I have been thinking about running a game in the modern setting, but using the Anima Rules. I think it will work really well. All I think I need to add is guns.

I have been wondering about how to do guns. How, much damage do they do, I would guess, lots more than a bow. But Bows are pretty dangerous in Anima.

I also have to come up with some more modern armor types. I am kind of thinking about ignoring worn armor all together.

I was wondering if anyone out there has tried something similar.

What did you decide about guns?

What did you decide about modern armor?

Did you run into any other issues running Anima in a more modern setting?

PS Don't worry about the supernatural stuff, I plan on making the game full of supernatural stuff. Think Dredin Files.

The problem with advancing into a modern setting with "realistic" stuff is that it just compounds on how ridiculous supernatural things are and how ridiculous much of the Anima system is entirely (by this I mean that it clashes horribley with reality). (Don't misunderstand, I think Anima and its magic and stuff are all wonderful, but in the end it really isn't real)

Anima does have some rules for guns: Look up the Pistol and Arquebus (its like a rifle).

My biggest suggestion would actually be to look into the D20 Modern system and see how it handles things... adapt the equipment and numbers they use into the Anima system. I don't know how D20 Modern handles it all, personally, but surely it will provide a lot of insight on the topic since they can hardly have released the book without addressing the problems that you've mentioned.

Also, if you haven't already, go and read the Modern Anima section in the core Anima rulebook, it discusses (a little) about modern guns, magic, and AT.

Guns are easy, as long as you avoid automatic ones. Just follow the rules as they're laid down, modifying their ROF and reload time accordingly (reloading a magnum would take longer than a say, a Glock, but could be more powerful to compensate).

For automatic guns, it's much trickier... You could say that a full auto burst acts like an area/breath attack, whereas short controlled bursts can be done using the same rules as semi-auto fire. Essentially, you'd have to modify the penalties so that they only apply to the following attacks, not the initial ones (recoil). Like this, it does seem like spraying is more effective, but you'd ajust that by restricting other actions, such as not being able to aim in the same turn.

For sniper weapons, you'd have to impose aiming and not being able to move before hand.

Or, you could just simply remove all military-grade weapons, stating that access to them is virtually impossible. Doing this does have the advantage of balancing melee/ranged a bit better.

As for armor... You'd have to re-adjust a lot of things to make that work. Perhaps you could just prevent AT from going 4-5.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I like what Arcaia is saying and here's my 2 cents:

Consider making the government (or FBI or whatever) similar to one of the big organizations (you DMs know what I'm talking about). Depending on your players, some of them will want to act like they're a TeamFortress2 Heavy and measure their firepower by how many hundred thousand dollars worth of ammo they can fire per second. In this case consider letting them have [heavy weapon of their choice] from the black market. If you're required to be Government to have the license to pack powerweapons then their use would be similar to supernatural things in Gaia... if you're caught with the gun its game over, and any witness to their use might turn in the violator for a bounty (again leading to a game over). Of course handguns and other non-illegal guns would be "acceptable" and wouldn't carry the risk.

I don't know what your players are going to expect from a modern setting and what they're going to want in the way of modern firepower... in my case I would use the above compromise if it really mattered... since it is about letting the players have fun. On the other hand, if all the players just want a hack-and-slash picknick: consider letting them have their favorite insane guns and just make it a one-nighter (when balance really doesn't matter, haha)

I don't know if this is of any interest to you, but in a sourcebook for anima (Dominus Exxet, released only in spanish at the moment) there's an entire serie of ki techniques based on the use of fireguns (created in ancient Solomon of course). Maybe looking at those might suggest you some nice ideas. Also, some Solomon weapons are modern-styled weapons (look at Alessa Raincross pistols or Cordelia's Sniper Rifle). If you can tell more about the setting you're going to make we could give you better advice.

Also, some Solomon weapons are modern-styled weapons (look at Alessa Raincross pistols or Cordelia's Sniper Rifle).

Elric of Melnibone, were did you find these, in books or somewhere else?

