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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Made appropriate edits based on Twofold's suggestions. Do we have a consensus on what to train? I recall there's stuff on Taijutsu/Stealth now but I'm not sure.

faflec said:
Ok, our job is twofold: get shit for Kagome-sensei and figure out where the cultists are headed. Hopefully we can do both at once, so...

[X] Plan The FedEx Quest:
  • Check the below plan with Inoue and Mori, making updates as the plan progresses.
  • Go back to Inoue and tell her what happened. Full mission report, full disclosure.
    • See if she knows anyone called Kagome who knew someone called Kawaguchi (probably dead in sealing fuckup), and matching the facial description Hazou saw. Also ask about Hamasaki since that's a name that isn't obviously important. See if the guy has any particular beef/bad encounter with Mist.
    • Interesting quotes Kagome-sensei said include:
      • "I'll give it to you right in your godsdamned pie hole, you stinking ninja stinker"
      • "You want my face to burn off and the tentacles to grow out my ears and use my arms like puppet arms as I slowly melt into a puddle of reeking goo that I have to clean up with a mop"
      • "until you decide to send me off into the middle of nowhere with a group of fumble-fingered jackasses who won't keep their godsdamned hands off the face-melting unholiness"
      • "If you mess with me, I'll blow you to the Summoned Realm."
      • "Mess with me and I'll squash you into meat jelly"
  • Get back to the village before the caravan leaves, and ask both them and the villagers if they have anything from the shopping list.
    • Put priority on paper and ink because they are most needed for training. The other things Kagome-sensei wants are luxury/extraneous goods that are valuable but not required. Still wanna get them, though.
      • If we have the ability to make good-quality chakra ink from good-quality normal ink we avoid talking about chakra ink at all, and skip to getting normal ink and infuse it ourselves; otherwise we talk about chakra ink quietly. With lots of Inoue talky.
    • Offer meat, furs (from wolves in the forest), pots, and murder of chakra monsters (for the villagers).
    • Ask the villagers if they know how to make bread w/ raisins, if they have the supplies. We can get -really- fresh bread at their place if they can.
    • Ask the traders if they've seen any of the supplies in towns they've been at previously.
    • Ask the traders where they'd go if they wanted those supplies.
  • Figure out which direction and town the wanderers are headed to, based on the traders' and villagers' knowledge and the maps we've gotten.
  • Head out to a nearby town/large village!
    • We want the place to be nearby (several hours travel maximum) and be large enough to have everything we need, but we don't need it to be the largest city to avoid ninja presence. Yuni apparently is a great place to travel but we should go to the place with the highest chance of success based on our/traders'/villagers' knowledge.
    • If possible the place should be in the same direction as the wanderers' travel direction so we can kill two birds with one stone. We're mostly looking for information and keeping track of their movements moreso than an actual interrogation.
    • Prepare furs, meat, pots, fish for travel. Put them in a storage scroll for traveling, then unseal when we arrive.
    • Put on a new Henge a make up a cover story as traveling hunters that are looking to get in to the inter-village trading business.
      • Fashion spears from our spearheads to better sell our part as hunters.
  • Get the shit we need.
    • For bigger village interaction:
      • Have Inoue take the lead, our goal here is to get stuff for Kagome, we shouldn't risk it just for training.
      • If we need a cover for our ink and paper buys, play coy but let it "slip" that we have good info on possible buyers that we can make bank out of (this gives us a modicum of cover and a reason why we might seem tight lipped about things).
      • If it appears that a village has paper and ink for our needs but we can't afford to buy it, gather info on possible targets and prepare to steal the stuff (This should probably trigger a new vote).
      • Prepare a location where we can gather if we become separated.
      • Try and obscure where we are coming from and where we are going by not entering the villages from the direction we actually come from, same thing with leaving.
    • Find and buy everything useful we can, trading for ryo (if we have any) and the trade goods we brought with us.
      • Also offer to help around in exchange for stuff.
    • There's no reason to not get extras in case some stuff isn't to Kagome-sensei's liking (chocolate, tea). Get a bit extra, in different varieties to make sure he doesn't hate it. We're sucking up to him, hard.
    • For things that aren't available or would be awkward to ask for (like chakra ink) see if we can figure out where to get it, or get ingredients to make it ourselves, as possible.
    • See if the cultists are in the town or passed by it. Make a note of what they've done.
    • Go to another village and repeat until we have the shit.
  • Make suggestions for our teammates to train:
    • Both our teammates should make Awareness a good priority, though perhaps not to the extent as Hazou has been.
    • Wakahisa should focus on his clan ninjutsu and improve his social skills. He should also begin learning a thing or two about medical jutsu once we've found a trainer.
    • Keiko should ask Inoue if she really doesn't have a Wind Release technique. If this is impossible she could begin development in technique modification/development.
  • When appropriate (finished getting supplies for Kagome-sensei, have some time left), find time to train our 40XP.
    • Later.
Of course this plan will be edited as new information appears.
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Awareness is a stat that functions based on our highest common denominator: it takes only one successful check to notice the thing. When we're in a group we only need one Awareness-competent individual to function.

