Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
These people can just give us a nice anecdote about their pet dog or some ghost story or something.
When you're the ferryman you get to decide what counts and what doesn't afterall.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
TFW a random civilian gives us the secrets to forging chakra metal
- Location
- Texas
Speaking of, I recall something a long time ago about making metal stronger with the quill of some chakra beast. Wonder if the quills of these magma weasels would do something similar.TFW a random civilian gives us the secrets to forging chakra metal
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
We should loot the bodies next time we're in the cave, maybe Oshiro can figure something out? 🤔
I'd assume that Oro just cheats with biosealing somehow. It's not mentioned in the interlude about his early development:
But it seems like the obvious explanation. How Asuma did it is a much more interesting question; it's possible he just levelled CR the hard way to the high 60s and then had ACE to make up the rest, but it seems unlikely.
(A thought that's occurred to me; if you can have PCJ and YSJ to earn extra XP for Physique and Resolve, could you have a technique that earns you extra XP for CR? It seems very much like the kind of thing that ought to be doable.)
- Location
- United States
Asuma presumably only had access to ACE for around a year.
If the Akimichi gave away ACE it means they have something even better that they keep to themselves. Clearly, the Sarutobi do as well.
Previous discussion has been that he may have had it as a genin:
But I agree, it seems likely that this is related to some Sarutobi clan secret, or otherwise something Asuma got from Hiruzen.
Minor buff to the pool's effect on your chakra systems
- Location
- USA
Minor buff to the pool's effect on your chakra systems
If you bathe for 12 hours instead of 3, the pool's chakra reduction is -25% instead of -20%.
Doylist: We're listening to feedback from the players saying that the pool's effect is too weak.
Watsonian: Mari, enjoying her soaks in the hot springs, discovers that spending even longer in the pool gives a marginal improvement to the chakra-reduction effect the pool provides.
We're aware that this will likely still be considered weak, as it does not aid the players' extensive use of the shadow clone technique. However, we are confident that this is approximately the right level of strength for this effect. A -25% decrease in chakra costs is equivalent to a +33% increase in chakra reserves, which is a substantial boost in effective CR and can be directly valued by the equivalent-XP of buying those CR levels:
Finally, Noburi finds that the pool's extended effect if he soaks in it for a very long time is particularly effective at countering the inefficiencies of his abnormal chakra system. For him, the cost reduction he experiences is -33% (so his techniques have double their normal cost, instead of triple).
If you bathe for 12 hours instead of 3, the pool's chakra reduction is -25% instead of -20%.
Doylist: We're listening to feedback from the players saying that the pool's effect is too weak.
Watsonian: Mari, enjoying her soaks in the hot springs, discovers that spending even longer in the pool gives a marginal improvement to the chakra-reduction effect the pool provides.
We're aware that this will likely still be considered weak, as it does not aid the players' extensive use of the shadow clone technique. However, we are confident that this is approximately the right level of strength for this effect. A -25% decrease in chakra costs is equivalent to a +33% increase in chakra reserves, which is a substantial boost in effective CR and can be directly valued by the equivalent-XP of buying those CR levels:
- Turns CR20 -> CR27, ~300 XP worth
- Turns CR40 -> CR53, ~1200 XP worth
- Turns CR60 -> CR80, ~2800 XP worth
Finally, Noburi finds that the pool's extended effect if he soaks in it for a very long time is particularly effective at countering the inefficiencies of his abnormal chakra system. For him, the cost reduction he experiences is -33% (so his techniques have double their normal cost, instead of triple).
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Noburi is never allowed to leave the pool again --Yuno will be overjoyed
- Location
- United States
Wow, that's great! Crazy to think this might be something he can turn into a technique he can cast on himself later.
One question. Has Kagome noticed any additional benefit that the chakra pool may have on attempting to grow his chakra reserves?
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Hey, thanks a bunch for listening y'all!
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If such an effect exists, he has not yet noticed it.
FWIW I think the pool's effect is fine (even before you buffed it), just not very good for our situation in particular. I don't think the ~implicit contract that high-chakra adventure regions / dungeons will have loot somewhat commensurate with their dangers has been broken or anything.
But I'm definitely excited to (hopefully) come back to this later and research it properly. Especially if the pool turns out to buff TH, as some people have speculated.
But I'm definitely excited to (hopefully) come back to this later and research it properly. Especially if the pool turns out to buff TH, as some people have speculated.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
EJ said it provides a minor buff, but I don't think the details were specified... which is fair, since we don't really have any THing plans, aside from a few ES Tweaks, and Minatosealing.
- Location
- USA
But also:
Is this an implicit contract? I'm certainly aware that there's an expectation that going adventuring will lead to unstagnations, but loot above and beyond that?
