Projectile Rules Simplification

This is going to be a suggestion as opposed to a writeup, so it'll be some general ideas for a fix. If people agree it will then be written into an actual descriptive system being much neater and easier to understand.




The Basics: All projectiles have a max range of 100 meters without the aid of a device, technique. or tool to accelerate range, and an effective range of half that (50 meters.) Improvised projectiles such as constructs, trees, stones, or people have that max range reduced by half as well as the effective range (50 meters and 25 meters respectively.) This is because crafted weapons are better designed to be aerodynamic and sustain flight over a rock found off the ground.

Speed: The speed of a projectile is based off the current rules in place with a few minor adjustments. All crafted weapons are +1 tier faster than the user's strength. This is again due to the design. So someone with C-tier Strength will throw shuriken at B-tier Speeds versus C-tier. However, if that same person decides to pick up a stone and hurl it at their opponent, the speed of the stone will be C-tier.

Likewise, Coordination works the same with some minor adjustments. The speed of a projectile increases by +1 advantage for every tier of Coordination starting at C-tier. This value caps out at A-tier Coordination, giving the user a maximum Coordination speed bonus of +1 tier.

Air Resistance: Eventually a thrown item loses speed and loses its lethal potential as it fights air and gravity. Projectiles maintain their speed and impact strength throughout their effect range, but outside of the effective range, the projectile loses two tiers of its Speed and has its Strength reduced by two tiers. This means a ninja throwing a shuriken with C-tier Strength and A-tier Coordination (A-tier projectile Speed), outside of its effective range the Speed becomes C-tier and the impact strength is reduced to E-tier.

Advantages and Exceptions: Using gravity helps increase the range of a projectile by doubling both the effective and max range. Throwing from a diagonal and vertical position position enables this benefit.

Additionally, heavier tools (such as giant shuriken) maintain momentum better doubling the range on all heavy tools. This means a giant shuriken throw from an advantageous position quadruples range (300 meters effective range, 400 meters max range.) Heavy tools can be defined by the "Heavy" identifier in the marketplace or staff discretion. Generally, handheld projectiles such as kunai, shuriken, and senbon do not fit in this category. However, javelins, giant shuriken, and throwing axes do. Remember, these are only for crafted tools. Improvised projectiles do not benefit from this bonus.

---

The Basics: Ranges see some minor tweaks below for bows:

C: 200m, B: 400m, A: 800m, S: 1.5km, X: 3km

Unlike projectiles, bows do not see a loss of speed or strength. Due to the bow's design as well as the arrow's, it maintains peak velocity throughout its range only to falter when outside of its range.

Speed: The speed of the arrow is determined by the grade of the bow +1 tier. This means a C-rank bow will fire arrows at B-rank speed. Likewise, an S-rank bow will fire arrows at X-tier Speeds. An X-tier bow will simply cap out at X++ Speed. As stated above, a bow and arrow does not suffer from loss of speed during its flight.

Arrow speed also sees some adjustments seen below:

B-rank arrows: +2 adv to speed
A-rank arrows: +1 tier to speed

Advantages and Exception: The same as above.

---

Reason For Edit: I feel taking a more simplistic approach regarding projectiles helps make the systems easier to understand for a lot of people without having to worry about calculating attrition over the course of every 10 meters, increased range for more coordination, and all sorts of chaos that exists in our current system. I feel this also addresses some balancing issues primarily with Kyujutsu and Bukijutsu, making these builds less like a tank build requiring massive amounts of strength to be effective.

Additionally, by cutting back some of bow's ridiculous and unused max ranges while eliminating its similarly clunky momentum loss, Kyujutsu users will begin to rely more on master crafted tools versus seeking another tank build to use the greater bows for their build.

The Basics: All projectiles have a max range of 100 meters without the aid of a device, technique. or tool to accelerate range, and an effective range of half that (50 meters.) Improvised projectiles such as constructs, trees, stones, or people have that max range reduced by half as well as the effective range (50 meters and 25 meters respectively.) This is because crafted weapons are better designed to be aerodynamic and sustain flight over a rock found off the ground.

I dislike this ruleset almost immediately. It makes absolutely no sense for projectiles to have a maximum range of 100 meters. The current range of projectiles isn't a problem at all as even with X++ coordination, you would only have an effectively accurate range of 85 meters, assuming that S and S rank don't count for 6+s each, in which case it would be a maximum accurate range of 115 meters. In the case of their actual maximum distance that they can travel, it would be 170 meters in the first case, and 230 meters in the second case, which isn't really thaty bad considering they can't aim them very well. To me it doesn't logically make any sense for people that can lift up bijuu to not be able to throw a rock or kunai across a football field, especially when normal professional baseball pitchers can do that irl pretty easily.

Speed: The speed of a projectile is based off the current rules in place with a few minor adjustments. All crafted weapons are +1 tier faster than the user's strength. This is again due to the design. So someone with C-tier Strength will throw shuriken at B-tier Speeds versus C-tier. However, if that same person decides to pick up a stone and hurl it at their opponent, the speed of the stone will be C-tier.

Likewise, Coordination works the same with some minor adjustments. The speed of a projectile increases by +1 advantage for every tier of Coordination starting at C-tier. This value caps out at A-tier Coordination, giving the user a maximum Coordination speed bonus of +1 tier.

