Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
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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
Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
Here's among the most trusted jounin of leaf and a bunch of future clan heads. I don't see a problem in mentioning this as long as he tells them this is a protected secret.
- Location
- Yes.
Last I checked Tenten wasn't a clan anything. Nor is Lee, assuming he's here (he probably is).
She's Guy's student, and the jounin-genin student-teacher bond seems to be very important.
As a more general comment, I must say that ninja seem to do things in an overly complicated way a lot of the time. If you want to send someone a message, that's what words are for. I'm sure Orochimaru thought that spending 100 hours or whatever writing an entire game was hilarious, but you have to think there were better uses of his time, you know? Or Jiraiya's book series.
It's all technically very clever, but when you can probably get 95% the results for 5% of the effort, it's time for a time-value analysis. Ninja seem to have a lot of time on their hands.
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I have Hero's Handbook, Power Profiles, Gadget Guide, Supernatural Handbook, and Cosmic Handbook.
The reason I put Clone as Enhanced Trait Dodge, rather than Concealment, Illusion, or Summon, was because of the rules variant I was implementing that increases the cost of an effect the more ranks of it you have in that power, combined with the desire for ninjas to have cheaper dodge than toughness.
Ninjas normally would have two ways to buy toughness (STA, Toughness, (Defensive Roll is banned)), and four ways to buy dodge (AGL, Dodge, Substitution, Clone), meaning that they can split their points among twice as many powers, and thus not have to buy as many ranks in the same powers (which would be more expensive if higher ranks within the same power increase in cost).
This is a feature, not a bug.
Edit: that said, the bonuses are looking a bit wonky at the moment, and it would be good to get some ninja-combat benchmarks.
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- Location
- In my Lair, on my Hoard
You know, a lot of my suggested tweaks would have involved stuff like Defensive Roll...
Note also that under the standard M&M 3e rules, you shouldn't be able to directly buy up Toughness. You either buy up Stamina, or get Protection/Advantages that do the job for you.
Not to mention that divvying up multiple versions of the same bloody power under different descriptors is hell to RP/write for in-game. Mostly because anytime you use all those Dodge modifiers, you've got to RP yourself "exploting a bunch of clones" and "substituting all the time" which is harder on our QMs that need to write about ninjas pulling off a plethora of dodging techniques to justify their high Dodge DCs.
But I'm digressing. Would you prefer to take the discussion to PMs so we don't clog up the Quest thread, or talk here so others can chip in?
That would be really silly. You can definitely buy up all the other defences.
No, that's not necessary. You can just say that the ninja has the option to use clone/substitution if it looks like it would help at any given moment, and having that option is enough to boost their dodge.
Definitely talk here. If we discover problems/solutions then the QMs will want to see them.
- Location
- UK
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- He/Him
Without making any canonical statement, I would observe that it's a really reliable way to stop the information from being intercepted. 99% of people whose hands the game might pass through wouldn't even realise that there was a code to decipher, whereas Jiraiya would be 100% guaranteed to (assuming you knew about the gaming sessions).
- Location
- Yes.
Oh yeah that reminds me. Guess there really is a traitor in Konoha feeding intel to Orochimaru regarding our gaming sessions. Something something Naruto is a traitor something something SCREAMING IN KAGOME
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Surely it would be much more plausible for one of the people attending your gaming sessions to be the traitor? (Obligatory WWDTTY?).
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- Yes.
omg you're right
Jiraiya is the traitor
HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS BEFORE
Since everyone at the gaming sessions was Orochimaru in disguise, does it really count as betrayal?
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
I don't believe I didn't notice that the Snail Queen is Tsunade, the Thunder Prince is Jiraiya, and the Reptile Lord is Orochimaru.
- Location
- In my Lair, on my Hoard
Well, look at it this way: if you were able to buy up Toughness like you do the other defenses, you could have a bloke with Stamina 1 that's capable of taking a mortar to the face without a scratch because they bought up their Toughness to 12... without Powers or Advantages to explain it away.
