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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Briefvoice said:
EDIT: Also, we voted for Hazou to buy the Sleight of Hand stunt, remember?
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We might not have had the time to train that.


So, since we've got up to date charsheets now, I'd like to ask the thread how we want to proceed with the character builds. I see a few things we could do here, and I want to see what everyone thinks.

  • Continue allocating XP in the exact same ratio: It's worked so far, but you could easily argue that it's worked so far for different challenges, and under different rules. I personally think we would need to tweak things a bit even if our progression was similar to the established build.
  • Let @Radvic decide: Radvic has expressed the sentiment that Hazou is built badly for the current system, and since he's Radvic, I'm inclined to take his word for it. So this slot is reserved for the build progression that Radvic suggests.
  • Prince Hazou: We're already good at combat, but that's because we've been in a combat-heavy environment, out in the cold, for the last two years. Where are we now (and for the foreseeable future)? In the political upper crust of the richest nation in the EN. So let's adapt to our environment like the amoeba we are, and invest heavily into social skills.
  • Can't Talk, Debugging My Code: Invest heavily into Sealing. Because Sealing is our path to godhood, and we're arguably one of the best-positioned people to walk that path. Who else has access to The Best Sealmaster, an Expert Sealmaster, The Best Medic, an Expert Medic, (potentially) Snek Uncle, all of Leaf's Sealing literature, and the analysts of the Nara clan? Jiraiya, that's who. And he's busy.
  • Untouchable: Invest heavily into Athletics and Alertness. We already have DPS for days, now let's just make sure that nothing below S-rank can hit us with anything.
  • Uncuttable: Invest heavily into an armour technique. Soak the damage.
  • Jiraiya's Idea of Good Character Optimisation: Save for getting all the elements. I mostly just added this one as a joke.
 
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Personally, I would be most interested interested in the defensive builds or any other punchy ones, but it could be neat to try better social.
 
MadScientist said:
We might not have had the time to train that.


So, since we've got up to date charsheets now, I'd like to ask the thread how we want to proceed with the character builds. I see a few things we could do here, and I want to see what everyone thinks.

  • Continue allocating XP in the exact same ratio: It's worked so far, but you could easily argue that it's worked so far for different challenges, and under different rules. I personally think we would need to tweak things a bit even if our progression was similar to the established build.
  • Let @Radvic decide: Radvic has expressed the sentiment that Hazou is built badly for the current system, and since he's Radvic, I'm inclined to take his word for it. So this slot is reserved for the build progression that Radvic suggests.
  • Prince Hazou: We're already good at combat, but that's because we've been in a combat-heavy environment, out in the cold, for the last two years. Where are we now (and for the foreseeable future)? In the political upper crust of the richest nation in the EN. So let's adapt to our environment like the amoeba we are, and invest heavily into social skills.
  • Can't Talk, Debugging My Code: Invest heavily into Sealing. Because Sealing is our path to godhood, and we're arguably one of the best-positioned people to walk that path. Who else has access to The Best Sealmaster, an Expert Sealmaster, The Best Medic, an Expert Medic, (potentially) Snek Uncle, all of Leaf's Sealing literature, and the analysts of the Nara clan? Jiraiya, that's who. And he's busy.
  • Untouchable: Invest heavily into Athletics and Alertness. We already have DPS for days, now let's just make sure that nothing below S-rank can hit us with anything.
  • Uncuttable: Invest heavily into an armour technique. Soak the damage.
  • Jiraiya's Idea of Good Character Optimisation: Save for getting all the elements. I mostly just added this one as a joke.
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I thought we got it if we asked for it as we probably would have trained it before regardless (especially as it sounds like it matches with our character background very closely)
 
MadScientist said:
We might not have had the time to train that.


So, since we've got up to date charsheets now, I'd like to ask the thread how we want to proceed with the character builds. I see a few things we could do here, and I want to see what everyone thinks.

