How strongly would you object to doing it at camp in Iron tomorrow? I feel like as long as we're in Fire, everyone will be very on-edge in a way that isn't conducive to highly emotional conversation.
We can do the feel-good parts right now/ before setting off again, but I would vote to put the painful parts off just a smidge longer until we have some physical security to compensate for the emotional insecurity.
I'm imagining a single-cast variant of henge that leaves you the same but allows you to shift your center of mass and mass distribution.
Shift your center of mass to your fist the instant before a punch lands. Change your moment of inertia to always land on your feet no matter how you're thrown. Move your center of mass to your other foot when one foot slips. Make the part of your body that's hit very light and the force is turned mostly into torque rather than linear motion or compression. That sort of thing.
How strongly would you object to doing it at camp in Iron tomorrow? I feel like as long as we're in fire, everyone will be very on-edge in a way that isn't conducive to highly emotional conversation.
We can do the feel-good parts right now/ before setting off again, but I would vote to put the painful parts off just a smidge longer until we have some physical security to compensate for the emotional insecurity.
The longer we wait, though, the more people will have time to simmer in this, and traveling leaves plenty of time for thought. As far as physical security goes, recall that it took like 1 week to get our base setup to Kagome's specifications in Tea... though that's probably not quite the degree you're talking about.
I don't know. I feel like putting it off too long may be a very bad idea by giving both Keiko and the rest of the party time to simmer and beat themselves up.
@Jello_Raptor I REALLY like that idea. Like, wow, that's super awesome.
Actually, we as a team should totally stop, drop and roll think hard about low-hanging power multipliers and start chasing them in earnest.
MadScientist's sealing tech tree, zeppelins, medicine and traps seem like pretty straightforward choices here, but we should brainstorm some more in case we find some way to break the setting.
The biggest power multiplier we have is pangolin summons. With them, we should have access to teachers of practically every discipline. Want to learn technique Hacking? Summon an instructor. Want to improve medicine without contacting Jiraiya? Summon an advisor. Want to learn about advanced henge? Summon an instructor (and maybe henge into a large pangolin). It's basically a way our group can have all the resources of a hidden village.
By this do you mean technique hack MEW to make walls out of the substance it's used on instead of always granite? If that's possible, it could have good construction and combat uses, but I'd be interested to see how it would deal with not having a uniform base material.
As a potential alternative to the merchant empire idea, if all we'really interested in is cash, counterfeiting in a feudal technology level world seems really easy. We just need to technique hack a way to use MEW on large enough hunks of whatever metal Ryo coins are made from and the apparatus villages use to mint them. Shouldn't be a problem with Akane's mechanical aptitude. This doesn't get us any info that money can't buy, but it sure helps us get every other plan started. Rinse and repeat for currencies used by other villages. Keiko's experience at the chiarroscuro lounge make me more hopeful that she could identify any blindspots in a counterfeiting plan.
The idea of a merchant empire is to set up a spy network and also to make trade happen with more frequently.
With more trade, you create a stronger interdependence between the elemental nations, and more information flow. That increases the cost of going to war.
Because if you go to war, trade will be disrupted.
Excuse my ignorance, but how does one meaningfully interpret probabilities that come in a format of: 2.5-49.5%? Can't we boil it down to one number or do we lose something important if we do that?
More substantively, I think if we try to do any interpersonal stuff before everyone is rested and not scared shitless (at least, any stuff besides being very very nice & supportive), it could go belly-up very quickly.
I agree with this sentiment. Everyone needs a full nights sleep before we get all talky. Lets leave it until we are "safely" in Iron and have a camp that is at least moderately protected.
Excuse my ignorance, but how does one meaningfully interpret probabilities that come in a format of: 2.5-49.5%? Can't we boil it down to one number or do we lose something important if we do that?
The range translates to "We have a 2.5% chance of coming into conflict with the most lax patrols (10 dice each in awareness and TacMov) and a 49.5% chance of coming into conflict with the best patrols (15 dice in each skill)."
