Lessons from Inuyasha: Earning Big Moves in TTRPG Combat

I’ve been watching Inuyasha for the last few months. And like I’ve tweeted, I’m learning a lot about ttrpg combat and encounter design from watching the show. Inuyasha follows the story of a pretty well-balanced RPG adventuring party: a half-demon fighter, a cursed monk, a demon-slaying ranger and her creature companion, a tricky bard, and a cleric with otherworldly knowledge. The show tests each of these characters emotionally and physically on their mutual quest to destroy an evil villain. There’s a lot there I want to talk about.

For this post, though, I want to focus specifically on what happens when power creep gets so intense that players’ abilities guarantee success. To do that, I’ll be talking about one character in Inuyasha I’m interested in mechanically: Miroku.

Miroku’s family line was cursed two generations ago. Now he has a giant hole in his hand that sucks up anything in its path. Miroku is able to control this Wind Tunnel using prayer beads, meaning he can use it on demand. Some curse; it’s one of the strongest abilities in the series, and Miroku gets it immediately.

All Good Moves Get Nerfed

If this were an ability in D&D, I’d be using it all the time, sucking up all of my enemies without a second thought. But having an all-powerful move like Wind Tunnel makes combat boring. And Inuyasha is technically a shōnen anime, which means it’s all about the fights. So, the show always adds some condition to counter this ultra-powerful ability:

• If the Wind Tunnel sucks up poison, it damages Miroku. This renders the Wind Tunnel ineffective against poisonous gas or insects.
• When the Wind Tunnel is open, it sucks up everything in its direction. If a target is holding an important item or even an ally, Miroku cannot use it.
• If the target is too large, the Wind Tunnel fails, and Miroku may end up damaging the hole in his hand, endangering himself and his friends.

“Poisonous insects” might seem like a specific scenario out of context, but they’re infamous in Inuyasha as the anti-Wind Tunnel move. Miroku had only appeared in two episodes before the show introduced “poison insects” specifically to counter to his Wind Tunnel. There’s maybe one in ten episodes that don’t feature these poisonous insects in some way. Whoever’s running this game clearly has it out for Miroku.

But what’s the point of taking a powerful ability if your GM never lets you use it? There isn’t one. Sometimes, the way Inuyasha does this feels kind of cheap. If I’d rolled up Miroku as a player, I’d probably be super tired of the poison insects by now.

But after watching nearly 200 episodes of this show, I noticed most battles in Inuyasha follow the same pattern. With ultra-powerful moves like the Wind Tunnel, the “puzzle” of the fight, so to speak, is forcing the conditions under which these moves can actually work.

Earning the Finisher

The party will work to clear the smoke or drive away the insects so Miroku can use his Wind Tunnel without fear of poison. The fighting part of the episode becomes the roadmap to the finisher. Miroku gets to use Wind Tunnel. Inuyasha gets to use his Wind Scar or Backlash Wave. But because of all the stuff leading up to them, these moves feel earned.

Inuyasha isn’t really about fighters who become stronger, although Inuyasha the character does learn a few moves here and there. It’s about finding the strategy that will overcome the obstacle in front of them. And these obstacles come in many forms: agile enemies, sturdy barriers, hostage situations, emotional hangups—the list goes on.

I started to think about how this kind of “puzzle” would work out in a ttrpg combat encounter. What kinds of obstacles do I put into my games to counter my players’ strongest moves?

The most common tactic I can think of is using smaller rooms that prevent the use of AOE spells like freball. Smaller rooms guarantee friendly fire, maybe even to the spellcaster themself.

How could my players get over that barrier, though? Can they break down the dungeon walls and make more room? Can they lead an enemy into wide-open space? Is it worth it to do that stuff, or should they just pick another spell? More often than not, it’s more expedient to just pick another spell.

Lower-level 5e probably isn’t the best system to be exploring this kind of obstacle-puzzle combat method. 5e in general is all about abstracting the particulars of combat. That’s what HP is for, after all. While the Inuyasha party is working to set up the perfect hit against the demon they’re fighting, the 5e party is swinging their weapons until their enemy’s HP hits 0.

In higher tiers, though, when characters are practically demigods and can kill with a spell or a hit or even a word, this kind of encounter design might force players to think more out of the box. What’s stopping them from using their awesome powers, and what am I putting in my games to let them clear those obstacles?