Hey everyone, I'm new to Anima, and I'm trying to build a character for an upcoming campaign.

The character I am making is a weapon master, but in his backstory he is heavily resistant to magic for some reason, so I am going to be giving him either the supernatural immunity advantage (GM's handbook), or the Exeptional magic resistance advantage (Core rulebook).

I would like to know the difference between the two, but I don't quite understand them, and I would like to know what either of them are better for.

Thanks in advance.

Quite honestly, for a Weaponsmaster, you'd probably be better off with Supernatural Immunity (and from the sound of it, invest heavily in it - possibly the full DP). As a Weaponsmaster, the fact that you can't get The Gift or See Supernatural is insignificant, because you almost certainly wouldn't have taken them anyway.

Exceptional Magic Resistance, even if you put the full 2CP into it, only gives you a +50 to your MR. With that, you'd need to be around Level 7 or even higher before your MR allowed you to completely ignore MR checks below 120. Of course, after that level, it would keep increasing (whereas the Immunity wouldn't), and it will help against MR checks above 120 (which the Immunity wouldn't), so it's a consideration.

And that doesn't even factor in completely ignoring Lightning Bolts, Fireballs etc that haven't had a crapload of Zeon dumped into them. Which is what a 3CP Supernatural Immunity gives you.

At lower levels, you're basically ignoring mages totally, unless they collapse a building on you.

You could always get both if you wanted, or, when you get up a few levels, exchange one (or even two) of your +1 to an attribute at even levels for the Exceptional Magic Resistance advantage.

It's unusual for a WM to spend so many CP on magic-related stuff, but I'm sure it's not unheard of, and it's how you want your character to be built, so go for it.

Of course, Ki Users, Psychics and Guys With Big Swords will still be just as effective against you.

Supernatural Immunity provides you with blanket immunity to all spells of a certain Zeonic value (60, 90, or 100, depending on number of CP invested in the advantage), as well as giving immunity to spells that are below a certain threshold on the Magic Resistance difficulty necessary to resist them (80, 100, and 120, respectively). Something to keep in mind here is that beneficial spells you choose to voluntarily resist have a MR Difficulty of 120. The downside of this "Advantage" is that all spells below the stated Zeonic value cease to work on you, even beneficial ones. That means if you want magical healing or buffs, the caster must invest enough Zeon to overcome your natural "Immunity". Also, it locks out the potential of ever developing the See Supernatural Advantage (if your GM allows you to develop Advantages after character creation, of course), which is one of the few ways the WeM would have of actually being able to see some effects to "Block" them.

Exceptional Magic Resistance does just what it says, buffing your MR by the stated amount (25 or 50, depending on amount of CP invested). This makes you more likely to resist spells that call for Resistance rolls, but does nothing to affect most direct damage spells, only those that have some other resistable affects. On the other hand, it makes it to where you can still receive beneficial spells without any further investment by your friendly neighborhood spellcaster. It does make it easier to resist beneficial spells, should you decide you don't want them to cast that healing or teleport spell on you, however.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. Blanket immunity is powerful, but cuts both ways, whereas the MR buff will only affect some spell effects, and won't protect you from those that do not rely upon MR at all (like most damage causing spells). I hope that that helps make your decision a bit easier.

Thanks guys this is really helpful, I think I'll just go with the immunity over the resistance.

After that I have 1cp left, is psychic immunity any good? I don't quite get what it does…

Since you are a WeM with magic immunity, i highly suggest boosting your regeneration with that remaining CP since you blocked off most healing spells

That's a good point. Make sure you can heal yourself, since nobody else can heal you (well, not without spending bucketloads of Zeon).

This has been real helpful, thanks guys.

I think I'll buy a level of the regeneration advantage.

Just wondering. How would a WM normally be built? (Like how would you build one?)

I don't think there IS a "normal" build (and ignore anyone who says there is).

Just go with what feels right for what you want out of the character.

Thanks, everyone, this has been really helpful.

I'll post anymore questions I have here.

Thank you.

There are tons of builds for Weapon Masters, both munchkin and not munchkin.

See Supernatural is GREAT for a Weapon Master, for example, since it allows him/her to block spells/psychic powers without suffering the Blindness penalty. Also, being able to touch energy is very useful. A couple of points of Martial Mastery (or 1CP worth of Martial Mastery and a meager 10DP) allow you to touch energy with weapons. Coupled with See Supernatural that makes a great non-munchkin combo.

As for the munchkin part…3CP worth of Elan with Noah and 1CP worth of Starting Wealth (or 1CP worth of Social Position from the right countries), grant you a starting +15Quality equipment…add in an Artifact and make it just +10 (gets to +20 thanks to Noah!) and you have a character beginning the game with OUTRAGEOUS starting equipment. If you badly want the weapon to get to +25 in combat, add in there the Warlord Kami's Blood.

