Jutsu Rules

Jutsu are the main form of non-physical combat in Naruto. They expend chakra in order to perform feats normally impossible by humans. You have to pay for and train in order to learn these jutsu, as they are a finite IC resource, just like chakra.

How to register, learn and store jutsu.

If you want to acquire a technique, you have to create a topic in the Jutsu general forum. The topic name should be: Lastname, Firstname (Jutsu Registration). You should use the same topic for any number of jutsu by editing the first post to have more jutsu in it.

You can make your own jutsu, of course, or you can choose from our list of Library Jutsu, also found in the Jutsu forum. Do not take other members' custom jutsu, or make similar techniques that copy original ideas, without permission. You can and will be punished if caught doing this. You use the following template to create any jutsu you may want to have.

Jutsu Template

Name: What's the name of the technique?
Canon/Custom: Is it true to the series or custom?
Rank: What rank this jutsu is (D to SS)
Type: Offensive, Defensive, Supplementary?
Element: What element is it?
Range: What is the range of the jutsu?
Specialty: What specs does it require?
Duration: How many posts the jutsu is active
Cooldown: How many posts the jutsu is on cooldown
Description: General description. Remember to add speed, distance, and other important information about the jutsu here.

Code:

[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Canon/Custom:[/b]
[b]Rank:[/b]
[b]Type:[/b]
[b]Element:[/b]
[b]Range:[/b]
[b]Specialty:[/b]
[b]Duration:[/b]
[b]Cooldown:[/b]
[b]Description:[/b]

A staff member will review your jutsu and if it has some flaws (s)he shall tell you what to edit and/or add. If it's passable by the Jutsu Guidelines (seen below) and the mod's personal judgement, he/she'll approve the jutsu and clear you for training. You may then train your jutsu in a topic of your choice and when you're finished you post the URL of your training topic in your Jutsu Registration topic. DO NOT FORGET TO ADD IN THE WORDCOUNT BENEATH YOUR TRAINING TOPIC/POST. The staff member shall check if the training topic has sufficient wordcounts, and if so, (s)he shall give you a training approval. You can then ask in the Administrative Requests to have Ryo deducted for your jutsu, at which point you may add it to your Jutsu List, explained below.

Besides having a topic in the Jutsu general forum, you'll also need a "Lastname, Firstname (Jutsu List)" topic in the Jutsu List forum, in your appropriate subforum, categorized by village/affiliation. In this forum you must store all your approved jutsu; this means that the only jutsu that should be in it are those that are completely free (such as clan and academy techniques) or those jutsu that have gone through the approval process. The jutsu contained in the Jutsu List are the only techniques that you are allowed to use. You cannot store any techniques in your Jutsu List that are not either a clan jutsu, an Academy technique, or a jutsu you have had approved and trained/paid for.

So how many words  and how much ryo, do you need for one jutsu?

E rank: 50 Ryo + 500 words
D rank: 80 Ryo + 750 words
C rank: 150 Ryo + 1000 words
B rank: 200 Ryo + 1500 words
A rank: 250 Ryo + 2000 words
S rank: 500 Ryo + 2500 words
SS rank: 2500 Ryo + 9000 words


If you're getting trained by a sensei, while the amount of words is still the same, the jutsu is free of Ryo costs. However, you still need to apply for the jutsu in your Jutsu Registration and have it approved for training beforehand; the training of the jutsu must also must be approved like usual.


As a Genin, you're getting a little gift once your character is approved: 5 free jutsu. You can apply for them just as if you were going to train and pay for them yourself; however, once they are approved, you may add them straight to your jutsu list, no training or Ryo required. You get 4 D-rank jutsu and 1 C-rank; a jutsu can be traded in for 2 jutsu of 1 rank lower, or vice-versa, so for example you can have 6 D-ranks if you wish. However, none of your jutsu can scale (as seen in a section below); the only exception is if you use your free D-rank jutsu and your free C-rank jutsu on the same jutsu to make it "D-C" rank.



Here are some general boundaries for jutsu parameters, and general boundaries for each rank. Just remember that even with this as a guideline for you guys as members to create jutsu....Many things, especially jutsu, go by a case-by-case basis, and in many cases staff will make calls based on their objective opinion of the jutsu and how the technique works; so remember, this is a guideline, not set-in-stone rules. That being said, please make whatever your heart desires and staff will to the best of our ability help you to attain what you want legally (unless what you want is completely disallowed, and then...)

