Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail

I have concerns about the new skill tree system in the context of summons chakra cost. The fact that their chakra cost is based off of the total XP used to build them means that, for instance, our stealth-spec pangolin would cost more than she might otherwise due to the requirement for her to have her other skills higher.

Similarly, I was considering to myself that the new genjutsu mechanics seemed interesting, and that we might torment subject Pandaa to training in both Genjutsu and Alertness with Mari so that Keiko could have a low-cost shoulder-mounted genjutsu pangolin, but the skill tree would make that very difficult.
 
How to kill Jounin with ninja-academy dropouts:

Step 1: Start a Cult​
As with many effective plans, the first step is to start a cult. Be a personable person: indoctrinate others. Specifically, your doctrines are about the dangers of too powerful ninja, and the need to eliminate them. Make sure everybody in your cult knows from birth that their entire purpose in life is to slay Jounin/S-rankers and other high powered ninja. Make sure they all have all their aspects (7 I think?) related to defeating S-rankers, or serving the glorious leader, or being phenomenal at Genjutsu, or other aspects which can be tagged to hit Jounin with Genjutsu.

The cannon-fodder initiates need to aquire 491 XP total. This should be doable with drop-out ninja in about a year. Their skills will look like:

Genjutsu 29 (435 XP)
Athletics 10 (55 XP)
Taijutsu 1 (1 XP)

Ideally, they can get more XP, especially if they can start getting XP in the cult relatively early. If they can, build up to a "beefy"

Genjutsu 39 (780 XP)
Athletics 20 (210 XP)
Taijutsu 10 (55 XP)
Awareness 1 (1 XP)

for 1046 XP. This is a few years of lowest of the low ninja experience, or less than one year for a talanted ninja like Hazou. These powerlevels should be fairly easily achievable by ninja academy dropouts power levels in a cult.

Ideally, have as many of these initiates as possible, for the sake of argument, we'll say you can find ~10 "beefy" initiates, and ~25 non-beefy initiates. This seems like a manageable cult.

Step 2: Recruit an ok ninja with a chip on their shoulder.​
Doesn't need to be great, chunnin level is fine. Should be able to handily and defeat jounin, and possibly S-rankers (depending on how many beefy initiates you've got). Ideally, they're also either easily manipulated, or hate the opponent your trying to take down, so their aspects can trigger. Ideally build them up from within the cult so you don't need to recruit, and can min-max their expenditure and focuse their aspects. Their stats should look something like:

Athletics 40 (820 XP)
Taijutsu 40 (820 XP)
Anything else leading up to that point (731 XP)

= 2371 XP.

So, this ninja need to be around as experienced as people like Sakura are, but more focused on straight punching than she is (or more experienced and less optimized). Probably, hire a missing-nin for this role using the lure of "gets to be pampers and served by a cult" as a reward. They could be more optimized or have more XP, but we're limiting our materials here, and with the power of the cult, this should be sufficient.

Step 3: Find yourself an A/S-ranker to murder, and murder them​
So, everybody needs to attack. Here, have all the initiates cast Genjutsu at once, triggering all their aspects in one go. The weaker initiates will roll:​

29 (base) + 3 * 7 (cultish aspects OP) + 4DF = 50 (bounded between 38 and 62)

The stronger initiates will roll:

39 (base) + 4 * 7 (cultish aspects OP) + 4DF = 67 (bounded between 55 and 79)

Meanwhile, our erstwhile Jounin will roll something like:

Awareness: 60 + 4DF = 60 (bounded between 48 and 72)

So, let's say we have 10 beefy initiates, and 25 non-beefy initiates. We can reasonably expect to get about 10 tags off of this.

Now, have our chunnin friend attack. They'll roll:

Athletics/Taijutsu (probably Athletics, since they'll be on the defense): 40 + 5*10 (Cultish Genjutsu) + 4DF = 90

against our enemy's attack (probably around 60-70). This should result in approximately 20-30 points more than the jounin has, letting us do 7-10 stress, which I *think* is enough to basically take them out of the fight.
 
You could also add some sort of seal which enhances non-skilled ninja for short periods. It doesn't matter if it comes at personal cost, since you can get more cultists....

In other words, this is pre-world war Orochimaru.
 
I just realized a benefit of the skill pyramid wrt simulationism: D rank missions make more sense.

Each unique craft skill counts as a separate skill that you level up. Assuming genin learn enough about every tedious craft to get the minimum of basics down (level 1) suddenly they have a lot more potential skills that can be leveled to 19 for only 190 (19*20/2) more XP.

