Can someone be surprised every round of combat?

Yes. Surprise in Anima is based on Initiative rolls that are made at the start of each round. It is not the same as the term is used in d20 games and can only happen in the first round of combat.

Think of it more as moving so quick that it puts your opponent off guard.

That's an incredibly dumb rule then.

It makes heavy armor, shields, and weapons only a penalty.

A guy in plate, shield, and big weapon will have a 150 point initiative penalty over a guy who's wielding a dagger. That makes him surprised, which gives him a -90 to defend himself and attack. -90 to defend himself makes him the same as a guy with AT 0. But a guy not wearing armor also isn't incurring a -90 to attack.

This rule's gotta go.

I suggest you look a little more closely before claiming something is incredibly dumb.

Most heavily armoured combatants will negate the penalty of armour through the Wear Armour ability. It is not unreasonable to expect someone who is wearing heavy plate, that is not accustomed to wearing armour, could actually be worse off for doing so.

To quote the book:

"Wearing Armor and Its Requirements
Wearing armor isn’t always easy. Just as it protects, it also limits or slows down movement. For that reason, a character needs to get used to wearing armor and learn to wear it without it causing difficulties. The Armor Requirement is the level of difficulty of using each item. The heavier and more complete it is, the greater the Armor Requirement. To be able to use armor without problems, a character must develop the Wear Armor ability to the degree required by each piece. A character who does not develop sufficient ability suffers a penalty to all physical actions equal to the difference between his Wear Armor rating and the specified Armor Requirement."

It is worth pointing out that the penalty only applies against the person who acheived the Surprise and it only applies to the first action the person who achieved Surprise takes. So, assuming that the Surprise attacker attacks, the penalty wouldn't apply to the Surprised defender's own attacks or defence after the first attack.

Also, most heavily armoured combatants are likely to be choosing to Take Blow or have some other Ki Ability to assist in their passive defence. As such, they won't loose their active actions if hit. So, the tactics for an armour wielder is to not avoid blows but withstand a few and then unleash hell in retaliation. Again, this is not that unreasonable and reflects armour wearing in combat better than many RPGs IMO.

Finally, you could invest in Danger Sense that makes you impossible to surprise

Danger Sense makes you immune to surprise "unless his opponent's Initiative score is 150 points or more higher than his". Which is the usual condition for Surprise, so it doesn't do anything.

I just can't see this rule working. -90 to defend oneself because of initiative makes heavy armor worse than no armor. Light or no armor would be better at protecting you since you wouldn't be automatically surprised and you'd still get to use your AT.

This does not make sense for verisimilitude. If someone is only taking the base penalties for wearing armor, they should be better off in it than out of it. That's the whole reason people invented armor.

DarknessEternal said:

You did not read what I wrote (nor what is written in the book). A full field plate mail wearing knight with a Wear Amrour 140 has no penalty to Initiative and is no slower than someone in light or no armour. As such, armour is very useful for someone trained to use it.

DarknessEternal said:

Not necessarily true. If you aren't accustomed to armour and you suddenly get 60lbs of metal lumped on you, it is likely to hinder you ability to defend yourself.

As a trite example, try hitting a cat with a stick. Now strap the kitty to 60 pounds of metal and see if its any easier.

I'm aware of how Wear Armor works.

The requirement of Plate is 100. Plate, full shield, and bastard sword at Wear Armor 100 is -120 initiative. Attacker with Dagger is +40.

That 160 point difference makes the guy in armor worse than a guy who is naked at taking damage.

Absorb Hits does nothing, it only increases the amount of damage the guy in armor takes over the naked guy, since his defense roll falls even further.

A mechanic doesn't work when wearing armor makes you take more damage than not wearing armor.

DarknessEternal said:

Now take the example of a PC with plate, full shield, and bastard sword at Wear Armor 190. His intitaive is only -30.

You seem to be importing a meaning for Armour Requirement that it is simply not intended to mean and limiting yourself to a single example as a proof to your conclusion. If you look at the full range of examples and move your benchmark, the system works just fine.

Anima is one of the few RPGs that actually recognises that skill and experience is required to make the most of medieval style armour. If any old schill jumps into heavy armour there are detrimental consequences.

