Iirc early on there was talk about how clanless jounin enjoy many of the privileges normally reserved to clan ninja, without the obligations to a clan head. A jounin gets tax privileges as if they were a clan onto themselves, for example. Similarly, iirc the authority that a clan can exert over their own clan jounin is also largely lax and nominal outside of the critical stuff, with them being as directly to the kage as they are to their Clan Lord. So yes, full jounin enjoy a set of privileges by virtue of being important, and the right to claim their own "jounin secrets" on their jutsu etc is probably one such.
I am aware of the legal protections surrounding clanless jounin. That situation doesn't apply here.
I have never heard of anything saying that clan jounin are not subordinate to their Clan Head's direct orders. Sounds like complete bullshit to me, so unless you have WoG, I ain't buying it, chief.
I am aware of the legal protections surrounding clanless jounin. That situation doesn't apply here.
I have never heard of anything saying that clan jounin are not subordinate to their Clan Head's direct orders. Sounds like complete bullshit to me, so unless you have WoG, I ain't buying it, chief.
I never said they are not subordinate to their Clan Head's direct orders. What I said is, they are not solely the Clan Lord's to command. A Clan Head can, for example, execute a genin or a chuunin without consulting with their Kage, but they cannot do that to a jounin, because attaining that rank basically makes you important enough to count as being of a clan of your own (which is what happens if you're clanless), including the apropriate tax privileges and clan secret protections. Accordingly, there were passages about this and how Clan Heads cannot exert nearly as much authority over their jounin as they can over other clan members, because these jounin can simply choose to leave at any time because where a regular clan ninja would be stripped of all the benefits that belonging to a Leaf Clan brings to the table, a full jounin warrants those benefits being given to them by their lonesome for simply existing, and is beholden to their Kage in a more direct manner than chuunin and below (also note that a Kage will normally get to know each and every jounin personally and interact with them a fair bit, before they are given a promotion to the rank - this was even mentioned in story when Asuma went on a tirade about Ami being a wild card)
I am no Faflec, I don't have eidetic memory, so I will not pull a WoG on the topic in a pretty quote, but I distinctly remember this topic being addressed sometime in the past, a long time ago, likely before the adoption ticket initiative.
Is jounin privilege actually a real legal thing in Leaf or is is more like "I'm a jounin and it is my privilege today not to melt your brain for daring to give me orders"?
I assumed it was authorial shorthand for "I'm an elite social spec jonin who has been FOOMing for about a year. I'm going to use this power to wiggle my way out of this requirement, and my socials are so high that no one is going to personally resent me for it."
Is jounin privilege actually a real legal thing in Leaf or is is more like "I'm a jounin and it is my privilege today not to melt your brain for daring to give me orders"?
In this context, the latter. Legally, clan jōnin don't get to refuse clan head orders, but on the other hand, clan heads who alienate their most powerful assets (who also tend to be their rivals/successors for clan rule) are generally in for a bad time.
In this context, the latter. Legally, clan jōnin don't get to refuse clan head orders, but on the other hand, clan heads who alienate their most powerful assets (who also tend to be their rivals/successors for clan rule) are generally in for a bad time.
In this case I think we should make an impassioned plea to Mari to share some Lightening techniques. Half the clan is Lightening and IMO that should be enough to ease hurt feelings.
but they cannot do that to a jounin, because attaining that rank basically makes you important enough to count as being of a clan of your own (which is what happens if you're clanless), including the apropriate tax privileges and clan secret protections.
Yeah, no. The Minami-Hyuuga civil war wouldn't have happened if the clan jounin were legally allowed to secede from the clan.
Clan jounin are less susceptible to orders from non-jounin clan heads for the exact reason I was saying Mari was exerting "jounin privilege", they can't just kill them for disobeying. There are no additional legal protections for clan jounin compared to clan chunin.
Yeah, no. The Minami-Hyuuga civil war wouldn't have happened if the clan jounin were legally allowed to secede from the clan.
Clan jounin are less susceptible to orders from non-jounin clan heads for the exact reason I was saying Mari was exerting "jounin privilege", they can't just kill them for disobeying. There are no additional legal protections for clan jounin compared to clan chunin.
