My DM apparently doesn't know how to answer me, so I'll ask on here.

I'm creating a level 3 D'amjayni wizard. I've taken Natural KNowledge Path: Darkness for one CP and the Gift for two, the disadvantage of serious illness in order to take gestureless casting.

That said, I think I understand how the advantages and disadvantages work, but now I'm up to the point of investing my DP in my primary abilities and am at a loss. I'm following the guide here: http://projet.animajdr.free.fr/e107_files/downloads/chargen.pdf but am just not getting it.

I am planning on plunking 400 DP on my magic projection, as this layout suggests, but based on the charactersheet; http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/anima-rpg/media/anima-character-sheet.pdf I'm confused. Does that 400 go next to Base MP? How exactly am I supposed to fill this in and how does it translate to spells? Should I use 200 DP in my MA and then the remaining 200 in Zeon? Or is that foolish?

I bascily need someone to walk me though baby steps to making this magic character. For Zeon, where can I find my class modifier? What 'special' mod's should I be adding in these three areas? How does the advantage of natural knowledge effect this???

Sorry, I'm new, and honestly confused. My DM is not helping, and I'm finding myself struggeling before the game has even started! I've played Dnd 3.5 and 4.0, and fate based games before, but this is alien to me. If anyone can help me with this, I would be very, VERY thankful.

AngelLass said:

Your Base MP is the Magic Projection that you've purchased with DP. A Wizard can purchase Magic Projection on a basis of 2-to-1 (2 DP buys 1 point of Magic Projection). So, if you spend 400 DP, you'll get 200 Magic Projection. That's your starting base, and it's altered by things like your Dexterity bonus.

Your Magic Projection is what you use as a caster whenever you attack or defend; for example, if you throw a fireball, you'll roll 1d100 and add your Magic Projection against the other person's defense. You use it to see if any of your spells 'work,' basically. Magic Projection also helps determine how far your spells can go to affect something.

There is no perfect answer as to how much MP or Zeon is too much. It all depends on the type of character you build, what spells you want to use, and your style of play (plus how supernatural the campaign you'll be playing is). A starting Magic Projection of 200+ at level 3 may be suitable to your game, though it may be totally unbalancing if everyone else is running around with Attack/Defense stats of 120. Also, that's most of your DP for supernatural powers, and that will really kill your Magic Accumulation (basically, how fast you can summon up Zeon to cast spells...and recover it).

As a Wizard, you get +100 Zeon per level; this is in the Wizard description on page 38. Natural Knowledge (Darkness) gives you innate access to the first 40 levels of Darkness (pages 122-123). You really should read the first few pages of the magic section of the book; magic-users can be complicated and it'll be easier to address specific questions rather than try to sum up the entire process.

If you are looking for baby steps, I suggest checking out the fan made compilation Character Guidebook vol 1 http://cipher-studios.com/AnimaBB/index.php?topic=4969.0 or if you prefer to skip reading the actual thread, here is a direct link to the pdf file which explains it all, http://tortureentertainment.blogsport.de/images/AnimaCharacterGuidebook.pdf

Now, if you still need baby steps, let me first say that there are certain limits that you want to almost positively reach, or else your character will fall behind as you go up in levels. At level 3, you have 800 Development points to spend, since the Wizard is a 60% class, that means that you can spend a maximum of 480 development points on your supernatural abilities, there is a further limit, saying that you can spend only half of that 480 on magic projection, so really you can't spend 400 DP on magic projection, you can only spend 240 DP, which gets you a base magic projection of 120. The other 240 DP should be spent on a mixture of magic accumulations and Zeon, as a general rule, you should have your magic accumulation x10 in points of Zeon, so if you have a magic accumulation of 40, you should have about 400 Zeon. It's not an exact science, and you can fudge the rules if you're absolutely sure of what you're doing (I have an NPC in my game with 105 MA and just a little under 500 Zeon)

The rest of your development points need to be spent on Secondary abilities, of which you have 320 to spend on them.

Every level thereafter, you want to always make sure 30 development points are spent on Magic Projection, and 30 are spent on Zeon or Magic Accumulation, of course, since increasing magic accumulation costs 50 development points, what you would actually do if you wished to increase your Magic Accumulation is to spend 30 Development Points on Magic Projection, 10 Development Points on Zeon, and then 60 development points on Secondary Abilities, on your next level, you would spend 30 Development Points on Magic Projection (again) and 50 Development Points on Magic Accumulation (this totals 80 points, but it is allowed because the 60% limit on your DP spending on Primary Abilities is a limit of your total DP, not your DP per level, so since you underspent on your primary abilities in the previous level, you can overspend a little on the new level).

Don't forget your character gets 3 levels worth of natural bonuses, which is explained on page 13 of the core book. These are free and don't cost any DP. The limit about only being able to spend 240 DP on magic projection is also explained on this page.

... 8D I love you both. THANK YOU.

This helps so much.

Ive been reading it, but all the instructions just seem... vague? In anycase, thank you both. I'm going to check out those links now, but what you've already told me helps a lot.

