The Princess of Blades (Naruto/Exalted)
- Thread starter Crilltic
- Start date
- Crossover
These suggests are both quite good, and I'll keep them in mind when I get the full thing up tonight. Probably also take a look at how @FixerUpper is running his thing (which I honestly kinda forgot about).
Haha, don't, or at least not yet, it feels like I'm crawling on my hands and knees through a battlefield of scrap and rust that's already been welded to hell and back and just wants to be left alone.
The problem is goddamn Naruto. He's the main character and Exalted is not equipped for one guy to turn into a thousand and then attack people in waves and have the waves do virtually nothing.
Okay, that's hyperbole, maybe there is a way for Exalted to handle that. But the point is, past that chump in chapter one, people take his clones out like they're nothing and wow is it hard to model that. What do I even do, turn Naruto into his own massed combat unit?
Actually, that'd probably work. I haven't tried mass combat, but apparently it's just 'like solo combat, but equipping your army like it's a weapon.' That seems reasonably in line with what we've seen. That said, unless the massed combat gives a whole lot of bonuses, it'd be pretty weird if five Naruto's turned out to be mechanically of more consequence than five hundred what with each Naruto able to do his own thing whereas five hundred just have their commander's action to work with and are equivalent to a really good sword.
Oh well, should have thought of looking through that earlier.
Right now I'm playing with increasing Exalted 2.5's already infamously complicated system, by turning those auto-successes into penalty negators and refreshing temporary HLs that are tied to your DV. The idea is, high level ninja are essentially untouchable to lower level ninja even if those lower level ninja do hit them. The higher level ninjas can go through the other ninjas by the dozen because they have a bunch of bonuses like extra actions, flurries that aren't penalized and slightly higher DVs not to mention floating HLs that each lower level combatant has to get through in order to damage them. However, if the attack's unexpected, it bypasses those HLs and high level attacks (A and up) are 'field levelers' that allow even low-level ninja to be a threat to high level ninja - why am I explaining this, it's too complicated.
Exalted's too complicated and I'm not a mechanics guy. *cries in a corner*
- Location
- Massholistan
Now you understand why I went "fuck it" and decided to not use mechanics (especially Exalted Mechanics) at all.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X]Lee
[X]To finally get that check up
[X]To finally get that check up
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Spend Time with Someone?
- [X] Lee
Go Somewhere?
- [X] To finally get that check up
I would just model it as a flurry, personally; there's precedent for many ineffective attacks being modeled as a small number of effective attacks, and the clones generally only last a single exchange. When he uses it for a handful of clones, it seems more like Splintered Gale Shintai, but not the massive armies of clones. Throw in something like Impatient Labor Tempest that extends to training times and you've got a reasonable mechanical model for what he can do, close enough that you can paper over the gaps it doesn't cover properly with stunts. I could probably throw together a decent custom charm suite for Naruto without undue effort.
(Battle groups from 3e are also workable as a model for the clones, but they add significant mechanical complication to combat compared to doing pretty standard stuff with custom abilities.)
Like, I would entirely believe someone saying the fight against Mizuki was right at the start of a campaign where the GM let Naruto's player pick from a few homebrew abilities, and the GM went "oh, shit, that's actually super OP, I really need to nerf it, sorry" to Naruto's player.
- [X] Lee
Go Somewhere?
- [X] To finally get that check up
The problem with mass combat in 2.5e is that it only interacts with mass combat, so mechanically that would have the opposite effect and make Naruto's clone blitz tactics super powerful - to the tune of it generally pitting their ~2 dice against his ~4 dice with 2 or 3 bonus successes.
I would just model it as a flurry, personally; there's precedent for many ineffective attacks being modeled as a small number of effective attacks, and the clones generally only last a single exchange. When he uses it for a handful of clones, it seems more like Splintered Gale Shintai, but not the massive armies of clones. Throw in something like Impatient Labor Tempest that extends to training times and you've got a reasonable mechanical model for what he can do, close enough that you can paper over the gaps it doesn't cover properly with stunts. I could probably throw together a decent custom charm suite for Naruto without undue effort.
