Well this is a clusterfuck. We really need to get some method of dispersing gases reliably, because god damn.
I suppose that at this point that just throwing a bunch of explosives/banshees/firebombs at 12oclock might be on the table? Shikamaru did say that we were being targeted for a lethal attack, so maybe don't pull our punches here?
Noburi's scream was at 2 o'clock, right? Was he boosting tac move to moe out, that we know of? If not, It can't be him, because, frankly, he's not fast enough to move ahead of us.
e: Actually, scratch that, he has better situational awareness, Hazou's probably moving slower by virtue of that.
How does Noburi balance the drain? He can't put chakra into people without them drinking the water and there's no time to get the water out of the barrel during combat.
So Nara overruled the seal because being safe while enveloped by mist was counter productive, so we are instead separated and enveloped by mist. now with no fortifications, traps, LOS or allies.
An enemy faking being Noburi should have to roll Deception against Hazou to actually sound indistinguishable from Noburi (barring ninja magic bullshit). Therefore, if EJ says "Hazou doesn't believe it." then we can be confident that it isn't Noburi, while if he says "Hazou can't tell the difference." then we don't know.
So, @eaglejarl, to Hazou's high-deception ears, did that sound like someone faking Noburi's voice?
So, I thought of a possible replacement jutsu for Telepathy.
[Technique Name TBD: Something like "[name for Pangolin squad]'s Sense?]
Attributes: Wits * 2, Resolve * 4, Control * 3
Action: Combat, Minor sustain
Chakra Cost: 20 to activate, 5 per minute past that.
This technique grants its user enhanced situational awareness based on the skills of friendly agents who also have this skill. It provides what amounts to Multicombat Bonus to a maximum of floor(1/2 [technique name], 1/2 Awareness), with others that know the skill. The others do not have to have the skill active, but they must know it, in order for this skill to apply. It is opposed by the (unmodified, as normal) Stealth of the opposition to determine how much of a bonus it provides.
In case anyone's wondering, I read about this earlier, and it's actually a thing. In the winter, zoos in Japan with both capybaras and hot springs allow the former to use the latter.
I think the problem was that the air it was sucking up was full of mist, so when it was all released you just had mist-saturated air exploding outwards.
I think the problem was that the air it was sucking up was full of mist, so when it was all released you just had mist-saturated air exploding outwards.
Kagome would be so disappointed in us. We trapped the area around us and not a single explosive got triggered. Also we need talk to our pangolin engineer and try to make a revised doom fortress that actually protects from some attacks instead of having to be abandoned the second that it is assulted
What happens if we wrap a purifier around an implosion seal? Will it suck the air through the purifier fast, remove all the water, and then explode to release clear air?
Purifiers don't dessicate the air they release, so they must release some water vapor. After discussion with Velorien we're saying that they will cause the mist to dissipate faster, but not faster enough to be relevant in combat time.
They seem content to break out the big area weapons. A couple of GBWs will clear the mist through heating and compression consolidation, not to mention scare the hell out of them.
Hm. Apparently there was a great deal of confusion and double illusion of transparency.
Here was my thinking when I wrote the update:
1) @OliWhail's update showed Noburi on top of the wall when the mist reached him. It showed him standing in the mist for at least a second or two, meaning that the mist had moved past him and was inside the fort to some degree. It was also clearly stated that you were raising a dome that would cover the entire inside of the fort.
Given the small size of the fort (see below) it couldn't take long at all for the mist to go from the walls to covering everything. I've already explained my thinking regarding the mist and how it would interact with the implosion bomb shockwave. I will add that your fort is basically a box that's open at the top, so if the shockwave is going off above you it will tend to push mist down into the fort, even if it blows the rest of it away.
