Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Cariyaga · Jul 3, 2016

ChronOblivion said:
Thanks guys! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. This scene was intended to go longer, but as soon as I got to that last line I knew I had to end it there. I will almost certainly write further along this line sometime in the future.

@eaglejarl Also, would you mind threadmarking it?

On that note... shall we suggest a project for Akane (assuming she doesn't, coincidentally, come up with it canonically herself)?

ChronOblivion · Jul 3, 2016

Cariyaga said:
On that note... shall we suggest a project for Akane (assuming she doesn't, coincidentally, come up with it canonically herself)?

I was thinking about that. I just picked the AC hidden blade as some sort of mechanical thing she could be tinkering with, but realized as I as writing that it wasn't a bad idea. Hazou could practice versions of his moves where he flicks out the blade too quick for the enemy to notice.

Traiden · Jul 3, 2016

I have found some online Youtube videos of people making wooden working replicas of the assassin's creed blade. It would be real simple to make if we have machine tools and a way to make a tight spring. Luckily it is easy to make a lathe to make all the other tools and a better lathe to make better tools. We should get everyone to at least 4 for the mechanics skill so that we can assist in building the base level of tech to make our base a manufacturing area on top of being a safe area to rest.

eaglejarl · Jul 4, 2016

ChronOblivion said:
@eaglejarl Also, would you mind threadmarking it?

It's been threadmarked for a while, actually.

ChronOblivion said:
Thanks guys! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. This scene was intended to go longer, but as soon as I got to that last line I knew I had to end it there. I will almost certainly write further along this line sometime in the future.

To be honest, I didn't follow the ending. I've reread it several times and I'm not sure what happened there. Was that Noburi all the time, pretending to be Hazou? Did Hazou turn into Noburi? I figured I'd just roll with it, since the rest of the scene was so enjoyable.

eaglejarl · Jul 4, 2016

Oh, other thing:

If you want Akane to master the way of the Explosion Punching Style, you should design a style for it. Using the boxes to their full potential is extremely non-trivial, and can't be treated casually.

OliWhail · Jul 4, 2016

@eaglejarl @Velorien Does anyone in the party know of offensive techniques that work at ranges in excess of a kilometer? In excess of two kilometers?

Twofold said:
(ping @Velorien) So wait. Do you want us to make a new action plan or are we just spreading the one plan over two updates?

-----------------------

Muer'ci said:
Someone please make a plan for Keiko that has Kawarimi 8 and something for Noburi with remedial Water Whip. Med fund is important but we're not anywhere close to his med teacher. Combat might happen any moment, otoh.

I think getting some solid contracts for Kei needs to happen ASAP, but yeah we're a ways from having Nobby finish med school. Maybe something like this, as a compromise?
[X] Training Noburi: Up to Snuff
Control 9 [18/95]
Control 10 [38/95]
Water Whip 14 [52/95]
Water Whip 15 [67/95]
Deposit 28: Medic Fund (3->31) [95/95]
Save 0XP
-------------------------------------
More Village Hidden in the Heavens discussion:

Traiden said:
Well ideally we'd have dry docks where we would build the initial portions of our base. The first portions of our base would be built like actual barge ships, four or five of them as the foundations of the village where we would lift it up from. We could also have an actual boat where we would have business conducted on the surface. Most boats would be large enough for our village to grow from during the set up phase. And living on the water gives us fish as a primary food source.

I find myself confused. Are you suggesting sailing several ships out into the ocean permanently to serve as an outpost of the village, or are you thinking we'd lift up the boats?

ClawClawBite said:
We don't need a flying village, we just need a Helicarrier. Mostly because a flying village needs some kind of food supply. Unless we can find air whales, or plant affinity people for ninja hydroponics.

In addition to @Traiden's suggestion to fish the ocean under us extensively, I had a thought about this: what if we can get pangolins to bring food with them through the summon realm? Could we contract with a farmer to supply our hidden village?

(@Dictator4Hire Apologies for being rather contrary here - I think we may be starting from very different understandings of the situation)

Dictator4Hire said:
Orbit also has the advantage of not requiring constant upkeep to maintain its general position

Orbit actually does require upkeep, at least occasionally (see Orbital decay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). That upkeep is mathematically intensive, though probably less resource intensive than the cloud city plan.

Dictator4Hire said:
If we get high enough to necessitate environmental suits to wander outside of the complex and we are using the same propulsion systems as something capable of LEO or GEO, why not just go to space instead?

Why would we go that high, though? Baseline humans have no problems a couple kilometers above sea level, but that's still far enough that no technique I'm aware of can get to us.

Dictator4Hire said:
Space has asteroids we could mine with MEW and has orbital velocities to use for doomsday weapons.

Space rocks are few and far between unless we decide to launch probes out to the asteroid belt, and that's assuming our background knowledge about space actually applies to MfD. A Thor shot station is tempting, but again requires math we may just not be able to do, on top of any problems with supplying it.

Dictator4Hire said:
Furthermore, no ninjas that we know of have a spaceflight technique, but I'm sure there are plenty of ways for them to jump extremely high if not fly or glide long distances.

What ninjas do we know that can jump 2km straight up?? Flight I will grant you, but they still have to know we're there.

Dictator4Hire said:
Unless the state of math is higher than we anticipated, they also won't be able to hit a target in LEO easily, if at all.

