Jutsu Rules

Read this first.

The core of a ninja’s supernatural capabilities comes from their jutsu–meaning, literally, techniques. These use chakra, either projected outwards or used to amplify one’s physical performance, to perform feats that would be literally impossible for a normal person. These are divided into three broad categories: taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu.

Taijutsu, or body techniques, use the chakra flowing throughout a ninja’s body to give them the exceptional speed or strength needed to perform the techniques. They are mostly physical attacks. This includes both unarmed combat, and weapon techniques.

Ninjutsu, or ninja techniques, use chakra to accomplish what those unfamiliar with them might call magic. These effects range from changing one’s appearance to projecting balls of flame, to summoning water from thin air, to healing grievous injuries.

Genjutsu, or illusion techniques, use chakra to either construct illusions in the environment or to directly affect an enemy’s mind and confuse their senses. Of the three, they are the most difficult to learn.

Rules

Each jutsu is a unique action that, once you’ve learned it, you can perform. All jutsu are divided into five main ranks (E, D, C, B, and A), with S-rank techniques being rare techniques known only to their inventor and perhaps a handful of people that person taught them to. Though each rank of each type has special requirements to learn (explained in more detail in the relevant sections), a few broad rules apply. For example, to learn ninjutsu of one of the five elements, you need the appropriate Elemental Aptitude ability.

Reader’s Guide

Most of the jutsu entries have a lot of information packed into them. To help make them easier to read, a lot of the common factors are written using shorthand; for example, rather than spelling out “Using this technique requires you to make a Chakra Exhaustion roll against 10”, a jutsu would have an entry of “Chakra: 10”. Below are all the common terms you’ll see in jutsu entries, and what they mean.

Stamina / Chakra

The technique’s Stamina and Chakra cost, respectively.

Upkeep

Upkeeps apply a penalty to all Stamina and Chakra Exhaustion rolls while maintained in exchange for maintaining an effect indefinitely (such as doujutsu, ninjutsu-created weapons, or Chakra Flow).

Damage

The base damage dealt by the technique. You add your damage bonus (multiplied by the attack’s modified Speed) to this number. Unless otherwise specified, Taijutsu use your Physical Damage Bonus, and Ninjutsu use your Ninjutsu Damage Bonus.

Accuracy

Some jutsu have bonuses or penalties to accuracy. If there’s no entry for this, it uses your normal accuracy.

Range

How many yards away the attack’s target can be. In the case of area-of-effect techniques, they can be centered anywhere within this range (and their effects may well extend beyond it). There’s one special effect associated with Range: If a Jutsu (of any type) has a Range of “Touch”, then you use your Taijutsu Accuracy with it, even if it is a Ninjutsu or Genjutsu, and it is possible to defend against it with an unarmed parry.

Area

The radius, in yards, of area-of-effect techniques. Some may not use simple circular areas, in which case more details will be provided in the description itself.

Speed

The jutsu’s base Speed. As a reminder: No action can have its Speed reduced by more than half, rounded up, and attacks may not have their Speed reduced below 3.

Seal Speed

The jutsu’s base seal speed.

Special

Any special effects the technique has.

Status Roll

Status effects listed here are applied by a status roll, which is ordinarily an opposed roll, with the user rolling their Chakra Control against a Resistance roll of anyone hit.

Requires

Some techniques have special requirements (such as having learned another jutsu, or a certain amount of gallons of water be available for use), which will be listed here.

Tags

Various repeated qualities certain Jutsu might have are included here, with descriptions found below.

Effects

Any special characteristics of a technique which aren’t covered by one of the above categories are listed here.

Tags

Tags are simply descriptors which refer to qualities certain Jutsu have which can be found repeatedly and follow (mostly) the same rules. Some Tags are simply Action Qualities, as described in the Combat chapter (such as Interrupt, or Area of Effect). Other effects, typically those relevant only to Jutsu, may be listed here.

Area of Effect

Area of Effect jutsu target an area, rather than a specific person, and as such have different rules, which can be found in the Combat chapter.

