Jutsu Specialty System [Beta]

Introduction

This Specialty System is intended to outline the sorts of techniques and Ninja skills a character can learn, as well as how to learn these, and what they are.   There are three big categories, called Specialties.  The three Specialties are Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu, and all obtainable jutsu and techniques on TNW fall into one of these three categories.  Within these three categories, there are four skills, which are different applications of the same Specialty, at which a character may have varying degrees of skill.  Jutsu will typically require ranks in 1-2 of these skills in order to be performed, and they interconnect rather well in most cases.  Please pay close attention to this system and the jutsu system when making jutsu, as there is a lot of information that needs to be taken into account in the process, and everyone is happier when staff does not have to take multiple looks at the same applications.

There are also Advanced Specialties, and these are specialties that either do not fit comfortably in one of the three categories, or are so nuanced and/or require such unique skillsets that they have their own category.

Starting Ranks and Caps

There are different starting ranks for the Specialties for each starting rank of Ninja.  These ninja get a certain amount of points and are able to allocate them during the character creation process to determine their specialty rank.  The prices for each rank are as follows: E = 0, D = 1, C = 2, B = 3, A = 4, S = 5.  The points that each rank of Ninja start at are as follows: D = 0, C = 2, B = 4, A = 6, S = 8.  The rank of a specialty determines the amount of points that one can spend within it to earn ranks of skill.  The cost for ranks of skill are: E = 0, D = 1, C = 2, B = 3, A = 4, S = 5.  A person gets the following number of points for their rank in a specialty: E = 0, D = 2, C = 4, B = 6, A = 8, S = 10.  

The cap for Specialties is equal to 1 higher than the rank of ninja.  This means that a C-Rank ninja can have Specialties of up to B-Rank.  However, there is also a cap for amount of points each rank of ninja can have while ranking up: D = 3, C = 5, B = 7, A = 9, S = 12. 

Double Specializing

A person can put two ranks into a single Specialty.  This does not mean that a person simply adds the number of points from each rank added and distributes them.  The person will do this, but must still follow the rule that a skill rank cannot exceed a specialty rank.  Additionally, if the two ranks in the specialty do not match, as in, if a character has S-A in Ninjutsu, only 2 skills can reach S.  The rest, in this case, are capped at A, even though there would be enough points to get 3 skills at S within this specialty. As a final note, for specialties that do not have at least four skills, excess double spec points can be used in one of two things: the first is a supplementary skill that is part of another specialty.  The ninja may not have a lot of skill in that other specialty, but they have learned a lot about a single skill to supplement their combat style.  These typically are limited to either skills that are somehow related to your double spec, or could feasibly use similar skills.  Case-by-case, typically.  As another option, people can gain access to a jutsu that is otherwise unobtainable.  There will be a master list of these kinds of jutsu in the ban list, but will typically resemble jutsu that rival the 8 Gates in power.  These jutsu will have a rank, and the excess amount of points a person has must be equal to the rank of the jutsu: 1-5 for D-S, in that order.

Gaining Specialty and Skill Ranks

Developed more in the other sections, there are specialties and skills.  Specialties are the big three: Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu.  Skills, on the other hand, are more refined forms of those big three, and are discussed in the last section of this post.  A character can spend Training Points to gain ranks in Specialties, and by extension, skills, when they allocate the points from their new specialties.  The rules to this are simple: spending the required Training Points in a character's Updates will advance their Specialty rank, and they can then allocate the skill points.  Both of these are typically done in the same post.  The prices to advance Specialty ranks are as follows

• For D-Rank Ninja: 10 Training Points
  
• For C-Rank Ninja: 12 Training Points
  
• For B-Rank Ninja: 14 Training Points
  
• For A-Rank Ninja: 16 Training Points
  
• For S-Rank Ninja: 18 Training Points
  

It is done this way because, as a Ninja, it becomes more time intensive to learn new skills, while training to keep up on ones already learned, or to advance to more refined levels of already learned skills.  Because of this, the cost to advance Specialty ranks steadily increases. 

All those numbers in a more easily readable table:

	E-Rank	D-Rank	C-Rank	B-Rank	A-Rank	S-Rank
Price for Specialty Ranks	0	1	2	3	4	5
Price for Skill Ranks	0	1	2	3	4	5
Starting Specialty Points		0	2	4	6	8
Specialty Point Caps		3	5	7	9	12
Skill Points Per Specialty Rank	0	2	4	6	8	10

Specialties

Ninjutsu is the use of chakra to affect things outside the body.  It is by far the most versatile of the Ninja Arts, and is able to accomplish the widest variety of feats.  

• Shape Transformation: Shape Transformation is the non-elemental use of Ninjutsu that is not as refined or complex as Sealing or Medical Ninjutsu.  In its most basic form, it is the ability to control the shape of one's chakra.  However, skilled users of Shape Transformation can do many things, from pure chakra blasts, to creating clones, to transformation, to applying shape to Nature Transformation, to much, much more.
  