Unfortunately this also applies to us in figuring out how to target kinetic bombardment ordinance, how to dock with our station, how to get back to the ground safely, and how to do orbital maintenance. Unless you're proposing something like "[]Research Keiko: Multivariable Calculus"?

Dictator4Hire said:
LEO also means that we could launch almost anywhere on the planet and with minimal fuss return to our station. A stationary platform floating in the sky would require longer travel times to get to.

If I have learned anything from Kerbal Space Program, it's that orbiting and docking cannot in any sense be described by the phrase 'minimal fuss'

What leads you to think it'll take longer to get to a stationary platform?

Dictator4Hire said:
I'm not saying a cloud city is a bad idea, in fact I'm ecstatic people are putting so much thought into it, I just don't see how it's better than an orbital station for a long term construction project. If we need practice with inventions, we could simply make zeppelins which would have the added benefit of being immediately useful for crossing borders effortlessly for trade or simply improved mobility.

I actually agree, depending on what you mean by 'long term'. Hidden Heavens is something we could potentially accomplish on the timescale of a couple months if left to our own devices, but if we can solve the mathematical and logistical challenges I would prefer to be even farther away from the people trying to kill us all.

Re: zeppelins, I don't know if it's worth it to invest in more of the party learning EM (make a seal for it instead maybe?), and that method of travel might be kinda conspicuous for our stealthy merchant empire...

1234qwerty said:
Cloaking seals are a must to hide a sky base if we don't want people getting suspicious because of unusual clouds showing up. Two methods I can think of are making a seal that can apply henge to objects and making twin wall seals that take incoming light and project it from their partner. The henge seal has the downside of being static, so it would be noticeable against a changing background, but it would also protect the henged object from weak wear and tear. If the twin wall seal can project the light of the opposite wall from the same side that it's absorbing light, then we would also be camouflaged from above. Also, based on the diagram of the pieces that the structure would be built with I'm not sure if they already meet this criteria, but a design where there are always two 5BSed objects holding each other up for redundancy would be safer. Like the higher platform cradling the lower platform such that if the BS ran out on the lower one, it would still be held up, and the lower one would obviously hold up the higher one if it happened the other way around.

A henge seal for protecting objects from wear seems to have less utility in the case of a platform that's being made indestructible by 5SB, but actually sounds like a brilliant application generally. We should brainstorm what we could do with it besides just disguising things. You mention timelocking Nobby's barrels below, which is a cool concept.

1234qwerty said:
@OliWhail, maybe we can save on platforms if we base the overlapping edges on borromean rings. It would require making the the edges out one whole piece of rock and then carving away, with the downside that we won't be able to disassemble them. Currently, we're looking at a ratio of 0.8333... seals per meter of hidden village. If we save on the 3 red xs it comes out to 0.555... seals per meter. Assuming 5 minutes per seal and Kagome and Hazou working in tandem, it would take ~208 minutes of seal making per 100 m^2 the current way or ~137 minutes if borromean rings are a workable solution. Both times are very workable.

Hmmm. I think we need 2 things for them to be workable: the pattern needs to expand cleanly to arbitrary numbers of rings, and we need to work out where we would stick the central seal.

1234qwerty said:
Edit: Ideas on alternate materials: we could use rope instead of nets, fabric, wood or some other substance lighter than granite, wax, glass, ice, sponge, packed mud, bone, paper, or soap.

Edit the second: If we paint or cover a net or some other object in glue, does that count as one object for the purposes of 5BS?

[/QUOTE]
I picked stone as a limiting case and because MEW might let us produce the pieces easily. We would need really large trees for wood, industrial production for wax and glass, etc... Hazou almost always has access to stone.
Painting over a net, though! That's absolutely fucking brilliant. I clearly gave up on that idea too early

MadScientist said:
Sky-Platform Idea:
We could make a geodesic sphere (Geodesic dome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) with ridges on the insides of the triangles to give space to insert triangular panes, and latches to hold those panes in place once inserted.

We inscribe the locking seal on the sphere itself, then inscribe the anchor seals on triangular panes and insert them into their slots and set the latches.
Then we activate the seals and everything gets locked in place.

Mmmmm I am wondering about how to design the sphere itself to be low enough volume that the seal will take hold, and low enough mass that we can lift it? Also, where to put 4 anchor seals in a 3-way symmetrical structure?

-------------------------------------

Logos said:
Seal Press
A seal which, when activated, creates a seal blank by applying ink to a piece of paper in a pre-programmed pattern. For best results, this seal should be re-usable. Individual research will likely be needed in order to create a variant of this seal for each seal to be printed by it, but that will likely be worth it.

Seal Infuser
A seal which, when activated, recreates the chakra manipulations performed by a Sealmaster when infusing a seal. The uses should be quite obvious. Researching it carries an additional point of failure, however, both in infusing it and in testing its ability to infuse other seals. Fortunately, the second of those can, by the nature of the seal, be tested somewhere away from us. Each variant of this seal will likely need to be developed individually, but hopefully there will be some overlap to help us along. For best results, this seal should be re-usable... or failing that, we could set it up to infuse a second seal blank to create another Seal Infuser.

I fully support seal logic gates, but if Kagome doesn't run away shrieking at the idea of seals being used to produce other seals I'll buy a hat and eat it.