2) No Awareness checks were shown to detect enemies approaching the walls. That means either 16 ninja missed hearing >= 10 ninja approach, or they weren't approaching. Noburi located them via mist sensing, which has a range of over 100m at his current level. Given that the enemy was attacking using mist drain there was no reason for them to approach closer than they needed to, particularly since this was a sealmaster's prepared ground. Therefore, they were well outside the fort.
Both of these things seemed obvious to me, but of course many things are more obvious from this side of the DM's screen. In future we will continue trying to make clear what's going on around you, but please feel free to check foundational assumptions just to make sure there's no confusion.
This brings us to the issue of the size of the fort. To be honest, the idea always felt impractical to me (ninja can leap / run over walls, plus it would require a lot of CP) but I never ran the numbers because I preferred to conserve spoons and to be generous and assume it could work.
Still, since this seems to have been a problem, let's do it. Remember that Hazō built it with MEW.
Doton: Multiple Earth Style Wall
Range 13m per level.
Chakra cost 6 per 2.85 cubic metres. Walls must be at least 30cm x 90cm in cross-section.
You can spread that 2.85 cubic metres (or about 100 cubic feet) over as many separate walls as you like, so long as they're at least 30cm thick and 90cm wide.
Control * 5 Strength *3 (Because it's similar to the way chakra flow for enhancing muscles works)
As per this post: The walls have to be rectangular prisms. You can make "earth spikes" out of them, but those spikes need to be 30cm x 90cm in cross section, so they're pretty blunt. Walls have to come from the ground or from an existing wall. If they come from a wall they must be parallel to the direction of the source wall.
For 6CP, Hazō can create a block of 100 cubic feet, which is roughly 4.5' x 4.5' x 4.5'. (I'm not sure what we, the QMs, were working from when we came up with these numbers, honestly.) Hazō has 100 CP, meaning that if he completely flatlines himself he can create 16 such blocks. You're in the middle of a swamp where the water is between calf- and waist-deep. There are dry patches, but nothing like the size you're talking about, so your foundation will need to be at least 3' thick just to get you out of the water and not sink too much into the mud. (It would probably need to be substantially thicker to cope with subsidence, but let's roll with it just to keep things simple.)
You wanted to put 3 or 4 teams, meaning 12-16 ninja, inside the fort overnight. Let's assume that everyone needs a 3' x 6' space, giving them enough room to lie down and move around between lying-down people. In practice it would likely be arranged differently, but that works well with the 1' x 3' minimum cross section of MEW bricks.
Let's designate a 'floor section' to be 3' wide, 6' long, and 3' thick, for a total of 54 cubic feet. You can create 1.85 of these sections for 6 chakra. You need 16, meaning 9 * 6 = 54 chakra just to make the floor. (Again, we're mostly ignoring subsidence.)
To keep it simple, let's assume that the fort is a 4 x 4 grid of floor sections. That means your fort is 12' wide and 24' long on the inside of the walls.
Let's designate a 'wall segment' to be 1' thick, 3' long, and 9' high. (6' above the waterline, plus the 3' that goes below to reach the bottom of the swamp; remember that your MEW bricks need to be at least 1' x 3' in cross section and that the walls need to be outside of your floor space.) That's 27 cubic feet, so you get 3.7 wall segments for 6 CP.
The fort has a perimeter of (12 + 12 + 24 + 24 =) 72 feet and a wall segment is 3' long, so you need 72' / 3' = 24 wall segments. You need 42 CP to make the walls (ceiling(24 / 3.7) * 6).
So, to make the absolute smallest practical fort that would allow 16 ninja to shelter inside overnight you would need to spend 96 CP. There was talk about making internal rooms for Hazō to do seal work in, so that would cost more. You also wanted to put LBF traps outside the fort which might or might not require raising platforms up to mount the seals on.
Hazō has 100 CP, so he needs to pretty much flatline himself to build the minimum size fort, meaning that Noburi needs to refill him afterwards. Noburi is also paying for Keiko's summoning, since it's been shown that summoning any of her larger pangolins comes close to flatlining her. She was shown to summon Panjandrum at least once and Panashe at least twice, so that means Noburi has shelled out about 2/3 his CP just for the absolute minimum requirements.
