Nah we'll need to level it to 30, the bonus from EA won't let us make substrate, or TH a Tweak to ES.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rational 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
- Location
- United States
We will automatically receive a free copy of Earth Apprentice upon leveling BoC to twenty.
Though, as Sir Stompy said, it won't help.
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- Location
- Europe
Well, found it. Ah well.
Imagine what else they invented for Hazou to exploit
It's very funny for me to imagine just a solid person who dedicated themselves to make helpful and nonviolent Jutsu and Hazou casually points out how he can make horribly destructive weapons out of each one.
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- Location
- Can’t say. I know my momentum.
I swear, this thread needs the "Winter" reaction always enabled. Oh well. For now I'll just make my own.
❄
- Location
- Yes.
:AkaneSurprise:
(Future Canon?) Interlude: Gōketsu Hazō, He of Many Titles
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
(Future Canon?) Interlude: Gōketsu Hazō, He of Many Titles
"HELP!" the old man screamed, racing back from the woods, his gathered firewood abandoned.
He was far too slow. The winter had been long, the dire wolf was hungry, and it was far faster than the old civilian had been in his youth, much less now.
The wolf howled, its breath a chakra-infused wind attack that sent its prey sprawling. The old man hit the frozen earth hard and rolled, pulling the work knife from his belt and preparing to leave at least one mark on his attacker before he died.
The wolf pounced, its shadow darkening the sky over the civilian—
A chakra-infused fist smashed into the wolf's shoulder, breaking bones and hurling the hundred-kilo animal to the side so that it did not land on and crush its victim. It hit the ground atop a bed of stone spikes that had not been there moments earlier; death was instant.
The old man looked up, eyes wide in shock, to find a ninja standing over him.
No, not a ninja. The ninja.
"You're...you're..."
"Yes, I know," Hazō said with a sigh, offering the man a hand up. "Gōketsu Hazō, Deathbreaker, Earthwarper, Hero of Twin Forks, blah blah blah. Please, just call me Hazō."
"Right... Uh... Yes, m'Lord."
"Really, just Hazō is fine."
"Right! Yes. Sorry, m'Lord. Sir. Hazō! Sorry." He shook himself and laughed slightly. "I imagine it does get a bit much, s— Hazō."
"It's fine. Let's get you back home, shall we? On the way, maybe you could fill me in on things? My team and I are doing wellness checks throughout this county. Has there been any sickness lately? Are the beast attacks up? How is the food situation?"
The old man did his best to answer the flood of questions, even as he did his best to keep up with the barely-leashed energy of the famous ninja's pace.
o-o-o-o
"Sensei, can we swing through here again on the way home?" Michio asked, licking berry pie filling off his fingers. "Damn but that woman can cook."
"You are so disgusting," Ikuko said. "I can't believe you shoveled down three entire pies. You could at least have used a fork. Seriously, Sensei, aren't you supposed to be teaching us important life skills? Can you please get him to learn how flatware works?"
"That's not generally part of my curriculum, Ikuko," Hazō said with a smile. "I suppose we can fit it into the 'Diplomacy and Alliance-Forging Theory' module."
"Forget the flatware business," Ageha said. "For me it's the sweetness. Those pies had enough sugar added to embalm a megalodon. How could you possibly stomach them? Also, those tracks are from a family of cloud rabbits. Two of them are kits, the third is presumably their mother. One of them left a tuft of white fur on the bush. We have passed signs of fourteen other animals in the past fifteen minutes, including—" She went on to give detailed descriptions of multiple animals of various kinds.
"You could at least let me get the question out first," Hazō said with a grin. "Good for you, spotting that I was about to ask. Ikuko, your turn next. I'll check in with you sometime in the next hour. You're doing...hm. Plants, I think."
"Define 'plant', Sensei," the genin said suspiciously.
"Now, now, you know perfectly well what a plant is."
"Yeah, but I'm not sure you do. The last time you gave this task to Michio, and you downgraded him for not including mushrooms. Which are not plants."