If you think a staff member has wrongly modded your jutsu, first explain why you think your technique is fine, then, if they stand by their ruling, go to a higher-rank moderator.




Stat/Other Modifier Jutsu

Certain jutsu can bestow or inflict a powerful statistic buff or debuff which increases or decreases a stat by a certain amount.

These jutsu, in no small sense, directly increase or decrease the power of a ninja. These increases/ decreases vary upon the rank of the jutsu.

C-Rank: +1 tier (with Drawback)
B-Rank: +1 tier (no Drawback)
A-Rank: +2 tier(with Drawback)
S-Rank: +2 tier (no Drawbacks) or +3 tier (with Drawback)

These jutsu can be maintainable over time.

Other Modifiers.
These are boosts to specific areas; these cover effects like gaining an advantage to breaking out of Genjutsu, or higher effectiveness against techniques using a certain elemental Release. These jutsu target specific aspects of battle as opposed to stats. These work on a case-by-case basis, and are some of the most diverse types of jutsu. An A-rank jutsu can increase the power of one jutsu used after itself, by 1 rank (thus it can't be maintainable). In addition, jutsu can't be boosted more than 1 rank, and cannot be boosted past S-rank power.



Defending using Jutsu

The power of a shield, barrier, or armor created by a jutsu that would defend against other offensive techniques, is an easy-to-remember rule of thumb. Defensive jutsu, under normal circumstances, can block against 1 technique of a rank higher, 2 techniques of its own rank, or 3 techniques of 1 rank lower, before breaking. (For this purpose, 2 jutsu of 1 rank lower count as 1 technique of equal rank; so 2 D-rank jutsu and 1 C-rank jutsu used against a C-rank defensive technique would break it.) A technique of one rank higher will break through the shield, but it will be significantly weakened (-2 ranks to effectiveness.). Any technique of 2 or more ranks higher will pass through unhindered. Likewise, techniques of 2 ranks lower will not even leave scratches or dents on the defense, having no effect (unless the technique has an elemental advantage against the defense).

For the purposes of blocking, one offensive jutsu is one offensive jutsu. It does not matter how long the attack lasts; once it has been successfully blocked or weakened by a defensive jutsu, it does not have the ability to count against or break any other defenses it may hit. Even an S-rank jutsu that breaks through an A-rank barrier would be blocked by E-rank defensive techniques.



Damage and Healing Charts

Damage is, of course, how much injury an offensive technique is able to inflict on its target, according to its rank. Jutsu effects, while they may vary in application, residual effect, or visual appearance, are usually very similar in their offensive power; they are usually measured by the degrees of burns, or the depth or severity of tissue and bone damage they are able to deal to their victims.

Generally, maintainable or longer-duration offensive jutsu deal their rank of damage cumulatively; this means that an A-rank jutsu will not deal A-rank damage every post it is used, but rather the cumulative effect is relative to A-rank damage. However, maintaining an offense for a long time will generally deal more damage. Healing Medical techniques can heal applicable wounds (those able to be healed by the means of the jutsu) equal in severity of those of their own rank.

Damage Table:

E Rank - Scrapes, negligible bruises, or very light burns.
D Rank - 1/4-3/4 inch cuts, minor bruising, or minor 1st degree tissue damage.
C Rank - 1-1½ inch cuts, major external bruising (possibly able to fracture bone), or major 1st/minor 2nd degree tissue damage.
B Rank - 2-3 inch cuts, able to break bones with concussive force, or deal major 2nd/minor 3rd Degree tissue damage. Wounds at this rank, if they hit a vital area, can be lethal if not treated with haste; most often, it is at this rank that ninja can start to bleed out.
A Rank - Can cut or pierce directly through an individual, or shatter bones, or deal major 3rd-degree and possibly even 4th-degree tissue damage. The most powerful A-rank jutsu are fatal on direct impact, but larger-range techniques can still cause appreciable damage.
S Rank - Able to rend people apart with ease, crush even bone to dust, incinerate, or do damage of the like. These jutsu have the ability to cause death even at a distance; for this reason, they are considered 'overkill'.



