Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Traiden · Dec 11, 2015

Oh boy am I late to the party. I shall cast my votes and make my suggestions now:
From - [X] Mist
Hiding - [X] Waterfall
Location - [X] Cave System

Stat Allocation for our character should be something like:

Stats:

3 Int	2 Wits	2 Resolve
1 Str	2 Dex	2 Stamina
1 Presence	1 Manipulation	2 Composure
1 Capacity	3 Control	1 Regeneration

Affinity
Earth
Water

Chakra Attributes
1 Fire
1 Wind
1 Lightning
2 Earth
2 Water

Skills:
2 Taijutsu
2 Weapons
2 Stealth
2 Awareness
1 Seals
2 Technique Modification/Development
2 Tactical Movement
2 Traps/Lock Ect.
1 Medical
2 Resist Intimidation
1 Dispelling
1 Transformation Technique
1 Clone Tech
1 Substitution Tech

We are just a genin and one labeled as not trusted by our village, thus one trained like that of a standard grunt with our potential squandered by circumstance. What little we did learn it would have had to been begged for, self taught, or out right stolen from what ever repository of knowledge we could get our hands on. We are not going to be alone, we have others who can help us, but we must keep in mind that all of us have been labeled as "does not play nice with authority" for one reason or another. We must temper our early expectations on whether or not any of the more experienced ninja of our newly formed missing-nin clan would be inclined to teach the group's genin as that would cut into the time they could be using to remain hidden and safe from detection. Training genin would increase the risk of the group being detected by the village searching actively for us or by those who would sell us out to the village searching for us. Our personal goal seems to be gaining power, which means we must help the group survive. We can leverage some training to gain some techniques once we have been established by appealing to logic of the chūnin or jōnin in charge of us that better trained genin would mean less risk of discover over the long term.

Food, Water, and Shelter, the big three of survival will be taken care of by the more experienced ninja of our group and our task will be what is delegated down to our character once we are in the game. Thus our goals, past gaining personal strength, will have to be made once we figure our situation after our character has been created and let loose in the world.

eaglejarl · Dec 11, 2015

Rihaku said:
I appreciate and sympathize with the view completely. My primary concerns are 1) that different people will have different models of what is realistic when superhuman abilities are involved, so it is important for unspoken assumptions to be clarified according to an objective metric

There's no way that we can expose our brain state to you, so we're not going to be able to ensure our models match exactly. We also can't make up mechanics for every situation. Basically, you need to assume we'll play fair, try to work with the play style you express a preference for, and not deliberately screw you.

I'll try to answer the specific questions you've asked:

- What exactly is the permissible level of power for a bloodline,

I'd let it be relatively high, although not overwhelming. Sharingan no, Byakugan no, Aburame...yes, I think. I don't know how to quantify it more precisely for you, given that a bloodline can be absolutely anything. Note that the other QMs may veto something I would approve.

- which are the critical defensive skills we need to stay alive.

It depends entirely on your play style. Stealth lets you avoid fights. Dodging lets you survive during a fight by not getting hit. Taijutsu lets you survive during a fight by blocking. Etc.

- Is Stealth more important than Tactical Movement in withdrawing from a fight? I can think of justifications either way.

So can I, which mans you can use either one.

- Does a character skilled in Fast Talk receive a bonus to resist it because he's familiar with its tricks?

We don't have a specific mechanic built for that at this time. You can talk to AugSphere about building one.

- Could you give an example of the circumstances necessary to achieve a +1d vs +3d bonus for, say, the Stealth skill? Would employing a smoke bomb yield a bonus?

Yes, a smoke bomb would probably be 1 die. A 3 die bonus is enormous...it would need to be something like "the other person is asleep and a civilian."

faflec said:
Do clones even last that long and that far away?

Generally, no. They typically pop after a few minutes-to-hours.

Dictator4Hire said:
Will we get any exposition on what our comrades can do before we begin? I mean, three jonin and six chunin must have some good ideas among themselves for a long term plan, let alone what the other genin think up. There is no pressing need to be completely self-sufficient at this point; I'd rather face down enemy ninja as a group than on our own. Another benefit would be for us as the players to see what passes for a rational course of action in a rational Naruto AU from an NPC's perspective.

