealing, in the same way that normal Sealing is Calligraphy + Sealing, then we'll struggle to get all of the Sealing secondary stats high enough to reach ⅔ parity with the insane heights that our Sealing will reach.

While we understand very well what stats we want Hazou to level, it's still possible that we need to pick up other skills: either for narrative reasons like with Earthshaping, or because they are too good not to take. With skill jumps being possible, we can easily slot new things into Hazou's build at any level, just like we can with Akane and Kei. Specific adjustments to move things around should be done on the fly.

Akane

Akane has three stats to focus on: Taijutsu, Athletics, and Alertness. She already hits quite hard, but moves low in initiative and struggles with dodges, so leveling Athletics and Alertness are the priorities. These indirectly buff her Taijutsu! If she moves first, she buffs (or Summons or flees or…) before attacks start flying, and with MARS this hugely favors her. Of course, dodging enemy attacks and not taking Consequences is crucial to land big hits as well.

In previous projections, Akane was scheduled to reach 90+ Taijutsu in 2 years and change. Sadly, this is impossible with pyramids.

"Resolve Tertiary" is my recommendation. She hits:

54/60/60 TJ/Ath/Alt in 1 year, 6 months

60/70/70 in 2 years and 2 months

80/80/70 in 4 years and 3 months

While she will reach a jounin statline in comparable time as before, she will slow down as she tries to advance past jounin. She will need S-rank tricks to cross the barrier. Some suggestions: MARS, 8 Gates, Sage Mode, Rasengan… There are many things that combine well with Taijutsu.

Kei

Kei is in a similar position to Akane, but slowed down substantially by Snowflake's taxation.

In "Resolve Tertiary", she hits:

50/60/60 Ranged Weapons/Athletics/Alertness in 2 years

60/70/70 in 2 years, 9 months

70/80/80 in 5 years and 1 month

Sadly, I do not think Ranged Weapons is a particularly good stat to raise to the highest levels. Unlike Taijutsu, which we know scales that high, weapons seem to struggle at that tier. We know a few S-rank weapons users, but by and large they seem to be using magic weapons. While we could probably use MARS and related sealtech to approximate magic weapons for Kei, I think it would be far better if we could get her some S-rank Wind (or another element!) ninjutsu, or especially paper jutsu. The halfcost benefits of ninjutsu specialization would help alleviate the Snowflake taxation.

Another way of looking at these builds is slicing them across time. There's not too much to say here that isn't in the sheets, so I'll only show one slice:

In two years' time:

Hazou, at age 18, is possibly the greatest sealmaster in the world at eff. Sealing 90. He's grown into his Clan Head position with socials at 30 across the board, and he has a chuunin level combat statline with 40/50/50 TJ/Ath/Alt. He's also advanced a bit as a Summoner, with a nice 40 CR to complement his 40 Physique.

Akane, at age 19, is one of Leaf's rising jounin stars. With 60/70/70 combat stats and a whole boatload of sealtech, she runs through her first year of jounin-level missions with flying colors. Unbeknownst to most, she also has a powerful city-killer ninjutsu in Elemental Mastery.

Kei, at age 18, is approaching jounin, with a 50/60/60 combat statline. Her skill as a politician has matured and her traditional tactics have grown more sophisticated with Deceit and Intimidation 40, but she still depends on planning out interactions meticulously, made easier by her Frozen Skein 50.

Noburi, at age 18, is a master of his bloodline with Vampiric Dew 60. He can also hold his own in combat with 50/60/50 Water Whip/Athletics/Alertness, and with 40/40 MedKnow/MedNin, he's an impressive medic as well. His CR 40 (eff 67) allows him to summon some of the strongest Toads, if needs be.

Probably the more useful thing I could do here is to provide routes on how specifically to handle the kids' first detours. These are very flexible, and other stats can easily be swapped in or orders can be changed up.

Hazou

The first step is to maximize Resolve at current levels. That means buying CR to 30 and Resolve to 59. At this point, his pyramid is: 7/4/4/2/1

He needs two more 50s to raise one up to 60. Those two will most likely be Earthshaping and Sealing. Suppose we do Earthshaping first, as originally planned.

