Naruto like campaign, beginner needs help

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by InLaNoche

I like this. Thanks! I think I would go the Active Defense route. I would prefer that the player has to actively initiate the block. The only issue is how Block functions. How would the damage side of things work? I'm guessing (and from what I read so far) there is no mod that divides damage?

Also, I was looking through the powers book, and don't see anything that will get me the water lash. Unless maybe create? how would damage be managed? Would I then treat it like a whip melee weapon?

I will definitely keep logs, most likely taken from audio recordings of the sessions, and will gladly share them once things are underway. I do see this being about a month down the road at the most, but I'll see how quickly I can get through this. My problem right now is having the time to read the BS front to back, which I think I should. I have been just browsing the sections I was concentrating on at the moment...

No, no need for Create. The water is just "special effects"; you could simply do it with an innate attack and the meele limitation (probably for reach 4). The water is just the aesthetics that you put into it (but it can still have relevant meaning - for example, it could counter and be countered by fire effects)

[KarlKost]

So, lets see a few ideas

Blinking Fight - for a very anime take, this is an ability that you could give for free to all "ninjas" in the game. Do you that annoying blink "speed" of the guys on Dragon Ball Z? Ok, thats just Warp with a Hard technique to buy off the -10 penalties for rapid teleport. Give it to EVERYBODY, free of charge, and it just become a common feature (just like we don't need to pay for two arms). Ninjas have it thou, mind you, not just low peasants (in this world, not having that ability+technique is a disadvantage of commoners). Very fun.

Focus Chi - thats another Wild Ability that you could give to ALL ninjas. Depending on your game, I could suggest you to DEMAND from your players to spend AT least, say, 90 CP on "Chi Pool" (to buy "Chi Points"), and AT MOST 180 CP. That would give you a pool between 30-60 Chi for beggining chars (I'm just giving some random numbers for thought, play with those as you like). So, if you do adopt this idea, give them between 120-150 extra points at creation. Adjust ALL abilities to have the limitation " Uses Energy Reserve (Chi) only -10%/lvl", instead of making them just using ANY "fuel" (that leaves the regular FP for mundane physical use only, not to fuel the ninjas "Magic"). Another option is just giving a fixed Chi Pool for all for free (it may be a fixed amount, but IMO its funnier if it is only for initial chars but can be increased with bonus CP afterwards).

And, why going at all that trouble? Well, its simple, to give the players Regeneration, but I would put a -5% limitation on it (Energy Reserve (Chi) only), but also with the limitation " Requires All-Out Concentration" (just let me check how much it is that).

Give that to ALL ninjas too... This is that classical thing on animes, when the heroes have been beaten badly, their energies are spent, but they spend some time to increase their Cosmos/Chi whatever, and gain that impossible power out of nothing. They will regenerate 1 Chi/second, but to do so, they must do nothing except glow with Chi energies (add nuisance effect), scream (another nuisance effect) and compress all their muscles.
Better Regeneration is up to you (maybe its the skill of the true Masters)

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Blinking Fight - for a very anime take, this is an ability that you could give for free to all "ninjas" in the game. Do you that annoying blink "speed" of the guys on Dragon Ball Z?

When I ran a high-powered martial arts game, I made up a new cinematic skill, along the same lines as Power Blow, Flying Leap, etc. to represent this. Here's a writeup for that (this is not the version I used in that game, this is what I'd do now with more GURPS experience under my belt).

Lightning Speed

DX/Very Hard

Default: None.
Prerequisites: Trained By a Master or Weapon Master.

