Welcome to Gaia! ::

If combat is what everyone is certainly looking forward to in a guild like ours, understanding how to come about it is just as important as knowing how to actually fight. While every zone will have their own unique effects on movement, the same principles will apply everywhere you go, which will be detailed in this thread.

Of course, what is detailed here is BASIC navigation. Certain characters may have skills and abilities that influence these base values. It is therefore important you pay attention to specific character skills, abilities, and jutsus that may influence movement in their respective threads.

Depending on your desire for your character to be jumped by bandits or not in certain situations, you may wish for your character to use their stealth to avoid getting spotted. Using such a tactic obviously reduces your traveling speed, but also greatly reduces the odds that you will be spotted and attacked. In our system, this translated into a number of mechanics:


1. Reduced movement speed

When sneaking, a character can still perform all movement types but cuts the number of paces traveled per turn by half.


2. Reduced risk of encounters

If moving stealthily in an encounter area, add an additional encounter slot to the regular zone encounter list of "Nothing" of varying value depending on movement type:

- If walking, the value is equal to twice the character's Stealth skill.
- If running, the value is equal to half the character's stealth skill.


3. Sneaking up on a target

If your character/group is sneaking, any encounter will begin with a Stealth check check against the enemies' Perceptionbefore the fight starts. The DC for the Stealth check will vary according to the character's movement type and Stealth skill.

- If walking: Stealth DC: 5 + highest level enemy [level + Wis Mod + 1 per 5 in Perception]
- If running: Stealth DC: 10 + highest level enemy [level + Wis Mod + 1 per 5 in Perception]

If the difficulty check varies according to your character's movement type, the Steath check always uses the same formula:

Stealth check: d20 + level + Dex Mod + 1 per 5 in Stealth

If the entire team passes their Stealth check, they will gain tactical advantage, granting them a list of possible benefits listed below.


4. Using tactical advantage

If your character was sneaking and their encounter failed to meet their Stealth DC, they may choose to do any of the following:

If the fight is starting:

- Character can prepare all activation jutsus (that can be activated silently) without having to spend Action Points (for example: opening taijutsu gates, summoning creatures, etc.).
- Character can decide to sneak away without facing the encounter.
- First attack is considered a sneak attack.

If characters are joining an active battle (more on this below):

- First attack is a sneak attack.

As you can probably notice, in our system as in real combat, the advantage of sneaking up on a target cannot be understated. Therefore, as should be the case for all ninjas, stealth will most likely be the cornerstone of any character's training.

If the way of the ninja is often a solitary one, some missions may require coordination with a group, or escorting of certain clients. When this happens, members of the group cannot go and run completely different movement types and speeds, they have to stick together.


1. Number of encounter/movement rolls

When traveling as a group, only one member rolls an encounter roll for the whole squad. While this "privilege" often falls to the group leader, any of the members may do it if the leader takes to much time. Gotta keep things "rolling"!


2. Squad travel speed

Traveling as a group requires more coordination for people to stay together. If all members go and roll different movement rolls and speeds, the group will splinter (more on that later).

As such, to stay together, the group travels as fast as its slowest member.

Example:

A group of three shinobis are running through the woods. The leader has an Athletics skill of 40, the second member an Athletics skill of 30, and the last one an Athletics skill of 10.

When traveling as a pack, they will cover 200 paces + [2 x Athletics [10] ] = 220 paces per turn.


3. Squad tracking

When tracking a target as a group, use the "Survival" skill of the best tracker in the group.


4. Stealth as a unit

This can be frustrating, but it is hard to be stealthy when you have a 300 pound behemoth in your group walking on every dead branch littered along the ground.

As such, the stealth value used for your group, both for encounter rolls and initial Stealth checks, is that of your least stealthy member.


5. Group splintering

If groups tend to stay together, there are various reasons for which they may decide to "split up". May it be to send someone "scouting ahead", to stay behind with an injured client or simply to get somewhere faster, a group can temporarily splinter in sub groups.

When this happens, all sub groups start rolling separate travel turns.

In the situation where a group ahead (or behind) may have ran into an encounter while other groups have not made their way there yet, the encounter will begin with the present characters.

Others can attempt to reach the spot of the fight to help their friends out; but they will first have to travel the necessary distance to catch up.

As such, they have to calculate how many travel turns it will take them to get there. If they are at a distance of two travel turns from their teammates, they will have to roll two encounter rolls before they get to the active fight. Once they join up, they will have to wait out for the fight to have completed as many combat turns as it took them travel turns to get there before they can get involved.

Of course, it is also possible that they may face encounters of their own when trying to get there, making it unlikely they will reach it in time.

Example:

A group is making the trip from Konoha to Kokoyashi which is 1000 paces. They split up into two groups.

The leading group is running ahead at a pace of 200 paces per travel turn. The back group is walking with a high value client at a slower pace of 100 paces per travel turn.

After 4 travel turns:

The leading group has traveled 800 paces (4 x 200).
The tail group has traveled 400 paces (4 x 100).
They are therefore separated by 400 paces (800 paces - 400 paces = 400 paces).

On this third encounter roll, the leading group is attacked by a pack of wolves. The back group hears the commotion, and sends two members to help out.

The tail group being 400 paces behind the leading group, they first have to travel the distance to get to their friends. If they run at a pace of 190 paces per turn, it will take them a little more than two full travel turns to get to the head group.

Travel/Combat turn 1

While the head group begins their battle and go through their first turn, the splinter group go through their first travel turn, including an encounter roll. If they are not attacked by any creatures or bandits on this travel turn, they have traveled 190 paces, and are therefore 210 paces from the head group (400 - 190 = 210).

Since 210 paces is more than their running speed of 190 paces, they will have to go through a second travel turn before they get to their friends.

Travel/Combat turn 2

While the head group go through their second combat turn, the splinter group go through their second travel turn, including an encounter roll. If they are again not attacked by any creatures or bandits, they have traveled an additional 190 paces and are therefore 20 paces from the head group (210 - 190 = 20).

Since 20 paces is less than their running speed of 190 paces, it is during their third turn that they will reach the head group,

Travel/Combat turn 3

Since they reach their destination during this third travel turn, they do not roll an encounter roll for this travel turn. They can join the fight immediately.

However, since they spent 2 full travel turns to get to the destination, at least 2 full combat turn must have ended in the active fight before the splinter group can join the battle. The reason we say "at least" is that the active combat does not have to wait for the splinter groups to arrive to keep going. If the fight had time to go through 5 combat turns in the real life time it took for the splinter group to roll their two travel turns, the splinter group will join the fight at the point where it is when they get there. The active fight fight can, however, choose to wait for the plinter group if they want.