  
• Nature Transformation: Nature Transformation is the elemental use of Ninjutsu, by transforming chakra into Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, or Lightning, or one of the advanced elements, or manipulating pre-existing elements.  All ninja are born with an affinity for a single element, though they can learn more than this throughout their lifetime.  Alone, without the use of Shape Transformation one cannot do much more than create their elements and guide its direction or throw it (like Fire Release: Great Fire Bullet and Water Release: Gunshot).  However, far more interesting and complex things can be achieved with Shape Transformation (like Fire Release: Dragon Fire and Water Release: Water Shark Bomb).  
  
  
• Sealing: Sealing Ninjutsu are techniques that seal chakra, items, and beings inside objects with the use of symbols.  However, it is not quite this simple; one could, for example, seal medical chakra inside a person with a Sealing Technique, and when that person his hurt badly enough, that chakra could be released, healing them.  Natural Energy could be sealed inside a person, creating Orochimaru's Cursed Seals.  There are many other applications of Sealing Ninjutsu that simply require imagination to find.
  
  
• Medical: Medical Ninjutsu are quite straightforward.  Though it is very delicate, one uses Medical Ninjutsu to alter bodily processes. This most often takes the form of speeding up the healing processes, healing wounds acquired in battle.  However, it can also be used to cause a body to have an allergic reaction, to cause motor functions to decay, and many other things, with only the imagination as the limit.
  

Taijutsu is the use of chakra to perform feats with the body and with tools. It is used to enhance the body, performing feats of strength and dexterity, and make use of abilities that weapons and items have.

• Body: Body Taijutsu involves the use of chakra inside the body for hand-to-hand combat.  The use of chakra can allow for feats of physical prowess, and one should think of Hachimon and Lion's Barrage for examples of this.  This is NOT the ability to fight hand-to-hand - it is assumed that most ninja have undergone extensive training in this.  It is the ability to use Body Taijutsu techniques.
  
  
• Strength-Type Weaponry: This is the use of techniques that harness the abilities of strength-type weaponry.  Weapons that may be included in this class are greatswords, axes, and handaxes.  This is NOT the ability to WIELD these weapons, as it is assumed that most ninja have undergone training in the various weaponry.  Strikes with these weapons derive the damage that they inflict from the Strength stat.
  
  
• Agility-Type Weaponry: The use of Agility-Type Weaponry.  It works the same as Strength-Type Weaponry, but applies to weapons that require more finesse than strength, such as katanas, kunai, and bows and arrows.  Strikes with these weapons derive the damage that they inflict from the Agility stat.
  

Genjutsu is the use of a sensory trigger (such as eye contact or touch) as a means to insert one person's chakra into another person's body.  With it, one can affect the other person's brain and nervous system through the manipulation of chakra in their body.  Below are the four ways a person can be influenced, and each requires a different skill set, and are separated accordingly.

• Perceptive: This is the ability to affect a person's perceptive functions.  It may cause illusions, phantom sounds, or many other things that have to do with a person's perception of their surroundings.
  
  
• Emotional: Techniques that use this skill (obviously) affect a person's emotions.  It can be used to make an opponent fearful, but also to bolster allies.  Often-times, it is combined with perception in order to be more effective.
  
  
• Memory: Techniques that use this skill can affect a person's memory.  It can give them false memories, and it can cause them to forget memories.  This is, for the most part, generalized memory loss, and a person usually cannot tell what they are making a person forget, unless the person knows exactly what they are trying to erase.  It can be used to read memories as well, but it requires time, and more ritual-based Genjutsu.
  
  
• Brain Functions: One of the more interesting forms of Genjutsu, this type of Genjutsu can affect brain and nervous system functions, such as motor functions, over-production of adrenaline (not to toxic levels). This is purposefully left vague because it will be watched and closely monitored.
  

Advanced Specialties

Puppetry is the unique use of chakra strings to manipulate a puppet and its mechanisms in a weaponized manner.  Puppets can usually be of all shapes and sizes, with hidden mechanisms that range from weapons to poisons, to whatever else your mind may conjure.  Puppetry has its own advanced specialty because of how nuanced, powerful, and difficult it is, and because it is the application of extremely skillful use of the chakra strings technique, and knowledge of crafting and operating the weaponized puppets.

• Control: Control correlates directly to the amount of puppets, and size of puppets a puppet user can realistically manipulate at a given time.  You're probably sick of points, but the best way to track this is through a point system: at D-Rank, as user has 2 points of control, at C-Rank, a user has 4 points, and so on, until they are at S-Rank Control and have 10 points.  Small puppets take 2 points, medium puppets take 3, and large puppets take 4.
  
  
• Power: Power correlates directly to the rank of puppets a person can control.  This is simple: a puppetmaster can control puppets of up to their rank in power.
  
  
• Human Puppetry:  Human Puppetry is also just as simple a skill (with more detail on how it works in the actual puppet system).  As a skill however, its function is to determine two things:  the rank of ninja that can be revived as human puppets, and the rank of jutsu that can be performed through human puppets, bot equal to a user's rank in Human Puppetry.