A Question of balance

[Mr. Moogle]

Ive been Dming a Naruto d20 campaign fo a while and so far its been pretty fun, the encounters have been balanced, everyone's been enthusiastic Etc.

But the whole campaign hit a snag when one player (a bearer of shakaku) didnt like how he needed to be around sand all the time and he wanted to "improve his value to the party" and he asked me to please homebrew a Gourd of infinite sand for about as much as a flask of infinite water.
At first i though it was an ok idea, he wanted to expand his usefulness to somewhere besides the desert. But the rest of the party didnt approve.

They thought that me giving the primary blasting power of their party even MORE power was cheap and unbalanced, and some of them got pretty upset. And so Iv'e thought that i would extend this issue to a jury of my peers, Is it balanced? or Freakishly overpowered?

[Raolin_Fenix]

Maybe you didn't watch the Naruto series, wherein Gaara = broken. :P

I'm not familiar with the Naruto d20 setting, but if it's anything like the show, yeah, I'm willing to bet that the Infinite Gourd would be crazy-broken. Certainly at the cost of a flask of infinite water. Expanding usefulness outside the desert is all well and good, but he just has to learn to improvise if he's having problems off his home turf. Improvisation is the Ninja Way, after all.

[ZeroNumerous]

How about we try this instead.. Take the party away from the desert before you give him a gourd of infinite sand. Let the party see just how effective a Bearer of Shukaku is whenever he's away from sand. Run a few encounters against CR appropriate shinobi squads and your players will quickly realize just how useless Bearer of Shukaku can be without sand.

[Mr. Moogle]

But how dose one improvise sand? bash rocks together?

Well seeing as you are unfrimiliar with the setting i think ishould tell you that only Gaaras full metamorphisis can use regular earth everything else uses sand.

[Generic PC]

For instance, get him to carry around a bunch of sand (Like Someone else many people know...) would this work with this character? I dont Watch Naruto, nor play the d20 version, so i wouldnt know, but that took me like threee seconds to come up with.

[Mr. Moogle]

How about we try this instead.. Take the party away from the desert before you give him a gourd of infinite sand. Let the party see just how effective a Bearer of Shukaku is whenever he's away from sand. Run a few encounters against CR appropriate shinobi squads and your players will quickly realize just how useless Bearer of Shukaku can be without sand.

Ive already done that and his charictar was actually less usefull without sand than a shinobi of his level with level adjustment (he flys into beastial rages but without sand it only makes worse).
anyways im permiting him to hold ten pounds of sand at all times within his backpack, but he still inist usefull without boatloads of sand on hand.

[Mr. Moogle]

sorry for double-posting but here is a link to where you can download the PDF of the naruto d20 equivalent of a PHB http://www.narutod20.com/downloads-2/

[Dairun Cates]

I've seen the system and it honestly sounds like he optimized his character too much. It's all and good being a sand ninja, but he should of logically known that the campaign would travel outside of the desert often. In these times, he may not be as strong as other people of his CR, but he should of had a back-up combat plan. Even fighters with Weapon Focus carry a mace for bludgeoning damage and oozes, and a bow for range. If he's finding that this is causing him boredom, rather than giving him a gourd of infinite sand, you might consider letting him rebuild his character a bit. Multi-class it a bit so that it can fight effectively out of the desert.

[Mr. Moogle]

The whole mega optimization thing was partly my falt. i told him wed be playing in the desert in this campaign, and we have but i feel the urge to get them out of the desert because ive already exausted mod my ideas for that setting (one was kinda funny, he exertted his dominance over a group of intelegent mummies with his sand powers. They were his lackys for a time untill they entered a city and they were killed off by the paladins guild).

O also i forgot to mention im also using PHB clases for NPC's.

[Douglas]

So he's made a Gaara clone? Just tell him to take it one step further and pack a gourd like Gaara's. A magical infinite gourd might be a bit much, but Gaara's gourd is a whole lot more than just the 10 pounds you say you're already permitting. I'd guesstimate that thing at 50 to 100 pounds and, while I'm not familiar with the rules you're playing with, it was more than enough to be very powerful in the show. If he really needs more for some reason, find or create some rules for Gaara's technique of crushing rocks and minerals and such on the spot to create more sand, as shown when Gaara comes to Rock Lee's rescue in the chasing Sasuke sequence.

[Mr. Moogle]

On a side note, for anyone not franiliar with naruto the show our the d20 system a Bearer of shukaku is a person with a demon trapped in them that allows for the manipulation if sand for offensive and defensive purposes, the level adjustment is +3 and even i will admit that certail aspects of it are incredibaly overpowered. for instance, it means a level 4 could hace a +10 deflection bounus to AC and the ability to make 2d6+4 damage slam attacks at 30 foot range, and if they fail a will save their chakra (energy ninjas use to cast with) and strength/con/ranged attack power go up tremendously but they become exausted and suffer wisdom damage.