sub paths not requiring gnosis?

By MindHoney, in Anima Rules Questions

Posted at

The passsige that one of my freinds found was

"High and Divine Magic Spells of Level 81 and higher are considered special. The powers they entail are too elevated to be controlled by mortals; the majority of spellcasters will simply fail to execute them. This is not to say that they will not understand them, but rather that the supernatural nature of that magic is too lofty for mortal use. The use of these spells is limited to entities with enough Gnosis to cast them.
There are two kinds of special magic: High Magic (spells of a Level 81–90) and Divine Magic (spells of Level 91 and above). High Magic spells are restricted to creatures that have a Gnosis score of at least 25. Divine Magic requires a Gnosis score of 40 or above. High and Divine Magic apply only for spells of the various Paths; these limitations do not count for Free Access spells when they are chosen individually ."

I was wondering if this was a bad translation or if you could in fact get level 84 sub path spells with out the gnosis requirements?

Posted at

Two things:

First off, could you list book and page references when you're putting down quotes? It's helpful to anyone trying to find information around the section, along with a few other things. Luckily, I know the passage you're referring to already so, secondly...

It depends.

It's not a translation issue though. Free Access spells, when chosen individually, ignore the High/Divine Magic rules. Pretty sweet for mages looking to get some powerful stuff. Sub-path spells replace Free Access spells, but whether or not they count as Free Access spells is a matter of a lot of heated debate amongst Anima players and GMs. Fortunately (depending on your view of the word), hidden very deeply in the Sub-Magic section is a single line of text which answers the debate:

" Special Limitation: Contrary to the general rules for Free Access spells and Sub-Paths, Temporal Loop is considered a High Magic spell" (Temporal Loop, Arcana Exxet pg 53).

So, there you go. Officially, Sub-Paths are considered Free Access spells, and can be cast without High/Divine Magic if chosen individually . They are considered High/Divine when learned within a Path though, because the essence of the spell is, presumably, tied into the Path and... I don't know, honestly. Just how the rules work. Anima has to have an exception to every rule, and Free Access are the exception here.

But, that's just the official word. GMs may vary (as I do).

So... yay. Anima is a disorganized mess. ^-^