Consequences aren't the most dangerous form of attack, just a different variation of attack. Empathy is more dangerous to you if you want to protect a secret. Presence is more dangerous to you if you don't want your political rival to force you to allow him to take command. If I were doing a spying op I would want to be facing an Intimidation spec, not an Empathy spec. Either could end the encounter in their favour, but the Empathy spec is the one who can ruin my mission. Similar circumstance for picking apart a political rival's plot in a way that ruins it by making it transparent, or figuring out and airing their dirty laundry to turn opinion against them. Any stat other than Resolve is equally dangerous as an attack, just in different ways.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard open voting
Consequences aren't the most dangerous form of attack, just a different variation of attack. Empathy is more dangerous to you if you want to protect a secret. Presence is more dangerous to you if you don't want your political rival to force you to allow him to take command. If I were doing a spying op I would want to be facing an Intimidation spec, not an Empathy spec. Either could end the encounter in their favour, but the Empathy spec is the one who can ruin my mission. Similar circumstance for picking apart a political rival's plot in a way that ruins it by making it transparent, or figuring out and airing their dirty laundry to turn opinion against them. Any stat other than Resolve is equally dangerous as an attack, just in different ways.
- Location
- Milky Way
Hmm...
In the world we live in... against social specs (keeping in mind what Jiraiya said about Ren) ...
Dunno if this may predispose Keiko to shonen protagonist syndrome of "Who needs plans?"
edit: But again she has problem with initiative (which may partly be Keiko projecting her issues onto her Bloodline) and this may actually make herself feel good about herself.
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- Location
- US
@MadScientist
So, we at least agree that there are situations in which one social stat is more useful than another?
That's the whole point of my contention - that Intimidation isn't useless in a build if you prefer having combat stats that cover for an array of situations (no matter how differently we view how social stats can be applied in social combat) over having a more defensive social build.
Yes, if you ignore Intimidation in favor of bolstering Resolve and 2 Attack/Defense socials, you will be better in those 3 skills - but you won't be able to take advantage of opportunities where you could have excelled through intimidation - that is a build choice.
—
Now imagine a scenario in which you crush someone with Initimdation - they have a minor, moderate, and severe social consequence (-3.5 AB on all social rolls) and you know 3 Aspects you can invoke on social rolls. Once you crush someone with intimidation, it becomes a lot easier to get an empathy check through.
Doubt you could get a rapport check through after it, though, but I imagine crushing someone with deceit could do that.
So, we at least agree that there are situations in which one social stat is more useful than another?
That's the whole point of my contention - that Intimidation isn't useless in a build if you prefer having combat stats that cover for an array of situations (no matter how differently we view how social stats can be applied in social combat) over having a more defensive social build.
Yes, if you ignore Intimidation in favor of bolstering Resolve and 2 Attack/Defense socials, you will be better in those 3 skills - but you won't be able to take advantage of opportunities where you could have excelled through intimidation - that is a build choice.
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Now imagine a scenario in which you crush someone with Initimdation - they have a minor, moderate, and severe social consequence (-3.5 AB on all social rolls) and you know 3 Aspects you can invoke on social rolls. Once you crush someone with intimidation, it becomes a lot easier to get an empathy check through.
Doubt you could get a rapport check through after it, though, but I imagine crushing someone with deceit could do that.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
Notice: Changes made from feedback above.
- Location
- Under a Rock
This is so awesome. An update has no right to be so sweet, so wrenching, and so funny at the same time. This claims the title of my favorite single update that I've ever read on Sufficient Velocity.
Thank you, @Velorien.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
@Briefvoice
Note that @Vecht 's plan gives a decent amount of thought towards squeezing some training in for Hazou before dinner time. This is what you wanted, yes?
Note that @Vecht 's plan gives a decent amount of thought towards squeezing some training in for Hazou before dinner time. This is what you wanted, yes?
- Location
- Milky Way
This could be taken as Hazou not taking them seriously and hence being rude unless Hazou is savvy enough to mask the crazyness of it as practicing combat with one limb being disabled/injured by the opponent.
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
I actually considered this but thought against including a disclaimer. I'm fairly certain Hazou wouldn't approach this arrogantly and would simply explain he's strategically giving himself handicaps while training.
E: How's this?
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- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Remember that Hazou 'punching some Jounin' was him venting his frustration and assorted negative feelings from the breakup. Gai was happy to oblige us but Hazou clearly wasn't being diplomatic when he challenged Asuma to a spar.
If we repeat the venture with Chuunin and a handicap, Hazou's going to approach it in the same way, and random Chuunin #5 isn't likely to take it better than Asuma, especially if we look like we're in a bad mood and disrespecting their skills (even if we say otherwise).