Pinging also @eaglejarl @Velorien
Is there an alteration to the party's chakra budget from this?
Before it was 900 excees CP, now since that was roughly 500 from Mari and 400 from cost reduction (player estimate). I'd expect that to go up to at least 500 cost reduction for a 25% increase in effect. But since Noburi gets a bigger benefit from the pool I could see the cost reduction jumping to 600.
Bringing up the total overflow to 1000CP or 1100CP
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Yeah, especially when framed around how much XP it's worth, it's clear that the cave really is quite valuable for build-optimization. If we can regularly travel back here, or recreate the effect ourselves, it'll surely prove its worth in the long term once we've arranged our build around it and get powerful enough that we're facing high-level threats head-on instead of what we're doing now.
It may not have been the best use of our time for this mission, but I certainly won't say that Orochimaru scammed us.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I think interesting and dangerous areas will have interesting and dangerous stuff to poke at, some portion of which might be "loot" (by virtue of some property intrinsic to the region, or by virtue of some other mid-to-high level schmuck dying in the region, etc.).
I think it has been implied to a moderate yet infrequent degree that some of the strange bullshit-powerups we see several Essies walking around with are the result of striking metaphorical gold somewhere like this.
I think it has been all but stated outright that some of the more obscure and dangerous locations (that we have a subset of) probably contain lore and/or treasure and/or secrets of the setting. The CSI maze for instance.
(Which isn't to say that the playerbase should expect much from any old random hole in the ground, just that it would be strange if all the explicit locations of interest were all complete or partial duds on that front.)
I don't think this applies to the cave we are currently in. It was what it said on the tin.
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Okay, on reflection maybe there isn't such a contract. But I think all the interesting adventuring locations we've heard of or explored so far have had either something interesting going on (e.g. the cave in Honey had the chakra golems and mystery crystals) or at least the possibility of something interesting (the Swamp of Death definitely has depths we haven't plumbed, and plausibly cool shit happening there). If we thoroughly explored some high-chakra high-danger adventure location and didn't find anything interesting, no cool chakra beasts or plants or mysterious phenomena or leads for further research, then I would be disappointed.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
...kind of, yeah? Like, as someone who does just enjoy adventure in and of itself, when I'm trying to persuade other voters to support it... why bother doing it if there's no reward or boon to our current objective? There's in-universe justification for literal loot in the cases of these dungeons - supposedly this is what made the sannin big and strong, and not everyone does it because it's dangerous and kills even jonin. Or it can have other things besides loot, like lore and actionable intel (perhaps locations of additional dungeons for example) rather than some power up.
Cutting to the meat of things, QMs would like players to do cool/interesting stuff. And they would like players to do cool stuff that helps them achieve goals and advance the story. I would also like this a lot and think most other players do too. If there is pretty much nothing to be gained from adventuring, with regular frequency, I expect many players will justifiably think there's greater returns to be had by just researching instead, and just doing a random irrelevant fight when we absolutely need to unstagnate. Like, if there was literally nothing in this cave, how would it have been any more plot relevant than when we were fighting leopards randomly because we just needed to unstagnate? At least we can currently argue that this pool quest was relatively mission relevant by giving a bigger chakra budget.
If we want to do more adventures that do absolutely nothing to progress anything... idk, that doesn't seem fruitful narratively OR mechanically, and for what...? 'Game /narrative balance/simulationism'? I feel like we've already touched on why these are still met even with guaranteed (or near guaranteed) rewards, and it would, IMO, encourage more player plans that are aligned with what the authors want and what the players want.
And again to be clear rewards beyond unstagnating don't HAVE to be literal loot. Actionable intel/lore, reputation progress with e.g. 7th Path clans or something, or achieving other useful goals like diverting Akatsuki attention or whatever is narratively applicable at that time are useful too and plot relevant/compelling, and plot hooks in those directions will be fruitful, I'd think. "Pro Forma" adventures with no benefit besides unstagnating - that EJ himself said he didn't prefer - are not going to encourage further adventures/plans the QMs claim to desire.
If you decide that's the route you want to take then it's ultimately your decision as QMs, but I'll admit it seems entirely antithetical to where you're wanting players to take things and I wouldn't really understand why.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Basically this, yeah.
If the returns for doing random, scattershot research are better than mission quests, then we'll be more liable to do just the above. Or, at the very least, it'll be hard to convince the playerbase to do otherwise.
- Location
- Texas
What I've gathered over the years is that raiding these high chakra locations can give you access to "shinies" that are otherwise impossible to get. The sannin did it, Itachi did it, and we are trying to emulate their success. It is not always a literal object, but it sometimes was (Itachi's mirror and soul-sealing gourd-sword). The fact that the QMs don't hold this opinion seems strange to me since that has been hinted at or outright stated for years.