DarknessEternal said:

Yes it makes someone who is not sufficiently trained in heavy armour wearing such armour worse than the guy who is naked against 1 attack in a round. That is a reasonable result. I refer you back to my cat example.

DarknessEternal said:

Absorb hits is important as otherwise the defender would loose their active actions when they were struck by the attacker. This means that a heavily armoured PCs will have already factored in an ability to take damage and then free themselves up to be more offensive.

No, 70 of that penalty is not removable as it's from shield and weapon.

Also, the requirement of an armor should be an amount where you aren't worse off in the armor than out of it. That currently isn't the case. That's what requirement implies.

At any rate, it's the Surprise rule that is the problem mechanic. It's the culprit making armor increase the damage taken by an armored character.

DarknessEternal said:

I think that's debatable, though you may be right. The Shield special penalty to Initiative is said to be the same as the penalty for Armour (as distinct to weapons). To quote the book page 71:"Shields, like armor, cause a reduction to Initiative that is subtracted from the final Initiative as a special penalty." As such, I would say that it is reduced by Wear Armour.

DarknessEternal said:

That is what you are implying and by doing so you are causing yourself your problem.

I suggest that instead you simply shift your benchmark to Armor Requirement + Natural Penalty rather than just Armor Requirement. FWIW this is not the only RPG that models armour in a more realistic manner this way. For example, D&D3e and A Song of Fire and Ice both include situations where heavy armour can actually be a greater burden than benefit, even with some armour training.

Actually, the point at which armour becomes the better option changes on many factors. For example, Heavily armoured knight are not as effective against lightly armoured knife wielders but again this reflects real world considerations.

DarknessEternal said:

Its cool that you don't like the rules as written. You should feel free to change them. My only comment is that the rules are written for a reason and IMO they are quite good in this area in balancing real considerations and simplicity. They are certainly not "incredibly dumb."

In any case, I think I have answered your original question. Its over to you now to determine what you want to do.

Assuming that both characters have the same physical stats, same Attack/Defence and are same level (which is, I admit, unlikely, but for balancing purposes it is needed), then a a naked character with dagger (+40 INI) vs a character with Full Field Plate (-70 INI) who has exactly 150 in armor requirement, Full Shield (-40 INI) and Long Sword (+0 Initiative) would lead to a difference of 150 in initiative, meaning the attacker always triggers surprise provided that the defender does not roll higher than the attacker for Initiative. In combat terms, this means that the attacker ''starts off'' with a bonus of 90 on his attack roll, which against an AT of 7 leads to 30% damage. The shield's +30 block bonus puts that down to a bonus of 60, which means... no ''starting'' damage.

Result: the defender has the upper hand, since a) In the case of Surprise, the attacker's roll is evenly opposed to the defender's, and b) In the absence of Surprise (because the defender rolled a higher Initiative), the defender does not take damage unless his opponent rolls 70 or more above him. Certainly he may not always be able to attack, but when he does, he will be able to inflict more damage on his opponent than his opponent can inflict on him.

This model is perhaps not perfect, but it's the best I can do in 10 minutes

Of course having 150 wear armor cast at least 150 DP, so best case it costs you +75 to you Att or Def.

But this sort of academic debate in role playing can only go so far. Even if you build a couple of guys and have them fight each other you are still not really playing the game. I have to admit I have looked at that hit/damage/armor chart a bunch. And I am not sure how it is going to figure out in actual play.

When I built my own characters to see how this very issue would work out. The light no armor-wearing dagger wielding fighter did consistantly do a little damage to the heavy armor wearing fighter. But I also built the heavy fighter with a lot more life, so it was okay.

I have not yet run a game. I don't think you can make any real determination until you have actually played the game with real players (using the rules correctly) for a few weeks.

If after doing that you find surprise OP then change it. But the book does go far enough to say that they have play tested all the rules and the tell us that they work and work together. Now, you don't have to trust them, but my advise would be exactly what they say to do in the book. Give the rules as written a chance. Make sure you are playing all the rules, since one thing may seem overpowered simply because are not doing something else that seems unrelated but in practice is not.

