Question: Basic Tools

My character's combat style revolves heavily around the use of basic ninja tools. Shuriken, smoke bombs, explosive tags, and wire are all small but crucial parts to the way Mugen approaches battle.

That beings said, I can't find any systems or page that tells me some vital information regarding regulations surrounding the use and carrying of said tools. My questions are as follows:

• How many Basic Tools can I possess on my person without requiring a scroll?
  
• Are tools like shuriken lost forever upon use? Or are the total amount you've purchased replenished between threads? If not, can thrown tools be recovered at the end of the thread for repeated use in future threads?
  
• Do custom tools take up weapon/item slots?(For example, if I wanted a custom "smoke bomb" that releases purple colored mist instead but is functionally the exact same thing as the shop smoke bomb.)
  
• Where can I find the "stats" or detailed descriptions of basic ninja tool effectiveness? How large is a smoke bomb's cloud, how much damage can a single explosive tag do vs 5 tags, whats the range on a kunai/shuriken/senbon, so on and so forth.
  

How many Basic Tools can I possess on my person without requiring a scroll?
As many as you can fit into your various pockets, pouches, and purses

Are tools like shuriken lost forever upon use? Or are the total amount you've purchased replenished between threads? If not, can thrown tools be recovered at the end of the thread for repeated use in future threads?
Yes and No. Smoke Bombs and Explosive Tags will be lost once they are used.

Do custom tools take up weapon/item slots?(For example, if I wanted a custom "smoke bomb" that releases purple colored mist instead but is functionally the exact same thing as the shop smoke bomb.)
Nah, that'd just be fluff. It can have whatever color smoke you like.

Where can I find the "stats" or detailed descriptions of basic ninja tool effectiveness? How large is a smoke bomb's cloud, how much damage can a single explosive tag do vs 5 tags, whats the range on a kunai/shuriken/senbon, so on and so forth.
The kunai would be used at your stats. Explosive tags do reasonable damage, and 5 of them would deal much more sigificant damage. There is no real set number. The range would depend on how far you feel they could throw them, but keep in mind that in general thrown weapons lose a large amount of accuracy. They're not for long range sniping, though if you were skilled enough you could certainly try.

First off, thank you for the reply.

Coal wrote:

Do custom tools take up weapon/item slots?(For example, if I wanted a custom "smoke bomb" that releases purple colored mist instead but is functionally the exact same thing as the shop smoke bomb.)
Nah, that'd just be fluff.  It can have whatever color smoke you like.

I understand the response, but allow me to push the envelope a bit and suggest a scenario where a jutsu making use of mist to transfer lightning element is used in conjunction with the mist bomb.

If it's being used in a functionally different way from a smoke bomb, is it still considered fluff?

Thats fine, as long as the jutsu relies on mist being present. Obviously the mist created or smoke from a tag wont be as strong as say, hiding mist technique. Youd have to use several tags to get that dame effect. On top of that, id say enviromental factors are also in play. A lite wind would blow away the smoke for such things easily

Kouzai wrote:

Thats fine, as long as the jutsu relies on mist being present. Obviously the mist created or smoke from a tag wont be as strong as say, hiding mist technique. Youd have to use several tags to get that dame effect. On top of that, id say enviromental factors are also in play. A lite wind would blow away the smoke for such things easily

But I still wouldn't need to register this special mist version of the basic tools as a unique item? I realize I didn't make it clear that this was my concern in putting forth that scenario, my apologies.

Can I still fluff that kind of detail in? Or should I get a unique version of the tool approved first?

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I'm aware it's hardly ever productive for a brand new member to show up and start making system update suggestions without spending some time around to see how things run first. But I've seen another naruto forum handle basic tools in a pretty reasonable manner that I feel could be adopted here. So I'm gonna go ahead and make a suggestion.

Each shinobi rank could be allowed to have "Kits" or "Basic Gear" that contain a set number of basic tools appropriate for their level. Higher ranked shinobi having more kunai, explosive tags, and such. There could be some pre-made versions and the option to make your own custom version.

