Rift-Launching Explosive:
A runic explosion that includes a dimensional/atheric shockwave, suitable for launching the rift scar like shrapnel.
There, that's the Goketsu brand.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
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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
Rift-Launching Explosive:
A runic explosion that includes a dimensional/atheric shockwave, suitable for launching the rift scar like shrapnel.
There, that's the Goketsu brand.
Because Akatsuki is not the government. The other villages stick to AMITY because they think it's in their interest. If Akatsuki demonstrates willingness to repeatedly kill Kage or raze villages, without ironclad evidence that the Kage/villages actually gave them explicit cause such that the other villages are convinced that Akatsuki won't do the same to them, the other villages will assume Akatsuki is acting in bad faith, and that would be the end of AMITY.
And the Akatsuki cannot present such evidence. That Gōketsu Hazō - widely known for his radical ideas, possible insanity, and questionable loyalty to Leaf - has broken the agreement and is researching dimensionalism is not sufficient evidence that Leaf ordered him to do it. They can't get hold of better evidence for reasons we've discussed - failing a Deceit check isn't enough, because it's not convincing to the other villages - and even if they could they couldn't tell the other villages why this is a deal that they care so much about without revealing their plans to resurrect Nagato, which would create a major incentive for the other villages to either band together to destroy them or individually descend on the rift site in an attempt to secure it. Nor can they punish Naruto for Hazō's betrayal in the "manager accepts responsibility" way you describe, because a ninja or group of ninja going missing to break a deal is something that could happen to the other villages; it's not a justification they would accept. Concessions, yes - like Leaf's assistance in capturing Hazō. Naruto's deposal or Leaf's destruction, no.
IMO, this being a Standard and a Supplemental makes it of limited utility. You're spending a Standard you could be using to attack and a Supplemental you could be using to buff, Substitute, move Zones, etc., in order to impose a penalty to Athletics for people in one Zone. It's a pretty significant penalty, granted, but they can avoid it by just moving out of the Zone and will do that immediately on their next turn. It's decent for area denial, but I think it's just a worse use of time than other things we could do with the same actions. (Also, something I didn't notice at first, the penalty only hits people who "cannot succeed on their roll" - you don't specify what that means, but it closes off what I was thinking of as a major use case for this, which is bringing down the Athletics of a high-tier target in preparation for your teammate(s) hitting them.)
Also, some specific corrections & comments:
Corrections:
- Standard+Supplemental casting time shouldn't be -20; WDB is full-round and only gets -20 (and even that is questionable since the design rules say that you ought to have to go down to a minute to get -20.
- 30 second duration is only two steps down the timeladder from "an instant", so it only adds +30 strain.
- The range is -2, personal: the AOE is 1 Zone, but you don't need the +40 from range on top of that.
- See Bile of the Ocean Demons (Attack, but gets reduced stress from being personal range) and Great Lake Formation.
- Hiding in the Mist appears to be a counterexample, but that's an older jutsu so I'm inclined to assume it's an error.
- The skill penalty +40 probably only needs to be +30 at most - Syrup Trap inflicts a bigger penalty and only gets +30 for it, though that is an older technique so could be outdated.
- ES is not fatal if you don't have enough chakra to cast it. Shadow Clone is the only jutsu we know that behaves like that. It breaks if you run out of chakra while it's active, and you suffer the backlash as a result, but it's not instantly fatal.
- I don't think you need that pair of "increase chakra cost" disadvantages? They already seem accounted for in the increased chakra cost from reducing the casting time, though it's hard to say since we haven't seen any TH tweaks.
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Yeah, the "standard + supplemental" isn't great, but it still leaves one supplemental for activating CATEARS chains, or for substitution (ninja get 1 standard and 2 supplementals).
...That said, I'm not actually certain if it's even possible to change ES's casting speed of "several minutes" down to a mere "standard action" or "supplemental." I don't know how far-removed Tweaks can become from their original ninjutsu, and Hazou-pilot only has THing 10, and a single original ninjutsu to his name. Hopefully with more experience and knowledge, we'll find out --I'd certainly like to avoid the "standard + supplemental!"
The fact that enemies can avoid it by leaving the Zone is a benefit, in my mind, and not a bug. It forces enemies to move, and we can arrange things so that they move into traps (skyslicers + illusion seals, for example). And, of course, this is assuming that they're able to move across the boarders, and into another Zone. Of course, ES has a huge range, so it shouldn't be too difficult to make a version of this jutsu that has much larger coverage.