Stealth, conversely, is based on our lowest common denominator: it takes only one failed check to get spotted. In a group we need to pander to our weakest link: Wakahisa Noburi. Who has Stealth 3 ATM, and wasn't asked to improve his stats earlier

Taijutsu, Weapons, and all other "kill you" stats are cumulative, as we see during Story 2). We rolled twice, successfully, to kill the alligator. In a group, this suggests that having a multitude of usable combat stats is more valuable than a single person having a single really really high combat stat.

Obviously when we're alone we should have as high stats in everything as possible. But we should also consider the benefits and drawbacks to our stat choices when we're in a group, and make our decision accordingly.

Personally, I'm for leveling Taijutsu and Awareness over Stealth, which does us less good in a group compared to leveling other stats. But I'm not sure if we should save some XP for Sealing which is something we want to gain competency in ASAP.

A plan that focuses on Awareness and Taijutsu while saving XP for Sealing 2 would look like this:
Awareness 9 [9]
Taijutsu 6 [15]
Wits 4 [23]
Taijutsu 7 [30]
Intelligence 2 [34]
Sealing 2 [36]
4XP left

A plan that focuses on Taijutsu and Stealth while saving XP for Sealing 2 would look like this:
Taijutsu 6 [6]
Wits 4 [14]
Taijutsu 7 [21]
Stealth 6 [27]
Stealth 7 [34]
Intelligence 2 [38]
Sealing 2 [40]
0XP left

A plan that focuses on Awareness, Taijutsu AND Stealth while saving XP for Sealing:
Awareness 9 [9]
Taijutsu 6 [15]
Stealth 6 [21]
Wits 4 [29]
Intelligence 2 [33]
Sealing 2 [35]
5XP left

A plan that focuses on Awareness and Taijutsu without saving XP for Sealing:
Awareness 9 [9]
Taijutsu 6 [15]
Wits 4 [23]
Taijutsu 7 [30]
Taijutsu 8 [38]
2XP left

A plan that focuses on Awareness, Taijutsu AND Stealth without saving XP for Sealing:
Awareness 9 [9]
Taijutsu 6 [15]
Stealth 6 [21]
Wits 4 [29]
Taijutsu/Stealth 7 [36]
4XP left

Thoughts?
 
@faflec,

Taijutsu is all well and good, but please keep in mind:
Character that is good in Taijutsu is only useful in combat. He will only ever kill things, kill things and then kill things some more. It is not really entertaining after tenth time.

I think we should diversify our build a little.

Sealing would be awesome for this and allow for a lot of creative applications right away.
Stealth also looks like a good candidate. It may help us evade battles instead of risking life and limb in close combat.

You are right abou stealth being skill with "lowest common denominator" mechanics. Therefore, we probably should either level stealth equally for all our party. or accept splitting party every time we need to do stealth (and splitting the party is terrible idea, both survival-wise and storytelling-wise) I personally think we should get Noburi to level stealth at least a little.

So, I want to focus on sealing first. It will be powerful force multiplier, it will open a lot of story options, it is much more interesting than Taijutsu.
Let's leave at least enough XP to get our sealing to level 3.

It would be nice to learn traps once we have sealing for great synergy.


HOWEVER. We have no guarantee Kagome won't accidentally blow himself up while we are fetching him chocolate, so let's not level Seals prerequisites in advance.
 