"Ah, me. So untrusted by my youngsters. You make me sound like some sort of malevolent kitsune, always trying to trick you. I'm really just doing my best to—"
Hazō broke off, snapped, and twirled a finger. The three teens immediately went back-to-back; Michio drew his knives and pulled lightning into their edges, Ikuko conjured up a sheath of stone across her entire body, and Ageha whirled the wind into a shield around all four of them.
"Esashika Wataru," Hazō called. "As I live and breathe."
There was a slow clap and a man sauntered out of the woods, offering a mocking tribute of yet more slow claps.
He was tall, nearly seven feet, wide as an ox and muscled like one. He wore the uniform of Sand and had a red bandana tied around his left arm, just above the bicep. Twin hook swords hung low on his hips.
"Gōketsu Hazō," the tall man said. "'The Deathbreaker'. Catchy name."
"Yeah, my PR department was proud of that one."
"You have a PR department?" Michio asked, surprised.
Ageha kicked him in the shins. "Of course not, idiot! It's smack talk!"
"Ow!"
Esashika chuckled. "Out here with your little ducklings?"
"As are you and your two friends." Hazō tipped his head, eyes vague as he concentrated elsewhere. "No, three friends." He focused back on the other man. "They're heavy enough that I'm guessing either full adults or you are teaching the first ever obese genin squad."
"Now, now. Don't you think enough insults have passed between us, Gōketsu? Your Kage ordered you to stand down the last time we met. I'm sure you aren't intentionally trying to rile me up so that I'll attack and allow you to 'defend yourself'."
Hazō sighed, suddenly sounding tired. "Esashika, do we have to do the theatrics? You didn't just so happen to stumble over us in the middle of the vast reaches of Fire's forests, and you're not on your way to Leaf with a genin team doing a cultural exchange. This is a hit squad, you're here for me. Fine. Call your friends in and let's just get it done." He looked to his students. "Kids, step back."
"Oh, no," Esashika said, a smile splitting his face. "No, it's not that simple. The children stay on the field, Gōketsu. Can't have you throwing your explosives everywhere, can we?" He gave a piercing whistle and three men faded out of the woods around them. They too wore the colors of Sand but their expressions were grim unlike their mockingly playful leader. All three of them had jōnin flashes on their jackets.
"Sensei?" Ikuko asked quietly.
"It's fine," Hazō murmured, voice low and eyes still on Esashika. "Don't worry. Cloud White, point Alpha, on my mark."
"Sensei!"
"Shut it," Hazō hissed. He stepped forward, Ageha's windstorm parting to let him pass without so much as a ruffled hair.
"Make you a deal, Esashika. You and me, in that clear area over there. Your friends leave the kids alone and when I win they sod off instead of pushing it further."
"Such confidence! And what do I get in exchange for being so wonderfully cooperative?"
"I don't use explosives, and I don't drop Cannai on your head and let him rip you in half like a well-loved chew toy."
"Tsk, tsk. So threatening. I think it might be fascinating to see Gurrotine and Cannai mix it up."
"You got the Wolverine Scroll? Since when? I had tea with Junko not two weeks ago."
"I found it in the woods, actually. I was minding my own business, traveling to Hot Springs for some much-needed relaxation, when I found it lying under a bush. There was a blood trail nearby and I found the dead body of Rokuda Junko a short ways on. Her body had been looted, so I presume she fled from her attackers and hid the Scroll to keep it from them."
Hazō studied him. "You know, I was considering letting this slide, getting us out of here without fighting. Now? Now I'm going to cut you into stew meat and leave it on the ground for the beasts to eat. Junko was my friend, you killed her, and you didn't even the decency to come up with a believable cover story." He turned his head slightly so that he could keep his eyes on Esashika while calling back over his shoulder. "Mark!" He tightened his hand and a cloud of dirt fountained upwards, momentarily forming something far more vision-denying than even the best smoke bomb.
"Hiding" / "Like" / "a Mole!" chorused three young voices behind him.
The dirt rained to the ground and there was no sign of the three genin.
"Lightning Element: Strength of the Storm!" Hazō shouted.