The attackers did not come close enough before you left the fort, and I assumed that all friendlies managed to exit without tripping anything. There was that scream from behind you a few moments ago, though.
-not to mention that with Kagome not being on the field any Leaf-nin is going to hear a screaming banshee running headlong into a straight line of GBWs and explosive seals thrown at quarter-second intervals towards the last-known location of the greatest threat and think, "Yup, found Hazou."
@eaglejarl@OliWhail@Velorien I'm trying to figure out a good user-interface for a command-line script that simulates a ninja battle helpfully and accurately (and flexibly enough to use). Would code run from the command line which asked the following questions (and did the requisite background calculations and stat tracking) be helpful and accurate for simulating a battle?
1) Ask user for number of ninja in a battle
2) For each ninja, ask user for excel file/google doc with their stats (or manually enter their stats)
3) Roll Initiative
For ninja in Initiative:
4) Ask user for specific action & boost (e.g. Tai, or boosted by 4 Tai with Roki and Claws, or Move, or Goo Bomb)
5) Ask user which ninja or ninjas attacker is targeting/rolling against (e.g. whichever ninja are in the area of effect, or whatever ninja is going to try to stop / run from the move action)
6) Ask user which defense the targeted ninja(s) will use, and if they will boost (e.g. Tac_Move boost 3)
7) Ask user if Mass Combat bonus applies, and if so, which ninja with which skills on both sides of the attack
8) Calculate and display rolls and results, update ninja_class_object for each involved ninja adding injuries, removing pangolin conditioning, removing chakra points, etc. as necessary
9) Return to 4 until all actions are completed for this ninja
10) print stats of all current involved ninja and ask if combat over - if not, return to 3
The above is my current thought on how to automate combat from a high level (obviously there's backend stuff too, but I think I've got a pretty good handle on how to handle that). I think steps 5-8 will likely need to be somewhat different for different actions, but I think the above general outline would work.
Do you have interest in such a code? If so, would you prefer it be structured differently from the above?
I definitely have interest in it. I have initiative-roller and fight-calculator command line scripts but something more integrated like you're discussing would be useful.
If I may, let me get back to you on the specific interface, as I need to start gearing up for work.
So Nara overruled the seal because being safe while enveloped by mist was counter productive, so we are instead separated and enveloped by mist. now with no fortifications, traps, LOS or allies.
I regret knowing that you are feeling so upset and unfairly treated. Please feel free to continue venting if it helps you feel better.
To clarify Shikamaru's actions, here's Hazō's estimate of Shikamaru's thought process based on what he knew when:
1) You were surrounded by mist.
2) You were being chakra drained through the mist.
3) He, the heir of the Nara, had never heard of this ability.
4) It was therefore a secret technique of someone, almost certainly the Wakahisa clan given that he knew (and had just seen) that Noburi could drain through liquid water.
5) An Exam participant should not have been risking disclosing such powerful secret techniques. Assuming she wasn't a complete idiot this implies that she was probably going to try to kill people in order to conceal what happened, probably followed by making their bodies disappear in the swamp.
4) There was a massive AOE attack appearing on top of your position. The fact that it was accurately targeting the group despite the fact that you were visually isolated and speaking fairly softly means that the enemy had a long-range non-visual targeting sense.
5) He had no way of knowing exactly what the AOE would be.
6) Not being in the AOE of a ninjutsu attack is generally a good idea, so having everyone spread out was probably wise.
7) There was no reason to imagine that the enemy couldn't keep using the long-range attack, or that it would give warning the next time as well, so relocating a significant distance was also probably wise.
Once again, I regret knowing that you feel this was such a poor choice, but I hope you'll recognize that it's difficult to make 100% optimal decisions, much less pass those decisions on to others, when you're less than a second from being barbecue.
