Hi, me and my friends are pretty new to Anima but not new to rpg's, we have played a few games and just about every game we discover a rule we did wrong or overlooked, but we are getting better. The problem i have now is what seems to be a fairly fundamental part of Anima which is announcing your actions at the beginning of the combat round, before you act as an example on page 82 of the core book they give an example of Celia reserving 2 attacks, this is due to the fact that you take a -25 penalty for each extra attack which i understand. The problem I'm having is the idea that every one goes around in a circle announcing all their actions like "i'm gonna active move then make 2 attacks" but what if your turn comes around and then your pre announced actions become void? do you not get to act, do you get to change your actions? if so why announce in the first place. I listened to a combat pod cast from Fire N dice and they didnt announce anything until on their turn like most other rpg's so maybe im just misunderstanding the book or they could be wrong to i dont know, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

themoo said:

Do what works best for you.

FWIW it was traditional in many RPGs for everyone to announce what they were planning before rolling initiative. However, this has no been replaced to a more immediate process of roll initiative and then annouce on your turn. I think Anima works fine both ways, so do what best works for you.

Sounds fair enough, and i probably will do just that. If its ok with the community i will continue and ask another question, can you interrupt some ones action by making a passive move away? for example: its Bob's turn, he wants to use his passive movement to approach Frank so that he may attack him with no multi action penalty, but frank uses a passive action to move 1/4 his speed away, taking him out of Bob's passive moves range. Can some one do that?

themoo said:

Accordingly to page 78 and 79 the sequence is:

1. Announce number of actions and attacks (you don't announce what those actions will actually be).

2. Roll Initiative.

3. First PC declares actions and executes them.

4. Second PC declares actions and executes them.

etc

Though passive actions can be used outside of initiative order, I would say that they can only be so when in response to something. Taking a move should be left until that PCs turn (or when they would have made their turn if they lost it due to being hit).

I have been having problems with that rule too. But in order to roll initiative you have to know what you are doing, since different things effect initiative differently. But as long as they decide how many actions they are taking, and they know what initiative pen/bon to put on their roll, I don't think that you need to be too exact before hand.

Personal house rule. What I do is have players announce what weapon they are using that round and base initiative off that. They can than choose what actions they are doing when the time is appropriate.

Hrathen said:

Yeah, it is confused. The rules do explicitly say that you have to announce any weapon use or actions that modify initiative before the initiative roll, effectively in step 0 when you announce number of actions.

I think the idea though is that most initiative modifers are based on weapon use (including spells) and most PCs will rarely change from their primary attack mode. As such, the initiative mod is mostly just a formality and I would play it loose in actual play i.e. allow players to take other actions once intiative is rolled if the change was genuine and not abused to their advantage.

This was how the same kind of thing worked in Exalted 1e (which has the same initiative process) and it worked out fine in play too.

Initiative is more important than it may seem. We fell into that trap recently, but actually understanding Initiative's importance should clear up a lot of these questions.

1. Declare your INTENT for that round. If you want to attack a target, move, defend, etc. these are all actions you have to declare up front.

2. Roll Initiative. The highest goes first. If you didn't get highest, and you GET attacked, you lose your stated actions and are forced to go on the defensive, responding to as many attacks you can.
[From what I understand, you are switched off in terms of offense, unless you stated you were doing a Committed Attack, which doesn't allow any defense in the first place. However, an all action penalty resulting from a soaked critical could still prevent a successful attack.]

3. If you defended and survived, AND you defended well enough to be entitled to a Counter Attack, then and only then will you get your turn to attack (once, modified by the counter attack bonus). Otherwise, your victory plans were ruined for that round.

So basically, if you lost initiative and got successfully attacked, you are not entitled to an action like moving out of range, giving the finger, picking up your axe, or whatever. You are only entitled to a block or dodge, if that is possible, as the attacker has forced you into a defensive situation by their successful attack.

hellgeist said:

Just be careful to note that this only applies to extent that it results in an initiative modifer and number of actions. You don't have to declare defences, targets or other actions. So saying:" I am taking two actions, one which will be attacking with my sword." is enough.

This was confirmed by Anima Studio over on the Cipher boards:

1. Announce number of actions and any modifiers to Initiative that will arise this turn.
2. Roll initiative.
3. Declare and perform actions.

Some unrelated note:

@Skywalker: it's a pleasure everytime you explain and clarify such issues