They can even be leveled up for (optimal) flavor reasons.
 
I'm pretty sure what @Radvic outlined is in the Hokage's drawer, with the label "Code Black: Enemies Overrunning Village Walls". Like, the big assumption is that you can get about a 50 strong group in range to attack a Jonin+ all at once without the Jonin+ once noticing and killing those fifty hostiles. I think the only places you can reliably get those setups are are in large scale battles, or internal Village defenses, so it would have been brought up once or twice by war planners but dismissed for being too impractical.

(Also everyone remembers that one time Minato annihilated a ninja army singlehandedly, and no one wants to risk being on the receiving end of a trick like that)
 
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
I'm pretty sure what @Radvic outlined is in the Hokage's drawer, with the label "Code Black: Enemies Overrunning Village Walls". Like, the big assumption is that you can get about a 50 strong group in range to attack a Jonin+ all at once without the Jonin+ once noticing and killing those fifty hostiles. I think the only places you can reliably get those setups are are in large scale battles, or internal Village defenses, so it would have been brought up once or twice by war planners but dismissed for being too impractical.

(Also everyone remembers that one time Minato annihilated a ninja army singlehandedly, and no one wants to risk being on the receiving end of a trick like that)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Right. Obviously nobody would actually run a cult in the woods without external support. *discretely runs shredder*

Anyways, the lesson I got from trying to munchkin Genjutsu (with the rules as I understand them anyways) is that it is largely useless at high levels. It's useful if you have a bunch of people who can cast it, because it seems like opponents can't use many/any bonuses to defend directly against it, but the benefit of a high level genjutsu user targetting you appears to be a powerbuff equivalent in class to "self-identifies as a winner." So the only really effective way I see of using it is to have it be mass cast by mooks.
 
Radvic said:
Right. Obviously nobody would actually run a cult in the woods without external support. *discretely runs shredder*

Anyways, the lesson I got from trying to munchkin Genjutsu (with the rules as I understand them anyways) is that it is largely useless at high levels. It's useful if you have a bunch of people who can cast it, because it seems like opponents can't use many/any bonuses to defend directly against it, but the benefit of a high level genjutsu user targetting you appears to be a powerbuff equivalent in class to "self-identifies as a winner." So the only really effective way I see of using it is to have it be mass cast by mooks.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Or, basically, as an extra buff in the form of shoulder Pangolin :D
 
Radvic said:
Right. Obviously nobody would actually run a cult in the woods without external support. *discretely runs shredder*

Anyways, the lesson I got from trying to munchkin Genjutsu (with the rules as I understand them anyways) is that it is largely useless at high levels. It's useful if you have a bunch of people who can cast it, because it seems like opponents can't use many/any bonuses to defend directly against it, but the benefit of a high level genjutsu user targetting you appears to be a powerbuff equivalent in class to "self-identifies as a winner." So the only really effective way I see of using it is to have it be mass cast by mooks.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

To be fair, the Genjutsu we've seen on camera in the new system were of the sort a skilled Genin/new Chunin could use - things like Mari's being able to shut down one opponent with it would be at the higher levels, or using illusions to directly target the opponent's Mental Stress levels and thus earn her title "Heartbreaker". I think a lot of ninja look at the lower levels of Genjutsu and see what you did, then go into other things, which is why specialists are somewhat rare (also, the not-represented-by-mechanics aspect of some people just not having any talent in the field).

Also, Aspects are true, so while the easiest and most mechanically direct thing you can do with them is "tag for bonus", there's also room for Aspects that screw people up in less numerical ways.
 
Erolki said:
To be fair, the Genjutsu we've seen on camera in the new system were of the sort a skilled Genin/new Chunin could use - things like Mari's being able to shut down one opponent with it would be at the higher levels, or using illusions to directly target the opponent's Mental Stress levels and thus earn her title "Heartbreaker". I think a lot of ninja look at the lower levels of Genjutsu and see what you did, then go into other things, which is why specialists are somewhat rare (also, the not-represented-by-mechanics aspect of some people just not having any talent in the field).

Also, Aspects are true, so while the easiest and most mechanically direct thing you can do with them is "tag for bonus", there's also room for Aspects that screw people up in less numerical ways.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
True, and that's part of how I expect the new mechanics would need to go if Mari is to remain as capable as she's been demonstrated to be. Also, with respect to Aspect: "who has better aspects" is definitely a huge part of "how good is this character," including how many non-mechanical ways they gimp someone. Fortunately, cults have a bunch of subservient aspects to them, so there should be a bunch of mileage to get out of that.