I would suggest the wear armour skill - other than coming from your spare 10% (60% max vs 50% in attack & defence) comes from 10 attack and 60 defence - because you should be using take hits with the low iniative. you then compensate by hitting very very very hard.

Currently: Dark Paladin with partial plate and greatsword.

Tomod Leodsson

I once ran an Anima campaign where one of the characters wanted to make a knight-style character. He went Warrior, invested in the Wealth advantage, and got himself a full suit of leather+chain+plate armor, a good shield, and a large axe. His initiative was as bad as you'd expect. There wasn't a single combat where he didn't go last, although he managed to avoid being surprised all the time with a few lucky rolls.

Wear armor + plenty of points in block. He was a counter-attack specialist. Although to be honest he didn't really NEED the armor, but he walked through several fights without taking a scratch, even when surprised. With the shield and a high block, he was regularly decimating opponents with counterattacks. The surprise mechanic works fine in my experience. If anything, it helped him out. He made the character with the intention of being the front-line 'tank' style character, taking hits to keep everyone else alive and healthy. Well, if you're in combat with a group of enemies, and your initiative gives you surprise on the guy in really heavy armor, who looks like he knows how to use it, are you going to go after someone behind him, or try to take advantage of those bonuses while you can?

My personal advice would be to use the rules as-is for now, and adjust them as needed later, or just reduce the penalties/bonuses from surprise/armor by a small amount, to avoid over-balancing which could potentially cause issues down the road.

I haven't put it to the test, but I imagine the heavily armored fighter who actually neglected his block (and of course block). Remember that if you get hit by anyone who goes before you you lose your attack, Unless you use the take the hit manuver, when you do this you half your block bonus, but not your bonus from your shield or the defense you get from your defnce from your armor as well.

If you are fighting a fast fighter, especially one that is focused on going first and hitting you. A fighter that relies heavily on going first and hitting to be his defense. But if what you want to do is take the hit and still smack the guy back. Armor and shields are great.

It amazes me that no one has felt the need to point out to the OP, How amazing Armour value actually is, if you look on the table.

The guy with the dagger is getting a much better shot at attacking first, but the plate wearer is going to be taking off 50% or more of most attacks. Seeing that I've actually gm'ed Anima I think I'm in a good position to tell you guys - armour massively cuts down the damage a character takes. To the point that it actually becomes difficult to make fair encounters for the party.

Low armour characters easily get destroyed relative to high armour characters - to even begin to threaten Armour value 6, you risk destroying AV 1 or 0 characters in a single hit. If you change the values around for part of the equation you'll rapidly find that you've unbalanced it. (The only thing that keeps armour fair frankly, is the fact you then essentially have to take the blows rather than actively defend).

Also, Warrior isn't the best choice for tortoises. The Weaponmaster is probably the best class for "knight in shining armor". Take a character with a buckler, a large shield, and a sword, and put him in some heavy armor, and with a good Wear Armor he will probably not be going fast, but he also won't be hit much. The amount of Block bonuses that can be gained (especially if he takes Wealth and buys +5 Quality weapons and shields) is incredible. If he goes tortoise, he can absorb attacks while not suffering greatly on his Block (his Block is cut in half, but then he gets the bonuses for his shields and the Qualities of his weapon and armor after that cut in half) and thereby not suffer any loss of actions. Having played such a character, I can tell you that you're probably in for a few points of damage against a threatening foe, but you also guarantee that the threatening foe will face the motherload of attacks from you.

The advantage of the dodgy attacker is being able to go first (most dodgers have high Initiative) and strike before the opponents, possibly with surprise bonuses. The advantage of the blocky attacker is being able to absorb hits without suffering greatly in the equation (even with surprise, it'd take a lot to seriously damage the character) and then deliver powerful attacks at the end of the round. The disadvantages should be clear - if the dodgy attacker is struck, he takes serious damage from it (an Acrobatic Warrior in a game that I played went through several games without taking a single hit, then he got one-shotted by a tortoise Weaponmaster because he didn't get away in time). The blocky character, meanwhile, is subject to nickels and dimes.