(Battle groups from 3e are also workable as a model for the clones, but they add significant mechanical complication to combat compared to doing pretty standard stuff with custom abilities.)
Like, I would entirely believe someone saying the fight against Mizuki was right at the start of a campaign where the GM let Naruto's player pick from a few homebrew abilities, and the GM went "oh, shit, that's actually super OP, I really need to nerf it, sorry" to Naruto's player.
A significant number of Exalted players don't use (vanilla) Exalted mechanics.Now you understand why I went "fuck it" and decided to not use mechanics (especially Exalted Mechanics) at all.
- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
Instead of modding exalted mechanics, you could fix Naruto issues instead.
From the canon explication of "each clones divides your chakra in half" applied to all stats, to more sane fics mechanics like overuse of shadow clones has serious mental consequences such as memory overload, disregard of lethal damage after experiencing numberless "deaths" though the clones, ect...
From the canon explication of "each clones divides your chakra in half" applied to all stats, to more sane fics mechanics like overuse of shadow clones has serious mental consequences such as memory overload, disregard of lethal damage after experiencing numberless "deaths" though the clones, ect...
@FixerUpper
Since you're here, and it may be relevant to this quest too, what happens to the extra actions when there are multiple combatants of different tiers involved in one fight.
The Hidan fight against all of Team Ten, for instance. Shikamaru's physical is quite low, and while Asuma is lower than Hidan, it's nowhere near the level of disadvantage he'd be at if Hidan got extra actions off Shika instead of him, while he's still stuck at one. On the other hand, if he got extra actions himself for being in the same fight as Shikamaru, Hidan's extra actions wouldn't even bring him to twice as many as Asuma.
... That's the main example I can think of where people on three very different tiers are actually involved in a fight at once, but it could still happen. I mean, how would it have been resolved if Team Seven and Kakashi actually fought Zabuza at the same time, rather than it being K, then 7, then K again?
Since you're here, and it may be relevant to this quest too, what happens to the extra actions when there are multiple combatants of different tiers involved in one fight.
The Hidan fight against all of Team Ten, for instance. Shikamaru's physical is quite low, and while Asuma is lower than Hidan, it's nowhere near the level of disadvantage he'd be at if Hidan got extra actions off Shika instead of him, while he's still stuck at one. On the other hand, if he got extra actions himself for being in the same fight as Shikamaru, Hidan's extra actions wouldn't even bring him to twice as many as Asuma.
... That's the main example I can think of where people on three very different tiers are actually involved in a fight at once, but it could still happen. I mean, how would it have been resolved if Team Seven and Kakashi actually fought Zabuza at the same time, rather than it being K, then 7, then K again?
I'm going to request that all future questions be directed in my thread so that @Crilltic doesn't have to deal with other people derailing his quest.
That said, this is a good question, and I hadn't really thought of it.
But since the extra action system was meant to model a significant power differential between combatants, in a fight with multiple combatants, the extra action would ping solely off your highest level opponent.
So, say, in the fight at the Bridge between Team Seven and Team Zabuza, Zabuza should have been able to completely wreck the genin portion of Team Seven's shit, but the mere fact that Kakashi was present meant that he was dragged down to 'one action per action' even though the rest of his enemies were freshly graduated genin.
He'd retain his floating HL advantage and his pumped up DVs against the genin too, but I'd probably say that his ability to negate penalties would also vanish so long as Kakashi was fighting him in some capacity.
That sound reasonable? Yes? No? Regardless, direct all responses here please.
- Location
- Massholistan
I don't particularly mind, even if I'm not using your system (Since I gave up on actually using Exalted 2e approximately somewhere around the 2nd update of this quest)I'm going to request that all future questions be directed in my thread so that @Crilltic doesn't have to deal with other people derailing his quest.
