Short Version: Is Inhumanity or Zen required to achieve that level of result on a Psychic Potential roll?

Long version: Every Psi ability lists Potential Results for both Inhuman and Zen. There is no mention of Inhumanity in the Psi introduction. Both the Ki ability and the Psi power of that name refer to enabling Physical Inhuman tasks. The Limits on Human Characteristics section on page 9 is a bit fuzzy on the subject. Is it required when ANY psi ability is by definition beyond natural humans?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Inhumanity and Zen are both levels of difficulty and conceptual barriers in Anima. Like many terms in Anima, they seem to be used interchangeably by the authors (even in the original Spanish), and are used in such a wild variety of conflicting situations that it's a wonder anyone has ever figured it out. That being said, Anima scholars have come to the following conclusions (mainly with help from the creators):

1. Inhumanity and Zen only ever affect physical things. Anything which could be qualified as immaterial, supernatural, psychic, magical, or otherwise incalculable by normal human means, is not limited by these two concepts. This means that: Projection, Potential, PER, WIL, INT, POW, any secondary ability based off those four characteristics, and summoning abilities.

2. In the interest of fairness (or something) Attack and Defense are, quizzically, not limited by Inhumanity/Zen, despite being very physical concepts. Ostensibly, this is to keep mages and psychics from being OP, but given that Ranged Weapons are limited to "Human" difficulties until Aura Extension, it's a little bit specious. Still, officially, according to the Anima Creators themselves, they're not limited.

3. This means that Inhumanity and Zen only really affect Secondary Ability checks based on physical characteristics, movement, lifting capacities, and, presumably, the Wear Armor ability (though if you're hitting 320 Wear Armor and you don't have access to some form of Inhumanity... I don't know what to do with you).

4. ???

5. PROFIT!

If the guidelines I've presented here aren't enough to answer all of your questions then, please, feel free to ask your questions. I'll do my best to answer more clearly.

Thank you for a quick, clear, and detailed response. I was thinking this was the case for supernatural abilities because of the fuzzy wording back on page 9 but I hadn't considered the Attack and Defense stats.

Thank you for a quick, clear, and detailed response. I was thinking this was the case for supernatural abilities because of the fuzzy wording back on page 9 but I hadn't considered the Attack and Defense stats.

You're most welcome. In all fairness, most people don't consider Attack/Defense to be an exception since they're based off of Dexterity and Agility, but Anima Studios has said otherwise. So... it's a thing. Anyways, glad I could help.

I don't like all the exceptions of the rules, so in my game you need Inhumanity and Zen for all. Just an hom erule.

I don't like all the exceptions of the rules, so in my game you need Inhumanity and Zen for all. Just an hom erule.

While I can understand the cry for simplicity and getting rid of exceptions (Anima has exceptions to just about every rule ever, including the ones they say there are no exceptions to), requiring Inhumanity for Psychics and Mages can really upset the scales of balance. Inhumanity and Zen are things both archetypes can get, but it requires either very specific disciplines and powers, or spending way too much DP/CP on MK. The typical Fighter or Prowler class can grab Inhumanity without the need for any additional spending by level 4 (even if they buy other things). Most Mystic or Psychic archetypes aren't going to get there before Level 7, by which point Fighters and Prowlers already have Zen.

As it stands right now, Psychics and Mystics can hit Inhumanity/Zen, but the only time they're going to reach those level are with double open rolls. By the time they're reliably hitting those numbers, Fighters and Prowlers are also hitting them and have unlocked Inhumanity/Zen for themselves. This slightly skews low-level fights towards mages and psychics in terms of potential roll numbers, but not more than the blindness penalty against their attacks does.

What's more punishing though is that without Inhumanity/Zen their stats are held at 10, which for a Wizard means very low levels of Zeon and MA without even more investment than they already need. Psychics have it only slightly better, but they still have this power plateau they can't get over without spending a bunch of DP/CP into something which falls under the Combat Primary spending.

In short: I can respect wanting to simplify things, but the reasons for the way things are the way they are is for balance. It's complicated, but so is life.

That all being said, I still limit physical Attack/Defense with Inhumanity and Zen. I think it's ridiculous they aren't, and doing so doesn't really imbalance the game by much, if at all.

That all being said, I still limit physical Attack/Defense with Inhumanity and Zen. I think it's ridiculous they aren't, and doing so doesn't really imbalance the game by much, if at all.

I do the same, just seems to fit pretty well even though I typically run a high level supernatural game.

I think its the difference between numerical value and difficulty value. Attack and defense don't have difficulty levels, they have a number that you have reached, If you want to climb a mountain, there is a set number you need to hit, Inhuman difficulty is limited in that action because there are things that humans just can't do. The example inhuman and zen difficulty achievements are clearly impossible as we understand them, but reaching that number on your attack roll means; you do more damage. life points are already an abstraction, a numerical method for representing the incredibly diverse ways in which a body can be damaged and fail. it's hard to set a cap on that number, especially since in real life it is possible to kill someone in one blow. they don't cap the attack and defense skills because unlike determining how high a human can jump, or how fast they can run, or how much they can lift, we don't really have world records and hard scientific data on the maximum amount of arbitrary nonsense points a human can inflict in one blow with whatever weapon, especially since so much of whether a person lives or dies from a wound is based on where the wound is inflicted.