Dictator4Hire said:
seals can't interact with other seals

Huh. That might be unfortunate for @Logos' plan. Where was this?
-------------------------------------

1234qwerty said:
Have we ever tested the effect of drinking Noburi's chakra water on civilians? We should try that on a trusted contact. It could solve our civilian seal use woes if we find a way to rapidly produce minicontainers. I'd also be interested in using his bloodline and medical knowledge to explore chakra using creatures and what differentiates them. It seems pretty clear that ninja inherit high chakra use/retention genetically. Still, we could explore the effect of consuming high or low chakra content food and water has had on chakra-talented people distribution in the Naruto world. Trees have chakra, right? Maybe we could bump into Zetsu by accident if we encourage Noburi to create a habit of attempting to drain the trees around us whenever we're idle.

Dictator4Hire said:
Hmmmm now that I think about it something doesn't add up...

Why are there humans with and without chakra, but animals are either chakra monsters or mundane? Or can there be middle ground for animals (where do the tapirs fall in this scale?)? Is there a such thing as a human chakra monster? Would Jugo and his abilities count?

Can chakra monsters breed with mundane animals and have offspring capable of reproduction?

Is there any physiological difference between chakra monsters and normal animals to suggest they are separate species, or are they like humans in MfD?

What happens when we give a blood transfusion from a chakra monster to an animal of the closest possible evolutionary cousin? What happens when we account for all other variables between humans except for in the pair of people having their blood swapped one has chakra and the other doesn't? What happens when you exchange blood between two otherwise compatible ninja except for different Elemental chakra types?

So much to research. I have a feeling that if I were to be dropped into MfD all I'd do is experiment with stuff. There has to be some underlying laws somewhere. I wonder what we could accomplish if we discovered them?

Dictator4Hire said:
...maybe? If chakra monsters can reproduce with their normal counterparts and have their magical abilities passed on to the next generation, then I suppose bloodline holders would be the human equivalent of chakra monsters.

However, if the chakra monsters can't have fertile offspring with mundane critters... maybe bloodline holders are an intermediary between normal humans and something, a new chakra-symbiotic species possibly, even more powerful.

We need access to some bloodline records and run some tests of our own or...

[Jk] Steal Orochimaru's notes

Seriously, where do the majority of bloodlines come from anyway? Are they all descended from the sage and his brother? It's just so weird.

And the thread's inevitable march towards becoming Oro-chan continues

-------------------------------------

Traiden said:
I have found some online Youtube videos of people making wooden working replicas of the assassin's creed blade. It would be real simple to make if we have machine tools and a way to make a tight spring. Luckily it is easy to make a lathe to make all the other tools and a better lathe to make better tools. We should get everyone to at least 4 for the mechanics skill so that we can assist in building the base level of tech to make our base a manufacturing area on top of being a safe area to rest.

~~Transporting a whole machine shop of tools might be an issue~~nvm storage scrolls solve this. I don't know about getting everyone to be mechanics, but Hazou probably should, since Iron Nerve would make it much easier to construct mechanically complex things.

MadScientist said:
As well as making Kei see Akane in a better light using social flowcharts of all things.

Don't knock it 'til ya try it

ClawClawBite said:
Onslaught of fist style

I think this looks cool, but agree with @Cariyaga that mechanics that synergize with her other specialty might be of more benefit

-------------------------------------
[X] Research Hazou: PMYF
[X] Training Akane: Mmm Whatcha Say
[X] Training Keiko: Pangolin Whisperer

Velorien · Jul 4, 2016

Twofold said:
(ping @Velorien) So wait. Do you want us to make a new action plan or are we just spreading the one plan over two updates?

The current plan is going to be spread out over two updates. Votes for things will be ignored.

OliWhail · Jul 4, 2016

Velorien said:
things

To be totally clear, this includes training and research?

ClawClawBite · Jul 4, 2016

eaglejarl said:
Oh, other thing:

If you want Akane to master the way of the Explosion Punching Style, you should design a style for it. Using the boxes to their full potential is extremely non-trivial, and can't be treated casually.

Could we do a more general Trap Spider style, that lets us do explosion punching, arm daggers, sandel blades (as per james bond), hidden elbow spikes, and other clever mechanisms, possibly with a joint Taij/Mechanical prerequisite?

MadScientist · Jul 4, 2016

ClawClawBite said:
Could we do a more general Trap Spider style, that lets us do explosion punching, arm daggers, sandel blades (as per james bond), hidden elbow spikes, and other clever mechanisms, possibly with a joint Taij/Mechanical prerequisite?

So something like...

Trap Spider Style

(Dex*3, Str*4, Sta*4, Wit*4)

By making use of traps hidden on her person, Akane adds effective levels to her taijutsu equal to 50% of her MechApt, capped at the lower of her Trap Spider level or her Taijutsu level. As a required-secondary-power, she also gains the ability to safely use otherwise dangerous-to-the-user weapons such as Kagome's shaped explosive rings.

Edit: Hmm... Roki requires a Deception+Roki vs Deception check. Maybe Trap Spider would require a MechApt+Trap Spider vs Awareness check?

Muer'ci · Jul 4, 2016

eaglejarl said:
To be honest, I didn't follow the ending. I've reread it several times and I'm not sure what happened there. Was that Noburi all the time, pretending to be Hazou? Did Hazou turn into Noburi? I figured I'd just roll with it, since the rest of the scene was so enjoyable.

Hazou was acting sorta like Noburi there what with talking about his brilliance, and Akane called him out on it.