The world slowed around him as lightning crackled across his skin. He had time to think—not much time, but some. He had been holding his Enhanced Earthshaping jutsu all day, meaning that he was at only half chakra. On the other hand, it also meant that no matter where he walked, every scrap of ground within a kilometer of his feet was his to command.
First things first: he blurred to the side just as a trio of ranged jutsu crisscrossed through where he had been standing, the ground pushing back against his feet to speed each step.
Hm. Phoenix Breath Fireball, Sky God's Howl, and Earth Dragon. Wow, this team was taking him seriously. Either that or they had absolutely ludicrous reserves and could afford to spam top-shelf techniques.
Hazō whispered to the earth and, ten meters below him, four small underground pockets smashed closed, crushing the four remaining members of the hit squad into paste. Couldn't have them coming up behind him or, worse, chasing after the kids...speaking of whom, they were making good time but Ageha's form was terrible. He would need to work with her on efficient earthswimming.
Esashika was on him, hook swords swirling in a series of cuts and feints and thrusts so fast that even Hazō's lightning-enhanced, fully chakra-boosted body could barely keep up. He twisted away, a thin cut across his left cheek.
Hazō danced back, trying to open the distance even as he pulled stone spikes out of the ground in a futile attempt to skewer Esashika and end the battle quickly. It wasn't a practical dream; fights at this level were not won in the opening moves. They were won either by the person who could outlast everyone else, or who could bait their enemy into a misstep.
Esashika made no move to follow. He was grinning as he pointed at Hazō's face.
"Got you," he said.
A chill went down Hazō's spine.
"So you did," he admitted, touching his cheek. "All that flailing around for a tiny nick. Well done." The words were meant only to buy time; he aspected his energies into medical chakra and sent it up into his face.
There was something there. A sliver of...stone? No, metal. No, a cluster of them. Tiny little particles, probably transferred from the edge of Esashika's sword. And they were moving, grinding down into the bone.
"Goodbye, Gōketsu," Esashika said. He twitched his head slightly and the particles in Hazō's face—
—were catapulted outwards, tearing most of Hazō's left cheek and a few millimeters of his orbital ridge away and out of his body in a surge of medical chakra.
"Fuck!" Hazō said, putting a hand to his face. "Fucking fuckity fuck."
Esashika tsked. "Was that the best you could do? A competent medic should have been able to open the skin ahead of each particle instead of simply tearing it all away. I thought that brother of yours had been teaching you. Were you slacking or is he simply a shit teacher?"
"Look, I've been busy, okay? He's a great teacher, I just haven't had a lot of time lately."
"Okay." Esashika shrugged and blurred to the attack again, racing forward in a series of short zigs and zags that kept him one step ahead of the spines Hazō was pulling from the earth under him.
The spines were merely a feint, driving Esashika into position to be entombed by a lunging wave of earth, but the other man was no fool; he recognized he was being herded and broke the pattern, leaping to the side just as the wave rose up where he would have been—
—only to find that the wave was a second-level feint and he was coming down on top of an entire bed of nails made of stone. His lefthand sword tipped down and lengthened, hitting the ground and vaulting him clear of the attack.
Of course, that meant he was on a ballistic trajectory in midair. Hazō was waiting for exactly that. He had manifested six stalagmites in front of himself, each chest-high. He spun and kicked, his chakra slicing the top off the nearest pillar even as his foot launched it nearly as fast as one of Kei's kunai, straight at the enemy's head. He whirled down the line, sending five more projectiles after the first, all in under a second.
Still in midair, Esashika batted the entire barrage aside without effort and bounced off thin air, heading back towards Hazō. He hurled his left sword in a flat, spinning arc, blades of incredibly sharp wind flying off in all directions as it moved. Hazō dove to the ground and pulled the earth up over himself like a blanket, blocking the attacks but costing himself mobility and sight of his target.
Esashika was missing from Hazō's tremor sense; he was not in contact with the ground. He hadn't been for the entire fight, actually, or Hazō would simply have sucked him down and crushed him. Esashika the Cloudwalker, the greatest Wind ninja alive, liked to pretend he was walking like a normal person but the truth was that he rarely deigned to touch his sandals to the dirt. It was incredibly frustrating for someone who had built an entire combat style around earth control.