Cariyaga said:
Like, say, an "Allies are Enemies" aspect.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
"Allies are Enemies" seems like... a poor choice of aspect. I suggest *not* using that as one of the guiding principles of your cult.
 
Radvic said:
Right. Obviously nobody would actually run a cult in the woods without external support. *discretely runs shredder*
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I wouldn't be so quick to shred that plan; remember that any sufficiently successful cult stops being called a cult and starts being called an ideology, like, oh, say, The Will of Fire?
 
Radvic said:
How to kill Jounin with ninja-academy dropouts:

Step 1: Start a Cult​
As with many effective plans, the first step is to start a cult. Be a personable person: indoctrinate others. Specifically, your doctrines are about the dangers of too powerful ninja, and the need to eliminate them. Make sure everybody in your cult knows from birth that their entire purpose in life is to slay Jounin/S-rankers and other high powered ninja. Make sure they all have all their aspects (7 I think?) related to defeating S-rankers, or serving the glorious leader, or being phenomenal at Genjutsu, or other aspects which can be tagged to hit Jounin with Genjutsu.

The cannon-fodder initiates need to aquire 491 XP total. This should be doable with drop-out ninja in about a year. Their skills will look like:

Genjutsu 29 (435 XP)
Athletics 10 (55 XP)
Taijutsu 1 (1 XP)

Ideally, they can get more XP, especially if they can start getting XP in the cult relatively early. If they can, build up to a "beefy"

Genjutsu 39 (780 XP)
Athletics 20 (210 XP)
Taijutsu 10 (55 XP)
Awareness 1 (1 XP)

for 1046 XP. This is a few years of lowest of the low ninja experience, or less than one year for a talanted ninja like Hazou. These powerlevels should be fairly easily achievable by ninja academy dropouts power levels in a cult.

Ideally, have as many of these initiates as possible, for the sake of argument, we'll say you can find ~10 "beefy" initiates, and ~25 non-beefy initiates. This seems like a manageable cult.

Step 2: Recruit an ok ninja with a chip on their shoulder.​
Doesn't need to be great, chunnin level is fine. Should be able to handily and defeat jounin, and possibly S-rankers (depending on how many beefy initiates you've got). Ideally, they're also either easily manipulated, or hate the opponent your trying to take down, so their aspects can trigger. Ideally build them up from within the cult so you don't need to recruit, and can min-max their expenditure and focuse their aspects. Their stats should look something like:

Athletics 40 (820 XP)
Taijutsu 40 (820 XP)
Anything else leading up to that point (731 XP)

= 2371 XP.

So, this ninja need to be around as experienced as people like Sakura are, but more focused on straight punching than she is (or more experienced and less optimized). Probably, hire a missing-nin for this role using the lure of "gets to be pampers and served by a cult" as a reward. They could be more optimized or have more XP, but we're limiting our materials here, and with the power of the cult, this should be sufficient.

Step 3: Find yourself an A/S-ranker to murder, and murder them​
So, everybody needs to attack. Here, have all the initiates cast Genjutsu at once, triggering all their aspects in one go. The weaker initiates will roll:​

29 (base) + 3 * 7 (cultish aspects OP) + 4DF = 50 (bounded between 38 and 62)

The stronger initiates will roll:

39 (base) + 4 * 7 (cultish aspects OP) + 4DF = 67 (bounded between 55 and 79)

Meanwhile, our erstwhile Jounin will roll something like:

Awareness: 60 + 4DF = 60 (bounded between 48 and 72)

So, let's say we have 10 beefy initiates, and 25 non-beefy initiates. We can reasonably expect to get about 10 tags off of this.

Now, have our chunnin friend attack. They'll roll:

Athletics/Taijutsu (probably Athletics, since they'll be on the defense): 40 + 5*10 (Cultish Genjutsu) + 4DF = 90

against our enemy's attack (probably around 60-70). This should result in approximately 20-30 points more than the jounin has, letting us do 7-10 stress, which I *think* is enough to basically take them out of the fight.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Explosives.

Radvic said:
"Allies are Enemies" seems like... a poor choice of aspect. I suggest *not* using that as one of the guiding principles of your cult.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How about "Enemies are oatmeal?"
 