Speeds Per Rank:

Speed of jutsu is an important part in mid-to-long-range techniques. Most to all jutsu are considered to be cast at the same speed; this is due to most techniques requiring hand seals. Speed must be included on any jutsu's effect that travels outside the bounds of the user's body. Speeds for each rank are able to shift to above or below the rank of the jutsu in question, depending on the strength and merits of the ability. For example, an A-rank jutsu which only deals what would be considered C-rank damage has reason to increase its speed to make up for its lack of damage, since it focuses on being a faster attack as opposed to being a stronger one.

Another application of jutsu speed other than how fast an effect travels is to have the ninja move in a short burst equal to a jutsu's speed of the same rank; this is as opposed to increasing their mobility via a jutsu's stat boost to Speed. These jutsu are only approved as short bursts; they are limited to either being less than 2 posts in duration or are maintainable (for 1 burst per post). The distance that can be traveled must also be stated. Making a maintainable burst-of-speed technique sacrifices both speed and distance covered, however.

These are the ranges of normal speeds per rank.

Approximate speeds per rank:
E Rank - 0-5mp/s
D Rank - 5-15m/s
C Rank - 15-25m/s
B Rank - 25-35m/s
A Rank - 35-45m/s
S Rank - 45-70m/s



Ranges

Ranges are the measurement of what distance a jutsu can clear, or how far its effects permeate. Ranges differ based on the ability; range is something that can vary with each jutsu, much like Speed. Depending on the technique, a weaker or slower ability is allowed to have a longer range to compensate while a powerful or quicker ability would be much more restricted in its range. Some techniques have more vague ranges, such as one's 'clear line of sight'; this is typically for ocular sensory techniques or visual-trigger Genjutsu. These jutsu are applicable as far as the user (or target, in the case of Genjutsu) can see clearly by natural means, unless sight is modified by another technique that is already active.

A list of maximum ranges per rank, if measurable. Radius effects apply to both effects that surround the user or a target area, as well as blast radii of projectile jutsu.

Single-direction ranges | Radius effects
E Rank - 0-5m | 1m radius
D Rank - 5-25m | 2-4m radius
C Rank - 25-40m |4-6m radius
B Rank - 40-60m | 6-15m radius
A Rank - 60-80m | 15-30m radius
S Rank - 80-100m | 30-50m radius



Additional Effects and Scaling Jutsu

Auxiliary abilities on a jutsu increase the overall utility of the technique by giving it an additional effect; this is usually less effective rank-wise than the jutsu's primary ability, but nonetheless increases the power of the jutsu. These can be almost anything, from numbing to disorientation to perhaps additional damage.

In addition, for jutsu specializations that generally require hand seals (like Ninjutsu): this is able to be circumvented as an additional effect of the jutsu.

Thus, you have to gauge just how many abilities besides the main one that you have on your jutsu. This is the area many jutsu become overpowered in, as most often some jutsu are just able to do too much.



Scaling is the ability of a jutsu to have multiple levels of power. One means of scaling is where you apply for a technique which has multiple ranks (and thus multiple chakra costs), where the technique strengthens at each rank; this method is fine.
You only pay the Ryo cost for the highest rank of a scaling jutsu; when training, you train the wordcount for the highest rank of the jutsu, +500 (if it scales 2 ranks) or +1000 (if it scales 3 or more ranks). For example, training a C-A rank jutsu would cost 250 Ryo (the highest rank's cost), but would need 3000 words to train (2000 + 1000, because the jutsu scales through C, B, and A ranks, which is 3). This additional WC is affected by discounts. You can apply for scaling techniques of any rank, but can only use the ranks of the jutsu you would be able to normally.

However, the illegal version of scaling is exemplified in chakra-based techniques which state they vary in power or effectiveness with a user's stat or ninja rank. This creates a jutsu that can potentially become any rank of power for very low chakra costs.
That being said, some techniques, such as Taijutsu or Bukijutsu chakraless maneuvers, do logically depend on the speed/power of the user, or the damage of the weapon it's used on.



