Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[Twofold]

Well since it's ~24h to vote deadline and only one person has voted here's my vote option in order to hunt steelbacks. I think it's the best option because:
-- It plays to our strengths (killing stuff)
-- Gives us XP
-- Gives us resources to use and trade
-- We get to plan a combat engagement and see better how ninjutsu works in combat

Naturally I'll be happy to alter the plan if there is something wrong with it or people have better ideas.

[X] Operation Soaked Pork

Hunt steelbacks for fun and profit. Find some steelbacks and attack them well prepared from range using traps and jutsu. Take the meat back home and stash what bristles we cant carry to be sold at a later date to the village. Here's our proposal that we run through our teammates before presenting it to our sensei. Make sure that we actually involve Noburi in the plan formulation process, he has a big role to play in this.

Finding steelbacks:
- Apparently they are abundant, search around the village for tracks (big animals should make pretty obvious paths) and bristles
- Engaging them on a watering spot would be nice
- Keep an eye out for signs of bandits or anything else useful

Fighting them:
- Scout and prepare the engagement area, make sure there are trees for us to hide in
- If time, prepare a pit trap with sharp spears(wood-tipped or kunai bound to a stick?)
- Prepare other traps we know how (spring loaded kunai in the belly? Snare traps?)
- Lure the steelback to the engagement area
- Engage only from high-ground, use (water)clones as distractions, maybe bait them to charge rocks/traps?
- Use water whip to cover the pigs snout and drown it, if the pig turns into a ball attempt block airholes
- No engaging the pig in melee unless nothing else works, the pig is already tired and even then use chakra-boost
- No engaging the pig in melee
- Be wary of a natural ranged attack, all the other animals we have fought have had one (Maybe the pigs shoot bristles?)

Aftermath:
- Roughly cut what meat we can to take home (does Hunting 1 come with field dressing knowledge?)
- If we end up with too many bristles, bury them in ground and drop a sizable rock on top of them
- If the engagement area looks too much like a ninja fight and we have time, try to cover it up

Preparations:
- Hazou and Keiko should carry some extra water so Nobs can use his Water Whip and Clone
- If we have any shitty kunai lying around we could take those to use as spear tips for the trap
- Have something to help carry the bristles

Edited additions underlined, subtracted ones have a strike-through.

 

[Traiden]

@faflec
The whole point of bringing the two groups together was to tire them out so that when we come in to wipe them out we would be fresh and they would be at a disadvantage from recent fighting. The pigs would serve the same function that we where going to be used for by the Mist Leadership. Sent in to weaken foes for the actual fighting team to mop up. If it is good enough for them it is good enough for us, as the Pigs would not be going off and forming its own hidden village if they figure out what is going on. The time table I have in mind of Operation Pigbait would have us taking out bandits during the fight by throwing weapons, using clones henged to look like bandits giving orders that get them killed or just blocking their view, clones directing pigs to charge at locations, tripping bandits/pigs them so they fall prey to the fighting. Then our team comes directly into the fight as it looks to be wrapping up and killing those who survived as they lower their guard to catch their breath.

 

[Orisha91]

Again, there's no need to wipe the bandits out when we don't know how valuable the intelligence they have is to us. Furthermore, we should really find out how connected they are to the regions black-market and use them for all that they are worth. Hijacking, pruning, and re-directing them saves a lot of trouble as far infiltration might into other areas might go if we're lucky and we won't have to take on as much of a load as protecting them either. I also like the idea of the group having non-chakra agents passing on news and or supporting us logistically.

Also the bandits might tell us a little bit more about the economic situation in the area since I have feeling the iron shortages might be a sign of things heating up in the region. That and the fact that we might leave a vacuum for a new group has me hesitating over wiping them out.

Maybe we can use them as a smugglers ring?

Switching my vote, by the way.

[X] Operation Soaked Pork

 

[Traiden]

[X]Operation Porkbait

Step One: Find Bandit Camp
This is in all likelihood a stationary target and what we should locate first if we are going to take out the bandits. We scout the camp and note the type of defenses they have and plan around what we find. Should they have walls look where the gate is, as that will be the weakest point of the wall. Note any guard towers, raised platforms for sight lines, or if nothing else large trees within camp that look like they are frequently climbed. Try and get a count of how many bandits live in the camp and if any of them have the ability to use chakra. See if Nobouri can sense the difference between Chakra User and Non Chakra User.