[X] Training Noburi: Up to Snuff

ChronOblivion · Jul 4, 2016

eaglejarl said:
To be honest, I didn't follow the ending. I've reread it several times and I'm not sure what happened there. Was that Noburi all the time, pretending to be Hazou? Did Hazou turn into Noburi? I figured I'd just roll with it, since the rest of the scene was so enjoyable.

Muer'ci said:
Hazou was acting sorta like Noburi there what with talking about his brilliance, and Akane called him out on it.

Basically this.

eaglejarl said:
Oh, other thing:

If you want Akane to master the way of the Explosion Punching Style, you should design a style for it. Using the boxes to their full potential is extremely non-trivial, and can't be treated casually.

I want it. I want it bad, but this means we will have to wait until her birthday to even start training her Taijutsu Style, which is apparently supposed to take weeks at least. She'll be significantly weaker than Hazou in the meantime, and it's not like she is currently making up for it with killer socials or healing like Noburi is.

Twofold · Jul 4, 2016

Here's some long term XP progression planning. It feels like we haven't (or at least I haven't) done this in ages.

>>> Twofold's Twice Folded Double Team Up! <<<
a.k.a. Long Term Combat Roles and XP Plan Suggestion

So my current vision for the future is to put our adorable genin in to two teams to help specialize their XP spread and fine tune our combat roles. Talky Team and Stalky Team (I'm still in the market for better names...)

Talky Team (Hazou, Noburi)

Takes care of social combat
- Lying, Trading, Negotiating, Social Infiltration
In physical combat, they make themselves big targets
- ~~Clones EVERYWHERE~~ Some clones, 6 from Nobby with this plan
- Huge-ass Earth Walls
- General AoE obstacles
Battlefield control and buying time

Stalky Team (Keiko, Akane)

Takes care of physical stealth
- Sneaking in, spying from afar, setting traps, scouting
In physical combat, they keep themselves hidden and then finish the fight with surprise dice
- Mechanical Traps
- Summons (in the beginning, we could make Nobby/Hazou the apparent summoner)
- High DPS techniques (Explosives and Fire Jutsu)
Damage and surprise

Now for the meat of this idea: How to spread the XP?

Neither group can completely ignore the skills other is specializing in. The idea is to adjust the skill levels sensibly and efficiently; I assume that this will take some discussion. There's also some basic skills that everyone needs to level in order to not drag the group down (TacMov, Chakra Attributes etc.). Everyone except Akane also has an expensive research skill they can spend their XP on.

I rolled high-level (+1000~ XP) projections for all our genin, in order to see how the XP costs would pan out.

Team Talky Approximate XP Plans:

Social Skills

Deception 18 [185 XP]

Diplomacy 16 ~~[145 XP]~~ [130 XP]

Transformation 10 ~~[52 XP]~~ [0 XP]

From what I've seen thus far, I think we are going to need both skills if we want to succeed in social shenanigans. For the same amount of XP, we could instead get 20 Decep/12 Diplo.

Transformation 10 might be enough for social shenanigans...Depending how the Transformation/Deception mechanics work.

Combat:

MEW 18 [186 XP]

Taijutsu 15 [0 XP]
Roki 10 [34 XP]

Spamming walls in order to set up killzones for Akane and Keiko should be Hazou's main job, 18 is probably too much for that, need to revise it at some point.

Throwing splashy ninjutsu around makes him really noticable while still giving the impression of a wimpy ninjutsu nerd. If someone wants to solve that problem through punching...we'll be happy to oblige.

Sneaking

Awareness 18 ~~[152 XP]~~ [100]
Stealth 15 ~~[69 XP]~~ [60]

Awareness 20 is also a possibility. Stealth is really a must for ninja, if we want to dodge tracking etc. Not sure if we really need it for 15 but at least it isn't too expensive.

Movement

Tactical Movement 18 [60]
Substitution 10 [19]

This strikes a good balance with good movement dice and XP expenditure. Getting few more levels of Substitution is also okay, since it will directly add to our TacMov dice for a relatively cheap price.

Chakra

Capacity 12 ~~[126 XP]~~ [46]
Regen 9 [30 XP]

120 CP...

I really have no idea what is a reasonable amount of chakra for this kind of Hazou. His jutsu are not that expensive (unless we really start leveling Earth Clones beyond 3) and he can make all kinds of seals to offset poor reserves.

Total XP = ~~1058 XP~~ 850 XP

Social Skills

Diplomacy 18 [185 XP]
Deception 16 ~~[145 XP]~~ [130 XP]

Transformation 10 ~~[52 XP]~~ [0]

Hazou mirrored. 20/12 Diplo/Decep is also an option here.

Combat

Water Whip 18 ~~[80 XP]~~ [51 XP]
Vampiric Dew 18 ~~[52.5 XP]~~ [80 XP]
Water Clone 18 [63 XP]
Syrup Trap 12 [21 XP]

Nobby's main role should be creating diversions and substitution targets with clones, while providing constant threat with his chakra draining.

Syrup Trap 12 should be enough to slow down almost anyone for the Stalky Team to pick off or for Nobby to disengage.

Chakra draining has to be done through mundane mist creation or cordoning loose water from storage scrolls with Hazou's walls, unless we find a proper jutsu for it. Although I'm not sure how these would work in practice.

Main thing is to make sure that Nobby stays out of the harms way and is able to heal after combat.