But it's not Intimidation in a vacuum. It's Intimidation within the context of a build where you have limited XP to distribute, and you have to allocate that XP to what will give you the best results. And the only ways to do that that I've seen are triple-stat or glass cannon. Nothing else so far proposed can stack up to those two builds. There is no "if you prefer having combat stats that cover an array of situtions" because A) everything but Resolve is a combat stat of roughly equal value and great versatility, and B) spreading your XP evenly across multiple redundant defences (which are also your combat stats, remember) lowers your defensive abilities overall, leading to enemies of equivalent XP value to defeat you.
Saying "that is a build choice" implies that both are reasonable and equivalent options -- something that isn't true. Yes, you can choose to have a strictly worse build. But you shouldn't.
If you're choosing to have lower defences then you will be steamrolled by people who optimised. And glass canon is the only Intimidation build that doesn't cripple you by forcing you to spend XP in a way that makes your defences weaker without pushing your main attack so high that you can expect to win in the first pass.
And if you flubbed your Intimidation roll then they dominate you on their return Deceit roll because your defences had a huge gap in them. And you can flub your Intimidation roll because you didn't minmax Intimidation so hard that you still win even on bad rolls.
It is not a valid "build choice" to make yourself weak by spending XP inefficiently.
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- Location
- Milky Way
I guess that should reduce the probability of Hazou offending anyone.
I wonder what would be the probability of encountering Sasuke here?
- Location
- Milky Way
In an attempt to get bonus XP we probably will try a lot of crazy stuff and based on Asuma's reaction I think this may lead people to dismiss our non crazy ideas.
Anyone think roping Lee into it (not just for the hilarity) will help lessen the impact as people are used to the their crazyness. And what is one more crazy kid compared to those two?
Anyone think roping Lee into it (not just for the hilarity) will help lessen the impact as people are used to the their crazyness. And what is one more crazy kid compared to those two?
- Location
- US
You're casting the argument in terms of weakness, whereas I'm casting it in terms of versatility. You're also stating that increasing something outside of the 3 coverage socials inevitably makes you suck at all of them.
The way the skill system works, we end up needing lots of skills filling up low-middle tier in order to bolster our top-tier skills. A combat spec like Keiko will invariably count combat skills (Alertness, Athletics, Chakra, Summoning, Ranged Weapons, etc) as high tier, and socials as mid-tier. She knows she is ill-suited to enter social combat against an equally experienced social-spec. Even focusing on 3 social skills won't save a combat spec against a social spec.
Something like intimidation might be just as attractive as a support ninjutsu, or a secondary/tertiary attack, which a high level combat spec might want to take, especially if social defenses are also already accounted for in the mid-tier array. It might not always be helpful, but we have to raise many skills to mid-tier, and it might be more helpful than other options.
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It's easiest to make the argument for Intimidation, as it will absolutely never enter your definition of an optimal build - but a similar argument can be made for the other 'dump' social stat.
Because you'll be versatile no matter which of the triple-stat builds you go for. With two potential combat stats to use, I doubt you will ever be in a situation where you can't attack somehow.
Then I won't imply it. I'll state it outright: "If you have a limited amount of XP then the fewer skills you spend it on the higher those skills will be. If you spent your XP on four skills and your opponent spent their equal amount of XP on three skills then your opponent is at an advantage because their three skills will be higher than your four."
We don't actually, that was changed. We're going by columns now, not pyramids. Meaning that we actually have way more skills currently than we will ever need to get our skills past S-rank. And since elemental ninjutsu are cheapest to level, it will usually be optimal to just level those to fill any gaps in the column (not that gaps will exist anyway at the low levels we're currently at).
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
We should also consider how stats affect characterization. Right now, Keiko has good Intimidation and Presence, which is reflected in her character and tied into her difficulties interacting with people. She can get people to do what she wants, either by awing them or scaring them, since she knows how to do both of those, but has trouble doing anything else.
If we stop leveling those stats and start putting XP into other things, that signals Keiko learning how to understand and interact with other people more effectively. It's not going to change her characterization on its own, but if paired with efforts on Keiko's end to improve herself in this way, we could see meaningful change.
It is wasted XP and a slightly suboptimal build for the XP total Keiko has, but the social and emotional contexts of our characters can be just as important.
If we stop leveling those stats and start putting XP into other things, that signals Keiko learning how to understand and interact with other people more effectively. It's not going to change her characterization on its own, but if paired with efforts on Keiko's end to improve herself in this way, we could see meaningful change.
It is wasted XP and a slightly suboptimal build for the XP total Keiko has, but the social and emotional contexts of our characters can be just as important.
That is a valid concern, especially as the QMs seem to be modelling social combat narratively more often than with rolls (or else Kei would have lost to Hana).
- Location
- US
I'm not arguing that you'd have 4 skills at the same level as just 3 - that'd be silly. I'm arguing that you won't necessarily suck if you also bolster the 4th- especially given that you have to have skills at all levels along the skill tree, so you'd have to have some skills that you don't see as being as important as other higher priority skills.
—
It used to be inverted pyramids (a buff relative to Fate), so with column format we now need relatively more skills in order to get more high tier skills.