I don't know if vague is a good word, it's more like unnecessarily complex, character creation rules are literally spread across several chapters, and these chapters refer to each other all the time. Even if you get the DP spending part down, you still have to do things like calculate your maximum carrying load which isn't anywhere near the rest of the character creation rules.

Character creation is kind of all over the place in this game, it's the hardest part, actually playing the game once you've created a character is pretty simple and straightforward. Character creation is kind of a mess, not to mention, it took me like, about a year to understand exactly what the "Throwable Weapons" module did.

(if you are wondering yourself, what it does is give you weapon proficiency to throw any weapon with the throwable trait--but only throwing them, weapons like battle axes that can be both thrown and used in melee cannot be used in melee with the throwable weapons module, they can only be thrown)

I've made enough characters that I can whip out a typical character in a couple minutes, but it takes experience to get to that point because as AW said the rules for creating a character are spread throughout the first half of the book. The only stuff that really takes time once you get the hang of things is background details and things like making your own Ki Techniques (which, being a wizard, you don't have to worry about). If you have a ton of skills, that math can take a bit of time, too.

Magic isn't too bad but at first glance it can really look confusing; it can take a bit of rereading to get fully. Just give a shout if you come across anything else that seems unclear and we'll be happy to help.

AlphaWhelp said:

Are you sure about that, AlphaWelp? The way I read it, from going over both the Throwable Tag on weapons, and the Thrown Module, is that the module allows you to throw anything with accuracy (i.e. not taking a penalty to your Attack). So you could basically pick up a Great Sword and throw it at the guy on the roof without any penalty, if that's all you have available. It doesn't allow you to use anything in Melee combat, but at range, you should always have something around you can hit them with, no matter how non-aerodynamic it is. Where-as the Throwable Tag on weapons basically says, if you learn this weapon, you can use it in Melee AND you can throw it, your choice. Daggers are a good example here, as they have the Throwable tag. Learning the dagger, either as your first weapon, as part of a weapon module, or with DP directly, means you can fight with it, and throw it as well, if the need arises.

I am positive that the way I described it is how it works, it gives you proficiency with all throwing weapons but only with throwing them, not in melee.

It is basically the throwing counterpart to the projectile weapons module, which gives you proficiency with all fired projectile weapons.

AlphaWhelp said:

I treat it the way Arikail describes.

Throwing Module, pg. 56 "The character is able to use his aim while throwing any object or weapon."

Throwable Special Rule, pg 68 "All weapons with this notation are designed or balanced to be thrown. Characters who have Ability with these weapons can use them either in hand-to-hand combat or by throwing them without needing to acquire the Throwing Module."

It's the last sentence under "Throwable" that decided it for me. I'm not saying this couldn't be another mistranslation issue, but that seems pretty final to me.

I suppose I see it differntly. I see it as the "Throw Anything" Feat from D&D 3.X, or the ability of Final Fantasy ninja jobs to Throw things, usually almost anything out of your inventory. This includes weapons with the Throwable tag, but I think Lagnalok summed it up best on the other boards, in saying that it basically adds the Throwable tag to anything you carry anyway.

I'll agree, it provides no proficiency in melee at all, even with those weapons that already have the Throwable tag. But it mentions in the description being able to throw things without the Throwable tag without penalty. It makes a lot more sense to me that way. But whichever way you wish to use it, I suppose.

I think, Arikail is right.

With the "throwing module" I can throw anything without penalty.

I can throw weapons with the "throwable tag" without a penalty, if I have the "throwing module" (because I can throw everything) or if I can use this weapon).

For example: I can throw bastardswords without penalty, if I have the "throwing module". And I can throw a dagger without penalty, if I have the "throwing module" or if I have the "dagger module". But, if I don't have the "dagger module" and use the dagger in hand-to-hand-combat, I will get a penalty, because I don't know the weapon.

So long,

except there is no listed penalty for throwing things without the throwable tag, in fact, the book goes out of its way to tell you that anything can be thrown with a ROF of 80 or 120 depending on size.

So go with the standard non-proficient penalty of -60. At best, they could get -40, if they are familiar with something else with the Throwable tag, because all Throwable weapons are mixed class, since it's a tag, and not an individual type. That's how I would personally handle the situation, if it were to come up in my games. Once again, YMMV.

AlphaWhelp said:

I would say -60 for "Different class", because, if I can say "there isn't a penalty for throwing", I could throw daggers, without knowing anything about them (for example, if my default "weapon" would be "unarmed") with no penalty, but if I would use them in hand-to-hand, I would have the -60 for "Different class weapon". And: You can throw everything (with a ROF of 80 or 120), but it says nothing, that you don't get a penalty, if you havn't learned it.

So long,

Since I am such a noob, if I post the character Ive created would one of you be so kind as to check it out for me?

Our first session was RP heavy so I didn't have to really worry about the magic. It was mostly walking around the city and getting a letter for the Empress Our DM told us tha we were headed to Moth next meeting, so I need to make sure I have it all down pat.

AngelLass said:

Sure. If you can briefly explain where you spent your DP, it'll be even easier to double-check. And Moth should be lots of fun, though at Level 1 you'll miss all the really nasty stuff. Moth is just crawling with stuff that goes bump in the night.