(You could also put together a table for each of our builds showing the likelihood of getting into combat with every possible combination of 10-15 Awareness and 10-15 TacMov, but that seemed like a lot of busywork.)
The take-home message is that it's best to have high everything, but if you can't do that you should prefer to specialize so that you can beat the enemy on at least one of the rolls.
We as players need to decide if getting everyone to high chunin/low jounin level TacMov is worth the extra cost in terms of evasion capability relative to bringing our stealth up to mid-chunin level. I don't have the math on how much more expensive it is, but I bet there's some optimization to be done there (i.e. a build that has the best E&E potential for the price)
I agree with this sentiment. Everyone needs a full nights sleep before we get all talky. Lets leave it until we are "safely" in Iron and have a camp that is at least moderately protected.
The range translates to "We have a 2.5% chance of coming into conflict with the most lax patrols (10 dice each in awareness and TacMov) and a 49.5% chance of coming into conflict with the best patrols (15 dice in each skill)."
The take-home message is that it's best to have high everything, but if you can't do that you should prefer to specialize so that you can beat the enemy on at least one of the rolls.
That is true if we just boil it down to the chance of combat. However, crossing borders without being detected in the first place is the far superior result. If we have to win with TacMov we have already failed slightly.
So to pick from you list, these 4 skill distributions are the relevant ones that we have the XP to train. This would be a good time for other people too to take a look at the numbers and voice their opinion on which of these options they think would be the best.
I think the important stats are the lower bound of chance of detection and higher bound of chance of combat. The former helps to keep our movements hidden from the general information apparatus of the ninja villages for long term avoidance and the latter one helps us run away when we cause a huge scene again.
EDIT: Here are the XP plans from @faflec and me, so people can get a sense of how much XP we have and how much things would cost:
Here's what TacMov 18 would cost for each character:
Hazou
Dex 6 [12]
TacMov 15 [27]
TacMov 16 [43]
TacMov 17 [60]
Total 60 XP
Keiko
TacMov 16 [16]
TacMov 17 [33]
TacMov 18 [51]
Total 51 XP
Noburi
Wits 4 [8]
Dex 6 [20]
TacMov 16 [36]
TacMov 17 [53]
TacMov 18 [71]
Total 71 XP
Akane
Dex 6 [12]
TacMov 16 [28]
TacMov 17 [45]
TacMov 18 [63]
Total 63 XP
The otherwise critical skills for the moment are Nobby's medical stuff and Keiko's Capacity 11 (22 XP) that enables her to summon a lvl 10 pangolin without passing out from chakra exhaustion immediately. Also note that currently Keiko is missing 5 XP from Stealth 15, but can get TacMov 18.
For the curious, here's my budget for Nobby's medical skills:
Noburi
Resolve 4 [8]
MedNin 7 [15]
MedNin 8 [23]
MedKnow 4 [27]
MedKnow 5 [32]
MedKnow 6 [38]
Intelligence 3 [44]
MedKnow 7 [51]
MedKnow 8 [59]
MedKnow 9 [68]
Total 68 XP
Note that if we go with Stealth 15, we can't affor MedKnow 9.
EDIT: Oh, and since Hazou and Akane both really need capacity, it's important to note that Hazou could get Capacity 8 (42 XP) but Akane could only get Capacity 7 (26 XP) if we go with Stealth 15.
Hazou gets Stealth 12 (the standard for this series) and Capacity 10, burning all his XP in the process. It skimps out on his sealing and Earth Release jutsu but given that we're going to be avoiding combat RN and first researching casino seals (which shouldn't be that complex)...
Keiko doesn't have enough XP RN for Capacity 12 (she has 60XP). I'm really hoping we don't get a repeat of Chapter 59 and have her ignore us in favor of full Capacity training.