As for "succeed on their roll..." I mean, all debuffing ninjutsu (whether it's "tags against" or "applies a direct malus to their stat") need to be rolled against to determine if an enemy is affected by it. Even genjutsu, which can lock an enemy down completely, is rolled against. It's not possible to just auto-hit... unless you're using Aura to punch a genin, I suppose, but Zabuza isn't the best person to emulate
It's also worth noting that we'd be rolling this ninjutsu at level 50, since it's a Tweak on Earthshaping. Level 50 is the level that Noburi has his Water Whip at, and he's been trouncing enemies left and right --from the Shade Caverns to the Chakra Cave --showing off for his lovely, murderous wife. So having a debuffing ninjutsu at level 50 wouldn't mean that it inherently auto-fails against higher leveled enemies, I think... Especially if they're already debuffed from Banshees.
I also think that this ninjutsu has some particular synergy with some of our Rift Battle Plans. We're working on the Icarus Rune, which will deny the Akatsuki and their Minions the use of their skywalkers, forcing them to engage while on the ground, and thereby susceptible to ground-based debuffs (unless they have a form of flight, like Deidara or Konan... but that's okay, since we have other plots and plans to deal with those two). We've also been discussing making a non-Air Dome version of skywalkers so that we can keep aerial superiority. So Hazou's on the ground, casts the ninjutsu, while Noburi and Kei are above, using non-air dome skywalkers.
But, the most important reason of all... a tweak to ES would also make the prospect of leveling ES to 60 for Runecrafting a far more tolerable prospect, since it would mean we're also leveling a combat ninjutsu.
Feedback to the corrections --which were, genuinely, very helpful! ^.^
- Good catch on that, it'll probably be, like, -10 or -15. I'll change it to -10, just to be safe. Might be pleasantly surprised! But that said, Earthshaping's normal casting speed is "several minutes," so I worry that it simply won't be possible to Tweak it into a ninjutsu with a "standard" or "supplemental" casting speed... hopefully we can, though!
- Whoops, +30, not +60, I'll fix it
- Yeah, Hiding in the Mist was an early-game ninjutsu, so it's probably an exception, and not the rule. Bile was made by Paperclipped, iirc, and from what the QMs have said, he's the one who does the mechanical design these days. I'll tweak the range/aoe to fall in line with Bile, since that's probably closer to "industry standard" for ninjutsu
- Good catch, I'd misread the rules doc on that part. Turns out, +30 is for a "major penalty," and +40 is for the "complete elimination" of a major skill.
- Whoops, I'd thought it was instantly fatal, but that was probably just me misreading the narrative framing about the concentration backlash. Fixed!
- I'm going to keep the dual "increase chakra" disadvantages, just to be safe. You're right to say that, mechanically, they're already accounted for in the casting time, but we haven't done very much Technique Hacking. So we don't really know if Earthshaping needs an extra mechanical infusion of magical power to supercharge it to combat's bullet-time speeds, or if the bog standard designation is enough... but hey, I could be wrong! I hope I'm wrong, tbh 😅
And thus: here's the new statblock!
I'm working on it. I've mostly read recent chapters and very old ones so far. I'm catching up on the ones in the middle but spending a lot of time with trips to Narutopedia and reading comments. I should probably just skip comments for the older stuff. Looks like the chapter you referenced was shortly before I came in with the recent stuff. Maybe I should back up to more somewhat recent posts first rather than going all the way back?
What I'm arguing for is that after Hazo's family went missing nin, and broke the deal, we shouldn't expect Leaf to be the same as we left it.
Originally, a bunch of people were voting for "Returning to Leaf" with (what it seemed to me) to be the understanding that Leaf was largely the same as we left it. Naruto in charge, calling the shots, following through on his original plan, etc. We'd arrive in Leaf with our two runes, Naruto would greet us, we'd rally the troops, prepare, and head off to battle against Akasuki.
I'm arguing against that assumption.
The reason why I'm jumping between a bunch of lines of reasoning is I'm saying, we have no reason to expect Leaf to be the same. In fact here's a bunch of very plausible actions Itachi would be justified in taking that would lead to that assumption not holding.
And because we can't count on Leaf being the same, "Returning to Leaf" isn't in the cards, or us following Naruto's letter plan.
It could be "Itachi becomes suspicious that Naruto lied to him and intentionally broke the deal, interrogates him, and decides Leaf is guilty and needs to burn."
OR
"Itachi decides that Naruto was earnestly and honestly attempting to follow Itachi's orders, and even now is doing everything in its power to continue to comply, but because Hazou unilaterally betrayed Leaf and disobeyed the agreement Itachi declares Leaf guilty and burns it."
OR
"Itachi calls in Akasuki to burn Leaf to the ground"
OR
"Itachi kills Naruto and installs someone else."
OR
blah, blah, blah. hundreds of different scenario's I can come up with.