Last edited:
Cariyaga said:
That was with respect to Aspects that genjutsu could impose on someone.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, mechanically, isn't that just represented by a compel that costs the opponent a Fate Point? Hmm... but I suppose at that point you just need more compels than they have Fate Points, so sufficient numbers of cultists should be able to do the job.
 
Radvic said:
I mean, mechanically, isn't that just represented by a compel that costs the opponent a Fate Point? Hmm... but I suppose at that point you just need more compels than they have Fate Points, so sufficient numbers of cultists should be able to do the job.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's a thing that's true from their perspective. You can't spend a fate point to make "the building is on fire" not true as far as I'm aware.
 
Adept_Woodwright said:
There are 24 skills in the list right now, and 9 meaningful minimal allocations for bonus 1-9 (1, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80). There may be scenarios where going from 70 to 79 are useful, but I'm on my phone and out right now, so I'll omit additional analysis.

The end game optimal (for only aspect bonus) allocation is
1 - 1 skill. Each skill at this level costs 1 XP
10 -1 skill. Each skill at this level costs 5*11 = 55 XP.
20 - 1 skill. Each skill at this level costs 10*21 = 210 XP.
30 - 1 skill. Each skill at this level costs 15*31 = 465 XP
40 - 2 skill. Each skill at this level costs 20*41= 820 XP. 2 skills at this level cost 1640 XP.
50 - 3 skills. Each skill at this level costs 25*51= 1275 XP. 3 skill cost 3825 XP.
60 - 4 skills. Each skill at this level costs 30*61= 1830 XP. 4 skills cost 7320 XP.
70 - 5 skills. Each skill at this level costs 35*71 = 2485 XP. 5 skills cost 12425 XP.
80 - 6 skills. Each skill at this level costs 40*81 = 3600 XP. 6 skills costs 21600 XP.

The total XP cost to obtain this allocation is: 47541 XP.
An average ninja earns 3 (?) XP per day, and takes, at minimum, 15847 days (~43.5 years). This assumes no substantial additional sinks for XP.
An excellent ninja (6 XP/day ?) takes half the time (~22 years), with the same assumption.
Geniuses (9 XP/day ?) do it in a third (~15 years)

Village Ninja seem to start seriously earning XP around age 10 (+/- 2)

I'd put Jiraiya at somewhere between average and excellent. He's also 40-50 ish years old, I think. Say 35 years of XP growth. So possibly capped out.

--

If there's interest, I can automate this calculation, and add capacity to optimize for non-endgame levels of XP.

It would theoretically be possible to use this kind of calculation as a type of Bingo Book estimator (or character designer) using assumed character age and skill reputation (backing out an estimate for average XP growth)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

So, I was very, very wrong in this. That's what I get for skipping out on simulating the intermediate steps. Bad Woodwright. Bad.

One important aspect of the proposed rules is that the skill allocation has to be valid at every step along the way. It is not possible to obtain my "optimal" array in this way.

Instead, for 24 skills, the best one can do is [2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3] for levels [1-9, 10-19, ..., 70-79, 80]. In order make the legendary bin have 4 skills, the next lower would have to have 2 skills, invalidating the move. So on and so forth.

There are different ways to approach this end state - I've simulated a ladder approach (fill out a ladder of ones for each bin, rocketing one skill up to legendary, then ladder skills up in sequence) and a wave approach (maximize the lower rank movement before spending to achieve next higher bin). In my mind, these two approaches bracket realistic behavior (risky specialization vs generalist tendency).

--

This optimal allocation depends on the number of skills one has available to train.

Summoning and Technique Hacking aren't explicitly called out on the skill list, nor are Chakra Typings (if those end up being skills). I've only counted one crafting skill in the list of 24 skills.

Every new skill on the list would fill out the lower ranks first (down to [3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3]) then start adding at the legendary side ([3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4], etc).

The cost of Sealing and Summoning are different than the other skills, which somewhat complicates estimating level costs.

--

@eaglejarl , @Velorien , @OliWhail
Are Technique Hacking and Summoning both skills that would count in the skill pyramid?

Right now, for 24 equally weighted skills (that is, not counting the added cost of sealing), the maximum lifetime expenditure of XP is 39110 XP (for 9, 19, 29, ... , 79, 80) points in the distribution above.

Getting Summoning, by itself with no supporting pyramid, to legendary (80) costs 64800 XP for someone without a cost savings. (this may not be a realistic concern, if level is only used to calculate number of active pacts.)
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top