The "Kits" or "Gear Loadouts" are the IC limit for how much basic stuff you can hold before needing scrolls. The current weapon/item limitations would be separate from this, of course. Let's face it, just saying "what you can hold in your pockets" is rather arbitrary and highly subjective. These kits/loadouts would have a limited number of slots which get filled by basic tools. [1] slot for a kunai, [5] slots for a windmill shuriken, etc etc.

Custom basic gear could be registered to be used in place of the standard tools made available. Proper descriptions of the pre-existing stuff would be added as well so there is no question about the durability of a standard kunai or the range of a smoke bomb/explosive tag.

I'd also recommend making the basic tools replenish between threads. Buying individual explosive tags to restock after a thread is a small but tedious chore. The costs are already pretty low, so for higher level shinobi it probably isn't even a dent on their funds. So what is the purpose of a designed system like that?

If staff receives the idea of this positively, but doesn't have the time to work on it, let me know and I'd be happy to generate a prototype that only requires minor editing here and there to suit the site management's needs and wants.

Hmm, well first off. If you are turning a smoke bomb into mist, then yes that should be created.

As for replenishing, I'll point out that they should. As these are things outside use, especially things that are one and done, maybe a good idea would be a village style perk that once a month basic tools replenish.

Id like to see a basic idea on what you think range on say, a tag or a kunai is.

After some quick and dirty research, I think it's safe to estimate the range for an accurate thrown knife of some kind to be roughly 10m. But since naruto shinobi are basically superhuman in a lot of ways, I think it would be fair to double that and give an average accurate range of 20m to kunai.

As for a range on activating explosive tags, I'm not sure if that is relevant since they can be set to activate on a timer or with a hand seal. But a blast range of 2m would be plenty fair for a single tag. In regards to damage, well personally I think most sites overstate the destructive force of a single explosive tag. I mean, just take a look at this scene from episode 28.

At 3:35:


Sasuke pretty much takes a blast to the face. But he really only got blown away and didn't take any serious damage. I think the only time we've seen a singular paper bomb do real damage to someone is when it's been placed directly on their body. But I can't remember where to look for an example of that happening.

That being said, I'd list the damage of just one as minor burns, moderate burns for 5, serious burns for 10, broken bones and severe burns for 15, dismemberment and potential lethality at 20 or more. This is just a rough scale, but I think it'd be pretty fair.

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@Coal

Apologies for coming back to this, but I've given the matter of spent basic items some thought and feel compelled to make a rebuttal.

I understand that things like smoke bombs are one and done items. But I also think it's somewhat silly to make a player restock them. This forum doesn't make players rest between threads to restore spent chakra, does it? Restocking basic tools seems no different to me from regaining your spent chakra. It's an obvious thing the shinobi would do in between missions.

In light of the village perks system though, I would be content to cease any push back on the matter if a resupply perk was indeed made available. I find it sensible that the village's capability to supply basic tools would factor in and if it was unable to do so, shinobi would need to put extra effort to procure basic tools themselves.

I agree with you, however there are problems with making them reusable as well. It really wouldn't cost much for someone to buy 100 explosive tags, and then they will have 100 explosive tags in every topic they like. Sadly, balance has to lean away from abuse some times, and make things more difficult. There is a happy medium, and it will be found in time, but for now the rules are written as needing to restock those items after use.

To give you an example of the explosive tags not dealing huge damage, but still dealing damage, While Sarutobi was being made to fight the reanimated hokages, he slapped a note directly on the leg of the first, and only blew his leg off.

I believe he is talking about Kunai/Shuriken etc etc Coal, not exploding tags lol

Kouzai wrote:

I believe he is talking about Kunai/Shuriken etc etc Coal, not exploding tags lol

I also addressed exploding tags in my last post. Coal is on track.

Coal wrote:

I agree with you, however there are problems with making them reusable as well.  It really wouldn't cost much for someone to buy 100 explosive tags, and then they will have 100 explosive tags in every topic they like.  Sadly, balance has to lean away from abuse some times, and make things more difficult.  There is a happy medium, and it will be found in time, but for now the rules are written as needing to restock those items after use.

