Third Speciality System Flaw

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

While this is going to piss off people, especially the staff, I am going to say it rather than wait the months for someone else to realize the mistake. The new third-spec system has a glaring hole in it that should have been fixed before it was released. Namely that if a village doesn't have a jounin or higher with particular specialties everyone who might want one of those specialties it is screwed. All because someone said you had to have another A-ranked character do the training.

Just as an example, my first choice for my character's third specialty would be taijutsu but among the active (as in actually posting) A-ranked or higher Konoha members there are 5 total who meet the requirements for teaching a third specialty. Of those 5 have ninjutsu, 3 fuinjutsu, 1 genjutsu, and 1 weaponry specialties. Not one taijutsu, puppetry, or ijutsu specialty among the lot. Assuming it would be in character for a jounin from a village to hunt down a nuke-nin for training that only expands the list to 1 charcter (Fox) who has no in-character reason to do so and hasn't posted in days. The only option then becomes finding a character from Kumo, which has several but would have absolutely no in-character reason to teach someone from another village. Now that seems a bit like a serious problem to me since it is literally taking away someones ability to build a character as they wish within the limits of the rules while allowing others to do just that. To put it bluntly this is looking very much like the farce that the profession system has become.

What I suggest is allowing someone to use have an NPC controlled by another player do the training if no A-ranked or higher character in the village with that speciality is willing to do so or even exists. I can live with the other requirements even if I think one of them is simply the staff trying to salve worries about abuse by making it a pain to get. Something that as a gamer both online and for pen & paper I know doesn't work - it simply makes the people with is more powerful relative to the rest. Requiring that someone find another A-ranked PLAYER character with the specialty they want to learn however just ruins the entire concept because it holds someone's decisions about their character hostage to other players choices. At least with the option to have a player-control NPC do the training they can have the specialty they want and if the person who is supposed to be training them takes yet another unannounced vacation for several months they aren't high and dry since someone else can take over the NPC.

And yes I'm rather annoyed with the staff at the moment. I understand that the holidays mean people have less time and delays will happen. That I was expecting and prepared to wait weeks for. What has me ready to start smashing heads is that older applications waiting for approval and feedback go unanswered while newer ones get two or three response in just a few days. I'm sure others can figure out what that sort of selective vision implies and it does not reflect well on the people running this site. If you need an example, take a look at the reputation for ass-kissing, power-gaming, and general being the worst of the worst that lead to Revolution effectively being a dead site.

Posts : 1729

I'd have used less words, but yeah, the whole needing an A-rank PLAYER to teach the sub-specialty does make it highly limiting. Following Nuke's NPC suggestion, perhaps create a few renowned traveling Sennin NPC that make a habit of teaching their arts to any who wish to learn?

Age : 29 Posts : 3145

The whole point is to make it limiting :/ Originally it was supposed to be a feature reserved for S ranks only, so be happy with what you have -_-

Posts : 1729

Limiting it? Alright. Making it so the stars have to align in just right, with the planets lined up in a neat little row while a solar eclipse goes on?

Limiting it is one thing, but unless there's a player with the right specialty, the right rank, and within your village, it becomes impossible to gain.

Also, I may have skipped over it on accident, but the new system doesn't mention how this affects SCs. Like, say you get a sub-specialty in taijutsu. Would you then have free reign to get any taijutsu related SC, like speed/strength/endurance? Would you be able to train them to the max, or only to the rank of your sub-spec, which is to say, B-rank?

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Supposedly you can get someone outside your village to do the training. Of course that sort of spits on the whole concept of staying in character since we're talking two military forces who are at times at opposite sides. I would compare that to an active-duty Russian being allowed to train with the US Army Special Forces. They might be allowed to watch highly edited parts but you can sure bet that no one from a country that would be on the opposite side of a fight has ever seen the training that matters.

