Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Inferno Vulpix · Sep 6, 2018

Misting said:
Are there official FtD rules for Pangolin Flash somewhere that I missed? Because I agree, extra actions are always broken as hell.

Also, SC farm?

@Cariyaga wrote up a technique sheet for Pangolin Flash here. I'm not totally sure whether the QMs are tweaking anything in it but I believe they seemed okay with it giving supplemental actions.

The big downside is that it's got hefty chakra costs, but we'll probably be Jounin before it becomes worthwhile to sink 1000 XP into Lightning for it and by then we'll also have large enough chakra reserves to use it properly.

Jello_Raptor · Sep 6, 2018

@eaglejarl , @Velorien , @OliWhail :

Do we know anything about the schedule of the tournament? Allotted rest times? Number of matches per day? Etc..

18scsc · Sep 6, 2018

Cariyaga said:
Keiko could benefit substantially from a buffing-attack-type jutsu. Wind Wall, basically.

Wind Wall would work, it's kind of expensive CP wise though and requires a standard action. Maybe something like gale palm from canon? Some supplemental technique that can accelerate thrown kunai to inhuman speed, either by pushing it with gusts of wind or through creating a vacuum in front of the kunai. Or perhaps some sort of technique that could guide kunai in mid-air even after they're thrown? Basically, anything that would add to her ranged roll.

KaGoGoGadgetMe · Sep 6, 2018

I know it gets brought up now and then and shot down, but I can never quite remember why; what was the dealio with the seal whip-gun idea?

Briefvoice · Sep 6, 2018

So in my example combat, did you notice how fast their chakra was disappearing?

Cariyaga · Sep 6, 2018

KaGoGoGadgetMe said:
I know it gets brought up now and then and shot down, but I can never quite remember why; what was the dealio with the seal whip-gun idea?

Use Kurosawa bloodline bullshit to perfect the whip-cracking motion, then just work on timing the use of a storage seal at its tip to release at the moment it cracks, sending a projectile out at supersonic speeds. May not work due to timing/safety issues.

18scsc said:
Wind Wall would work, it's kind of expensive CP wise though and requires a standard action. Maybe something like gale palm from canon? Some supplemental technique that can accelerate thrown kunai to inhuman speed, either by pushing it with gusts of wind or through creating a vacuum in front of the kunai. Or perhaps some sort of technique that could guide kunai in mid-air even after they're thrown? Basically, anything that would add to her ranged roll.

Yeah, standard action is an issue. Ideally, she'd learn both Wind Wall and Gale Palm, but I'd probably tend to prefer Wind Wall for lasting buffs.

Briefvoice said:
So in my example combat, did you notice how fast their chakra was disappearing?

Yep. S'why I like seals.

Emstar · Sep 6, 2018

18scsc said:
EDIT: Hazou would also of course benefit more from just taijutsu buffs, but jutsu that synergize well with seals would be a coup as well. Maybe delivering seals through the ground, or various forms of battlefield control that make it harder for enemies to avoid seals.

Eh.

Taijutsu buffs are *okay*. Jutsu like PH that buff Taijutsu AND Athletics are God tier.

The Lightning Aura jutsu seems to be a viable buff jutsu as well on inspection.

Unless it gives a truly enormous (flat or aspect related) buff to Taijutsu, its not worth the XP

Immortal Lurker · Sep 6, 2018

18scsc said:
Okay. So I know that we've resolved to spend most of the team's XP on increasing godstat, unless we can find jutsu that are effective at low levels. So to zero in on that idea, what sort of jutsu do y'all think would actually be useful for the team here?

I want to note that we are in a truly excellent position to gain access to new and powerful jutsu. We potentially have opportunities to learn jutsu from the Pangolin, the enslaved Condors, the Toads, Jairya, anyone Jairya-aligned in Leaf, Hidden Mountain, and of course Hana might have a few good tricks as well. With our new found wealth we could possibly commission a technique hacker to design us custom jutsu (@charlesrwest, this kind of relates to your question of how we can best leverage our wealth to gain more combat power). Moreover (and honestly one of our biggest advantages) we are in a good position to trade or arbitrage techniques, jutsu, and/or seals. Bringing Leaf jutsu to HM, or HM jutsu to leaf, Mist jutsu to either and vice versa, we might be able to adapt human realm jutsu so that Pangolins can learn them, ect.