To give you an example of the explosive tags not dealing huge damage, but still dealing damage, While Sarutobi was being made to fight the reanimated hokages, he slapped a note directly on the leg of the first, and only blew his leg off.  

There are a couple ways I can approach the points you've brought up and I'll touch on them all. Forgive me if it's a bit winded. I went back and put little headlines on each chunk of text so the core points aren't lost in the jumble.

~Are Large Numbers Of Explosive Tags Abusive/Unbalaced?~
First off lets talk about the 100 explosive tags from a general standpoint of whether or not that is fair and allowed within the forum standards. Is a character possessing this many explosive tags a problem? If so, then we have to ban Konan's paper style jutsu and shikamaru's trap, both of which utilize hundreds and perhaps even thousands of explosive tags. But considering stuff like truth seeker orbs and mangekyo sharingan are allowed here, I don't see that happening. Simply having tons of explosive tags does not give you a free pass to blow people's limbs off. Actually slipping a tag on them without their knowledge and making the sign to activate them would be a difficult enough task on its own. Remember that the First and Second hokage were under heavy control during their reanimated fight against Sarutobi. This means that their resourcefulness and decision making was crippled, almost all actions taken being according to Orochimaru's design. That little gambit only worked because Sarutobi was able to place the tags in such a way that Orochimaru didn't see it happen. This all being said, I don't really see how letting someone have 100 explosive tags to use in every thread is a particularly large balance issue. Especially in comparison to the other things allowed on the site.

~Steps To Ensure A Reasonable/Limited Number Of Explosive Tags~
Next I'd like to ask we take a step back and look at "kit/gear/loadout" portion of my suggestion. Under that system, the total number of explosive tags you could carry at once would naturally be limited by your kit size. If you wanted 100 explosive tags that would mean not having any other basic tools or using up scrolls to carry them all. Not having any other tools is a decent trade off and requiring the use of scrolls is a hassle mid-combat since you need to unfurl and unseal the scroll to access its contents.

~How To Nerf Tag Damage Without Making Them Useless~
In addition to all this, our two examples both show explosive tags going off just about point blank range, but with drastically different damage results. This inconsistency in the anime is a fairly decent green light for us to look at the damage of explosive tags somewhat subjectively. If the suggestion I made in my previous post is adopted, having 100 explosive tags is made even less of a potent threat since you'd need to use almost a quarter of those in order to blow off a limb.

Duquin wrote:

That being said, I'd list the damage of just one[Explosive Tag] as minor burns, moderate burns for 5, serious burns for 10, broken bones and severe burns for 15, dismemberment and potential lethality at 20 or more. This is just a rough scale, but I think it'd be pretty fair.

This way we can keep individual tags from being too powerful. At the same time, we can rationalize the use of a "single" tag blowing off someone's limb IC(since placing 20 individual tags one at a time is insane) as being a "stack" of 20 tags all pressed together to seem like only one. This way, we limit the sheer number of tags from being as powerful and at the same time, can still utilize tags with relative ease so they don't become functionally worthless due to how weak a single tag becomes.

~Let's Not Fear Abuse And Instead Aim For Productive Streamlined Balance~
The last thing I'll touch on is reaching a happy medium of balance and curbing abuse. I can agree with that mindset whole-heartedly. As an alumni of Tribeca Flashpoint Academy's game design department and a former admin/mod on countless forums, it's somewhat been my life's passion to breakdown and balance things from a design perspective. But part of that design philosophy includes streamlining player experiences and ensuring their time feels well spent. Imagine telling a player whose build is purely based on the use of explosive tags that they must spend half their time grinding ryo in order to earn enough tags just to use one or two of their higher ranked tag-heavy jutsu. Then they must hit the grind all over again afterwards if they want to use it again. I am fully aware that this is a highly specific scenario, perhaps even an unlikely one. But it serves to point out a small kink in the current system that can potentially bog down a build making it unviable. I'll say this again at risk of sounding like a broken record, but I've seen some of the most over powered unbalanced things to come out of naruto canon up on the limited list. So I ask that you ask yourself, "how can we change the current rules to make this better without giving up on balance?" and at the same time keep in mind what's on the other end of the scales that explosive tags are being balanced against.