  • Continue allocating XP in the exact same ratio: It's worked so far, but you could easily argue that it's worked so far for different challenges, and under different rules. I personally think we would need to tweak things a bit even if our progression was similar to the established build.
  • Let @Radvic decide: Radvic has expressed the sentiment that Hazou is built badly for the current system, and since he's Radvic, I'm inclined to take his word for it. So this slot is reserved for the build progression that Radvic suggests.
  • Prince Hazou: We're already good at combat, but that's because we've been in a combat-heavy environment, out in the cold, for the last two years. Where are we now (and for the foreseeable future)? In the political upper crust of the richest nation in the EN. So let's adapt to our environment like the amoeba we are, are invest heavily into social skills.
  • Can't Talk, Debugging My Code: Invest heavily into Sealing. Because Sealing is our path to godhood, and we're arguably one of the best-positioned people to walk that path. Who else has access to The Best Sealmaster, an Expert Sealmaster, The Best Medic, an Expert Medic, (potentially) Snek Uncle, all of Leaf's Sealing literature, and the analysts of the Nara clan? Jiraiya, that's who. And he's busy.
  • Untouchable: Invest heavily in Athletics and Alertness. We already have DPS for days, now let's just make sure that nothing below S-rank can hit us with anything.
  • Uncuttable: Invest heavily into an armour technique. Soak the damage.
  • Jiraiya's Idea of Good Character Optimisation: Save for getting all the elements. I mostly just added this one as a joke.
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I think I'd prefer a priority on Sealing, a subpriority on Armor and combat, and minor investments in other things, assuming the world doesn't catch fire or anything. Stuff like socials would be nice but we can't have everything and be more than just good at any of it.
 
To drag things back to the "voter engagement" discussion for a moment:

eaglejarl said:
First, all the thank yous for doing this.

Once again, speaking for myself and not for @Velorien: The detail in the original plan's "Moving the Client Around" section was very helpful, so I think cutting that part down was a net loss. Aside from that, the 255 word version captured all the essential points. I was surprised at that; I kept flipping back and forth between the three versions but didn't see anything critical being lost along the way, aside from the MtCA section as mentioned above.

I probably would have awarded slightly more XP to the original version simply because the detailed MtCA section would have saved me a lot of brain cycles as to how to protect the client. Had that section been transplanted verbatim into the 255-word version then I would have given it just as much XP.
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Could we dig into why precisely the "Moving the Client Around" section is helpful? Here it is, for reference:
Moving Granny Karina Around

During travel, one team member takes to the rooftops to have a higher field of vision while the other two stick closer to the palanquin to be able to converse with with client and keep ground-level eyes out
Given client's expressed preferences, Keiko should normally be on rooftop duty​
When we arrive at a location, the group will stop in the street outside. Karina stays in the palanquin.
One team member will go in to scout the location for assassins and announce Karina's arrival.
The other two stay on guard outside, looking for snipers. (If necessary, send someone to investigate any suspicious areas where an enemy sniper might be concealed.)
Determine if Karina needs to take in a sample case of some sort. If so, then it will be carried either before or after her, but not at the same time.
If all seems safe, Karina will exit the palanquin and be escorted inside by all three ninjas. Instruct her that if danger appears, she is to duck down and huddle on the spot and we will protect her. Running will only expose her to danger.
See "attack response" discussion below for more details.​
Reverse this procedure upon exiting.
Palanquin to be inspected for traps before Karina enters it each time​
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From my perspective here the entire bolded section is unnecessary. Honestly the whole thing might be unnecessary, but the first bit at least gives you some concrete force-disposition notes. I feel like everything could be replaced by a line saying "take appropriately-paranoid precautions for the client's safety while out and about (duh)" and it'd get the job done.

Needing to specify all of this in the plan hearkens back to the "we need to specify everything so we don't leave a hole for the QMs to exploit" mindset. So far as I can see there are two meaningful ways for the writing of the update to interact with all the bolded stuff:
  1. Narrative fluff: Having some lines/paragraphs detailing the team going through the motions of protecting Karina.
  2. Impacts on NPC behavior: Enemy teams exploiting any loopholes we leave and/or trying and failing to attack us because our defense plan accounts for their line of attack and/or deciding to search for easier prey because of how thorough we are.
You talk about the MtCA section saving you brain cycles, but my question is why exactly those brain cycles need to be spent.