Secede as in leave it officially no, but they can just remain in it nominally and do their own thing while ignoring the Clan Lord in charge of it. Of course they will get snubbed by the clan for doing so, but its nothing substantial that a visit to the Tower won't fix. The Hokage can't just let a valuable and loyal jounin get mistreated over a conflict with their clan head, nor will they force them to obey them, realistically. They can also just join ANBU or whatever if they wanted. Anyway, I don't really need to defend the argument because its been stated in story that jounin enjoy privileges with taxes and clan secret protections as if they were a clan unto themselves, and if they choose to join a clan, they do so for nothing but convenience. If they are born into one, they will probably remain in it, but the treatment is absolutely not the same.
"You can totally write! Just send your letter off to Rain and I'm sure Konan or someone'll get it to me. Oh, you'll have to find some way to stand out from all the fanmail – putting your name on the outside should be enough, but maybe put Lord Jashin's symbol on it too. Make it clear that this is official communication and all, right?"
after the first three investigations pointed us at the wind in the hope that we'd raze an enemy's village, we've decided that we will continue charging our usual rates."
"Yeah, a dream," Hidan said. "Usually they'll be weird and cryptic, but easy to remember. Like a peaceful day under the sunshine and a blood-red moon, or a world of floatin' islands in endless darkness connected only by bridges of bone, or people poppin' into existence from the end of your scythe and agin' backwards until they're babies again. Lord Jashin never does all the work for ya, you see? You gotta figure out what it means on your own. You clearly ain't seen one."
ninja have all the power in the world, but they can't use it without justifications. They gotta tell themselves that usin' power is right, instead of just doin' what they want. Remember the Hokage?"
unless you give him the room to put his finger on the scales, he ain't gonna help you out. I'm sure he's fine with you doin' all the work, but you're gonna need guidance and strength to get it done. Unless you're fool enough to renounce Lord Jashin's blessing.
Canonically at least, Tailed Beast-equivalent chakra reserves, a summoning scroll (Kishimoto mostly forgets Kakashi and Gai have those), and Water ninjutsu that combos really well with both. There's also the magic sword, but Zabuza has one of those too.
In regards to sealing stagnancy how would people feel about buying Fate points and using their flat bonus to speed up hard sealing projects? For 10XP we can gain two additional shifts each cycle which could really speed things up
Yes, she expects substantial resentment from Jin and Mio, who are still KEI supporters at heart. No one can use PEA or most of Orochimaru's ninjutsu, except Jin who will almost certainly appreciate Surging Seas. The lootboxes are only relevant to the sealmasters.
We should have them write them down and place personal techniques in storage scrolls held by the tower but encrypted with encryption keys held only by the Goketsu, not to be opened and deciphered except in the case of their death. We should not write down KEI techniques unless there are no living non-goketsu ninja who know the jutsu. This assuages their concerns of having their special sauce stolen, both as individuals and ex Kei members.
The Fated to Die XP system works reasonably well in most cases, but there are some things it doesn't capture very well. In the real world, improving at a skill is based on acquiringnew information and then finding and overcoming appropriate challenges in order to truly master the information. If you want to get better at playing the guitar then you need to learn how fingering works (new information) and then practice it enough that it becomes something you can do without thinking (finding and overcoming an appropriate challenge). Someone who picked up a guitar yesterday can improve by running scales, but if Santana runs scales all he's doing is preventing his skills from degrading from lack of use. Santana will stop advancing as a musician unless he challenges himself with harder pieces of music, new genres, etc. In game-mechanical terms, his XP rate declines to show that he's not improving. Likewise, programmers who spend 20 years writing shopping cart apps in C will barely improve while ones who master Perl, Python, PostgreSQL, R, machine learning, Lisp, Haskell, and information security will continue to improve.
We want the experience system of the Marked for Death universe to work on the same model, both because it's simulationist and because it explains why senior ninja aren't literal gods with unlimited power.
We implemented @Inferno Vulpix's stagnancy system around six months ago, but haven't used it much. It required active effort to consider and required judgment calls to implement. However, we still believe it's a good mechanic that represents something important in-universe. To get more use out of it, we're grounding it mechanically in total XP earned.
This change allows us to resolve several issues that have been building up in the narrative:
It normalizes older S-rankers somewhat. While talent can help you reach higher heights faster, in the long run it is more important to work hard at new things – i.e. to continually have new experiences and surpass new practical challenges. Top-end S-rankers are differentiated by the types of challenges they surpassed.
It explains why talented ninja have such impressive mission records. If you have a higher talent rating, you need to take more and harder missions in order to find challenges, as you hit stagnancy faster than your peers, despite stagnancy happening at the same XP totals for both of you.