The current plan of the group's leadership is to found a village. Some people are going to be doing things at home (building shelter, cooking, planning, training) and some are going out on missions of various kinds. Possible missions include: gather food and/or trade goods in the very dangerous surroundings, go to town and trade, try to find and recruit other missing-nin if that's possible, try to find children to train, try to sniff out very low-risk missions that can be done very very much on the QT in order to get some money / barter goods for the group, and other things. You'll also have the option to break from the group (possibly taking friends with you) and there are always write in options.

Before everyone goes bananas talking about the above and why it is / isn't reasonable: the reasons why this is the plan will be covered in the post.

Silver719 · Dec 11, 2015

eaglejarl said:
The current plan of the group's leadership is to found a village. Some people are going to be doing things at home (building shelter, cooking, planning, training) and some are going out on missions of various kinds. Possible missions include: gather food and/or trade goods in the very dangerous surroundings, go to town and trade, try to find and recruit other missing-nin if that's possible, try to find children to train, try to sniff out very low-risk missions that can be done very very much on the QT in order to get some money / barter goods for the group, and other things. You'll also have the option to break from the group (possibly taking friends with you) and there are always write in options.

Before everyone goes bananas talking about the above and why it is / isn't reasonable: the reasons why this is the plan will be covered in the post.

Found a village you say...
[Akatsukis vigorously]

eaglejarl · Dec 11, 2015

Traiden said:
We can leverage some training to gain some techniques once we have been established by appealing to logic of the chūnin or jōnin in charge of us that better trained genin would mean less risk of discover over the long term.

Food, Water, and Shelter, the big three of survival will be taken care of by the more experienced ninja of our group and our task will be what is delegated down to our character once we are in the game. Thus our goals, past gaining personal strength, will have to be made once we figure our situation after our character has been created and let loose in the world.

<managing expectations>
The leadership will be managing, defending, and training. Missions will be handled by genin and chunin, with the jonin usually staying home. There's not enough hands to do all the work, so you will often be out on your own. Training will be not just available but actively pushed on you, for two reasons: stronger genin improves the chances of survival for everyone, and the availability of training is a powerful incentive to stick around.
</managing>

Dictator4Hire · Dec 11, 2015

eaglejarl said:
The current plan of the group's leadership is to found a village. Some people are going to be doing things at home (building shelter, cooking, planning, training) and some are going out on missions of various kinds. Possible missions include: gather food and/or trade goods in the very dangerous surroundings, go to town and trade, try to find and recruit other missing-nin if that's possible, try to find children to train, try to sniff out very low-risk missions that can be done very very much on the QT in order to get some money / barter goods for the group, and other things. You'll also have the option to break from the group (possibly taking friends with you) and there are always write in options.

Well... for that we need a lord to act as a sponsor and enough patrons to turn a profit while not getting stabbed in the face by the competition. Would you take it as a compliment if we used your method of "Till 'n Fill" to gain good will among random civilians, or is that too cheeky?

eaglejarl said:
Before everyone goes bananas talking about the above and why it is / isn't reasonable: the reasons why this is the plan will be covered in the post.

Don't worry; I'll never bash a post based on its reasonableness; at least, this early on. Right now we need to set up the guidelines to know what is and isn't acceptable and this helps immensely.

Also, the post you are referring to is the one which kicks this whole thing off, correct? Or are you going to edit the original post?

Side-note: Could we have a world map from the QM's to act as a common reference point? The more 'on-the-same-page' we can be the better.

Rooster · Dec 11, 2015

Silver719 said:
Found a village you say...
[Akatsukis vigorously]

My first thought was actually "What an idiot", because what's stopping the hunter-nin from coming in and killing everyone. It's not like it'll be a village of hundreds.

Velorien · Dec 11, 2015

Nix's Warden said:
No, it's this one.

plotvitalnpc · Dec 11, 2015

eaglejarl said:
- What exactly is the permissible level of power for a bloodline,

I'd let it be relatively high, although not overwhelming. Sharingan no, Byakugan no, Aburame...yes, I think. I don't know how to quantify it more precisely for you, given that a bloodline can be absolutely anything. Note that the other QMs may veto something I would approve.

