Ikiryo 'Haunting Grounds' Techniques Vol 1

[Princess]

I'm sorry for this. I am just...so sorry...please forgive me for what I am about to do....
 

Name: Haunting Grounds

Type: Genjutsu [Hijutsu; Ikiryo | Terrain].

Rank: Sennin [Forbidden; Unacceptable].

Cost: 400 Ghost Health. 

Upkeep: 100 Ghost Health. 

Effects: This technique may only be performed one per battle, while the user has at least one ally on the field and the Reiniku or Reijitsugen advanced systems are active. 

While this technique is active, terrain is changed to Inter-dimensional Interference and the user is immune to physical attacks and abilities. Abilities affecting them prior to the use of this technique continue to affect them. The user may only perform actions that require both Ghost Health as a cost and require this technique be active. Abilities performed by the user or an ally that provide benefits to them if the user is not targeted by a physical attack have no effect. 

This technique ends if the terrain is changed or the user has no allies on the field. The user may not deactivate this technique or their advanced system, and may not create secondary characters. The user and their allies may not dismiss the user’s secondary characters or change the terrain.

Description: The unique makeup of the Ikiryo allows them to shift their body between the world of the living and the spirit world that echoes it, and in this lies the unique duality they possess. Working to in some ways alter this balance, one of the first extensions of this connection is the ways in which the Ikiryo can connect their spirits to the physical properties of things around them, starting with their surroundings before moving on to more complex targets. Many historical instances of poltergeists and similarly haunted locations were really the secret machinations of the Ikiryo spiritualists in their heyday.

Requirements: Reikai no Hansha Bloodline.

Points: 28

Name: Geisthaunt
Type: Genjutsu [Hijutsu; Ikiryo]
Rank: Sennin
Cost: 100 Ghost Health
Damage: 300 Ghost Damage
Effects: This technique can only be used during ‘Haunting Grounds’.
Description: From their secure position merged into the earth, the Ikiryo can send thin tendrils of spectral energy into the air to rend at their spirit unseen in the chaos of a possessed environment. 
Requirements: Reikai no Hansha Bloodline
Points: 5

 

Name: Lurking Phanstasm
Type: Genjutsu [Hijutsu; Ikiryo]
Rank: Sennin
Cost: 60 Ghost Health
Effects: This technique can only be used during “Haunting Grounds”. Choose one ally and one opponent. That opponent becomes Afraid; 3 [2] of the ally you chose.
Description: From their hidden location in the environment, an Ikiryo has no trouble casting out phantasmal tendrils and causing chaos in the land above them. With a focused effort, the errant spiritual energy can be condensed to form a frightening spectral shroud over an ally, terrifying their foes into submission.
Requirements: Reikai no Hansha Bloodline
Points: 2
 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Princess

[Princess]

Just a quick note: Made an edit to reflect the name change while I remembered it. Woo.

[Toroi21]

Maybe I'm just being stupid, but damage reduction rules (3.14) states attacks can't be lowered past 10% of their total? From what I see (what's stated), Haunting Grounds is giving complete immunity from physical attacks which means most targeted characters will deal 0% if their primary attacks, and 0 is less than 10%..... Considering most characters are ninjutsu/taijutsu oriented, this will be kinda devastating to not be able to use most moves against a character with this technique for up to 6 turns (Path of the Mentalist). This, sorta looks broken to me. (Sorry if I stole Staff's thunder... I thought it needed to be said.)

 

 

Perhaps, when it comes to dealing with physical techniques... haunting grounds can lower their effectiveness to 10% of their base instead? It gives the same flavor without it being as broken in my opinion. But that's just me. 

 

 

Edit: Even if we're to bring up that he/she is being removed from the field.... one should also note that if a character is being removed from the field, said character shouldn't be allowed to attack, as they are no longer on the field.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Toroi21

[Princess]

Okay, so it's not damage reduction. Damage reduction is a mechanic, don't need to bring it into this. 

 

Edited to fix the wording a bit, but if you think it's X turns where you can't do anything, you're not reading it mate. So recall that it requires a specific terrain in place. So you change the terrain it ends. There's something you can do.

 

It requires characters other than the user on the field. So if I'm dropping summons or clones, you hit them, if they die the technique ends.

 

It does not shield you from AoE attacks, as they do not specifically target the character. So you can still be hit (at which point standard Ikiryo damage reduction applies).