@HyperCatnip Oh yeah, I agree we should be maxing Sealing...but the problem is we can't get it over 4 via GM limits, probably even less. And in any case this isn't so much a "let's do this RIGHT NOW" and more of "here's some ideas we could do for later". Would like to hear from more people :)
 
Stealth encourages splitting the party anyway.

If we have 3 genin each with stealth 1 hiding from a civilian with awareness 1 who rolls 80 for awareness, then we only need 1 genin to roll below 80 for all of them to be spotted.

Which means they have a 0.2*0.2*0.2=0.008 (LESS THAN 1%!) chance of not being spotted, as opposed to 0.2 (20%) for a single genin.

Splitting the party makes you stealthier even if you all have equal stealth levels.
 
faflec said:
Thoughts?
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These are premature, we will be running ourselves ragged to get the stuff for Kagome so we probably won't have the time to train all of these things. It's better to save the XP until we have the time to train and get the final word on sealing from the QMs.

Furthermore there are mistakes there. We need Dexterity to raise Taijutsu, not Wits. Thanks to Iron Nerve we get +1 effective skill level on Taijutsu (and other physical skills) that is capped by our Attribute bonuses. That means we need to take the Dexterity 3 before we take Taijutsu 6 (effective 7).

So the start would look something like this:

Awareness 9 [9]
Dexterity 3 [15]
Taijutsu 6 [21]
Taijutsu 7 [28]

Now we can roll Awareness at 9 and Taijutsu at 8. This makes us pretty safe in the wilderness and turns us into a real problem for any genin that gets in our way. Raising Dexterity also gives us the option to start ranking up our Stealth and Tactical Movement. We only have effective TacMov 4 at the moment. Since our ranged combat sucks, we need more to catch all those un-youthful brigands that might try to run away from our loving embrace. Or I guess we could level Stealth and have faith in our sneak attack. Stealth might be better for defense too since complete avoidance is better than running away.

I think in our original plan in the beginning was that Keiko and Noburi present the enemy with an overt threat and then we come out from Stealth and punish the unjust with our fists. That's why our last XP plan for Noburi had Tactical Movement for survivability instead of Stealth. Not that I'm against leveling Stealth for him, it's just that we only have so much XP.
 
I was reading back through some of the early discussion, reminding myself how far we've come, when I saw this:

MadScientist said:
I'd like to take a moment to talk about goal-states.

Ignoring for now the steps we need to take to achieve victory, what does victory actually look like?

1) We are still alive.

2) We do not need to fear imminent death, which means...

2a) Zabuzza is no longer a threat to us.

2b) The Swamp of Killing Everything is no longer a threat to us.

2c) Konoha is no longer a threat to us.

2d) We have a supply of necessities for the foreseeable future.

2e) We have not brought any other lethal threats down on ourselves.

3) We are in a position where we can expand Hidden Death Swamp.
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Congratulations, you are victorious! (Well, 7/8.)
 
@eaglejarl Umm...

2a) Zabuzza is no longer a threat to us.
......
2c) Konoha is no longer a threat to us.
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Just because they're not a threat to us right now doesn't mean that they're not a threat to us ever. Stop attempting to spread false hope to the masses, or at the least be more subtle about it.
 
faflec said:
Just because they're not a threat to us right now doesn't mean that they're not a threat to us ever.
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You are having pretty high standards here! To ensure that Konoha is never going to be a threat to us we might have to get creative.

WELP, as Kagome-sensei has taught us, there is no problem that can't be solved via the liberal application of explosives.
 
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@Chronic Technically the easiest way to eliminate Konoha as a threat is to kill ourselves in such a way that it doesn't leave a body. It also eliminates everything else as a threat. Except for death.
 
How are crits measured when you have multiple levels?

Do you only need one dice to be 99-100 for a crit success and one dice be 1-2 for a crit fail?
Do you need all the dice?
At least half the dice?
 
MadScientist said:
How are crits measured when you have multiple levels?

Do you only need one dice to be 99-100 for a crit success and one dice be 1-2 for a crit fail?
Do you need all the dice?
At least half the dice?
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It depends on how high the blood content in my chocolate stream has gotten. The higher it is, the fewer dice are needed for a crit fail.
 
Voting is now over.

Plan Hand Inoue-Sensei the note, mention the guy has gotten slightly insane due to isolation, he does know his seals. Also talk about the fucking crab things. is victorious!