What about something Juugo-ish?

Rihaku · Dec 11, 2015

eaglejarl said:
I'll try to answer the specific questions you've asked:

Thanks, this helps greatly.

MadScientist · Dec 11, 2015

Not a fan of the bloodline idea. 30 points is very steep.

That said....

Ideas for bloodlines

Some kind of intuitive understanding of the processes by which techniques are created and modified (mechanically it might work by rolling twice for technique mod/dev and picking the higher result).

Some kind of altered or additional sense which genjutsu users can't account for that gives other small benefits (seeing colour differently in a way that renders camouflage useless, exceptionally sharp sense of smell for tracking, able to hear ultrasound and use it for echolocation if we can make a technique that emits it, ranged sense of touch that extends 1m from our skin, etc.)

Immunity to certain poisons + able to do the same thing poison dart frogs do, and eat poisonous plants and excrete the poison through our skin for a touch based weapon (or maybe have venom glands under our fingernails to inject the poison through scratches).

No need to do a certain biological function (eat, sleep, breathe, etc.) or reduced need to do multiple biological functions.

Instinctive perfect voice mimicry.

One second precog danger sense (mechanically might allow rerolls of tactical moving).

Bioluminescence (as a light source or blinding flash weapon).

Some kind of human-pheremone mind control (would probably a, take a while to take effect, and b, be temporary and aggro the victim when it wears off).

Volt Absorb a la pokemon (getting hit by lightning element attacks heals us instead of hurting us).

Emotion sense.

Touch based ability to eat the life force of others (drain HP via skin contact). [jk]

Dictator4Hire · Dec 11, 2015

@MadScientist How about a Bloodline that makes our chakra undetectable while it is inside our body?

Personally, I'd love to go for a Sith-inspired character who masks his presence to dupe his enemies and then manipulates his acquaintances to his own ends. Subtle influences can start an avalanche and all that.

Bonus style points if we can use the conflict we were going to fight in to our advantage, steal the Sword of the Thunder God (or make our own), and/or scream, "UNLIMITED POWER!" whenever we use a lightning jutsu.

MadScientist · Dec 11, 2015

Dictator4Hire said:
@MadScientist How about a Bloodline that makes our chakra undetectable while it is inside our body?

I like this idea. Unfortunately, chakra sensors are sparse enough that it probably wouldn't be worth 30 points.

transfuturist · Dec 11, 2015

How about any bloodline proposals make an argument for why we should spend thirty points on it, as opposed to thirty more points to not die?

The bloodline to not require breathing sounds interesting, particularly when crossed with Earth-style burrowing. But how does it work? Do we breathe through our skin? Do we store oxygen when we breathe in and store carbon dioxide as it's released?

The latter sounds most useful for surviving underground. It's also useful against airborne drugs, but only those that aren't absorbed through skin. We won't die of suffocation or strangulation either, unless someone works out the trick and keeps us in an oxygen-starved chamber for longer than we can hold out. But these are unlikely threats. Are those limited scenarios worth the thirty points we can spend on more general skills?

Traiden · Dec 11, 2015

I am generally against getting a bloodline limit. The utility of one just does not appeal to me over the base utility of our attributes being relativity high at the start. I built my Stat distribution of what a generalist ninja just starting his training but was then interrupted by political reasons could reasonably be. Most of the minor advantages that the bloodline talent could be reasonably be done with adequate preperation of tools or circumstances. I am otherwise all for creating bloodline talents that could possibly be held by one of our group. So long as our viewpoint character does not have one.

Silver719 · Dec 11, 2015

We could always go Karin with our bloodline limit. Chakra sensing so damn good we can detect people up to a kilometer away, judge their power, numbers, and pinpoint their location with practice.

transfuturist · Dec 11, 2015

Silver719 said:
We could always go Karin with our bloodline limit. Chakra sensing so damn good we can detect people up to a kilometer away, judge their power, numbers, and pinpoint their location with practice.

Predicting veto.