 

What it does it it forces your opponent to play differently for a short period, while constantly dealing damage to the user so that it isn't a net gain in tempo. Think of it like a barrier that uses other characters as the health value.

[Yurane]

@Haunting Grounds: Eh, sure, I *guess* you could say you're paying for the terrain here with ghost health, but you still gotta pay up front for the other effects, and 100 Ghost Health or 200 chakra does not justify "You can't target me with physical attacks neener neener". It's way outside of the scope of a Chuunin technique too. I'd honestly say this wouldn't work for anything short of Sennin, maybe Jonin in a more limited scope.

[Princess]

Okay, sennin rank is fine.

 

Cost is now 400 up front, which is 800 chakra equivalant, you still lose 100 health a turn for as long as it lasts, so its very expensive but I hope that covers the costs. 

Also upgraded the other two techniques to be sennin rank, one does 300 damage now (200 cost, /2 for ghost health, 100 cost) and the other is functionally the same, it's just sennin rank.

[almondsAndRain]

On one hand, I certainly feel like my brain is working again. On the other hand, I am reviewing a technique that makes you immune to physical attacks, so that is obviously not the case xD

 

Like I said over Discord, full immunity to physical attacks is a hard sell. I’ve mulled this over and thought of some changes that I’d like to see, and I’m going to list them down below along with some questions. This… may end up a multi-step process for us to get through everything and see this app’d, so thanks for your patience in advance. And thanks for adding the one use per battle limitation as well as the inability to create more secondary characters, by the way, those were definitely the largest concerns, excepting the last one I list below. 

 

My thoughts, in order from least to most important: 

1. I could have sworn that you had some item that made it harder to change terrains or maybe climates, but I cannot find it. Was that for this character? I would have sworn it was for Otome, but I can’t find it at all, so who knows. Could you please link me it to cross-reference, if it affects terrains and would apply here? 
    
2. Quick clarification, please: Is it intentional that you cannot turn this off yourself without dismissing your secondaries or changing the terrain? I ask because you’re positively burning through Ghost Health while doing this. 
    
3. Another clarification: is it intentional that the user cannot Dodge while this is active? Dodging is an action, and "The user of this technique cannot… …perform any actions other than those that explicitly allow themselves to be used." I won't complain if you intended to be subject to what is basically Opening against any surprise Genjutsu tossed your way, but I want to be sure so we don't fuck you over mid-battle. As I said above, you are burning up your one usable tank stat while this is active, and needing to RPJ by surprise could very will leave you in a losing position. 
    
4. Final clarification: this specifies that it requires the AS to be active to perform, but does not say that it requires the AS to remain active while this technique is active. Is that intentional? As this renders most of the bloodline and AS irrelevant, I’m against it being able to run without the AS active, to be clear. 
    
5. I’m assuming that you want this for the extended duration and perhaps stat concerns, and I don’t particularly care to push too hard against it, but this is really more of a Ninjutsu fluff-wise than a Genjutsu. You’re becoming intangible because your body is shifting between the world of the living and the world of the dead, or something of that nature. 
    
6. Taunted is really strong with this. Your opponents can’t target you, so you always get the bonus against them, which is a mostly-free 200 Accuracy / Concentration. I’m not saying that this needs to be removed, but I am saying it concerns me a little. If you want to assuage my fears here, feel free. If you want to get rid of the loophole, we should try to close it off in a way that also closes off other abilities that give a bonus if the user is not targeted. 
    
7. 400 Ghost Health is equal to 800 CP. An extra 100 Ghost Health per turn for five turns means we’re looking at an extra 1000 CP. This is well into the Forbidden range. Both Unacceptable (you’re shoving your body halfway between the world of the living and the world of the dead) and Powerful (you’re invulnerable, but this technique is also actively killing you) can be argued to fit here, so I don’t particularly care which you choose. And I get that the Ghost Health loss is technically not upkeep and so technically would not count against CP, but it’s used in all the same ways, except you pay at the end of your turn instead of your Setup Phase and you’re immune to effects that explicitly meddle with it (Sickened). 
    