It doesn't matter if I'm calling the scenario exactly. What I'm trying to gesture at, is there is a large action space where Itachi would be very justified in changing the status quo in Leaf. In fact, it's more plausible than the idea that nothing will change in Leaf. And because of this, we should mostly act as if Leaf is MIA, any help from Naruto as promised in the letter is nil, and Naruto letter plan as dead in the water.
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An unlevelable combat ninjutsu.
:Hazoulook
If we have to level ES to 60 I will spontaneously combust.
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Welcome aboard! Always good to get new members. I imagine we'll start getting a few more starting next Wednesday…
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I wouldn't mind it so much if we managed some decent combat Tweaks to ES, since it would mean we got a combat ninjutsu at 50.
Nah, because of the crossover bonus, we could level an actually good combat ninjutsu to 60 and roll them both at 60. ES to 60 is possibly the worst build choice I have ever seen. No matter what Tweaks we get for it. They aren't going to turn it into something usable.
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I don't really think that's ever going to happen. Maybe Taijutsu to 60, since it's already in the 40s, but I think most of our XP is going to be tied up raising research stats for the foreseeable future. PS, THing, Minatosealing, we've even talked about picking up Biosealing, too. And that's in addition to learning Lightning Element, which is another 1000xp.
I don't think we're ever going to have the free XP to raise a combat ninjutsu from 1 to 60.
But that all said, "ES 60" was mostly a joke. I doubt we'll need it, and I'd very much rather try and find a way to raise Athletics or Taijutsu to 60, first.
That said, I do very much want to Tweak ES into some form of combat ninjutsu, since it's already taking up a 50-slot. Might as well milk some combat power out of it, since we were forced to level it to 50 to unlock Runecrafting.
I am incredibly pessimistic about this. ES is the complete opposite of a combat jutsu. I do not think it is possible to completely twist a jutsu into something entirely different with a Tweak. It's supposed to be a small change . It's not called an Overhaul
Yes I agree. However, given the situation in which we level an Earth jutsu to 60. I posit that it is better to level something like BRI to 60 and use the crossover bonus to boost ES.
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Yeah, there's a possibility that this is the case...
But, while we're on the topic of Hazou's build, what are the "immediate" next steps? I know that the last action plan has Hazou raising his stats in the following way...
Which makes his pyramid...
| 60 | Resolve | |||||||
| 50 | Sealing | Earthshaping | ||||||
| 40 | Taijutsu | Calligraphy | Shad. Clone | |||||
| 30 | Alertness | Athletics | Chakra | Physique | Runecrafting | |||
| 20 | Deceit | Presence | Rapport | Substitution | P. Earth Armor | |||
| 10 | Stealth | Empathy | Medknow | Mednin | THing | Ghost Scales | P.K. Hammer | Living Roots |
We could raise an existing 30-stat into Hazou's open 40-slot (please, dear Jashin, let it be Athletics). This would free up a 30-slot for THing, when we finish reading all the notes.
We could then repeat the strat, raising a 40-stat into a 50-slot, thus making room for THing 40, which is the prerequisite for Minatosealing.
| 60 | Resolve | |||||||
| 50 | Sealing | Earthshaping | ||||||
| 40 | Taijutsu | Calligraphy | Shad. Clone | Athletics | ||||
| 30 | Alertness | Chakra | Physique | Runecrafting | ||||
| 20 | Deceit | Presence | Rapport | Substitution | P. Earth Armor | |||
| 10 | Stealth | Empathy | Medknow | Mednin | THing | Ghost Scales | P.K. Hammer | Living Roots |
| 60 | Resolve | ||||||
| 50 | Sealing | Earthshaping | |||||
| 40 | Taijutsu | Calligraphy | Shad. Clone | Athletics | |||
| 30 | Alertness | Chakra | Physique | Runecrafting | THing | ||
| 20 | Deceit | Presence | Rapport | Substitution | P. Earth Armor | ||
| 10 | Stealth | Empathy | Medknow | Mednin | Ghost Scales | P.K. Hammer | Living Roots |
| 60 | Resolve | ||||||
| 50 | Sealing | Earthshaping | Athletics | ||||
| 40 | Taijutsu | Calligraphy | Shad. Clone | ||||
| 30 | Alertness | Chakra | Physique | Runecrafting | THing | ||
| 20 | Deceit | Presence | Rapport | Substitution | P. Earth Armor | ||
| 10 | Stealth | Empathy | Medknow | Mednin | Ghost Scales | P.K. Hammer | Living Roots |
| 60 | Resolve | ||||||
| 50 | Sealing | Earthshaping | Athletics | ||||
| 40 | Taijutsu | Calligraphy | Shad. Clone | THing | |||
| 30 | Alertness | Chakra | Physique | Runecrafting | |||
| 20 | Deceit | Presence | Rapport | Substitution | P. Earth Armor | ||
| 10 | Stealth | Empathy | Medknow | Mednin | Ghost Scales | P.K. Hammer | Living Roots |
At this point, I very strongly suspect that we're more likely to buy Minatosealing and level it up. The exact mechanics of which will determine our build progression (though I expect we'll probably level it to 20s or 30s, to benefit from DOB).
