Anima Beyond Fantasy?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Has anyone tried this system?
A friend told me he is interested in trying it, and well, he said it was an anime-esque system, and well since I am really into anime I said "Why not?"
But he did told me it was a somewhat complex system, so I am asking the playground its oppinion on this system.

Thanks in advance

[littlebottom]

i myself am a GM of this system, i absolutely love it.

theres many things to this system that you wont find elsewhere. but there are a few downfalls ive found, but they are mostly minor. the biggest downfall being having to wait for new books to be translated, because i speak only english unfortunately, and they take their time to translate the books.

when i GM i keep a calculator by my side, now, im not bad at maths, but to keep the flow of things, a calculator sure helps. the GM screen is worth its weight in gold times 10 (if your GM that is)

from the players point of view, I find that they have repeatedly come to me asking when im going to run it again, because they enjoyed the system alot.

as with many systems once you get to understand it, making characters becomes fun in itself. before you know the system, i advise someone who knows it takes you through step by step of character creation. i had to read the entire book cover to cover to be able to character gen decently with no help at first.

you will find that while playing, combats can be over almost as soon as they begin, or take the whole night of fighting, as with a little luck, you can do some amazing things, but with a bit of bad luck, you can leave yourself so wide open that you might die.

as of yet, ive avoided killing my players in this system, but i have had several chances to kill them. the thing is, you have to do 50% of a character remaining life points in damage in a single hit to do a critical, so at first only the most powerful of hits will critical, and even then the player has a chance to shrug it off. but the more damage done to deal the critical the more likely you are to die outright on the spot. or if not die, then get some major minuses. and normal healing in this system takes a long time.

i suppose overall i must say that it is more of a building block to allow you to use the system in whatever world you want, and often gives you advice on what to do to make new skills and abilities to fit with the campaign/setting.

with this system, if i so wished, with only a small amount of editing, i could get it to they style of dragonball z fighting. or i could get it to be like a samurai battle, or ninja battles, or just plain over the top final fantasy style (like in the ff7 film) it is an extremely versitile system, and the more time your GM puts into it the better it can be.

PM me if you want to know more or talk about it some time. ive no idea how many anima players there are on this forum, but as far as i know im the only GM

[Dusk Eclipse]

Thanks for your response, also thanks for the advice on the calculator, I suppose you need one where it is a d100 (according to my friend; as I said I haven't even read the sourcebook so I am not sure on this).


If it is not much to ask
What kind of system is it? Class based like D&D? Point based like GURS? hybrid like BESM?

Also can I build something completely over the top like Luffy from one-piece or... maybe the protagonist from protype? ( I can't remember his name for my lfe though I love that game)

[Crosswinds]

It's more point-based. You roll your basic stats. (Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence, Power, Willpower, Perception, and Appearance) And then use Development Points (DP) To buy skills, attack ability, dodge ability, magic/psychic projection, etc.

The races are more limited, but are diverse enough as it is.

Personally, I found the Magic rules to be a little harder than, say, D&D, but the spells were lots of fun to mess around with. (My personal favorite is Soul Poison, which basically lets you inject someone with any type of Poison you want at a distance, as long as you have the Magic Level for it.

As for making a Luffy-esque character, the closest you'll get is developing your own Ki Abilities that emulate his powers. That, or you could homebrew some advantages or disadvantages for your character, such as a disadvantage making you unable to move in water.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Hmmm this sounds pretty fun, now I just need to find the sourcebooks.

