Anima is a great p&p game, BUT there are some things that are just not worth "buying". I know it's all subjective, but let's make a list and talk about it, shall we, perhaps we can come up with some tweaks to make things worth the investment. I'll start:

Additional attack module (or whatever this is called):

Yeah, in my opinion totally not worth it. You see costs are huge (50DP) and even Weaponsmasters would be better off with sth that does not use up such a huge amount of resources... I mean at Level 10 you've got 150 free primary DP if you pumped att/def to max and if you didn't, buying this module woud be subpar at best. I mean everyone can do what he/she wants, I'm just making the case that knowingly screwing a character concept could very well end up hurting the whole group.

Iaijustu module:

Hugely dependent on the GM. "But ive already drawn my weapon 2 rounds ago, because that's what I always do." -.- On the other hand it's a prerequ for sth that is neat (Yuuse Battojutsu), but this Magnus is a bit of a ***** as well, so... But at least it has some style factor, my char has taken it (and the Magnus)

Buying LP with CON below 10 (especially if not WM):

Little else to say. Yeah, ist not necessarily primary DP, but still...

Buying psychic powers or magic as a Fighter archetype:

There go your DP better spent on secondary abilities.

Buying Block and Dodge:

Ok, ive never actually seen someone do this.

Any ki power that permanently decreases your stats when you use it:

Why Would anyone do that. I can see it happen as a camaign specific thing, but other than that...

Buying psychic powers or magic as a Fighter archetype:

There go your DP better spent on secondary abilities.

I would like to point out that Warrior Mentalists fall under this category, and taking Physical Increase can be devastating to enemies.

No they don't, Warrior Mentalists are mixed Fighter/Psychic archetypes. Anyone thinking Warrior Mentalists would be better off NOT buying psychic powers is either ignorant or insane, as they are the most efficient powerhouses in Anima, up to the point where we pretty much tend to forbid them in our game.

"Additional attack module (or whatever this is called):"

Aside from the huge costs, I've had a couple players pick this up for style reasons. Multiple defence penalties can get pretty intense in the early game if enemies dont utilize supernatural shields. I'd personally keep it at the high cost just to keep the number of players taking it to a minimum xD

"Iaijustu module: "

Style reasons make this a popular choice. Mechanics-wise, it is great for people who utilize many different weapons and want to be able to have more freedom of choice in combat.

"Buying LP with CON below 10 (especially if not WM): "

Definitely a DP sink unless you are a WM with at least 10 CON, I agree with you there.

"Buying psychic powers or magic as a Fighter archetype: "

Yep. I have been playing around with the idea of a Ranger (aka Investigator) who uses the Telemetry psy discipline but I will probably just use that one Avantage that lets you use a single psy power naturally instead.

"Buying Block and Dodge: "

One of the first things I explain to new players is that you only need one of these.

"Any ki power that permanently decreases your stats when you use it:"

Yeeaaah. The ki trees in DE that use that disadvantage I just change to a different disadvantage, that one is pretty ridiculous except for NPCs or PCs who wont survive the combat anyways.

§$%& this, I cant't figure our how to paste into this goddamn forum.

Well VoidCabbage, I could agree with you on the Additional Attacks module, but especially in DE there are so many things to buy that are much better, especially Ars Magnus, and Fighters really dont' have much DP left after investing in att/def. I guess they discovered how bad normal fighter archetypes do compared to Mysics or Psychics or sth.

And about the Iaijutsu module...

They should have named it quick draw then and changed the bonuses. When I think about iaijutsu, I imagine a samurai drawing his katana or wakizashi with lighning speed.

You know what, I might actually do that.

Quick Draw: Works like the vanilla Iaijutsu module, but can be used with any weapon. Cannot be used as a prerqu for Yuuse Battojutsu.

Iaijutsu: Works like Quick Draw does, but only with katana, wakizashi, or similar weapons.

Iaijutsu Duels:If used on a target that also has his weapon sheated and possesses the Iaijutsu module, each round composure and initiative are rolled. If one scores 100 pts above the other with the composure roll, he can strike his opponent with an attack bonus equal to the difference in the final initiative score, if positive, or a corresponding malus if negative. The target may of course defend himself and initiate conterattacks. Surprise rules apply, as does the Yuuse Battojutsu Ars Magnus, but techniques or other bonuses (magic, psychic) do not.

A iaijutsu duel can't be forced on someone, both parties have to consent.

In DE there is already a lesser Ars Magnus called Yuuse Batto Jutsu that allows you to make the samurai style sword drawing at lightning speed and a full technique tree (Meizo's Way). I totally agree with Void Cabbage in reguard to Batto Jutsu Module, anyway. I used a Weapon Master who hid inside the armor 5 couples of different weapons and being capable of switching them at will without penalties allowed me to play extremely flexible tactics which made fighting a lot of fun (despite fights being possibly the worst part of this game due to the extremely slow game mechanics).

As a general rule, most Style modules (and weapon modules) are extremely costly for non-weapon master characters, so I wouldn't reccomend most fighters to buy them, except perhaps for most useful ones (like the Defense Against Projectiles Module for characters wielding a two-handed weapon).

