Hey there!

As I said in another topic, I am a newbie when it comes to Anima. I occasionally get questions about the rules and I will use this topic to ask them. Hopefully, you are kind and can help a rookie out. ^^

For now, I got only one. But I will surely post in more as it goes.

My first question:

- Jump and movement distance -
I am trying to build a character who has an unnatural agility and speed, but I just noticed it doesn't say how high or far the Jump can allow me to go. Chapter 6 says that I can jump only 1/5th of my Movement Value. This is kinda low... and there doesn't seem to be any speed increasing skills; not even Ki ability!
So..

#1: How does some secondary skill measure how much the success it is when it's not opposed? Say, 10 m up in the sky? (or around 35 feet).

#2: Are there any Movement Value-increasing abilities?

#1

1/5th of your movement value is how high you can jump. Also note that how you roll to jump does not directly determine how high you jumped: the roll to jump should be based on the difficulty of achieving that jump (which is often just based on the distance or height that needs to be covered, but still)

There is a chart in the book that shows what numbers to use for difficulty rolls. Table 7, Page 44.

#2

Sort of. Anyone could gain experience and increase their agility, which will increase their movement value. There are also ki techniques, spells, and psychic abilities that will augment character attributes. Lastly, some abilities will directly augment the movement ability of a character, for instance the Automatic Transmission ki technique. In the case of Automatic Transmission, while it does say it is instantaneous... the limits are still the same and aesthetically you can just describe it as your character just running faster, or wings that make him lighter and more quick on his feet. Magical sources for speed are going to be temporary solutions, though.

The Physical Increase Psychic Discipline can raise Jump, Athletics, and Movement Speed. DE also has better rules on the former two.

#1. Allright, but I got a follow-up related question for this...

#2. Thanks. ^^

So my new questions:

Skill Difficulty question
On Table 7 at page 44 (as Natso kindly referred), there are the difficulty levels. I presume that it's up to the GM to decide how hard a certain action is to do, right? I am used to play with already-done tables for each skill so most of these secondary abilities are a bit out of my grasp to measure. How hard is it to flip over an opponent to reach his back, for example? Do you guys have any special guidelines you use or are you used to think up the difficulty level with no sweat?

#3: How do you decide the difficulty on secondary abilities?
#4: And what would you say the difficulty to jump/flip/push yourself to get around your enemy?

Attack of Opportunities?
In other games such as D&D and more, opponents threat spaces adjacent to themselves. When you move around or through the foe's threat area, you leave yourself open and grant him an Attack of Opportunity.
I don't know if the game has any such rules or not. I like to use miniatures when showing the battlefield so this is a kind of important for me to know. And since elements such as flanking, attack from behind, etc., are very relevant in the game, so should the movement of positioning be as well.

#5: Are there any kind of penalties to move pass adjacent or through foes?

And lastly...
Soooo slooow...
As practice, I tried to simulate a battle between two enemy guards and three heroes with varied levels. I found the phazes to move so very slowpaced...
First, you have to nail down everyone's relevant stats. Attack, defense, lifepoints, armor and AT, movement, number of actions, ki, etc, etc, etc.
Then, as combat goes, one has to first measure the attack-defense difference, check up the AT, calculate the outcome (damage or counter-attack), and resolve it. I found this work super tedious and even more so as I am not so very good at quick mental number calculations. On top of that, the Initiative has to be re-rolled every round. @_@ And when a different weapon hits a different armor, I have to check up the darn armor page again as it doesn't bother with stating up the AT in the statblock of the book for various mobs.
And this is without accounting for any other special or supernatural elements.
The games feel more as a chore than a game. I am used to Star Wars SAGA edition and the combat there is very dumbed down but at least it's fast-paced.

#6: Do you have any useful tip to speed up the game or lessen the time to scroll through the book back-and-forth?

SSB_Shadow said:

Hello. Will see what I can do to help. With your first questions on secondary abilities if you haven't seen these tables: javascript:void(0);/*1304522247727*/ they might help you.

Flipping someone over to attack their back. First you need to make a trapping attack to try and paralize your opponent (combat manuver in the combat section). Once that is done I would say an opposed strength vs strength or Agility check where the defender gets a bonus based on their armour.

3) Difficulty is decided by the GM. Usually I just describe a situation and let that decide the difficulty. Ex if they are trying to climb a cliff face and it was raining I would probably naturally describe that situation as very difficult which gives me a ball park figure for the DC.

4) Acrobatics is what you use to get around/behind someone. It is covered somewhere in the combat section. iirc it is an acrobatics check opposed by your opponents attack roll. If you win you can move out of combat, if you win by x amount you can flank them and if you win by y amount you can rear attack them. Going off memory here so might be slightly wrong.

5) There are attacks of opportunity, however the opponent does need an action to make one.

6) Combat is pretty slow. There a lot of modifiers and situations in this game. I personally programed a calulator to make combat easier for me. I would suggest at least trying to put as much as you can in an excel sheet so you know the numbers. A few tricks though.

1) For initiative just figure out what weapon your player is using, its really the only thing that affects your initiative.

2) Write down what type of damage your weapon does and what armour values your armour provides. This way you can just say I'm stabbing someone with my sword (thrust attack) and against chainmail I have AT 2.

3) There is a new formula that you can use instead of looking up combat on that table:

(final attack - final defense)) - absorption = percentage of damage. The Mark of Success by 10 stuff still applies. Absorption is Base 20 + 10x relevant AT.