Stealth 10 [10]
Stealth 11 [21]
Stealth 12 [33]
Resolve 4 [41]
Medical Ninjutsu 7 [48]
Medical Ninjutsu 8 [56]
Resolve 5 [66]
Medical Ninjutsu 9 [75]
Medical Knowledge 4 [79]
Medical Knowledge 5 [84]
Medical Knowledge 6 [90]
Intelligence 3 [96]
Medical Knowledge 7 [103]
Medical Knowledge 8 [111]
Medical Knowledge 9 [120]
Save 15.5XP
This gives Noburi Stealth 12 and Medical Ninjutsu/Knowledge 9. It also puts him 16XP off Medical Knowledge 10 (0.5XP, fuck) and 38XP off Medical Ninjutsu 10 (54XP total). I expect we'd have enough to get 10 for both after completing our activities in Iron.
The extra 15.5XP can be used to get Vampiric Dew 15 with 1XP left over. Maybe we want it instead of saving up, maybe not.
Fucking Akane, can't even giver her the Capacity she needs. I dunno what to do with her honestly, until the GMs give us the rundown on how Mechanical Aptitude specialisations work it's gonna be interesting. Maybe level Social?
Anything beyond: "Hey guys, we are still alive! Lets keep the ball rolling!" Is definitely too complicated and will feel like platitudes; we have issues to deal with and everyone knows that. Ignoring shit is bad for long term but it is an excellent short term solution. Especially since we are still able to work together, as was shown in the previous updates.
Note that zeppelins are not at all stealthy when taking off. Once you get really high you're probably fine, but you're going to be visible from a long way off as you're ascending. Same is true for hot-air balloons, although to a slightly smaller degree.
Paging @faflec 's seemingly eidetic memory, but don't patrols only focus on the borders of each country (I may be mis-remembering, but I think it was the IC explanation for why we chose Swamp and/or how we wanted to escape from said swamp). All we (should) need for a Zeppelin to do is take off, fly way above any border(s) we need to cross, and then land somewhere in the interior of the country that the ninja there don't normally patrol. A Zeppelin does not have a fast take-off speed or way to camouflage itself, so using one as a means to escape is not what I intend to use it for. Instead, it should allow us to never be caught by normal border patrols and allow us to carry a plethora of goods (preferably in storage scrolls for mass reduction reasons) or people wherever we want. If the Zeppelin gets spotted, that's very bad. We should only assemble one (I like the idea of having easy to assemble parts stored away for rapid re-construction) when we believe that we have lost any and all potential pursuers.
Also, if we don't leave behind any tracks (yay flight) we probably won't have to worry as much about trackers. The only ones who would most likely continue to be a pain would be super scent trackers or chakra sensors, but we should work on solutions to those problems regardless for whatever it is we want to do.
Some facts that might be relevant about Elemental Mastery, since you reminded me of it:
It affects a spherical area centered on the caster
You only get to choose 'hotter' or 'colder', not how far to go. It always changes the temperature by the maximum you are capable of. Changing the temperature by 150C is not terribly safe.
Note that these are not new facts, they are just here as reminders.
"Always"? That doesn't make much sense to me. What do the Mountain ninja do during the winter when temperatures vary? Do they have various ninjas of differing abilities with EM so that they can fix the temperature by choosing whose turn it is to act as a heater? What do they do if they accidentally learn too much about EM (and subsequently increase their level in it) and are left with a bunch of people who can only choose between burning everyone or letting them freeze to death? Nights are much colder in the winter than the days, especially on top of a mountain.
Even for a bunch of backwoods Hill Billies, this seems needlessly cumbersome. Why would somewhat rational people make a technique with that stringent of capabilities? Just seems highly illogical to me.
Potentially relevant to recent discussions, this bit is from the beginning of the Hillbilly Mountain Arc, Inoue is referring to Rain here. Apparently enough ninja reach Henge 20 that she feels comfortable using it as an illustrative point.
In totally unrelated news, Kagome has killed every animal within three miles of camp...
E: There was also the time Kagome had Hazou blow up a ferret whose face reminded him of a Rock infiltrator, described during the team building exercise right before we met Jiraiya for the first time.
Paging @faflec 's seemingly eidetic memory, but don't patrols only focus on the borders of each country (I may be mis-remembering, but I think it was the IC explanation for why we chose Swamp and/or how we wanted to escape from said swamp).