This is a good question, and I hadn't really thought of it.
But since the extra action system was meant to model a significant power differential between combatants, in a fight with multiple combatants, the extra action would ping solely off your highest level opponent.
So, say, in the fight at the Bridge between Team Seven and Team Zabuza, Zabuza should have been able to completely wreck the genin portion of Team Seven's shit, but the mere fact that Kakashi was present meant that he was dragged down to 'one action per action' even though the rest of his enemies were freshly graduated genin.
He'd retain his floating HL advantage and his pumped up DVs against the genin too, but I'd probably say that his ability to negate penalties would also vanish so long as Kakashi was fighting him in some capacity.
That sound reasonable? Yes? No? Regardless, direct all responses here please.
Since it helps me get further ideas, but if you want them contained in your thread that's fine.
Oh, well, so long as you don't mind. I know it's kind of weird when a discussion in your thread starts to be about a different quest. =3=;
- Location
- Massholistan
At least this disgression actually makes sense.
- Location
- U.S.A.
[X]Lee
[X]To finally get that check up
[X]To finally get that check up
Rules Update v0.2
- Location
- Massholistan
Hello everyone welcome to Princess of Blades. I am your GM and I have no self-control.
*cough*
Right, so before we get into the fact that in-between posting my "totally final draft for the new rules" and now I rewrote the rules entirely again some general book-keeping. I will be going through and re-organizing the threadmarks to take advantage of all the snazzy new types that have been added since this quest went on hiatus. So all the omakes and fanart will be getting their own threadmarks, along with the rules.
Hopefully I'll be able to cut down on the rules post with this update though.
Hopefully....
Alright,so before your eyes glaze over me talking about mechanics for the next however many hundreds of words, let me be clear with what is and isn't changing. What is changing is all the underlying mechanics and things going on behind the scenes. The stats are changing (though not as much as I had intended), the XP system is changing, etc. However, how I am actually resolving stuff isn't changing. (As @FixerUpper so helpfully elaborated earlier, Exalted 2.5e is just absolutely awful in every conceivable way from a mechanics standpoint. Especially for a quest. Just, if you're wondering, take however awful you think it is, and it's worse than that).
So I am changing it. First off, there are no dicerolls in this quest. I can't be bothered. So what happens comes down to two things, your ability (as signified by the relevant stat and skill combination) and your choices as the voters. (So in essence you're fucked.
)
All charm effects are based off of their fluff text to get an idea of what effect they carry.
So that is the summary, now onto the big meat of the Rules Update.
Table of Contents:
I. Stat and XP Changes
II. Craft/Investigation Changes
III. Charm Changes
IV. Essence Changes
I. Stat & XP Changes (Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Kerisgame)
If you'll note I had a bunch of stats and such in v0.1 of this post. That was dumb and I've since dropped that. Instead, I'm using the condensed stat/skill block that @EarthScorpion and @Aleph made for Kerisgame (which you all should read). I've also stolen stuff from @FixerUpper because I didn't get a sellout tag named after me by being morally upstanding.
I have however made some changes for my own usage. However, first off the stat block looks like this:
And well, I can't really articulate how the abilities were condensed as well as the woman herself, so I'm going to let her do that.
However, there is the addition of the sixth column, and that is Chakra. The Attribute of Chakra determines how much Chakra Capacity you have at your finger tips to play around with.
Similarly, Jutsu have a soft and hard cap for being able to learn. You are able to learn Jutsu with the Ninjutsu/Genjutsu cost up to double your current Ninjutsu/Genjutsu rating. (So for example, Someone with Ninjutsu 3 can learn up to a 6-dot Jutsu (roughly a High-C Rank, Low B-Rank Jutsu). However, this comes at a cost.
At 0 Chakra Skill, all Jutsu cost twice the base Chakra. This cost is reduced by 10% per rank, to a minimum of half the base Chakra at rank 15 ('Don't ask, just run') Chakra Skill.