Sneaking

Awareness 15 ~~[93 XP]~~ [42]
Stealth 15 ~~[75 XP]~~ [65]

Less Awareness and equal Stealth with Hazou.

Vampiric Dew has sensory properties while in water. I'm not sure if that will enhance Nobby's Awareness or if the sensing is limited by Nobby Awareness...but for now I think it would be better for PoV character to have the higher Awareness of the pair.

Movement

Tactical Movement 18 [63]
Substitution 10 [19]

Chakra

Control 15 ~~[168 XP]~~ [130]

451 CP...maybe it's enough?

Total XP = ~~1021~~ 849

Team Stalky Approximate XP Plans:

Social

Diplomacy 10 [0 XP]
Deception 10 [29 XP]

Summoning Technique 12 ~~[90 XP]~~ [35 XP]

I think Diplomacy 10 will last pretty long for summoning needs. It's hard to tell since I have no idea how Summoning Technique translates to XP totals but we can make adjustments for that in the future.

Keiko is in charge of Team Sneaky talking...but it's better if they don't talk to anyone.

Sneaking

Stealth 21 [190 XP]
Awareness 20 [176 XP]

Zephyr's Reach 12 [64 XP]
Transformation 10 [52 XP]

Stealth and Awareness are a given for sneaking around and spying on people. Zephyr's Reach and Transformation should also help in both endeavors. Surprisingly Zephyring and Summoning have the same Control requirements...

Combat

Weapons 20 [37 XP]

Wind Jutsu 18 [~120 XP]

In combat Team Sneaky should do sneaky prep work and then hang back. When team Talky has the enemy's attention, Keiko and Akane can actually end the fight with a surprise attack.

When I say Wind Jutsu, I'm thinking Wind Wall. It can be used offensively to boost weapons AND defensively to debuff weapons or buff TacMov. If we find some scary Vacuum Blast jutsu I could also see Keiko getting some of that (Invisible attacks from high Stealth? Mmm...)

Movement

Tactical Movement 18 [51]
Substitution 10 ~~[54]~~ [19]

This strikes a good balance with good movement dice and XP expenditure. Getting few more levels of Substitution is also okay, since it will directly add to our TacMov dice for a relatively cheap price.

Chakra

Capacity 15 ~~[184 XP]~~ [130 XP]
Regen 10 [40 XP]

Ideally Keiko should be tapping Nobby for summoning chakra before the fight begins. With 150 CP she can however summon the biggest summon available to her and have chakra left over for small things.

If Nobby chakra is not an option for some reason, we really need more Capacity for Keiko.

Total XP = ~~1087~~ 943

Social

Diplomacy 8 ~~[52 XP]~~ [29 XP]
Deception 8 ~~[34 XP]~~ [23 XP]

Akane has the least XP, so I think it's okay to save it from her social skills. I also don't want to ruin her with excessive Deception dice, and Keiko should have Diplomacy covered when needed.

Sneaking

Stealth 21 ~~[222 XP]~~ [201 XP]
Awareness 15 [81 XP]

Firefly Jutsu 5 [9XP]
Transformation 10 [54 XP]

Keiko already has a really high Awareness...So I think Akane might get away with Awareness 15 (same as Nobby).

Firefly 5 is meant for good control and lets Akane use maximum amount of fireflies for one hand. It's meant for distractions, triggering traps and other misc. shenanigans.

Combat

Taijutsu 18 [51 XP]

Mechanical Aptitude 20 ~~[119 XP]~~ [90]

Fire Ball Jutsu 18 [~200 XP]

Pangolin style is a bit lackluster when it comes to combat dice. Getting a high-dice ranged opener seems even more pressing now.

Traps are cheap and good, at least one team member should invest in them heavily.

The biggest new thing (and most vague) is the fireball jutsu, I'm thinking something long range and destructive (single or multi target, depends what we can get). Without it Akane has no long range options. There's also synergy in using Stealth to acquire prep and position to unleash massive damage (which is the main attraction of fire jutsu, as far as I can tell).

Movement

Tactical Movement 18 [63]
Substitution 10 [19]

This strikes a good balance with good movement dice and XP expenditure. Getting few more levels of Substitution is also okay, since it will directly add to our TacMov dice for a relatively cheap price.

Chakra

Capacity 12 ~~[126 XP]~~ [36]
Regen 8 [26 XP]

120 CP might not be enough. Depends on what kind of fire jutsu we can get for her.

Total XP = ~~1056~~ 882

This was meant as a general guideline and I probably made minor mistakes in the XP costs. I ignored Sealing and MedJutsu since I feel that Research vs. Combat Potential is a separate discussion we should have after we have some idea about the direction we want to build our party.

Feedback appreciated.

Muer'ci · Jul 4, 2016

Argh. Page reload ate my quotes >_<
So, from memory:

There was an idea to get Akane a multitool as a comb. I was thinking, maybe something like this would do?

Leatherdos hair clip doubles as a multitool

We could draw it and a large enough village should have a specialist capable of making it. Maybe ask Keiko for help with getting more functionality in? I kinda want this to be from us, but also want it to be the best it can be and Kei is good with improving on stuff. Also good for morale. You can't help make a good gift for someone and not care at all :3

Re the fort, maybe have two ppl level stealth and investigate? Awa 5-ish doesn't sound scary. Send Keiko (best Awa and Ste in group) and someone else (mb Akane? She has XP for Ste to spare, even with talky training) to take a look at it. Carefully.