Noburi's scream was at 2 o'clock, right? Was he boosting tac move to moe out, that we know of? If not, It can't be him, because, frankly, he's not fast enough to move ahead of us.
2 o'clock, yes. Hazō doesn't know if Noburi was boosting. He (Hazō) hasn't been running flat out since he originally left the fort, so it is reasonable for Noburi to have reached that position.
Well, the barrel is pretty hard to get into. You need to remove the netting used to hold the sand socks in place, then remove the tie-downs on the lid, then lift off the steel plate, then lift off the lid. At that point everyone can start dipping out water, but the barrel isn't that big and there isn't room for more than one or two people to be reaching into it at a time. Also, consider that there is only 10L in the barrel and you need to drink at least 0.5L in order to gain the benefit, meaning only 20 doses before you need to get more water out of storage scrolls and refill the barrel. We haven't worried about all of this until now, but overall it seems easier just to say "not during combat."
But, yes, if you were turtling for the long term then you could probably do it.
An enemy faking being Noburi should have to roll Deception against Hazou to actually sound indistinguishable from Noburi (barring ninja magic bullshit). Therefore, if EJ says "Hazou doesn't believe it." then we can be confident that it isn't Noburi, while if he says "Hazou can't tell the difference." then we don't know.
So, @eaglejarl, to Hazou's high-deception ears, did that sound like someone faking Noburi's voice?
Both of these things seemed obvious to me, but of course many things are more obvious from this side of the DM's screen. In future we will continue trying to make clear what's going on around you, but please feel free to check foundational assumptions just to make sure there's no confusion.
Yeah I just went back and reread that and got none of that from the update. Also I figured we worked with our pangolin military engineer to build the fortress but apparently not if we are using your design. Just feels like you guys made a ton of decisions that weren't conveyed to the player base
Yeah I just went back and reread that and got none of that from the update. Also I figured we worked with our pangolin military engineer to build the fortress but apparently not if we are using your design. Just feels like you guys made a ton of assumptions that weren't conveyed to the player base
In fairness, I think this could be phrased in reverse as well. The playerbase said "build a fortress" but did no math to check plausibility and gave us no floor plan or design. The numbers I just worked out are for the simplest possible design and demonstrate that the idea is, honestly, not terribly practical. That, of course, is leaving aside the point that static defenses are generally useless against ninja.
As to "re-read the update and got none of that", could you clarify what "none of that" refers to? I'm extremely confident that I can provide textual support for every point I made, and I defy you to show me a post in which any player provided floor plans for the fortress, checked if it was practical to build, or asked us if the mist was inside the fort yet. If you mean that the design I posted was not supported in the text then you're right, although I respond that wasn't necessary to be "this is what your fort was", it was only a demonstration that this is the simplest design and is only barely achievable.
I understand you are angry, as you usually are any time things don't go absolutely perfectly for the team, but please try not to unfairly place all the blame on the QMs.
In fairness, I think this could be phrased in reverse as well. The playerbase said "build a fortress" but did no math to check plausibility and gave us no floor plan or design. The numbers I just worked out are for the simplest possible design and demonstrate that the idea is, honestly, not terribly practical. That, of course, is leaving aside the point that static defenses are generally useless against ninja.
As to "re-read the update and got none of that", could you clarify what "none of that" refers to? I'm extremely confident that I can provide textual support for every point I made, and I defy you to show me a post in which any player provided floor plans for the fortress, checked if it was practical to build, or asked us if the mist was inside the fort yet. If you mean that the design I posted was not supported in the text then you're right, although I respond that wasn't necessary to be "this is what your fort was", it was only a demonstration that this is the simplest design and is only barely achievable.
I understand you are angry, as you usually are any time things don't go absolutely perfectly for the team, but please try not to unfairly place all the blame on the QMs.
Angry? Nah not at all. If I actually was angry every time everything didn't go our way I would have rage quit long ago. Instead of being one of the most active members of the player base.