This is the ability to move at great speed in combat - sometimes even faster than the human eye can see! Every use of Lighting Speed costs 1 FP, whether or not the roll is successful.
You can roll against unmodified Lightning Speed to gain an extra Step or Retreat against a second foe in a turn. Each additional Step or Retreat after the first granted by Lightning Speed imposes a cumulative -5 penalty on Lightning Speed rolls.
You can close distance so quickly it doesn't even count as "movement". Roll Lighting Speed at -5 while making a Move and Attack maneuver. If successful, you don't suffer the -4 to your attack roll for Move and Attack, and your skill is not capped at 9.
You can move so fast that it defeats your opponent's eyes. Make a Quick Contest of your Lightning Speed skill -5, against the better of their Perception or Observation (characters with Enhanced Time Sense add +10 to their side of this roll). If you win, they get no defense against an attack you make on this turn.

No matter which version of Lightning Speed you use, if you critically fail a roll, you fall down and end up prone.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Depending on your game, I could suggest you to DEMAND from your players to spend AT least, say, 90 CP on "Chi Pool" (to buy "Chi Points"), and AT MOST 180 CP.

I'd disagree. That's way too many points of FP/Chi points. Either you're keeping the FP costs of powers pretty low (in the 1-3 range we've already discussed), in which case these levels of chi points will simply make those costs irrelevant, with no plausible fight ever exhausting them, or you scale the FP costs of abilities much higher, in which case what was the point of giving so many points in the first place? There's really no difference between a power that costs 1 FP out of your 10, and an ability that costs 10 FP out of your 100.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Give that to ALL ninjas too... This is that classical thing on animes, when the heroes have been beaten badly, their energies are spent, but they spend some time to increase their Cosmos/Chi whatever, and gain that impossible power out of nothing.

Rather than building this as an ability, I'd strongly recommend looking into some impulse buy options. This is presented in the Basic Set, as "Buying Success", p. B347, where it's explained as spending character points to turn rolls into successes or critical successes, or to influence the scene somewhat by introducing plausible elements. It's greatly expanded in Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys, though, with lots of options to spend character points on, and some options for providing a permanent pool of points that can only be spent this way, and refresh over time. It's actually quite a useful concept for a cinematic setting like Naruto - it really covers a lot of that "last-ditch turnaround" that characterizes the genre. One of the options, for example, is to spend one character point for 25 FP. That can power a very hefty fireball, particularly if you allow options like Godlike Extra Effort from Powers (p. 161) to spend FP to boost abilities.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by mikeejimbo

Just for an example, I might build Stone Block like this:

Damage Resistance 2 (Reflexive +40%, Arms Only -20%, Costs 2 Chi -10%, Link (Enhanced Block) +10%) [8]
Enhanced Block 2 (Link (Damage Resistance) +10%) [11]

I've got to disagree on this build. I don't think it really does what InLaNoche has described. First of all, Reflexive is only necessary on advantages that already require a turn to activate, which DR doesn't. Second, Arms Only means it will only help against attacks against the arms, where this is suppose to protect the whole body, if I'm not mistaken. Finally, Link is only necessary when you're dealing with an advantage that requires activation by default, which neither DR nor Enhanced Block do.

Here's how I'd build this instead.

Stone Arms

Levels 1-4, 6-9, etc. {X}multiplied by 2.5 */level, level 5, 10, etc. {X} multiplied by 2.5*+5 points

By focusing some earth chi into your arms, you briefly turn them to stone, allowing you to block many attacks that would be dangerous or deadly for mere flesh to stop.
The first time you activate Stone Arms in a fight, you must spend 2 Chi, after which it lasts for a minute, and you must spend 1 additional Chi to maintain it. To use Stone Arms to block an attack, you must make a roll of ((DX/2)+3), with an additional +1 if you have Combat Reflexes, but at -4 if you are stunned, and an additional -4 for every block on the same turn after the first. If you succeed, you gain {X}* DR against the attack.
For every 5 levels you have in Stone Arms, add +1 to your roll to activate the power.

Statistics: DR {X}* (Active Defense, -40%; Costs Chi, -10%) [({X}X2.5)/level]*. At level 5, 10, 15, etc., add one level of Enhanced Block (Stone Arms) [5/level].