Re date: If my calculations are correct, today is Jan 20. @eaglejarl @Velorien kindly confirm?
BD is Feb,3.

Fake Edit: remembered the last one. Someone asked which of Dec/Dip governs fake names. It's deception to remember to use it and diplomacy to care to do so.

ChronOblivion said:
I want it. I want it bad, but this means we will have to wait until her birthday to even start training her Taijutsu Style, which is apparently supposed to take weeks at least. She'll be significantly weaker than Hazou in the meantime, and it's not like she is currently making up for it with killer socials or healing like Noburi is.

She has traps tho and like80 XP. We can fix this.

Twofold · Jul 4, 2016

ChronOblivion said:
I want it. I want it bad, but this means we will have to wait until her birthday to even start training her Taijutsu Style, which is apparently supposed to take weeks at least. She'll be significantly weaker than Hazou in the meantime, and it's not like she is currently making up for it with killer socials or healing like Noburi is.

The answer?

STEALTH AND TRAPS! Yay for Akane that is contributing!

Muer'ci · Jul 4, 2016

Twofold said:
Syrup Fields of Chakra Draining

Yeah okay this should be amazing and I love this idea to bits.

Twofold said:
Everyone except also has

Akane missing here, I think.

Twofold said:
Deception 16 [145 XP] (Noburi)

I think he can get away with fewer Dec dice bc for him it's not a combat stat.
On that note, I kinda want tai 18 ish for Hazou.

MadScientist · Jul 4, 2016

Just a suggestion, maybe Kei should take over from Noburi as the team diplomancer?

Diplomacy is now way more useful on Kei than on anyone else.

ChronOblivion · Jul 4, 2016

MadScientist said:
Just a suggestion, maybe Kei should take over from Noburi as the team diplomancer?

Diplomacy is now way more useful on Kei than on anyone else.

I have this feeling that Keiko might have an inherent disadvantage on this compared to Noburi. She's pretty expressionless and monotone by default, so she doesn't have Noburi's easy charm. Mechanically, maybe nothing I am talking about will ever play out.

Muer'ci · Jul 4, 2016

MadScientist said:
Just a suggestion, maybe Kei should take over from Noburi as the team diplomancer?

Diplomacy is now way more useful on Kei than on anyone else.

Well, IC Noburi has the personality for it. OOC we can't rely on only 1 person to always be there to smooth things over. That said, we don't know if dealing with powerful pangolins will require dip 12 or 20 so a bit early to dethrone Nobby as top talker, imo.

Twofold · Jul 4, 2016

Muer'ci said:
I think he can get away with fewer Dec dice bc for him it's not a combat stat.
On that note, I kinda want tai 18 ish for Hazou.

But then again Nobby needs to lie properly if we ever go undercover. That's pretty much the point of having him in the Talky Team. Then again Nobby will always have his barrel, I wonder if he's really suited for infiltration in the first place.

As I said, we could get them both 20/12 social skill spread with the same XP cost. It would mean that Hazou would have do the infiltrations by himself or possibly with Mari...This would probably lead to more playing Hazou solo...which could be really interesting in small doses.

Not really sure if we need the Taijutsu 18. With high Deception and Roki bonus Hazou punches really hard already.

MadScientist said:
Diplomacy is now way more useful on Kei than on anyone else.

I think I made this point earlier but I guess it should be mentioned again. If Keiko is making deals with the individual pangolins, she doesn't necessarily need killer Diplo dice.

First of all, we are probably not going to hire Diplomancer pangolins, meaning the guys Keiko will negotiate with will have most of their total XP (limited by Summon Technique) in skills like Weapons, TacMove, Earth Jutsu, Stealth etc.

The second thing is, I think the pangolins in general want to get summoned and they have other goals beyond the immediate gains of whatever Keiko offers them. More Diplomacy dice will most certainly lead to better bargains, but ultimately if we are useful to the pangolins, we will get useful summons out of them.

I suppose we could try to force feed Diplomacy dice to Keiko, but I don't think her temperament suits that kind of a role. She would have to take charge of things and be socially very adept...which could be a nice growth arc for her, but it's a bit of a long shot.

What will happen most likely if we get more Diplo dice for Keiko is that she will get better at negotiating deals instead of social maneuvering like what would probably happen with high Diplo Noburi. Actually, this gives me an idea...

... @eaglejarl @Velorien @Jackercracks @AugSphere Is it possible we could have Keiko level a limited version of Diplomacy with cheaper attribute costs? The kind that is really only good for making business transactions and not for all the social things included in Diplomacy. We could call it something like "Trading" or "Bartering".

Muer'ci · Jul 4, 2016

Twofold said:
Not really sure if we need the Taijutsu 18. With high Deception and Roki bonus Hazou punches really hard already.

But we need to dodge that hair ruffle! ...and punch liars too. We know deception+taijutsu combo happens. Just look at Mari. Probably J too. Probably lots of powerful ppl. Also punching is best. Punch all the people. With seals.

Twofold said:
As I said, we could get them both 20/12 social skill spread with the same XP cost. It would mean that Hazou would have do the infiltrations by himself or possibly with Mari...This would probably lead to more playing Hazou solo...which could be really interesting in small doses.

I'd read that. Solo Keiko adventure was fun, solo Hazou would be even better. Remember that time he solo' three genin? That was fun, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

Twofold said:
Then again Nobby will always have his barrel, I wonder if he's really suited for infiltration in the first place.