It all comes down to how the plan interacts with NPC behavior, so far as I can see. Either all these details have a real impact on how NPCs/the world interact with us or they don't.
  • If they don't have an impact then the narrative fluff practically takes care of itself: "just"—here perhaps is me taking the difficulty of writing for granted—grab some idle thoughts from the thread or your own brain and slap them onto the page as necessary to make the writing flow, without any need to worry about long-term mechanical impacts.
  • If they do have an impact then that's a problem, from my perspective. In my opinion we should be able to write a plan that says "our competent team of ninja competently ninja-guard the civilian as a team" and leave it at that without fear of, for lack of a better word, "reprisals".
Is the problem that you feel it's necessary to tease out all these nitty-gritty details before you're able/willing to try and simulate NPC behavior? Do you say "well this team would be foiled by these defenses, so they won't attack..." and so on? In that case I can see that having all the details laid out already could be helpful for saving brain cycles.
-I'm not sure if such high-fidelity simulations are necessary for the sake of the quest/narrative, mind, but I can understand where you're coming from if this is the case.
 
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MadScientist said:
We might not have had the time to train that.


So, since we've got up to date charsheets now, I'd like to ask the thread how we want to proceed with the character builds. I see a few things we could do here, and I want to see what everyone thinks.

  • Continue allocating XP in the exact same ratio: It's worked so far, but you could easily argue that it's worked so far for different challenges, and under different rules. I personally think we would need to tweak things a bit even if our progression was similar to the established build.
  • Let @Radvic decide: Radvic has expressed the sentiment that Hazou is built badly for the current system, and since he's Radvic, I'm inclined to take his word for it. So this slot is reserved for the build progression that Radvic suggests.
  • Prince Hazou: We're already good at combat, but that's because we've been in a combat-heavy environment, out in the cold, for the last two years. Where are we now (and for the foreseeable future)? In the political upper crust of the richest nation in the EN. So let's adapt to our environment like the amoeba we are, and invest heavily into social skills.
  • Can't Talk, Debugging My Code: Invest heavily into Sealing. Because Sealing is our path to godhood, and we're arguably one of the best-positioned people to walk that path. Who else has access to The Best Sealmaster, an Expert Sealmaster, The Best Medic, an Expert Medic, (potentially) Snek Uncle, all of Leaf's Sealing literature, and the analysts of the Nara clan? Jiraiya, that's who. And he's busy.
  • Untouchable: Invest heavily into Athletics and Alertness. We already have DPS for days, now let's just make sure that nothing below S-rank can hit us with anything.
  • Uncuttable: Invest heavily into an armour technique. Soak the damage.
  • Jiraiya's Idea of Good Character Optimisation: Save for getting all the elements. I mostly just added this one as a joke.
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Sealing > Socials = Combat

Sealing is fully capable of substituting for good combat dice, as Kagome proves. If we make an improved Macerator that shoots twice ad fast and gets us a +6 instead of +3, that's around a hundred XP saved on combat dice. What it cannot substitute for, again, as proven by Kagome, is social skills. That said, we shouldn't ignore combat. But we do need to get better at socials.
 
MadScientist said:
So, since we've got up to date charsheets now, I'd like to ask the thread how we want to proceed with the character builds. I see a few things we could do here, and I want to see what everyone thinks.

