Redpill me on Anima: Beyond Fantasy, /tg/. Is it just another

bump, has no one played this?

Hey Im just heading out the door but its my favorite system. It has its cons such as FFG's kind of shitty translation job but over all its great. Beyond basic combat and skill checks there are 3 main "power sources", being Ki, mana, and physic matrices. It really lets you build just about anything you want without having to house rule, I have only ever found maybe 3 characters I couldnt build out of rules in the book. Whats great is all 3 of these power "types" work differently yet numbers/rules wise mesh without issue. I also really like the premade setting out of the book even though I dont run games in it I use my own homebrew world but I keep up on all the info on Gaia because I think its fantastic.

I've played it only once, and it seemed almost needlessly complex, combined with random scaling that couldn't really be compared against the other scaling.

And it's very much a game of "you can build anything, but there are some righ choices and some wrong choices, and it's not going to be obvious which are which"

>>49698978
So is the main draw of the game character customization? What's the core mechanic like, and how long are combats?

>>49699070
I skimmed the rules and it struck me as philosophically similar to 3.PF, I take it Anima has the same obsession with trap options?

>>49698259
It's actually pretty great.

But good luck learning it proper without help or being spanish.

>>49699219
No, trap options are very much just under-tunned or left to the air to the GM which is awful but also can be great (see artifacts PP or traps/poisons having shit scaling and social being useless unless DM lets you)

>>49699070
>I've played it only once, and it seemed almost needlessly complex, combined with random scaling that couldn't really be compared against the other scaling.
Having played it and being a native spanish speaker I can say this is true even in its original version.

>>49698259
It's a very pretty book, anon.

>>49699070
>>49700884
Having played it for years I can say that the scaling makes sense
>Static for when you're against non-interactive opponents that can't actually roll (IE seeing hidden doors, jumping, crafting gear)
>Scaling vs opposite numbers when the opponent can roll against it (IE, fighting, detecting hidden enemies)

>>49698259
The game is bad. Save yourself the time and trouble and go play another game.

>>49698259
From what I understand, less of a heartbreaker and more of a headacher.

>>49699219
>I take it Anima has the same obsession with trap options
Not really, it's pretty balanced, you'd have to go out of your way to make a shitty character

I once played in a campaign of Anima, and it cemented the system in my heart as one of my favorites. It definitely is on the crunchier side, especially for the GM, but as a player I didn't really have to deal with any headaches. The character flexibility is awesome, and everyone in my party felt like a badass pretty much the whole time. It felt like every level brought something new and interesting to my suite of abilities and there were moments when I straight up said, "Oh my god... I can actually do that?!?" The world that comes in the book is interesting too and we had a good time exploring it.

It has a much different feel from D&D, and I'm not sure how exactly to describe it. Maybe it was the GM, but in Anima it felt less tactical and calculated, and more like we were just a part of the epic story.

I also don't remember anyone running into bad character building options and being unhappy with their character. I think you can do pretty well as any class. I had a character who was a little less geared toward combat, but I was very useful outside of it (psychic powers open many doors), and I wasn't ever helpless in battle either.

All in all I'd recommend it, but only if your GM feels up to the challenge. It's not a great beginner system for the reasons other people have mentioned. Having an intimate knowledge of the rules is very important for the person running things. The next campaign I run is going to be in the Anima system, but I'm honestly a little nervous.

>>49698259
Pretty much. It does have a fan base though, with literally dozens of people. They aren't fucking obnoxious as a lot of other smaller fanbases though, so them and their game is cool in my book.

>>49698259
i've played it for years and i've only have a couple issues with it.
first rolling for stats, for a short campaign it's fine. playing for a long time and leveling up you feel like you just got robbed of a couple levels for a bad stat roll.
to be clearer, you could roll between a 4 and a 10 for each stat, every two levels you get a +1 to a stat of your choosing, that's 12 levels of catching up.
second, spending points in secondary skills makes for a richer character, but if you leave combat behind you'll either die a horrible death or never level up. so you could end up playing a murder machine.
last and least, the experience gain relative to fight risks bothers me. i don't like thinking the only way to grow my character stronger is to risk death an loose said character.

all workable issues though, our gm makes an active effort to keep the difficulty on edge regarding that last point. and rolling for stats is just the recommended way to do it, your group might choose to distribute a set amount or change the minimum and maximum rolls (for example you get to re-roll if your stats add up to less than 60)

I like it, it's complex and crunchy, and I wouldn't recommend it for everybody (specially beginners), but you can create whatever you want and ones you know the math behind it combats are faster. Also believe it or not, it's pretty balanced.

>>49698259
Really good system (especially when the splats are used), really bad explanation in the book. Default setting is also pretty fun, and has the benefit of immediately spilling the meta plot instead of forcing you to wait for the "shocking" reveals to show up in a splat.

Basic gist is that it's a roll a d20 system masquerading as a roll a d%. Yes, the fact that it's a % is occasionally important. That's rare enough to unworthy of note, everything comes in a multiple of 5.

Second, power levels increase quickly. Level 6s can fight armies with a degree of reliability when level 1s are basically rat catchers.

