Hello everyone. I've been recently looking into running Anima with my gaming group and have been plowing through the core book. I got up to Chapter 10, Ki Dominion and decided to give a shot at making a character before reading any further. I decided to make a Shadow, however that led me to read the beginning of Chapter 10 due to his Special: Ki Concealment. The confusing part to me is every class receives Martial Knowledge points (at least all the ones I've glanced at), so why doesn't every character have Ki abilities? Unless there is another use for Martial Knowledge that I have read yet, why not spend the MK points on Ki Abilities and Techniques?

Every class CAN get Ki Abilities and Dominion Techniques. Ki Abilities, especially. But for most classes it's a slow process.

You've got to buy at least Level 1 Martial Mastery for your Shadow as an Advantage in order for them to be able to get Ki Concealment at Level 1, as it costs 60 points of MK to get there. 40 points for Use of Ki, 10 for Use of Necessary Energy, and 10 for Ki Concealment. And there's plenty of other abilities to spend it on. Presence Extrusion and Aura Extension are almost a necessity, if you want to be able to block energy etc.

Thank you for the clairification, that makes sense for a 1st level character. As I have not played, I'm not too familiar with how fast characters progress, so pardon me if this is not a valid example. If you have a 10th level Shadow character, the character will have accumulated 250 MK points. I would seem useful to spend those on Ki abilities instead of having them just sit around. Is this sound reasoning? Are there other uses for MK points?

Well, you might need to develop a Dominion Technique or two by the time you're getting to that level. Virtually everyone else will have, and it'll make a big difference.

They're in the same section of the book.

MK can be used to:

Learn Ki Abilites

Learn Dominion Techniques

Learn Impossible Weapons

Learn Ars Magnus(minor or major)

Learn Nemesis

Learn Element Seals(ki summoning)

Learn Limits

I'll check out those other items you mentioned Raybras. Thanks for the info. I started reading the GM section (or somewhere else) and in there they mentioned levels 8-10 a character is legendary (or godly…don't remember which). So I guess that kind of explains what you were saying Beadle about not having enough points to make it worth while, unless you pick up other advantages.

I do have another question sort of on topic. I'm slowly understanding Ki points and accumulation. Can someone briefly explain how the two work?

Ki Accumulation is the rate at which you can gather Ki Points from your Ki Pool to unleash Dominion Techniques. Your pool is your maximum, so you spend some, it's gone until it regenerates(according to rules and advantages)

Thanks Raybras! I was digging through the forums and saw someone recommend using the optional rule of a general Ki Point pool, instead of an individual points for Str. Dex, etc. Is this in the core book? If so, pardon my laziness…I have too much to read as I'm starting from the ground up with this game.

The generic Ki Pool was added in Dominus Exxet. It's written somewhere at the beginning

Coming from my own game, the generic ki pool made things far more simple, less math involved and less paper used to keep track lol. I looked at magic and psychic general rules and found theirs more simple so i said yes you can use the pool as well.

Thanks for the recommendation. Are the generic pools for magic and psychic found in Dominus Exxet as well, or are they in the core book?

Zeon (Magic) and Psychic Points only ever come in a single, generic pool. Ki's the only one that started off attribute-specific.