It puts a more realistic premium on life experience. We've introduced many mechanics that scale off of talent rating (Shadow Clone, training techniques that grant a fraction of your base XP, lootboxes). This new system helps age and experience have a greater effect on ninja XP totals (and therefore, strength).
It rewards being good at multiple things so that you can seek out different types of challenges. As your XP total grows and finding appropriate combat challenges becomes harder, it becomes favorable to have more domains to unstagnate more easily. This is yet another reason why jōnin-level characters tend to branch out after attaining adequate combat stats.
It allows different character archetypes that we've portrayed on screen but that aren't officially supported in the demographics. E.g. a jōnin who had high base talent but stagnated taking easy missions as a genin and only blossomed once a war put pressure on them, or a chūnin that retired early and has been stagnating since.
Simplified Summary
Every character has one or more 'domains' that they focus in. Nearly all ninja have the combat domain while some will have additional domains such as sealing, socials, technique hacking, etc.
Every 500 XP is called a 'stagnancy barrier'.
Barriers are associated with a domain.
Barriers must be removed by a challenge in that domain. You cannot remove a combat barrier by doing a socials challenge and vice versa.
Your XP rate drops by 10% when you hit the barrier.
Your XP rate drops by another 10% for every 100 XP past the barrier.
There is a minimum XP rate; you will never go below 10%
By overcoming a level-appropriate challenge you can:
Remove an in-effect barrier, thereby removing its effect on your XP rate; or,
Remove a barrier at the next multiple of 500 before it goes into effect.
Noburi, Kei, and Hazō all have 2 domains and are stagnant in 1 of them, meaning that their XP rate will slow slightly when this rule goes into effect.
Note the implications: eventually, senior ninja reach a point where there are no level-appropriate challenges and their progress slows to a crawl. This is why (e.g.) Kakuzu, the Akatsuki member who is a century-ish old, is extremely powerful but not a literal god.
Full Details
(Note: There are illustrations below this that will, er, illustrate all of this.)
Characters have 'domains' of skills. For example, Gai's only domain was combat (specifically taijutsu) while Hazō has both combat and sealing. Jiraiya had combat, sealing, and socials. It is normal to pick up new domains as you advance.
You pick up new domains by spending significant amounts of XP in relevant skills.
Every character has a "stagnancy barrier" every 500 XP.
Barriers are associated with a particular domain, such as 'combat', 'sealing', 'socials', etc.
Stagnancy barriers accumulate; for example, at 1,000 XP you will have two barriers in place, one at 500 XP and one at 1,000 XP.
When you reach a barrier your XP rate is reduced by 10%
For every 100 XP past a barrier, your XP rate is reduced by an additional 10%.
Overcoming a meaningful, level-appropriate challenge in the appropriate domain removes the earliest barrier in that domain. This might be a barrier that you have already passed (if you currently have an XP penalty) or the next one in line if you are at full XP rate.
For characters with multiple domains, the stagnancy barriers cycle through their domains.
Within a given domain, only one barrier into the future can be removed; if you're at (e.g.) 10,000 XP then a level-appropriate combat challenge will remove the barrier at 10,500 but a second level-appropriate combat challenge will not remove the one at 11,000.
It is possible to remove the next barrier in each of your domains before you get to those barriers.
Only a challenge in domain X can remove a barrier in domain X – you cannot get rid of combat stagnancy by doing a socials challenge or vice versa.
Your XP rate never goes to zero. No matter what, you will always earn a certain percentage of your XP rate. That minimum depends on how many domains you have and how many of them you are currently stagnant in:
Stagnant in all domains: 0.1x (10%)
Stagnant in 2 of 3 domains: 0.2x (20%)
Stagnant in 1 of 2 domains: 0.3x (30%)
Stagnant in 1 of 3 domains: 0.4x (40%)
As you can see, stagnancy comes in degrees; someone who is stagnant in 1 of 1 domains is more stagnant than someone with 2 domains of which 1 is stagnant, who is in turn more stagnant than someone with 3 domains of which 1 is stagnant.