[littlebottom]

the system does indeed use mostly d100s (and occasionally d10s) a calculator is usefull because a single attack can comprise of


D100+attack skill+bonus for flanking +bonus for supprise-for additional actions-opponentsD100-opponents defence skill= result to be checked against table. then that result is a percentile damage of your weapon damage, the idea is you get above 0 to hit below 0 is opponent blocked/dodged and gets a counter attack. but the further from 0 the more effective the attack (or block/dodge)

anyway, the system is partly class based, but largely points based, dependant on your class depends on how much certain skills cost, but overall, everyone has access to everything if they really wanted. it depends where you spend your points, but certain classes makes getting better in magic cheaper.

when you start a new character you choose a class then have 600 development points to spend. there is your 3 primary skill sets and then your secondary skills

your primary skills are combat, supernatural (magic and summoning) and psychic. secondary skills are all things like acrobatics and whatnot.

certain classes give you bonuses every level to certain things, aswell as making other things cheaper to upgrade, so if you want to make a magic user, you choose something like the "wizard" class (take advantage "the gift" you need this to cast spells in the first place) then things like buying extra zeon points (mana) is cheaper to your class than anyother. so its much easier for you to have lots and lots of zeon than say a warrior, who for some reason wishes to cast spells too.

there are 20 main classes though, these do indeed include bridges across multiple primary skills, like "warlocks" are basically fighting casters.

basic magical skills can include things like walking on water, or up walls and ceilings. makeing yourself weightless. supercharged attacks of course. or even flight. once you understand the system, you will be able to make people who can run up bamboo and slice down half a forrest with a single swipe.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Now THIS seems my type of game.

Personally I don't understand why people like low-powered games, I really like high powered games so Anima sounds like my kind of game

[Talkkno]

Watch out for Psionics though, Rank 4 Mentalists can easily crush anything that comes in their way with Ground Control, letting them demolish castles and small towns in short hurry. Not to mention burying hundreds of shoulders at a time and crushing them.....

Also, the skill system is really borked, the don't have any rules for social interaction at all, and in general posses a very videio game appraoch to things.
The GM section says that you should give players less exp for clevery beating a oppotent then if they bashed them heads on....*Facepalm*

[littlebottom]

have this for free. for your first game DO NOT ALLOW THE ADVANTAGE ELAN

theres a reason for this. largely because that advantage is rather overpowered if used right. or if used wrong.

if you take the top version of that advantage, it basically means a certain god likes you alot, and has gifted you powers. but the powers can be quite nasty, but whats worse is that if people actually roleplay it like it should be, they might end up having to go around as an instrument of the god destroying entire cities just for a couple more points of favour with their god, and when everone else want to play a game, but one guy wants to run off over there and make that entire race extinct because his god will like it, it can cause problems. so learn the system first... thats my advice atleast

of course certain gods its not so bad, like i think theres one that likes people who help others no matter what, this can be used as a driving force for an adventure.

i suppose, the largest problem lies in multiple players taking the advantage with different gods. because they all want to go off and do their own thing.

but if you feel that this problem doesnt apply to you, then fine.

but i know my players, and it would cause problems with them

anyway, after saying that, i better say something you will like to hear...

how about that last time i ran this system, one of my players did a running midair twisting flip over the opponent only to land squarely behind him having decapitated him? and thats not colour text, he rolled for all that level 1 character too. (was a lucky few rolls admittedly)

[littlebottom]

The GM section says that you should give players less exp for clevery beating a oppotent then if they bashed them heads on....*Facepalm*

i believe it may indeed advise upon that in some way, but as GM myself, i use the common sense rule.

if it was clever and original, thats good, if it was run in and smash them, thats fine, if it was absolute cheese and virtually cheating via manipulation of the rules. thats bad.

also, to actually succeed early on with such a powerfull psychic ability is damn near impossible, and if you fail it there can be large repercussions for you.

[Crosswinds]

What my DM did in regards to the Elan:

He let us roleplay how our characters would normally act, kept track of our Elan ranks on his own, and the powers manifested when we'd reached the required levels. Considering we'd never looked at the GM's section at the time, we had no clue why our Assassin could suddenly hit incorporeal creatures and such.

[Talkkno]

also, to actually succeed early on with such a powerfull psychic ability is damn near impossible, and if you fail it there can be large repercussions for you.

Thats not really true, I can whip the character now if you'd like, and I will only fail in using it about 7% of the time, and physic points can mitgate the fatigue problem, and you can throw that Ground Control trick risk free 3 times a day with the current build.