Question - why Athletics to 50 and not Taijutsu? Taijutsu seems like the better choice here, since it's both an offensive and defensive stat, though I get that higher Athletics means more chance of surviving the high-rolling attacks we seem to come across disturbingly often.
Cariyaga
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That's basically why. We're more concerned with Hazou surviving than beating enemies, and while these correlate... being the sealmaster that this whole thing hinges on, we'd rather lean in the direction of survival.
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Basically what Cari said. It's also worth noting that not all attacks can be Counterattacked, too, and that Athletics is usually the stat that's rolled when an enemy casts a debuff jutsu.
I see what you mean, but I think there's an argument to be made to "return to Leaf" even if Leaf has been destroyed. Orochimaru, at the very least, would still be around, and even if he's the only troop to be rallied, storming the rift with him would be more effective than going it alone.
Yes, we're taking Ath/Tai to 49
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Oh, thank fuck
Also probably CR to 33, and Alt to 39, most of which is pretty cheap. Then we'd likely raise Tai to 50 and buy MS
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So, after the changes coming from today's chapter, we raise the following...
- Athletics -> 40
- THing -> 30 (eat notes)
- Alt -> 39
- CR -> 33
- Athletics -> 50
- THing -> 40
| 60 | Resolve | ||||||
| 50 | Sealing | Earthshaping | Athletics | ||||
| 40 | Taijutsu | Calligraphy | Shad. Clone | THing | |||
| 30 | Alertness | Chakra | Physique | Runecrafting | |||
| 20 | Deceit | Presence | Rapport | Substitution | P. Earth Armor | ||
| 10 | Stealth | Empathy | Medknow | Mednin | Ghost Scales | P.K. Hammer | Living Roots |
If we want to raise Taijutsu to 50, we'll need to raise up a new 60-stat, which will probably (hopefully) be Athletics.
- Athletics -> 60
- Taijutsu -> 50
| 60 | Resolve | Athletics | |||||
| 50 | Sealing | Earthshaping | Taijutsu | ||||
| 40 | Calligraphy | Shad. Clone | THing | ||||
| 30 | Alertness | Chakra | Physique | Runecrafting | |||
| 20 | Deceit | Presence | Rapport | Substitution | P. Earth Armor | ||
| 10 | Stealth | Empathy | Medknow | Mednin | Ghost Scales | P.K. Hammer | Living Roots |
I'll admit to being a little skeptical. I genuinely expect a huge push for Hazou to learn Minatosealing right after we get THing to 40, but hopefully we can delay that a little while.
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Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
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Personally I'd be happy to leave Minatosealing at 10-ish, once we unlock it; we'd need to do a lot of experimenting with it before we worked out what the heck we could even do with it.
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If the theory about MS being singlecost under sealing is correct, we only need ~500 XP to cap it at 32 (Eff 66). Definitely going to push for that before the ATH 50 step. Tai 50 can come first imo
Agreed. I would rather get Tai50/Ath49/Alt39 and sit there while we learn Lightning. Then bump combat stats to jounin after that.
I was going to agree with delaying Minatosealing till after we push up our basic combat stats a bit, but on reflection, I think I would actually support at least unlocking the skill and maybe also leveling it to the softcap (if there is one), for the following two reasons. One, I'd like to know whether there would be crossover between Primordial Sealing and Minatosealing if one of those were our top stat, since it influences whether we should push Sealing higher than it is now or not. For example, if there's no direct crossover between PS and MS so that the most sensible thing is to have Sealing as our top stat, I think it would make sense to push Sealing up to a 60-slot instead of Athletics, which would get us back our Kage-level graphosealing and let us get Kage-level PS and MS with not much more effort. (Maybe more for MS since its Calligraphy-equivalent is doublecost.)
Two, it might be possible for us to invent Primordial Minatosealing.
This may well not work - the description of Minatosealing makes it sound like it might already be three-dimensional - but Orochimaru thought that 3D biosealing was plausible enough to consider investigating it, so maybe 3D Minatosealing is too. More importantly, if it did work (and if runic drag turned out not to be an issue), it would be a complete gamechanger that would massively affect our build, and therefore would be good to know about as soon as possible.
We're gonna call this Hazousealing boss