Stagnancy is based on total XP, not base XP. That means that Shadow Clone XP, Lootbox XP, OOC XP and so on are all included in the stagnancy counter. The logic here is that you can only learn so much from finite practical experience. Shadow Clone accelerates your learning by helping you memorize/rehearse a given amount of information more quickly, but it doesn't give you new experiences from which to gain new transformative insights. Likewise, XP lootboxes can teach you a lot through book-learning, but their understanding is best conveyed in tandem with real experience. Consider learning to play an instrument with only textbooks on mechanical skill and music theory, with only an instrument, or with both; you will advance fastest when you have both.
Let's look at some examples.
Scenario 1: The Basics
As mentioned above, Gai has only one domain: combat. As the starting point for the example let's arbitrarily say that he's at 20,000 XP and not stagnant.
Gai has been keeping up with his challenges, so he is not currently stagnant and therefore is earning his full XP rate. At 20,500 XP, he hits his next stagnancy barrier and his XP rate drops to 0.9x. It will drop by an additional 0.1x for every 100 XP that he remains stagnant – first to 0.8x, then 0.7x, etc, until he is earning only 0.1x his base rate. (0.1x is his minimum rate since he is stagnant in all of his one domains. If he picked up a second domain then he would be stagnant in 1 of 2 domains, so his minimum rate would suddenly be 0.3x. If he became stagnant in that domain as well then his rate would once more decline to 0.1x.)
If Gai has a meaningful combat encounter after hitting the barrier (e.g. at 20,617 XP) then his earliest stagnancy barrier (the one at 20,500) will be removed and he will be restored to 100% of his XP rate until he hits the next barrier.
Scenario 2: Removing a Future Barrier
As with the previous scenario, Gai is at 20,00 XP and not stagnant. Suppose he has a meaningful combat challenge at 20,300 XP, before reaching the stagnancy threshold. This would remove his next stagnancy barrier (the one at 20,500 XP) before he even got there! Now he would earn his full XP rate until the 21,000 XP barrier.
Of course, you can only remove one future barrier at a time, so it won't help him to have another meaningful combat challenge at the 20,400 XP mark.
He had already removed one future barrier (the one at 20,500), so that second encounter will not remove the one at 21,000 XP stagnancy. Only once he is past the 20,500 mark can he remove the 21,000 XP barrier.
Scenario 3: Multiple Barriers in Effect
Gai was at 20,000 and not stagnant, then he hit the 20,500 barrier and started to stagnate. He doesn't manage to find any worthy opponents, so he continues to face no challenges until after the 21,000 XP barrier. He now has two barriers in effect: the one at 20,500 and the one at 21,000. Here is where he currently stands:
With 21,000 XP and two barriers in effect, Gai's XP rate is at 0.4x his base rate and still dropping. His earliest stagnancy barrier would be the 20,500 XP mark, so that's the one that will be removed when he finally has an encounter. Suppose that happens at 21,167 XP:
This removes the earliest barrier (the one at 21,500) but not the second barrier. His stagnancy counter would be pushed back to 21,000 XP, and his XP rate would become 0.8x. He would need to find another challenging encounter to fully unstagnate and earn his full base XP again.
Scenario 4: Multiple Domains
So far we've been looking at a character with only one domain. Let's now look at Kurenai, whose two domains are combat and socials.
As in earlier scenarios, she is at 20,000 XP and not stagnant. With two domains, Kurenai has a minimum XP rate of 0.3x when stagnant in one domain, or 0.1x when stagnant in both. If she has a combat encounter at 20,100 XP, the next combat stagnancy barrier is removed; note that this is not the next barrier, the one at 20,500, since that is a socials barrier. Despite removing a future barrier, she will still grow stagnant from not testing her social skills.
If she then faces a social challenge at 20,300 XP, she can remove her socials stagnancy barrier before reaching it and will have a long stretch of full-rate XP gain:
And, of course, after her XP threshold crosses 20,500, she can then do another socials challenge and hold off stagnancy for even longer.
For a character with three domains, the situation would be much the same. Jiraiya, whose domains are combat, socials, and sealing, would still have one stagnancy barrier every 500 XP which would cycle between his domains, meaning that for each of his domains there is a barrier every 1,500 XP – e.g. combat at 21,000, socials at 21,500, sealing at 22,000, combat at 22,500, etc.
Hopefully this is all clear. The following stagnancy barriers have been added to the players' character sheets:
Noburi:
11000 XP: Combat. He has not had a challenging combat in over 300 chapters and 6000 XP, so he starts off slightly stagnant in this domain.