Hazō dropped deeper into the ground, opening it in front of himself and pushing from behind so that he shot through an ephemeral tunnel to be well away from where he had gone down.
A lance of wind, so concentrated it was essentially a physical object, crashed into the ground where he had just been. Nice combo—the sword as a primary and highly visible attack that caused an unaware opponent to dodge slightly. The invisible blades of wind that the sword threw off in all directions, more than enough to shred someone who hadn't dodged far enough. Finally, the Drilling Wind Spike to finish anyone who went underground and thought that three or four feet of soil was enough to protect against an air-based attack.
"Earth Element: Pangolin Earth Armor," Hazō said as he descended, dropping a full twenty meters below the surface and starting his standard pre-battle prep. The magic of the inhuman jutsu pulled stones and grit from around him and welded it together into a bulky suit of nigh-invulnerable armor. It was something of an overkill approach, but Hazō was a big believer in Kagome's Rules of Life, Number 37: There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'let's blow it up again, just to be sure.'
He finished his other preparations, then spread his awareness out, searching for Esashika's teammates. Based on their opening attacks and the way they had moved, they were skilled jōnin. Not primary players in a fight between Hazō and his peers, but highly effective distractions. He couldn't afford those.
Sensibly, they weren't stupid enough to remain in contact with the earth when fighting against someone who bore the epithet 'Earthwarper'.
He created a pair of Earth Clones just beneath the surface, wrapped each in a close approximation of the Pangolin Earth Armor, and launched them upwards. They had barely touched air when they were destroyed, smashed into little pieces that spilled across the ground.
Hazō analyzed the dispersion of the pieces, backtracked where the attacks must have come from, and toppled three large trees with a quick surge of earth away from their roots and another up at an angle. Two sets of feet brushed against the ground briefly and Hazō made the loamy soil sweep upwards, entombing the enemy ninja and filling their lungs with dirt in the span of a second.
Something hit the ground above him and off to the left. It penetrated deep, easily ten meters, and then detonated. The shockwave spread through the earth and would have pasted Hazō if he hadn't been wearing his armor. As it was, it broke his nose and rattled him around so hard he almost blacked out.
What.
Another impact, another blast, but this time Hazō had pushed the earth away from himself so that ground shocks wouldn't affect him. He kept one hand on the wall of his newly-made cave as it gave him a clearer understanding of the tremors in the ground caused by running ninja feet.
Another blast. And another.
Okay, this was getting silly.
He launched himself back to the surface, popping up in between a clench of three trees and juking to the side. He had successfully escaped notice for just long enough that the Phoenix Breath Fireball didn't roast him even though it set a hundred-year oak on fire.
He flicked a finger casually over his shoulder, crushing the enemy's legs and pulling him into the ground as Hazō triggered his skywalkers and raced to engage with Esashika where he stood ten meters in the air. His hand dipped into his belt pouch and he started hurling first-sized stone balls, one after another.
Esashika saw him coming and laughed. "Not this time, Gōketsu!" he shouted, flicking handseals and waving his hands in a tai-chi push that sent them spinning off course to the left and right. The ones that had been on course in the first place; Hazō was very much a mediocre thrown-weapons fighter and some of them had gone well wide, or over- or undershot.
"My gods," Esashika said, launching a trio of Wind Spikes at Hazō even as he closed. "Is that honestly the best you can do? My genin team throw better than that."
"Yeah, well, it's not my focus. I'm more a taijutsu guy," Hazō grunted, using his pangolin gauntlets to parry the first two strikes of the hook swords. The third he allowed to skip off his armored forearm, angling it to shed the force of the blow. The blade carved a strip off the armor and nearly cut into flesh, but it bought him the chance to land a punishing kick to the ribs that sent Esashika tumbling.
"Ooh, that musta hurt," Hazō said, racing to keep the distance close even as he rained down more punches and kicks. "Felt like two...maybe three ribs?"