Frankly though Chris I expected a better response from you. That sort of "enjoy it because" is something I would have expected from K or Abilities with their "better than you peons" attitude. You're saying we should be happy with a system that doesn't work because it was released early and that doesn't fly. I know the staff here can do better so why should I not expect them to put a basic effort into making sure when they add something its useful instead of half-finished. It isn't as if people were flooding the forums screaming "we need more abilities" - I read the threads and I can't recall seeing more than 1 or 2 threads like that in a months and in each of those it was 1 person who kept rehashing the same argument.

Posts : 81

I think that having to have an actual player teach you is fine.

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Having to find another player if fine D. Requiring a player CHARACTER is what I'm pissed about. As in you need to find someone whose character has that specialty. Now it might be alright for you since Kumo is packed with characters who are made by staff and those who change characters after a rules change. Konoha happens to not have that luxury since we have characters who have quite a bit more effort and time invested into them. Including characters whose storylines might not allow them to stay in character and accept the training from someone they have reason to loath. So they either have to come up with a fabricated reason that goes against the entire concept behind their character because of a change the staff made, or be at a constant disadvantage against those who abused their position as staff or connection to one to get prior information.

What makes it really piss me off is that this is literally an obvious problem yet no attempt was made to fix it. I pointed out in the first post that a very simple correction to include an NPC controlled by another player would solve the major objection if no one with the required rank and specialty is available or willing. It would still require interacting with another player, but at least it wouldn't require some convoluted and fallacious explanation that runs contrary to the characters concept to pull off.

Subject: Re: Third Speciality System Flaw Thu 20 Dec 2012, 6:36 am

Cool your Jets.

Hello. I guess I am the first staffer to be replying to this thread and I guess I'm going to begin by stating that the next time one has an issue - at least try to act reasonable about it and not in complete outrage. We put a lot of effort into these systems for the benefit of the members, so to claim that it is half-finished is rather insulting. All of the staff have to OK new systems, so to state that we would be satisfied bringing something that isn't completed forward is ludicrous. We want you all to enjoy your time here and to benefit you, so I really hope this is not your true attitude.

Moving on to the actual issue now - the whole reason why we decided to limit it to strictly characters teaching characters because it is way to simple to just have another person NPC for you. The whole reason that this has been introduced was to provide you with an opportunity to broaden your horizons, and it is of course, not going to be easy. Realistically, people need to learn from others, so really, it only makes sense that your character goes out to seek assistance from another character in order to learn this next specialty. We do this because we want you all to work at interacting with others in difficult situations.

Continuing onto your issue with the majority of the staff being in Kumogakure - so what? We have had members move their way up the ranks, i.e. Jeramiah and Heida, so people are fully capable of doing it that have started out as genin. Realistically, Konoha has the most Jounin in a village currently, so I do believe you need to take that into account. In regards to learning jutsu from shinobi of another village; I don't really see what the issue is. Persephone, my character, will be learning ninjutsu from Shinji, a konoha nin. Of course it's going to be hard to make the initial connections, but it is possible. We don't want this to be one simple topic of 7000 words, and then BAM, new specialty. We want you to have to actually put in the effort to make the initial connections and then to learn the specialty, which will not only make you stronger, but also create some personal growth for your character as well.

Let's also note that all our Kages currently are staffers that I do not believe would hold your characters back by stating you cannot go and train with a shinobi of a different village if they agree and you take the time to build the relationship in order for it to be believable.

In short, yes this system makes it difficult to gain the third specialty. However, it is possible and I don't believe it needs to be altered so that it is more attainable. If people really want this, then they will go out of their way to meet the standards and achieve it.

Next time you have an issue with the staff, instead of channeling it onto a system, approach a member of the Senate. It saves us all a hell of a lot of time skimming through a rant.

Age : 34 Posts : 1209

First off let me say I apologize for getting to this later than Becky. I feel that it is my personal responsibility for adressing this issue given that I was the one who thought up most of the ground work on this system and wrote up about 80% of the system. So as I said, I first want to apologize for the delay in adressing this issue. I am currently sitting in an airport in Abu Dhabi, waiting for my flight and I am admittedly a bit tired due to not sleeping for more than 3 hours at a time in the las 24 hours.