Earthshaping 30 -> 40
7/4/3/3/1
Earthshaping 40 -> 50
7/4/3/2/2

Excellent. Now, for Sealing, we need to raise up some 20s to support Sealing 30 and Calligraphy 30. Hazou's socials are always underserviced, so let's raise Empathy.

Empathy 10 -> 20
Sealing 29 -> 30
6/4/4/2/2

Cool, but now we need two more 20s to raise Calligraphy. We can raise Rapport and Presence, but then we'll have too many 20s and not enough 10s. Let's raise Substitution as well.

Substitution 7 -> 10
Rapport 10 -> 20
6/5/4/2/2
Presence 15 -> 20
Calligraphy 29 -> 30
5/5/5/2/2

Now we can freely raise Sealing up to 40:

Sealing 30 -> 40
5/5/4/3/2

And then up to 50, with Calligraphy following close behind:

Sealing 40 -> 50
Calligraphy 30 -> 40
5/5/3/3/3

Physique auto-levels to 30 at this point.

Physique 29 -> 30
5/4/4/3/3

At this point, we would like to raise up a new 60, but we need to widen his pyramid a bit to comply with the pyramid rule. We need one more 20 stat and one more 10 stat. Let's raise up Substitution to 20, and raise Hiding Like a Mole and Pangolin Earth Armor up to 10.

Substitution 10 -> 20
Hiding Like a Mole 1 -> 10
Pangolin Earth Armor 1 -> 10
6/5/4/3/3

Now, we can raise his Sealing up to 60.

Sealing 50 -> 60
6/5/4/3/2/1

And that's a clean pyramid! Of course, the order of any of these is freely interchangeable.

Akane

Akane has just about capped out her Resolve. Her current pyramid is: 5/4/3/3/1/1. She's not pyramid-valid, but that's fine for now, we just need to make her valid before she can raise up a 70 stat. Let's try to get her Athletics and Alertness up to the 60s, starting with Athletics up to 50:

Athletics 48 -> 50
5/4/3/2/2/1

She can't directly raise anything much up, and she's lacking in foundational skills quite a bit. While we could make some jumps (for example, jumping EM up to 45 for nukes), let's just raise up some stats at the bottom of her pyramid and see what happens:

Deceit 8 -> 20
5/5/3/2/2/1
Flame Aura 20 -> 30
5/4/4/2/2/1
Chakra Reserves 32 -> 40
5/4/3/3/2/1
Rapport 8 -> 10
6/4/3/3/2/1
Stealth 15 -> 20
5/5/3/3/2/1
Elemental Mastery 20 -> 30
5/4/4/3/2/1

Okay, now we have a decent base. Let's raise Athletics and Alertness:

Athletics 50 -> 60
Alertness 42 -> 50
5/4/4/2/2/2

Nearly there. Let's keep leveling the base and get some more 40s and 50s to support Alertness to 60:

Flame Aura 30 -> 40
5/4/3/3/2/2
Medical Knowledge 0 -> 10
Medical Ninjutsu 0 -> 10
7/4/3/3/2/2
Medical Knowledge 10 -> 20
6/5/3/3/2/2
Deceit 20 -> 30
6/4/4/3/2/2
Medical Ninjutsu 10 -> 20
5/5/4/3/2/2
Elemental Mastery 30 -> 40
Stealth 20 -> 30
5/4/4/4/2/2
Flame Aura 40 -> 50
5/4/4/3/3/2

Okay, getting close. Still need more supports:

Ghost Scales 10 -> 20
Substitution 22 -> 30
Stealth 30 -> 40
4/4/4/4/3/2

Now we can finish up:

Stealth 40 -> 50
Alertness 50 -> 60
4/4/4/3/3/3

Excellent. Akane's now got a solid, chunky-lookin' pyramid. She needs 3 more 10s, 2 more 20s, 1 more 30, and 1 more 40 before she can raise up a 70 stat, but she's in a good spot. She'll probably be well suited to picking up another Element, if only to have more techniques to level and slot into her pyramid. The halfcosting could save her a lot of XP.

