[Naruto] Byakugan

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Toa Kraka

The removal doesn't need surgery, only the implantation--a mook could knock you out, rip out your eyes (carefully), stick them in a jar, and keep them on a shelf until he found a medic-nin to perform the surgery.

That doesn't matter. It's still a lot harder than taking off someone's armor, Body parts do not qualify as gadgets.

It may qulaiofy you for all sorts of "Enemies" Disads but not a Gadget Limitatyion.

[Toa Kraka]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It's still a lot harder than taking off someone's armor.

Are you sure? In my mind's eye, I'm comparing the situations:

1. Enemy knocks out knight wearing magical breastplate, and spends ten seconds unlatching the armor, rolling the knight over, taking off the pieces, etc.

2. Enemy knocks out Hyuuga, and spends five seconds* pulling out each eye. (If he critically fails a DX roll, he accidentally crushes the eyeball!)

*I use the anime's removal of Uchiha Sasuke's Sharingan as a reference here, taking into account that they probably lengthened the time to play up the drama.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Toa Kraka

Are you sure? In my mind's eye, I'm comparing the situations:

1. Enemy knocks out knight wearing magical breastplate, and spends ten seconds unlatching the armor, rolling the knight over, taking off the pieces, etc.

2. Enemy knocks out Hyuuga, and spends five seconds* pulling out each eye. (If he critically fails a DX roll, he accidentally crushes the eyeball!)

*I use the anime's removal of Uchiha Sasuke's Sharingan as a reference here, taking into account that they probably lengthened the time to play up the drama.

Arrnor can be removed by even a 25 pt Man at Arms once the target is immobilised. Eyes can only be plucked out quickly and accurately by very high cp shinobi who have mastered the Eye Pluck Technique (see MA. 72 and note that it requires TBAM and starts at -10).

Really, you can not claim your body parts as gadgets even if some other character could rake them and (eventually) use them. You don't get pts back because a vampire could drink your blood.

Having crazy people hunt you for your body parts is a fine Disad but

[Toa Kraka]

Oh, sorry--I don't have Martial Arts yet, so this is yet another reason to get it.

Thanks!

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Arrnor can be removed by even a 25 pt Man at Arms once the target is immobilised. Eyes can only be plucked out quickly and accurately by very high cp shinobi who have mastered the Eye Pluck Technique (see MA. 72 and note that it requires TBAM and starts at -10).

Really, you can not claim your body parts as gadgets even if some other character could rake them and (eventually) use them. You don't get pts back because a vampire could drink your blood.

Having crazy people hunt you for your body parts is a fine Disad but

Eye Pluck is a technique for ripping out an eye in combat. It says nothing about being better at pulling it out when the opponent is unconscious, or not being able to do so to an immobilized opponent, or that the technique will make you better at pulling the eye out without damaging the eye.

Anyone can realistically be at least decent at plucking out another person's eyes given a few minutes or so, in such a way as to prevent eye damage, on an unconscious or paralyzed opponent. No special technique or advantage required. Surgical skill or technique might improve the odds of doing it without more harm than necessary to the victim, and to ensure the eye remains okay.

If a human character began play as a human that had lost their eyes prior to the campaign, and started play with a set of bionic eyes (as in a sci-fi setting), I would argue they could take Gadget limitations on them. What's the difference here? They're parts that confer special abilities, can be removed, and then used by the jerk that took them from you. No difference between sci-fi bionic super-eyes and this Naruto concept.

I would also argue for technical reasons that Vision-Based is not a perfect fit here. It's technically possible to have IT:No Eyes, which means you either don't have eyes, or your eyes are not required for vision. Someone with that advantage might be able to see somehow without eyes, but need their existing Byakugan eyes to access these chakra abilities. They could also have an Extra Head, one with normal eyes, one with Byakugan eyes. Again, in either case, just Vision-Based would allow such characters to retain their special abilities, by RAW, even if they ended up losing their Byakugan eyes (through destruction or theft). Obviously, I wouldn't allow normal eyes to be considered Gadgets, because in RAW the sense of Vision is not an advantage but the lack of a disadvantage. Byakugan eyes and their like are different.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Toa Kraka

Breakable, -20% (eyeball: DR 0, -9 location penalty)
Can Be Stolen, -5% (you need to knock out the target and get a medic-nin to transplant the eye)
Unique, -25% (you can't replace it unless you kill another member of your own clan--or take the eye back!)

OK look at it this way, that is a -50% limitation right there.
Limitations are based on how much they affect the power and its utility.
With even a -5% you expect iot to come up at least once in a campaign, with -50% I would expect it to come up on a regular basis. That means shortly into the game your eyes are attempted to be stolen and a success should happen at some point or your getting free points.

Its just not fair to the other players if you dont take the eyes.