Blunt, Slashing, Piercing, Energy

These tags indicate which category of Wound a jutsu inflicts, if it happens to do so. Most attacks will have of these tags; those with more than one will state in their Effects listing any special rules for determining Wounds.

Clone

By default, all Bunshin follow the same basic rules listed in the Bunshin no Jutsu technique (see here). More advanced types of Bunshin than that exist, however, and changes to how they operate are clarified here:

Contact

Contact effects apply whenever you are struck by a basic unarmed attack, an unarmed taijutsu attack, a combo jutsu attack, or a grapple jutsu attack. Likewise, any Jutsu with a range of Touch or Melee qualify for such effects. Some on-contact effects will also have broader definitions of what constitutes Contact (such as a Kaguya’s Bone Spurs), in which case you use this tag’s listing and the individual effect’s listing to determine what qualifies as Contact.

Ground

This simply denotates that an effect originates and takes place in, on, or under the ground; effects which deflect or interact with projectiles (such as many ninjutsu-based defenses) are likely to be ineffective against Ground-tagged attacks, assuming they don’t also have the Projectile tag to qualify for them.

Internal

Internal effects are things that, once you are affected by, can not be physically removed or contested in a way that would help; Poisons, regardless of their type, are considered to have the ‘Internal’ tag, and thus bypass effects which work only on external sources (such as Byakugan). Often times when it comes to Internal effects you will require the aid of medical ninjutsu in order to meaningfully affect them, otherwise you may simply have to let them run their course.

Environmental

Environmental effects are typically things which modify the battlefield, rather than a specific person, and typically persist beyond the IC in which they’re used (though some which can be ‘set off’, as is the case with several Katon Environmental effects, may not end up doing so). Environmental effects typically do not have an accuracy or allow for a defensive interrupt, as they are affecting and persisting in an area, and aren’t in themselves attacking you. Environmental effects which do not persist, however (such as a Katon Mist Blaze Dance that immediately detonates due to where it’s placed), would be considered attacks and could be defended against normally, potentially avoiding their effects.

Paraelemental clans converting Environmental jutsu can not inflict status effects except for those in their default effects list, unless the paraelement in question is modifying the existing status effect (as in the case of Mokuton), meaning that other status effects, such as Dehydrate or Frostbite, are never applied with Environmental jutsu.

Environmental effects dissipate naturally after combat is over, at a rate of one minute per rank (E-ranks would fade in one minute, D in two minutes, etc), unless they are designed to be used outside of combat (such as some Genjutsu, like False Surroundings).

Nintaijutsu

Weapons and ninjutsu that empower taijutsu have a few special effects. First, when created they count as ninjutsu (for cases of chakra rolls and the like), however, when attacking they count as taijutsu. This means they do not gain the bonuses from things such as specialist which empower ninjutsu, but would gain it from taijutsu. They do count as their element when opposing different elements, however, which applies to advanced elements effects as well. Created weapons only count for their element against elemental defenses; they do not gain any of the other benefits of being dual-element.

This means that they DO. NOT. GET. ANY. of the listed bonuses from their unique element when making attacks with weapons created by their element, or when enhanced by an Upkeep of their element (such as Doryu Ken, or Chakra Flow), or when a link jutsu of their element is added to a taijutsu attack. Likewise, they DO. NOT. apply any status effect based on their element (such as Frostbite) when making a taijutsu attack enhanced by such a weapon, upkeep, or link.

Additionally, elemental weapons may only have chakra flow of their element used on them (for example, a water sword could not have a wind chakra flow). This does mean a dual-element weapon can use either elemental flow: an ice water sword could use wind or water chakra flow.

For jutsu such as Four Seasonal Wind Palm, which enhance taijutsu, this can cause them to lose the benefits of the jutsu (such as enhanced blocking penetration), unless the element they turned it into had a similar benefit of the same type (for example, Ice retains the 25% block reduction, while Scorch would outright ignore blocking).