"Your face is worse," Esashika said, recovering his guard and setting up a pattern of whirling steel around himself that Hazō simply could not penetrate. "What, not going to use those screamer seals of yours?"
"Nah," Hazō said, flicking his skywalkers off and allowing himself to drop a meter in order to pass below an attack that would have carved his head off even with the protection of his armor. Those fucking swords somehow hadn't gotten the memo that they weren't supposed to cut through solid rock. "I used those on you last time. I figure even you must have found a counter by now."
"I did, yeah," Esashika said, opening his mouth and spitting forth a series of Wind Darts that dug craters into Hazō's armor but did not penetrate. The armor healed itself a moment later. "Damn, nice armor jutsu."
"Thanks," Hazō said, yanking an eight-meter spike out of the ground below them. It smashed into Esashika's foot but the enemy S-ranker simply no-sold the attack; the spike crumbled on impact without doing visible damage. "It's from the pangolins. Good stuff."
"Oh right, how is your bitch of a sister?" Esashika asked even as all the air disappeared from around them, forced outwards by the will of the greatest Wind master in the world.
"Still smarter than you, still finds you repellent. Nice Vacuum Sphere, by the way. That silent casting trick is utter bullshit." The Tunneler's Friend and Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier seals plastered against his mouth inside the armor purged any toxins from his surroundings and fed him a steady stream of clean air in case there wasn't any available.
Esashika grunted, clearly annoyed. "Really thought I had you with that one." He brought the air back, condensing it into an invisible battering ram that smashed into Hazō from below and behind, launching him into the sky.
Or, at least, that was what was supposed to happen. Instead, Hazō dropped closer to the soil and pulled a pillar up under his feet, widening it and curving it into a hemisphere with himself in the center and the open side facing Esashika. The air ram bounced off, cracking the shield slightly but not penetrating. Which was good, because they were right at the limit of how high Hazō could pull the material in this area; more than eight meters was hard to shape on the fly if you needed it to be self-supporting but only had forest loam to work with.
"Try this," Hazō said, thrusting both hands toward his enemy and casting forth a slew of tiny stone spheres that he had palmed from a pocket as he dropped.
Esashika's eyes widened as he saw the tidal wave of explosives that was headed towards him. Hazō could almost see the calculations going on in the other man's eyes: parrying the projectiles with his blades was out, as they would simply explode. The Wind Shield jutsu that Esashika had used during their first encounter created a flat plane of defense; it wouldn't protect against a wide-spread array of explosions coming from all sides. The Cloud Tomb jutsu that he had used in their third encounter could be used to wrap himself in full-body protection, but at the cost of rendering him immobile for several seconds—an eternity at this level. No, there was really only one valid response, and Esashika took it.
He dove for cover behind a nearby tree, a blast of wind speeding his movement to something so fast that Hazō's eyes could barely track even with Strength of the Storm enhancing his speed and perception. He disappeared from sight just as the explosions rocked the area.
Hazō relaxed and sauntered down to the ground, allowing the armor to retract from his head so that he could apply a bandage to his still-bleeding face. (He took care to first expel all the dirt that had gotten into the wound.) That done, he pulled another of the fist-sized stone projectiles that he had used earlier and sauntered over to where Esashika had gone.
He came around the tree and looked down at the wet gobbets of stew meat that, moments before, had been one of the most powerful ninja in existence.
"Did I forget to mention my new toy?" he asked, bouncing the ball in one hand. "Self-deploying skyslicer. Cool, huh?"
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- Location
- Liverpool
And this? This is why I don't want to try technique hacking Earth Shaping until we can do it RIGHT. (Though, living roots as an upgraded mobile sensory technique to support our mediocre alertness would still be cool and similar (if weaker) vibe I think.) A primary and secondary element to pair with a research supplemented taijutsu build? We can see the path there, at just need to walk it. And also hope we have someone to teach us lightning element so we can use SotS.
But that was awesome, and I'm down to build towards it. Having cool gadgets that are powerful but not our whole toolkit. Kinda like how Jiraiya described Pangolins for Kei vs Toads for himself.