* I've left the actual level of DR per level as a variable, because how much is appropriate will depend on your campaign assumptions. If the typical character is throwing around more-or-less mundane weapons, and one level of Stone Arms is enough to mitigate but not completely stop damage from such an attack, 1 or 2 DR per level is fine. If an average opponent is throwing around fireballs that do 3d, you'll need substantially more. I'd recommend estimating the average damage for an attack (3.5 per die of damage rolled, basically), and setting the DR level to that. That way, one level of Stone Arms will stop an average attack, with an above-average roll on a typical attack getting through, and higher levels of Stone Arms being required to stop more potent hits.


Two other game concepts that I strongly suggest you use to make your game feel more Naruto-esque are power modifiers, and skill-based abilities.

A power modifier is a modifier that applies to all abilities within a power - a set of advantages that all share certain common behaviors. It's a way of tying a bunch of advantages together and making them feel like a unified set of abilities, and usually giving characters a bit of a discount on all of them because they all share certain weaknesses. (Power modifiers are briefly explained on pp. B254-255, but they're greatly expanded on in GURPS Powers. That book is really worthwhile for this sort of campaign, I highly recommend it.)

For a Naruto-inspired campaign, I'd suggest setting the power modifier at -15%. Using the guidelines in Powers, this is calculated at -5% because "anti-powers" exist (things like "chi-blocking" attacks), -5% because countermeasures to the powers that require special skills to produce, but anyone can use, exist (stuff like drugs or herbs that block chi use), and -5% because all the powers cost at least 1 FP.


The other suggestion, skill-based abilities, means that each ability has a skill to roll against when using it. This helps makes each ability feel more like an actual thing the character is learning, rather than just a random trait they've suddenly developed. When building abilities, it means that if the advantage you're using doesn't require some kind of activation roll, you should add one, usually with a limitation like Requires (Attribute) Roll (this limitation appears in Powers and Power-Ups 8: Limitations). Making it require a skill roll (usually a Hard skill) instead of a straight-up attribute roll is basically a 0% modifier - it starts out as harder to use than the attribute, but is cheaper to buy up to high levels, so it's basically a wash.


So, putting these suggestions together, here's how this would change the Stone Arms build I suggested above:

Stone Arms

Levels 1-4, 6-9, etc. {X} multiplied by 2*/level, level 5, 10, etc. {X} multiplied by 2*+5 points

Skill: Stone Arms (DX/H)

By focusing some earth chi into your arms, you briefly turn them to stone, allowing you to block many attacks that would be dangerous or deadly for mere flesh to stop.
The first time you activate Stone Arms in a fight, you must spend 2 Chi, after which it lasts for a minute, and you must spend 1 additional Chi to maintain it. To use Stone Arms to block an attack, you must make a roll of ((Stone Arms skill/3)+3), with an additional +1 if you have Combat Reflexes, but at -4 if you are stunned, and an additional -4 for every block on the same turn after the first. If you succeed, you gain {X}* DR against the attack.
For every 5 levels you have in Stone Arms, add +1 to your roll to activate the power.

Statistics: DR {X}* (Active Defense, -40%; Costs Chi, -5%, Earth Chi, -15%) [({X} multiplied by 2)/level]*. At level 5, 10, 15, etc., add one level of Enhanced Block (Stone Arms) [5/level].


"Earth Chi" is what I named the power modifier here (for Fire abilities, it would be "Fire Chi", for Water "Water Chi", and so on). I reduced the Costs Chi limitation to -5% because the Earth Chi limitation already includes one level of it by default, so this still costs 2 Chi to activate.

The roll to activate the power is now based on the skill, rather than straight DX.

Normally, in builds like this where there are a couple of advantages tied together, I'd put the power modifier on both of them. However, in this case I didn't do that on Enhanced Block because, first of all, it would mean using it would cost an additional FP/Chi point, and second, because this Enhanced Block only adds to Stone Arms, I didn't think it was a meaningful limitation to say that the other parts of the Earth Chi limitation (being able to be cancelled by other abilities or countermeasures) applied to it - anything that cancelled Enhanced Block would already have made it useless by cancelling the Damage Resistance anyway.