I do however want to say that I do take offense to the portrayal you are giving us staffers in this thread. I understand that you are frustrated and I understand that you had an application that fell to the wayside in all the end of the year confusion. I already gave you an apology on that thread and even tried to explain what was going on with most if not all of us on staff. Understand that most of us if not all of us are students and at this time of the year we all have exams and family obligations to fullfill. A few of us are in college and grad school even, so when this time rolls around we are making arrangements to head back to see our families and stuff. Please understand we do not get paid for this, we try to keep this site running due to our love for RPing and this amazing universe that was crafted by Kishimoto. We are constantly working to create new systems while tweaking old ones that we find problems in. Unfortunately there is no "beta testing" for our systems and as a result we sometimes release things that may seem broken or in some cases are broken. When that happens we go back and fix things. We take weeks if not months to make new systems and vote and discuss the issues. So again, it is rather insulting and even hurtful for a veteran like you to come in and just berate us because you disagree with something we put up or because we happen to slack off a bit during the holidays. I apologize, once again, but please try and be a bit more understanding of our plight.

With all that out of the way I can now finally address the sub-specialty system issue you have brought up. When I first thought up the system, I had invisioned it being something very optional and something very challenging for players to pursue in order to take their characters to the next level. Rather than it be a requirement, it is something that I didn't think most players would ever achieve. In that light I had proposed that it be limited to the upper tiers of our player base (Jonin ninja). In the infancy of this system's planning, it was proposed that only S ranks be allowed this privledge, but because of the extremely small number of S ranks on the site, it was voted that we keep the requirement at A rank. As for the actual way of acquiring it, I wanted it to be challenging, very very challenging. I did not draft this up with the intention of one village having an advantage over another. The reason for requiring a PLAYER CHARACTER was two-fold. First I wanted it to be a challenging endeavor. In this manor, one simply doesn't just decide that they wish to know a third specialty and decide on which one they want. The character in question looks at the resources around them and thinks of how to use it to his advantage. The second reason was to promote RP and better character relations. I felt that a new dynamic would be created when a character took on the roll of a student or a teacher to another character. Though the training period is rather short, I felt it added a new dimension to the in character relationships. Perhaps I was wrong in thinking this, as it seems that most do not want to build these in character relationships and create these dynamics. I don't know...

As for your accusation about most of the staff being in Kumo. When i first wrote this up, most of the active staff was actually within Konoha. At the time of originally writing this, Becky was on her hiatus. Enzo was not Rping. Winged was not Hokage, Dan was still Hokage, and both Darius and Celene were both Konoha ninja, with Darius being a jonin. Chris was also still on staff. MsMoney was not yet on staff and Kiseki was just starting his trial period. So please don't accuse us of being biased in this way. It is insulting. Things happened to work out where the population swung back over to Kumo after months of Konoha dominating the on site population. If you really want this feature, I urge you to either wait or think a bit harder on how to go about getting the sub-specialty you want. As it stands anyway, very few people can actually even acquire this as there are still few active jonin on the site. Anyway, my flight is boarding so I gotta go. I am sorry for any inconvienence my work has caused but let me say that I am rather disheartened to see people react this way to our work when we do this for the site to try and make things more fun and interesting..

Peace out and all that...

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

TOPKite wrote:: First off let me say I apologize for getting to this later than Becky. I feel that it is my personal responsibility for adressing this issue given that I was the one who thought up most of the ground work on this system and wrote up about 80% of the system. So as I said, I first want to apologize for the delay in adressing this issue. I am currently sitting in an airport in Abu Dhabi, waiting for my flight and I am admittedly a bit tired due to not sleeping for more than 3 hours at a time in the las 24 hours.