Combat is lethal. Getting hit means you lose the rest of your actions for the turn, so fast enemies can stun lock you. Damage and hitting is calculated with the same roll, you roll attack, your opponent rolls defense, you do damage depending on how much you beat his roll by (basically you margin of success minus 20 them converted into a % then applied to your damage stat), or if you failed, he gets to counter attack at a bonus depending on how badly you failed.

All the classes are mostly equal. Since its anime based, there's none of that silly "martial should be realistic" stuff. Mages, psychics, and warriors are equally capable of wrecking face. Despite that, the classes feel extremely different. Psychics go on forever but have the least sheer power, mages take forever but have the most, martials take a middle ground, skill monkeys are worse in a fight but can, at their highest, do things like ride beams of light.

There's a number of tricks that can break the game, but they're easy enough to spot, and are mostly in the hands of creation mages or Ki users with too much freedom to customize their powers, and its much less than most other systems I've seen.

It also has the best summoning system I've seen in any game I've played thus far, which is important because Summoner and Mage are basically completely different classes, but still mostly balanced.

>>49702427
>with literally dozens of people
Literally, there is 24 of them. Exactly.

>>49704492
>so fast enemies can stun lock you
Note: You can use taking the hit for a -80 to your defense roll to not lose your attack.

The game is VERY mathematically sound despite the numerous radically different power systems.

The monster creation rules are very good, and weirdly enough, you could use them to make magic items.

>>49698259
>Redpill me
Wrong board friend.

>>49706317
Barnabas did nothing wrong, non-humans to the pyre, apes also to the pyre.

>>49702428
I use the stat point option 5 out of the GMs toolkit its way better and fair.

>>49699219
Building a character is kind of like WoD only you get a set amount of points to start based on level then every time you level up you get 100 more points to spend on stuff.

Combat at its core is rolling your attack vs their defense and seeing who wins by how much, that plus armour decides how much % of your damage hits, or how big of an opening is there for the defender to counterattack with.

The customness of this game is out of this world. Theres no "class skills" like D&D each class will get its own bonuses but basically all class does is decide how much everything in the game costs with you points(The points are called DP). Want to build a wizard in fullplate? Go ahead it just cost them more then it would a weaponsmaster. Want your warrior to pick up some magic, go for it. You can even change classes for a cost so you can spend all your points in whats cheep for you right now then flip classes keeping everything you have and making new things super cheep now.

>>49706012
>Literally, there is 24 of them. Exactly.

So what happens if someone picks up the book and become a new fan of Anima? Does the new fan have to engage in a fight to the death with the old one in order to replace him?

Theres even ton of options in every "Power option". So with mana you could be a mage that follows a book or two of magic collecting the odd general spell along the way. You could pick and choose your every spell giving you less over all but you hand picked you options. Theres also theorms that change how you cast, and metamagic letting you alter you spells, boost them, or even just increase your over all magic power. Or you could just say you arent going to touch spells and use mana to summon, then you can run around summoning things or controlling badass monsters to be you bitches, hell you can run around binding them like your a goddamn pokemon master. You could also say another fuck that and use summoning in other ways, you could use it to summon the tarot giving you pacts for spell like summons, which you can also do with great beasts so you could summon the pact of the North great beast fulfill it and get a power that you can use from it every time you "summon the pact". Or Again you could say fuck it and use summoning to summon the aspect power of legendary figures, allowing you to summon their abilities onto your self and in a sort of way become them for a short time. Plus you can use mana and summoning to make sheele which are little elemental creatures made out of part of someones soul, they can do crazy shit like cast magic, turn into true monsters, and there own elemental shit, you can even make one for a none mage basically giving like a fighter type the power of being a caster.

All this is just mana shit theres still a lot more options then this in the game and they all work with each other without needing crazy ass charts or something.

>>49706012
Where did you get this number from even?

>>49704492
>Basic gist is that it's a roll a d20 system masquerading as a roll a d%
I agree 100%. I wrote up an Anima hack that coverts the whole thing to d20 and fixes some of the math issues with secondary abilities and Difficulty scaling.

Not implemented in my hack, but definitely a homebrew I like, is giving characters a minimum percentage of DP they MUST invest in Secondary Abilities (usually 20%), as well as a maximum rank to Secondary Abilities (before inherent class bonuses) they can have based on their level. I also cap the maximum investment of DP in any given quality (like attack, dodge, Zeon, etc) at 15% of DP instead of 25-30%. This nets you more balanced characters with slightly broader skill-sets.

>>49706534
One of my players just figured out last night that an NPC they've met is almost certainly Barnabas.

He took me aside solely for the purpose of saying "fuck you, you clever bastard" to me without the other player overhearing him.

Later that session, his Character snuck into a church in spider form(courtesy of the druid cloak Ceridwenn), transformed back in front of AN ENTIRE CONGREGATION OF DIEHARD CATHOLICS, and convinced them that she, wearing the trappings of a Lilium priestess, was a BONA-FIDE ANGEL sent to retrieve an unholy relic(this plot-line's mcguffin) from the church's vault and to test their inquisitors(who were busy fighting the other player's Mentalist in the rectory).

