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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Threnodist said:
In canon Jiraiya can't even do it unassisted by the time he dies. The only reason Naruto can do it at all is because of shonen bullshit
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Are you referring to how he has Ma and Pa sitting on his shoulders during the Pain fight?

The problem with Sage Mode is that you can only gather nature chakra while you're motionless and then you burn through what you've gathered. If you're in the middle of a fight you can't afford to stand still for 10 seconds, 1 minute, however long, so whatever you start with is all you're going to get...unless you happen to have two of the oldest and wisest toads in existence as your partners. They fuse to your shoulders and absorb the chakra, then feed it to you. Voila, you get a steady stream of Sage Mode superawesomeness.

In short: he was able to do it unassisted, it's just that he couldn't do it and move. This is probably my poor canon knowledge, but I'm not aware of anyone who was able to move and gather Sage energy at the same time -- Naruto had his clones do it for him, then pop to send the chakra back to him.
 
My primary problem with fate points is a matter of how much it takes me out of the action to think about them in the context of a resource that has to be micromanaged.

The setting is Naruto, and Marked for Death beyond that. Chakra concerns are normal. Something that naturally happens as you get to be substantially more powerful than someone else is that you stop having to worry about running out of chakra when fighting them, because boosting stops being necessary. All good, right?

Well, when you throw fate points into the mix, things get a little bit more messy.

Ignoring Chakra boosting here, it'd change the numbers moderately but not too much. Say you've got Generic Jounin (60s for relevant combat stats) fighting Generic Chuunin (40s for relevant combat stats). The jounin has to use their fate points when fighting the chuunin here, because if they don't, the chuunin might get 3-4 aspect invocations off, putting them at 40+(5*3 or 4) for 55 or 60. That's got a pretty decent shot at inflicting a mild consequence, or filling out their stress at worst.

Okay, so the jounin takes out a chuunin, spending, let's say conservatively 2 fate points to the Chuunin's 3. Let's roll this, just to be fair.

Jounin: 60 + 7 (aspect) + 7 (aspect) - 6 (dice) = 68
Chuunin: 40 + 5 (aspect) + 5 (aspect) + 5 (aspect) + 6 (dice) = 51

Chuunin takes 6 shifts of damage and a moderate consequence. Next hit they go down. Now, the interesting thing here is... The jounin still has to spend additional fate points on the next roll (if reasonable/possible), because ninja are tricksy and it's entirely possible for the Chuunin to pull something out that would kill them (or at least inconvenience their mission, like an explosive tag). Still, let's ignore that.

Jounin is at a net -1 Fate Points from this exchange. I was very generous with not rerolling their low roll there -- in the context of someone actually in a life or death situation with an unknown element, I don't think it'd be unreasonable to expect them to spend one. Still... If the jounin was lesser-skilled, a 50-dice combatant or something like that, they might well have had to spend multiple more fate points in the engagement.

After the fight, they're down one fate point (they won the conflict, getting them a fate point back). Not a problem under most circumstances (particularly outside the Chuunin exams, which is, honestly, why this is relevant at all), but if it turns out instead that the Jounin has to fight multiple chuunin, things turn out very differently. Given a normal-ish amount of them (7), they could well run out of them or run out of aspects to spend them on.

What happens then? Maybe nothing. Maybe the jounin slugs it out, but maybe they lose out to the chuunin due solely to the fate point economy. I'm not sure how reasonable this is.

e: Basically: At an average number of fate points, someone can only fight three lessers one "level" (~20 skill levels) down before running dry.
 
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OliWhail said:
Oh, like say, Naruto?
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Nah, I worked it out. Here is the inter-dimensional chakra bucket line:

Loyal Village --> Noburi --> Keiko --> Keiko in summon realm --> Tsunade in summon realm --> Tsunade --> Jiraiya.

There is an additional wrinkle. How many liters of water can Jiraiya drink? We might want Tsunade as the endpoint, because if anyone has a jutsu that lets you drink more, its her.

Other options include letting shadow clones drink (might work, might not), jutsu and medicine to cause rapid dehydration, and induced vomiting.