Additional Costs and Technique Drawbacks

These are based on the principle that "the more powerful the jutsu is, the greater the risk to the user". They are seen when a jutsu has an inherent flaw or added cost to allow what it does to be more effective, or to add an additional effect, as a balance. Examples of this are statistic debuffs, damaging the user, increased chakra cost, or requiring a specific prerequisite be met. These are functions which players are able use to increase the functionality of their jutsu with a risk to their own character.

Not all downsides are created equal, however. Moderators, when reviewing jutsu using downsides to make a jutsu more effective, will decide whether or not the jutsu in question opens up doors for abuse, even with its downside.

Increasing the chakra cost of, or giving drawbacks to, a jutsu can make it more powerful than the given rank by usually around one rank. However, doing so often makes it less effective in the long run than a technique of similar power that actually has the correct rank. For instance, a C-rank jutsu can have a 40 chakra cost and a 1 post prep period where the user is unable to do anything but prepare the jutsu. If that jutsu dealt minor second-degree tissue damage and had an additional effect, it would work; however, a B-rank jutsu could accomplish this with, say, only an elevated chakra cost of 30, for example. So, it does not always pay to make your jutsu more powerful at lower ranks, as it can put you at a disadvantage later on.




Chakra Costs

Minimum chakra costs for techniques are set in stone, and immovable. However, as explained in the previous section, some techniques increase their own chakra cost as a negative effect or explanation to administer more potent effects. Other jutsu, typically seen used by Medical Ninja, can even increase the cost of others' techniques as an offensive function. Some techniques do not have a cooldown and are maintainable, able to be toggled on-and-off per post; these typically are either higher in maintenance cost or weaker in ability.

The base chakra costs and maintenance costs for abilities per rank are:

Chakra costs | Maintenance costs
E Rank - 5 chakra | 5 chakra every other turn
D Rank - 10 chakra | 5 chakra per turn
C Rank - 15 chakra | 5 chakra per turn
B Rank - 20 chakra | 5 chakra per turn
A Rank - 25 chakra| 10 chakra per turn
S Rank - 30 chakra | 10 chakra per turn
SS Rank - 35+ chakra | at least 15 chakra per turn



Cooldowns

Cooldowns are Saga's way of making techniques "non-spammable", as opposed to making hand signs require a significant delay before the jutsu. These cooldowns are the time in which a character is unable to use the a specific jutsu, and take effect only after the duration of the jutsu has ended. Some jutsu, despite their cooldown, may leave lingering effects even after their technical duration has elapsed; the classic example is damage, but it can extend to other effects as well, such as creating ambient flame by burning flammable substances, or leaving water behind from a Suiton jutsu.
As a general guideline: The stronger the jutsu, the longer the cooldown time (most if not all S-rank jutsu have a high cooldown time, for example). Cooldowns that are 1.5 or 2x the duration for set-duration jutsu, or "Duration + X posts" for maintainable jutsu, are often acceptable for most techniques. A longer cooldown time is not a drawback of a jutsu, and cannot be used to balance its power.



Sensory Techniques and Skills

These types of techniques are not a specialization, but more of an archetype of ninja arts that can fall under many Specializations, and is prohibited from practically none of them. They are not offensive, defensive, or stat-changing; they allow the user of the jutsu to detect the people around them through methods either enhancing their existing senses (i.e. Inuzuka scent-sensory, Doujutsu), or providing extrasensory perception. The difference between the specializations' sensory techniques would be how they sense. What follows is a list of approximate ranges which are acceptable when apping sensory jutsu. (These ranges are for area-of-effect sensory techniques, rather than ones which are simply sight-based.)

Sensory Radius Approximates
E Rank: 3m
D Rank: 15-20m
C Rank: 20-30m
B Rank: 30-75m
A Rank: 75-300m
S Rank: 300-600m



Making a Good Jutsu

The last thing we want here at Saga is to bog down your roleplaying experience. So, while we are able to help you fix your jutsu (and so we encourage you to make whatever you like), we want the jutsu application process to be a streamlined for you as we can make it. So, as a general rule for your jutsu: If your jutsu does not have a drawback, it can only have one of the following:

Max speed.
Max range.
Max power.
Another effect in addition to the jutsu's actual function.

Generally, the more drawbacks you put on a jutsu, the more of its power you are able to raise. However, moderators reserve the right to deny even a technically 'balanced' technique if they believe it is too powerful. (This also goes for anything, not just jutsu.)