Anima: Beyond Fantasy

[littlebottom]

Hi! and welcome to the Anima thread!

this is a thread for ANYTHING Anima based. from help with rules, to character suggestions, to homebrews to anything you want really.

for those who dont know what Anima is, heres a description:

Anima is a game for those people who like big, flashy, fun and largely over the top fantasy based games. The characters in the act of being level 1 are already acomplished human (or... mostly human) beings. They are stronger than any average person already, in their own way of course.

for example, the rulebook states that Albert einstein may be considered anything up to a level 3 human, for literally just being exceedingly smart and being an accomplished human. but most people dont even register as a level 1.

The system allows for psychics, mages, Users of Ki, and your average warriors, although the last two have a lot of cross over.

it is a system that only requires 2 dice, which are 2 D10s, one designated tens, the other units, so you have a D100. a basic attack goes something like this: Roll D100, add your attack value, the opponent rolls a D100 and adds his block/dodge value, the numbers are directly compared to one another, and whom so ever gets higher succeeds, the attacker succeeding would result in a hit, the damage is determined by the weapon and by how much you succeeded your attack, so, if the attacker rolls a 68 and adds an attack of 50, he gets a total of 118, the defender rolls a 12, and adds a 45, and gets a total of 57, you find the difference, (which is 61) and this determines the %of weapon damage you deal.

thats some of the crunch, now some of the fluff:

The setting is based on a world in which long ago, magic and non human races/beings were common place, but humans were vastly populous, and after a long long series of wars and battles, the humans managed to unite, and conquour the land, forming the basis of the empire which included every single country on the planet. the Emporer (who was the first general of the messiah "Abel") decided that all the history of the empire should be protected, but at the same time, that evil should be destroyed. because of this, there is the church (founded by the followers of Abel) who hunt down anything mystical and destroy it, and then there is the "secret" service, called the tol rako, who find anything to do with the history of the empire, (magical or not) and protect it. these factions often clash. this empire has been prosporous over the past hundreds of years, but recently a slightly more corrupt man gained the throne, this led to upset across the empire, eventually the man was stopped, but the natural heir to the throne was not placed on the throne, another was instead, which caused more upset to those who still believed in the emporers bloodline. the events of the coming years only managed to highten the tension, until the first emporess was crowned, many countries used this as an opportunity to break free from the empire. and this is the time the game is set. a time of political tension. a time in which known users of magic(or psychic ability, or extreme Ki ability) will be hunted down by the church. a time in which the players have to rise up to become more than mere men, but almost gods in their own right, to vanquish their enemies and pull through to save the world from destroying itself.

enough of that now. First things i want to hear in this thread are from people who have played/ran/like the system, and i also want to hear if you havnt played the system, but want to know more, feel free to ask questions about anything and I (and hopefully other people) will answer them!

i have a couple things i want to ask of my own to people about the system, but ill wait till i see we get a few people in the thread first.

DONT forget to subscribe if you like the system!

[Geddoe]

I love the system(setting can be hit or miss for me) and art. My character just hit level 4 a few sessions back in my brother's game. I also have a campaign that I DM for, but we are taking a break from mine because 3 campaigns when you meet once a week is too much for us.

Hardest part is definitely creating your first character. It goes a lot smoother after that.

Most of the special races are also gone because of the destruction caused to the planet by Rah's machine. It did so much damage that the world had to be split into three with almost no transport between them. One for humans, one for the elves, and one for the super-elves(who have a metal allergy).

The other races are still in the human world to an extent, they just lay low.

[Mordokai]

I have the book and I like the system as far as the fluff goes, but crunch... damn, the character creation alone seems almost like you need a PhD to do it. That has set me and my group of from trying. Also, the mechanics seems too much into numbers and any games that has a calculator as suggested equipment is somewhat... odd to me.

[littlebottom]

I GM the game, so ive never played in it beyond a couple PbPs on this forum, which usually die before we even get awarded exp

But yes, the first character is the hardest. it doesnt help that the rules within the book are not presented in a 100% liner fashion, there are some useful bits of information you need from all over the book especially for character creation and such, so your only hope is if someone reads it from cover to cover (as i did) which made things smoother since i remembered most of the odd bits that were not where you needed them.

saying that, its not as bad as some rulebooks ive seen.