  • Continue allocating XP in the exact same ratio: It's worked so far, but you could easily argue that it's worked so far for different challenges, and under different rules. I personally think we would need to tweak things a bit even if our progression was similar to the established build.
  • Let @Radvic decide: Radvic has expressed the sentiment that Hazou is built badly for the current system, and since he's Radvic, I'm inclined to take his word for it. So this slot is reserved for the build progression that Radvic suggests.
  • Prince Hazou: We're already good at combat, but that's because we've been in a combat-heavy environment, out in the cold, for the last two years. Where are we now (and for the foreseeable future)? In the political upper crust of the richest nation in the EN. So let's adapt to our environment like the amoeba we are, and invest heavily into social skills.
  • Can't Talk, Debugging My Code: Invest heavily into Sealing. Because Sealing is our path to godhood, and we're arguably one of the best-positioned people to walk that path. Who else has access to The Best Sealmaster, an Expert Sealmaster, The Best Medic, an Expert Medic, (potentially) Snek Uncle, all of Leaf's Sealing literature, and the analysts of the Nara clan? Jiraiya, that's who. And he's busy.
  • Untouchable: Invest heavily into Athletics and Alertness. We already have DPS for days, now let's just make sure that nothing below S-rank can hit us with anything.
  • Uncuttable: Invest heavily into an armour technique. Soak the damage.
  • Jiraiya's Idea of Good Character Optimisation: Save for getting all the elements. I mostly just added this one as a joke.
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I've always been extremely skeptical of this "Sealing is our path to godhood" meme. Hazou's seals are great tricks, but I wouldn't make sealing more than a secondary or tertiary focus.

It would be nice if he were good enough to make Skywalker seals himself, I guess.
 
Briefvoice said:
I've always been extremely skeptical of this "Sealing is our path to godhood" meme. Hazou's seals are great tricks, but I wouldn't make sealing more than a secondary or tertiary focus.

It would be nice if he were good enough to make Skywalker seals himself, I guess.
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It's been stated by QMs that sealing is one of the paths to godhood. And QMs don't lie, as such.

e: Mostly, the thing is, because Hazou is only at apprentice-level, he has to rely on tricks, but that's not actually the case for higher level seals.
 
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Briefvoice said:
I've always been extremely skeptical of this "Sealing is our path to godhood" meme.
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Well, Sealing can do literally anything if you invest enough time in working your way through more basic versions of your seal first. Higher level means it takes less time, but even at level 20 we could theoretically do anything given enough research time (even if it would mean researching potentially thousands of lesser versions to lower the TN). So I find it hard not to see it as a path to godhood.


Cariyaga said:
Sealing > Socials = Combat

Sealing is fully capable of substituting for good combat dice, as Kagome proves. If we make an improved Macerator that shoots twice ad fast and gets us a +6 instead of +3, that's around a hundred XP saved on combat dice. What it cannot substitute for, again, as proven by Kagome, is social skills. That said, we shouldn't ignore combat. But we do need to get better at socials.
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I'm going to suggest that we can put DPS on the backburner a little. We've accumulated a lot of bonuses. Other people will also have bonuses, but I don't expect other people to be on our +15 level, or even close to it. I'd suggest adding all the "combat" XP to Athletics/Alertness instead of Taijutsu.
 
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MadScientist said:
Well, Sealing can do literally anything if you invest enough time in working your way through more basic versions of your seal first. Higher level means it takes less time, but even at level 20 we could theoretically do anything given enough research time. So I find it hard not to see it as a path to godhood.
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And yet, I'm looking at sealmasters in-universe and they are not in fact gods. Even Jiraiya depends just as much on all his other abilities as he does sealing. Kagome is leaning on seals as a crutch to do things he ought to have developed the proper jounin skillset to do without them, and it costs him some in flexibility and effectiveness. Suggests it's not quite so easy, eh?

The idea that seals can do anything is an unproven thesis. It's more that we don't know what exactly the limits are. It's perfectly possible that there are a lot of things that sealing flat-out can't do, but these are very difficult to separate from things that are merely very difficult to do, with maybe a third category of things that are theoretically possible but probably not for a human being in any realistic timeframe.

In short, sealing is overrated because it allows questers to dream big even if those dreams in practice will not be realized.
 
I feel like the build discussion @MadScientist started is actually a discussion about our mid-term goals and ways of achieving them. There's not much point to investing in punching if we're going to be playing politics in Leaf, or locked in a sealing lab with Kagome. Social is pointless if Jiraiya sends us to some hellhole again to punch people.

Personally, I'd like to spend some time actually helping people, or at least listening to them in order to understand how to help them most effectively. I'd also like to make some headway on figuring out just how much of the Sage/Dummy story is actually true and in what sense.
 