But that was awesome, and I'm down to build towards it. Having cool gadgets that are powerful but not our whole toolkit. Kinda like how Jiraiya described Pangolins for Kei vs Toads for himself.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Hmmm. What about "reset the repeated-hacking penalty to TH every time you increase its AB" as a rule?
- Location
- Liverpool
As in every time you increase the TH AB? Or the AB of the skill itself? I think that could be neat, though if TH AB I imagine we wouldn't be allowed to keep any improvements we made and also reset it, otherwise any ninjutsu spec with decent TH would just have multiple good variations of their best couple skills to cover a broad bunch of use cases in a way that we don't quite see. Though maybe that's people not being optimally efficient? Idk.
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- Location
- Fifth Dimension
[x][Progression] The pacing should be such that Hazou can plausibly fight Hidan and potentially win (immortality hax aside, stats only) after the adventuring in the afterlife is concluded.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
[X][Progression] It should take about a 1-2 years of adventuring for Hazou to be able to throw hands with the average Jonin on stats alone (no seals, no tricks, no prep)
[x][Progression] The pacing should be such that Hazou can plausibly fight Hidan and potentially win (immortality hax aside, stats only) after the adventuring in the afterlife is concluded.
I want it between these two, so voting both
[x][Progression] The pacing should be such that Hazou can plausibly fight Hidan and potentially win (immortality hax aside, stats only) after the adventuring in the afterlife is concluded.
I want it between these two, so voting both
[x][Progression] The pacing should be such that Hazou can plausibly fight Hidan and potentially win (immortality hax aside, stats only) after the adventuring in the afterlife is concluded.
- Location
- Liverpool
Requiring all ninja to need to have technique hacking to use jutsu would be a massive retcon though, especially since there were multiple chapters of us fighting for TH instructors.
Besides, it isn't actually that bad for MADness. Lesser techniques are half-cost, many of the techniques are utility techniques that make good pyramid fodder because they don't need a high level, and apprentice/journeyman/master/Grandmaster stunts mean that many (though not all) techniques are fully functional at much lower (half costed) levels.
I don't think the ninjutsu balance has finally been perfectly fixed (gaining an element and levelling one up has undergone multiple buffs, and it's only now strategically viable it seems), but I think the direction it's gone has been more helpful than not. Plus, making everything under TH makes TH a new must-have primary stat. And speaking for myself personally, I like to see more build diversity than that.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
It doesn't have to be TH exactly, but I think some degree of merging would be beneficial. idk, merging all Earth Ninjutsu under 'Earth Ninjutsu' would be just as good, really.
In regards to pyramids, I think a better way is that as EXP increases and overall competence is improved, the floor for the Pyramid might be raised, instead of needing large amounts of fodder skills. Like instead of 1-9 being your base level, by the time you hit Chunnin/Jonin, 10-19 is now considered your new base level, and you can build skills off 10-19 instead. Then by the time you're S-Rank, your new base is 20-29.
Idk, this probably breaks large parts of the pyramid system, but I imagine it's better than fodder skills.
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The fight as depicted was fundamentally not something that could ever happen with FtD mechanics. Building towards it is silly. We should build in a way incentivized by the mechanics.
I can go through it if you want.
Good opening move.
Being down half chakra to start the fight is ??? but let's see where he goes with this.
Seems like he's using Earth+Lightning combo stunt. I wonder where RRBs are here.
No save attack on underground targets that's an instant kill? Even if it was their Physique vs ES 69 I don't think Hazou could instantly kill 4 of them. Assuming Phys 40 vs 69 that's 10 stress and they should be invoking to survive. Unrealistic.
Why make futile attacks instead of dropping below the earth and buffing up like he does later? I can only conclude this is purely for flavor. Also fights in FtD are won in their opening moves. That's how the system works. The Consequence death spiral is too punishing. Here where it's many on one Hazou's opponents have some chance of getting away but not of winning once they take a Severe.
Seems like ES is providing +Alt/+Ath and attacking for Hazou, as well as allowing nonstandard sensing.
