Going through the books again, I realized that the books didn't clarify, but does Natural Knowledge of a Path actualy add to a character Magic Level. That is, if the character had a Magic Level of say 50 from his Inteligence, and have Natural Knowledge in a path Light, is his total Magic Level 50, or 90? This has implications for how easy something is to learn spells as described in Arcana Exxet.

Due to the fact thatyou can't teach these spells to others, as they're more of an inborn talent, I would personally go with that Natural Knowledge does not increase ML, but it never clarifies in the book, and I don't think it's been specified elsewhere. I also tend not to use training times in my game, usually, so it has little impact in my games. Talk with your GM about that one would probably be best.

everyone i have found so far has ruled it that it does just give you 40 magic levels in a path of magic, and the book does say you can add to it later with the usual means. even the the two fanguides i have they just give the characters who have them 40 ML in the path, all spells learned and everything. this is also how my group rules it.

On page 15 of the GMs Toolkit they give an example for calculating available magic levels for starting characters based on the supernatural level of the campaign (low, med, or high). In that example they state that Natural Knowledge adds to the levels granted by Intelligence to derive a new total Magic Level.

"A spellcaster with 10 intelligence and the advantage Natural Knowledge of a Path that consequently would have a magic level of 90 (50 from its Characteristic and 40 from the advantage), is in a medium supernatural campaign." etc..

This establishes how they intended Natural Knowledge to work, but it also raises the question (again) of how much of your knowledge are you 'authorized' to use at the start of the game? I use their tables on pg 15 as a guide, and allow 10 magic levels to become 'accessible' to the character per level, aside from any they purchase with DP. That is to reflect the growth of practical ability, as it differs from theoretical knowledge.

That's handy to know, thanks Hellgeist. Do keep in mind that that was printed before having those extra 40 ML made any difference, so hopefully they took that into account, as far as learning time goes. Also, with that example, it sounds to me like they might not have inteneded you to have all 40 of those levels available at the start of the campaign, which is something that hadn't occured to me. I basically had added them on top of anything else the caster had learned, but I could see potentially developing and advancing that innate knowledge as the campaign progresses. Once again, converse with the GM as to how they handle it is your best bet.

after one of my munchkins cranked 75 ML (int 13) on top of Natural Knowledge of a Path in essence at level 1 (i told him if he tried using creation i would consider him to have 'unfortunate', and proceed to murder him), i've come to simply capping players at 40 in a path, unlocking 10 per level or finding spells though plot, encounters are hard enough to design in anima as is, capping the paths like this allow me some freedom without worrying about them being completely invalidated by save or die spells, specifically damage resistance creatures.

what i do now is ask my players for a quick wish list of high level spells they want, and use rumors of gilmores containing those spells as plot hooks, its quite effective actually, with the added benefit of my players no longer chasing rhinos outside of the city i planned the session in.

keymaster16 said: