First I am starting a campaign where the characters will be high-end levels, a few quick adventures and then retire, and have their students do the real campaign. I do this because almost all the players are new to Anima much as I am, so I figure it will let them test what high-level power is like and when they create the students have learned more of the system. My problem is I don't know what level to start them at, apparently some of the strongest fighters in the world are lvl 9-10. That seems low to me (I'm used to D&D level progression where level 1 is half as strong as level 2, and a hundredth as strong as level 10) what would an effective level be to see how characters can advance?

More importantly I want to add/modify a few advantages/disadvantages, and was wondering if these changes would be a bad idea...

1. Change Jack of all trades to being a 1,2, or 3 point advantage, each point invested giving a +20 to all secondary abilities but not removing the -30 penalty (thus 1 point causes -10 to all secondary, 2 points +10 as the normal advantage, and 3 points +30)

2. Farsighted disadvantage, benefit 1pt, can not read without the use of some tool such as glasses, take a -20 penalty to any combat action used in melee combat (such as attack or psychic projection for a shield), and a -50 penalty to Notice and Search within 5 feet, a -3 the any perception on such checks.

3.Change nearsighted disadvantage, benefit 1pt, same as the original but no penalty to anything within 5 feet.

Level 8 is about the same as D&D's level 20. Start from there.

Lia Valenth said:

Whilst a cool idea, you are going to make things much harder on yourself with this approach, esepcially given the nature of Anima.

Have you considered given the players 1st level PCs who are the apprentices before the PCs? Similar idea but mechanically much simpler.

If you go with your original idea I would aim for level 6 which seems around the average level seen in Anima Tactics.

Consider that even though most "high" levels in the world are level 7-10, there are indeed higher level characters in the setting (and I'm not sure most miniature game characters are around Lev6...I'd go more for level 7-8, with some ranking higher, but that's entirely MY choice and I'm just rolling a few of them...though my work is aimed to roll all of them along with all characters whose class/level are given on Gaia and a few more...) and there's plenty of stuff to make very hard quests even for enormously powerful characters. For example there are the Awakened which may be probably fought only by a strong Lev12+ party and with a very good plan to it...

I wouldn't suggest allowing a 1-3CP version of Jack of All Trades. It's already humongous at level 2. Considering an average cost of 2DP for point on a Secondary ability, Jack of All trades as things stand gives a 740-760DP (depending on whether the character has access to Magic Appraisal or not) discount on the character sheet...meaning a Level1 Character actually has a sheet a 1340DP-1360DP sheet! Besides it makes sure that NO SECONDARY ABILITY goes on a negative value (not considering armor, at least and assuming there are no stats lower than 3). Making a 1C Jack of All Trades would lower the negative without really cancelling it (which is the meaning of Jack of All Trades) and would actually give no benefit to any skill you spend points on, thus becoming far less useful than Jack of All Trades and far less meaningful. As for the 3CP version that's insane, giving to the character 2220-2280 free DPs on a character sheet! Consider I already banned the 3CP version of Natural Learner (single ability, not field, that's ok and pretty much a must for some classes), as it was removed in the revised version and for good! By the way, if you really believe your game style needs a 1-3CP Jack of All Trades I'd suggest having the 1CP version giving 5 free points on all secondary abilities, 2CP being the same as in the rulebook and 3CP giving 15 points. That would be fairly more balanced, although I still believe Jack of All Trades is best left as it is.

As for nearsighted play it as you wish, you may also decide that wearing glasses (depending on quality) may null the malus (after all the character will still have his share of problems when he breaks his glasses, especially since it might be difficult find a new pair depending on where he is and a good quality pair on top of that). After all with a good pair of glasses a person can see pretty normally. There are even sports champions wearing contact lens (including champions of COMBAT sports, such as fencing or martial arts). Of course Anima settings means finding GOOD glasses might be very difficult and in all cases very expensive, but some nations have about nineteenth century-level technology so it shouldn't be completely impossible to find a fine set of glasses.

Thanks everyone. That was extremely helpful.