Having the QMs come up with that many jutsu is spoon-prohibitive, but this can be mitigated by creating a wishlist of sorts. Which is why I'm really wanting to focus on this question of "what sort of jutsu would the team benefit from the most?"

Keiko seems like she's pretty set as far as jutsu go, but I'm sure one of y'all could think of something. Noburi would likely benefit the most from learning additional jutsu. Maybe a souped-up version of the "condense water cantrip" that can pull masses of ambient moisture from the air, or something that could do the same but pulling water from the ground instead? Either ranged jutsu or counters to ranged attacks seem like they could be quite useful as well. Hazou I think would benefit most from more sprint type jutsu so that he can close distance, in the context of earth release we should look for something that could let him ride waves of earth or launch himself across distances (like earthbenders from Avatar) or something similar to the Earth Flow Wave from the anime.

EDIT: Hazou would also of course benefit more from just taijutsu buffs, but jutsu that synergize well with seals would be a coup as well. Maybe delivering seals through the ground, or various forms of battlefield control that make it harder for enemies to avoid seals.

Hazou could use a jutsu that moves fine manipulation skills (like drawing seals) aspect bonus/2 steps down the time ladder. Seal punk all the way!

Noburi needs anything that lets him turn the battlefield into a lake of real water. Also, anything that lets him move faster would be good. At the moment, he has trouble chasing people, or running from a fight.

Could keiko be taught a tactical stealth Jutsu? Maybe something to block sight, while she pin points the enemy with echolocation? We can do that pretty well already with a macerator. That should be one of her tournament strategies.

Wait... maybe something like a lance, which could be combined with vacuum step? She would stop shy of the target, but still hit them. Ideally something she wouldn't have to hold.

Anything that boosts initiative.

KaGoGoGadgetMe · Sep 6, 2018

Cariyaga said:
May not work due to timing/safety issues.

So, I don't know about safety, but would the timing issue be mitigated if we had a macerator that released over a 250ms window instead of instantaneously, which is what I guess we have now? That way some of the payload is lost, but some is guaranteed to be released at supersonic speeds. (I am picturing a payload of, like, gravel).
Or is it not a large enough offensive improvement to be worth optimizing?

Emstar · Sep 6, 2018

Briefvoice said:
So in my example combat, did you notice how fast their chakra was disappearing?

Ninja combat is rocket tag, etc etc. Keikos look depleted because 200 Cp, Noburis look depleted because triplecost.

Running around like that isnt really viable unless youre fighting a big slow guy with no ranged (holy shit why havent we fixed this) like Nobby

Immortal Lurker said:
Hazou could use a jutsu that moves fine manipulation skills (like drawing seals) aspect bonus/2 steps down the time ladder. Seal punk all the way!
.

I dont think this will ever happen. Chiefly because combined with Noburi , and healthy pile of XP into the jutsu and Chakra reserves, this becomes broken as shit.

QMs have mentioned they arent throwing out the idea of Calligraphy increases moving our general sealing times down the time ladder.

18scsc · Sep 6, 2018

Briefvoice said:
So in my example combat, did you notice how fast their chakra was disappearing?

Yes, any new jutsu learned will have to 1) be useful at low levels, and 2a) be cheap in terms of CP or 2b) create such a decisive advantage that moderate-to-high chakra expenditure is worth it. This is why I am not too hot on the idea of Wind Wall for Keiko, her Pangolin already fulfill conditions 1 (effectively at least, in that they don't require more XP) and 2b better than pretty much anything else imaginable. Low CP cost buffs to ranged weapons are the only thing she would benefit all that much from.

I really want to stress that we are almost unprecedentedly well situated to learn effective jutsu from a variety of differing traditions. We are the children of the Hokage, we have access to 3 separate summon clans, we know of an entire Hidden Village that was lost to the rest of the world, we come from Mist and know Mist techniques, and have access to a Mist Jounin/former clan heir. We are almost at a "Naruto getting his hands on the Scroll of Seals" tier opportunity.

Adept_Woodwright · Sep 6, 2018

Hiding Like a Mole might be less combat effective than I originally hoped - you can only move up to (1 to 1/2 Aspect Bonus) zones at a time underground. Hazō gets 1 zone/round max, at his level.

People on the surface get to sprint around unhindered.

Can hope that an opponent lands in a zone that is only one away (especially in an arena) for ambush, but generally need to close above ground.