In the case of using Ninjutsu of multiple elements at once (such as a Raisen and Housenka both being added to a Multithrow), the attack is considered to have an elemental nature of all included elements (in the prior example it’d be Lightning and Fire), and the defender can choose which attack type is more favorable to them based on their defense choice (it could be considered a Raiton attack for Wind Turtle Shell, or a Katon attack for Ocean Shield).

Lastly, any attack utilizing an Elemental Nintaijutsu (be it a weapon creation jutsu, or a link) can not have Poisons of any kind applied to them; doing so simply wastes the dose(s) of Poison applied, which lose their potency and are still considered spent.

Preparation

Jutsu with this tag can be activated when rolling Initiative, See the Preparation ability, here, and are copied over to any Kage Bunshin you create, if you are capable of doing so.

Projectile

A generic tag describing things that are thrown, fly through the air, or otherwise are projectiles in some form or fashion, whether it is a cutting wind or a bolt of lightning, the majority of ninjutsu attacks are considered projectiles, though not all. Many effects are specific in that they relate to, or affect, projectiles in some fashion, in which case you check for this tag to see if they qualify.

Taijutsu

Taijutsu is more than just hand-to-hand combat; these techniques go well beyond the realm of what’s possible for normal humans, smashing rocks and the like. It’s not exactly… easy. There are three ways to qualify to learn a taijutsu technique: the first is your rank in the Athletics skill. If you’re in good enough physical condition, you can pull off some pretty impressive things. The second, Research skill rank, sufficient understanding of how the move should be executed allows you to make up for your shortcomings.

Finally, rank: If you’re high-enough ranking, you’re able to pull enough strings and ask for enough favors to get someone to spare the time to tediously instruct you in how to perform a technique, making up for your own shortcomings. Each rank has its own requirements, an each method meets them differently.

Rank:
Athletics:
Research:

Finally, Unarmed Taijutsu and Combo Taijutsu require TWO free hands to use (though you can perform basic unarmed attacks with your legs and thus, even when one or both hands aren’t free). Grapple Taijutsu only require one, and weapons depend on the weapon used.

‘unarmed attacks’

‘unarmed attacks’ are a nonspecific way of referring to Basic Unarmed Attacks, Unarmed Taijutsu, Combo Taijutsu, and Grapple Taijutsu (read: non-weapon Taijutsu).

Weapon Jutsu

Weapon jutsu are special techniques which can be performed only while using a specific sort of weapon. All weapon jutsu will have a “Type” entry, where they’ll listen a certain characteristic, such as Melee Slashing, or Sword. Only a weapon which meets these requirements may be used with that technique. Many of these jutsu will list “(Weapon)” in one or more of their entries. For example, if you are using a Stamina 12 weapon, and the technique lists “Stamina: (Weapon) + 3”, the Stamina cost to use it would be 15. If a weapon has a Delay, then any techniques using it also inherit this Delay. For example, using Oak Flight (a technique which normally has no Delay) with a Tetsubo would cause your attack to have Delay 8 (the Tetsubo’s normal Delay). If a technique has a Delay of, for example, “(Weapon) + 3”, weapons without a Delay are treated as having a natural Delay 0 (meaning, in that case, the technique would have Delay 3).

Weapon jutsu which list a specific damage type (such as Slashing) always inflict wounds of that type, even if the weapon used with it can inflict wounds of other types.

Combos

Combos are a special type of unarmed taijutsu attack which benefit from being used in rapid succession. There are three types of taijutsu attacks related to combos: Openers, Combos, and Finishers.

Power Attack and Unarmed Focus

When a combo jutsu references your Basic Unarmed Attack, it includes any ranks of Unarmed Focus you might have, and can benefit from any ranks of Power Attack you have and wish to apply. Any time a jutsu says ‘d’, this is an improvement to the base damage, and likewise benefits from Power Attack. Power Attack does not apply to any dice that have a size listed (d6, d8, d12, etc), only d.