As for buying DPs, this can be a worthy expense at most for classes that spend 15DP per multiple (Warrior/Paladin/Dark Paladin). Although 15DP for 8HP might seem a bad expense, there aren't too many ways of increasing your HPs and spending CPs on increasing CON is always a good idea, regardless of class, but especially for "physical" classes, so the bonus HP will increase as soon as you get more CON and with a CON value of 15 you have a reasonable 1HP/DP ratio even for such classes. Of course, Weapon Master is pro in this, since Weapon Master is the absolute Tank class in Anima.

As a HUGE DP dump, I'd rather point out Wear Armor for ALL classes that spend 3DPs per point in it. Seriously, the character won't ever be capable of wearing anything decent...just stick to Armored Longcoats of increasing quality! Even for other non-Weapon Master classes I've got my doubts about the usefulness of spending huge DPs on Wear Armor ability...and since I only think that spending on Wear Armor is useful if you want to access GOOD plate armors, I can't see much use in spending at all on it unless you're a Weapon Master or at least a Paladin who gains +10 Wear Armor/Level (or unless you spent CPs on Use of Armor Advantage).

As for Supernatural or Psychic Abililities for non Magic/Psychic Class, there are only two cases in which i would advocate them. The first is when building a character obliged to take either The Gift or Access to Psychic Disciplines but going for a non mystic/psychic class. After all a Duk'Zarist can be a technician and a Sylvain can be a Ranger right? In all these cases I would strongly reccomend to invest non-Combat DPs on the other primary ability in order to make it at the very least usable. Projection Modules are always useful unless you count on using only Effect Spells and self-boosting Psychic Powers (essentially from Physical Increment Discipline). As for the rest..spend on permanent Psychic Points for psychics (to increase base Potential and buying FEW useful Powers) and MA for casters. As for Paths, I'd definitely avoid attack oriented stuff, since your primary way of attacking will still be dealing blows. Earth/Air/Creation/Essence/Illusion are all paths that work very well for granting utilities to a fighter as well as War/Blood/Nobility/Time Subpaths (also Darkness and Light may come in handy, depending on the chosen class). Same goes with Disciplines (and yes, it hurts a lot that Duk'Zarist are obliged to take Pyrokinesis as their first), where I'd reccomend Physical Increase, Hypersensitivity, Teleport or some Psychokinetic powers. Also Electromagnetism and Telepathy can have their uses actually. Note: Path or Discipline is completely useless, just there are some that will do better for a fighter class, especially since you're not investing too much into them. Anyway, the second reason for a fighter class to spend on Magic/Psychic is for a Warlock/Warrior Mentalist who changed class to a pure Fighter or a Fighter Prowler or Domine class (you usually do this if you want at some point your Warlock/Warrior Mentalist to use techniques or Ars Magna, which would cost too much on the multiclass character). Such change allows the Multiclass to concentrate on fighting after having reached a decent enough level on his Supernatural Abilities, still there is no reason not to keep investing on these even if the growth on them slows considerably.

As for the other DP dumps...Additional Attack Module: I never liked it too...making additional attacks in the traditional way is not that good, due to the huge Attack penalty, and adding more penalties isn't that great even if the opponent gains pealties for additional defenses. A character with Noah's Elan might though greatly reduce such penalties, but then again, even for a Weapon Master there are better places to invest the extra Combat DPs.

Block and Dodge?! Lol...

Ki Powers permanently decreasing stats...Never used them (and changed the final technique of Hypnos Requiem so it didn't have this disadvantage that made it trash), just like I never used the Final Technique Disadvantage. Even Previous Preparation is not worthy on my opinion...c'mon what's the use of a technique that you need 20 turns to prepare (and that's for a mere -10MK cost!). All this stuff can be nice for very focused NPCs who develop a single technique for a single purpose, but otherwise I can't see any use for this stuff.

My two cents, of course.

Elric, regarding your statment abourt Yuuse Batojutsu I really don't know what you want to say. I've already acknowledged the existence of this Magnus in my previous post. I merely created two mudules with related bonuses. It's mostly for the sake of flavor. The first one is better for characters who want to use many weapons, the second one is better for Samurai type characters. And then I posted an idea for iaijutsu duels. I also might reduce costs of the iaijutsu module for characters with the samurai background.

Oh, your modules are ok, really! My statement about Batto Jutsu was just referred to the original post that considered this module useless. I just wanted to point out the usefulness of the module. Most times characters already have their weapons drawn during the first turn of combat, but when switching weapons it's very useful and it can be used as pre-requisite for Yuuse Batto Jutsu which is cool, in my opinion. Just that.

Some skills IMO seem to be DP dumps.

Search and Notice.

You can usually survive with only Notice.

Athletics

Acrobatics is better, since it allows you to get behind an enemy.

Jump

Can be substituted with Acrobatics. And Acrobatics is used to reduce damage from falling too.

Animals

Every critter you could tame seems harmless compared to all the 'real' monsters roaming Gaia.