Kei

Like Akane, Kei's pyramid is in the right spot, she just needs a bit more time to maximize Resolve. The shape is: 8/4/3/2/2/1

Let's just do the obvious thing of getting her combat stats better.

Chakra Reserves 32 -> 40
Alertness 40 -> 50
Athletics 50 -> 60
8/4/2/2/2/2

Let's raise some supports:

Deceit 10 -> 20
Stealth 18 -> 20
6/6/2/2/2/2
Substitution 20 -> 30
Intimidation 20 -> 30
6/4/4/2/2/2
Frozen Skein 30 -> 40
6/4/3/3/2/2

Her Ranged Weapons is looking a little low, let's bump that up:

Deceit 20 -> 30
Substitution 30 -> 40
Ranged Weapons 40 -> 50
6/3/3/3/3/2

And now we bump Alertness:

Vacuum Step 10 -> 20
Stealth 20 -> 30
Deceit 30 -> 40
Frozen Skein 40 -> 50
Alertness 50 -> 60
5/3/3/3/3/3

This column is even narrower than Akane's, but is looking pretty solid. She'll need 1 more 40, 2 more 30s, 3 more 20s, and 2 more 10s before she can get a 70, but this is not a bad place to be.

Noburi

His pyramid looks great. We bitched and moaned about how terrible it was for the longest time, but after all that work, it's been fixed! His layout is: 6/6/5/3/1

Let's raise VD up to 50:

Vampiric Dew 40 -> 50
6/6/5/2/2

Now raise up Chakra Reserves to 40 to make room for his other medical stat in the 30s:
Chakra Reserves 30 -> 40
6/6/4/3/2
Medical Ninjutsu 29 -> 30
6/5/5/3/2

And why wait? The medical stats are important, let's treat 'em like it.

Medical Knowledge 30 -> 40
6/5/4/4/2

Raise up Athletics, as is required for ninja:

Athletics 45 -> 50
6/5/4/3/3

And now he has room to raise up a 60! The wonders of having a nice pyramid. Let's do VD:

Vampiric Dew 50 -> 60
6/5/4/3/2/1

At this point, we do some quiet leveling of a bunch of stats to X9, then...

Pantokrator's Hammer 1 -> 10
Deceit 19 -> 20
Substitution 20 -> 30
Medical Ninjutsu 30 -> 40
Alertness 40 -> 50
Athletics 50 -> 60
6/5/4/3/2/2

Bam, another 60. Let's do it again in the next column over, raising up a new 50.

Ghost Scales 5 -> 10
Hiding in the Mist 10 -> 20
Deceit 20 -> 30
Physique 30 -> 40
Medical Knowledge 40 -> 50
6/5/4/3/3/2

And now we do it again, this time getting another 60.

Exploring Tongue 0 -> 10
Ami's Ultimate Buster Bomb 10 -> 20
Rapport 24 -> 30
Water Dragon Bullet 30 -> 40
Medical Ninjutsu 40 -> 50
Alertness 50 -> 60
6/5/4/3/3/3

Now Noburi's rocking a solid 60/60/60 VD/Athletics/Alertness, above 50/50 Medical stats. He needs to flesh out his pyramid a bit more with 1 more 40, 30, 20, and 10 before he can raise up a 70, but he's in good shape.

You'll note that these aren't the stats that are chosen in the spreadsheets above. This is because I choose the stats for this micro-routing write-up just by eyeballing the character sheets. The exact stats chosen don't matter too much, as long as Resolve stays in the top 3.

Very soon, we'll be done with the long Resolve push for Hazou, Kei, and Akane. After that's done, we'll be spending a year or more grinding our core stats up, but at a highly improved XP rate compared to what was previously possible. I look forward to the discussions on how we'll be training our characters up to jounin and beyond.

Thanks to @Inferno Vulpix and @MMKII for feedback on this post.

cog-nito · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
So:

Clone sickness resistance can be trained.

Use as many clones as you can without running risk of serious injury.

That sums it up?