8. For every 5 Ghost Damage you deal, your Bloodline heals you for 1 Ghost Health. The technique below, Geisthaunt, is returning about the cost of the upkeep - or, alternatively, it is covering almost all of its own cost, which is still not great. 300 Ghost Damage + 100 or so from Genjutsu (1000 Gen, enough to pay for all non-forbidden techs and some decent forbidden ones) + 40 from a Genjustu Amp is 440 damage, or 88 Ghost Health. Can we have this turned off while the tech is active? I’m open to alternatives here, but your attack is practically free due to your regen.

 

Mechanically, the other two techniques check out.

Lurking Phantasm does raise a question, however: do characters count as their own allies in Ninja Academy? I would have leaned towards “no,” myself, however you also have a line in Haunted Ground saying “This technique may not be used if the user is the only allied character on the field,” and I’ve read similar effects before. 

I ask because if the user does count as their own ally, then techniques that grant buffs to an ally are worth significantly more than techniques that only grant buffs to their user, by virtue of being able to affect either party. That may be worth an adminchat discussion, if so. 

Edited January 27, 2023 by almondsAndRain

[Princess]

So, responses in order!

1) I do have an item like that and it is for Otome, don't think it ever got close to approval, but here it is. It's designed to try make the bonuses from scout easier to lock in. Absolutely no intended crossover with this technique or the Ikiryo in general.

 

2) Yes it is intentional you cannot turn it off. I hadn't thought about dismissing your secondaries. The intended pay off for the can't be touched effect is you absolutely burn through your health, and while the Ikiryo do have ghost health absorption, it is not going to keep up with this.

3) Yes, that is the intention. You're essentially merged with the ground around you. So if they have a technique that can hit you, you do not make a dodge roll. Which is punishing given the Ikiryo are a block range bloodline. So you don't take crits, but you also can't block. It was intentional this would be selectively useful, I still haven't quite worked out the build to capitalise on it. I think hit 120, spend CXP to hit 10k health and 10k gen is about the point this hits viable value. Classic princess.

4) That's just me not filling it in. Ikiryo are only ephemeral while the AS is active, 100% the intention is the AS must be active while using it. Yes it undermines much of the bloodline, the goal is to give you some turns where you're not getting slapped with status effects, and can moderate the damage you take a little more carefully if they have the raw stats to blow through your defence. It won't be worth it in every battle, but that's the fun with it.

5) The Ikiryo treat genjutsu as like, interactions with the soul, considering it mostly as pure Yin release, manifesting spirits out of nothing and stepping into their world. That's just the clan's approach to how it work, so made it genjutsu like all their spirit mucking stuff.

6) I am fine to close off taunted and anything else you see.

7) Forbidden: Unacceptable  is fine by me for LORE reason. And yeah the cost makes sense hahaha.

8) My counter is that you're also paying 5% of your ghost health to keep the bloodline active. So if you are hitting with massive attacks, you can circumvent the cost of the upkeep, much in the same way people can cap up cost reduction (which cannot be done with health costs) and then just passively regen the cost of the technique. You're still losing health in the hundreds every turn even if you hit, even more if you miss. I don't think turning off the absorption is necessary. 

5% total ghost health every turn it's active.
400 up front
100 each turn.
100 for geisthaunt

So if you say have 2000 health, 1000 gen and the amp as you posited.

Turn you use this, you lose 500 ghost health and don't deal damage for a turn, so that 500 is straight lost.
On subsequent turns, you're losing 200 to upkeep, an additional 100 to use geisthaunt, and if you hit you heal 88. So you are, after the first turn of this active, at -722. I don't think the 88 healed is really breaking it that much. Not to mention when it ends, you'll want your increased block range back, which costs 150 ghost health. Pretty much the only way to get solid healing back is to get your two crit chance turns to land. Which will be rough.

There's no way to break even on this even with the drain. The idea is all techniques used in it require ghost health, but I'll make that explicit. 


Final Mechanical Note: 
I had considered it this way:

In battle there are X teams, teams consist of Y allied characters.
Characters on a team treat all other characters on that team as an ally. 

So when I use the term allied characters, I mean all characters on a team.
When I use the term ally, I mean an allied character other than the user.

Hopefully that makes sense. 

Changes I said would be made here are made.

[almondsAndRain]

1: Ah, thank you for the link. Silly me, I thought something posted… six years ago… would have been approved by now, and so I searched in the wrong spots. Should've known better, items always sit, Princess stuff always sits, so Princess items will sit until after the sun devours the earth. Think we discussed something like this about your poisons earlier.

