I've just been invited to play in my first game of Anima.

The DM recently got the book and has been through it enough to know the material pretty well; I, on the otherhand, had to scramble to figure it out.

Regardless, I just have a couple of questions about the Wizard I created...

1) I have an INT of 10 and Natural Mastery of a Path. So that should be a total of 90 points (with 40 required in one Path) for the character, correct? Based on the other characters in the party (a Warlock and a Technician), the DM allowed me to start with full path knowledge, so I don't even have to worry about partial knowledge...

2) I'm currently in Creation (which seems amazingly powerful), Light, and Fire. Any suggestions or recommendations before it's set in stone? The Warlock is taking Darkness and Destruction and we didn't want to overlap.

3) I invested the full amount (180 points) into Magic Projection. I didn't really buy any combat ability. It seems like this leaves me really vulnerable until I have enough magic accumulated to cast a Shield. Do most Wizards go this way? Or should I try and re-shuffle points to buy the (really expensive) combat stuff, too?

4) This is more of a question going forward, but... I currently have 345 Zeon and a 30 MA. As a Wizard, I get 100 free Zeon per level (and don't plan on changing classes unless a really good story reason comes along). I believe the limits (60% into magic, only half the level's total into projection) still applies going forward -- so when I level up, I can only spend 60 points in magic development, with a cap of 50 to Magic Projection. Correct? If so, what's a good ratio going forward? I can't keep raising MA *and* keeping Magic Projection at the cap. The most I could do in levels when I wanted to raise my MA is to put another 10 points into Magic Projection. Which seems kind of harsh. Are there any good rules of thumb for developing Wizards? Suggestions from experience?

5) More of an opinion question, but... Am I missing something or are the Homunculus, Monstrosity, and Create Being options in the Creation Path INCREDIBLY strong? Being able to (mostly) build a monster exactly how you want it, on the fly, just seems game-breaking to me. (As noted, I have no experience yet actually PLAYING Anima. )

1) If you have been granted the full Level 90, since you don't have a whole lot of accumulation and max Zeon yet, it could be better to split that in 2 path to have more versatility. Starting with 3 paths is going to be costly...you could be better off buying single Spells from Fire for example. (since Creation can already creaty fire, cold and electricity -at a higher cost- .

2) Creation is a greater path. As Destruction. Logically there's powerful spell in that path but keep in mind requisites, Zeon, and your regeneration.

Some spells have drawbacks, too.

3+4) You should consider buying more MA if you're going full magical. You said you didn't want to buy any combat skill, so at least try to be able to cast 1 spell in 1 round. 30 isn't going to cut it. Especially if your regeneration is just 30 too, you're going to be on stand-by a little too often.

340 max Zeon isn't a lot for a Wizard. Actually, it's a starting point for a mystic. You'll be using Projection mainly for the Royal Shield (best defense you can get) so do your math. I'd suggest to buy a bit more MA for starters, and keeping it up every few levels.

The cap of 60% is calculated on your DP total. At level 2 you'll have 700 DP total. So 60% of that is going to be a total 420 DP in supernatural abilities.

You can reserve unspent points for buying abilities on higher levels, if you need to. For axample, an ability with a cost of 75 couldn't be learnt in a single level. So you need to keep some DP unspent and wait to level up. I hope this is clear enough.

5)

Homunculi can't have any stats over 5, can have a max Size of 8 and can't get over 50 on any skill. Also they're level 0 beings with Gnosis 0. So they can't have any special powers. It's just a servant you create to help you doing boring stuff, cleaning, spying, or carrying objects. Or an especially cool and intelligent pet.

Most likely, any other specific spell (like Light's little flying spy thing) are going to be better at their specific job, the difference is that you can decide on the spot wich type of Homunculus you want.

The spell that turn you into a monster is going to kill you if you cast it too soon: you become an easy target for Convocation skills.

You need to get something to counter that (at higher levels).

The other one that grants you natural powers is limited so it's balanced by itself,

Create Being is going to cost you more than a bit of Zeon, again watch what you can afford before it's tto late ^^

Keep in mind that any being you create can be easily manipulated by any decent Summoner/Controller/Paladin etc. In worst case scenario, you'll be forced to cut off the upkeep or having to beat the crap out of your own creation.

Healing and Shields are the strong points of Creation, and the fact that you can create anything (at a cost) when you need it.

The drawback is that everything you create is not permanent, can be countered and isn't specialized into a field.

About the rest, Fire is good for raw damage (since Destrucion would be opposite Path), but maybe you could consider buying just the spells you need.

Air/Earth are good paths for buffs and other stuff.

Of course you need a lot of Zeon to mantain said spells AND to keep casting new ones, that's why I said 30 MA is too few (since Zeon Regen depends on that).

Truth is, any Path you choose is going to be a great asset if you like that particular Path.

An Air master could tear you down with Lightning Bolts, a Destruction user could counter every spell you cast and an Essence user...could control you to cast spells for him

Even Necromancy is insanely helpful, and not just to the typical evil dead rising character.

Spells seem incredibly strong or game breaking until you have to actually cast them when you are in a bind.

With a 30 MA, you will need 2 rounds of accumulation to afford a Shield, and then 3 more to bring up a Monstrosity. Unless your opponents are simple weaklings, you will not likely survive to cast your shield. If you are protected until it is up, you will have a Projection of 90 (plus your roll) to pit against any attack coming your way. If you do not reduce the attack's total to zero with your defense total, you will be taking the full hit and probably dying.

If you want to survive combats as a Wizard, you will somehow need to keep your Magic Projection high and build your MA much higher than it is now. If your party wants to go on adventures that last more than one day, you will need to concentrate on getting much more Zeon than that, because when it runs out, you might as well be an NPC until it slowly returns (at a rate of your MA per day of rest).

I'm not trying to sound like a killjoy, but I've been playing this game for almost a year now, and Wizards still seem to have the business end of the stick when it comes to danger. While warriors, domine, and psychics are always ready or can recover on the fly, and have a lot of defensive and offensive tools to survive with, the Wizard is made of glass and once s/he's out of Z, they are no longer competitive.The warlock has even more difficulties than you have.

Arcana Exxet is not published in English yet, and it may or may not solve some of these difficulties, but until then, all I can say is - read the rules very very carefully, consult these forums and look up discussions about these things that are already ongoing (there is one about this very subject) and encourage your GM to choose or develop whatever solutions are appropriate to their campaign. Once you know how they want to rule on these challenges, then you will be better able to make a decision about what kind of character to invest in.

Thats my 2c on the situation anyways..

Arcana Exxet is not entirely necessary (I'd say the Revised base manual aka Core Exxet IS anyway...).

As hellgeist pointed out, Zeon Regeneration is important for combat, but there's also mantained spells that can help to save you in a pinch.

Creation, since he was going that way, offers improved regeneration, healing and resistances buff.

The key is being able to pay the upkeep, having free Zeon to pop a healing (better if this can be cast in max 2 turns, remember you can spend 1 Fatigue point to increase MA by +15) and still regenerating enough to be able to that daily.

If you gain access to Arcana Exxet somehow, there a lot of Metamagic Spheres that helps in that regard (increasing MA, Zeon regen, and even granting a fixed Projection result in exnchange for some more Zeon)

Okay, as noted I'm a novice with this system.

But I don't understand how I *could* get better according to what I'm hearing.

At first level, I have 360 points to spend in my Supernatural Ability, up to 180 of that in Magic Projection. I spent the full 180 there.

That leaves 180 points. I bought my MA up twice (leading to the regen of 30). I put most of the rest into Zeon.

If I wanted to get my MA up, I would need to spend another 50. So at that point, I *would* have enough for a one-round shield. That would cost 150 points, on top of the 180 in Magic Projection. That leaves 30 points -- 150 Zeon -- which, when added to the class base (100) and the 135 I get from my power *still* only yields 385. Not much more than what I have now, but it does bump my accumulation.

Is that change worth it?

I'm also not sure how to survive fights if keeping my Projection at the cap isn't going to do the job. Once a hit gets past the shield, wizards are rather squishy. Yeah, I can use Regeneration, Light Armor, Damage Barriers, and the like, but those all chew -- rather heavily -- into the already anemic MA. How do people survive as Wizards, then?

Heh, was feeling pretty confident about this character until I came here...

Stack said:

How do they survive? In my experience, their survivability depends on how favorable the GM is towards magic. One person solved the magic problems in their campaign by lowering the cost of MA to 20 for Wizards. I solved most of them by being less severe with the Magic Projection of a magical shield - successful Projections that beat the attacker's total result in the shield only taking the weapon's base damage. In the situation where they fail to beat the attack roll, the Wizard's magic shield takes the full modified damage of the attack instead of just the weapon's base damage (assuming that it can resist that type of incoming damage). This is still quite dangerous, since a default shield at 300 Resistance Points is still very easy to collapse. However, it can also buy enough time for the Wizard to accumulate for their next Action.

Note: in the case of Darkness shields which are immune to all physical damage on a successful Magic Projetion, they are considered vulnerable to it in the case of a failed roll, and it will lose Resistance Points.

Depending on the types of threats your GM is going to create for you, and the campaign's Supernatural Level, these types of house rules may be inappropriate. Your experience with the powers and abilities in your gameplay will show you what is appropriate and what isnt pretty quickly

Rule of thumb with anything supernatural is: don't use it if you don't really need it.

Some people will react very bad, others will just judge you by what you achieve with it, but you can never be sure unless someone is protecting you.

There's a lot of factions who could provide you (and your party, since sooner or later nearly everyone will have some sort of powers) some sort of legal status to use minor stuff if it's not harmful. even the ones who actively hunt supernatural stuff are using supernatural gifted people to get thejob done (or just to protect them, since the whol "hunting" stuff sometimes is just a cover).

And there's also some places where it's sort of common to see some flash of lights and people cutting a monster in 2 barehanded, just not on a daily basis.

The things you could do to be "better" depends on your idea of "better" and what you wanna do with you character...

180 Projection is good, but it's not a must. Getting over 100 is already really above average. You could spare some points by leaving Proj at 100-120.

In the end it's your choice. You could even get more Magic Level to buy specific spells form other Paths if you wanted to (5DP for every 5 Magic Levels).

It's not a bad idea to check how many of the most used spell you can cast with your max amount of Zeon, and up it until you can cast 3-4 of that and still have some Zeon left topay the upkeeps of the shield etc.

If you could afford that, I would definetely go for the one-round Shield, so MA 40. That extra round could be all you have left and a huge level of Projection isn't going to help if the shield isn't up to block...

Darkwings said:

Sorry if I wasn't clear -- with Magic Project being +1 for 2, I put 180 DP into, getting 90 Magic Projection. That plus my Dex bonus gives a total of 100 MP. Hopefully enough to survive, but I guess we'll just have to see.

I re-worked things to get the 40 MA and 385 Zeon. It still feels kind of dangerous, but I guess I'll see how it works out...

Oh, ok then, I thought you had 180 MP...

If you thing having less Zeon is dangerous, you could think that not having the 1 round shield is MORE dangerous actually.

All the Zeon in the world is not helping you avoiding a pointy piece of metal without a shield

Once you have the 1 round shield, you can alsways get more Zeon the next level, at least you have a way to get there.

PS: actually, the next step is to get a half-turn shield, that way you can cast it even with halved MA caused by immobilization/mutism or simply by your choice to cast another spell in the same round. That's a further goal to reach, but once you are prepared for bad things, you'll be happy to have spent those points.

OK first it was a good idea to have maximum projection, as it always is.

However, I would advise against Natural Knowledge of a Path. It seems like a good advantage, being worth 40Spell Levels for 1CP. However, I find that increasing your POW is worth more (If you have it at 12 your MA increases by 5/multiple). Further the Opposed Magic advantage (1CP) is worth more in the long run (Game Masters Toolkit, allows a spellcaster to take spell levels in opposed books and not pay double spell levels.) also if you increase your intelligence (1CP per +1) you gain +25/+50/+50 more spell levels, worth more than Natural Knowledge in the long rune (Till level 20/18/16 actually, then it becomes worse if your GM maxes stats at 20, as is the official maximum, but it is unlikely games will last this long). Normally I would take an disadvantage or two, to give a character substance and have more CP (I suggest The Gift (Required) 2CP, Opposed Magic 1CP, if disadvantages INT +1 (1CP), (if POW starts at 10), POW +1(1CP), then POW +1 (1CP), in that order [if you have the CP for them] if you get 3 1pt disadvantages, or 1 2pt and 1pd, allows you 75 spell levels at level 1, and if your POW started at 10, your MA increases to 45. At level 2 you can gain +25 spell levels, and at level 4 you gain +50 by increasing intelligence)

Next have a 6+ CON if possible. Because you want 6 fatigue, with 30MA you can use 1 fatigue points so for 1 round you gain +15 MA, giving you 45MA total, allowing you to cast Royal Shield with 500LP round 1 as a passive action to defend yourself.

Lastly only put 50DP into Zeon (giving you 400+base from POW). The official rules I do not know, however in my games I allow players to save unused DP for later levels. At every level you gain 60DP to place into MA/Zeon/Projection, of that 30 is placed strait into Projection, so you have 30/level. If you spend 180 projection, 100 MA, 60 Zeon at level 1 thats 340/360 giving 20 extra, so at level 2 you can gain x1 more MA for 50DP (20 lvl 1 + 30 lvl 2). or you could put 30 pts into zeon (giving 250+base from POW) and buy another MA, if you don't increase your POW as I suggested above in the long CP rant this gives you 40MA anc can cast Royal Shield as a passive action at 500LP, if you do the MA increases to 60 and allows you to use Royal Shield at 500-800LP and use 2 fatigue to cast it at 1/2MA for 500LP.

EDIT: after re-reding I note you increased your MA to lower zeon, if you don't like that use the increase POW idea to increase your MA to 45 with 2CP instead of 50DP, then use the put 30 more DP in to give you 475 Zeon, and increase your MA at level 2, or just have the 30 MA and use 1 fatigue at the start of every combat (Which takes 30 minutes of rest or 2 hours of light work to get back). Any of these ways will give you the MA to defend yourself at low levels, and at high levels it becomes fairly null what with you should be increasing MA as often as possible.

Another idea to help get around the low MA is the 1CP Elemental Compatibility advantage, since it sounds like you're going for a focus in Creation anyway. This gives a natural +20 MA to any path you choose, but a -20 MA to the opposed path. It certainly gives you the extra oomph you need to get Royal Shield off more easily.