Hey everyone! I just picked up the Anima rulebook a few days ago when I saw it at the bookstore and Immediately fell in love with it. I have had a fare share of experience with table top games as well as being an amateur DM for DnD, so I have an idea of what I am getting into. I normally run games of D20 with anywhere between 3-8 people, but it's normally the latter (at least for serious games), and most of it's loosely outlined impromptu with lots of combat. I really enjoy the Dnd experience, but the kids I play with sort of lacked the imagination/intellect to keep up with anything but a straight forward signpost hack 'n slash game, so when I found this at my bookstore and convinced three of my, *ahem*, more imaginative friends to play along with me, my nerdy little heart leapt for joy. I'm planning to do a small group with a heavy focus on the roll playing and character development aspects of the game. I have been looking through the rule book, and so far the rules are easy enough to understand and follow along, as well as the book itself giving a lot of in depth material compared to other game rulebooks I have read through. So far only one thing I came across gave me a good head scratching. This might be me just having played to many tabletop games, but in Anima do you use a board or grid to represent the combat rounds? Or is it just your imagination, which is fine by me. The only thing that threw me off was that they mentioned distances and move speed and what not, but there was nothing tangible to represent your characters right in front of you. If anybody out there could give me a little peace of mind, that would be great since I am planning to start up an introductory round/ character creation day next week.

I never used any grid.

I never used it either, but it may come in handy and some GMs like them. I prefer using a few miniatures during combat phases since they're useful to better get the feeling of the situation, but also that is perfectly optional.

Thanks for the replies. I think I will try playing without a grid for the first few games. It just might be conducive to imaginative game play, plus it's less stuff to haul around.

KiiwanRakahari said:

Best spelling mistake ever.

Hey, I hope it's ok if I borrow this topic. I am also new to Anima and I didn't want to spam with another threat with the exact same name.

So anyway, unlike the TC, the rules are a bit foggier for me to understand but I have still much to read before I am through.

I got a simple question to begin with:
What are the requirements to use magic? Does my character need to have The Gift ability or can anyone rack up Magic Projection, Zeon or MA to use magic?

So far, I love the system and how it's done, but I am a bit worried about the complexity of magic, ki, psychic, summoning, and the other supernatural things. I will ask again when I need to.

Wouldn't be much of a 'gift' if everyone could, would it? No, you need The Gift to cast spells. Or Incomplete Gift from Arcana Exxet.

SSB_Shadow said:

You need to buy the Gift with CP. Anyone can rack up Magic Projection, Zeon or MA with DPs but unless you have the Gift it isnt much use (except Zeon as you can use that to Summon).

You need the gift to be a wizard.

You also need to take an advantage to use psychic powers.

And if you want to use any Ki techniques at first level you need to take an advantage.

In short access to just about any supernatural ability requires spending CP.

Hrathen said:

1. True, although you may also take Incomplete Gift from AE for 1 CP. You have to make a Power Check against each spell, though.

2. Nope. Just have to spend DP on PP. 1 PP opens a psychic tree, 1 PP buys a power from that tree. Natural Access gives the use of a one power at a specific level, but isn't 'truly' psychic. Free Access opens all 13 psychic trees, which is nice for a pure Mentalist if they plan on buying a lot of talents (they essentially trade 2 CP for 13 PP.) Neither is required, per se, to access psychic talents. In fact, all classes start with one free PP and can buy more at a rate of 10/15/20 DP each.

3. True, but again not necessary, per se. The two Domine classes start with plenty of MK to spend for Ki Use at level 1; the Tao would also earn MK from taking a Martial Art. MK can also be bought for 1:1 DP, though you could only buy 60 at level 1. The extra 40 - 120 MK is nice, but not required in order to use Ki.

pirouette said:

2) You are wrong on number 2. For 2CP you gain access to all psychic trees. You still need to spend the PP to get them. Or you can spend 1 and have access to one tree. If you don't buy one of these two advantages you cannot spend PP to gain access to psychic trees or powers. You can also just gain powers by spending CP and then you don't need any PP.

3) In order to buy Ki tehcneques you need first to buy a few Ki abilites. I am not sure what they are, but only one class has enough MK at first level to have anything left over to buy any techniques, and for that class (I don't remember if it is the taoist, or the Technician) their really aren't that many MK points left over for very many techniques.

So yes you don't really need to spend CP to use Ki techniques, but if you want your supernatural abilities to even come close to those of a wizard or a psychic, you will need to.

