Hello! My gaming group is going to be starting up an Anima campaign in the near future, and I have been trying to work out the crunchy bits of the character that I want to play. In order to do that, though, I have a few questions. I've checked the threads that seemed like they might have an answer, but still have a few things I'd like clarified, if y'all would be so kind.

I'm working up a Warrior Mentalist with the Telepathy discipline. His psychic abilities will basically be used to scan the area, but his main focus is going to be his combat abilities.

1) Are the advantages Access to a Psychic Discipline and Access to Any Psychic Discipline similar to The Gift, in that I have to take them in order to invest points in my Psychic Abilities? And am I right in assuming that even after taking one of these advantages, I still have to invest the Psychic Points to be able to use a particular discipline?

My current understanding for my character is that I need to take Access to a Psychic Discipline for 1 CP, then spend 1 PP to gain access to the Telepathy discipline (which is the one psychic discipline I want access to), and then spend additional points for Telepathy matrices. Is that right, or do I go about it differently?

2) Is the price of an Armored Longcoat (5 SC) a misprint? If so, how much does it really cost? Is it supposed to be 5 GC?

A part of me hates to ask this, since going by the book would save me a lot of money (a +5 Armored Longcoat would only cost me 1GC), but it just seems like an incredibly low cost for it. I tried to find a copy of the errata for the book to see if it was in there, but didn't really succeed, so... yea.

3) Does the See Supernatural advantage let a character recognize supernatural beings as supernatural beings (as in, can he see their "true form" or recognize that they are disguised if they are so), or is he just able to see them if they're invisible? Can he differentiate between psychic matrices and magical spells? Can he tell if someone is a mentalist, wizard or character with other supernatural abilities automatically, or do they have to actively be using a supernatural ability?

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

starlightpiper said:

Hello and Welcome to the anime Online Forums!!! I havent been posting hear for a while, but I have been successfully running an anime group now for the past few months.

First off you are correct with your reading of the rules reguarding psyonic dicipline. You must spend 1 cp to get acess to the "Acess to One Psyonic Dicipline" Creation option. Then you may spend 1 PP to gain acess to Tepepathy. and then 1 PP for each ability within that bracket. (Might I suggest Mind Reading since you get +30 defense ). Also currency in anima is in the silver scale. Most people live off of silver as gold is a mucher higher form of currency used by nobels or other well off people. If you will notice in the item section of the book there is a table to roll on to see how much starting money your charecter gets, and i believe the middle class is 5 sg, and lower class is 1 cp, and upper class is 1gp. (im probally wrong on the exact amounts), but in any case, if your GM goes out handing gold out left and right, he doing it wrong lol. Silver should be the most common currency your getting, or low amounts of gold. Also a simple +5 to an item is not that much when concidering this is a D100 system.

And the see supernatural ability dose just that. It simply allows you to SEE supernatural things that normally cannot be seen with a normal human eye. This applies to magic spells and psyonic matrces mostly, as normlally charecters recive -30 to avoiding these effects. Your charecter will not recive any such penelty because you can see these effects comming at you. This also applies to creatures that are purely suerpnatural. If it were my game I would allow you to see ghosts, and such as if they were normal objects. But when you get into the spesifics outside of the inital benifite of seeing spells and psyonic powers, thats up to your GM. I think being able to see disgused creatures is a little bit beyond the scope of that power, but you might be able to catch a glimer of his true self that might lead you to investigate it further, but just out right being able to go, OH HEY that guys a doppleganer....no. Then everyone will start picking see supernatural and it will lose its meaning. Also as far as determing other classes Id also say that you couldnt see there 'class' until they use a power. Mentalists need to be forming matrices which you can see and go "Oh hey that guys is a mentalist", or a mage collecting Zeon.

The one time where this might not apply is with sustained spells. If a mage has as a spell sustained you might be able to see whips of zeon fuctuate around him as he passivly maitains the spell, or a psyonic that is maintaing a power you might be able to see the matrice for that. But its up to your GM. Im just give you examples of what I think (as a GM) is fair myself for such a power. but you do not get the -30 penelty against supernatural effects no matter what because that is in the rules.