Anyway, do you still want that reviewed and or app'd?

 

2-4: Thanks for clearing things up!

 

5: Yeah, I can accept this. Can't promise everyone will be cool with it, but I won't stand in the way either.

 

6-7: This works for me! 

 

8: Hmm. I spent the last couple days mulling this over. You are spending a ton of resources, it's true, but you should spend a ton for what you're getting. Full on immunity to physical attacks is a big deal and (mostly) free attacks are a big deal. 

 

But! You are, admittedly, not getting that on every attack. There is always a chance of missing (... though Genjutsu, so not that likely, no one defends against us). You're going to want to use statuses still, and those do not get refunded - though some like Stunned and Quarantine go a long way to making sure your opponent cannot end this effect. And as the damage increases, you're spending more Ghost Health to receive the same back proportionally, but the gap between the amount you heal and the amount you spend is still increasing in terms of actual numbers.

 

So… I’m up for giving this a shot. That said, I have a request and would like to clean the technique up some.

 

Request:

Please add something preventing the terrain from being changed by an ally, or at least your secondary characters. Reason being, it would only cost 40 CP for a clone to end your tech and save your life. It doesn't even use its offensive action to do it, so one of a million dinky 10% clones could do this. I didn’t add it to the below cleanup because we hadn’t discussed that possibility yet and want to see what you think. 

 

Clean up:

The changes I’ve requested have left it disorganized. The rules on the terrain and secondary characters are scattered throughout the top and bottom of the tech, the conditions of when this ends are interrupted by another line, etc. I put something together real fast to help out, but feel free to make changes to it as you see fit, it’s your baby. 

 

I’ve tried organizing the technique in the following order: “activation rules and conditions” -> “invulnerability rules and limitations” -> “deactivation conditions” 

 

Name: Haunting Grounds

Type: Ninjutsu [Hijutsu; Ikiryo | Terrain].

Rank: Sennin [Forbidden; Unacceptable].

Cost: 400 Ghost Health. 

Upkeep: 100 Ghost Health. 

Effects: This technique may only be performed one per battle, while the user has at least one ally on the field and the Reiniku or Reijitsugen advanced systems are active. 

While this technique is active, terrain is changed to Inter-dimensional Interference and the user is immune to physical attacks and abilities. Abilities affecting them prior to the use of this technique continue to affect them. The user may only perform actions that require both Ghost Health as a cost and require this technique be active. Abilities performed by the user or an ally that provide benefits to them if the user is not targeted by a physical attack have no effect. 

This technique ends if the terrain is changed or the user has no allies on the field. The user may not deactivate this technique or their advanced system, and may not create secondary characters. The user and their allies may not dismiss the user’s secondary characters or change the terrain.

Description: The unique makeup of the Ikiryo allows them to shift their body between the world of the living and the spirit world that echoes it, and in this lies the unique duality they possess. Working to in some ways alter this balance, one of the first extensions of this connection is the ways in which the Ikiryo can connect their spirits to the physical properties of things around them, starting with their surroundings before moving on to more complex targets. Many historical instances of poltergeists and similarly haunted locations were really the secret machinations of the Ikiryo spiritualists in their heyday.

Requirements: Reikai no Hansha Bloodline.

Points: 28.

 

Only mechanical changes:

1. Kicked the JP up from 12 because it's a Forbidden. The cost + upkeep comes out to 1800, which is… 28. Certainly a lot, but so is invulnerability.
2. The upkeep is now upkeep for realsies.
3. Secondary characters can no longer dismiss themselves. Clones cannot as written, but summons can.
4. The user cannot deactivate the AS, but others theoretically can. Future proofing for the Suppression Seal trauma skill, someone is going to make a skill-locked or Forbidden that inflicts that eventually.
5. The Taunted effect is now covered by "Abilities performed by the user or an ally that provide benefits to them if the user is not targeted by a physical attack have no effect. " This is so things like Wild Beast Style or similar are also affected, without needing to list every single exception. This… may need some work to get perfect as its a bit clunky to cover its wide reaching effects.

[Princess]

Sounds good to me!

[almondsAndRain]

Approved? Approved. 

[Princess]

Edit to return it to genjutsu, was a hiccup making it nin gen was always the intention

[almondsAndRain]

Re-approved.