[x] Returned to Home and Hearth, the Bottled Bile Begins to Break
Words: 284
Rest, recover, talk to Mari about Neck
No good options, we couldn't just let them go. Orders are orders, and opsec is opsec.
We couldn't think of anything.
It's our job to think of things.
We've come up some genius ideas... why couldn't we do that, then?
We've been repressing it all, since it happened.
Akane needed our support, and afterwards, we were still in the field. We were the mission leader; we couldn't dwell on it.
Then, Snowflake deserved a Goketsu-style mission that didn't involve child-murder, but ended up absent for half of it because of course there was a murderous crystal intelligence.
Administrative Work [can be offscreened for QM spoons]
Sanity Check/Optimize with Mari
Mari
How's your spy network going?
Could Atomu be an effective Diplomat, and handle the unique stressors it would bring to him, specifically?
Atomu was a Cabin Leader after the Collapse, and is likeable.
Sends a Firm Statement: Crippled ninja are not worthless.
Besides, anyone who refuses to meet with Atomu isn't someone we'd want to ally/empower.
[x] Returned to Home and Hearth, A Wild Snowflake Appears
Words: 284
Snowflake
How was your Goketsu-style adventure? Sorry about the Cave's intelligence ruining our plans.
Jokingly hand her a post-mission survey.
Thank her for her comforting shoulder-touch after the execution.
We know she's not great with physical touch, but the fact that she went out of her comfort zone to provide us comfort means a lot.
If Kei is present, thank Kei too. If not, then thank Kei when we see her next.
Now, you mentioned something about running an experiment once we were back home? We're always happy to help with anything you need, just tell us what you want us to do.
Administrative Work [can be offscreened for QM spoons]
Sanity Check/Optimize with Mari
Mari
How's your spy network going?
Could Atomu be an effective Diplomat, and handle the unique stressors it would bring to him, specifically?
Atomu was a Cabin Leader after the Collapse, and is likeable.
Sends a Firm Statement: Crippled ninja are not worthless.
Besides, anyone who refuses to meet with Atomu isn't someone we'd want to ally/empower.
...I, uh. Really hope this was a Mari Plot, because that would mean that Mari has gotten over her massive, massive insecurities revolving motherhood and being perceived as a maternal figure.
If this wasn't a Mari Plot, and it happened naturally, then... Mari may not find the play as laughable as Hazou and Akane do.
I really hope this was a Mari Plot. It would be a sign of healing and growth, of accepting Hazou as her son, in her heart of hearts.
...I, uh. Really hope this was a Mari Plot, because that would mean that Mari has gotten over her massive, massive insecurities revolving motherhood and being perceived as a maternal figure.
If this wasn't a Mari Plot, and it happened naturally, then... Mari may not find the play as laughable as Hazou and Akane do.
I really hope this was a Mari Plot. It would be a sign of healing and growth, of accepting Hazou as her son, in her heart of hearts.
[x] Returned to Home and Hearth, A Wild Snowflake Appears
[X] Returned to Home and Hearth, the Bottled Bile Begins to Break
[X] Action Plan: It's Not a Harem, I Swear
I'm not on team stealth is useless. I just think that it's relative value for us is much lower than normal nin. Our combination of all the scroll, Noburi and, SC let's us no sell so many situations. Traveling through enemy territory? Use Skywalkers to get where you need to be and drop a SC for ground work. Need to get something from inside a place? Send in stealth summon. Def is a strong stat for ambushes. Also I think that stealth is something we could use sealing to basically solve. Invisibility cloaks for the win
50 stealth is enough to beat basically all passive alertness short of complete bullshit like the Byakugan (as paper has indicated, there is plausibly stunts & bonuses when actually invested in) especially with timeladder bonuses (+AB for each step of the timeladder, up to 3), and yeah, supplemented with Sealing, she'd probably never need to raise it past that point for practical purposes. So next detour it would prob be untouched, this is sorta a one-time (albeit large) investment, not a stat we need to continually raise for her.