Step Two: Locate Steelbacks
Find out where these beasts are and figure out how tough they are and if they would be something only 3 Ninja can take on. I don't trust anyone from the village, they likely all gave us tasks they give to ninja and the things they have sent us after are tests to see if we are or not. These things sound as if they would kill some regular hunters which would get us out of the hair of the villagers if we are killed or prove we are ninja if we survive and bring back what they asked for. In any case normal boars are still a thing that can cause lots of damage should they be incited to attack and we can use that.

Step Three: Division of Labor
We split the group into two teams, one person remains with the pigs and waits for a set amount of time before sending down clones to direct the hogs to the bandit camp. Nobouri would be the best to do this task as he has the most chakra and thus able to make the most clones needed to herd the hogs the distance it would take to direct them into the camp.

Step Four: Team Sabotage
Hazou and Keiko stealthily disable some of the defenses within the bandit camp to make the charge of the wild hogs more effective at causing the effect we wish to have. Namely the pigs to come crashing in and for the bandits to start fighting with the steelbacks. Should the hogs seem to be very tough we tip the defenses to weaken the pigs more than the bandits, we want them to fight and just scaring them off with the hogs is not our goal. Try and influence things so the bandits feel as if they have a fighting chance.

-[ ] Renegade Option
Step Five: Sow Chaos
Before the fighting we stealth into the bandit camp and kill and replace the bandit leadership with henged clones to lead the bandits into weakening themselves fighting the pigs. This should happen just before the time limit before the pigs arrive that the bandits should not have the chance to question why the boss is behaving weird.

Step Six: Pigs come marching in
We hang back and let the fighting weaken both sides. Once one side looks like they might win, tilt things back to a stalemate if we don't think we can win a straight up fight with the winner should they finish the fight right then. Once one side is wiped out and the other is weakened enough we come in with overwhelming force and kill/drive off whoever survived.

Step Seven: Profits keep rolling in
We should at this point have our pick of the best loot, the steelback needles and what ever the bandits had within their camp. Take what we need, make a list of the rest and hide what we can for return trips from our base camp in the swamp.

-[X] Paragon Option
Step Five: Big Damn Heroes
We draw the pigs into the selectively weakened camp and watch as the chaos grows and help the bandits should they seem like they are going to lose right away. We control the encounter to make it seem like they could just fight off or kill the steelbacks if only they had some more help. Once we get the right sort of entrance line we burst into action with as much force as we feel we can give away, just that extra bit of help any non ninja could bring to save the bandits.

Step Six: We help you, you help us
With the steelbacks killed or driven off we start our negotiations with the bandits and gain their goodwill by requesting reasonable things, share a meal as we all patch our wounds and catch our breaths. Ask about life around here and gain the trust of the bandits I mean woodsmen these people clearly are. Ask about the surrounding area and what is good to hunt and where danger is.

Step Seven: So long and thanks for all the...
With good relations and contact information with the woodsmen we return to base and report our findings along with the meat and parts from the Steelbacks.

 

[faflec]

[X] Operation Soaked Pork
Ask for advice, plan better, etc..

 

[Traiden]

So I took some time to put more thought about the plan Operation Pigbait and came to the conclusion that that path I have originally set out is the Renegade Option. This plan can still be useful if we amend the outcome so that we set things up like this then come in as Big Damn Heroes to the bandits and use the situation to gain their trust after saving them from an attack of wild Steelbacks. This would have the benefit of hunting the pigs ourselves plus positive relations with the bandits if we choose to save them.