11500 XP: Medicine. He has been working hard at this and therefore is not stagnant in this domain.
Kei:
13000 XP: Combat. Again, she has not had a fight in a long time and therefore is slightly stagnant in this domain.
13500 XP: Leadership. She has been working with the KEI and the Nara, which has been keeping her leadership skills sharp, so she is not stagnant in this domain.
Hazō:
13500 XP: Sealing. Hazō is a jōnin or S-rank sealmaster who has been working only on easy seals, so he starts off slightly stagnant.
14000 XP: Combat. We want all the characters to have their combat domains on the x,000 marks, and Hazō fought recently in Hyena (though at a distance).
Please ping us with any questions or suggestions on how to clarify the writeup of these rules.
My first response to this was to be impressed with the thoroughness and clarity of communication. So I hesitate to add this, because I feel like this discussion risks a pile on and being very stressful for the QM's. Obviously, any change that nerfs the players will be responded to with lots of salt, and I don't want to add to that. But the more I think about this, and read the discussion around it, the more this seems like a direct nerf to FOOM combined with a complicated way to change the incentives of the hivemind enough that they do things that are fun for the QMs to write.
But this doesn't actually get us to do interesting things. "Go kill some chakra beasts" and "Research Rocket boots 2.0, as strong as Hazo thinks he can manage." aren't interesting, just dangerous. But they're what Hazo is now encouraged to do! Interesting is progressing necromancy, or digging for sage lore, or pretending to be the Hyena summoner so we can liberate some condors or whatever, regardless of the actual risk. Stakes, not danger.
But if the goal isn't to nerf FOOM and is just about QM fun, then how about something simpler? Something that we already have a form of implemented: "QM had fun exp". Just make it much, much more impactful.
An example implementation: All exp gains from all sources are halved. An equal amount to what is lost is put into a "QM's Had Fun" pool, to be awarded based on how much the QM's liked writing the update. So maybe something like:
Hyena Fight: "Meaningful stakes, Hazo did his best and failed. Loved writing it, rip Canzon. +300 exp, 850 remaining in the pool."
The most recent Hidan update: "Clever arguments, and Hidan is always fun to write. You almost saved those folks. +100 exp, 750 remaining."
Boring meeting: "Boring, snooze. If I could offscreen it I would. No bonus. 740 remaining."
It gives us a constantly increasing incentive to do interesting things and write plans the QM's like. It directly aligns exp with QM enjoyment, and not with a proxy metric.
(Also, IMO it's unreasonable that Hazo is stagnant in sealing. He has been going as fast as possible towards the multi-seal sealing project of necromancy. He has meaningful stakes of "Akane and Jiraiya rotting away." Meaningful chances of failure (Jiraiya might already be gone! So might Akane!). Sure, he has been at a low chance of sealing failure so far, but Olympic sprinters are at a low chance of tripping. Doesn't mean he can take it easy. )
TBH I figure this won't actually even change that much, except that we'll occasionally research sub-optimally hard sealing projects and take risks for no in-character benefit, and otherwise just live with a ~25% nerf to our effective exp rate.
(Though I can imagine the salt if say, we skip DE/RB and go right to researching Reusable Rocket Boots or something because of this, get a sealing failure, and kill some NPC's the fans like? Or if later Kei lectures us for taking stupid risks when so many people are relying on us, ect.)
Excellent omake interlude! Take +3 XP for your troubles. Could you change the header to max font size, and have it say "Interlude: Pale Reflections" instead of just "Pale Reflections"?
His arguments to Mari and Akane (you can still be a good person despite your past) were on my mind but I didn't specifically reference them, which perhaps I should have
If I had to make a case for it, the distinction imo is that Mari is hesitant to try to be good because she perceives herself as bad, whereas Hazou is actively trying to do good and (from his perspective) becoming worse anyways, just because of what he's had to do to reach this point. Also it's easy to make those arguments to other people when you still care about them and believe in them but a lot harder to apply it to yourself when you're not in a good headspace, as I'm sure many can relate to
(Also, IMO it's unreasonable that Hazo is stagnant in sealing. He has been going as fast as possible towards the multi-seal sealing project of necromancy. He has meaningful stakes of "Akane and Jiraiya rotting away." Meaningful chances of failure (Jiraiya might already be gone! So might Akane!).
I think your reasoning is missing the point of what stagnancy represents.
Let's take Rock Lee. Say Rock Lee beats up ten genin a day.