Openers

Openers are not always, themselves, Combo moves, though some are. Openers can be used without being in a Combo, and after an opener hits, you may launch into a combo (i.e. use a Combo jutsu). Openers are marked as such in their entry, usually by “Special: Opener.”

Using an Opener when you are already in a Combo has no effect: You can not get the bonuses of multiple Openers for a Combo and can not change which Opener effect you have for your Combo after you’ve started a Combo. If the Opener itself is not a Combo jutsu, however (such as with Kage Buyou), using it will still break your Combo.

Combos

Combo moves indicate as much in their name (typically being named “___ Combo”), or by being in the Taijutsu Combo category. You cannot use a combo jutsu unless the last non-Interrupt action you took was a Combo or Opener, or the Combo move itself has an Upkeep; similarly, if your combo is broken (see below), you have to start with a new opener. When you begin a combo, you have a “Combo Counter”– basically, the number of combo moves you’ve strung together. This starts at 1 when you hit with an opener. Each time you hit with a combo, the combo counter increases by 1.

Each combo will have a combo counter entry; for example, here is Lotus Combo’s: Combo Counter: +1 Accuracy, +2d10 damage, +1 Stun, +2 Stamina

This works as might be expected: You multiply those bonuses by the number of combo counters you’ve amassed. Thus, if you opened with a Kage Buyou and proceeded to a Lotus Combo, the first hit would have +1 Accuracy, +2d10 damage, and +1 Stun from Lotus Combo (because you’re at Combo 1 after the opener); if it hit you’d progress up to Combo 2, and the next combo you used would have +2 Accuracy, +4d10 damage, +2 Stun, and +2 Stamina cost.

Some combos or finishers have notation like +3d*. These are based on your basic unarmed attack damage to some degree, and the * in these cases will always refer to the die size of your basic unarmed attacks, based on how much Power Attack you’re using on that combo component, so with all four ranks of Power Attack, for instance, it would be adding d12s.

Switching Combos

Once you’ve begun a combo, any other combo jutsu is fair game. You could freely alternate between Lion and Lotus combos as you pleased. For the most part, things remain simple. Each move increases your Combo Counter normally, no matter how many times you switch between combo moves. Your Combo Counter bonuses are based only on the move you’re currently using. For example, say you used Kage Buyou as an opener, then 4 Lotus Combos, followed by 3 Lion Combos. This would give you a total Combo of 8, assuming they all hit (1 + 4 + 3). If your next Combo move was a Lion combo, you’d multiply its CC bonuses (+1 Accuracy and -1 Speed) by 8, giving you a total of +8 Accuracy and -8 Speed (though this would put it at only Speed 5, because it still can’t be reduced below half its base Speed).

Finishers

The final type of move is finishers. Finishers may be used on their own, but have a special effect if used at the end of a combo. Though they do not receive the stacking effects for consecutive combo hits, they have special effects based on your total combo counters. For example, the Lion Barrage finisher has the following entry: Combo Bonus: +2d10 damage For each combo counter you have when you execute Lion Barrage, its damage is increased by 2d10.

Combo Breaking

When a combo is broken, your combo counter is immediately set to 0, you may not continue using combo moves, and all accrued combo counter bonuses are lost. Combo breaking occurs if any of the following things happen:

Hitting a clone of your intended target does not count as attacking a new target, and accordingly does not break your combo, however hitting a clone (of any target) does not increse your combo counter.

Ninjutsu

Learning ninjutsu is a great deal of work; a ninja has to learn how to mold their chakra, how to convert it to the right elemental nature, then how to properly project it, along with memorizing all the necessary handseals… for each individual jutsu they know.

There are three ways you can qualify to learn ninjutsu of a given rank. The first is Chakra Control skill ranks: With sufficient control over your chakra it becomes easier to mold it efficiently, and mold the vast amounts of chakra used in higher-end techniques with the appropriate precision. Next is Research skill ranks. You can make up for poor chakra control by knowing how chakra behaves even when you can’t control it, and understanding what the technique is trying to accomplish. Finally, character rank. Once you have enough pull in your village, you can bother the right people to teach you how to use techniques without getting brushed off for wasting their time.