Hrathen said:

This is my understanding too. Strangely enough after reading pirouette's post I went back and read it and could see where the confusion arose. However, the 'Access to One Psychic Discipline' Advantage makes no sense unless you need an Advantage like the Gift before investing PPs on Psychic Disciplines.

Hrathen said:

2. No, I'm really not. As I said, you can take Free Access All to gain the use of all the trees. You may also use Free Access One to gain access to one tree. However, the part you're missing is that, a stated on page 193, "...in order to access the Powers pertaining to any one discipline, they need to permanently invest 1 PP point. By doing so, the develop a certain affinity to that specific Discipline..." So again, you don't NEED CP to buy psychic powers.

3. The two domine classes, as I said. Regardless, even without Martial Mastery it is possible to have enough CP to take Dominion Techniques, without using CP by buying it with DP. It only takes 70 MK to do it, meaning 20 DP for a Technician and 30 for the Tao. And you don't need a lot of MK to make a 1st level DT. You could easily get any one or two 1st levels at creation, just as a wizard could only cast a two or three spells before running out of Zeon for the week. Psychics would be forced to either have a few powers they can use consistently, or a lot of powers they have a good chance of passing out from using. The benefit from using MM is not to get up to par with the other two, but to surpass them, at least for a few levels. 3CP of MM gives enough points for about a dozen DT.

pirouette said:

The advantage to one/all psychic disciplines only allow you to aquire affinity (pg 15) towards one/all disciplines. You need that advantage to spend PP to actually develope he affinity before you can start buying powers.

I do agree you can make a martial characters with a DT at first level without martial mastery, though it would be hard to do considering you probably need to spend like 200DP just to get enough MK to do it. That doesn't leave you a lot to build up attack/defense and ki accumulation ect.

pirouette said:

So, in your opinion, the "Access to One Discipline" Advantage merely allows you to spend 1 CP instead of permanently investing 1 PP?

Precisely. It's more an Advantage for non-mentalists, and honestly is about as useless as Light Sleeper.

My thing is, if the rules starting on 192 stated that you needed these advantages, they would. However, they don't. The magic rules starting on 108 state that you need The Gift to cast spells, so why wouldn't the Psychic rules do the same? Because they don't require it, simply enough. The magic rules even go so far as to make a whole section devoted to pretty much saying "If you don't have The Gift, you can't cast magic." The Psychic rules don't say that, nor even go so far as to even MENTION that the Advantages are needed.

pirouette said:

Interesting. As said, I can see the area of uncertainty in the text that has led to your conclusion. Given the vagaries in the text I am not entirely convinced that the omission of the words overrides a more holistic view of the text. In particular, your conclusion of "Access to One Discipline" still doesn't sit that well with me.

I note that all the GM Toolkit sample PCs with Psychic Powers have in fact taken the Advantages referred to, even the "useless" Access to One Discipline. There is no example of PP being expended without them.

Interestingly, most fan created PC creation guides also include the need for an Advantage for Psychic Powers. Time to take this to the official Anima boards I think.

That would be best, I think. I would myself, but my Spanish is horrid.

The official English language forums are here: http://cipher-studios.com/AnimaBB/index.php

pirouette said:

I saw pg 193 where it talks about gaining access to a tree by spending a PP, but that already assumes that you are a psychic, which is a supernatural ability. Most people aren't psyschic. To become one you do need to buy either the 2 CP advantage with basically lets you buy psychic trees and powers without restriction or the 1 CP advantage which only lets you ever buy one tree. That is at least the way I read the rules. I don't have my book with me now, but I am pretty certain this is the rules.

Hrathen said:

To pirouette's credit it is badly written and it is not an unreasonable conclusion to reach. However, I agree with you and the responses so far on the other forum (no official response yet) agree too.

Skywalker said:

But the guy who writes the book never visits that site, to my knowledge.

Yeah, we ran across that problem with the uncertainty about psychic powers as well. Our GM decided to go with the characters needing one of the advantages to buy psychic powers, but there definitely is room for different interpretations.

Edit: Forgot to add: If someone gets a clarification on that from the spanish producers, I'd love to hear about it as well! Even though we have decided the issue for our group.

pirouette said:

And they do here? Cipher Studios is a design house involved with Anima and the forum has mods who are Cipher Studio employees and a number of Anima experienced forumites on it. Its good value and the best place for a answer to rules questions.