 

[Radvic]

Thanks @Traiden for your detailed plan, unfortunately, I don't think it's a good idea to pursue at the moment. It has potential, but I think it's something better done with more intel on the bandits and steelbacks and requires committing to kill the bandits. Here's my (hopefully constructive) critic of it:

[X]Operation Porkbait

Step One: Find Bandit Camp
This is in all likelihood a stationary target and what we should locate first if we are going to take out the bandits. We scout the camp and note the type of defenses they have and plan around what we find. Should they have walls look where the gate is, as that will be the weakest point of the wall. Note any guard towers, raised platforms for sight lines, or if nothing else large trees within camp that look like they are frequently climbed. Try and get a count of how many bandits live in the camp and if any of them have the ability to use chakra. See if Nobouri can sense the difference between Chakra User and Non Chakra User.

Click to shrink...

I would expect bandits to have a mobile base, so they can hit multiple towns, and are harder to find. Also, Noburi requires contact with water to use sense (we're not at mist sensing levels yet). It''d be kinda obvious if we flood the town to scout it. I don't think we currently have a reliable way to check if there are or aren't ninja in the group, aside from long observation (though it seems unlikely there would be).

Step Two: Locate Steelbacks
Find out where these beasts are and figure out how tough they are and if they would be something only 3 Ninja can take on. I don't trust anyone from the village, they likely all gave us tasks they give to ninja and the things they have sent us after are tests to see if we are or not. These things sound as if they would kill some regular hunters which would get us out of the hair of the villagers if we are killed or prove we are ninja if we survive and bring back what they asked for. In any case normal boars are still a thing that can cause lots of damage should they be incited to attack and we can use that.

Click to shrink...

Decent points, but assumes that we can find and incite groups of Steelbacks, and that there're reasonably close (within a mile probably) to the bandit camp, neither of which we know.

Step Three: Division of Labor
We split the group into two teams, one person remains with the pigs and waits for a set amount of time before sending down clones to direct the hogs to the bandit camp. Nobouri would be the best to do this task as he has the most chakra and thus able to make the most clones needed to herd the hogs the distance it would take to direct them into the camp.



Step Four: Team Sabotage
Hazou and Keiko stealthily disable some of the defenses within the bandit camp to make the charge of the wild hogs more effective at causing the effect we wish to have. Namely the pigs to come crashing in and for the bandits to start fighting with the steelbacks. Should the hogs seem to be very tough we tip the defenses to weaken the pigs more than the bandits, we want them to fight and just scaring them off with the hogs is not our goal. Try and influence things so the bandits feel as if they have a fighting chance.

Click to shrink...

Tactically, these seem like good ideas if Hazou and Keiko can interact with the defenses without being seen (which also seems to assume the bandits have a stationary camp), or they just assassinate the sentry or something.

Step Five: Sow Chaos
Before the fighting we stealth into the bandit camp and kill and replace the bandit leadership with henged clones to lead the bandits into weakening themselves fighting the pigs. This should happen just before the time limit before the pigs arrive that the bandits should not have the chance to question why the boss is behaving weird.

Click to shrink...

I don't think we have the capability to make at all reliable henged clones. Noburi MIGHT, but probably doesn't. Doing it ourselves without clones would be suicidal (since we're unlikely to reliably imitate the bandit leader, and we accrue heavy combat penalties by being henged). Also, if we have the capacity to stealth into their camp and assassinate their leader, we can probably do that with a lot more than just their leader.

Step Six: Pigs come marching in
We hang back and let the fighting weaken both sides. Once one side looks like they might win, tilt things back to a stalemate if we don't think we can win a straight up fight with the winner should they finish the fight right then. Once one side is wiped out and the other is weakened enough we come in with overwhelming force and kill/drive off whoever survived.

Click to shrink...

Decent enough in theory, but if the bandits scatter far and wide, or just slaughter the steelbacks then look for whoever sabotaged them, it becomes a lot harder.

Step Seven: Profits keep rolling in

Click to shrink...

We should at this point have our pick of the best loot, the steelback needles and what ever the bandits had within their camp. Take what we need, make a list of the rest and hide what we can for return trips from our base camp in the swamp.

Click to shrink...

The most valuable resource we can get from the bandits (I think) is information, contacts, and training (e.g. if they have a medic). By killing them without interacting/interrogating/bargaining with them, we lose out on those opportunities. This brings us to what I think is the most important point: strategically, we don't really know if killing the bandits is a good opportunity for us or not. We might want to do stuff with them that isn't killing them. Also, if we do want to kill them, we want to negotiating with their victims for rewards or favor rather than just killing them. For now, we don't have that.