You only need to meet one of those requirements for a given jutsu rank to learn those jutsu. They are listed… below.

Rank:
Chakra Control:
Research:

Special Rules

Advanced Elements

Advanced Elements are found as kekkai genkai in various clans: Senju’s Mokuton is an advanced element combining Doton and Suiton together, for example. Advanced Elements have their own effects listed in the relevant clan entries that utilize them, including elemental strengths and weaknesses. Unlike the base five elements (which follow a nice little circle of a strength and a corresponding weakness found together), Advanced Elements operate outside of said circle: Mokuton being weak to Raiton does not make Raiton correspondingly Strong against it, just as Mokuton being strong against Doton and Katon does not make Doton or Katon weak to Mokuton.

When converting a technique which specifies any sort of elemental-based strength or weakness, replace (base element’s weakness) with (advanced element’s weakness), and do the same for strengths. For example, Earth Shore Return normally reads, in its last sentence: This wall takes double damage from Raiton, and half damage from Suiton. If you converted that technique to Jiton, it would behave as if it instead said: This wall takes double damage from Fuuton, and half damage from Doton and Katon.

When something is not covered by strengths and weaknesses, consider all mentions of (component element) to instead say (composite element).

Finally, in the case of Action Chains using an advanced element, the Chakra cost for converting the base technique(s) to that element needs only be paid once, and all eligible links in the chain are converted. For example, if you created an action chain out of Jiton Shuurai and Jiton Tremor, the Chakra cost would be 26 (15 + 6 + 5, for Shuurai, Tremor, and the conversion to Jiton).

Earth (Doton)

In the rare situation that there is no earth available (such as on a boat), these jutsu are pretty useless. A few may remain usable (if, for example, they involve you regurgitating huge amounts of mud, instead of manipulating the environment), but most will not.

Fire (Katon)

If you ever find yourself completely submerged in water, Katon jutsu won’t work.

Most Katon ninjutsu list “.extra” or “.open” in their damage entries. These are old shorthand to notate exploding damage dice: .extra allows for a single explosion (or additional damage die to be rolled) if any of the original dice roll that number or higher; .open allows for any number of additional explosions (or additional damage die to be rolled) if any of the original dice roll that number or higher, until they stop doing so.

Lightning (Raiton)

Blocking reduces the damage of Lightning techniques by only 25%. This is chakra-based electricity, not real electricity, so it has no special ability to, say, electrocute everyone in contact with water, or anything like that.

Water (Suiton)

Water is at a disadvantage among elemental jutsu in that it requires raw material to use (earth techniques do as well, but it’s rare to find oneself in a situation without ground). Accordingly, most water jutsu require some amount of ‘gallons of water’ to be performed, listed as a Requirement.

This water has to come from somewhere. Unless the fight is taking place is near a river (a small stream won’t cut it) or a lake, or, say, on a boat, it’s not going to be from the environment. There are two ways to bring water into a battle where there otherwise is none: the first is to physically carry it, typically in a gourd (see the Equipment chapter). The other is the E-Rank Water Creation Technique. Some Suiton add water to the battlefield, while others remove it, so be sure to keep track of how much water is on the battlefield if you plan to make use of Suiton! You can’t use water someone else is carrying into battle, but water in the environment is fair game.

Any Suiton with an Upkeep (such as Water-Cutting Blade) has its gallons of water effectively removed from the battlefield so long as the upkeep is maintained: those gallons of water can’t be accessed or manipulated by anyone until the person maintaining the Upkeep stops doing so.

How much water can be manipulated at once is limited by the power of the user: Only up to the user’s CHA in gallons may be utilized for any given action utilizing Suiton. Upkeeps, and the gallons of water used with them, do not count against this limit beyond the initial action to activate them. This limitation also applies to Suiton converted to other elements that also require gallons of water, or another material.