Originally Posted by Toa Kraka

In-universe, it's actually a pretty likely occurrence: one character has been the target of two kidnapping attempts for her Byakugan eyes (at ages 3 and 12), and there are many cases of eye-based abilities being transplanted (Ao's Byakugan, Kakashi's Sharingan, Sasuke's Sharingan, Danzou's Sharingan, Tobi's Sharingan and Rinnegan...).

Yes but that is a plot device for having enemies and for those guys getting new powers.

The no points because a Vampire sucks your blood is a good example, same with buying unbreakable bones. Wolverine doesn't get points for people trying to steal them becasue their gadgets. He does get points for enemies.

[Toa Kraka]

Originally Posted by Refplace

With even a -5% you expect it to come up at least once in a campaign. With -50%, I would expect it to come up on a regular basis. That means shortly into the game your eyes are attempted to be stolen and a success should happen at some point or you're getting free points.

I see your point there, after looking at the Accessibility table in Powers... Okay--"Unique" can be taken off, since there's a reasonably large number of Hyuuga, so that reduces the chance of "Byakugan plot relevance" occuring in any given adventure from 100% to ~67% (Pow99). I don't think that's too implausible--after all, we never hear anything about the rest of the Hyuuga ninja, and it's entirely possible that they're targeted in two out of every three missions by bounty hunters. Maybe there's an entire bounty hunter organization dedicated to plotting the movements of Hyuuga ninja outside the Village's walls, since the Byakugan is so valuable...

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yes, but that is a plot device for having enemies and for those guys getting new powers. The "no points because a vampire sucks your blood" is a good example; same with buying unbreakable bones. Wolverine doesn't get points for people trying to steal them becasue they're gadgets. He does get points for enemies.

To turn your own reasoning on its heel, you don't get points for having drinkable blood because it's less than 5% likely (Pow99) that your blood will be drunk in any given adventure, unless there are a lot of vampires in your game world.

Wolverine's adamantium can't be removed in a matter of seconds (unless you're Magneto), and I doubt that it could be reused. Also, is Wolverine a target of bounty hunters specifically for his adamantium? (Forgive my ignorance--I don't follow Marvel much...)

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Toa Kraka

Wolverine's adamantium can't be removed in a matter of seconds (unless you're Magneto), and I doubt that it could be reused. Also, is Wolverine a target of bounty hunters specifically for his adamantium? (Forgive my ignorance--I don't follow Marvel much...)

Ok your right it takes a bit to remove it.
No bounty hunters but yes he has been hunted by master villains for his skeleton and his healing factor.
Again though and you seemed to see the point about the % but not fully.
Do you want the powers taken away by having an eye plucked out and that to be a focus of the game?
An enemy disad also makes it a focus, based on the appearance modifier but unlike the limitation does not require success.

[Toa Kraka]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Do you want the powers taken away by having an eye plucked out, and that to be a focus of the game?

Why not? It seems funny, to have some hapless player with a Hyuuga PC on a simple C-rank mission ten miles outside Leaf Village, always looking around (and through) corners to make sure that the dreaded Byakugan Bounty Brigade isn't due to appear this adventure...maybe Paranoia is common among Hyuuga ninja.

Originally Posted by Refplace

An enemy disad also makes it a focus, based on the appearance modifier, but unlike the limitation does not require success.

Using Enemies would work, but then you'd have to switch around the enemies based on whose head the Byakugan's in: Bounty hunters--how powerful are they? Hyuuga clan--do they have their own hunter-nin squads (a la Time Braid)? Leaf Village--how often and how far do they send hunter-nin? It would be just a little too complicated, I think. Simpler just to say, "If you have a Byakugan, there's a 2/3 chance that you'll get attacked by Stone, Leaf, Hyuuga, or missing ninja during any given adventure outside your Patron's immediate reach, depending on who you are. Good luck!"

[Joel]

Originally Posted by Refplace

OK look at it this way, that is a -50% limitation right there.
Limitations are based on how much they affect the power and its utility.
With even a -5% you expect iot to come up at least once in a campaign, with -50% I would expect it to come up on a regular basis. That means shortly into the game your eyes are attempted to be stolen and a success should happen at some point or your getting free points.

Gadget limitations are not Accessibility Limitations, they are not prized by judgement calls on how often the limitation will come into play. If whatever grants you the advantage can be stolen or targeted and destroyed to deprive you of the advantage it's a gadget and gets gadget limitations.

Superman can have a gadget with 'Can be Stolen: Quick Contest of Strength, -30%' even though there's pretty much no one able to win a quick contest of strength with him. You can have a gadget and get the cost reduction for destructible even if there's little chance you'd survive an attack strong enough to ruin the gadget.

Though eyes might not qualify as can be stolen, taking Breakable without Can Be Stolen is still the only way to model something that grants you one or more advantages and is physically attached to your body and can be destroyed to deprive you of the advantage(s).

Edit: For Vision advantages though I guess the fact that you can lose the advantage if you lose your eyes is already included in the cost, unless you have IT: No Eyes or the Panoptic 2 enhancement.