I have the book and I like the system as far as the fluff goes, but crunch... damn, the character creation alone seems almost like you need a PhD to do it. That has set me and my group of from trying. Also, the mechanics seems too much into numbers and any games that has a calculator as suggested equipment is somewhat... odd to me.

yeah, a calculator can help, basically it just saves you a touch of time, (hell higher levels of DnD need a calculator realistically ) but its just "197-169=...... 28" without a calculator, and with it its "197-169=*tap tap*28"

i advise you (or who ever would be GM) to read the book cover to cover, and test create a character or two, then sit down with the players individually and help them. once they have got into the game, things will be easier for everyone.

infact, what i did was i made a character to see if i got the rules right, once i picked up on all my errors, i made a sheet for each player to have a one off session to teach them the basic rules BEFORE they make their own characters, and you just guide them through the character creation, that way, they get to see how things work, theres no point in asking a player "so, do you want to put more points into a martial art?" when they dont even know how a martial art type may affect combat in game.

[Shade Kerrin]

To follow up on Littlebottom's response, I'll just say this: The difficulty of the game is 80% character creation, 15% GMing, and 5% miscellaneous. I've found that it is extraordinarily simple from a player's perspective. That said, it's not really for rules-lite people.

A note to make is that the combat system is rather tactical, with most penalties being enough to bring you on even terms with someone about 5 levels higher than you.

The system does have some flaws. Mainly is the difficulty in getting non-combat skills to a relevant level(though I hear the 2nd Ed has taken measures to counter this), but also lacking is the occasional hole in the combat system. One example that has cropped up a couple of times in my games is that there is no official method of feinting. You either attack or you don't. I've thought of a couple of possible methods of doing this:

• Simple method: Without rolling dice, you treat the opponent as having spent a deference. Still costs an attack
• Attack method: Make an attack as normal. Instead of damage, a sucess treats the opponent has having had to defend against 2 attacks this round.
  On failure, they can choose to counter as normal, or to simply not reduce their defense value from this attack.
  Should find a way to include sleight of hand somehow, either as an alternative roll instead of attack, or as a potential bonus to the attack roll

As per my signature, I am currently running a game, which has somehow managed to last since the start of January. Since the longest game I've played in of any system on these forums only lasted 3 months, I'm starting to actually feel a bit of pride as a GM.

[Jerthanis]

Anima is awesome and I find it a shame I haven't had the chance to play it in a while. I remember complaining about the system like crazy when we were diving in, did nothing but complain inwardly the first few sessions... and then it started growing on me. I finished the game astounded by how much I liked it.

Unfortunately, while I went in with zero expectations, and finding it good made me love it, most of the rest of my group went in with huge expectations, and finding it merely good soured them on it. Now it's likely to join the pile of systems we played once and then never again.

I had the idea to run a Slayers universe game with the Anima system, but as I understand the magic, you're kind of limited to one or two schools of magic if you want to be any good. As I understand it, you split your maximum spell level between the schools you can cast from... so if, to pull a number out of nowhere, you could get one school up to level 80, or you could have two schools at max level 40... or three at max level 26. This seems to go against the Slayers style magic where most people specialize, but that doesn't really restrict significant dabbling in others, even if you don't get to the most powerful spells in your nonspecialties. Am I reading the rules right?

[littlebottom]

Anima is awesome and I find it a shame I haven't had the chance to play it in a while. I remember complaining about the system like crazy when we were diving in, did nothing but complain inwardly the first few sessions... and then it started growing on me. I finished the game astounded by how much I liked it.

Unfortunately, while I went in with zero expectations, and finding it good made me love it, most of the rest of my group went in with huge expectations, and finding it merely good soured them on it. Now it's likely to join the pile of systems we played once and then never again.

I had the idea to run a Slayers universe game with the Anima system, but as I understand the magic, you're kind of limited to one or two schools of magic if you want to be any good. As I understand it, you split your maximum spell level between the schools you can cast from... so if, to pull a number out of nowhere, you could get one school up to level 80, or you could have two schools at max level 40... or three at max level 26. This seems to go against the Slayers style magic where most people specialize, but that doesn't really restrict significant dabbling in others, even if you don't get to the most powerful spells in your nonspecialties. Am I reading the rules right?