We might want to use this technique very, very, very sparingly. Like, only use it to to take out the Akatsuki and if an army is heading towards the village. Because the only way to stop this chain (if it works at all) is to kill every Wakahisa in existence. And then anyone else who can drain chakra, just to be sure. Leaf won't give up Noburi, which means that ww4 is everyone vs Leaf.
 
eaglejarl said:
Are you referring to how he has Ma and Pa sitting on his shoulders during the Pain fight?

The problem with Sage Mode is that you can only gather nature chakra while you're motionless and then you burn through what you've gathered. If you're in the middle of a fight you can't afford to stand still for 10 seconds, 1 minute, however long, so whatever you start with is all you're going to get...unless you happen to have two of the oldest and wisest toads in existence as your partners. They fuse to your shoulders and absorb the chakra, then feed it to you. Voila, you get a steady stream of Sage Mode superawesomeness.

In short: he was able to do it unassisted, it's just that he couldn't do it and move. This is probably my poor canon knowledge, but I'm not aware of anyone who was able to move and gather Sage energy at the same time -- Naruto had his clones do it for him, then pop to send the chakra back to him.
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From my understanding of sage mode's effects Jiraiya looked more toad-like because he was gathering in too much energy (or couldn't process their's properly?), so part of the reason Ma and Pa were there was to not only provide him with continual energy but stop him from turning to stone.
 
Cariyaga said:
My primary problem with fate points is a matter of how much it takes me out of the action to think about them in the context of a resource that has to be micromanaged.

The setting is Naruto, and Marked for Death beyond that. Chakra concerns are normal. Something that naturally happens as you get to be substantially more powerful than someone else is that you stop having to worry about running out of chakra when fighting them, because boosting stops being necessary. All good, right?

Well, when you throw fate points into the mix, things get a little bit more messy.

Ignoring Chakra boosting here, it'd change the numbers moderately but not too much. Say you've got Generic Jounin (60s for relevant combat stats) fighting Generic Chuunin (40s for relevant combat stats). The jounin has to use their fate points when fighting the chuunin here, because if they don't, the chuunin might get 3-4 aspect invocations off, putting them at 40+(5*3 or 4) for 55 or 60. That's got a pretty decent shot at inflicting a mild consequence, or filling out their stress at worst.

Okay, so the jounin takes out a chuunin, spending, let's say conservatively 2 fate points to the Chuunin's 3. Let's roll this, just to be fair.

Jounin: 60 + 7 (aspect) + 7 (aspect) - 6 (dice) = 68
Chuunin: 40 + 5 (aspect) + 5 (aspect) + 5 (aspect) + 6 (dice) = 51

Chuunin takes 6 shifts of damage and a moderate consequence. Next hit they go down. Now, the interesting thing here is... The jounin still has to spend additional fate points on the next roll (if reasonable/possible), because ninja are tricksy and it's entirely possible for the Chuunin to pull something out that would kill them (or at least inconvenience their mission, like an explosive tag). Still, let's ignore that.

Jounin is at a net -1 Fate Points from this exchange. I was very generous with not rerolling their low roll there -- in the context of someone actually in a life or death situation with an unknown element, I don't think it'd be unreasonable to expect them to spend one. Still... If the jounin was lesser-skilled, a 50-dice combatant or something like that, they might well have had to spend multiple more fate points in the engagement.

After the fight, they're down one fate point (they won the conflict, getting them a fate point back). Not a problem under most circumstances (particularly outside the Chuunin exams, which is, honestly, why this is relevant at all), but if it turns out instead that the Jounin has to fight multiple chuunin, things turn out very differently. Given a normal-ish amount of them (7), they could well run out of them or run out of aspects to spend them on.

What happens then? Maybe nothing. Maybe the jounin slugs it out, but maybe they lose out to the chuunin due solely to the fate point economy. I'm not sure how reasonable this is.
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I think, for our case in specific, as long as Hazou doesn't burn through his FP at maximum pace and run out before all of our opponents this round are dealt with, we'll be in a decent place for next round. Realistically, we're taking on multiple times our own team size in enemies, so I feel like it's accurate for Hazou to be burning FP to keep succeeding so handily.

That said, my biggest concern is that we'll end up facing the even bigger challenge, the giant raid against us, without enough FP to pull our weight. I feel like it would make sense narratively for Hazou to 'conserve his strength' for the battles ahead and use a fate point or two fewer when he thinks he can get away with it.