For uber-tanking I'd suggest a 2XFull Shield Build…including quality bonuses you should really begin the game with extremely high block rate. Get Notice to 50 and add the Guardian Magnus to the mix. Also the Secondary Weapon: Defensive Style module works very fine for the Weapon Master. The most powerful CP ability for a tank is anyway Eternal Blood. It's just too good for 1CP even with the Level Modifier.

Another powerful build is: Duk Zarist with Constitution 11 (Regeneration9), spend 2CP for +2CON (getting to 13CON, hence Regeneration11), 3CP for Greater Regeneration (for Regeneration 17), 1CP Toa's Blood (Regeneration18).

Improved Resistances are always fine, but I can't see how a Weapon Master suffers supernatural more than the average warrior or acrobatic warrior.

Of course Survivor and Hard to Kill are always good choices for tank builds. Also, a definitely underestimated advantage is Untiring. Additional Fatigue Points are VERY powerful, especially when fatigues are the only thing you use in combat to boost yourself.

As you can see there are a lot of good builds for Weapon Masters. The main point is: what kind of character do you want to build?

Anyway, Noah's Elan is always fine with Weapon Masters and you won't get enough of it, believe it!

I thought "Equipment" from Noah only affected stuff that didn't already have a +10 bonus. Could be wrong though. That's just from memory.

i once made a technician who had 3 cp worth of untiring for a total of 20 fatigue level 1

Raybras said:

Perfect choice for a techie, because add a bit of Martial Mastery and he could afford to get Use of Necessary Energy at Level 1 and start being able to add +75 to your actions.

Here ya go

What is the feat of strength secondary advantage normally used for? The description doesn't really mak it too clear…

Would it help improve my initiative with my enourmous size two-handed sword?

@ Beadle: Equipment states that it grants +10 Quality to used items unless their Quality is already higher. In my math +10 is not higher than +10 (while +15 is). So a +10 Item (which can be easily obtained with 1CP worth of Artifact), should become a +20 Item.

@stickman_kenobi: in theory the Feats of Strength secondary ability is used in non-combat situations, although using it to lift a chariot and throw it at someone is absolutely correct. Personally I allow my players to use Feats of Strength once per fight scene to increase their STR for 1 attack (they are pushing it over their normal limits) and, considering the GM toolkit states you can use Str to reduce Initiative penalties of weapons instead of adding to damage, I would allow its use for that too, still limiting the use of Feats of Strength to once per combat situation.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Fair enough. Like I said, I was going from memory.

Elric of Melniboné said:

I understand the ruling a little bit different. In the englisch corebook is written, that the equipment acquires +10 Quality. Now "+10 Qualtiy" is a game term and the "+" doesn't mean "add" in this case and acquires does also not mean "add". So I see no point to "add" the +10 to existing quality. The only thing states is: This "power" can't make a tool/weapon worse (it can't reduce the existing quality (+15 to +10 for example), it only can make it better or doesn't change anything).

It would also a little bit odd, because a weapon with +10 quality would became better, than a already better weapon, with +15, and all in the same hands. This example can't be used on other cases, for example: a weapon with no quality and a weapon with +5 quality would both become weapon with +10 qualtiy, so the "+0 quality weapon" wouldn't be better as the +5 quality weapon (but it wouldn't be worst).

So long,

I agree - that was my understanding of how the power worked.

As you say, for a +10 weapon to be more use to a follower of Noah than a +15 weapon doesn't make a lot of sense.

As far as I was concerned, a +0 or +5 weapon (or other item) used by someone with that Gift automatically becomes a +10 item. Nothing gets any better than that, unless it already starts off as a +15 or higher weapon.

Fair enough, I guess we are interpreting and ruling it differently. Wording in Anima is often tricky and open for diversified interpretations.

Anyway starting with complete +10 equipment is far from weak as a perk and the "Ignore Penalties" power is simply put awesome. Also Dark Power is very useful for Weapon Masters since it allows them to compensate lack of "special bonuses".

Finally starting with 60 Elan with Noah gets you A LOT closer to 70 and 80 with the same deity, granting "Against All Adversities", "War Aura", and most important of all "Dark Avatar", one of the best gifts out there. Finally "The Vanquisher" although hard to achieve is definitely one of the best Avatar powers from ALL Shajad/Berils, if not the best at all.

As a final note: it's not "typical weapon master" build, but believe it or not Jack of All Trades is an extremely good asset just for ANY character, weapon masters included. I gave it to a weapon master I'm using as a PC (my only PC at the moment, sigh!) and find it definitely worth the CPs spent.

Elric of Melniboné said:

I would think Jack of All Trades would be of most use to mixed classes (Warlock, Warrior Mentalist, Warrior Summoner, Wizard Mentalist), who really suffer with limited secondary skills. The only problem being that those classes have fairly crucial advantages that they either absolutely MUST have (eg The Gift) or others that really, really help with mystics and psychics.

I totally agree that Jack of All Tades is a MUST for mixed classes, since they have no DPs to spend on secondary abilities as a matter of fact. Still, it's a wonderful advantage for any characters. It's CP->DP conversion is just too good and its overall usefulness is exceptional as far as the master makes character do something different from pushing enemies around all time.