So for the fortress idea it's true we didn't check the math. However we don't know any of the capabilities of our pangolin engineer, how much chakra Noburi was able to drain from anything within 24 meters of him or, the lay out of the terrain it is hard to figure specifics. If in the future we need to provide exact details of everything we build I am more than happy to make the time to hash out the details.
So what I am saying is that there was no text in the story update to support the lay out of the fort. My assumptions of what the fort was clearly different than yours. I think that since you did not communicate how the fort was constructed it is fair to say I did not get a sense of the layout from the update.
Now I did not think the mist was in the fort because the last line of oliwhail's was the fort roused itself as the mist crested the walls. So since the update ended with the mist not in the fort + you have 10-30 seconds to respond implies to me that we are not immediately getting chakra drained. If you would have stated that we where immediately getting drained it would have been very different than saying you have time to prepare.
I'm not blaming any of the QMs for what happened. I actually don't think think we are in a bad position at all. What I am saying is that the writing did not get across any of the points you made in your follow up post even when I reread it. So when I say I didn't get any of that I mean I could not see anything that supported that. All I meant to state was that I did not feel the points you where saying where effectively communicated.
You have some text encoding corruption, visible on both computers I've read this on. (Wikipedia article.) Just rewrite that word in the first sentence by hand.
@eaglejarl was there any reason why didn't they object to us building our fortress if it was demonstrably useless against ninja?
Part of the reason of having NPC was to tell us that "no, that's a stupid idea!", as the hivemind continues to have multiple bad ideas and continues to violate assumptions (even if those were stated directly).
Anyway, I have a feeling that Hazō is going to die next update, or if not, will suffer horrific losses as this (apparently) became a lethal encounter. I give 60-40 chance that it was Hazō's brother.
I don't know how to feel about that, except that I am calm right now.
Having see the result of the battle so far, it seemed that we are destined to lose, and for that I have a particularly long comment about.
----
I feel that this was always a fairly unforgiving game in spite of the generosity over the past two years. Now that the difficulty are configured correctly, I also feel that this game might be more difficult than the players are capable of handling, making it unwinnable.
Now, from the QM's perspective, this may be fair.
But I would argue that ignoring assumption that were stated is probably a sign of systematic error that cannot easily be eliminated.
The players do have a plan checklist, one which they ignore.
They thought to try modular plans, git editing, etc, which was either ignored by the players, or produced chaos.
There's a certain amount of work and complexity that the players won't deal or work with. As we have seen, there are a few people who wrote the plans, and the players who critiqued it.
And since we're playing in a free form text based format....Information, especially during battle is limited, and the effect of various jutsu, bloodline, etc, is very hard to keep track of, doubly so for the players, since we don't have all the information and didn't internalized or worked the details as deeply. If @Radvic or any other players bother planning the opposition, we might have pinpoint out weakness ahead of time, but that is simply Too Much Work.
Now that we established my arguments that the players are so bad at this game that they cannot possibly win.
Where do we go from here?
1) Restart once we die. All the way from the beginning, but the players now have more context of the world. Players now have meta-plot info, but there's no guarantee that the rolls will turn out the same, nor the events, nor that Hazō will do what they want.
2) Nerf difficulty. Continue the present course and let Hazō die but nerf everything else afterward.
3) Critique planning round. QM pointed out the obvious stupid stuff or clarify stuff more forcefully.
4) Hope that the player skills improve or work out more of the details of the simulation themselves. This is an unlikely possibility given the stagnant growth of the playerbase and the general lack of effort beyond what was shown.
I'd like to point out that Noburi, who we have an accurate-ish location on, is the one of us who would have a real-time accurate location of the enemy Wakahisa, who is the linchpin of the opposing offenses. I expect that if we make it there and take out Aiko quickly we can retreat into the fort and turtle up or otherwise turn the tide of the fight.