Ex I attack someone with my sword doing a thrust attack. My roll is 120 and their defense is 85. They are wearing sword proof armour (6At against thrust attacks). So first you do 120-85 = 35 so I hit my opponent. Now I subtract absorption which is 80 (6*10+20) so I find I do no damage to my opponent. |If my opponent was not wearing armour I would have done 10% damage (35-20 rounded down to 10). Now if I reverse the attack and dodge rolls my opponent would get a counter attack at 35%

So apparently I can't edit my post :S. Slight typo on the counter attack. It should be 15% not 35%. Its the difference, rounded down to nearest 10 and divided by 2.

SSB_Shadow said:

The GM's Screen has most of the tables I reference for combat right there, so I can just look up and get the data without book flipping. It is extremely useful in that regard, and speeds things up significantly.

SSB_Shadow said:

Each player will be responsible for their own PC. The GM will be responsible for NPCs only. So this process will be done before the game and spread across everyone.

Also, most NPCs (and starting PCs) won't have access to Ki or more than 1 attack.

As a start try using the pregenerated PCs in the GM Kit and stock NPCs from the corebook.

SSB_Shadow said:

Many games use MoS to determine damage. Anima is not unique here and you do get to avoid a whole scond dice roll for damage.

FWIW I I found it easier to divide base damage by 10 i.e. 70 becomes 7 and simply multiple the result by the MoS rounded down to the nearest 10. It is little different from most other RPGs.

SSB_Shadow said:

Yes, Anima has dynamic combat with attacks and counterattacks and Initiative needs to be able to change each turn. As said, you don't have to roll damage so the amount of dice rolling isn't significantly higher than comparable games.

In practice, most PCs and NPCs will have their ATs statted so it won't need a book reference. On saying that, I often house rule an average AT for armour (excluding Energy damage) and it works fine.

SSB_Shadow said:

These are my house rules if they are of use:

ANIMA House Rules

1. All values and costs relating to Primary Characteristics, Ki, and Ki Accumulation, are multiplied by 10.

2. The core mechanic is d100 roll high for all rolls. Except for Resistance checks:
- on a score of 91 or higher, you roll again and add the results, and
- on a score of 3 or lower, you roll again and treat the result as a negative.

3. Action Penalty applies to all d100 rolls with the following exceptions:
- Apply only half the penalty for Initiative, Primary Characteristic (inc. movement), MA and Ki Accumulation; and
- Apply no penalty to Resistances.

4. Base Damage is divided by 10 to give a new damage formula of:

Final Damage = Base Damage x (MoS/10* – AT)
*rounded down

5. Critical hits are scored when the Damage is equal to or greater than the target’s Physical Resistance. The MoS over Phy Res is an Action Penalty and Critical Level for other effects.

6. Additional defences after the first are at a consecutive -25.

7. Remove Appearance as a stat. A PC may be exceptionally attractive or unattractive for -1CP or +1CP respectively.

8. The XP penalty per session for Nephilim is converted into a DP cost equal to XP penalty x 10.

I will just say to just about all of your questions that the game does seem daunting at first. I would defenatly recommend running a practice fight even before you build characters. But over time you will find that a little work ahead of time and the GM screen can speed things up.

I will say that Anima is not the sort of game where you will get 5 to 10 fights done is a session. That being said, I find the more involved combat system more engaging and it make what fights you do have more fun.

Hrathen said:

Don't get me wrong, I like the dynamic of the game. It's just so slow, that's all. =,3
But I've ordered the GM toolkit thingie, as you guys recommened, so I hope that will help me a lot. ^^

All your comments have been very helpful. I don't know what I would have done should this forum and its members not exist.

SSB_Shadow said:

IME once you get the hand of Anima, it will run as fast (if not faster at higher levels) than Star Wars Saga. There is just a steep learning curve in Anima.

SSB_Shadow said:

It will let you hit the ground running. Don't try and learn all of Anima in one hit. Leave Ki, Psychics and Magic until you have the basics down. Then learn each one, one at a time.

I would also recommend you find the forum on the Excel character sheet, and download it.

This is a fan made character generator and it does not take care of everything for you, but I can make a character using that file in under five minutes. It really speeds things up.

Skywalker said:

Thankfully the Anima setting allows you to have a whole campaign without anything supernatural in it. Or one with only one supernatural aspect ever surfacing. Which can be great for newbies to the setting. Just don't tell them about the actual existence of the supernatural at first (you'll need to hog the book and create some variations of the character sheets for it to really work, sure) and then let them slowly discover it.

More questions, and this time it's Summoning stuff!

So how exactly does Summoning and Arcana work from a traditional stand point? Can a lvl-1 Summoner cast these super powerful Arcanas and unleash super powerful effects with no penalties?
And when it comes to normal summoning Final Fantasy style, how does it work? Do you have to find the info on the creature you want to get there? The book didn't either have any supernatural monsters as examples the summoner could summon, so how does that work? And if the player wants to make something unique (and not from the generic mobs in the book), does the GM have to create the monster from scratch?

Also! Does anyone know any good softwares or excel file that can roll initiative for PCs and NPCs for every round? Just to speed up the battle in Anima.

SSB_Shadow said:

Take a look at the Difficulties and Zeon costs. They are high and out of reach for most level 1 casters (except the bottom ones). Also each Arcana requires a Pact to be made, which can be a significant hurdle as well.

SSB_Shadow said:

Summoning in Anima is less FF style and more S&S style. It takes time and is a dangerous and costly business.

A player will normally suggest a monster and look to create one from the Creature Creation system. This is then modifed and approved by the GM. As a GM, I normally require summoned creatures to be created in advance to stop the game being slowed down and take an active hand in the end result.