Thanks for the response! I'm glad that I was understanding the first part, though.

I still need some help with that second question, though. Lower class starts off with 5CC, Middle with 1GC, Upper with 20GC, etc. The GM hasn't given out any gold yet. While the game is on a silver system, armor is expensive: even padded armor or a leather coat is 1GC, and stronger armors are even more. The Armored Longcoat offers better protection than Leather (at 1GC) and a little less than Fur (at 5GC), but it's 5SC in the book.

I agree that I shouldn't be making large amounts of gold, especially as a low-level character, but the discrepancy is pretty significant there. And that +5 Bonus might not sound like much, but it gives me an extra point of armor protection versus every non-energy-based attack. If the book is right, then a +5 longcoat would provide (Cut 2, Impact 1, Thrust 3, Heat 2, Elec 3, Cold 3), putting it on par with armor that costs 20 to 25GC. A +10 longcoat would be superior to chainmail in all but one category (it'd have Cut 3 instead of Cut 4), for 20GC instead of 70. And considering that item bonuses only get up to +25... it just seems odd to me, and I want to get confirmation before I go ahead and spend a tiny piece of money on it.

Do you happen to know if there's an official ruling or something on the See Supernatural stuff? I didn't think it would give me the ability to tell exactly what a supernatural creature was, but it seems from the wording of the advantage that he might be able to tell that the creature is supernatural. Is it an aura-type thing or is it just that he can see the matrices and the like? I'm trying to make things as easy on my GM as possible, since I tend to get overly complex with stuff pretty quickly, and I want to make sure I know how this works.

Given the obscene cost of equpment and the extremely low amount of money given to starting character (by the Gaia sourcebook rules at least) I'd say that unfortunately the one on the Longcoat is probably a misprint. For a game so heroic in scope there are some stupidly punitive rules and choices...like an "average soldier" being levele 2 warrior with 90 of attack and defense able to beat the living **** out of a non-minmaxed starting character...given the fact that characters are supposed to be "special and above average" from the beginning.

Ah, See Supernatural also lets your character see spiritual beings, which abound and are usually completely invisible; that's pretty poweful.

Spirit_Crusher said:

I figured that was the case... I was just really, really hoping it wasn't.

Well, look at it this way. You do start with a single weapon of your choice, and a piece of armor of your choice. Unless the GM rules other wise, (like your all starting in prison or something). Other than that, I ususally just have my charecters find cool pieces of gear. Our group is not hugly focused on basic gear in the shop.

The whole money issue isnt really something beyond the scope of the gm to fix either. If you start off with basiclly nothing in the begining, other than your weapon and some crappy armor. by level 2 your gm should have put you though a quest that got you some good loot. Even if its just some basic gear your going to sell back to the smith, it should add up to a decent amount of money.

Note: About starting armor, id reccomend the gm restrict this to level 0 armor, and let weapon masters take 2 pieces of it if they want. (since armor is what makes a weapon master).

My character is from Baoh, and using the rules on the Gaia book my GM had him starting with one weapon and a handful of coppers,

not enough even to buy a second weapon. No armor.

You start with a single weapon OR a single piece of armor, not both. Yes, the GM can house-rule whatever he or she wants, but my group tries to go by the book whenever possible (it's a nice safety net), which is why I was asking whether the price in the book was a misprint or intentional. And I'm not concerned with how much money I'm going to be getting as the game goes on or anything like that, and the money I'm starting with is sufficient for my needs. All I really wanted to know was if the book price for the Armored Longcoat was a misprint or not, in regards to the second question.

All right. I've been working on my first character, and I think I've got it worked out, but I'm hoping if I post it on here, y'all can give me some constructive criticism. I don't know how we're doing attributes, which is why they're blank (and why everything that depends on them is also blank or incomplete) The character is a Warrior Mentalist who uses his psychic abilities to hunt down dark creatures, Inquisition-style. With that in mind, I gave him only limited access to his Psychic abilities, relying on Telepathy and his See Supernatural advantage to sense anomalies.

