I approve of bringing down the Aspect bonuses, should reduce how swingy FPs are in high-level combat.
Thanks. If it ends up feeling like they aren't making a big enough difference then we can always increase them later, but better to start low and then go up.
Skill List:
I will continue to champion merging Endurance and Might into Physique, because I'm difficult that way
. Wrestling should be Taijutsu, everything else under the Might heading would fit fine in a general "physically tough person" skill.
That seems like a pretty reasonable suggestion.
Would Cracking also apply to dealing with Seal-based security? If not, what would?
Depends on what you mean. Off the top of my head, without having discussed it with the others, it seems not unreasonable that Cracking would let you notice a seal and peel it off the wall. It certainly wouldn't let you modify the seal or anything like that, though.
Splitting up the skills "build traps" and "place traps" when a) they're both Craftsmanship and b) you use just Cracking to oppose them seems unnecessary, though I suppose the advantage it gives the attacker is kinda thematically appropriate.
Well, as the rules say, you don't need Craftsmanship(Physical Security) to place traps -- anyone can do that. C(PS) represents the knowledge of how to build a
security system, meaning a set of traps / locks / etc that work together smoothly and don't have gaps (physical or conceptual) in their coverage. If you have 'build traps' then you can definitely put them out there. It won't make a significant difference mechanically...unless the attacker knows something about security (i.e. has the right skill) and takes the time to use Casing, in which case your lack of knowledge about security systems will be obvious in the form of an Aspect that can be tagged against you.
Think of it like security and programming in the real world. Anyone can write a website login form, but if you don't know anything about security then you're probably just going to store the password in plain text in your database. You'll have a firewall, but it won't have UPnP turned off and the servers behind it won't be patched. And so on -- you're putting security
elements into place, but you're not building a coherent system.
Performance and Presence don't seem amazingly well differentiated, either - Deceit to trick people, Intimidate for the obvious, Presence for putting on a show or negotiating, and Rapport for being open and honest (plus Conviction and Discipline for social defense, though they're both somewhat versatile) seem like enough social skills.
I think Presence is supposed to be a general 'force of character' measure and Performance refers to acting, juggling, mime, comedy, etc.
Technique Hacking is mentioned later in the document as a skill, but isn't actually on the skill list itself. I'm sure it's a special thing, but so's Sealing.
We'll add it, thanks. We're still nailing down rules for it.
The example for a Scaled-Down Check is against a target number of 50, not 5, which doesn't seem to match the rest of the explanation?
No, that's correct. You make the roll using the 1-80 scale numbers, but then the results are downsized. The primary place this gets used is for Movement, so that you don't end up zooming around scores of zones in one go.
The bit about Chakra Regeneration is good fun
.
Thanks. :>
How's drawing a weapon stand on the action chart? Ranged characters would be pretty hurt if standard weapons took a supplemental action to ready. Seals are OP, so them taking an action's fine by me
.
Hm. Good point. Will discuss.
I like the new Ninja Hands.
Excellent. We thought that worked pretty well, so I'm glad others think so.
Macerators using solid shot only doing the same damage as a standard thrown kunai seems a little low. Maybe bump them to Weapon 2? The -3 for activating a seal balances against the increased Weapon value - less likely to hit, but just as bad if they do, and more versatile.
Yeah, macerators clearly need some rework. I don't think we translated them properly.
Honestly, I don't actually like Chakra Boosting as a generic technique - I prefer the idea that ninja generally are better because of Chakra, and there's probably a few jutsu that interact with it, but Chakra as a round-by-round variable boost just isn't as interesting or fun as throwing jutsu, and gives better combat advantages a lot of the time for less XP (also, lots of the time, it's not actually a choice, just a matter of "how long until I run dry").
It's a well-established part of the MfD world, though. The rules for it may need some tweaking, but I don't think we can dump it completely.
In addition to
@Radvic's point about the extended-duration personal Jutsu that break the setting, I feel the current numbers overprice some established ones (like MEW, which comes out absurdly expensive for a mid-range defensive jutsu with utility applications). Maybe have different numbers for utility vs attack vs person boosting jutsu?