Erm, i think so in a way. if you have 80 levels of magic you can invest, you can split it how you like, as long as you dont invest in oposite magic types, which then require 2 "levels" to actually gain 1 level of magic. but once you fill one, you can then fill another, then another, then another. it will just happen over time as you level up.

dont take my word on this one, im going to have to re-read the magic section first, since my group im running with are level 3 at the moment and its been a while since i have played with higher leveled casters(i get to run an adventure maybe once every 6 months to a year because we take turns GMing different systems)

so that bit of knowledge seems to have slipped... ill go read it again and answer you fully in a bit, unless someone else can remember

[SlyGuyMcFly]

I had the idea to run a Slayers universe game with the Anima system, but as I understand the magic, you're kind of limited to one or two schools of magic if you want to be any good. As I understand it, you split your maximum spell level between the schools you can cast from... so if, to pull a number out of nowhere, you could get one school up to level 80, or you could have two schools at max level 40... or three at max level 26. This seems to go against the Slayers style magic where most people specialize, but that doesn't really restrict significant dabbling in others, even if you don't get to the most powerful spells in your nonspecialties. Am I reading the rules right?

You missed the part about learning specific spells instead of whole schools: Basically, you spend an number of level points to get one spell from a given school, with no limit on level (outside of the usual no 80+ stuff for mortals). So in your example, you could have Destruction at 60, a level 50 Fire spell, a level 40 Light spell and a level 8 Necromancy spell.

The costs are in Table 57 (page 115 in my book).

Edit: Herp derp Necro is opposed to all schools, so no level 8 necro spell. Lessay Earth instead.

[littlebottom]

that said, your also forgetting mages can power up older spells to make them more powerful anyway. so as they level up, even if they dont have level 80 spells, but they have, say, multiple at 20, they can charge the spells up quicker, for better effects in the same amount of time, or even charge up and use as many low spells as their MA will allow.

say a spell costs a flat 20 Zeon to cast, and does a damage 30 hit. at higher levels, when you can gather say 50 zeon in a turn, you can cast it for the flat cost of 20, and use the remaining 30 to boost it three times, and each boost may, say add 10 to the base damage. turning a 20 zeon, 30 damage spell, into a 50 zeon 60 damage spell.

EDIT: i know they are called wizards, ive been playing WoW too long

[Shade Kerrin]

Edit: Herp derp Necro is opposed to all schools, so no level 8 necro spell. Lessay Earth instead.

1pt advantage from the GM's Toolkit: Opposite magic. Do not double the cost for learning spells in opposition to the paths you already have.

But.....Slayers with Anima? The Zeonic magic system probably won't cover you there, since it is designed to be used with restraint. Re-fluffing psionics or ki, however, would probably serve you quite well, though.

[littlebottom]

1pt advantage from the GM's Toolkit: Opposite magic. Do not double the cost for learning spells in opposition to the paths you already have.

But.....Slayers with Anima? The Zeonic magic system probably won't cover you there, since it is designed to be used with restraint. Re-fluffing psionics or ki, however, would probably serve you quite well, though.

well, zeon is quite possibly one of the more powerful things in the game, the problem being is its regeneration is really low, but again, you can pump this up with advantages during character creation.

[Jerthanis]

But.....Slayers with Anima? The Zeonic magic system probably won't cover you there, since it is designed to be used with restraint. Re-fluffing psionics or ki, however, would probably serve you quite well, though.

I actually saw Zeon being ridiculously overpowered as a Feature for playing Slayers rather than a Bug.

The main characters in Slayers are just ludicrously powerful, and almost every single one is a mage. The only one who isn't only really contributes because he has one of only a handful of Unique Weapons Of Ultimate Power, and even then Lina does most of the heavy lifting.

Also... shenanigans occur when people act without restraint!? That sounds perfect for Slayers! :p

[Shade Kerrin]

What I meant was that it lacks the maintainability to use with reckless abandon. If you houseruled a faster recovery mechanism, it would be a fair match.

Or maybe played high level. I've yet to do that with Anima

[wizuriel]

I haven't experimented with it, but you might be able to make a character that uses a lot of innate magic to be more like a slayers character.

[Shade Kerrin]

I...think I recall crunching some numbers on that method. Let's see...


Assuming 10 Power, and the 3pt advantage to improve innate magic, you need to spend 200pts to be able to spam a basic Fireball.
Without said advantage, it will require 550pts.
The best possible innate pool you can get at lev1 is worth 60pts, costing you 350DP and 3CP as a Wizard
To achieve Maximum possible Zeon without raising Power, you need to spend 1000DP and 3CP, giving you an innate pool of 120pts

Assuming you can get to 12 Power:
150DP+3CP for a basic Fireball
350DP without CP
Best lev1pool: 80pts. Same cost as above
Best Possible pool: 650DP and 3CP, for 120pts again

[onthetown]

This is an actual game?! I've been following Wen-M on deviantArt for quite some time and I really liked the fluff, but I never was able to figure out if he was making the artwork for an upcoming online game or something else.