MadScientist · Dec 11, 2015

Traiden said:
I am generally against getting a bloodline limit. The utility of one just does not appeal to me over the base utility of our attributes being relativity high at the start. I built my Stat distribution of what a generalist ninja just starting his training but was then interrupted by political reasons could reasonably be. Most of the minor advantages that the bloodline talent could be reasonably be done with adequate preperation of tools or circumstances. I am otherwise all for creating bloodline talents that could possibly be held by one of our group. So long as our viewpoint character does not have one.

I am essentially not in favour of having a bloodline, but there are exceptions I would budge for.

Anything that significantly increases our survivability (danger sense, vampire touch, etc) or would provide significant boosts to our versatility (technique mod/dev intuition, etc.) could arguably be worth the 30 points.

chaonaut · Dec 11, 2015

eaglejarl said:
Second: Several pages ago someone (I didn't record the post, my apologies) was speculating on dice rolling and how much extra dice matter

I know I was speculating on that in my post, since I was positing that having high skill in a single skill isn't useful to us as much as having lots of options available to us. Between the dicing mechanic that essentially equates to a straight skill level vs skill level check, us starting with 15 points, a hard skill cap of 4 at char-gen, a level 4 skill costing 10 points (except certain cases), and no idea how strong our opposition might be, we can't evaluate how useful a level 1 skill vs. a level 3 skill is. We might have a level 4 skill and be trying to fight level 8 opponents. Worse, we might overspec in to a skill and are really fighting level 2 opponents and having above level 3 costs us other skills without providing benefit.

On the other hand, needing to use a level 0 skill costs us the currency use to increase everything, and we have enough points to buy up all the currently named skills, and someone our experience level skilled in a single area will have skill gaps where we have 1 skill point to their 0 skill points.

Basically, until we have an idea of which skills actually get used and the level of skill we can expect to be opposed by, having lots of low skills is better than have a high level in the wrong skill.

Rihaku · Dec 11, 2015

transfuturist said:
How about any bloodline proposals make an argument for why we should spend thirty points on it, as opposed to thirty more points to not die?

The 72 points not permitted to be spent on Skills have absolutely zero present survival value except to raise the caps on Taijutsu/Weapons/Stealth from 3 to 4, which can be done with a single 4 Xp purchase. Attributes, Chakra Natures, and Chakra Attrbiutes contribute nothing in this mechanical system, they exist only to define your skill caps (except Chakra Capacity and Regen, but it only takes 27 points to max those). However, our Skills are already capped at 4 during chargen.

Thus, a bloodline that yields even +1d to a relevant Skill would contribute materially to our survival (despite being a complete ripoff), whereas 30 points of Attributes would not. A bloodline that yields +1d to two Skills would give us over 30% its value in Skill Xp, which is actually an okay deal. I would gladly pay 30 Attribute XP for 10 more Skill XP at this juncture, if our situation is as dire as we believe.

transfuturist · Dec 11, 2015

dwibby said:
Basically, until we have an idea of which skills actually get used and the level of skill we can expect to be opposed by, having lots of low skills is better than have a high level in the wrong skill.

We're going to have to figure out how we can do what we need with the skills we have. It's not a "wrong skill" sort of thing. Hedging bets by having lots of low-level skills means that an attempted use of any one skill is more likely to fail. Specialization and comparative advantage.

Traiden · Dec 11, 2015

High attributes equate to higher potential without having to spend points to increase our skill cap first. Getting a bloodline would stunt our short and midterm term growth compared to a character without a bloodline. Or at least that is my impression from reading the rules as written.

chaonaut · Dec 11, 2015

transfuturist said:
Hedging bets by having lots of low-level skills means that an attempted use of any one skill is more likely to fail.

Sure, but until we know if 4 is high level, medium level or "genin who thinks he's hot shit" level, we might be picking one high level skill vs. many low level skills, or one low level skill vs. many entry level skills, and we can't really tell.

Until we have an idea of our opponents, we can really tell how useful putting 2 vs 3 points into a skill is, but since we know 0 points costs us the currency used to buy attributes and skills, on the average whenever we have to use a 0 points skill, it harms us. Hence my really speculative build that sacrifices any focus for covering as many areas as possible. I'm not even completely sold on the build (I voted it for it since I should stand by my ideas at least a bit), but it's mostly there to raise the idea that we don't know what skill looks like at this point in the game.

eaglejarl · Dec 11, 2015

Silver719 said:
We could always go Karin with our bloodline limit. Chakra sensing so damn good we can detect people up to a kilometer away, judge their power, numbers, and pinpoint their location with practice.

