I am quite interested in pretty much all of the topics you raise. The Bloodlines particularly.
Bloodlines, woo! I showed the players the main description, and not the sub-bullet points.
- Will to live: At the beginning of your turn, if you are injured, you must make a control Vs stamina test against yourself. If you succeed, you may stop this effect from happening to these injuries until you receive more and list test again, or until you accept the healing. If you fail, this bloodline takes effect. All of your injuries start healing. Minor injuries are instant, bit cost 5 chkra each. Moderate injuries are done by the end of your turn, but cost 10 chakra each. Serious injuries are done healing by the end of your next turn, and cost 30 each. Costs are apid upfront, instantly.
- GM notes: Injuries don't worsen, PC doesn't get sick. Body is a perfect test case for medical knowledge, and eventually self-modifying will be very easy if the PC figured out how to make his bloodline accept it as the new base state. Expect this to be massively OP if the PC learns how to use the gates, but they can still die if they're killed (healing only starts at the beginning of their turn). They will probably die of chkra exhaustion at some point.
- Rules of Nature: Has no elemental affinity, and cannot ever gain one. Elemental chakra decomposed into normal chakra and dissipates in melee range (this stops them from being used there and negates them in about a second - AoE jutsu deal reduced damage if they're very quick, and the parts in range dissipate in 1 second and make the rest of the jutsu very hard to control). You can choose to expand this to mid range if you wish (it takes about a second to toggle).
- GM notes: If the PC learns how to project non-elemental chakra at range (Shadow clones for example - genjustu or seals aren't enough) this effect will spread with it. This does affect allies.
- Eternal flame: You list have a fire affinity, and cannot use any other elements. Fire jutsu heals you instead of injuring you, but if your Control isn't better than the caster's your gear may still suffer. However, if it is any healing that would go to waste instead grant you +1chakra per minor injury (and overcharging like with Noburi's jutsu is possible). If your Control is better than theirs, you can also disrupt the entire jutsu (good against AoEs) and vastly reduce or redirect it - this costs 5 chakra.
- GM notes: Doesn't work so well for poisons or explosives.
- Nature's whispers: You can more or less unconsciously sense Natural energy over a very large area. You instantly sense any genjustu even if you cannot dispel or see through them, and you have +2 awareness. Your body is in turn with Natural energy, granting you 2* faster healing and 1,5*dice from chakra boost (regardless or normal safety limits, rounding down). While this chakra boost is at the normal safe maximum (not including extra dice from bloodline) you are visibly changed (but less than in sage mode) and have a 50% chance of ignoring each minor wound taken.
- GM notes: Learning Sage mode will be much easier, but will still require a lot of time and a teacher. Senjutsu users will sense your full boost and come to investigate.
- Deva: You can "talk" to your biological ancestors, a process requiring 1 minute and 5 chakra per question&answer. You can access you 1d10 closest ancestors that way (the ones before that are too faint or too incoherent). They know pretty much everything you know as they can access your senses (but not your memories). Whenever you are to make a test you are expecting you can spend 10 chakra (not an action) and get +1d10-3 dice on the test (you can lose dice, but cannot end up with zero) as you draw upon the half-remembered instincts, habits or tricks of the myriad ancestors that preceded you in the hope that they'll be appropriate to the situation and untainted by out-of-date intel, customs or psychological hangups. In extreme circumstances (or when you would die) you lose 30 chakra (or go to 0 and take a serious injury to the head due to internal damage) but get to rerollable all tests you made this turn with a +5 dice bonus and the first ever Deva (who was S-rank) visibly possesses your body and grants you an influx of strange chakra from [somewhere???].
- GM notes: Ancestors have personalities, quirks and skills. The GM must put in the effort to generate the ones the PC can take to at character creation, while remembering that they may not even be ninja. They can oppose the PC and refuse to answer questions, they can try to lie, or they can serve as instructors of a sort (less useful than a real one, but much better than nothing).
Some of these make no sense without knowing the house rules we had for health, damage and range. They worked great for a tabletop game: the fights took a few rounds, but still felt much more deadly than D&D and got the "ninja speed" feeling across.
Range is unstructured, with melee being 1m or less, close range being 1-5m, midrange being 5-20m, long range being 20-200m (max limit for most ninja's long-range jutsu to have any precision). Beyond that never came up, but I'm sure radvic could have bullshitted weapons with AoEs large enough to make extreme range combat matter.
Closing in typically requires opposed tests or distractions. Weapons impede handseals but (unlike taijutsu) work at most ranges (which turned out to be huge btw - taijutsu can only be used in close range or melee, while weapons also worked at midrange or even long range depending on the weapon: as a GM I ruled that some had minor bonuses to damage or even tests if used at specific ranges, or that some weapons couldn't be used at certain ranges). Melee makes jutsu use impossible for both parties.
Health: A OC can take up to Sta*2 minor injuries, and then you die. 5 minor injuries to one hit location become 1 moderate injury. 2 moderate injuries become a serious injury. 1 moderate injury = -2 dice to all rolls (0 dice means you fail). It might worsen to serious, especially if untreated. 1 serious injury = the body part is permanently incapacitated or lopped off. -4 to all tests and -10 of the limb would be used for the test.theee will worsen and cause more minor injuries every minutes, unless treated. Recovery is possible, but will typically require a very good med-nin and time.
Opposed tests for fighting caused injuries: loser takes 1 minor +1 for every 50 he lost by, +1 moderate for every 100, + 1 serious for every 300. Each hit is to a randomised location (targeted attacks were possible, but at -1 or -2 dice). So lose by 300 = 1 serious, 3 moderate, 7 minor!
I ruled that chakra boost has a max of Control÷10, Stamina÷10 (min 1, round down). Adding more causes a moderate injury per extra dice!