[mikeejimbo]

Ah I was imagining that the Enhanced Block was only applied when the power was active, thus adding the Link to make it 'off' until the user activated the power. I also had Arms Only because I imagined that the user literally had to block with their arms, and as such they would take damage from the attack, but would be reduced by the arm DR.

[InLaNoche]

Originally Posted by mikeejimbo

Ah I was imagining that the Enhanced Block was only applied when the power was active, thus adding the Link to make it 'off' until the user activated the power. I also had Arms Only because I imagined that the user literally had to block with their arms, and as such they would take damage from the attack, but would be reduced by the arm DR.

Don't get me wrong with my other post. I did like this on a first draft. But I like the idea of 'leveling up' the power and getting bonuses at higher ranks (adding +1 to block at levels 5,10,15,etc.) closer to what I want, just did not know how to implement it...

I think I need more books, and time...

[InLaNoche]

Thanks for that Kelly (fellow Canadian!), that it really detailed, and I will have to go over that a few times before I can say I got a handle on what you are saying. I have BS, Martial Arts and Powers, but I do not have the Power-ups 8: limitations. I'm thinking I will need that as a lot of the work I am doing is based off limitations on the powers...

To get a correction on what I really want, both of you are almost hitting the mark. To give an example, InLaNoche is fighting Lee. the fight is going back and forth. Lee decides to go for a powered up fireball attack. he has gained some distance and is able to perform a concentration/gesture/genjitsu/whatever to boost the power of his fireball attack. InLanoche sees this coming and is in no condition to dodge or close the gap. Instead he decides to use Sutōndifensu (Stone Defense), possible also using a concentration turn to beef it up. On Lee's turn, he uses his fireball and it is on target. InLaNoche crosses his arms in front of him focusing his chi. At that instant, his forarms become like stone and absorb X of the damage. He screams out at the effort, and is pushed back several feet, his feet cutting a line through the earth, the wrappings of his forearms fall to the ground torn to shreds, the earth charred around him, but he still stands...

So it would be a reflex action, and should not have a duration for more than the action/turn (so I would still take the multiple attempts a -4 to each succession). I also agree that is should be a skill test of some type, but that would be to make sure he focused and got his arms up in time. Also, this would not protect from behind, to it is limited to just his arms. A more powerful (higher rank) version will encompass the whole body, and may persist for a minute or 2, but that will be later.

As for damage, I don't want powers to be too over the top, and I want to try and keep HP at about normal. Also having Roll with Blow as a must for all PCs and major NPCs. I am dropping death from the game (remember, kids at the age of 9), and instead going for KOs, and possible comas, crippling and such for things that are extreme, but for the most part, I want it to be like a cartoon to them. Flashy, people being thrown around, and some humor. So with the PCs having maybe a slight boost the the 10 HP (again, newish to this system so room for change is still here) most attacks at 2d will have the chance to hit hard.

Again, may scale this, once I have some characters done up and play test it a bit.

[mikeejimbo]

Thank you for that description! I think Kelly's build is closer to what you want for that, actually.

See, I had envisioned Reflexive so that you wouldn't need to roll to Activate it, just roll Block (likely Karate-based) to interpose your arms.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by InLaNoche

Thanks for that Kelly (fellow Canadian!),

Excellent, our takeover of the forum proceeds! :-)

Originally Posted by InLaNoche

that it really detailed, and I will have to go over that a few times before I can say I got a handle on what you are saying.

Feel free to ask questions, of course! Hopefully, we can clear up any confusion.

Originally Posted by InLaNoche

I have BS, Martial Arts and Powers, but I do not have the Power-ups 8: limitations. I'm thinking I will need that as a lot of the work I am doing is based off limitations on the powers...