I do however want to say that I do take offense to the portrayal you are giving us staffers in this thread. I understand that you are frustrated and I understand that you had an application that fell to the wayside in all the end of the year confusion. I already gave you an apology on that thread and even tried to explain what was going on with most if not all of us on staff. Understand that most of us if not all of us are students and at this time of the year we all have exams and family obligations to fullfill. A few of us are in college and grad school even, so when this time rolls around we are making arrangements to head back to see our families and stuff. Please understand we do not get paid for this, we try to keep this site running due to our love for RPing and this amazing universe that was crafted by Kishimoto. We are constantly working to create new systems while tweaking old ones that we find problems in. Unfortunately there is no "beta testing" for our systems and as a result we sometimes release things that may seem broken or in some cases are broken. When that happens we go back and fix things. We take weeks if not months to make new systems and vote and discuss the issues. So again, it is rather insulting and even hurtful for a veteran like you to come in and just berate us because you disagree with something we put up or because we happen to slack off a bit during the holidays. I apologize, once again, but please try and be a bit more understanding of our plight.

With all that out of the way I can now finally address the sub-specialty system issue you have brought up. When I first thought up the system, I had invisioned it being something very optional and something very challenging for players to pursue in order to take their characters to the next level. Rather than it be a requirement, it is something that I didn't think most players would ever achieve. In that light I had proposed that it be limited to the upper tiers of our player base (Jonin ninja). In the infancy of this system's planning, it was proposed that only S ranks be allowed this privledge, but because of the extremely small number of S ranks on the site, it was voted that we keep the requirement at A rank. As for the actual way of acquiring it, I wanted it to be challenging, very very challenging. I did not draft this up with the intention of one village having an advantage over another. The reason for requiring a PLAYER CHARACTER was two-fold. First I wanted it to be a challenging endeavor. In this manor, one simply doesn't just decide that they wish to know a third specialty and decide on which one they want. The character in question looks at the resources around them and thinks of how to use it to his advantage. The second reason was to promote RP and better character relations. I felt that a new dynamic would be created when a character took on the roll of a student or a teacher to another character. Though the training period is rather short, I felt it added a new dimension to the in character relationships. Perhaps I was wrong in thinking this, as it seems that most do not want to build these in character relationships and create these dynamics. I don't know...

As for your accusation about most of the staff being in Kumo. When i first wrote this up, most of the active staff was actually within Konoha. At the time of originally writing this, Becky was on her hiatus. Enzo was not Rping. Winged was not Hokage, Dan was still Hokage, and both Darius and Celene were both Konoha ninja, with Darius being a jonin. Chris was also still on staff. MsMoney was not yet on staff and Kiseki was just starting his trial period. So please don't accuse us of being biased in this way. It is insulting. Things happened to work out where the population swung back over to Kumo after months of Konoha dominating the on site population. If you really want this feature, I urge you to either wait or think a bit harder on how to go about getting the sub-specialty you want. As it stands anyway, very few people can actually even acquire this as there are still few active jonin on the site. Anyway, my flight is boarding so I gotta go. I am sorry for any inconvienence my work has caused but let me say that I am rather disheartened to see people react this way to our work when we do this for the site to try and make things more fun and interesting..

Peace out and all that...

Now THAT is something I can accept. An explanation that doesn't just say "we did this way because we wanted to and we're staff so its for the best" but actually makes the case using sound arguments without the "appeal to authority" as its only support. Which to put it bluntly is what I got from the prior posts - that this system was okay because others said it was okay. That is hardly a convincing argument to use when someone points out a problem (real or not) and provides an example of the sort of situation it can lead to.

First I will say that I am not upset about the delay. I expected them just like I expected the surge in absences from exams. I am not ignorant to what happens in academia at this nor do I expect people to magically find another 4 hours in the day to meet all their obligations when others are abruptly heaped on them. What has me furious is the impression that members of the staff were playing favorites in checking applications. It's not hard to get that idea when you see older applications with all the proper items with no feed back at all while newer ones get multiple replies. Even if that isn't the case it creates that impression which is hardly the sort of thing the staff want the players to have. I'm sure all of us can recall a site or two we left or a time when we thought someone was getting unfair advantages based solely on who they knew. I remember that being a very ugly feeling that caused quite a bit of unwanted stress when it showed up.

