Combat Guide

While combat isn’t the most important aspect of Naruto it certainly plays a huge role. Alternatively, that also reflects on Naruto role-plays. While not the most important aspect, and certainly not the most focused, it still plays a role within the world. Though, unlike the canon series, combat is much more difficult in a role-play. Instead of one mind deciding how things should go, in a role-play, there are multiple minds; multiple minds flinging totally different ideas and outcomes. While ultimately up to the players to determine the outcome and results of combat, this guide is to help people understand the basic principles of actions within combat and so on.

## Reaction

Something very important to note right off the bat is that Shinobi are still human. Yes, human; humans with physical capabilities that surpass that of your average Joe. Humans nonetheless, meaning you won’t be completely throwing physics out the window. There are still important factors to consider such as timing, distance, power, and so on. For example, if you’re swinging a sword at an opponent then you’re likely to leave an opening somewhere. An opening that may be very difficult to defend given your current position, an opening your opponent may be able to exploit given their distance and the timing of their attack from when you’ve opened yourself up.

**Remember**; giving your fellow role-player an opening and chances to hit you is a reasonable thing to do. As well, remain detailed in your actions. That way it causes fewer arguments and allows combat to remain smooth and fair.

You should also keep in mind that while you are given chances to act and react, in character your opponent will not wait for yours to make their move. It wouldn’t make sense for your opponent to just stand there while you weave fifty hand seals. Your opponent will either strike or cast a jutsu that requires fewer seals. Guaranteed if they weave five and you weave fifty, they will cast their jutsu before you. Therefore, you should limit the actions in your posts to logically match your situation in-character. If you do a lot in one post, your fellow role-player can easily justify doing just as much in that same manner of time if not more.

…And they can, especially if they sneak things in from previous posts. Considering the world we’re settled in being sneaky and having tactics is mostly ideal and as such will be applied in combat. Of course, hiding things and pulling sneaky moves can be a tricky thing to do especially if your fellow role-player didn’t notice beforehand. They may try to claim you pulled it out of nowhere when in reality you wanted to surprise them or stop their character from noticing right away. To solve this issue, there should be some form of hint within your previous posts before you pull a sneaky manoeuvre (Such as a trap). The more obvious the hint the more leisure you’ll have in justifying your sneaky manoeuvres later on. Alternatively, it isn’t very logical to suddenly have your character be aware of sudden traps and sneaky manoeuvres from your opponent. There should be a logical justification as to why your character would notice something ahead of time.

For example; random Nin #12 running away from a sensory Nin. That sensory Nin realising they’re being lead into a trap due to the chakra signatures ahead of them. They decide not to peruse any further. Instead of random Nin #13 randomly deciding not to peruse random Nin #12 because the instant ramen they regurgitated before the fight gave them a bad feeling in their gut about chasing Nin #12 any further. The first one is logical; the second one is an ass-pull.

## Specialism

Now that we’ve gotten the basics of action and reaction down, let us move on to the topic of specialism. Specialism refers to a particular area of study. Within Shinobi terms, it is simply referred to an area one decides to train in mainly; that being Ninjutsu to Taijutsu from Speed to Strength. This is highly important within combat to determine how well characters fight within certain fields. If someone specialising within Ninjutsu gets into a Taijutsu battle with a person who specialises in Taijutsu, the person that specialises in Taijutsu is more likely to come out on top. Someone who mainly focuses on speed is most likely to outrun someone that focuses more on strength. If two characters weave hand seals roughly at the same time, and they have the same amount of hand seals, it’s likely that the fastest character will get done first if only but barely.

## Chakra consumption – Ninjutsu use

This then brings me to the topic of chakra consumption. This topic is to help people understand how much their jutsu is costing them, as well informing them the usage of Ninjutsu in general. Two important factors of chakra consumption and Ninjutsu are Chakra Control and Chakra Reserve. Chakra Control arguably being more ideal as it allows your character to perform jutsu with just the right amount of chakra allowing it to be efficient without pouring too much chakra into it. Meanwhile, a reserve is how much Chakra your character holds and can use before they tire out. Your character may have a large reserve without the good control, but be wary that your character will be wasting more chakra than necessary that way.

Chakra consumption can be classified in four forms: Low, moderate, high, and severe.

* Low chakra consumption usually allows jutsu to be executed rather easily. As well, they’re usually non-punishable if used repeatedly. Simple as they might be, more times than not they’re just that; simple.
* Moderate chakra consumption jutsu are more complex than the previous, but still rather simple to execute allowing them to be repeated as well. As the consumption of chakra is still rather light while jutsu still being effective, this is favourable among most.
* High chakra consumption jutsu are more serious than the previous two. The chakra consumption is high due to the result of the jutsu being the same. Quite complex and taxing, they should be used sparingly.
* Severe chakra consumption jutsu usually tend to not be used more than once per battle. Although they’re highly taxing, the rank of these jutsu depends on certain circumstance. A C rank technique may be one that uses chakra over time allowing it to fall under the category of severe chakra consumption as a single, quick; A ranked technique may use a severe amount of chakra as well.

Another thing to keep in mind when using Ninjutsu, mostly for those who have large chakra reserves, is a thing called Chakra Burning. While you’re probably more able to perform higher ranked jutsu in a single battle than your average Shinobi, that doesn’t mean you should. Due to the stress of chakra being moulded and then expelled from the body in high volumes, rapidly, your character will begin to suffer from aches and other stressful symptoms. Your opponent can and will take advantage of that state, as they should. In combat, Shinobi should use everything to their advantage, even their disadvantage. This will most definitely happen if you spam your Ninjutsu without a tactic.

Example; you spamming a gout of flames at your opponent attempting to end them in that go. Without a follow up or a plan-B to go with the flames the opponent will be able to freely fire off a strong gust of wind. Not only will they cause the flames to grow but also send the flames right back at you pulling off two attacks for the price of one. Now imagine throwing a kunai with an explosive tag on it to deviate their attention, and as they’re distracted you’ll be able to weave handseals with little to no problem. By time they’ve jumped away from the explosion they’ve fallen right where you want them allowing you to effectively turn them into Gran-Gran’s infamous BBQ.

While Ninjutsu is great given the diversity within itself and within other forms of combat such as Taijutsu and Kenjutsu, it doesn’t make the form perfect and most certainly doesn’t leave it without cons. In order to bring Ninjutsu to its attainment, more times than not handseals are required. While Shinobi perform these quite quickly, if they are interrupted then that means they just wasted a bunch of time. Same goes for being locked in a Taijutsu battle, your character won’t be able to perform hand seals. Put with the fact that Ninjutsu favors mid-long range combat this would go very poorly for Ninjutsu-oriented characters. It goes to show that Ninjutsu shouldn’t be the only thing relied on as it isn’t perfect, even given its diverse nature. A basic strategy of Ninjutsu use would be keeping distance between your character and your opponent. There should be no form of spamming without tactics, not even a single pointless jutsu cast. Every ounce of chakra is precious; therefore every jutsu cast should serve a purpose from setting up for a new attack to seeing an opening where you can finish your opponent off.