Maybe he could make himself a flask? 0.5 litre is least possible size for water portions, that's not very big. He could make like Moody.

Twofold · Jul 4, 2016

@eaglejarl please read the end of my previous reply. (I messed up the ping there)

I finished making the projections also for Team Sneaky.

Twofold said:
I rolled high-level (+1000~ XP) projections for all our genin, in order to see how the XP costs would pan out.

Social Skills

Deception 18 [185 XP]

Diplomacy 16 [145 XP]

Transformation 10 [52 XP]

From what I've seen thus far, I think we are going to need both skills if we want to succeed in social shenanigans. For the same amount of XP, we could instead get 20 Decep/12 Diplo.

Transformation 10 might be enough for social shenanigans...Depending how the Substitution/Deception mechanics work.

Combat:

MEW 18 [186 XP]

Taijutsu 15 [0 XP]
Roki 10 [34 XP]

Substitution 15 [84 XP]

Spamming walls in order to set up killzones for Akane and Keiko should be Hazou's main job, not sure if 18 is enough (or too much) for that. Throwing splashy ninjutsu around makes him really noticable while still giving the impression of a wimpy ninjutsu nerd. If someone wants to solve that problem through punching...we'll be happy to oblige.

Sneaking

Awareness 18 [152 XP]
Stealth 15 [69 XP]

Awareness 20 is also a possibility. Stealth is really a must for ninja, if we want to dodge tracking etc. Not sure if we really need it for 15 but at least it isn't too expensive.

Chakra

Capacity 12 [126 XP]
Regen 9 [30 XP]

120 CP...

I really have no idea what is a reasonable amount of chakra for this kind of Hazou. His jutsu are not that expensive (unless we really start leveling Earth Clones beyond 3) and he can make all kinds of seals to offset poor reserves.

Total XP = 1063 XP

Social Skills

Diplomacy 18 [185 XP]
Deception 16 [145 XP]

Transformation 10 [52 XP]

Hazou mirrored.

Combat

Water Whip 18 [80 XP]
Vampiric Dew 18 [54XP]
Water Clone 18 [65XP]
Syrup Trap 18 [70 XP]

Substitution 15 [84 XP]

Nobby's main role should be creating diversions and substitution targets with clones, while providing constant threat with his chakra draining. The draining could be done through Syrup Trap, Water Whip or maybe even just free water from storage scrolls (cordoned with Hazou's walls). Not sure of the exact values (or if the halving XP costs works exactly like this), it kinda depends on how Syrup Trap works and what sort of creative solutions we can figure out to get the draining going (and at whether it will be combat efficient at all...)

Main thing is to make sure that Nobby stays out of the harms way and is able to heal after combat.

Sneaking

Awareness 15 [93 XP]
Stealth 15 [75 XP]

Less Awareness and equal Stealth with Hazou.

Vampiric Dew has sensory properties while in water. I'm not sure if that will enhance Nobby's Awareness or if the sensing is limited by Nobby Awareness...but for now I think it would be better for PoV character to have the higher Awareness of the pair.

Chakra

Control 15 [168 XP]

451 CP...maybe it's enough?

Total XP = 1071

Social

Diplomacy 10 [0 XP]
Deception 10 [29 XP]

Summoning Technique 12 [90 XP]

I think Diplomacy 10 will last pretty long for summoning needs. It's hard to tell since I have no idea how Summoning Technique translates to XP totals but we can make adjustments for that in the future.

Keiko is in charge of Team Sneaky talking...but it's better if they don't talk to anyone.

Sneaking

Stealth 21 [190 XP]
Awareness 20 [176 XP]

Zephyr's Reach 12 [64 XP]
Transformation 10 [52 XP]

Stealth and Awareness are a giving for sneaking around and spying people. Zephyr's Reach and Transformation should also help in both endeavors. Surprisingly Zephyring and Summoning have the same Control requirements...

Combat

Weapons 20 [37 XP]

Wind Jutsu 18 [~120 XP]
Substitution 15 [119 XP]

In combat Team Sneaky should do sneaky prep work and then hang back. When team Talky has the enemy's attention, Keiko and Akane can actually end the fight with a surprise attack.

When I say Wind Jutsu, I'm thinking Wind Wall. It can be used offensively to boost weapons AND defensively to debuff weapons or buff TacMov. If we find some scary Vacuum Blast jutsu I could also see Keiko getting some of that (Invisible attacks from high Stealth? Mmm...)

Chakra

Capacity 15 [184 XP]
Regen 10 [40 XP]

Ideally Keiko should be tapping Nobby for summoning chakra before the fight begins. With 150 CP she can however summon the biggest summon available to her and have chakra left over for small things...once again I'm not really confident if that's enough.

Total XP = 1101

Social

Diplomacy 6 [17 XP]
Deception 6 [17 XP]

Akane has the least XP, so I think it's okay to save it from her social skills. I also don't want to ruin her with excessive Deception dice, and Keiko should have Diplomacy covered when needed.

Sneaking

Stealth 21 [222 XP]
Awareness 15 [81 XP]

Firefly Jutsu 5 [9XP]
Transformation 10 [54 XP]

Keiko already has a really high Awareness...So I think Akane might get away with Awareness 15 (same as Nobby).

Firefly 5 is meant for good control and lets Akane use maximum amount of fireflies for one hand. It's meant for distractions, triggering traps and other misc. shenanigans.