So, forgive me if I'm wrong, but does that mean someone with A rank strength and coordination can throw a crafted projectile at X rank speed, since boosting the speeds of projectiles doesn't fall under normal stat rules? If that's the case then that's insane for balancing purposes as most people would struggle to dodge an X rank projectile even within the new ranges. As of the current projectile system, if we follow the assumption that the speed of projectiles doesn't follow the normal boosting rules, A rank strength and A rank coordination would only give you 3+s and put you at S rank throwing power/ throwing speed. This would only allow you to have an accurate range of 60 meters, rather than the 100 meters flatly granted to all projectile use. The problem with this can be illustrated more after we take a look at the air resistance suggestions.

Air Resistance: Eventually a thrown item loses speed and loses its lethal potential as it fights air and gravity. Projectiles maintain their speed and impact strength throughout their effect range, but outside of the effective range, the projectile loses two tiers of its Speed and has its Strength reduced by two tiers. This means a ninja throwing a shuriken with C-tier Strength and A-tier Coordination (A-tier projectile Speed), outside of its effective range the Speed becomes C-tier and the impact strength is reduced to E-tier.

This new suggestion would allow for someone with A rank strength and Speed to throw an X rank speed strength projectile that keeps its entire momentum for 100 meters before reducing it's speed and strength. When we compare this to the current projectile rules, where they would have a throwing power and speed of S rank, a maximum range of 60 meters, a one tier reduction in speed and power by 30 meters, and a two tier reduction in speed and power by 60 meters, we can see that the current projectile rules are barely even worth mentioning compared to this new suggestion. The current rules follow the effects of gravity and air resistance much better than the new suggestion by providing a constant decrease to the projectiles capabilities rather than a flat one that is applied over a certain distance.

Advantages and Exceptions: Using gravity helps increase the range of a projectile by doubling both the effective and max range. Throwing from a diagonal and vertical position position enables this benefit.

Additionally, heavier tools (such as giant shuriken) maintain momentum better doubling the range on all heavy tools. This means a giant shuriken throw from an advantageous position quadruples range (300 meters effective range, 400 meters max range.) Heavy tools can be defined by the "Heavy" identifier in the marketplace or staff discretion. Generally, handheld projectiles such as kunai, shuriken, and senbon do not fit in this category. However, javelins, giant shuriken, and throwing axes do. Remember, these are only for crafted tools. Improvised projectiles do not benefit from this bonus.

I also have a few problems with this but it's mostly a geometry problem rather than a physics problem. Being able to throw a large shuriken like that at a diagonal, assuming that diagonal is going down towards a target, would cause the projectile to travel a further distance than if they were on flat ground, but still allow the projectile to reach the same position.

For Example:
Which would be assuming a height of 100 meters and a target distance of 100 meters away from the base of whatever you were standing on. We can see that the distance traveled of the projectile would be close to 1.4 times that as if it were thrown on the ground.

This is important because I don't think range extension for anything other than attacks aimed downwards would be very effective. If you throw a projectile in an arc, the amount of speed it's going to lose from that arc is likely going to be higher than the benefits granted to the projectile by gravity. This is assuming of course, the arc is of great enough significance to actually increase the range of what you are throwing. A flat increase to the range of a projectile regardless of angle just sounds extremely easy to abuse to me, so I dislike it. The problem with the flat increase in range is also illustrated if you look at a graph of the angle theta, vs the distance traveled for projectile motion with air resistance.


(If anybody wants me to provide the code used to make this graph I'm happy to provide it.)

I also disagree that a heavier tool would maintain momentum better as they require a greater force to throw them in a first place. The mass of the two is irrelevant over a certain range as if they are launched at the same velocity, they would end up with the same range. The equations of projectile motion in physics do not have mass involved for this very reason.

The Basics: Ranges see some minor tweaks below for bows:

C: 200m, B: 400m, A: 800m, S: 1.5km, X: 3km

Unlike projectiles, bows do not see a loss of speed or strength. Due to the bow's design as well as the arrow's, it maintains peak velocity throughout its range only to falter when outside of its range.

Speed: The speed of the arrow is determined by the grade of the bow +1 tier. This means a C-rank bow will fire arrows at B-rank speed. Likewise, an S-rank bow will fire arrows at X-tier Speeds. An X-tier bow will simply cap out at X++ Speed. As stated above, a bow and arrow does not suffer from loss of speed during its flight.

Arrow speed also sees some adjustments seen below:

B-rank arrows: +2 adv to speed
A-rank arrows: +1 tier to speed

Advantages and Exception: The same as above.

This just seems like a buff to an already powerful weapon type. Under the current range suggestions, a person with S rank strength and coordination can just fire their bow from a slightly elevated position and suddenly have it travel for 3 km with no speed loss, keeping an X rank speed and power for the whole duration. A maxed out bow user is already dangerous enough when they can effectively snipe you from a maximum effective distance of around 4 km and a speed/power of S++ rather than 6km and X++. The changes to the arrow grades makes it even more broken since the investment to hit X rank speed projectiles with bows would be even easier.


In general I think the only balancing method for projectiles at the moment would be to require them to follow the normal boosting rules when it comes to reaching S and X rank speed/power. I think bows are in a perfect place right now and don't need to follow these boosting rules as their advantage for being bows rather than thrown projectiles. The suggestions in this thread would only make projectiles more easily abusable