Briefvoice said:
The idea that seals can do anything is an unproven thesis.
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No, it's word of QM.

Briefvoice said:
And yet, I'm looking at sealmasters in-universe and they are not in fact gods.
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Yeah, most of them are either dead because they poked Cthulhu too hard, or refuse to research beyond explosive/storage because it involves poking Cthulhu.

Briefvoice said:
Even Jiraiya depends just as much on all his other abilities as he does sealing. Kagome is leaning on seals as a crutch to do things he ought to have developed the proper jounin skillset to do without them, and it costs him some in flexibility and effectiveness.
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Jiraiya is very busy all the time (first being a spymaster, and then being hokage). Kagome spent the entire time he was in the wilderness and then teaching Hazou refusing to do research because of safety concerns. Before that, he made things that would help him blow things up or secure the perimeter and didn't research further because of safety concerns after watching his mentor get eaten by self-replicating crystals.
 
All power in MfD is derived from actual combat power. We need to spend some exp to get up to jounin level. We aren't very far from it so won't take a huge amount of exp to get there.
 
Speaking only for myself here; @Velorien may have different opinions.

Kurkistan said:
From my perspective here the entire bolded section is unnecessary. Honestly the whole thing might be unnecessary, but the first bit at least gives you some concrete force-disposition notes. I feel like everything could be replaced by a line saying "take appropriately-paranoid precautions for the client's safety while out and about (duh)" and it'd get the job done.
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I prefer the detailed version, because when the plan says "guard the client in appropriately-paranoid ways", I have two options: (1) Sit down and think about what 'appropriately-paranoid ways' are, so that I can show them on the page; (2) skip over the entire scene. Having details like "scout inside the store before letting her out of the palanquin" allows me to show the kids being good at the job without me having to figure out exactly what they need to do in order to show that they're good at the job. It also prevents the situation where I fail to think of some particular precaution and then all the players say "hang on, why didn't you have someone scout the store before letting her out of the palanquin? Any sensible ninja would have known to do that!"


Which leads us to...

Kurkistan said:
Is the problem that you feel it's necessary to tease out all these nitty-gritty details before you're able/willing to try and simulate NPC behavior? Do you say "well this team would be foiled by these defenses, so they won't attack..." and so on? In that case I can see that having all the details laid out already could be helpful for saving brain cycles.
-I'm not sure if such high-fidelity simulations are necessary for the sake of the quest/narrative, mind, but I can understand where you're coming from if this is the case.
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We do not have character sheets made up for every genin in the Exams, no, but that doesn't save me from having to simulate them. Again, I have two choices: (1) figure out how smart enemies would attack the team, which includes "how do they get the information they need to plan the attack and then how do they implement it?" or (2) don't have anyone attack the team. As much as I'm sure y'all would love it if I always went for (2), that's neither very exciting nor very realistic if it never happens. There's hundreds of enemies here, all of them with weird jutsu and bloodlines and whatnot -- someone should have an ability that makes them good ambush hunters (cf Ino and Shikamaru), and Team Uplift are prime targets since they are powerful, scoring well thus far, politically connected and therefore worth reputational points, and hated by nearly everyone in Mist.

If you'd like to see what I'm talking about, try this as an exercise: I've written several versions of a plan below, each of which covers 2-3 scenes. Sit down and try to write those scenes yourself, using each plan in turn. See which one is easiest for you and why.


Goal: Kill the dragon and take its stuff.
  • Figure out where it is
  • Go into the dragon's cave, taking appropriate precautions
  • Use spells and steel to kill it
  • Cart the loot home and sell it

  • Figure out where it is
    • Talk to Sagemaster Bartholemew
    • Check with local adventurers
  • Go into the dragon's cave, taking appropriate precautions
    • Scout with Wizard Eye, then thief.
    • Apply buffs
    • Check for traps
  • Use spells and steel to kill it
    • Fighters in the front, wizards in the back, clerics in the middle. Tank 'n' spank
  • Cart the loot home and sell it
    • Throw it in the portable hole