His stakes are that some of them will die in the field without the taijutsu experience he can provide. His meaningful chances of failure are that some of the genin might already be dead because he didn't get to them in time. Do either of those things cause him to meaningfully advance as a martial artist by beating up ten genin a day?
To attack a fellow AMITY member invites reprisal, but otherwise it's free game right? So, who exactly is in AMITY? All Five Major Villages are, we know, but are all the Minor Villages part of it too? And I presume anyone not in the EN is not covered either
I think your reasoning is missing the point of what stagnancy represents.
Let's take Rock Lee. Say Rock Lee beats up ten genin a day.
His stakes are that some of them will die in the field without the taijutsu experience he can provide. His meaningful chances of failure are that some of the genin might already be dead because he didn't get to them in time. Do either of those things cause him to meaningfully advance as a martial artist by beating up ten genin a day?
What is keeping him from teaching them fast enough to save them all?
Is he limited by his physical stamina? Then it wouldn't be a combat challenge, but a athletics/physique/CR challenge
Is he limited by his teaching capability? Then it is a leadership challenge.
Or is it impossible to teach them faster/better, such that he only has to give them half effort for the same outcome? Then it is not a challenge.
In my understanding of what "Challenge" means, for something to not be a challenge you need to:
Be able to sandbag without risking failure.
Know that you are able to sandbag.
The narrative of stagnancy as I understand it is that it's cleared by being forced to give a long enough task your all, by a "challenge". Hazo is constantly forced to give his all- if he were a better sealmaster, he could go faster. If he knew how long he had, he wouldn't need to rush.
But he is trying his hardest, and that possibly isn't good enough. He doesn't know the TN, or the time left on the several ticking bombs he is racing against. If you try your hardest and still fail, how could that not possibly have been a challenge?
Heck, in Noburi's mednin exam there was a challenge exactly like this. A series of low TN's that required a certain number of shifts by the end. Which he failed, despite not failing any of the individual checks. Was that not a challenge for him?
Or the pillars rise up randomly across the battlefield and lightning starts crackling between them in a "random" pattern, except Hazō knows the pattern so he can always be where the lightning isn't.
I really like this idea, and it matches the MARS strategy of AOEs that uplift can become immune to.
How about:
Monuments to the Thunder God
Combination seal based on Jiraiyas Earth Pillar and Raiton Seals
Dozens of ornate stone pillars erupt from the ground in the affected zone. Lightning arcs between the pillars in a rapid, seemingly random pattern. All creatures who start their turn in the zone or enter the zone on their turn must make one of:
A TN 70 alertness check to notice the next lightning strike beginning to charge
A TN 70 athletics check to dodge the next lightning strike
A TN 40 Examination check to predict where the next strikes will occur.
Or buy the stunt "Stormwatcher" in advance to have memorized the patterns and auto pass.
On a failure the target takes stress equal to the shifts they failed their attempted roll by.
Each pillar can be destroyed by any direct physical attack roll of 50 or greater.
Once the lightning has struck 1d[Sealing AB] targets the pillars crumble to nothing, the chakra sustaining them leeched away
What is keeping him from teaching them fast enough to save them all?
Is he limited by his physical stamina? Then it wouldn't be a combat challenge, but a athletics/physique/CR challenge
Is he limited by his teaching capability? Then it is a leadership challenge.
Or is it impossible to teach them faster/better, such that he only has to give them half effort for the same outcome? Then it is not a challenge.
In my understanding of what "Challenge" means, for something to not be a challenge you need to:
Be able to sandbag without risking failure.
Know that you are able to sandbag.
The narrative of stagnancy as I understand it is that it's cleared by being forced to give a long enough task your all, by a "challenge". Hazo is constantly forced to give his all- if he were a better sealmaster, he could go faster. If he knew how long he had, he wouldn't need to rush.
But he is trying his hardest, and that possibly isn't good enough. He doesn't know the TN, or the time left on the several ticking bombs he is racing against. If you try your hardest and still fail, how could that not possibly have been a challenge?
Heck, in Noburi's mednin exam there was a challenge exactly like this. A series of low TN's that required a certain number of shifts by the end. Which he failed, despite not failing any of the individual checks. Was that not a challenge for him?