For 3 skills in the 80s, we need 2 in each lower decile. One can argue that we just keep going higher rather than getting more skills at lower levels (one skill thick column into the hundreds), but again, that is a build choice toward specialization rather than versatility.
As to padding with elemental techniques - that presumes we get a bunch of techniques to fill in the gaps, and that they are interesting enough with skill sink and without too much overlap with others that it makes sense to level them. I'd rather spend twice the XP for something useful than just raise a boring utility technique just for the sake of filling the tree.
You will have lower stats though, if you raise that fourth. And lower stats is pretty interchangeable with "suck" in MfD. I wish it wasn't, but even a slight disadvantage can cost you the encounter.
It started as pyramid, then went inverted pyramid, then went pyramid again, and then became column. It's a bit all over the place.
You keep using that term, but specialisation just wins. Having lots of things you can do mediocrely will see you lose to people who can do a couple of things really well. Including in the social combat scenarios you're describing where for some reason you can't attack with "empathy+rapport/deceit".
If you're facing a well rounded opponent with 20 in a triple-stat build, and you can choose to have either 20 in a triple-stat build and equal them or 15 in a four-stat build and "have more versatility" then your versatility won't help you because all of your stats -- including your extra stat -- will be at a disadvantage.
The beauty of the triple-stat build is that it no-sells people who chose versatility over power because all of your defences will be higher than all of their attacks.
And all of your attacks will be higher than all of their defences.
(And it's not even lacking in versatility at that.)
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Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
@MadScientist You should add one of your social stats rants to your sig.
To adress the claim that you should put socials as lower-tier skills in your column:
Fine. You can do that if you like. It won't hurt much (it will hurt because you're not using ninjutsu which are cheaper and of equivelant usefulness, but I won't fight you on an inefficiency that minor). But be aware that such lower-tier skills will not be useful at all in social combat against any sensibly-built equivalent-XP social opponent because they'll be at least one tier below that opponent's defences.
They'll be useful for weaker opponents (bear in mind, so will your main social stats), but don't think that you could use them in social combat against someone on our level and expect to do anything meaningful.
Fine. You can do that if you like. It won't hurt much (it will hurt because you're not using ninjutsu which are cheaper and of equivelant usefulness, but I won't fight you on an inefficiency that minor). But be aware that such lower-tier skills will not be useful at all in social combat against any sensibly-built equivalent-XP social opponent because they'll be at least one tier below that opponent's defences.
They'll be useful for weaker opponents (bear in mind, so will your main social stats), but don't think that you could use them in social combat against someone on our level and expect to do anything meaningful.
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Dissonance
Luna's Luna
- Location
- Ginnungagap.
- Pronouns
- S/H/T
I just want to point out this here bit of info.
Stuff like this doesn't help the barrier to entry regarding skill optimizations.
I meme, because it's easy.
I occasionally chip in with plans, because that's not too difficult.
I don't help with skills because I feel like the barrier to entry is too high.
It's not even that the math is daunting - it's not; it's fairly basic. I play idle games and regularly make on-the-fly optimizations within their respective contexts. This seems like it uses the same or similar patterns.
It's that the rules change more often than someone of my casual-tier activity can deal with.
(Yes, I know that there's actually only been a few changes over the years of mfd, but even that..... :/)
Vecht
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Snarksville, Snarkland
@Dissonance it's okay, I got you
[Χ] Training Plan - Hazou: Do a level up
Spend 100% of Hazou's XP randomly on anything available to him.
Now we just wait until someone else comes along to fix the problem!
[Χ] Training Plan - Hazou: Do a level up
Spend 100% of Hazou's XP randomly on anything available to him.
Now we just wait until someone else comes along to fix the problem!
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
That's unfortunate.
However... Most skill choice decisions are just like, "Do we raise X or Y", and we usually come to a conclusion pretty fast on what to level. It's not too involved.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
It's less that there have been too many changes, and more that it's too easy to feel confused about which change is most recent, and that confusion can act as a stumbling block. A clear and 'loud' announcement about the way something works in FtD, followed by a quieter revision, can leave you unsure which version is correct (after all, it's easy to mix up the chronology and think that the loud one might have come later because you remember it better).
Consulting the rules doc is the obvious next step after this, and while sometimes you can't feel 100% certain that the QMs kept that part up to date (When I looked up Nightlight seals they were still presented in their pre-retcon form, which was reasonable given their relative unimportance but caused a bit of confusion) you can often get the right answer out of it. The trouble is that you have to decide to check it, and it's easy to get stuck in [confused] and stop there because you don't know which way to go.
So don't get disheartened if you don't already know the answer, if you look it up there's good odds you'll find it explained in the rules and very good odds that's the most recent version of the rules. It's also okay to make recommendation for small segments of systems in isolation. I don't really know what our long term plans are for Hazou's XP build, but I know that we want stuff like Alertness, Chakra Reserves, Empathy, and Sealing in the short and mid terms, so I felt able to build a short-to-mid-term plan for Hazou's XP.