Overall, I think the system is fine, and we're just freaking out a little since this is the first time FP limitations have been relevant and we haven't had to cope with it before. There is risk that the QMs, also fairly new to this part of the system, aren't making an optimal evaluation of how many FP Hazou would want to spend given who he's fighting and the fights ahead, but I trust that they're doing their best and that by expressing my perspective they can take those factors into account and be more sure that they're making the right choices from here on out.
 
While we are on the subject of 'Things We Would Like Hazou to Learn,' I'd like to throw meeting some puppet users into the mix. Learning how they manipulate constructs with their chakra should prove to be very insightful for any chakra-punk shenanigans we come up with later. Hazou could then use all of his varying pursuits of ninja knowledge to finally construct a giant mecha that runs on chakra, seals, and explosions, finally cementing his place as a true shonen protagonist.

Who wouldn't want our adorable murder-hobos running around in giant death robots?

Our enemies, that's who. And that is precisely why we should do it: to rub it in in their stinking stinker faces. Also giant robots are cool; it's a fact.
 
So, given what's being thrown about back and forth on discord, a squad two or three squads of chunin could easily kill Pein. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
 
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MadScientist said:
So, given what's being thrown about back and forth on discord, a squad two or three squads of chunin could easily kill Pein. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
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Maybe the rule should be that NPC's only have fate points propositional to their importance. People who don't have names don't get fate points. Fate doesn't care about them.
 
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Honestly, I would just remove Fate Points entirely. Let ninjas invoke up to one personal- or environmental-based Aspect, and as many Aspects based on enemy Consequences as they want. No rerolls.
 
The 30 ninja dog pile is doable especially without Team Kurenai in the mix.
 
We can totally handle the 36 ninja dogpile. NP.
 
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@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail

Gambit Mechanics Proposals

Explosive Tree Intimidation

Description: Attach Implosion seal(s) to tree. Hazou's clones get atop the tree, one of them activates it. (See later gambit, Goo Storm Technique, for more details on clones) Pandamonium throws the tree like a javelin far overhead, causing a hailstorm of debris and highly-intimidating, Kagome-sized boom. Accompany with Drill Sergeant's roar to taste.

Mechanics: Roll Pandamonium's Ranged Weapon (or whatever is used to throw things) skill as an aoe intimidate check with range 2. Possibly include his intimidate or Kagome's sealing as an aspect bonus. Pandamonium passes the tags this generates as appropriate.

Goo Storm Technique

Description: The clones riding Pandamonium's log are given two goo bombs each. They jump off before the log explodes, using the momentum Pandamonium's throw provides to help aim. They release the goo bombs overhead, raining down on enemy ninja.

Mechanics: Roll Pandamonium's Ranged Weapon, as above, against targetted ninja. This technique would be approximately half as effective, given Hazou's clone skill level, if it were expected. Given that it's not, and the accompanying explosion, I'm just gonna say the clones roll Pandaamonium's weapons score, as effectively speaking they are just guided missiles.
 
Cariyaga said:
@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail

Gambit Mechanics Proposals

Explosive Tree Intimidation

Description: Attach Implosion seal(s) to tree. Hazou's clones get atop the tree, one of them activates it. (See later gambit, Goo Storm Technique, for more details on clones) Pandamonium throws the tree like a javelin far overhead, causing a hailstorm of debris and highly-intimidating, Kagome-sized boom. Accompany with Drill Sergeant's roar to taste.

Mechanics: Roll Pandamonium's Ranged Weapon (or whatever is used to throw things) skill as an aoe intimidate check with range 2. Possibly include his intimidate or Kagome's sealing as an aspect bonus. Pandamonium passes the tags this generates as appropriate.

Goo Storm Technique

Description: The clones riding Pandamonium's log are given two goo bombs each. They jump off before the log explodes, using the momentum Pandamonium's throw provides to help aim. They release the goo bombs overhead, raining down on enemy ninja.

Mechanics: Roll Pandamonium's Ranged Weapon, as above, against targetted ninja. This technique would be approximately half as effective, given Hazou's clone skill level, if it were expected. Given that it's not, and the accompanying explosion, I'm just gonna say the clones roll Pandaamonium's weapons score, as effectively speaking they are just guided missiles.
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Query: Why are we having clones activate the seals? Why can't we have Noburi or someone activate the seals before Pandamonium throws them, with the seals detonating on a delay?
 
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