Well, Powers already covers a lot of those. I would say that Powers is probably the more important one to get. That said, Power-Ups are pretty cheap purchases, so it's probably worth getting it. I'd also recommend Power-Ups 5: Enhancements, which also has a bunch of useful stuff for a project like this.

Originally Posted by InLaNoche

he has gained some distance and is able to perform a concentration/gesture/genjitsu/whatever to boost the power of his fireball attack. [...] Instead he decides to use Sutōndifensu (Stone Defense), possible also using a concentration turn to beef it up.

Allowing these sorts of boosts to abilities is another benefit of using a power modifier - Powers goes into a variety of "switches" a power can have, traits that all the abilities in them share that don't necessarily modify the cost, but do affect play. Allowing extra turns of concentration to boost Chi abilities sounds exactly like such an option.

Originally Posted by InLaNoche

On Lee's turn, he uses his fireball and it is on target. InLaNoche crosses his arms in front of him focusing his chi. At that instant, his forarms become like stone and absorb X of the damage.

So it would be a reflex action, and should not have a duration for more than the action/turn (so I would still take the multiple attempts a -4 to each succession). I also agree that is should be a skill test of some type, but that would be to make sure he focused and got his arms up in time. Also, this would not protect from behind, to it is limited to just his arms.

I think my build does this. The Requires Active Defense limitation means that it requires a roll, just like a block defense, representing the necessity of moving his arms into the way. Not being able to defend against an attack from the rear is already a feature of requiring an active defense, so that's not an additional limitation. It sounds to me like he could use this defense to attempt to defend against any attack coming from his front, not just ones specifically aimed by the attacker at his arms, so Arms Only isn't really a appropriate limitation.

Originally Posted by InLaNoche

A more powerful (higher rank) version will encompass the whole body, and may persist for a minute or 2, but that will be later.

To build that, I'd remove the Active Defense limitation, but leave on the Costs Chi. Putting any sort of cost like costs FP, cost HP, etc. onto a normally always-on ability like Damage Resistance turns it into one that requires a turn to activate. To make it still something you can turn on in response to an attack, that's when you'd add Reflexive.

[InLaNoche]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Stone Arms

Levels 1-4, 6-9, etc. {X} multiplied by 2*/level, level 5, 10, etc. {X} multiplied by 2*+5 points

Skill: Stone Arms (DX/H)

By focusing some earth chi into your arms, you briefly turn them to stone, allowing you to block many attacks that would be dangerous or deadly for mere flesh to stop.
[...]If you succeed, you gain {X}* DR against the attack.
For every 5 levels you have in Stone Arms, add +1 to your roll to activate the power.

Statistics: DR {X}* (Active Defense, -40%; Costs Chi, -5%, Earth Chi, -15%) [({X} multiplied by 2)/level]*. At level 5, 10, 15, etc., add one level of Enhanced Block (Stone Arms) [5/level].


"Earth Chi" is what I named the power modifier here (for Fire abilities, it would be "Fire Chi", for Water "Water Chi", and so on). I reduced the Costs Chi limitation to -5% because the Earth Chi limitation already includes one level of it by default, so this still costs 2 Chi to activate.

The roll to activate the power is now based on the skill, rather than straight DX.

Still trying to get through this Kelly. First off the point cost per level of this skill. From what I can get, little as it is at this point :( , is that every 5th level adds a level of E.Block at 5 points. Is the X for the DR the base, with a multiple of 2 per level? So if I were to have this skill at DR 3, and level 2, the cost would be 6pts, and at level 5 would be (3*5 + (INT(5/5)) 20? (sorry for the program code, forgot the math equivalent of truncate)

Just want to have the math down before I go any further. This is great stuff... The double edged sword on this snadbox type system is there is too much variety in how it can be used...

One last thing. I see how you get the -10% for the Earth Chi power modifier. But the breakdown of the above. I am kind of at a loss of the DR*2/level. Is that based on the base DR advantage with the -60% (5-3)? If so, then I think I am golden, or at least nicely bronzed to move forward. My head is spinning a bit...