Personally I was under the impression we would also be selling the full package of Hazo's training methodology (in-character knowledge on pyramids and all)

Also optimising using as many clones as you can without serious injury really can't be underestimated over the long term, they'd probably have to forgo 0.2-0.3 or so of the Shadow clone XP multiplier that they otherwise would have gotten if they want to elimate risks of Clone sickness related injuries.

That really adds up over a long enough period of time.

coldcutconvict · Apr 28, 2024

Paper asking for citations:

Sir Stompy · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
So:

Clone sickness resistance can be trained.

Use as many clones as you can without running risk of serious injury.

That sums it up?

I meant specifically how many clones you can run without risking injury for the second bullet point.

It's not clear to me how clear that is IC.

Also yeah people are posting good stuff about pyramids, leveling CR to minimize casts of SC, etc. Those are all also things we could share.

ProperAttorney · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
So:

Clone sickness resistance can be trained.

Use as many clones as you can without running risk of serious injury.

That sums it up?

I'm almost 100% positive it was the abstraction of Hazo's "spreadsheet-vision", which includes the ability to be completely efficient in training up pyramid supports and the ability to actually plan the order in which you need to level skills up.

redzonejoe · Apr 28, 2024

Man I'm really confused about why/when some people receive certain numbers as a rating instead of others. That guy got 2 9s. Another guy has a 2. Alls I know is I've received a bunch of 10s and 7s but none of the other ones and I want at least one of each to add to my collection. Cough 'em up fellas.

1- RandomOTP you are a prince amongst men, and your taste as a fellow Snazo shipper is immaculate.
7- Sir Stompy I bet you think you're soooo funny. Well you're right. Also I swear eternal vengeance upon your bloodline! Which is as useful as the 7 you gave because I don't know squat about your bloodline.
10- ~~Buggy, same deal as stompy, except you don't even get to be the first to make that joke. Vengeance yes, but shame also. SHAME.~~ Alright given the post below you get a pass.
2, 5, 6, Genuine thanks to all of you, and to those any who fill in the gaps after this edit. But I want to give a special shout out to NightoftheYear who gave me what I asked despite only having 17 messages total in the 4 years he's spent on this site. I was gonna do a personalized response gimmick to everybody who rated this but I ran out of steam after doing groceries, so this is the last one. Thanks ya'll.

Buggy · Apr 28, 2024

redzonejoe said:
Man I'm really confused about why/when some people receive certain numbers as a rating instead of others. That guy got 2 9s. Another guy has a 2. Alls I know is I've received a bunch of 10s and 7s but none of the other ones and I want at least one of each to add to my collection. Cough 'em up fellas.

I'm just pressing the shiny 10 button on every post.

Noumero · Apr 28, 2024

Paperclipped said:
Could someone please identify these spreadsheets or training optimizations? It's hard to judge what value these bring without understanding what is being discussed.

This and this sort of stuff. I think those two are the main ones, though maybe @Inferno Vulpix, @MMKII, or one @Paperclipped can link to more.

Basically, we-the-players have developed tools and methodologies into which we can plug an arbitrary build, and quickly figure out how to most optimally make this build grow using FOOM, which tradeoffs it would involve regarding faster immediate improvements vs. faster long-term growth, how much it would speed the training up, roughly how much chakra would be needed, how many clones someone at a given level of SC and Resolve can use to train daily without suffering long-term mental consequences, and so on.

Presumably this is all somehow represented in-universe as well, as the work Hazou and others have done. Presumably it's less of a literal spreadsheet, and more a bunch of heuristics, Fermi estimates, and tacit knowledge that Hazou, Akane, Mari, and Kei have accumulated over the years they have been FOOMing.

And presumably this is highly valuable. Indeed, I'd expect the actual in-universe counterpart of this to be even more valuable and less easy to replicate independently for Naruto et al., since it'd involve some messiness and fiddling with the details that we didn't have to consider at our level of simulation.

Common-sensically: FOOM is a pretty involved operation, and it'd stand to reason that someone who has had several years of experience with it would have a lot of stuff to teach to someone just starting out.

