Mastery of Nature's Duality

[PandaMattMatt]

Mastery of Nature's Duality; Benevolence

Effect: "Induced Regeneration" applied through the "Combinatorial; Plant" skill is increased by 15x. X is equal to this character's ninja rank as follows; Gennin: 1, Chuunin: 2, Jounin: 3 and Sennin: 4. If a technique would have multiple strikes that activates "Combinatorial; Plant", this bonus is split evenly between all strikes.

Description: Those who have mastered the Plant element know of it's ability to poison foes or even heal allies. However, the Hanamajo inherently command the element to such a degree, that nature itself lends aid to these shinobi and increases the potency of their techniques.

Requirements: Hanamajo Clan Membership, May not be Taught

Cost: -2 sp

Mastery of Nature's Duality; Malevolence

Effect: "Poison" applied through the "Combinatorial; Plant" skill is increased by 15x. X is equal to this character's ninja rank as follows; Gennin: 1, Chuunin: 2, Jounin: 3 and Sennin: 4. If a technique would have multiple strikes that activates "Combinatorial; Plant", this bonus is split evenly between all strikes.

Description: Those who have mastered the Plant element know of it's ability to poison foes or even heal allies. However, the Hanamajo inherently command the element to such a degree, that nature itself lends aid to these shinobi and increases the potency of their techniques.

Requirements: Hanamajo Clan Membership, May not be Taught

Cost: -2 sp

Edited December 28, 2016 by PandaMattMatt

[PandaMattMatt]

Notes:

-I used the formatting for the terrain I posted, which was originally stolen from Skittz. Sooo... I stole Skittz's formatting again. Skittz, if this is getting annoying, let me know and I'll stop!

- So, this is my attempt to set the Hanamajo apart from other would be plant users. So, Plant+?

- Worst case, this skill grants an additional 120 Poison or Induced Regen. Assuming a level 120 sennin.

Changed to only deal a maximum of 60 damage at Sennin.

-Does not allow a non-medic to apply induced regen, the "Combinatorial; Plant" already restricts the Induced regen portion to medical techs only. This just makes it better.

- the reason I designed this to be based off of the Combi: Plant skill is so that the ways to abuse it is more limited. This just makes the effects of plant more effective. However, if Combi: plant isn't valid, neither is this skill.

-Not teachable, mostly for my IC logic of being born and raised by this. You can't marry into the Hanamajo and suddenly be as good as them when it comes to plants.

-Cumulative is in there because technically, Combi-Plant can inflict both Poison and Induced regen with an offensive medical tech that deals damage and heals. So, this way the skill can't be "double" the value. It's a max of +120 split between Poison AND Induced regen, if that situation were to arise. This has instead just been plainly written out to avoid any confusion.

Link to Combinatorial; Plant

Edited December 27, 2016 by PandaMattMatt

[cntrstrk14]

You need to define what you mean by cumulative. Does that mean it deals an additional xy damage per turn it is applied in a row? does it deal an additional amount of damage every time they take the damage in a battle? In a lifetime? Cumulative of what? 

[PandaMattMatt]

Ok. Simplified the bonus to be just 30x, which comes to the same end bonus amount. The issue with Cumulative in there wasn't the issue so much as me trying to avoid a double dipping scenario. As such, I've removed cumulative, and clarified how this skill operates in a scenario that could lead to double dipping.

Edit: as I was writing this, I realized that Combinatorial Plant triggers on each strike, However, that would immediately break this skill. To avoid that, I have added the stipulation of dividing the bonus among all strikes, keeping this within an acceptable range.

Edited December 23, 2016 by PandaMattMatt

[PandaMattMatt]

So, I was looking at this and trying to think like some reviewers, and I started seeing that this may get compared to Ninjutsu Mastery for sp to damage bonus, and by that measure, this would have to cost 6 sp for the bonus damage to deal +120 at Sennin.

Rather than scaling up the sp, I pulled back the damage bonus. I started with 10x, which was point for point what Ninjutsu Mastery would have dealt. However, I bumped it a further 5 points per rank of bonus damage because of it being tied to the Plant Element, rather than any plant technique.

In this way, a [sand | Plant] technique would not benefit from this skill as Sand's bonus is applied instead. Granted, most of Junsei's techs are pure plant and this isn't a difficult barrier or hindrance for Junsei, I admit, but it would force any other Characters to pick carefully what techniques they learn.

Edited December 27, 2016 by PandaMattMatt

[Hardcore Skittlez]

As I'm looking at you re-carving out a niche for the Hanamajo, I'm continually struck with one big thought: Why isn't this a bloodline? You went from having a unique "seed" buffing mechanic to various ways to just make your plant ninjutsu 'better', but it all feels like a patchwork bloodline. You'd be able to swing a bit more leeway on some skills with it- and then it'd be easier to look at these without going, "... well, what happens if he makes a Plant Release bloodline later down the road that just compounds with these effects?" I understand that there's a desire to stay away from "bloodline" territory because the Hanamajo are just "good at using plant techniques", but you might also consider that Plant Release would technically be a bloodline by canonical definition anyways. I just think that you'd find a much easier time making something expansive and worthwhile that lets you make "Plant" techniques your core feature without constantly having to deal with the stigma of "... well, let's think about how this would compound with a bloodline later!" But on the flip side, the Lee clan literally has a bloodline that isn't a bloodline that was approved by both admins, so... maybe I'm just tooting smoke.