  • Figure out where it is and whether it's a black dragon or a dracolich
    • Talk to Sagemaster Bartholemew -- remind him that he owes us for that fetch quest last year
    • Check with local adventurers
      • Ask the local bartenders
      • Check the 'Seeking Employment' boards at the guildhall; it should have contact info for any adventurers in town
      • If we haven't found anything yet, contact the Thieves Guild -- we know that Ginzo the Gimlet-Eyed runs an opium den on the docks; ask the bouncer politely to get us a meeting. If he refuses, kick the door in and do it the hard way.
  • Go into the dragon's cave, taking appropriate precautions
    • Scout with Wizard Eye, then thief.
      • Make sure Bob gives the thief Improved Invisibility and Silence first
    • Apply buffs
      • Everyone: Mass Elemental Immunity, Mass Improved Invisibility, Telepathic Bond for communication, Stone Skin
      • Maxim the Ranger: Sustained Super Strength, Infinite Ammo (on the bandolier of darts), Enhanced Ammo (again on the bandolier), Double Haste, Double Shot. (Allows 16 attacks, 3 darts / attack, +9 to hit, Weapon Specialization in darts means +1 damage per dart. Total damage per dart: 1d2 + 1 (WS) + 14 (SSS) + 1 (EA) = 1d2 + 16 for each of 48 darts.)
      • Nuklo the mage: Super Extra Special Sneaky Shieldy Spell of Superior Stealthiness. Super Shield. Enhanced Stone Skin
      • Bob: ...etc
      • If it's a dracolich, have Brynne dump her entire spell supply into 42 Celestial Brilliances on a pebble. (Make sure we're well away from the cave before doing this so the light isn't visible from inside.) Put it in a bag and Blacklight it so as not to give it away early.
    • Check for traps
      • Have Tony summon a Trapmaster Gremlin
  • Use spells and steel to kill the dragon
    • Basic tank 'n' spank. Maxim and Alice will take turns drawing its attention, one staying at the head and one at the tail, switching places with Superior Substitution whenever one of them goes below 50% on HP. Nuklo will stay hidden and rain DPS (prefer Force Orb) while Kyle keeps refreshing his Stone Skin and throwing heals as necessary.
    • Have Grog lob the Celestial Brilliance pebble in on the surprise round. If it's a dracolich then 42d6 of damage will take a good chunk out of it to start with and, worst case, we'll have plenty of light to fight by.
  • Cart the loot home and sell it
    • Do a quick pre-sort; if the legends are right there's going to be more stuff than fits in our portable hole. Prefer magic items > gems > gold > etc, but leave anything big behind. If there is any cinnabar, be sure to bring it.
    • Seal the cave so the stuff doesn't wander off before we can come back
    • That Klahd over at the Bazaar gave us a good deal last time, but let's shop the stuff around a bit. Avoid the Pervect shops. If there was cinnabar then sell it to Madame Cinnabunny -- we cut off her supply six months ago and she must be desperate by now.
 
MadScientist said:
Let @Radvic decide: Radvic has expressed the sentiment that Hazou is built badly for the current system, and since he's Radvic, I'm inclined to take his word for it. So this slot is reserved for the build progression that Radvic suggests.
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When I say Hazou is built badly for the current system, I largely mean there are ways to spend an equivalent amount of XP to much greater combat potential. There's a few broad areas in which Hazou (and the team) could be better optimized for combat in the new system. Broadly speaking they are:

1) Lack of Tactical Jutsu
2) Lack of Combat Focus
3) Lack of Secondary Action Usage (related to Lack of Tactical Jutsu)

Regarding Lack of Tactical Jutsu:

I've stated out tactical Jutsu and their implications in combat previously (second and third examples). Essentially, you can make jutsu which give buffs to either durability, defense stats, or attack stats and have their cost in CP to drain. If you focus your strain on the result you want, rather than calculating the cost after coming up with a cool idea which has multiple facets, you can give yourself buffs of ~5-20 in any primary stat for ~20 CP for an entire combat. Hazou and the team have nothing approaching this capability.

