If they're involved in the actual design of the game, then maybe I'll consider what they have to say. But honestly, I'm perfectly fine with the way I've ruled it, and most likely won't change that stance unless ample evidence against it, aforementioned, is provided.

Simply put, I dun wanna cuz' im lazy.

pirouette said:

That's the best way to approach Anima

"Access to one Psychic Discipline
The character is gifted with the ability to use the powers of a single psychic discipline. Its abilities are limited to a single field and, no matter how much it increases his potential, he will not have access to powers that are greater than his natural capacities.
Effects: This Advantage allows use of PP to acquire affinity to a single psychic discipline and the matrix powers.
Cost: 1"

To me, this implies that without this Advantage or the better one, you can not spend PP to acquire affinity to psychic disciplines.

Lost In Thyme said:

Lost In Thyme said:

I think you have to be right. If you can just spend PP to gain access to psychic trees then you spend 1 CP to gain this advantage, but it actually makes you weaker than the guy how doesn't have the advantage (if you can spend PP whenever you want)

Hrathen said:

This was the argument I raised above. Essentially, pirouette sees this as exchanging 1PP for 1CP and referred to Light Sleeper for a comparably low powered advantage.

I agree with you that the logic seems a little shaky. So far, on the Cipher boards, all responses agree with needing Advantages to use Psychic Powers.

I believe it's pretty obviously stated on the rulebook that in order to have psychic powers you must buy access to them, EXACTLY like you have to buy either The Gift or Incomplete Gift (from Arcana Exxet) to access magic. For some races (Duk'Zarist and Devah), you even have to choice between being a magician and a psychic. I can't really see what's the matter with it.

Elric of Melniboné said:

In pirouette's defence, where is it obviously stated? A quote would be nice.

From what I can see, it is obviously stated for the Gift but only implied for Psychic Powers.

I am new to the game so I am unsure how helpful my input will be, but here goes.

As I understand it the argument is that The Gift, the magic equivalent of Free Access to Any Psychic Discipline, is specifically stated as being required to cast spells. Thus, if Free Access to Any Psychic Discipline was required to use matrices then it would be specifically stated. This argument seems sound, and were it not for the next fact it would be the end of it. However, this advantage exists,

"Access to one Psychic Discipline
The character is gifted with the ability to use the powers of a single psychic discipline. Its abilities are limited to a single field and, no matter how much it increases his potential, he will not have access to powers that are greater than his natural capacities.
Effects: This Advantage allows use of PP to acquire affinity to a single psychic discipline and the matrix powers.
Cost: 1"

This seems to state that, without this ability, they could not have any psychic powers. Therefore they must require advantages to use any psychic matrices. This, in my opinion, is a weaker argument, as that it stems from a single sentence instead of a paragraph. A small translation error could account for this (but because I do not read Spanish at all I can not check this), there is no where in the entire book, save the advantage itself, that hints at this. A weaker argument, however, does not prove that it is wrong. In fact, due to this one line most people agree with this argument.

Which side is correct? I do not know. What I do know is that magic is the only one of the five mystical disciplines (magic, ki, Summoning, mentalism, and elan) that states you need an advantage to use it. It is also the only one that you gain abilities purely from your stats. Ki you have to invest martial knowledge, gained from levels and DP. Summoning has four areas you have to buy with DP. Mentalism requires investing PP, gained from levels and DP. Then elan requires working towards a specific belief and investing DP. Magic, however, has spells learned based on your intelligence, cast based on your power. You do not have to invest any DP to gain more magic power. Yes you must increase your magic projection (but the same is aproximatly true of Ki [which needs double for attack and defence], and psychic projection.) and your Zeon/magic accumulation (much as needed for summoning, though less) to be a good wizard, but they are not needed (a fighter with a high Int and Pow could cast very powerful spells before a fight with daily cost to gain a lot of advantages). All in all it costs less DP to gain more benefits in magic than any other branch of mystical powers. It therefore makes sense that you need to spend CP to gain access to this very powerful branch. Mentalism, however, requires DP to be invested in PP and slowly built up, only one aspect being based on a stat, therefore it makes more sense that it does not need an advantage in my opinion, and the Access to one Psychic Discipline is just a lame advantage not to be taken. In my campaign I would come to this conclusion.

We're still talking about this? Speaking honestly, I don't even like the Advantage system in Anima, so that's a good portion of why I ruled it the way I did. I also allow my summoner to have both normal and reversed of the same arcana, so maybe we should have a debate about that one next. Simply put, the book is written terribly no matter which way you look at it. And because of my style of GMing, I've house ruled quite a bit of it already. (Part of it has to do with the setting's plot, of course.) I'm going to GM my game the way I want to, and encourage you to do the same. Requiring the advantages just puts more restriction on players that I don't find necessary for the group I have, which otherwise wouldn't have any psychics. You might think differently. Further, the book probably meant to make them necessary but, again due to the sloppy job in writing it, neglected to make that point clear. In fact, if this is so important, I would suggest someone look through the revised edition and see what it says about the same issue.

But don't look at me doing it. I don't really care either way.