 

Regarding the skill itself: You're right to think about this in comparison to Ninjutsu Mastery, but you should also consider that this is actually much better than Ninjutsu Mastery. Not only are you significantly cheaper right now, but the damage you're adding is unmodified -and- it can affect your medical techniques. Comparing it still point for point, it'll come down to 6 SP- 3 SP for the Poison aspect and 3 SP for the induced regen one. I think you might be better off splitting this into ranks and letting each user decide how many SP they want to dump into it. Alternatively, you could simply look at a skill that turns your Ninjutsu Mastery bonus modifier into Poison or Induced Regen- that way we don't have to worry about stacking the two?

[PandaMattMatt]

Ok, I've edited this to be a percentage so that it is no longer able to be compared to Ninjutsu Mastery. I have taken your suggestion and made it so that it is 2 skills so that character may choose their investment. That way a non-medic isn't paying extra for a bonus they can't get.

[Cellar Door]

These are too good. As a genin, I could sweep the chunin exams by getting 100+ free, unmodified poison damage per attack. As a chunin that could easily rise up to 200+, Jonin would probably get around 300+, and Sennin could have as much as 500+ unmodified damage.

Imagine if Raz was plant-spec'd. He regenerates 300 Chakra a turn, so he could do a Sennin level technique that deals 500 pure damage, and with his various mods it would be 1325. So, he could with negative chakra impact deal 1722 damage a turn with that extra poison boost every single turn. That is immensely oppressive, even for Defense builds.

Same goes for the medic side, except its even a little better once you have the Physician and Expert Medical Knowledge skills to give all your heals +50% to the base. A similarly spec'd medic could sustainably heal like 1650 per turn, and get 500 HP worth of Induced Regen for free. (Path of the A. Medic makes that even more impressive by also putting a 412 HP barrier on them.)

Man... medics are really strong even without this. 

Edited December 27, 2016 by Cellar Door

[PandaMattMatt]

I'm so glad you feel this way! Because these are almost verbatim Art of Breathing Dragon's Flame. So, if that can be approved, in conjunction with a bloodline, I submit that these can be approved without a bloodline. If these are too powerful, then so is Art of Breathing Dragon's Flame and that needs to be pulled back and nerf'd like these.

See for yourself: http://ninja-academy-online.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=36668

Also, the way that Plant and Shield Creation are worded, your mods wouldn't do much good for an Advanced medic because it's based on the amount of health healed. So, even if a Medic Version of Raz -could- do 1650 healing, unless your patient is healed that amount, you only get 10% of the actual amount healed. So if I popped a healing nuke on Junsei, but he's only missing 100 health, shield creation and plant will only activate on the 100 health healed.

 

Junsei was nerf'd in Arrakis with this info, particularly with Shield Creation. I thought over healing would grant a bigger shield, but no. It's strictly limited to the amount healed and not total heal after mods.

 

Edited December 27, 2016 by PandaMattMatt

[Cellar Door]

The linked skill has been unapproved. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I'm also aware of how the shield worked. I was using the best possible scenario as an example. Medics are often balanced in games so that over-healing is something extremely undesirable, but since the amount that I was quoting was actually deficit neutral, overhealing for that massive amount would have like... 0 negative effect on that particular medic.

Anyway, beyond that, I think we can both agree that while the percentages look benign the numbers they can produce are pretty insane. (Were this a base damage effect, I could see it being a little less insane, but even then it is technically open-ended and that's dangerous.) 

[PandaMattMatt]

I've gone ahead and changed this back to my static numbers and original pricing. I have kept it split into 2 skills, one for Induced Regen and one for Poison.

[Cellar Door]

I'll break out the value that you're getting here real fast, just for posterity, but I think these are fine.

Benevolence -
SP Cost: -2
Value per Turn (Based on Rank): Genin; 15 CP, Chunin; 24 CP, Jonin; 28.8 CP, Sennin; 38.4 CP

Malevolence -
SP Cost: -2
Value per Turn (Based on Rank): Genin; 12 CP, Chunin; 19.2 CP, Jonin; 23.76 CP, Sennin; 31.66 CP


So looking at these, we see that their game impact is pretty low and their difference is almost negligible, so -2 for the value that you're getting seems pretty fine. They're more expensive than most Taijutsu styles, and don't have the oomph that you can get from stacking them up.

Approved.

[cntrstrk14]

We are still discussing the place of clan skills vs. bloodline vs general, but I think these are fine.