Just kidding. You all knew how this was going to end. @faflec, congratulations on successfully consuming the power of the hive mind.
 
If I suddenly changed my giant spiel of text to "go crazy and try to kill the villagers" how pissed would you guys be :maybe
 
faflec said:
If I suddenly changed my giant spiel of text to "go crazy and try to kill the villagers" how pissed would you guys be :maybe
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That is far too short.

Are you laying an ambush, developing poison, luring in a wave of chakra monsters via henging into something extra tasty?

We expect a level of effort for random acts of psychopathy by now.
 
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Omake: The Sealing Song
  • Apocrypha
    • OMAKE: Don't Hug Me I'm Paranoid



    Kagome: What's your favourite idea? Mine is making explosions!

    Keiko: How do you have ideas?

    Kagome: I just tried to plan for THE ENEMY. Now when you look at this paper, tell me please, what do you see?

    Noburi: It's just some boring old paper!

    Kagome: Maybe to you, but not to me. I see a mushroom cloud!

    Hazou: Wow!

    Kagome: Blowing the stinkers to tiny bits!

    Noburi: I don't see what you mean.

    Kagome: Because you're not prepared for THE ENEMY. So take a look at my seals!

    Hazou: Cool!

    Kagome: I use my seals to protect myself.

    Inoue: That sounds really dangerous.

    Kagome: I use my seals to protect myself. Now, when you stare at the shadows in the trees, don't you find it unnerving?

    Keiko: No.

    Kagome: Come on! Take another look!

    Noburi: Oh wait! I can see a rational Orochimaru hat! I can see a summoned cat! I can a hunter-nin, carrying a bat!

    Hazou: I can see an Inuzuka's dog! I can see Jiraiya's frog! I can see an ANBU, replacing with a log!

    Kagome: I think you're getting the hang of it now, using fear to not run out of time.

    Keiko: I made psych profiles of the people in the town!

    Kagome: Whoa there kid you might need to slow down!

    (Kagome pours ink on Keiko's notes.)

    Kagome: Here's another good tip,

    Hazou: Yeah?

    Kagome: on how to be a sealing whiz-kid. Go and collect some paper and ink, and arrange them into your favourite seal.

    Hazou: Explosive!

    Noburi: Explosive!

    Keiko: Storage.

    Kagome: Storage is not your favourite seal. There's one more thing that you need to know, before you let your explosive seals blow. Listen for the ANBU! Listen in the rain! Listen to the voices in your brain!

    Hazou: Come on guys, let's level sealing!

    (scenes of utter carnage and unspeakable evil)

    Inoue: Now let's all agree, to never let Hazou level sealing again.
     
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  • Apocrypha
    • Twofold said:
    @eaglejarl

    Could you add the timeline and public database to the infopost in the beginning of the thread? That way new players might actually get to see them and people would be more prone to update them.
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    Oh wow. We haven't even been missing nin for two months yet. That is scary. I am really curious if and how the events of the Naruto manga are proceeding right now. I mean, there is obviously not going to be a wave mission and the odds of another strangely mislabeled C-Rank happening for Team Seven are slim, but i imagine the Chunin exams happening should be a constant...

    Or are they? For all we know inviting other nations ninja, even allied ones, into your supposedly hidden village to host a ninja tournament is not a thing in this AU. I really ought to ask that in the in character knowledge doc...
     
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    I'd expect the Chunin exams to be a thinly veiled dick-waving contest, where the hidden villages bring in potential clients (nobles, important merchants) to see which country is most worth selling out to.
     
    Twofold said:
    @eaglejarl

    Could you add the timeline and public database to the infopost in the beginning of the thread? That way new players might actually get to see them and people would be more prone to update them.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Done. The Player knowledge document was more comprehensive than the public database, so I copied all the PD content into PK and linked the PK document.

    MadScientist said:
    Kagome: on how to be a sealing whiz-kid. Go and collect some paper and ink, and arrange them into your favourite seal.

    Hazou: Explosive!

    Noburi: Explosive!

    Keiko: Storage.

    Kagome: Storage is not your favourite seal.
    Click to expand...
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    +1 XP for GM laughter. Punchy McPuncherson's character sheet has been updated. Thank you. :>
     
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