In terms of the additional attack module... I found an incredibly effective way to make use of it. They way i built the character was a Tao with the versitile advantage. The character was built with the motive of taking kempo up to advanced degree (at least) and then swap over to weaponsmaster to captiolize on the half DP for modules and buy additional attacks. If your kempo is high enough, for each additional attack you are only applying a -10 which is MUCH greater benifit considering you impose an even greater penalty to the person you attack.

@ElricOfMelnibone:

Ah, now I get you.

@ segara82:

Athleticism is very good at keeping things up for a long time, eg running at max speed. IMO many of the martial arts should have an athleticism requirement.

Jump I agree, it's only good for one thing...

I never bothered with the Animals skill, guess that answers that.

Search and Notice: Notice is one hell of a useful skill, Search not so much, but depending on the GM, it can be very useful.

@ Latoshi: I agree, if you can lower the maluses for additional attacks, it certainly becomes more useful, BUT, the DP cost is still too high, even with the Versatile Advantage. Keep in mind that you have to pay every time you swith classes. Generally, a Tao would be more usefull with another martial art or two.

In my experience, Search lets you gather extra information on things that you normally wouldnt find out due to Notice. Notice isn't an end-all skill that tells you everything you need to know about everything in the room you are in, you use Search to learn the specifics.

Animals is definitely something you would come across in some games and not others. My players have a lot of character concepts that involves them having some sort of natural pet or another so Animals sees a lot of use in our games. There is one player in our current joke/absurd game who runs around with a magical pet walrus and 60 Elan with Rafael... It is pretty terrifying to see a shirtless Tao-Viking riding a flying magical walrus while summoning a horde of bears to do his bidding.

Meanwhile my Lamia character is off somewhere else with his pet snake xD

My problem with additional attacks is that the penalty applies to ALL attacks...hence even with Kempo, if you make 5 Attacks you gain -50 to ALL of them, while your target suffers a -50Defense only to his third defense (and higher penalties afterward, of course). The big problem here is that when you make your first Attack at -50 against an opponent defending at FULL Defense, there is a high chance (if the fight is balanced...and if the opponent is far weaker than you, you don't need to make 5 attacks anyway!) that the opponent will successfully defend, then counterattack with a nice bonus and, should he put YOU at the defensive, your 4 additional attacks are lost anyway!

As for secondary abilities, I already wrote in other threads that their utility depends greatly on the Master. A good Master (on my opinion) should reward creative players that invest much on Secondary Abilities and try to put them to use in different situations, including battle situations. A secondary ability becomes useless when either the master and/or the player is lazy at thinking on how to put it to good use.

Within Search sphere of influence is navigation in land-based travel.

Within Search sphere of influence is navigation in land-based travel.

Isn't Navigation only for travel and directing naval vessals? Because the way i read it, it was used for navigating ships across the sea.

A secondary ability becomes useless when either the master and/or the player is lazy at thinking on how to put it to good use.

I agree with this as that is pretty much how my entire group looks at things. In my group search always has much MUCH lower difficulty requirements for spotting things than notice. Our gm often gives multiple options as well for instance if I want to remember something I could roll memorize or and INT check, however the INT check would require a very high pass margin to get me any results whereas even a moderate memorize roll would do the job. This is done again to encourage players to consider all their options and how they can use their skills.

Within Search sphere of influence is navigation in land-based travel.

Isn't Navigation only for travel and directing naval vessals? Because the way i read it, it was used for navigating ships across the sea.

You are indeed correct, but I was merely stating that Search is the secondary used in land-based navigation.

I also think that the additional attack module is nice for a Tao. The setup I am playing around with uses Boxing (for Init), Muah Thai (for Damage), Kempo (Reduced Penalty for additional Attacks), and Xing Quin (Bonus on winning init.)

Boosted Init as much as possible and once you got the prereqs going nicely you will be showing some major love with Godhand.

If you beat them on init, then you would do three attacks with no penalty that would do like 200, 150, 150 damage. If you achieve surprise, then it just makes it more likely to land it...

On the way to Godhand, you probably will have picked up Dumah at around level five, which is nifty in itself...

Takes a bit to get there, but I think it can be swung around level 8 or 9.

Iaijustu module:

Hugely dependent on the GM. "But ive already drawn my weapon 2 rounds ago, because that's what I always do." -.- On the other hand it's a prerequ for sth that is neat (Yuuse Battojutsu), but this Magnus is a bit of a ***** as well, so... But at least it has some style factor, my char has taken it (and the Magnus)

Yeah without the Yuuse Battojustu, Iaijustu probably not worth it, but with it and the right combination of abilities, can become a devastating strength. Have a level 6 character that managed to down 4 level 8 characters after preparing for 5 rounds, though the DM wasn't thinking and had the enemies talking to us making it more cinematic, so I took the time to charge my **** and downed them all with a ridiculous air strike. So I suppose its dependent on the situation.

Oops, was thinking of Track.

I like the idea of stat cost attacks. First of all it fits a lot of stories and animes which is nice. I have used it as a GM to teach players the importance of the use of their powers by having the wise old master teach them a super cool move that has that cost. As a player I made this one really nasty combo that I would body jump into someone then spend their stats on the skill and jump out, because you only keep you mental stats when you get a new body the others depend on the body you are in.