Alessa Raincross is a character from the miniature games and her pistols are clearly Lost Logias. They're actually "created" through a Ki technique which was developed in Solomon (from Dominus Exxet). A web complement also "completed" some details about the weapons produced by the techinque. Here's a picture of here:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/media/catalog/product/C/S/CS3008.jpg

And here are (about) the stats for her Solomon Pistols:

Gunslinger Pistol (+10Attack, +10Block, Dam100[110], Vel+10, Str4, Thrust, Projectile, -2AT, Rel1, Ran200m, For30, Bre7, Pre130)

They're +10 quality so I guess there might be some inferior, but I believe that for such advanced (compared to the system's other weapons) weapons a +10 bonus should be considered intrinsic.

The same goes with another weapon used by another character from the miniature game: Cordelia Rosalind's sniper rifle. Here is a picture of her.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/media/catalog/product/C/S/CS2011.jpg

As for her rifle, personally I used the following rules, but they were solely based on my intuition.

Logia Sniper Rifle (+10 Attack, Dam100[110], Vel+0, Str8, Thrust, -, Firearm, Firing Projectile/Precision, Rng 800, RoF -, Rel 1, For35, Bre10, Pres100, -3AT, -50 to Shield Maneuver against its attacks, may spend 1 turn to charge a special ammunition. 10XHollow Bullet: Dam120 and -6AT. 5XVortex Shoot: Rng 700, target becomes center of Void spell cast with base value. Shoots silently.)

Thanks, now to start translating the gunslinger dominion XD

While the disbelief factor of Anima in a modern setting can be a factor, but I always find myself enjoying letting my players explain why they are so gifted. That said if you want to bring a modern game down to a normal level might I suggest using Savage Lands. The basic system is close to d20, but less all the required math skill.

Despite what every one else thinks about the game. I like the Anima system. I especially like the rules for supernatural stuff. I want to include Anima style supernatural stuff into a modern game.

I can't see a reason why all "supernatural" settings should be based on medieval-like timelines... Of course you can include supernatural in a modern/sci-fi setting, on my opinion. Just take into account that high technology should actually be able to compare in power with many supernatural powers (an atomic bomb should be rather powerful even when compared to a Level 3 technique or 90+ level spell).

Of course you can have people withstanding a gunshot in a modern-fantasy setting and after all people underestimate a lot the damage potential of old weapons. People seem to believe that a full-auto weapon burst is more powerful than a single dagger stab...still most average people die inesorably by both (the stab just has to be well aimed and the reason why a full-auto burst is usually more efficient is that even without aiming 4+ shots should reach the target, both inflicting more wounds per time unit and increasing chance of hitting a vulnerable point).

An English long bow's armor penetrating effectiveness is actually comparable to that of a modern firearm, BUT the training required to use a bow with THAT effectiveness is much longer (and more costly) than teaching a stud to use a shotgun or a kalashnikov...

Concluding, modern weapons (at least as far as infantry weapons are concerned) have little more damage than swords/axes...they just are more efficient in dealing that damage. As far as rules are concerned, I believe modern firearms should usually have higher Strength than old ones and much longer ranges and Rate of Fire.

Thanks for all the comments. I like the idea of just using the ROF and Reload times from the main book. One difference is that in the main rules most weapons have a ROF or a reload time, where as fire arms would have both.

I think I will keep the damage of most fire arms comparable in damage to the ranged weapons already in the book. Partially because of what was said about how ancient weapons were pretty leathal, but they were either much slower firing (cross bows and primitive muskets) or took much more time to learn to use effectively (a long bow). And Partially because it should keep their damage more balanced with other aspects of the game.

I am thinking about keeping the armor list pretty much the same and just renaming every thing. Full plate is not full riot gear or something like that. Again this is partially to keep the game balanced and parially because I am lazy and don't want to make a new armor list and try to balance it.

As for the world itself. I think it is going to be a lot of fun. Ancient Wizarding families secretly run the world. All the conspiriacy theorists are right, they just don't know what is being covered up. What is being covered up is that supernatural things exist. The FBI has a special branch call "Special Investigations" that is primarary responsible for policing the supernatural, but really spend more time keeping the poor inoccent people from finding out that they are all going to be vampire food, that actually junting down and killing the vampire.