Second, I never intended anyone to feel personally attacked. If that is the interpretation that people have then I apologize for not picking my words better and giving that impression when it wasn't intended. And please do NOT use the term "veteran" for me. I may have more experienced that some here but that doesn't make my ideas better or worse than those of anyone else and that is what I read into that term when its applied in the context of this site. If my arguments are better because I support them better, fine, but raw experience means nothing if not coupled with the ability to take the right lessons from it. Am upset? That some situation weren't taken into consideration and potential problems not addressed (even as a "yes we know but we decided not to change it)", yes. Angry about the system itself is far from the case. Disappointed would be a closer fit since after seeing what had been done with the kit and scroll revamps I know the people working on these changes can do excellent work with a great deal of thought given to things. To see something that makes no allowance for scenarios where it works against the concept of RPing (putting oneself into a different persons mind and acting as they would) gave me the impression of a rush job that wasn't given the time it needed.

And I still feel the system needs to be made more accessible. Yes in time the situation MIGHT improve, but it could also easily get worse - there was a time there were zero active jounin on this site not that long ago. Nor does it have a way to address what happens to under-used specialties. How many A-ranked or higher characters with puppetry specialty are there? None. How about weaponry? One - mine. Now what happens to someone who wants to learn the former? They simply can't. The later - assuming I haven't reached my own limit for juggling threads and the character would have some reason to teach them - they can right up until it comes my turn to take a long break. Then they are out of luck and not through any fault of their own but simply not having the right timing. I'll say right now that that can make a person quite upset when they feel that control of their character is in the hands of other players simply due who took what specialty at creation. And I'm sure I don't have to go about explaining what having ones "teacher" going MIA in the middle of a thread can do for ones progress and stress levels - most of us have had the "fun" of having one or more of the people who are supposed to be playing along side our characters in a thread suddenly vanish and the thread grind to a screeching halt. I suggested the NPC as an option in part because it can get around those situations without the risk of utterly disrupting a thread. Getting permission to use the NPC might, and should, not be easy and it should clearly be considered the option of last resort after all others have been exhausted but at least that way the person knows they have that option to fall back on in a worst-case scenario. Without it there is nothing to stop someone from being stuck with the choice of assuming control of another players character (even sanctioned by staff that is asking for headaches) or abandoning their work in the thread simply because another player lacks the common courtesy to say "I'm going to be away for X days/ weeks/ months at this time - you want to find someone else or wait until I'm back?"

I'll also say that the "only some will have it" is a very slippery slope to tread on and this is one case where the logical fallacy all too often proves true. I've seen it used before in different forms (if you want some examples ask) and it can create some real problems when two relatively equal characters go head to head and one has that advantage and the other doesn't. Even without that possibility there is still the irritation that comes from having an idea that fits your characters background then not having the option to use that idea because you can't meet one requirement due to a choice made by other characters can be rather upsetting. Especially if your character was crafted, or through RP developed, a reason to not want to interact with certain villages or types of characters. Then there is the matter of keeping ones character, well, in character. If someone (for example Dan's) character wished to learn a specialty with the only viable teacher being in Kumo, it would be rather difficult for him to do so without having to create a reason why he would learn from someone who takes orders from a village his background stated he strongly disliked and still maintain a degree of believability. The later, as I'm constantly reminded in both my own and others applications, being considered rather important on this site.

Then there are the issues Mor's raised. There is no explanation about how this change affects the availability of Special Characteristics that are restricted to specific specialties, no indication how it might relate to ones available choices in things like weapons, or any of the other systems. In effect it raises a whole lot of questions that until officially answered have the potential to create some VERY inconsistent decisions by staff about what is and what isn't allowed and those can also easily be seen as shows of favoritism. It also was one of the things that gave me a strong impression of an half-finished system. Referring back to the kits, when that system when up it heavily referenced the rules governing seals (and the reverse) which showed that thought had been given to how it would affect and be affected by other rules.