I would go for that, with a couple of nerfs. It wouldn't be an always-on thing, you'd have to pay for it...say, 1 CP to run it for an hour. I'd also give you a skill, "Understand What The Hell I'm Sensing". It would start at 2 and would do just what it says on the tin. I don't know what target numbers would be involved but in the normal case detecting that something is there would be an auto-success and you'd be rolling to see how much more information you could get. As a general rule I'd only ask you to roll when it mattered, and would normally give a fair bit of info.

Rihaku said:
The 72 points not permitted to be spent on Skills have absolutely zero present survival value except to raise the caps on Taijutsu/Weapons/Stealth from 3 to 4, which can be done with a single 4 Xp purchase. Attributes, Chakra Natures, and Chakra Attrbiutes contribute nothing in this mechanical system, they exist only to define your skill caps

~~We might well roll, e.g., a Strength check to see if you can lift something or punch through something.~~

EDIT: Nope, apparently we won't. Never mind, nothing to see here. Skills are the be-all-end-all.

Dictator4Hire said:
Would you take it as a compliment if we used your method of "Till 'n Fill" to gain good will among random civilians, or is that too cheeky?

Yes, I would be complimented. :>

Dictator4Hire said:
Also, the post you are referring to is the one which kicks this whole thing off, correct? Or are you going to edit the original post?

There will be a new post.

plotvitalnpc said:
What about something Juugo-ish?

Could you be more specific?

MadScientist said:
Some kind of intuitive understanding of the processes by which techniques are created and modified (mechanically it might work by rolling twice for technique mod/dev and picking the higher result).

Approved. I would even be willing to grant an extra die on both rolls.

MadScientist said:
Some kind of altered or additional sense which genjutsu users can't account for that gives other small benefits (seeing colour differently in a way that renders camouflage useless, exceptionally sharp sense of smell for tracking, able to hear ultrasound and use it for echolocation if we can make a technique that emits it, ranged sense of touch that extends 1m from our skin, etc.)

Approved.

MadScientist said:
Immunity to certain poisons + able to do the same thing poison dart frogs do, and eat poisonous plants and excrete the poison through our skin for a touch based weapon (or maybe have venom glands under our fingernails to inject the poison through scratches).

Approved.

MadScientist said:
No need to do a certain biological function (eat, sleep, breathe, etc.) or reduced need to do multiple biological functions.

Approved.

MadScientist said:
Instinctive perfect voice mimicry.

Approved, although I think it's under-specced if you're paying 30 points.

MadScientist said:
One second precog danger sense (mechanically might allow rerolls of tactical moving).

Approved. Would actually be quite interesting.

MadScientist said:
Bioluminescence (as a light source or blinding flash weapon).

Approved.

MadScientist said:
Some kind of human-pheremone mind control (would probably a, take a while to take effect, and b, be temporary and aggro the victim when it wears off).

I won't veto this outright, but I really wish you wouldn't do it. It would be a pain in the butt to write for.

MadScientist said:
Volt Absorb a la pokemon (getting hit by lightning element attacks heals us instead of hurting us).

If you really want healing then okay, we can work that. I think it would make more sense for lightning to add to your chakra pool, though.

MadScientist said:
Emotion sense.

Approved, modulo discussion of range limits etc.

MadScientist said:
Touch based ability to eat the life force of others (drain HP via skin contact).

Done properly it's not overpowered, but vetoed because ick.

Velorien · Dec 11, 2015

eaglejarl said:
vetoed because ick.

Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to be using this phrase a lot in the coming months?

Rihaku · Dec 11, 2015

eaglejarl said:
We might well roll, e.g., a Strength check to see if you can lift something or punch through something.

I think that does contradict what Augur said earlier in the thread - that Skills were basically the end-all of rolled competence and we wouldn't get any surprises like, e.g. Strength counting to damage something. That's why I asked whether Taijutsu was the go-to skill for general athleticism.

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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