Main reason it's there though is because, while it's not an utterly broken stat, few stats are and there's frankly not much else competing for the position in her build at the moment, and it's still a good choice, and something needs to be there to progress her pyramid, so it may as well be something we can get good mileage out of. Stealth 40 CR 50 this detour and Stealth 50 the next detour is also fine, it's just going to be a bit slower to get to resolve 77, but eh.
Okay so knowing we only can't raise capstone higher, here's my current proposed finished Akane Detour 1, Earth Element:
(70s) Resolve
(60s) Taijutsu, Athletics
(50s) Alertness, Flame Aura, Stealth
(40s) Physique, Chakra Reserves, Elemental Mastery, Shadow Clone
(30s) Substitution, Pantokrator's Hammer, Trapmaking, Pangolin Earth Armor, Examination
(20s) Hiding Like a Mole, Empathy, Rapport, Deceit, MedNin, MedKnow
(10s and 1s) Fuck ton of other random stats. Notably Akane can buy Living Roots, MEW, and Earth Clone for very cheap and get good mileage out of them.
~7000 xp, minus pangolin XP, Yamanaka XP, notes XP, etc.
After Resolve 68 the order doesn't really matter that much, but here I'll just fix the pyramid and stay in those bounds afterwards. The only thing that actually matters in terms of when we do it is when we buy Earth Element (or Wind Element), which I think will be more of a narrative decision than a mechanical one. If she's returning to Neck in a few weeks, for example, I think I'd rather boost some base stats first. But if it seems like she'll be around a few months to FOOM, that would be a good time to train a new element. The same goes for Elemental Mastery, which we may or may not want sooner rather than later, and Summoning, which takes minimum 3 months in-universe to learn.
It'll follow largely the same outline as the first, which is to say, we can kinda do whatever in whatever order, with EM nuke sooner, socials sooner, and when to do new element as the main standouts on what we might want to do in which order.
All told, should take about 525 days, or ~1.5 years. Not buying an element gets the capstone higher around a month faster (37 days-ish) so the bulk of that time isn't from the element diversion, it's just from building a wide-ass pyramid. Both are subject to change if we uncover any jutsu worth buying. I also personally prefer Earth Element. We can opt to not buy her any element but I think diversifying at this point is a good idea, and it's a little over ~2 months of XP to do so, half of which we get back to spend on techniques. Teaching her the Summoning Stunt will also take some time in-universe, as well as some extra XP.
1) I like that this makes just a much better non-sealing Hazou. Flame aura and PEA makes Akane a Thresher. Or a TANK (total annihilation nondamaged killer). Or, as I think of it, the BEST at hugging. (Akane bear summoner to be the best at Bear hugs when?)
2) I wouldn't hate finding her some mobility options, to make sure she can get close to use those skills. She doesn't have much for ranged threats. Vacuum step does that, but without the defense of PEA. It is a shame they're fairly mutually exclusive right now.
3) I question boosting stealth to 50. Not that it doesn't have value, but given how high alertness often is, I feel like more investment in something else may serve us better. Either social, or survival (empathy or PEA, for example). Also, elemental mastery boosting is a thing we want to explore.
So I'm onboard with the framework, and support the earth option of the two, but would like stealth lower, a social higher (with empathy best reflecting personality/characterization), and some amount of ranged tech, to go with our area denial and melee threat. Though I guess explosive seals cover a multitude of sins.
Mostly ok with this but one thing I significantly disagree on is having stealth as one of her 50s. Assuming that we are able to obtain the squirrel scroll for her we can just avoid needing to roll stealth by contracting a specialist to handle all those sorts of infiltration missions. I would instead either suggest having a social stat as a 50 so she's not completely outclassed their. Or to push CR to 50 so that we can have an additional boss summon in our pocket to double down on surviving deadly encounters.
While we often disagree in thread, I have been ninja'd, 100% this. Agreed. One of our buffs literally sets us on fire, another covers us is ghost pangolin. Let's not pretend that stealth is the Goketsu way for all but a couple folks. Instead, survive and thrive.