[alisbin]

my group is trying a one shot of anima while our DM(3.5) is away and i'd say our mutual opinion differs a bit from other posts. while we all like the idea of it, especially the melee combat, the model for attacks and ripostes (plus losing your action if you get hit, not sure how balanced but interesting), we VERY much dislike the magic system. beware playing a straight wizard type, you will get your ass handed to you if your GM doesn't go easy on you on occasion.

the problem is that although the system seems to encourage multiple actions a round, warriors CAN (they just take a penalty for each extra action) but wizard types are EXTREMELY limited in the amount of magic they can access each round, i'm playing a wizard specializing in fire, and (assuming my targets don't evade my fireballs and such) i do somewhere around 40% of the damage that dedicated melee characters and it takes a minimum of 2 rounds (during which you have to avoid being hit at all or you may have to start over) to cast any useful spell.

i wouldn't recommend the system without major house ruling. can't speak to psionics though, none of the 1 shot characters use them.

[wizuriel]

Actually about to try the scenario with the GM screen. The combat system looks very good, but the skills and magic system at first read leave something to be desired. A few skills like leadership just seem pointless and skills like sense motive missing.

For magic it looks cool but too slow to regain it. I'm thinking in a campaign of halving the spells known but doubling the original zeon accumulation per day (espically since you have to take the gift so hard to build up a good zeon accumulation).

[littlebottom]

yes, it can be slow getting zeon back, but it depends on the GM i should think, because you can have gems that contain zeon for you, or you can rest in zeon rich areas to regain it faster. plus advantages can sort that out for you.

as for being slow in combat, yes, they are at first, but after a few level ups, with DP invested in the right places (mainly your MA) it becomes much faster and catches up with the fighters a little. then it becomes a case of how much mana do you put into 1 spell? more than you need to to make it better? or leave it as is, and get onto your next spell?

[Talkkno]

yes, it can be slow getting zeon back, but it depends on the GM i should think, because you can have gems that contain zeon for you, or you can rest in zeon rich areas to regain it faster. plus advantages can sort that out for you.

as for being slow in combat, yes, they are at first, but after a few level ups, with DP invested in the right places (mainly your MA) it becomes much faster and catches up with the fighters a little. then it becomes a case of how much mana do you put into 1 spell? more than you need to to make it better? or leave it as is, and get onto your next spell?

Seems like the system suffers from Linear warriors/quadratic wizards problem.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Whatever can be said about the rules, I sure wish D&D had artwork like Anima!

[Zeta Kai]

One thing that no one has mentioned yet is that A:BF has the most gorgeous art of any RPG evar. The artist's DeviantArt gallery showcases his implausible amounts of talent & his insanely-high attention to detail, which is in excess of what is commonly thought to be excessive. I'm livid with jealousy over his skill & professionalism. Everyone who loves good fantasy art owes it to themselves to take a long thorough look at Wen-M's sublime work.

[littlebottom]

that is true, i know a couple of people who bought the book more for the artwork than anything else.

[Tequila Sunrise]

One thing that no one has mentioned yet is that A:BF has the most gorgeous art of any RPG evar. The artist's DeviantArt gallery showcases his implausible amounts of talent & his insanely-high attention to detail, which is in excess of what is commonly thought to be excessive. I'm livid with jealousy over his skill & professionalism. Everyone who loves good fantasy art owes it to themselves to take a long thorough look at Wen-M's sublime work.

Can't...control...artgasm...

AHHHWSOOOME!

[Geddoe]

First thing that jumped out at me when reading the Anima spell section: A Perfect World. Reality grinds to a halt for everybody except the caster and overdeities. It has daily maintenance costs(ie, you can keep it up for days), and has no "you can't interact with creatures halted" clause like Time Stop in D&D.

Really like it though. After my party got to level 5 in a D&D 3.5 OA game going for a wuxia feel, I found this book. and found it did the wuxia feel much better than even TOB.