Edit: @Paperclipped, I'd suggest modeling someone training without these optimizations as, well, someone who FOOMs suboptimally. Pushes themselves too far and ends up with a Moderate or a Severe, or remains too conservative regarding how many clones they use at once, or fails to put XP into Resolve consistently enough, or doesn't think to level SC to 40, or asks for too little/too much chakra from Noburi and ends up wasting a training block/wasting chakra, et cetera.

Basically, someone who is just guessing at how they need to train, without a bird's eye view on the process that the spreadsheets allow.

Zampano · Apr 28, 2024

cog-nito said:
Personally I was under the impression we would also be selling the full package of Hazo's training methodology (in-character knowledge on pyramids and all)

I'm not sure that "selling" is the operative verb here, but I had the same impression.

I'd be mildly interested in knowing how Naruto and other simulated ninja experience the Pyramid constraint. XP is abstracted as a resource that accumulates at a fixed (or stochastic?) rate each day. But the actual characters are presumably practicing things related to what they (eventually) spend that XP on. That's why we can't spend banked XP on the TH apprenticeship - Hazo wasn't (retroactively) practicing his TH exercises until he begin tutoring.

So Naruto or Sasuke, upon hitting a pyramid constraint, might realize that the day's planned Athletics [59 -> ~~60̷~~] exercises were not making any progress and then switch to Underwater Basket Weaving [UBW 19 -> 20].

In the narrative, this realization must be seamless for Hazo because afaik being pyramid constrained (or pyramid illegal!) has not ever imposed a penalty to our fungible XP resource.

~~What we really need to do right now is interrogate the concept of XP leveling and randomization of skill-checks as a necessary component of simulation~~

Inferno Vulpix · Apr 28, 2024

Noumero said:
This and this sort of stuff. I think those two are the main ones, though maybe @Inferno Vulpix, @MMKII, or one @Paperclipped can link to more.

I can throw in the deep-dive into FOOM hours that I made some years ago, coordinating our safe thresholds and when/how much to scale back our hours. Changes may have been made to our SOP over the years, but this is the template we started with.

Inferno Vulpix said:
Incidentally, I've been thinking about the SC SOPs and thinking that it'd be nice to centralize the FOOM algorithm so we can a) make sure everyone's running the same software, and b) include Hazou in it as soon as he gets SC 30 with no fuss.

(to any QMs who see this, don't worry about having to do anything with this, SC SOPs are mainly intra-hivemind coordination mechanisms so we can have all our ducks in a row for you)

[X] Shadow Clone SOP: General FOOM

Dedicate all clones to training.

Maximum clone-hours = Resolve - 5, with the following modifiers:

-6 if beneath Resolve 20, -3 if below Resolve 40, +3 if above Resolve 80.

-3 if beneath SC 40. +3 if above SC 50, +6 if above SC 60, and so on.

Resulting tolerance: safe on -6 FD or better, only a Mild on -9 or -12.

Maximum training blocks = floor(max hours/3)

Any excess hours are free for any use.

Remove 0.5 training blocks of gain to emulate statistical loss due to Mild Consequences.

Number of clones = training blocks

At SC 40+, ceil(training blocks/3)

Cap number of clones at personal chakra capacity if extra reserves not available.

Necessary CR for a given number of clones in one cast:

Without overcharging: CR(N) = ceil(26N + 151)/10

With overcharging: CR(N) = ceil(26N + 151)/10.5

Currently defaulting to 'no overcharging'. Vote pending.

(calculation/benchmarks below)

(Distribution method for additional chakra left undefined until object situation can be assessed)

On the day before any important event (for which a Mild Consequence would be undesirable), reduce clone-hours by six to eliminate any chance of taking a Consequence.

In the case of modifications to effective Resolve (excluding SC-induced Mild Consequences), use effective Resolve instead of base Resolve.

If there is no Mild Consequence open, reduce clone-hours by six to eliminate any chance of taking a higher-level Consequence.

Current benchmarks:

Resolve 20 --> 9 clone-hours --> 3 training blocks --> +0.25 the update's base XP.

+1 training block every 3 Resolve, i.e. 23, 26, 29, etc.