Also allows no save kills on anyone in contact with the ground. I want to repeat that this is very unrealistic for a jutsu to be able to do, even with a bitching Tweak. I think wanting ES to do this is funadmentally silly because it never will.
Based on the RW rules of FtD each of these stone balls is an individual attack with RW, which means Hazou can't scatter a bunch of seals at once over the battlefield. I think this is a silly ruling but it's current and so this is an incredibly poor use of his actions. He should have been killed 10x over while spending 10 rounds scattering tiny rock balls.
Prroooobably not possible with skyslicers in their current form. Them being too fragile to be deployed by directional explosive/MARS, which is what I assume this was based on.
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Keep in mind that there were no rolls shown. Not saying that this is possible, but I'm comfortable justifying it
as "Hazō spent a bunch of fate points and rolled well." And possibly saying that "crushing them to paste" was simply poetic license and it was actually 'only' a bunch of Consequences.
This can be taken as a special effect on a regular explosive attack -- it's mechanically one attack, it hits with a single BigNumber, it affects the normal AOE, but it's fluffed as being multiple individual small attacks that overlap and reinforce one another.
Yeah, you'd need to split FSB into two seals, one that renders the silk indestructible and one that renders it immobile. Then you set up a MARS chain that goes: indestructible => shaped charges to spread the net => immobile. Still a lot of major challenges in developing that and might not be possible at all.
In fairness, I don't think the narration is sufficient to decide whether it's a no-save kill or Hazou is just rolling significantly better on his attack.
The degree to which you need to exceed on a single roll to completely kill a full jounin ninja with full FP who is actively defending is tremendous. Based on ES being in the 60s, I don't think it's realistic even if it's targeting secondary stats.
He's spending a bunch of FP on dealing with the spares? This makes no sense tactically, since now his primary opponent has FP superiority and can crush him. If you want to fluff it as a bunch of Consequences, fine, can't argue with that.
I think this complicated back-and-forth style of fight is just unrealistic given the FtD ruleset. However you want to fluff it.
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- Location
- Liverpool
I do not want that remotely, no thank you. I am aware that the writing in that scene was narratively written. And I think that's cool and okay, especially for an interlude that's broadly aspirational more than directly achievable. And that the flexibility, versatility and power in that technique isn't necessarily realistic.
But "our powerful technique that has let us interact with the quest and setting in new and powerful ways, a technique that had been ignored due to lack of perceived combat viability, has a high ceiling for modification and use cases that we should explore once we can optimize for that potential" is, I feel, a very reasonable stance.
And "we have a couple powerful earth techniques that help fill niches in combat probability space that we can level up for half cost (and we have a pre-paid apprentice stunt), that we now have the Chakra to actually regularly use, so we should do so at some point, especially after we can tweak them to personalize for our users" is a stance I've been holding for a decent while. And that is in line with FtD mechanics and something to build towards.
I understand that you have a firm mastery of the mechanics. And I appreciate the effort that you had put into plan writing over time. But please let people be hype about cool things. Especially in what's clearly just cool writing, and in an era where potential power ups and rule modifications are possibly on the table.
(Though yes, I acknowledge if we had the TH levels to do anything close to that, our kit would probably much more strongly feature some busted MS abilities. Which is also something I've been advocating for. If you think my approach isn't optimal, totally fair. But please at least presume quest members that regularly post path build and mechanics analysis (and who said they GM for a FtD game irl (not that I expected you to read and remember that part, and that's more me-specific)) understand the basics of how the system works.)
I think the QM stance on this (or at least EJ's stance that I've seen on Discord) is that ES is the masterpiece jutsu of a powerful THer, and would be very difficult to improve upon, not impossible, but difficult.
Which makes combat versions of it incredibly suspicious IMO.
1) It is incredibly slow, like 5 orders of magnitude too slow.
2) It causes backlash damage if you concentration is broken or you lose contact with the earth. (Our combat style is built around rocket jumping)
3) It's a major chakra hog to keep up for long periods of time
So any combat version of it would need to get around those 3 (enormous) problems minimally, and that combined with it already being a difficult jutsu to work on just does not give good vibes to me. I don't think it will ever be workable.