However, that is only half the equation. Your effective chakra skill is determined by how skill intensive the Jutsu you are attempting is in relation to your actual you know...skill. So your actual Chakra Skill modifier is determined by:
Effective Chakra Skill = Base CS + Nin/Genjutsu (as appropriate) - Jutsu Difficulty*
*Yes this means you can potentially get a higher Chakra Skill than normal if you are using a Jutsu below your skill threshold. This means high level ninja can effectively spam low-level techniques
I have also stolen @FixerUpper's Ten-Point Tier/Rank Scale, because it's cool and thematic and I've never let things like "originality" get in my way. (The existence of this quest should be proof enough of that). Every Attribute and Ability has ten ranks, and I think I'll let Fixer explain how that works.
I still am however, working on exact XP costs, however I think I am going to keep them proportionally the same for each rank, however they increase for each rank (So it will always take the same proportion of XP to move from Earth to Heaven, but the exact amount changes with each tier).
II. Craft/Investigation Changes (Or "Exalted Craft is like, really really boring guys. I mean really boring. So boring. The most boring")
So Exalted Craft (and to a lesser extent Investigation) is really boring. It's basically rolling successes until you get your thing, that's what all the charms do, that's what all the actions amount to. So I'm scrapping all that, and using a system that @Revlid told me about (which is also the system Scion uses). Basically, to use "craft" or to do an "investigation" it involves completing a number of Milestones.
Basically, it works like a movie plot or a RPG Quest. You need to accomplish a number of Important Events or collecting a number of Important Items to make your Magical Sword or Solve the Murder etc.
So to use Crafting as an example. For example, say as part of a mission you manage to recover a hilt of an ancient sword, forged from chakra metal but weathered by time and the elements. This would be Milestone, either a Major one (if you wanted to use it for something directly relevant like say, making a sword) or a Minor one (if you say, melted down the hilt for its metal).
Obviously this involves redoing both the Investigation and Craft charm trees, which I'm still working on.
III. Charm Changes (Or "Still working on this lol)
More on this to come, but main idea is I'm reworking a few charms besides Investigation and Craft to be a bit more in-line with what I'm doing. I think, maybe, it's on the backburner though.
IV. Essence Changes (Or "Anima amiright guys? guys?")
So this is basically letting you guys know i'm using Earthscorpions rules for how Anima flaring works.
All Essence is Personal, and stunts no longer regenerate motes. Instead, Exalts can flare their anima at any time to get two automatic stunt rewards per action. Rewards are thus:
Strenuous activity:
***NOTE: I WILL BE EDITING THIS FURTHER TOMORROW BUT FOR NOW I MUST SLEEP BECAUSE I HAVE WORK TOMORROW BUT NOTHING MAJOR WILL CHANGE. SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT***
EDIT: VOTING FOR THE NEXT UPDATE CLOSES TOMORROW AT 12:00 PM EST (OR IN APPROXIMATELY 14 HOURS FROM THIS POST.)
I WILL STOP YELLING NOW
*cough*
Right, so before we get into the fact that in-between posting my "totally final draft for the new rules" and now I rewrote the rules entirely again some general book-keeping. I will be going through and re-organizing the threadmarks to take advantage of all the snazzy new types that have been added since this quest went on hiatus. So all the omakes and fanart will be getting their own threadmarks, along with the rules.
Hopefully I'll be able to cut down on the rules post with this update though.
Hopefully....
Alright,so before your eyes glaze over me talking about mechanics for the next however many hundreds of words, let me be clear with what is and isn't changing. What is changing is all the underlying mechanics and things going on behind the scenes. The stats are changing (though not as much as I had intended), the XP system is changing, etc. However, how I am actually resolving stuff isn't changing. (As @FixerUpper so helpfully elaborated earlier, Exalted 2.5e is just absolutely awful in every conceivable way from a mechanics standpoint. Especially for a quest. Just, if you're wondering, take however awful you think it is, and it's worse than that).