CR Reqs:

3 clones: 229 CP --> CR 23 (OC: 22)

4 clones: 256 CP --> CR 26 (OC: 25)

5 clones: 281 CP --> CR 29 (OC: 27)

6 clones: 307 CP --> CR 31 (OC: 30)

7 clones: 333 CP --> CR 34 (OC: 32)

CR formula math:

Chakra needed for N clones: 150 + 25N + N + 1

(N + 1 because each entity needs at least 1 CP after casting)

Available reserves:

Without overcharging: CR * 10

With overcharging: CR * 10 * 1.05

(x1.05 from overcharging up to 5%, not sure how it rounds so round conservatively)

Without overcharging:

CR * 10 = 150 + 25N + N + 1

10 * CR = 151 + 26N

CR = (26N + 151)/10

With overcharging:

(CR * 10) * 1.05 = 150 + 25N + N + 1

10.5 * CR = 151 + 26N

CR = (26N + 151)/10.5

Rounding a hecc, make sure to double-check from the other direction (i.e. calc how much CR you need, then double-check that the given CR gives you enough chakra from that end)

Full disclosure: this is based on the Akane SOP, designed by me after looking at Paperclipped's Keiko SOP and some discord discussions with them. It differs from the Keiko SOP in the following ways:

~~This version fixes the ties-go-to-the-attacker problem (which would mean taking a Consequence on a -6 for a third of Resolve values) by aiming one level higher.~~

This version, instead of using FP to reroll -9 or -12 on days before missions, instead choses to pre-emptively scale back clone-hours for that day.

Dynamic scaling for consequences has been generalized to encapsulate all modifiers to effective Resolve, and steps have also been added to ensure we never take a Medium Consequence from FOOM training.

Personally I think this is an improvement over the current Keiko SOP ~~otherwise I would've just suggested that~~, but if you have any suggestions for what the SOP should be like, feel free to speak up!

Edit: I have fixed the 'fixes the ties-go-to-the-attacker problem' problem by reverting back to not caring about tiebreaks because it turns out they are not actually relevant to our use case.

Edit 2: I believe I have correctly incorporated the statistical loss from occasional Milds taken on -9 and -12. This works out to about half a training block of loss, so we can simply bake that into the awards and not have to worry about simulating rolls.

Paperclipped · Apr 28, 2024

Sir Stompy said:
I meant specifically how many clones you can run without risking injury for the second bullet point.

It's not clear to me how clear that is IC.

I don't think Hazou can sell this, given that he doesn't actually know anyone else's Resolve score. The rule is basically the common sense "run as many clones as you can without injury" anyway.

ProperAttorney said:
I'm almost 100% positive it was the abstraction of Hazo's "spreadsheet-vision", which includes the ability to be completely efficient in training up pyramid supports and the ability to actually plan the order in which you need to level skills up.

I don't think Mari can sell Naruto Hazou's spreadsheet-vision.

Noumero said:
This and this sort of stuff.

The former is basically "max Resolve", while the latter is at least actually valuable, in that it shows that capstoning Resolve does actually pay off eventually (though it's unclear to me how on earth Hazou shows this in-character).

Noumero said:
Basically, we-the-players have developed tools and methodologies into which we can plug an arbitrary build, and quickly figure out how to most optimally make this build grow using FOOM

Basically, "max Resolve". There were iterations of the rules where this was complicated (for instance, the much-beloved uncap system). I don't think it's complicated right now.

Noumero said:
Edit: @Paperclipped, I'd suggest modeling someone training without these optimizations as, well, someone who FOOMs suboptimally. Pushes themselves too far and ends up with a Moderate or a Severe, or remains too conservative regarding how many clones they use at once, or fails to put XP into Resolve consistently enough, or doesn't think to level SC to 40, or asks for too little/too much chakra from Noburi and ends up wasting a training block/wasting chakra, et cetera.

Apart from maxing/not maxing Resolve, I'm not sure there's big gains to be had here. Like, sure, people might train with too few clones for a bit, or take a Moderate once, but they'll pretty quickly figure it out with daily feedback. But still, noted.

Also, could I collect the anniversary reactions 1-10 in order on this post please? Thanks in advance.

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