Can probably come out from ground, sprint to enemy's location, supplemental seal attack, then dive down under again.

Probably need to do the sprint thing first (as 1st obvious counter is to randomly sprint around the arena) - then do an ambush if they decide to forego movement to set up a readied action to counter our surfacing.

Radvic · Sep 6, 2018

Adept_Woodwright said:
Hiding Like a Mole might be less combat effective than I originally hoped - you can only move up to (1 to 1/2 Aspect Bonus) zones at a time underground. Hazō gets 1 zone max, at his level.

People on the surface get to sprint around unhindered.

Can hope that an opponent lands in a zone that is only one away (especially in an arena) for ambush, but generally need to close above ground.

Can probably come out from ground, sprint to enemy's location, supplemental seal attack, then dive down under again.

Probably need to do the sprint thing first (as 1st obvious counter is to randomly sprint around the arena) - then do an ambush if they decide to forego movement to set up a readied action to counter our surfacing.

The Hiding Like a Mole combat strategy (to my knowledge) is:

1) Prepare breathing apparatus
2) Cast Hiding like a Mole
3) Cast Living Roots
4) Take your time

My memory is that both Hiding like a Mole and Living Roots have pretty low sustain costs, and we can get a fair amount of time out of tunneler's friend, so we can just wait. If the enemy has a way to detect us underground, then we'll never get to the range we want. If they don't, then we'll eventually be able to ambush them.

That said, I'm pretty sure we should just run up and punch our first opponent (assuming they aren't someone hard like Hyuga). We can use ghost scales and the pangolin training jutsu for defense so that the "rocket tag" aspect of combat doesn't hurt us as much, and then start using more advanced techniques if those things break, but we've actually got decent armor (unlike other ninja). Ideally, we don't reveal all our capabilities, just enough to impress people. As far as I'm concerned, anything we use in the tournament is something which enemies can prepare against. Hiding Like a Mole, Living Roots, & Tunneler's Friend is an insane combination in terms of keeping us alive in difficult situations and escaping. However, if enemies can prepare against it (by, say, making sure to bring someone who can sense underground), then it's far less good. It's also not terribly flashy, so wouldn't serve well to impress people at the tournament.

faflec · Sep 6, 2018

@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail How does sustain cost work? I can't seem to find anything under the new ruleset.

Misting · Sep 6, 2018

@Immortal Lurker @Inferno Vulpix Much appreciated.

Tournament Upgrade Thoughts:

Noburi - Water bullets that stick around. Gives him a ranged option as that seems to be his biggest weakness. In a tournament setting it also lets him start to saturate an area with water which gives him a measure of inevitability, and creating a water source could reduce the cost of later water techniques.

Keiko - Honestly, if we can get her Athletics over 40 and then also upgrade her ranged weapons, I'd just do that. She has solid combat power, and her only limiting factor is her chakra capacity. Upgrading the skill costs no chakra, meaning more for PANGOLIN DOMINATION. Besides, it gives her and TenTen a chance to connect more.

Hazo - I feel like flash seals must have been explored at some point, right? Considering he can hide underground and drop one on the way down, seems like an easy disorientation tactic. Otherwise, headhunter technique? Some other Earth-based way of immobilizing someone for Roki-based-face-punching?

Also, I think the boys' Skill Pyramids might need updating, or am I reading it wrong?

eaglejarl · Sep 6, 2018

Misting said:
Hello all! Can't even remember how I originally found this thread, but I just finished catching up in the Story. I don't know how much time I'll be able to devote to keeping up in the planning proper, but hopefully you'll be seeing me plenty.

On that note, questions for either mods or veteran who knows the question has been asked: Can a Wakahisa have more than one barrel "active" at a time, can said barrel be scaled down, and can it be sealed with chakra-water in it? If the answer to the first two are yes, mini water-bottles for the team? If 2nd is no but 3rd is yes, still portable extra reserves?

Cheers!

Welcome! Nice to have new people.