In any case, I'm getting the impression that this point there is no room for change at this time so further discussion would be a waste. It seems I'm going to have to wait until history repeats itself again like it always does. The last time I recall that happening was when some members became extremely vehement (to the point of personally attacking other members) in defending the old ranking & learning systems while dismissing arguments that there was room for improvement as "lazy gamers". In the end those arguments apparently proved stronger since the number of threads (assuming ones points per thread stay constant) to go up in a rank has shrunk several times now. Though I wish the staff would take the time to communicate ideas in the works with the rest of the site. I think a lot of this could have been avoided if those players who don't spend a lot of time in the chat box had known this system was in the works, and maybe some of the issues that will crop up with it could have been pointed in time to be addressed before they caused problems with the actual RPing on the site. I said it before and I will say it again. If you want the players to help, there are those of us who are more than willing to help. But you have to ask or give us some way to know what is going on. We aren't mind readers.

Subject: Re: Third Speciality System Flaw Thu 20 Dec 2012, 12:05 pm

Interesting points raised on both sides. Really, I don't think the new system is that bad, just could use some tweaking.

Age : 31 Posts : 471

Dare I suggest it may be worth considering translating this new system into an SC? I only just had this idea, so it's in no way thought out, but it could be like getting an extra element, or those SCs that let you do multiple bloodline stuff. You could have all the same requirements (which, for the record, I find make sense and are agreeable), and those that don't want it enough to go to the trouble of complying are not WITHOUT something, and those who do go through with it don't gain something MORE than other players, just something different. Ideas? Please discuss \o/

Age : 29 Posts : 3145

Back on topic, I second Kitty's idea ^__^

Age : 34 Posts : 591

Naughty Chris deleting my post...

Age : 29 Posts : 1797

I haven't read all of this yet, but from what I have read the main "outrage" seems to be quelled. As for Jelly's solution; unfortunately we cannot simply make it SC's or a single training thread. To have it as an SC implies that SC's = Specialties; which is far from the case. You only get 2 specialties. You get 3 SC's (6 at S-rank!). As for a simple training; again, that's too simple. There's very little challenge in knocking out a couple thousand words where you learn an entire specialty. It's arguably not a great advantage to get some B-rank jutsu, however making it easier to gain isn't logical for something that is meant to be difficult to get. Remember; the whole point is for it to be an optional challenge.

Age : 34 Posts : 591

Enzo, that is easily fixed.

"You can't take this SC more than once."

duh.

Age : 29 Posts : 1797

That wasn't even one of my reasons. You can't get two of the same SC anyway. What are you even going on about?

Age : 34 Posts : 591

Oh, and make it require Jounin status. Use it to replace the soon to be defunct Dual KKG and KKT SC's.

Age : 29 Posts : 1797

It's already A-rank only. What are you talking about? Seriously?

Age : 31 Posts : 471

As an SC you would keep all the hard-to-reach requirements, like the player A rank plus character and word count, the only point in making it an SC is to make it so that those that DO go to the trouble of getting it aren't with something while the rest to entirely without.

Subject: Re: Third Speciality System Flaw Fri 21 Dec 2012, 4:53 am

To officially answer two of Mors Questions:

Updated Rules of the Sub - Specialty System wrote:: Before anyone gets too sparkly eyed over this, we need to lay out the ground rules. Learning a new specialty is not the same as mastering it. It takes a great many years to master an art and one can only master so much before their other skills begin to decline. It is for this reason that the sub specialty that an A-ranked ninja learns is limited in the power that can be used from it. A shinobi who picks up a sub specialty will only be able to use up to B rank jutsus from the chosen specialty. However, those who gain the third specialty are also granted access to Special Characteristics up to A-rank that fall under this specialty's limitations. For example, Special Characteristics such as 'Flash Speed' become accessible if one gains weaponry or taijutsu as a third specialty.