I'm going to the game store as soon as it opens again. This sounds awesome.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Yep, it is an actual game, the art was what drew me to the game in first place.

I love this game; I've had loads of fun with my Kimimaro expy.

Bloodlines seals[ not sure of the name in english, my group uses the Spanish version] are awesome, I really like that I could pull of the bone weapons without really having to jump through a lot of hoops.

To clear the game I used to play in was plagued with popular characters (mostly from anime) expies, for example there was Kimimaro (me), a teen gohan (named Rize), an Ikki the phoenix saint (from Saint Seiya), an Evangeline (from Mahou Sensei Negima).

Edit: Question, how hard is to learn (and build) a magic using character? So far I have stayed with Ki; but for some reason I am becoming interested in trying a Warlock archetype.

[Welknair]

Noooooo!

I'm making a system focused around rolling 2d10. I thought I was the only one.

Admittedly, I use a different mechanic...


Though it does seem interesting.. I may take a look at this.

[Shade Kerrin]

Magic? There's less freedom involved than with Ki, and you will probably need to make a copy of your spell list for ease of access.
Beyond that, though, it's really just the standard procedure of checking a few thousand tables during chargen, then just rolling d100s in actual play.

[littlebottom]

This is an actual game?! I've been following Wen-M on deviantArt for quite some time and I really liked the fluff, but I never was able to figure out if he was making the artwork for an upcoming online game or something else.

I'm going to the game store as soon as it opens again. This sounds awesome.

The art is awesome. no two ways about it.

Yep, it is an actual game, the art was what drew me to the game in first place.

I love this game; I've had loads of fun with my Kimimaro expy.

Bloodlines seals[ not sure of the name in english, my group uses the Spanish version] are awesome, I really like that I could pull of the bone weapons without really having to jump through a lot of hoops.

To clear the game I used to play in was plagued with popular characters (mostly from anime) expies, for example there was Kimimaro (me), a teen gohan (named Rize), an Ikki the phoenix saint (from Saint Seiya), an Evangeline (from Mahou Sensei Negima).

Edit: Question, how hard is to learn (and build) a magic using character? So far I have stayed with Ki; but for some reason I am becoming interested in trying a Warlock archetype.

not too hard, its about as hard as learning how to use a Ki character, except you dont have to make your own techniques, since the spell books are laid out for you. Using a mage effectively can be tricky, but it will come to you pretty quickly as you realise its versitility.

Noooooo!

I'm making a system focused around rolling 2d10. I thought I was the only one.

Admittedly, I use a different mechanic...


Though it does seem interesting.. I may take a look at this.

Anima isnt the only 2D10 system, there is Warhammer fantasy roleplay too, (as well as dark herasy) that use 2D10 and in those systems, you have a stat that starts around 30 and increases up to (on average) 60 to 70 and you roll your 2 d10, and try to get UNDER your apropriate stat. its based off of percentages. the higher the stat, the more likely you are to roll under it.

[PinkMagus]

Oh jeez, I loved Anima, it is one of my favorite systems ever, though I do agree that first time character creation is terribly hard (especially since the translation was sometimes vague, especially with the Ki stuff).

[littlebottom]

its true, for some reason, the english translation is the worst. and the slowest. the other translation teams seem to do the books pretty quick and as i hear, with minimal errors. the english translation team takes literally months upon months longer, and the book gets filled with vagueness and errors.

okay, when i say filled, its not THAT bad, but there is often a spelling mistake every now and then.

[Shade Kerrin]

One thing I want to talk about is the example PCs thrown around, specifically Pazusu, Pazusu, Pazusu. Who named him?

As to them as a whole, between the details given in the RP books and the Tactics book, I have come to the conclusion that they were the creators' PCs during playtesting

[Geddoe]

No idea who named Pazusu.

What I liked in the books is that Derrek's name was spelt differently in the AT book and the GM guide. My brother and I joked about there being two characters, one a Imperium Godkiller and the other a, kind of unlucky, low level warrior who happens to have a very similar name and runs into problems based on that.

On actual gaming topic, apparently our gm has some sort of gimmicky encounter as the last fight in the dungeon we are in. We lost one character last week with the gimmick of 3 different monsters in 3 different have to be killed in the sameish round to open the door to go further. After splitting the party our party's Jayan technician rolled like 6 botches in as many rolls and ended up dead. His monster had to be finished off with my Illusionists impromptu air-bending(Air Blow).