Most supernatural creatures will be from another realm and as such suseptable to summoners. Undead however inhabit a human body and so can not be effected by summoners, until the human body is destroyed.

I think it will pretty fun, I pretty much have a place for everything that Anima can do in my world, from ki technicians to magicians to pyschics

I do have to figure out how to do fully auto weapons. Many of the supernaturally-aware people are sort of above the law, and often very wealthy. These people are likely to have illigal weapon.

Also I just read Monster Hunter International, and loved it. It is a big insperation for the game I plan on running.

Truth be told, full auto weapons should be able to shoot a certain number of Attacks per turn, with severe Attack penalty...OR you might simply apply the Rain of Projectiles rules to each burst, since the effect of a full-auto weapon is almost the same as if a few people were shooting together covring an area...this idea just came up to my mind, but it seems rather reasonable to me, and it's much quicker to play than rolling attacks separately. Perhaps a full +150 bonus to attack should be allowed only to mayor full-auto weapons like Gatlings or stuff like that.

An average full-auto should make a single attack (burst) with +50 Attack (it's already a lot), giving the defender the Area Attack Defense penalty unless his movement value exceeds the Area. Base damage might be doubled.

A weapon like this can easily kill characters, beware, but I mean...that's normal. It's not like men normally withstand a full-auto burst anyway...at least, that's what I believe.

From what I have heard about real fully automatic weapons (and my personal atempts at wasting ammo with a semi auto shotgun) the idea that you have a better chance to hit with a fully auto weapon (like an assault riffle or a sub-machine gun, not an actual mounted machine gun) is a myth. The combined recoil of the multiple shots makes the bullets after the first one much less likely to hit.

That fact combined with the comment in the rule book stating that a single attack is not actually a single swing of the sword makes me wonder if I could just increase the damage and reduce the rate of fire to 1 if they fire a weapon set to full auto, then the attack represents the full spray. I was thinking about doubling the damage multiplier for hitting better (a better hit means you hit with more bullets) but that turns out to be the same thing mathematically as just doubling the damage. In fact I wonder if it might be a good idea to say that a fully auto burst is like a -15 to hit but double damage. It makes things simple.

I may also allow things like spray an area, or lay down covering fire. But I would have to figure out what how those rules would work.

my idea was just that a full auto spray is much like a rain of arrows from several bows...you have multiple bullets covering an area. This makes "hitting something" easier actually, although, now that you mention it, a full-auto or semi-auto weapon should have some serious penalty on aimed attacks.

I am unsure as to whether this has been mentioned yet, but we have fully functioning rules for modern/sci-fi elements in Anima posted on the Cipher Studios forums

cipher-studios.com/AnimaBB/index.php

http://cipher-studios.com/AnimaBB/index.php?topic=4207.0

Many guns, equipment, armors, and even a few new races

Hope this helps!

This is a topic that interests me quite a lot as I want to add guns and something similar to Code Geass' Knightmare mechas. It would turn into the primary form of fighting in that particular campaign, so close quarter combat would be limited to that: close quarter. I am going to try to figure out some rules for it based on the combat rules for the Serenity/Firefly RPG, which has a primary focus on guns. I will try to make rules for both guns and the Knighmares themselves, but it might take a couple of weeks or so.

Hrathen said:

My table(two gms with two different games, of which I am one) generally goes with guns in the 60-100 damage range depending on type. Armor is on the thrust table, because guns shouldn't just be auto-superior to energy damage by ignoring AT.

Biggest issue with guns, until you get inhumanity, according to the rules for more modern firearms at the back of the corebook, you get no actual defensive skill. Which means you just get your d100+nothing(with additional minuses for ambush or the like) for defenses if you aren't using a supernatural shield. Our group got really sick of ambushes by gun users.

One person decided that if you can't beat them join them, and rolled up an agent of a wissenschaft-expy that uses both dual revolvers and the ki techniques of Gunhell after his first character died.