Yeah, the jutsu design system is probably the weakest point still under discussion. It's hard to keep it simple, flexible, and useful all at the same time. Any specific thoughts?
I quite like the Genjutsu section. Sealing, too.
You have
@Velorien to thank for the bones and muscles of the Genjutsu system, although
@OliWhail and I added a bit of skin here and there. I think it came out pretty well. Seals are still being poked at a bit, but I think they're getting close.
Thanks for all this useful stuff!
One other comment: it looks like specialization is going to be kind of broken in the current form of the mechanics as a far superior strategy to gathering a wide range of skills. I think Fate was built around the idea of skill pyramids, making it mechanically impossible to hyper-specialize. With that gone in the new rules, the clear way to punch above your level is to just min-max and either only take certain challenges, or stay in a group with a bunch of fellow min-maxers (ideally one of whom has min-maxed into all the ally granting armor). For instance, Zabuza was built with a bunch of XP (27,000 I think?), however, if someone just took reasonable levels of Alertness, and Athletics, and then specialized in Taijutsu, they could have a stat breakdown like this:
Alertness: 100 (5050 XP)
Athletics: 100 (5050 XP)
Taijutsu: 120 (7260 XP)
Total: 17,360 XP
Considering the highest Zabuza rolled for anything was 113 in the combat, and he tended to roll closer to 50-60 most of the time, this build seems like it would trash Zabuza's build very effectively (and almost any combat situation really), despite being built with just over half as much XP.
Urgh...that is a very good point. The QMs definitely need to talk about that, because it's tangled up with a lot of issues related to simulationism vs narrativity, the XP curve we've built, etc. Many thanks for pointing this out.
I think I'm misunderstanding the ninjutsu rules, because this looks broken. It seems like one could just acquire a bunch of techniques which last a stupid long time and cast them, say, once a month, and be pretty set.
For instance, if I'm reading it right, you could make a jutsu which creates armor for you with a timeframe of "a month" (+140 strain) and durability of +20 (+200 strain) which requires a lot of work to satisfy (-30 strain) and only works with an associated element (-20 strain). This technique would have a final strain of +290, which, I think means it costs 29 chakra to cast from the reserve pool? So, basically all the chakra a genin has in a day (if they still wind up with ~30-40 chakra skill levels), but increases their physical stress they can take from 2 to 22 for a month, which seems highly worth it in a high-lethality ninja world.
Similarly, it looks like you could develop a technique which is a mobility boosting technique with a timeframe of "a month" (+140 strain) and a distance of +20 (+200 strain) which effectively grants teleportation (at least, aside from enclosed spaces) and cast it for the same amount of chakra (assuming it has the same requirements.
Similarly, you could just stack these things with month-long effects to grant crazy attack bonuses, so that you roll something like +100 or whatever to all attack and defense rolls, all at the cost of needing to spend ~3-4 days' worth of chakra once a month.
Oops, yeah. The chakra pool mechanics were an extremely recent change and have not been integrated through the document properly. Until late yesterday chakra was a stress track just like the others, although it was about twice as long. With chakra being that limited, a chakra cost of 6 was a major thing and all of the things you're pointing out weren't feasible. We'll get that fixed.
You're right about the super-long-duration thing, though. We need to patch that; thanks for pointing it out.
If I finished my ninja tracking program under the old rules such that combat could be solved by running a script from a unix or mac command line (with python installed) and answering questions about what options a ninja takes given their capabilities, would that help at all towards resuming the plot sooner rather than later?
I'd add that I can further attempt to do that in google scripts, so you wouldn't even have to use the command line-just reload the page with the sheet, though coding would take a bit longer.
I think we're getting pretty close to resuming plot, although I at least would like to have character sheets nailed down before we do.
On which subject: If anyone wanted to be a real hero and earn the undying thanks of the QMs, the best thing they could do would be to take on the responsibility of getting character sheets made up for the Team Uplift exam participants (Hazō, Keiko, Noburi, Akane). Part of that responsibility would be to keep them up to date as the rules get hammered into shape, and hopefully the other players will help consense on the new representations.
@Cariyaga already created a proposal for Hazō that could be used as a template for the others, although although I didn't check to see if it was actually doing the math automatically on skill costs.