Although, I have to ask, since when does Elan require DP?

Elan for DPs?! At best Elan is for CPs...and interpretation, of course...One of the lovely things about Elan is that even a Level1 (if not a Level0) guy might become Avatar of a Beril/Shajad, although some of them require actions that are bound to earn experience, hence their avatar should be little higher level-wise. Perhaps Abaddon or Edamiel...surely not Noah or Azrael.

pirouette said:

Have you posted any of your house rules in a thread? If not, could you post some or all of your house rules in a thread?

I like to see what house rules people use.

From my point of veiw, the book isn't either ill-written nor lacking in either setting or rules.

I've built several dozens characters during the last months ranging from level 1 to 20 and I always managed to obtain a suitable result. As for house-rules, I modified only a couple things (introduced Wear Armor mastery and allowed a couple useful Gift-Only advantages to non-Gift characters, Magic Nature and Superior Magic Recovery). Oh, and I also allowed development of Magic Appraisal to characters with See Supernatural and high enough elan with Erebus (since you become able to cast spells you should also be able to see Magic, somehow).

As far as house-rules go, I've also completely house-ruled the rules present in Arcana-Exxet for the Shelee, a new sort of familiar you can summon from within your own "magic soul". I've substantially reduced all zeon costs there, because otherwise they'd be impossible to use for anyone.

Elan costs CP, but getting the special powers based on your Elan do cost DP

I'm finishing my work on a Summoner Guide before I do, which contains several summoner based house rules, but I'll post my other house rules up when I'm finished.

And I do find it very lacking in mechanical logic. There are a lot of instances of "you can do this that and the other" with no examples. Other times it leaves out information, like the Impact Table they forgot about and placed in DE. This causes a lot of confusion among players and GM alike, alone, much less the fact that it doesn't have an index, so finding a specific term means you have to search through any of the chapters that term MIGHT be in, only for some of them to send you to another chapter. It's like a scavenger hunt; an unnecessary mini-game in a system that requires the use of charts to get through combat with any ease.

And where does it say that Elan abilities require DP?

pirouette said:

It doesn't. Look on Page 261 "Characters may employ their Elan points to acquire those Special Abilities closest to their nature and doctrines."

This means that, if you have 40 Elan, you can buy that many points worth of abilities for which you meet the Requirement. If you look at the costs and add them up, its easy to see that nobody will ever be able to afford all of the Special Abilities their Beryl/Shajad offers. That is probably on purpose, so that there will be some amount of difference between these initiates.

That's entirely my point, but to follow up on that, Elan Abilities also have a minimum Elan requirement, so if you only have 40 Elan, you can only choose from 4-5 abilities regardless.

You are correct, I was wrong, Elan does not cost DP.

pirouette said:

Disclaimer: Still not finished reading the book, but:

Like pirouette, I'm not shure you need the Advantage. But for another reason.
It seems strange - to me - that an Wizard Mentalist would need at least one disadvantage to get his class features...

BTW. is there a possibility to get an advantage later than Char. generation?

Korwin said:

I think this thread is done, the answer is: We can not agree. The Word Of God has not spoken. Therefore, play however you think it works.

HOUSERULE: Personally I got rid of access to a psychic discipline and made the "free access to all psychic disciplines" be required, but only cost 1CP.

To answer your question though, no you can not gain an advantage later than character generation. Unless the GM allows the optional rules that you can lose a stat bonus in order to gain 1CP.

I'm thinking of granting the Magic-Classes the Gift Advantange for free
and the Psychic Classes would get "Free Acces to any Psychic Disciple" for free.

To strong?

Short answer: yes. There is a reason The Gift is needed and costs so much. As per psychics, that's fine, I did that for awhile but am trying my way to see how it balances. (I say this because there is a 3-paragraph explanation at the start of the Magic chapter on why the gift is needed and so expensive.)

Newbie question here and I think I know the answer but I just want to be sure.

When I was looking over weapons for my test character (I'll be running the game so I want to know how to mechanics work) I came across the entry for picking larger size weapons(Enormous and Giant Weapons pg 68 Core).

In the paragraph it says that for Enormous size weapons that the character has to be at least Large sized....the only thing is that on the size consulting table pg (286 Table 82) there is no Large size, only Big.

Am I right in my assumption that Large and Big are one in the same and the error is just due to a mistranslation?

And a question about magic sheilds, specifically about Light Shield. It says that it has 300 LP but can only be damaged by Supernatural attacks? So if my understanding is correct a Wizard can throw this up as his first action, then wade into combat against a bunch of mooks without ever having to fear damage unless a rampaging dragon decides to swoop down and mess with him?

large and big looks like a translation error.

As for light shield, only supernatural effects can hurt the shield. So a dragon's breathe weapon would probaly do it, so would magic spells, psychic attacks, Ki attacks can do it, you could make the argument that a mook with presence extrusion could damage the shield (there a lot of ways to do supernatural attacks in this game ). Also (especially for low level characters) keeping a shield up for multiple rounds and casting it in multiple combats will quickly drain a wizard of their zeon.