I was trying to use the Innate Slot to hold Area Scanning. Since my Willpower will most likely be my highest trait, I'm assuming it will be at least an 8 (well, I'm hoping), which means my base Psychic Potential will be at least +40 (with an additional +10 from my purchased bonus Psychic Potential). The Psychic Inclination boosts Telepathy powers up a difficulty, which means that I can achieve a Medium difficulty automatically, assuming I don't fail the active roll. Since it's not boosting the Potential, I don't think that the rule for Innate slots applies (the one that says that you don't get bonuses to Potential for Innate slots).

So, there are a few main questions that I have regarding the character:

1) Does the Innate slot and Psychic Inclination advantage work the way I think?

2) Should I consider using the psychic point that's currently increasing the character's Psychic Potential on increasing the effective Psychic Potential of the Innate Slot? If I manage a 10 Willpower and if the Psychic Inclination advantage works the way I think it does, I'd be able to automatically maintain Area Scanning at a Difficult difficulty.

3) When using the Batto Jutsu module with Ambidextrous, can I draw both weapons in one turn without taking the -25 penalty to Attack and Block?

Also, any recommendations you might have in general would be helpful.

Warrior Mentalist 1

Strength:
Dexterity:
Agility:
Constitution:
Intelligence:
Power:
Willpower:
Perception:

Appearance:
Size:

Life Points: 10 (Class)
Initiative: 20 + (AGI) + (DEX) +15 (SHORTSWORD) + 5 (CLASS) - 30 (DISADVANTAGE)
Presence: 30

Attack Ability (Dex): +5 (Class) + 70 (140 DP)
Block Ability (Dex): +5 (Class)
Dodge Ability (Agi): +5 (Class) + 65 (130 DP)
Wear Armor (Str):

Disease Resistance [DR] (Con):
Magic Resistance [MR] (Power):
Physical Resistance [PhR] (Con):
Venom Resistence [VR] (Con):
Psychic Resistance [PsR] (Will):

Ki Abilities
Martial Knowledge: 20

WEAPON MODULES/MARTIAL ARTS
Batto Jutsu [30]
Can draw weapon without taking -25 penalty to actions

Innate Psychic Points: 1
Psychic Projection (Dex): +50 (100)
PSYCHIC MODULES
6 Psychic Points (75 DP)
Discipline (Telepathy) (1 PP)
Acquire an Innate Slot (2 PP)
Increase Psychic Potential +10 (1 PP)
Ability: Area Scanning (1 PP)
Ability: Mind Reading (1 PP)

ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES:
Access to one Psychic Discipline: Telepathy [1]
Mystical Armor [1]
Natural Armor 4 against energy-based attacks
See Supernatural [1]
Character sees supernatural things as spiritual creatures, does not apply Blinded penalty in these situations
Ambidextrous [1]
Character only suffers a -10 penalty to attacks with a second weapon
Character can perform maneuvers with either hand
Pyschic Inclination: Telepathy [2]
Gain one difficulty greater than normal when using Telepathy powers
Slow Reaction [-1]
-30 to Initiative
One Power At A Time [-1]
Cannot actively maintain more than one power at a time
No Concentration [-1]
Does not gain bonuses to psychic potential by concentrating

SECONDARY ABILITIES
Occult +25 (75)
Style +10 (20)
Science: Theology +50 (30, +40 bonus for specializing)

i would start out by suggesting you take the 100 dp u spent on projection and place it in the "Psychic Projection Module" it will save you tons of DP later on as your Psy Proj will be equivalent to the base(not final) of your offensive and defensive combat abilities.

as for the other questions, im not a professional Psychic user. so i hope you have luck with that if u need help with ki though, im your man.

Thanks! I actually misread that module the first time - I thought it was reversed, that I'd use my Psychic Projection as attack and defense... as though I were using my psychic powers as weapons. Now that I've actually read and understood it, that makes a lot of sense, and I'll do that.