It's honestly a conceit of the system that having Toughness in excess of your Stamina is a result of either powers or Advantages. You either use Protection or Defensive Roll, because either you have a super-power that gives you increased resistance to physical damage, or you're capable of rolling with the blows to reduce the impact, like more street-level comic heroes do (Batman, the Punisher, martial artists, etc).
If you'd prefer, just port over the "Tough" Advantage from 2e. It was a ranked advantage that gave a +1 bonus to Toughness rolls vs phsyical damage that was essentially "Protection the Power, but as an Advantage". I liked to call it "Frank Castle - The Advantage", because it fit him so well.
True, but it's also just a messy way of doing things. Having multiple powers with very different descriptors that do the exact same thing is inelegant and missing the point of using M&M for the purpose of exploiting rank-cost House Rules you made up...
My point is that you're saying "make it multiple powers, that all add up, because buying things at lower ranks is cheaper under House Rules I made up to limit growth"... and that's kind of an inelegant way of handling things when one of the reasons the system is switching to M&M is for stream-lining and simplifying this whole bloody affair.
SO! Let's toss out all our House Rules for the moment, then start translating the Naruto world to M&M. We can figure out how to simulate all this stuff in M&M first, make the system/game sing like a songbird, then we can add house rules to make it work easier and run more smoothly.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Even Orochimaru can't replicate Gai and Lee's... behaviour, so I'd assume so.
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
Orochimaru probably assigned the job to a Snake.
As for Jiraiya, he's actually being very time-efficient. He found a way to combine the hobby that he's going to pursue anyways with his official duties.
As opposed to the guy with STA -5 who can shrug off the plague? Or the guy with AGL 0 who can dodge bullets?
We're not trying to use M&M for the point of M&M. We're trying to use M&M as a base for the point of MfD, for which the house rules hit a bullseye.
In MfD, you stack up as many edges as you can get your hands on, and doing so is useful. In non-bastardised M&M this doesn't work at all (see: the last few weeks of messing around with normal M&M, completely failing to get any semblence of the MfD characters in a way that isn't messy and jarring).
Sure, my house rules are inelegent and stupid for a game of M&M. But we aren't playing M&M. We're playing MfD.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure. You forget that Orochimaru is also Zabuza, and reporting information about Team Uplift to their sworn enemy is definitely betrayal. Even if they are also Zabuza.
will408914
(slouching towards bethlehem)
- Location
- California
Right, right, but you can't forget that Kagome is Itachi. Is it really betrayal for Orochimaru to report information about Itachi to Zabuza, given that Orochimaru is Zabuza is (in at least one case) Itachi?
- Location
- In my Lair, on my Hoard
Yeah, that's where GMs step in and benchmarks come into play.
Yeah, I get that, but all I'm saying is wait until you've got the more basic stuff like benchmarks and simple solutions down first before applying House Rules. You've justified the "multiple of the same power with different descriptions" thing under a house rule, and sure, it probably simulates MfD pretty well.
But it also means you could be missing out on a better solution to simulating MfD well because you decided to use that House Rule to justify boosting modifiers so ridiculously high without bloody benchmarks.
Your character sheet for the three PCs from a couple pages ago would have Hazou operating at DC 30 Dodge, and a potential +20 to Toughness. Under standard PL, that would be PL 20... Superman didn't even have PL 20 under any circumstances. Darkseid wasn't PL 20.
All I'm saying is there are other ways of doing things that can still simulate MfD without losing that elegance.
Like, Substitution Technique in combat could be "Ultimate Dodge" (most ninja seem to use Substitution as a last ditch dodge), and standard Clone Technique can use the "Decoys" power from the Summoning Power Profile.
The Pangolin Training Jutsu was said to make the user tougher, but also slower due to the added weight. In fact, most of the Pangolin "scale" jutsu work a lot like that. Port over the "Withstand Damage" advantage from 2e, which lets you lower your Active Defenses and like with All-Out Attack, but increasing Toughness rather than attack-bonus.
So, say that Pangolin Training Jutsu is using Withstand Damage up till the -2 rank, then Ghost Scales for when you're going to -5. Then exploit the presence of Impervious, and say Pangolin Earth Armor is purchasing the "Impervious Toughness" extra on top of all your Toughness, in addition to maybe adding more Toughness.