Wind (Fuuton)

A rare form of combat is using a fan to perform fuuton jutsu. It’s not without its advantages: using the fan you can rapidly manipulate wind and infuse it with chakra, removing the seal speed from the technique you’re using. However, doing this can be tiring, as it replaces the normal Chakra cost with a Stamina cost, +2 per Rank of the jutsu (E = +2, D = +4, etc).

Medical Ninjutsu

One of the few good things the development of ways to control chakra has brought to the world is the appropriately named medical ninjutsu. These are techniques which safely transfer chakra to another person, or use it to accelerate the natural healing process, cure maladies, and otherwise ameliorate suffering and avoid unnecessary casualties. Medical ninjutsu also has a darker side. The pioneers in the field learned the secrets of the human body so that they could help people, but more than a handful of infamous missing ninja of the past have found ways to weaponize it, or worse. Unless otherwise specified in their descriptions, you may not use any medical jutsu on yourself. If any Medical Ninjutsu technique has a listed Upkeep, that Upkeep is paid by the recipient of the technique, rather than the medic; this represents the medic adjusting the flows of that person’s chakra to preserve their health. This does mean that those techniques can be voluntarily (or forcibly) ended, though the “Dazed” Wound will specifically not do so. You must meet all listed requirements to learn medical ninjutsu of a given rank, and in order to learn any Medical Ninjutsu, you must first have the Talent: Medical Training.

Fuuinjutsu

Fuuinjutsu, or sealing techniques, are, as the name suggests, techniques which use chakra to form specialized ‘seals’. They’re difficult to use, and have limited combat viability. What makes them useful is that these seals are stable. Normally, any sort of chakra-based effect will expire soon after its user stops applying chakra to it, the energy dissipating back into the world. Seals don’t, and depending on the individual seal and the skill of the user some can last for decades if left undisturbed. The downside is, they’re counterintuitive and complicated. To learn fuuinjutsu, you have to meet all the requirements listed for a given rank, and in order to learn any Fuuinjutsu, you must first have the Talent: Seal Training.

Many sealing techniques have “Range: Touch”, and accordingly, must touch someone to take effect. As a reminder, Jutsu which have such ranges use the user’s Taijutsu Accuracy and, accordingly, can be parried as if they were an unarmed attack. Unique to Sealing techniques is that, by default, opponents hit by them have no cause to suspect anything is amiss: When you hit someone with one such seal, make an opposed Espionage roll, with you gaining +10 to your roll. If you succeed, your opponent has no cause to suspect anything is amiss or that you did anything more than tap them until the seal’s effects themselves take place. Even if you fail this roll, the target can’t immediately identify which seal was placed upon them unless they can see chakra and are themselves trained to use Fuuinjutsu; someone who can see Chakra simply knows a seal has been applied, but not what it is, and some seals are undetectable even by Doujutsu, listed in their individual entries.

Several seals have long-term effects which last until the seal itself is removed (potentially lasting long past the user’s own death), and as such, there are a limited amount of Seals any Fuuinjutsu user can maintain at one time: You can only maintain up to your maximum Willpower in Seals which indicate they are “Exclusive” at one time. Using another Exclusive seal when you are already at your limit for Exclusive Seals causes your oldest most Exclusive Seal to fade harmlessly automatically. You can undo your own Exclusive seals by touching the person (or object) the seal is placed upon and concentrating to undo the seal, a Speed 5 action in combat with no associated cost.

Genjutsu

Genjutsu’s not easy. In fact, genjutsu is really, really hard, even by the standards of other ninja techniques. Taijutsu and ninjutsu are both, after enough shinobi training, slightly intuitive; and, in the case of the latter, every ninja has an elemental affinity they can rely on to help them out even when they struggle overall. Not so with genjutsu. There is no such thing as an ‘affinity’ for it (though some ninja who seem to have an easier time learning it are occasionally described as such), and it takes a lot work to be able to use it effectively. The requirements for using Genjutsu of a given rank are listed below.