So I am changing it. First off, there are no dicerolls in this quest. I can't be bothered. So what happens comes down to two things, your ability (as signified by the relevant stat and skill combination) and your choices as the voters. (So in essence you're fucked.
)All charm effects are based off of their fluff text to get an idea of what effect they carry.
So that is the summary, now onto the big meat of the Rules Update.
Table of Contents:
I. Stat and XP Changes
II. Craft/Investigation Changes
III. Charm Changes
IV. Essence Changes
I. Stat & XP Changes (Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Kerisgame)
If you'll note I had a bunch of stats and such in v0.1 of this post. That was dumb and I've since dropped that. Instead, I'm using the condensed stat/skill block that @EarthScorpion and @Aleph made for Kerisgame (which you all should read). I've also stolen stuff from @FixerUpper because I didn't get a sellout tag named after me by being morally upstanding.
I have however made some changes for my own usage. However, first off the stat block looks like this:
|
Attributes |
Physique |
Endurance |
Cognition |
Reaction |
Persuasion |
Chakra |
|
Abilities |
Command |
Expression |
Investigation |
Athletics |
Bureaucracy |
Ninjutsu |
|
Melee |
Presence |
Lore |
Awareness |
Politics |
Genjutsu |
|
|
Ranged |
Survival |
Occult |
Subterfuge |
Travel |
Control |
However, there is the addition of the sixth column, and that is Chakra. The Attribute of Chakra determines how much Chakra Capacity you have at your finger tips to play around with.
Similarly, Jutsu have a soft and hard cap for being able to learn. You are able to learn Jutsu with the Ninjutsu/Genjutsu cost up to double your current Ninjutsu/Genjutsu rating. (So for example, Someone with Ninjutsu 3 can learn up to a 6-dot Jutsu (roughly a High-C Rank, Low B-Rank Jutsu). However, this comes at a cost.
At 0 Chakra Skill, all Jutsu cost twice the base Chakra. This cost is reduced by 10% per rank, to a minimum of half the base Chakra at rank 15 ('Don't ask, just run') Chakra Skill.
However, that is only half the equation. Your effective chakra skill is determined by how skill intensive the Jutsu you are attempting is in relation to your actual you know...skill. So your actual Chakra Skill modifier is determined by:
Effective Chakra Skill = Base CS + Nin/Genjutsu (as appropriate) - Jutsu Difficulty*
*Yes this means you can potentially get a higher Chakra Skill than normal if you are using a Jutsu below your skill threshold. This means high level ninja can effectively spam low-level techniques
I have also stolen @FixerUpper's Ten-Point Tier/Rank Scale, because it's cool and thematic and I've never let things like "originality" get in my way. (The existence of this quest should be proof enough of that). Every Attribute and Ability has ten ranks, and I think I'll let Fixer explain how that works.
I still am however, working on exact XP costs, however I think I am going to keep them proportionally the same for each rank, however they increase for each rank (So it will always take the same proportion of XP to move from Earth to Heaven, but the exact amount changes with each tier).
II. Craft/Investigation Changes (Or "Exalted Craft is like, really really boring guys. I mean really boring. So boring. The most boring")
So Exalted Craft (and to a lesser extent Investigation) is really boring. It's basically rolling successes until you get your thing, that's what all the charms do, that's what all the actions amount to. So I'm scrapping all that, and using a system that @Revlid told me about (which is also the system Scion uses). Basically, to use "craft" or to do an "investigation" it involves completing a number of Milestones.
Basically, it works like a movie plot or a RPG Quest. You need to accomplish a number of Important Events or collecting a number of Important Items to make your Magical Sword or Solve the Murder etc.
So to use Crafting as an example. For example, say as part of a mission you manage to recover a hilt of an ancient sword, forged from chakra metal but weathered by time and the elements. This would be Milestone, either a Major one (if you wanted to use it for something directly relevant like say, making a sword) or a Minor one (if you say, melted down the hilt for its metal).