Ultimately, Porkbait seems like something we can keep in mind for if we decide we want to kill the bandits (and they don't have ninja, and steelbacks are near them, and they are close in combat ability to steelbacks), but we don't know if killing them is good for us or not and we don't know many of the tactical details for the plan to be guarenteed as a success. For these reasons, I think it's better to do a different mission right now which involves fewer complex plans, makes fewer assumptions, and sets some of the steps for pursuing this plan if we want it (e.g. know more about Steelbacks, be observant and check for signs of bandits). For that reason, my vote is currently

[X] Operation Soaked Pork

This plan seems to have good tactics, and makes few assumptions. It's not the most ambitious, but that's ok. I see very few ways it could wind up with us dying, should almost certainly get us some mildly useful supplies, sets up another town visit (if we want it), and should get us some shiny new XP to play with. I'd consider adding something about searching for the bandits, so we can get some intelligence on them (and know more about if something like Porkbait would work), but I suspect that would requires more time than we will have. Might be worth adding as a "if everything goes smoothly and we get all that we can easily carry, look for bandit camp and spy a little" or something. Though I'm almost certainly underestimating the difficulty in finding the bandits without any information on where they are.

 

[Traiden]

Thank you for your constructive thoughts on the plan @Radvic, I hope to continue to improve and provide good constructive plans in the future. I have thought of a better plan that still uses the bandits and the Steelbacks as combining the two seems like the best option we have in terms of our use of time. At around step five the Paragon Option would be to still lead the steelbacks to the place where the bandits have set up if only temporary(You have to have a place to sleep and cook after all) but instead of killing everyone we make it seem as if we just so happened across the camp while they are in dire need of assistance and help them. This would give us help in killing the steelback, test the strength/tactics of the bandits and put us in their good graces for helping them survive a difficult wildlife attack. I will amend my plan and add the option of the Paragon and Renegade paths for those who wish to take that route.

 

[Twofold]

@Orisha91, @faflec and @Radvic

Minor edits added to the plan. First one to make sure we keep an eye out for anything interesting and a second one to make sure we involve Noburi more in the planning process.

I also doubt that we can just find the bandits by accident. We need at least some general direction and then a solid amount of footwork to pinpoint them. For the last vote I tried to wrap both of them under the same plan but when they are cleanly separated in the voting options provided by the QM I feel queasy about combining them without a solid reason.

 

[Muer'ci]

[X] Operation Soaked Pork

Baby steps, etc.

 

[Sigil]

[X] Operation Soaked Pork
@Twofold
If we can't take them down from range, we should withdraw, no point in closing to melee with hundreds of pounds of living death if we don't absolutely have to. Far better to fail this mission than to risk injury.

I don't think we could carry back more than one steelback, so we should try to find one alone if possible. If we do kill more than one, we should prioritize the bristles, as they are likely to be worth far more on a pound for pound basis.

 

[Radvic]

[X] Operation Soaked Pork
@Twofold
If we can't take them down from range, we should withdraw, no point in closing to melee with hundreds of pounds of living death if we don't absolutely have to. Far better to fail this mission than to risk injury.

I don't think we could carry back more than one steelback, so we should try to find one alone if possible. If we do kill more than one, we should prioritize the bristles, as they are likely to be worth far more on a pound for pound basis.

Click to shrink...

What might be even better is if we could somehow just harvest bristles from the steelbacks without taking their meat. I don't think we have a meat shortage at camp (if we do, killing one and taking it back is probably good), but having lots of bristles would probably be good. Best would be if we could do it while they are alive, but I kinda doubt the feasibility of a plan which tries to do that.

 

[Twofold]

If we can't take them down from range, we should withdraw, no point in closing to melee with hundreds of pounds of living death if we don't absolutely have to. Far better to fail this mission than to risk injury.

Click to shrink...

Yeah that's a good point. I mean if they are that hard to take down just getting info on one would help us tremendously next time. On the other hand I keep thinking how neatly we folded that spiderbear in to a nice little package. Are these guys really that much tougher? Then again maybe this is the type of enemy that gets lots of bonus dice if you try to go melee it without armor piercing equipment/jutsu.