In regards to weaponry, those who wish to gain a third specialty in Weaponry may only choose one of the three ranges to specialize in. This is to allow those that have it as their first two specialties an advantage.

In addition, one is not able to increase or 'better' a current specialty by focusing on its current weakness. For example, a Weaponry user that specializes in short and long range attacks, cannot learn mid-range as well. This is done to eliminate the advantage for the specialties that are broken up and can therefore alter or cover their weaknesses, which compared to genjutsu, are unable to do so.

Age : 49 Posts : 1036

Problem with allowing A-rank SC's for a third specialty is that that is all but maybe 4 and those are only extra chakra, summons, improved elemental bloodlines, and reduced CP costs. All the others would be completely open to the person who is supposed to be somewhat weaker in that field than the "expert" which puts something of a damper on a reason for someone to consider getting that specialty in the first place. For example, someone with taking ninjutsu as a third specialty with water & fire affinities has the vast majority of the jutsu-based benefits which is what the B-rank cap seems intended to cut off. With access to A-rank SCs on top of that, it kind of makes one ask "why go this route in the first place when you can game the system and getting the really nice without paying the price?"

I think limiting the SC-relatedit to the same rank as the jutsu (B-rank) would be a better fit. At that point the SC's are still useful but it leaves the very top tier to those who limited themselves in other areas by taking those as their specialty.

And how would this system handle non-jutsu perks? For example, if someone specializes in ijutsu what level of poisons if any could they get if any? How about access to the Medic-nin profession? Allowed rank of weapons and puppets they can apply for and how many?

The more I read and think about it the more I have to say that this system was definitely put out far too early. Too many things are unanswered and too many cases where someone could easily get a big advantage by grabbing the "third spec" that gives access to the most perks that slip around the B-rank cap on jutsu.

Age : 29 Posts : 1797

Nuclear wrote:: And how would this system handle non-jutsu perks? For example, if someone specializes in ijutsu what level of poisons if any could they get if any? How about access to the Medic-nin profession? Allowed rank of weapons and puppets they can apply for and how many?

The same way one deals with weapons. You're not allowed anything higher than B-rank for all but SC's. The reason that SC's are open is quite simply to allow some more versatility. And to be honest, there aren't many B-rank SC's. Most are either C-rank or A-rank; with the exception of a few like Strategist or those in tiers like Speed, Strength, etc. For instance; getting medical as a third specialty wouldn't give you access to the A-rank Evasion or the very useful poison immunity SC's if it was limited to B-rank.

In the end though, I doubt people are going to be swayed toward a certain specialty based solely on what SC's they get or what special benefits. It's all about how one wishes to RP, what they prefer, and how they intend to use it. Do remember, it's not even a requirement to have a third specialty. I can't say anyone would intentionally pass up the offer, but "which is the better specialty" is all based on preference. Anything you apply to "Well this third specialty is better than this one for these reasons" Also applies to picking specialties when creating your character. "Genjutsu is better than ninjutsu here, but ninjutsu is better than genjutsu here." It's all preference.

Subject: Re: Third Speciality System Flaw Sat 22 Dec 2012, 7:49 am

Special Characteristics: Limits and Explanation

Hello, once again. It seems that we are going to continue to become reacquainted with one another.

In regards to your concerns over Special Characteristics, it has been decided that for one's third specialty, only one SC up to A - Rank will be available to you. Now, before anyone gets their panties in a twist, please let me explain why.

Staff has decided upon this because of the fact that in regards to SCs, we only have three B - Rank ones that require a specialty, aside from the Physical ones in order to gain them. If we decided to create a limitation strictly there, for those that have gained Taijutsu or Weaponry as their third, they have more option for new SCs compared to someone who went for Ninjutsu or Genjutsu, for example. So, in order to combat that inconsistency, we decided that allowing a member to pick up a single SC, up to A - Rank, from their new specialty seems fair, especially as a reward for completing all the necessary threads that will be needed in order for your character to gain the third specialty to begin with.

Age : 28 Posts : 266

Is this solved?