Obviously this involves redoing both the Investigation and Craft charm trees, which I'm still working on.
III. Charm Changes (Or "Still working on this lol)
More on this to come, but main idea is I'm reworking a few charms besides Investigation and Craft to be a bit more in-line with what I'm doing. I think, maybe, it's on the backburner though.
IV. Essence Changes (Or "Anima amiright guys? guys?")
So this is basically letting you guys know i'm using Earthscorpions rules for how Anima flaring works.
All Essence is Personal, and stunts no longer regenerate motes. Instead, Exalts can flare their anima at any time to get two automatic stunt rewards per action. Rewards are thus:
- 1-dot flare: regen 2m/action, caste mark shows. Each scene counts as an scene of strenuous activity.
- 2-dot flare: regen 4m or 1wp/action, bonfire aura level. Each scene counts as five hours of strenuous activity.
- 3-dot flare: regen 6m or 1wp/action, totemic banner. Each scene counts as ten hours of strenuous activity.
Strenuous activity:
- Characters can perform continuous heavy exertion for a number of hours equal to their (Stamina + Athletics + Specialty). Such exertion includes running, swimming, sex or any other athletic activity.
- For each subsequent hour of activity after that, characters suffer a cumulative one-dot internal penalty to all actions from fatigue. Spending a Willpower point negates all fatigue for one action.
- When the fatigue penalty exceeds a character's (Stamina + Athletics), the character passes out and remains unconscious until she has slept for at least one hour (which removes one dot of penalty).
- Every additional hour of sleep or three hours of rest removes another one die until the penalty is removed.
- Until the penalty is completely gone, the character automatically begins accruing more penalty dice for doing anything strenuous. Characters who are treading water will drown unless they have a buoyant object to keep them afloat while they rest.
***NOTE: I WILL BE EDITING THIS FURTHER TOMORROW BUT FOR NOW I MUST SLEEP BECAUSE I HAVE WORK TOMORROW BUT NOTHING MAJOR WILL CHANGE. SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT***
EDIT: VOTING FOR THE NEXT UPDATE CLOSES TOMORROW AT 12:00 PM EST (OR IN APPROXIMATELY 14 HOURS FROM THIS POST.)
I WILL STOP YELLING NOW
Last edited:
But you're so honest about it.
- Location
- Massholistan
Also shit I forgot to figure how I'm handling Fuinjutsu...whoops.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Anyone have any suggestions?
DocMatoi
Theoretical Lover of Girls
- Location
- within 2 hours of the White House
- Pronouns
- They/Them
eyes glaze over
alright sure boss
Like Crafting but drop it down a step? Let the small things, like explosives and storage scrolls, be... not miscellaneous actions, but small mundane ones. If we actually want something more, like... I have no clue actually, then make them one/two/three step crafting actions or something?
Those would need to be capital "I" Important fuinjutsu pieces though. Like... trying to remake Hirashin being a four/five step one after we figure out how to make it or something.
azoicennead
Overly-Affectionate Zombie Squad
- Pronouns
- He/They
Fuuinjutsu would fall under Occult, with influence from Lore for writing; I'd probably knock an unpleasant penalty on characters with bad handwriting (and maybe gating some of the top-tier seals), but that shouldn't be a bar set too high.
For more detailed requirements of learning and making specific seals, I think there's too much vagueness about Fuuinjutsu (how it does things, what it can do, and what you're willing to allow us to use it to do) to say a ton.
- Location
- Massholistan
lmao
Both of these are good suggestions that I will consider more when I'm not literally about to fall asleep.
You will need to consider if you're working off a 5 dot scale for your Attributes/Abilities
Still haven't decided how you want to work with charms or XP, so that's there.
I have to say I'm not a particular fan of the mote-reactor hack, but we'll see.
If you're redoing Craft, might as well stick it under there, only keying off either Linguistics or Occult.