Apparently, from Wen-M's art, Celia has a tramp stamp we never see in official art. "Lucky" Lemures.

[littlebottom]

On actual gaming topic, apparently our gm has some sort of gimmicky encounter as the last fight in the dungeon we are in. We lost one character last week with the gimmick of 3 different monsters in 3 different have to be killed in the sameish round to open the door to go further. After splitting the party our party's Jayan technician rolled like 6 botches in as many rolls and ended up dead. His monster had to be finished off with my Illusionists impromptu air-bending(Air Blow).

Apparently, from Wen-M's art, Celia has a tramp stamp we never see in official art. "Lucky" Lemures.

Ouch, unlucky. it happens though. Did he roll Style to see if it was a good death?

[Shade Kerrin]

Ouch, unlucky. it happens though. Did he roll Style to see if it was a good death?

Yes, ALWAYS roll style.

[Geddoe]

Ouch, unlucky. it happens though. Did he roll Style to see if it was a good death?

No, but those dice are cursed. He purchased them 4 time zones away, apparently they did not appreciate the move. He had also been critted the previous round and so had a -90 all action penalty so stylish death was unlikely.

[littlebottom]

No, but those dice are cursed. He purchased them 4 time zones away, apparently they did not appreciate the move. He had also been critted the previous round and so had a -90 all action penalty so stylish death was unlikely.

i can see it now "rolling style.... crap a 1" "you scream like a girl as the attack comes towards you, it slashes your skull inhalf and you manage to empty your bowels and bladder all down your legs, you manage to die in your own pool of blood, P*ss and Sh*t" "... that was not a cool way to die."

[littlebottom]

I want ideas and opinions from people as to a good bit of adventure for low level anima characters to do that has very predominent features of the wonderful setting included.

Here are the unchangable facts. The characters are all level 3, the characters are on a boat heading for Southeastern Abel/Archangels coastline from the inner sea (so they can start anywhere along the coastline) The characters include, one Tao, one Summoner, one shadow, one wizard, one hunter, and occasionally a psychic mentalist (this player occasionally drops in, so is in no way linked to any plot so that they can drop in and out as needed)

my ideas so far, When they come into port, they are approached by (what they dont know yet to be) an agent of the wissenchaft (i never remember the spellings without looking at the book, please forgive me) the agent, and by extension the Wissenchaft wants the party to do them a favour, to follow rumours of a powerful artifact that has changed hands several times in quick succession throughout the principality, the wissenchaft are currently tied up investigating the debris of the lady, and have been informed that the party were on the ship and the only known survivors, thus they must be capable of doing this job in return for not being publicly held responsible for the destruction of the lady, yes, blackmail.

simply put the powerful artifact is a sort of modern day super battery, that is reasonably small, and holds a large power source, that can be used as a light, power source to power increadible things, of course, the Wissenchaft want it to play with to make new technologies possible, problem is, the artifact is damaged, and leaking, the wissenchaft reacon they can fix it though, if they can just get a hold of it.

meanwhile it has changed hands several times, sometimes its somebody just wanting to turn a profit, occasionally its someone who wants to use it to make something, and they die before completing it due to (almost like radiation from the damaged battery). the players begin to follow the trial across several small towns, tracing the deaths and such to try and find it, as they do, several other factions occasionally approach the party and ask for the object. The church asks if it is found to bring it to them so that they can destroy it, as it is clearly supernatural. the tol rako ask them to return it to them to safeguard, black sun want it too... well for profit. but basically ill have them fighting some of the results of experiments of the people who owned the battery, like monsters brought to life via the batteries power and such. and after they find the current owner, (who has fasioned it into basically a laser gun) they have to fight him for it, once they get it, they have a choice... who do they give it to? or do they keep it themselves (hopefully not keeping it since by this point i hope that they know it is leaking and will kill them if they keep it for an extended period of time)

they can choose who they like, and once it is handed over to the faction of their choice, they will get their next adventure based off of a request from that faction IE: they will virtually side with one of the factions, since the others will not be happy that they chose someone else to hand it over to.

good? bad? your own ideas for an adventure?

if you give your own ideas for an adventure, please try to make it really interact with the setting, i want to get all my players to experience what the setting is actually like as opposed to just having it as names of places that they go to do dungeons, which could of been done in any world or setting.

[Shade Kerrin]

Sounds interesting. Don't forget to have them caught in the crossfire of two orginizations at least once in their journey, though.