Why are Keiko's weaponry considered Devices? Most ninja have a bunch of kunai and throwing weapons. Make them Equipment - as with the team's store of Seals.
Similarly, Hazou's gauntlets could also be Equipment (though Device is also appropriate, honestly, either is good), but the Damage rank of the Gauntlets is more than that of a sword... Rank 2 might be more appropriate given they're essentially superior-quality brass knuckles with little blades, and let them also grant an Improved Critical range (because Imp Crit advantage won't apply to both unarmed and gauntlet used, sadly).
Not to mention why in the world is Multiple Earth Wall rank 3?!? The Material toughness of Stone is rank 5 for stone that is an inch thick. The MEW is way more than that, and noted as capable of being granite or more durable earthen materials. Wouldn't rank 8 be a more appropriate minimum?
Also have you not considered using Permeate [flaws: Medium (Earth)] for Hiding Like A Mole? HLAM doesn't leave tunnels, and you can't bring others with you, so Permeate works better than Burrowing to simulate how that jutsu operates.
And now that I think about it why do none of them have Movement (Water Walking, Wall-Crawling) for their tree-walking and water-walking chakra techniques? Am I mis-remembering them learning that? I recall it being a plot-point that Hazou didn't know them before the Swamp of Death, but I thought he'd picked it up back then. And none of them have Speed or Leaping, despite Chakra-Boost giving all of them the ability to do that...
With Keiko, you have an Affliction that only related to disarming an opponent... when you can actually use the Disarm Maneuver with Move Object. Why not just use Move Object Limited to Disarm? Or combine the two powers into one, and just make it a rank 6 Move Object power, with a partial flaw that Limits 3 ranks to Disarm maneuvers only. Either work. When you're not doing a Disarm and the Limit brings the rank to 3, say it's Zephyr's Reach. When you're doing the Disarm, you get all 6 ranks, and say that's Pangolin's Reach.
Okay, I really, really need to calm down. Don't know why I got that ticked, but ranting felt a bit cathartic. Hell, I probably missed a bunch of suggestions I was thinking of, but we can get to those later. That and I've got class in ten minutes, so, yeah.
First - I suggest we settle on Benchmarks. M&M's rulebooks doesn't do the best job with talking about benchmarks when it comes to anything but the Ranks & Measures table. Their Ability Benchmarks table is kinda... awful.
I would like to suggest Jab's Builds (currently on Echoes of the Multiverse, formerly on Ronin Army, formerly of Atomic Think Tank) and his Design Diaries (links near the top of the first post), and the benchmarks he uses. Granted, they're Comic Book Hero benchmarks, but given Ninja are super-human after a fashion anyways, they're still good benchmarks to use anyways. Fairly solid work.
Raxner
The most dangerous man in an empty room
- Location
- Israel
Not clear to me why Zabuza would have any interest in Hazo and Co at this point? He's a missing-nin hunter, and they're no longer missing-nins. Even Mist has officially accepted that they are now Leaf-nins, as evidenced by the fact that they could enter Mist as part of the Leaf cohort at the Chunin exams.
That has to be a first for him
- Location
- In my Lair, on my Hoard
Maybe it's just personal now? At least, that could be the excuse Mist would give Leaf - have Zabuza kill the Team for betraying Mist, and then disavow him and declare Zabuza a missing-nin to cover their tracks. Say that Zabuza felt it was a personal insult that they'd evaded him for so long, and when he encountered them, lost himself in a rage and slew the Team for making him look bad or something.
*shrugs* It's inelegant for ninja in MfD, but I wouldn't put it past Mist to have it as a back-up back-up plan or whatever. Refuge in Audacity is a thing because it works every now and then.
The thing is, part of increasing costs is that it allows us to use the QMs' XP curve from the old system (or a varation thereof) to determine how many points any given character has.
And if we do that (I think we should) then that completely throws the idea of deciding on benchmarks before applying house rules out of the window.
- Location
- USA
And why would anyone believe Mist vs. Just declaring war on them in that scenario? Or at least demanding reparations. Leaf would certainly demand one of the two