Borders are in general more patrolled than non-borders, apart from the bits near cities. Looking at the map here though I don't really see a bit where the river system would force you to travel within 40 miles of Rain if you don't want to. A straight bolt across fire and then across the sea leaves either the issue of finding a boat in possibly limited timeframe, or the risk of water walking across the whole gulf with limited chakra reserves. A whole lot of the terran oceans are extremely barren of life, so recharging while passing the ocean in not guaranteed. Water walking on the high seas can become problematic if there's chop. On the upside though it minimises the number of borders you pass through, reducing the chance of a patrol passing your trail within a short period of time after you pass.
All things are trade offs. Frankly I'm not even sure I know what the definitive optimal answer is in this situation. It's a complex scenario and I don't smuggle things across borders for a living so I lack applicable expertise.
@Kiba A spy network and interconnected trade seem like good goals to shoot for. The merchant empire plans and banking plan that I've seen do create more trade, but I haven't seen how they create interdependence between hidden villages. That seems like a hard problem since the population sizes are small enough to be largely independent, unless we create scarcity deliberately. Any plan where we keep ourselves anonymous from the merchants we're helping makes it hard to verify the information they give us until the network is large, and that comes with it's own problems since we don't currently have the personnel necessary to sift through it all while ninja-ing.
We need to recruit ninjas we can trust. Unfortunately, the only ninjas that's available to us are missing-nins, which for various reason, may be untrustworthy or unreliable. Unless some of the swarm-nins managed to survive.
I think any plan benefits from a step zero of having a lot of money. We can even prevent inflation by deliberately destroying the money we get back from loans if we feel so inclined.
Even if we had access to a sailboat (by building, stealing, w/e) none of our PC's know how to sail. Also, what would we do with the boat while we aren't using it? If it's a normal sailboat it's too large to put in one storage scroll and all of the parts have to be water tight. A Zeppelin only needs its inflatable canvas to be airtight, so we can deflate and then seal the balloon section whenever we need to store it away.
We need to recruit ninjas we can trust. Unfortunately, the only ninjas that's available to us are missing-nins, which for various reason, may be untrustworthy or unreliable. Unless some of the swarm-nins managed to survive.
We may be able to recruit some Hidden Mountain ninja after our year's hiatus from their village is up (note that we have to spend 3 whole months just on recovery; a year isn't really that long). If we were to do that though, Keiko has to prove herself to be the one true heir enough so that we can overcome their biases against outsiders. That means undertaking summoner quests... which we haven't done yet with 9 months to go... fun.
Personally, I'd prefer just to turn that whole village into our own Oompa Loompa like facility, constantly churning out seals, new techniques via TH, new inventions (a Zeppelin fleet would only be the beginning *drools*) in actual factories, etc. They don't want to bother with the outside world and if we are given enough heavy ordinance we can make sure they will never be bothered again by (at the very least) continuing to make international incidents in other countries. Who cares about Tea when some unknown/unaffiliated assailants started a forest fire in a DMZ and then escaped from both Hot Springs and Leaf personnel?
E: And if WW4 does "accidentally" happen, Hidden Mountain would be a nice place to chill out to watch the fireworks. We'd have a whole support group of other ninjas capable of crazy things like tac move 50 on our side to discourage invaders from starting shit with a neutral state. I'd be on board with turning Hidden Mountain into essentially a Secret Switzerland; they hide their presence until the worst of the fighting is over and then engage in financial services for either side(s). I'm not sure if they would be interested in that, but it's something to consider if they've had a change in international policy in the time we will have been gone.
Even if we had access to a sailboat (by building, stealing, w/e) none of our PC's know how to sail. Also, what would we do with the boat while we aren't using it? If it's a normal sailboat it's too large to put in one storage scroll and all of the parts have to be water tight. A Zeppelin only needs its inflatable canvas to be airtight, so we can deflate and then seal the balloon section whenever we need to store it away.
Anyway, I can see why this might be a problem if we can't seal a sufficiently large sailboat. Not to mention the possibility of a sailboat popping up if a seal is destroyed.