Regarding Lack of Combat Focus:

For combat, the skills that matter are

1) Your attack stat
2) Your defense stat
3) Your HP/stress track

HP is handled by Physique, primary attack is Taijutsu (for Hazou), and defense stats are Taijutsu and Athletics (situationally dependent). Alertness matters for the first round, but if you have enough athletics, you should be ok to dodge, and you should also be able to make up for low Alertness by having 1 alertness spec'd ninja in your team. This means a Pure Combat Genin, should look something like:

Taijutsu 50
Athletics 40
Physique 30
Stealth 20
Chakra Reserves 10
Misc support skills

This costs 2880 XP (plus random support skills). Hazou has spent 3900 XP for his build, and would get trashed on base combat with the above build, which requires ~75% the XP Hazou has spent. If we scale the build up to Hazou's level of XP, we wind up with something like:

Taijutsu 55
Athletics 45
Physique 35
Stealth 25
Chakra Reserves 15
Misc support skills

which costs 3755 XP (plus random support skills). This is mildly less XP than Hazou has spent, yet will be able to defend against his 40 Taijutsu with 55 Taijutsu, and hit back with 55 Taijutsu. If Hazou pulls some shenanigans which requires the combat ninja to defend with their dodge stat, they'll roll 45 to dodge (higher than Hazou's combat stat). They have an additional point on their Physique tracker, so can tank more damage than Hazou can, and their aspects will hit harder as they have a stat in the 50 range and Hazou doesn't. Now, one can argue that Hazou has a bunch of add ons which will let him hit at a level higher than 40 -- this is true. However, a competently built combat ninja will also have add ons, and as they will scale off their highest skill, they'll be more effective per add on than Hazou's are.

Regarding lack of Secondary Action Usage

Hazou actually does pretty well here. The rest of the team is lacking though. Effectively, we get an action and two bonus actions. Those two bonus actions should, at minimum, be getting us an aspect bonus in most combat situations (e.g. macerators or other shenanigans). Ideally, we have jutsu which buffs our primary stat which can be cast as a bonus action.


Combining just 2 and 3 (leaving out tactical jutsu for now) I believe it's entirely feasible to build a character which dodges in the 80s and punches in the 100s with less XP than Hazou has. Once you throw in tactical jutsu, it seems feasible to punch in the 140s and dodge in the 120s while having a stress tracker equivalent to a ninja with >S-rank physique.

As far as how Hazou can use these tricks -- it's a little hard, considering how spread out his build is. The primary answer is to begin the process of hyperspecialization (assuming we want combat). There's nothing stopping Hazou from spending his next 405 XP to bring Taijutsu up to up to 49. Ultimately, Social abilities are priced significantly higher than combat abilities (need multiple social defensive skills), so the obvious solution is to build around having one social ninja per team, for our team, that means Noburi. If we want to have a larger impact on the world at a large scale, our best option is probably to start spending points in sealing (which now is less expensive than it was before I think).
 
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Hmm, is anyone against adding a note to the current plan that our team should walk around in mundane disguises? Don some Mist-style clothes, face masks, and with the bandanas covering our heads, we should be much more difficult to identify at a glance. In the immortal words of Kagome, "Let's not make it too easy for the stinkers, eh?".

The scout should probably just straight up Henge when not in sight of the client.

@Briefvoice?
 
Radvic said:
[...massively OP munchkinry...]
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One thing you pointed out to us earlier was that we made a mistake by relaxing the skill pyramid rules. We said that in order to have N skills of a given level you needed to have at least N-1 skills of the prior level. The Dresden Files / FATE rules are that you must have at least N skills at the prior level in order to have N skills at the current level. The QMs discussed this with an eye towards going back to the original FATE rules, although I think that particular item got lost in the weeds before being consensed. Regardless, it won't affect any of the current characters so it's not a big deal. It also only slows the tide of your munchkinry, Radvic. :>


On the subject of jutsu...