Combat

Taijutsu 16 [31 XP]

Mechanical Aptitude 22 [162 XP]

Fire Ball Jutsu 18 [~200 XP]

Substitution 15 [84 XP]

Sorry about the low Taijutsu. I'm hoping that the new style (with explosions!) will take care of Akane's punching needs without the need for us to spend too heavily on Taijutsu. Even if we have two good close combatants (Hazou, Akane) we should alway plan to engage from range. It's far safer, and if it doesn't work we can still move in close and punch them.

Traps are cheap and good, at least one team member should invest in them heavily.

The biggest new thing (and most vague) is the fireball jutsu, I'm thinking something long range and destructive (single on multi target, depends what we can get). Without it Akane has no long range options and using Stealth to acquire prep and position to unleash massive damage (which is the main attraction of fire jutsu, as far as I can tell)

Chakra

Capacity 12 [126 XP]
Regen 8 [26 XP]

120 CP might not be enough. Depends on what kind of fire jutsu we can get for her.

Total XP = 1029

This was meant as a general guideline and I probably made minor mistakes in the XP costs. I ignored Sealing and MedJutsu since I feel that Research vs. Combat Potential is a separate discussion we should have after we have some idea about the direction we want to build our party.

I'm not really sure how the Substitution/TacMove thing should be solved. With these plans we would end up wit 15/15 but that is probably not optimal. The sneaky team might be better served by getting more TacMove in favor of Subsitution...but I'll leave the exact numbers for someone else to figure out. (I totally forgot to check the newish TacMov rules and their impact on these numbers. If someone wants to dig them up and then take a critical look at the projections, it would be really nice.)

Feedback appreciated. Is this the sort of team we would like to build? If so/not, why?

ChronOblivion · Jul 4, 2016

Muer'ci said:
She has traps tho and like80 XP. We can fix this.

Twofold said:
The answer?

STEALTH AND TRAPS! Yay for Akane that is contributing!

Keep in mind that Akane really isn't contributing much to our trap situation. Kagome is pretty much all we really need in that regard.

However, if we could nudge Akane towards non-trap crafting, like equipment, she could really earn her keep. An AC Hidden Blade, as shown in my omake, might not be a bad idea.

On a related note, I feel like Hazou could hugely benefit from Kagome's boxes. His Roki/Bloodline would be seriously amazing at both successfully using them in pitched combat and hiding their use until its far too late.

Cariyaga · Jul 4, 2016

ChronOblivion said:
Keep in mind that Akane really isn't contributing much to our trap situation. Kagome is pretty much all we really need in that regard.

However, if we could nudge Akane towards non-trap crafting, like equipment, she could really earn her keep. An AC Hidden Blade, as shown in my omake, might not be a bad idea.

On a related note, I feel like Hazou could hugely benefit from Kagome's boxes. His Roki/Bloodline would be seriously amazing at both successfully using them in pitched combat and hiding their use until its far too late.

As much as I'd like that, he does already have a fighting style, and leveling a second one might not be ideal. The AC blade thingie might give him a bonus to deception on Roki, though, or something.

Twofold said:
@eaglejarl please read the end of my previous reply. (I messed up the ping there)

I finished making the projections also for Team Sneaky.

I'm not really sure how the Substitution/TacMove thing should be solved. With these plans we would end up wit 15/15 but that is probably not optimal. The sneaky team might be better served by getting more TacMove in favor of Subsitution...but I'll leave the exact numbers for someone else to figure out. (I totally forgot to check the newish TacMov rules and their impact on these numbers. If someone wants to dig them up and then take a critical look at the projections, it would be really nice.)

Feedback appreciated. Is this the sort of team we would like to build? If so/not, why?

I don't really feel like more deception dice would ruin Akane -- it won't make her more inclined to be lie or anything, just more capable. I also think everyone should plan to have several more spots in their long term XP plans for various ninjutsu that we might learn from the pangolin. I'd kind of like Hazou to get an earthbending ninjutsu that can be used as combination defense and offense -- stomp on ground to raise a boulder, shove forward to send it flying. That kind of thing. It'd be useful for a siege technique, too. Earth spikes and headhunter technique, too.

Also we should probably figure out which member of the party will be learning TH and plan for that. I don't think you'll be able to get people behind NOT raising Hazou's sealing, though, and his ludicrous intelligence makes him ideal for TH.

Incidentally, I would like for Akane and Kagome to spend some on-screen time together -- maybe doing trap stuff like making dart traps that have explosives attached to the darts.

e: Speaking of Kagome, we should figure out if he knows (or would like to know) any ninjutsu beyond the basic three, and what his element is, if so.

Dictator4Hire · Jul 4, 2016

ChronOblivion said:
Keep in mind that Akane really isn't contributing much to our trap situation. Kagome is pretty much all we really need in that regard.

However, if we could nudge Akane towards non-trap crafting, like equipment, she could really earn her keep. An AC Hidden Blade, as shown in my omake, might not be a bad idea.

It really depends on what the QM's decide on in regards to Mechanical Aptitude's scaling. Once we know the general idea of what Akane can do already and could do if she got progressively more levels in the skill it will be literally game changing.

I have just as much faith in her as she has in the rest of the team. It's only a matter of time until we as the hivemind can munchkin her into greatness. It's amazing what you can do with simple machines in our world; imagine what it's like when you throw magic into the mix.

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