(Also, unrelated but after buying so much resolve with mostly regular XP, it'll feel really nice when we can use almost entirely Yamanaka XP to buy a few levels of resolve after the detour).
50 stealth is enough to beat basically all passive alertness short of complete bullshit like the Byakugan (as paper has indicated, there is plausibly stunts & bonuses when actually invested in) especially with timeladder bonuses (+AB for each step of the timeladder, up to 3),
Stealth Base 50 is an AB of 6. Three steps up the timeladder (AKA "being careful") is 3 × AB, or a stealth Block of Base 68. Invokes are worth 6 each so two of those gets you a block of 80. And/or add on stunts which can give tags/aspects/other bonuses, as well as Stealth seals, and no one is beating that with passive Alertness unless they got cheat codes. (As I understand it you can't Invoke on passive rolls, they need to be deliberately looking for you, but feel free to correct me on that if that's not the case. Even if they can its a high high TN to hit)
Similarly stealth 40 gets a nice +15 from the time ladder, so with bonuses will likely be beating most jonin as well.
The timeladder presumably won't apply to passive/defensive stealth rolls, in which case you'll more likely be in the 70s range.
Survival is a niche skill that almost definitely doesn't belong in the 50s tier, especially when we have summoning. Bushcraft (limited value to us), tracking (can be useful but summons are better at this), and uhhh I'm not actually sure what else it does. Notably none of us have invested in it yet and we haven't needed it.
Survival is a niche skill that almost definitely doesn't belong in the 50s tier, especially when we have summoning. Bushcraft (limited value to us), tracking (can be useful but summons are better at this), and uhhh I'm not actually sure what else it does. Notably none of us have invested in it yet and we haven't needed it.
Stealth Base 50 is an AB of 6. Three steps up the timeladder (AKA "being careful") is 3 × AB, or a stealth Block of Base 68. Invokes are worth 6 each so two of those gets you a block of 80. And/or add on stunts which can give tags/aspects/other bonuses, as well as Stealth seals, and no one is beating that with passive Alertness unless they got cheat codes. (As I understand it you can't Invoke on passive rolls, they need to be deliberately looking for you, but feel free to correct me on that if that's not the case. Even if they can its a high high TN to hit)
I think no invokes on a passive Stealth roll while moving through enemy territory. So base 68 from going very slowly. A -3 / +6 or vice versa will still get her caught.
Even if they are allowed, spending 2 FP every time we want to go somewhere hostile is probably not viable. Better to save those FP for combat.
I think no invokes on a passive Stealth roll while moving through enemy territory. So base 68 from going very slowly. A -3 / +6 or vice versa will still get her caught.
Even if they are allowed, spending 2 FP every time we want to go somewhere hostile is probably not viable. Better to save those FP for combat.
It's a block, it's a single expenditure per outing, not really much of a resource drain. Not to mention that you don't need FP for combat when you're spending them to avoid it in the first place. But as I said, there are plenty of other bonuses we can come by if you don't want to spend FP, while still pretty cleanly hitting 80+.
Stealth Base 50 is an AB of 6. Three steps up the timeladder (AKA "being careful") is 3 × AB, or a stealth Block of Base 68. Invokes are worth 6 each so two of those gets you a block of 80. And/or add on stunts which can give tags/aspects/other bonuses, as well as Stealth seals, and no one is beating that with passive Alertness unless they got cheat codes. (As I understand it you can't Invoke on passive rolls, they need to be deliberately looking for you, but feel free to correct me on that if that's not the case. Even if they can its a high high TN to hit)
Similarly stealth 40 gets a nice +15 from the time ladder, so with bonuses will likely be beating most jonin as well.
The timeladder presumably won't apply to passive/defensive stealth rolls, in which case you'll more likely be in the 70s range.
Just for the record, no stealth 50 is fine too, I'm just trying to explain why it's a good option. It's not necessarily the *only* good option (though admittedly there are few other things that look very enticing to me for 50 at the moment...uhh Trapmaking??? Pass) If any of you would personally like to do something else that's perfectly fine, just be sure to suggest an alternative for that 50 slot which still needs to be filled