To answer your questions:

Wakahisa have a certain amount of chakra that they can keep trapped in water at a time. (50 * Chakra Reserves skill)
It doesn't matter how it's divvied up -- in their barrel, in a canteen, etc.
It leaks away at rates dependent on what it's in. If it's in uncontained water then it's gone in a round or so. In a canteen it's minutes or hours. In their Wakahisa-family-secrets special barrel it's long enough that it doesn't really matter for most purposes. There have been times in game where we've seen water kept in other things than a barrel:
- Noburi has a camelback that Kagome made for him in which he keeps water that he can use as a backup store in case the barrel isn't available.
- When the team crossed the Hanguri gulf and nearly got eaten by the megalodon, they were all carrying canteens loaded with his chakra water.
- When Neji and Noburi sparred in Leaf's swamp, Noburi drained Neji and stored the chakra (very briefly) in the swamp water, pulling it out and turning it into a Water Whip right away before it could disperse.
No, a Wakahisa barrel cannot be put in a storage seal and neither can chakra water.

Cariyaga said:
Wakahisa are limitted to a single barrel, it's possible but difficult (as the Wakahisa have had many years to work on this and have settled on the current form factor; although Kagome has improved on it somewhat, so he or Jiraiya might), and it's possible to parcel out chakra separate of the barrel, though it doesn't last more than a few minutes.

Note that Kagome didn't actually change the barrel itself, he simply put a better protective frame around it.

Jello_Raptor said:
@eaglejarl , @Velorien , @OliWhail :

Do we know anything about the schedule of the tournament? Allotted rest times? Number of matches per day? Etc..

You do not, no.

KaGoGoGadgetMe said:
I know it gets brought up now and then and shot down, but I can never quite remember why; what was the dealio with the seal whip-gun idea?

Mostly because the QMs think it's completely impossible, and that simply saying "Iron Nerve!" doesn't change that. Recall that the IN only lets you replicate a prior motion, exactly as you made it before. You can't speed it up, slow it down, etc, it needs to be precisely the same. [1]

I think @Velorien and @OliWhail are pretty much on-page with me, but I'll speak only for myself now. Here's how I see this:

The technique works like this:

Start with a whip that has a loaded PMYF seal on the end
Activate the storage seal's timer to open in a few hundred milliseconds
Crack the whip such that the seal opens just as the tip of the whip hits supersonic speeds
Ensure that the result is aimed vaguely in the direction of the enemy. If it opens too late then the tip will be coming back towards you and you've just shot yourself in the face.

(Alternatively, you could use an ARS in your other hand to activate the storage seal at exactly the right moment. I sure hope that transmission lag is precisely consistent from one ARS seal usage to the next.)

The degree of precision this requires is ridiculous to the point that I think it is essentially impossible to pull this off even once in training -- at least in a sane time frame of practicing. Therefore the IN will not help because it will never 'see' the motion to start with. Yes, if Hazō spent enough time on it he could probably get it to happen once by sheer luck. That won't help because...

It's only Hazō's motion that is reproduced. If the atmospheric conditions are even slightly different then the outcome will be different.
If the tool conditions change slightly the the outcome will be different (Examples: The whip gets a little worn and changes its balance, the glue on the storage seal comes loose and it needs to be reattached but it's in a slightly different location or has a slightly different amount of glue, etc)
It is not necessarily the case that two storage seals release their contents at the same rate, so even if Hazō did manage to pull it off, the technique would become useless the second he needed to change storage seals.
It is not necessarily the case that a given storage seal releases its content at the same rate from one usage to the next. It might vary slightly on a normal basis, it might be that they wear down, etc. All it would take would be a few milliseconds difference and the technique becomes useless.

Sure, you can try to debate with us on different items of the above -- "Well, but if he puts the seal on in the first place then he can reproduce the actions through IN so it will be in exactly the same position blah blah blah"[2], but you are definitely not going to be able to answer all of them.

So, yeah. So far as I'm concerned, this idea is dead in the water. It's fun, it's epic, and it would make an amazing move in a shonen, but that's not what MfD is.

faflec said:
@eaglejarl @Velorien @OliWhail How does sustain cost work? I can't seem to find anything under the new ruleset.

I don't recall, and am running low on spoons right now, but I'll put it in QM QUINOA.

[1] We've been nice and said that the IN allows very slight modifications to the action, since otherwise you would not be able to (e.g.) use it to fight on ground that wasn't precisely the same as where you originally trained. This is us being nice and giving you a buff to a bloodline that has already been pushed a lot farther than we meant to grant in the beginning, so making us spend too many spoons on the exact parameters of the IN's ability to accommodate is probably not going to be fun for anyone.

[2] This doesn't work, since it requires that the glue viscosity is the same, that the brush is precisely the same, that the popper on the whip hasn't frayed or broken, etc.

charlesrwest · Sep 6, 2018

Is there any chance we could make casino seals that activate other seals in month?