You're still missing what stagnancy is. Stagnancy is not "you have failed to tick the challenge tickbox for too long". It's "you have stopped developing your skills because you're not doing anything that pushes you beyond your current limits". You learn less from things that are easy for you than from things that fit your current level of ability. That doesn't change because you do them faster or because you worry about them more. At least, not unless those things are such big handicaps that overcoming them inherently improves your skills. If that's the case, then they need to be modelled mechanically, because making an activity harder means raising the TN. Alternatively, if you feel that Hazō is under so much pressure that it's turning otherwise easy tasks into meaningful challenges, that's what mental Consequences are for.
[] Training Plan Hazō: Handwriting practice
Spend 83 xp
Calligraphy 40 -> 42
[] Action Plan: Experimental Frenzy
Xxx words
Attempt to create a 3d Seal via the doping method, do the following beforehand.
•Invite Cannai to spot, do the experiment with him if he says yes.
•check in with Kagome. Tone, relieved to be talking to an appropriately paranoid, safe uncle. Hazō's had some thoughts on what Kagome said, and he's right. The research will go faster together.
•The first priority is getting 3D Sealing, alternatively known as Charming, running.
•Does Kagome have any thoughts on the anatomy of a seal that may help to translate to charming? Explain the doping method, ask for input on creating directionality.
•the second is the Fourfold Seal of Preservation, a seal attempting to copy a kage jutsu barrier. They'll be learning the seal together after Hazō finishes up on the 7th Path.
Yadda yadda respond to the update yadda yadda.
A shadow clone will attempt to make a work of calligraphy referencing Akane in order to allow Hazō to tag his calligraphy AB for one Rapport roll per scene when the art is a usable prop.
Rather than shadow clone training, Hazō feels it is important to prioritize also researching the following seals, following Hazō's intuition on prep:
SSA1: Fourfold Seal of Preservation with Kagome, then the minato seal line, until incomprehensible TH gibberish, then Chakra Adhesion Triggered multiple Action Relay Seals, or CATEARS.
SSA2. Directional explosives, followed by rocket boots, followed by Reusable Rocket Boots, Then Jiraiya's substitution seals.
3. Mod Jiriaya's boo seal into Hazō yelling "RUN"
4. Earth Pillar (Construct) seal, followed by a mod to make the created stone real, then the City of Earth seal.
Spend a prep day on the following, and if the seal is Genin continue to work on it following Hazō's intuition:
1. The ZAP seal
2. Monuments to the Thunder God
3. The Greatshield seal
4. THE PUNCH SEAL
5. The Ancestor's Grave seal
6. The Bubble Shell seal
7. ARS mod which lowers difficulty to learn/create but provides no benefits to learning MARS
8. The Minatoerator
9. The Action Preventing Seal.
10. Chakra Diffusion Seal
11. Anti-Byakugan seals (Tower)
12. Anti-Byakugan seals (Jiraiya)
13. Battery seals Mk.1 through mk.3
Timeskip for a week or until the seal research log is finished, whichever is longer.
Voting is closed, but just wanted to point out that Hazō already learned this. You can check the informational threadmark where I've quoted the learned seals.
Alternatively, if you feel that Hazō is under so much pressure that it's turning otherwise easy tasks into meaningful challenges, that's what mental Consequences are for.
Does that mean that doing things that are a challenge under mental consequences counts for overcoming barriers even if the same activity wouldn't count under normal circumstances?
Voting is closed, but just wanted to point out that Hazō already learned this. You can check the informational threadmark where I've quoted the learned seals.
1. The minato seal line, until incomprehensible TH gibberish
2. Directional explosives, followed by rocket boots, followed by RRBs.
3. Chakra Adhesion Triggered multiple Action Relay Seals, or CATEARS.
4. Mod Jiriaya's boo seal into Hazō yelling "RUN"
5. Jiraiya's substitution seals
6. Monuments to the Thunder God
7. Five Seal Barrier
8. Force Walls, followed by a Disintegration Wall mod.
9. The Greatshield seal
Researching 9 seals at once (actually 6 seals but w/e) is basically guaranteed to cause a Sealing failure since we can't generate FP fast enough to cover the necessary rerolls. Cut it down to 2 and we can just barely do it. This just isn't in the cards at Hazou's current un-SSA'd Sealing
Squishiness is actually intentional to an extent. Marked for Death was meant to be a quest about low-power missing-nin surviving by being clever, including avoiding the battles they could and stacking the odds for the ones they couldn't. It was never imagined that you'd still be on your first character after two years, having successfully managed to fix your pariah status, your lack of allies and your low firepower on your first try.