I agree that bristles are more valuable than meat but I was also thinking that a fully grown pig might have just too much bristles for us to feasibly carry around. That's why I was thinking of stashing under the assumption that they wont go bad but the meat will. The meat has some value for us and it's not like the stash will be going anywhere. It's one of those things where it's hard to make a call before you actually see how much of both did we get.

But I am totally open to changing both of these points. What do other people think?

 

[faflec]

Don't go the way of the African elephant tusks it makes it obvious a group wants the iron for use to make weapons or something similar. Even taking the thorns carries a similar risk. Best to harvest it as bait or something.

 

[faflec]

If we're worried about killing the pigs build some pit traps to drown it while it's trapped or fight it with spears on an incline so it's easier to hit the underbelly.

 

[Traiden]

We only had to deal with one spiderbear, where as we are most likely to face a rut of hogs(is a rut what you call a group of boars?). We will not be out numbering our foes this time, plus they WILL have natural chakra enhanced armour.

 

[Traiden]

Plus with my plan, both paths of it, we will be obtaining the help of the bandits in taking down these Chakra Enhanced Boars. I feel the need to point out the fact that the blacksmith made sure to mention the fact that ninja require these bristles.

 

[faflec]

We shouldn't have much trouble with killing the pigs @Traiden, it's not like we're fighting them all at once. Wikipedia says adult males are generally solitary outside of breeding season so we should be fine picking off individuals. Personally, given the size of the boars, we should have no trouble killing just one or two and having enough to carry back home.

 

[Traiden]

I would like to emphasize my point that these are chakra enhanced animals, specifically pointed out to us by a blacksmith in a town who think we are ninja. The main thrust of my point is not that they will be easy or hard, so I expected to be harder than normal, but that they were pointed out to us as ninja specific components.

Plus there is the chance that they might very well be grouped up, from the language that the blacksmith used.

 

[faflec]

I'm failing to understand the leap of logic from "ninja-specific components" to "send steelbacks after bandits". Can you explain?

 

[Traiden]

I am advising caution, hunting the steelbacks and we should be alert for watchets from either the village or from ninja guarding the pigs who are used to make ninja tools. This seems like a resource that a hidden village should guard from falling into the hands of others. We should not sell any of the parts to the town.

Mostly I am playing devil's advocate. So that we might fully think about the implications of our actions.

Posting from my phone at work during slow periods sorry for my poor sentence structure.

 

[Traiden]

Secretly sending the pigs after the bandits would possibly reveal any guards set on the ninja specific resource that these pigs represent.

 

[faflec]

@Traiden sending pigs after the bandits would also alert them to the fact that something disturbed them. I don't know how competent the patrols are but considering we're at the bottom of the ninja totem pole there's no reason they won't be able to find us by following the pigs' footsteps and locating where we were hiding, then tracking us from that. So it's the same problem, but if we hunt steelbacks we have a lesser chance of triggering the guards than hunting steelbacks and bandits.

 

[turbinicarpus]

This seems like a resource that a hidden village should guard from falling into the hands of others.

Click to shrink...

If the blacksmith is telling the truth, the pigs are not scarce and range over a wide area, so monitoring them would be impractical.

On the other hand, it could be that steelbacks are something only ninja could hunt reasonably safely and economically (as, say, a C-rank mission for a trio of genin and a jounin-sensei), so the mere fact of bringing some in blows our cover unambiguously.

 

[turbinicarpus]

On the other hand, it could be that steelbacks are something only ninja could hunt reasonably safely and economically (as, say, a C-rank mission for a trio of genin and a jounin-sensei), so the mere fact of bringing some in blows our cover unambiguously.

Click to shrink...

On the third hand, maybe that's the way to "reset" our identities: show up as a new set of hunters, slam the steelbacks down on the blacksmith's counter, and when he tries to underpay us by complaining about iron shortages, open up on him about how the original hunter died getting these pigs, and how the blacksmith had sent him to his death, and how by golly he's going to pay for them.