Kiba · Sep 6, 2018

charlesrwest said:
Is there any chance we could make casino seals that activate other seals in month?

How would that change the operation of the casino seal?

Misting · Sep 6, 2018

eaglejarl said:
Welcome! Nice to have new people.

To answer your questions:

Wakahisa have a certain amount of chakra that they can keep trapped in water at a time. (50 * Chakra Reserves skill)

It doesn't matter how it's divvied up -- in their barrel, in a canteen, etc.

It leaks away at rates dependent on what it's in. If it's in uncontained water then it's gone in a round or so. In a canteen it's minutes or hours. In their Wakahisa-family-secrets special barrel it's long enough that it doesn't really matter for most purposes. There have been times in game where we've seen water kept in other things than a barrel:

Noburi has a camelback that Kagome made for him in which he keeps water that he can use as a backup store in case the barrel isn't available.

When the team crossed the Hanguri gulf and nearly got eaten by the megalodon, they were all carrying canteens loaded with his chakra water.

When Neji and Noburi sparred in Leaf's swamp, Noburi drained Neji and stored the chakra (very briefly) in the swamp water, pulling it out and turning it into a Water Whip right away before it could disperse.

No, a Wakahisa barrel cannot be put in a storage seal and neither can chakra water.

Good to be here!

Okay, didn't realize that his storage capacity wasn't tied to what he had immediate access to, which in hindsight would have been broken as all heck. It'd be nice if he could get a barrel that wasn't so large and targetable, though.

eaglejarl · Sep 6, 2018

Misting said:
Good to be here!

Okay, didn't realize that his storage capacity wasn't tied to what he had immediate access to, which in hindsight would have been broken as all heck. It'd be nice if he could get a barrel that wasn't so large and targetable, though.

Sadly, the Wakahisa have settled on this as (presumably) the only workable design...or, at least, the only one that Noburi knows of.

Cariyaga · Sep 6, 2018

eaglejarl said:
Sadly, the Wakahisa have settled on this as (presumably) the only workable design...or, at least, the only one that Noburi knows of.

How long has the Wakahisa bloodline been around? If one sealmaster per generation is extraordinary (see: Kurosawa), and they've only been around for, say, 200 years, then it seems quite possible that a sealmaster of exceptional talent -- of even Kagome's level, let alone Jiraiya's -- may never have been part of the clan to work on their barrels.

Misting · Sep 6, 2018

Cariyaga said:
How long has the Wakahisa bloodline been around? If one sealmaster per generation is extraordinary (see: Kurosawa), and they've only been around for, say, 200 years, then it seems quite possible that a sealmaster of exceptional talent -- of even Kagome's level, let alone Jiraiya's -- may never have been part of the clan to work on their barrels.

That, or we save on time by kidnapping every high-ranking Wakahisa member and extract their secret barrel shrinking techniques! They'll never suspect!

Vecht · Sep 6, 2018

Cariyaga said:
Replicating the effects of Vacuum Step seems extremely difficult.

Nonsense! Just seal away all the air between the target and destination. What could possibly go wrong?

Inferno Vulpix · Sep 6, 2018

Cariyaga said:
How long has the Wakahisa bloodline been around? If one sealmaster per generation is extraordinary (see: Kurosawa), and they've only been around for, say, 200 years, then it seems quite possible that a sealmaster of exceptional talent -- of even Kagome's level, let alone Jiraiya's -- may never have been part of the clan to work on their barrels.

One sealmaster per generation is unusual, but not so much that the Kurosawa stuck out like a glaring thumb for it. I'd estimate the rate for normal clans as somewhere between 1.5 to 2 generations per sealmaster on average.

As far as timelines go, the villages are only a few generations old but the Warring Clans period before that could have easily gone on for many centuries, so there's a lot of room to work with there.

Cariyaga · Sep 6, 2018

Inferno Vulpix said:
One sealmaster per generation is unusual, but not so much that the Kurosawa stuck out like a glaring thumb for it. I'd estimate the rate for normal clans as somewhere between 1.5 to 2 generations per sealmaster on average.

As far as timelines go, the villages are only a few generations old but the Warring Clans period before that could have easily gone on for many centuries, so there's a lot of room to work with there.

Would the Wakahisa have survived by themselves in the warring clans era, though?

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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