Shinobi NPCS

What They Are

Kageborne has 317 human characters. Each looks like a player, with its own skin, hair, headband, cloak and gear, uses the same animations as players (hand signs included) and always shows its name tag.
Name colours: Akatsuki red; rogue ninjas dark red; Kage gold; medics, chakra engineers and the Ninja Scientist aqua; roaming village ninjas, the Ramen Guy and the pity traders yellow; outlaws red; Konoha shinobi and civilians green.

Strength by Tier

NPCs range from tier 1 (genin level) to tier 5 (Kage and legends).

Health: tier 1 = 100, tier 2 = 200, tier 3 = 380, tier 4 = 650, tier 5 = 1,000 (a maxed player has 500).
Armour: 2 + 2 x tier.
Melee blow: 1.5 + 0.6 x tier base, x1.2 for pure taijutsu fighters (those with no jutsu), then x5 actual. A tier-1 genin lands about 10 per blow; a tier-5 taijutsu master about 27.
Jutsu power: x(0.5 + 0.15 x tier).
Movement: taijutsu-only fighters move a little faster than the rest; stationary NPCs never move.

Combat Behaviour

Jutsu users keep a middle distance and cast when they can see their target within 26 blocks. They stand still and weave hand signs first (0.3 seconds per sign); a hit worth more than 12% of their max health interrupts the signs. Between jutsu they wait 5 seconds plus a random 0-4 seconds, minus 0.4 seconds per tier.
They cast the same jutsu players do, so damage, effects and visuals match player jutsu, scaled by their jutsu power. Techniques that only make sense for players (toggles, stances, self-buffs, walls and the like) are left out of NPC kits.
Hand techniques (Rasengan, Chidori, Rasenshuriken): formed in the hand at once (with sound and particles) and held for up to 12 seconds, then the NPC rushes in (and may leap) to strike.

Chidori: 12 lightning damage (60 actual) and paralysis for 2.5 seconds.
Rasengan: 14 wind damage (70 actual) with a strong knockback blast.
Rasenshuriken: thrown from up to 22 blocks.

Thrown weapons: a kunai, a volley of 3 shuriken, or a crossbow bolt (faster, with x1.3 damage), each dealing the NPC's melee damage. They cannot be picked up.
Taijutsu fighters close in fast, sometimes leaping the last 4-10 blocks.
Up close (within 3.5 blocks), every NPC fights hand to hand and only uses its close-range jutsu (taijutsu moves and the like). When it picks a close-range jutsu from farther away, it runs in to use it.
NPCs never attack their own faction (except rogues), never attack stationary NPCs, and mission foes never fight each other.

Mangekyo Bosses

Characters drawn with a Mangekyo Sharingan (such as Itachi, Sasuke, Madara, Shisui and Obito) fight with that eye's own techniques, used the way a player uses them:

Itachi: Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi. Sasuke: Amaterasu. Madara: his meteor (Tengai Shinsei) and Amaterasu. Shisui: Kotoamatsukami and Body Flicker. Obito: Kamui.
Eye contact first: Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Kotoamatsukami work through the eyes. The boss stops and stares at you, and only casts once your eyes have met (a clear line between you, and you looking at it) for about a second. Looking away holds it off, and after a while it gives up. Amaterasu is then held for 3 seconds, with black flames bursting wherever its gaze rests while it keeps you in sight.
Susanoo: it grows as the boss is wounded: the ribcage below three quarters of its health, an arm below half, the full skeleton below a quarter. The Susanoo takes most of each blow, swings at anyone in its reach (three strikes and a slam, like a player's), and fades when the fight is over.

Rewards

Each NPC kill gives 10 vanilla experience. Apart from roaming ninjas' chakra fragments and the tokens a mission boss can drop, NPCs drop no special loot. Trial bosses put their loot in each winner's reward chest instead.