Without wanting to be a killjoy, the answer to most of those super-effective jutsu ideas that we saw from you is probably going to be "you can't do that because chakra that's why" or "that doesn't exist". The intent of the jutsu design rules was to make the QMs' lives easier when designing enemies. They accomplish that goal very well, but Radvic has demonstrated that they are incredibly exploitable in the hands of players. Honestly, they were never really intended to be used by players -- or, rather, it was a "It would be nice" instead of a primary design goal. In retrospect we should probably have left the jutsu design rules out of the player document and simply not allowed custom jutsu; I think it would have been better for everyone, since now we're going to have players being frustrated because their extremely OP designs aren't being allowed in and QMs being frustrated because we're having to face up to the fact that our system is borked coming out the gate and we'll need to keep saying no.
 
I've been following MfD since about when it went on the rules-rebuild hiatus. I rarely participate in quests in the first place, but MfD's plans always seemed excessively detailed and very work-intensive for the players.

I don't even always read the winning plan - it's rather dry stuff. It doesn't really compare favorably to the fun meat of the actual story. Unfortunately that occasionally leaves me a little lost because the body of an update can assume that the reader knows the plan.
eaglejarl said:
If you'd like to see what I'm talking about, try this as an exercise: I've written several versions of a plan below, each of which covers 2-3 scenes. Sit down and try to write those scenes yourself, using each plan in turn. See which one is easiest for you and why.
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I know what you're getting at, though the example isn't perfect. (The short plan from the exercise isn't exactly equivalent because there's no context to it - MfD updates have the context of the entire story that came before.)

It looks to me like by asking for extra-detailed plans you're basically offloading some of what is normally the writer's task (even in a quest). That comes with certain trade-offs:
  • There's a very high barrier to participation in plan-making.
  • Problems beyond the usual occur when there's a disconnect between the players' and the QMs' idea of the world (like the fort thing).
When the players collectively spend a lot of effort on an aspect of a plan (basically more than the QM is willing to) they cover all the bases the QM has thought of and the plan succeeds and the writing includes some cool details. When they don't spend as much effort the QM has to either come up with these details himself (which would often only make sense in-story - Hazou is a competent ninja), or decide that Hazou overlooked something. And then either the plan gets upgraded to plausible competency in the form of Noburi/Keiko making some caustic remark on how Hazou missed the obvious, or there's no opportunity to consult the NPCs and Hazou makes a blunder.

It honestly seems to me like you're "simulating" too much detail. Though this is kind of what MfD prides itself on... But the feeling I'm getting here is that ultimately its too much work, and the QMs often don't have the energy. (Hence the occasional substitute CftG updates, or an update shorter than the QMs would like.)

Something like going deep on the possible strategies in the nightlight seal exam is pretty cool and probably "worth the effort" (though in that case Shikamaru's presence kind of undercut it given how smart he's supposed go be). But you could just "cheat" on simulating the details of bodyguard strategies if neither the players nor the QMs have some compelling ideas. (And I don't think "cheating" really precludes a a combat encounter - ultimately you're writing the story.)
 
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eaglejarl said:
Without wanting to be a killjoy, the answer to most of those super-effective jutsu ideas that we saw from you is probably going to be "you can't do that because chakra that's why" or "that doesn't exist". The intent of the jutsu design rules was to make the QMs' lives easier when designing enemies. They accomplish that goal very well, but Radvic has demonstrated that they are incredibly exploitable in the hands of players. Honestly, they were never really intended to be used by players -- or, rather, it was a "It would be nice" instead of a primary design goal. In retrospect we should probalbly have left the jutsu design rules out of the player document and simply not allowed custom jutsu; I think it would have been better for everyone, since now we're going to have players being frustrated because their extremely OP designs aren't being allowed in and QMs being frustrated because we're having to face up to the fact that our system is borked coming out the gate and we'll need to keep saying no.
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Just wanted to point out that there is a skill to let players make there own Jutsu. So in game there is no reason why we can't level that to high enough to design whatever Jutsu we want. Our alternatively we can pay someone with our blood diamonds to get them to do it for us. So if you don't want us to break things with Jutsu should probably eliminate technique hacking all together.

Also just a note your system isn't broken. It's just all systems with options have plenty of aspects for players to optimize to. You also have the unfortunate situation where your players are a bunch of munchkins. We would find The optimal path no matter how the system was designed.
 
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