So now there's a Church of our Lady the Spider in Argos.

But back to your point, >>49706534, he did literally everything right, but for reasons that are just wrong, considering he's definitely behind Omega even fucking existing, and he probably had a hand in the Rah incident as well.

>>49709372
Barnabas?

>>49709372
He also does everything in the MOST retarded manner possible.

>>49709051
Yes. You actually have to move to toledo and fight to death in the bullfighting arena.

>>49709445
The Ultimate Naytheist.
Cliffs notes is Barney wants to kill the Gods and the Fates so that humanity(aka, HIM) can decide their own way.
But not the humans on Gaia, they're all sheeple.
He made his own, better humans, with bits of Old Gods.
And they're all loyal to him.
AND he has the technology to back all his talk up.
And he has an amount of plans and counter-plans going that would make Tzeentch blush.

>>49709051
The second highest ranking fan must do one of two things: challenge the fan ranked above them to death or give the choice to next fan. This continues down the chain until either someone fights to the death or the newest fan is forced to fight the second newest fan.

So it goes
Second ranking either challenges first ranking
Or
Third ranking challenges second
Or
Fourth ranking challenges third
.....
New fan challenges 24th
Or
New fan recognizes this is bullshit and abandons ship.

>Redpill me
Have you tried talking to women, anon? Just talking to one?

OP here, didn't expect this thread to be up. Reading the responses it looks like Anima may not be a heartbreaker but it's definitely pretty rules heavy.

Are there any lighter games based on anime/JRPGs?

>>49704492
Can you go into some detail about summoning?

>>49709612
Not the anon you replied to, but you have a few options when summoning.

1. Standard summoner. Call upon beings between worlds, bend them to your will, then bind them to items and throw them at enemies, pokemon master style. Sit back while your summoned and controlled Efreet incinerates an entire army at your beck and call. Caveat: pray you don't mega fail your summon/control/bind checks, as bad, BAD things happen.
2. Invoker. Make pacts with Aeons/Spirits/Manifestations of the High Arcana Tarot. Think Final Fantasy VII summoning magic, and you're there. Notable Invocations: Rudrashka(Bahamut ZERO), The World Reversed(everyone fails at literally anything they do in the area of your summon for a long time).
Incarnation: Live your life like one of the mythic figures of legends, and, when the time comes, summon some of the residual energy they left behind into your body, altering your appearance to resemble them. Think Synthesist Summoner. Notables are Not!Thor, a puppet master NAMED Loli(either you take the form of one of her puppets, or you can turn your other party members into the puppets), and an androgyne whose masks gave it different powers.

>>49709754
>Think Final Fantasy VII summoning magic
Or nearly any other FF game.

Additional it is worth mentioning, if you you fail your summoning you can be fucked beyond repair.

>>49709612
Summoning is basically a skill check. Roll dice, add your bonuses, try to get above the target number.

Summoning is broken into 3 "types" and 4 skills.

Type 1 is standard summon, then have the summon maul someone.
Type 2 is Invocation: summon shows up, blasts people in the face, then leaves. This is for wizard-wannabes. This requires that you make a pact with the summoned being ahead of time, and generally, the stronger the summon, the harder the pact.
Type 3: Incarnation. Summon is the ghost of an ancient hero who possesses you, and loans you their abilities for a little while. The more like the hero you are, the easier the summon.

The 'main' skill is the Summon skill, which all types of summoning uses. It brings the target to the world, with what it actually /does/ depending on that creature's nature. Fortunately, types 2 and 3's nature is just to follow their pact/grant you abilities, so they're fine with just this.
Control: Lets you control your summon. They get to try and break free every hour.
Bind: Locks the summon inside of an object/person. They don't get to try and break free of Control, their mana regen gets nerfed, and they can talk to whomever they're bound in/whoever has their object, and they no longer gain XP.
Banish: Kick them out.

Time taken gives bonuses or penalties. Take 5 turns minimum to avoid penalties, so this isn't supposed to be used in-combat (major limitation #1, but with caveats). The "bonuses" section helps explain the 5 year long cthulhu summoning rituals: They needed those bonuses to pull it off. Summon, Control, and Bind can all be used simultaneously, and all get that bonus. They all need it, since they're way harder than Banish.

Using any of those abilities costs mana based on how powerful the summon is, so stronger summons both need more mana and a higher check.

>>49712752
Cont.

Back up >>49704492 I pointed out that psions go all day, ki recharges fast, and Mages are powerful. The reason is that the 3 use different resources. Psions basically don't use any. They can burn Power Points for temporary boosts, but in practice they can go all day. Ki users have massive piles of ki that recharge at a minimum of 6 per hour and a max of 6 per minute or something, I dunno, I haven't played a Ki user in a while. Mages, on the other hand, recharge a small fraction of their mana per day, which means they can takes like, a week to get back to full after a big fight. Ki users and Mages also have to charge their attacks before using them, which can take 2-4 turns depending on how impractical they want to be.

Summoners are a mage subtype that doesn't have to charge up, but instead, get penalties to their rolls for trying to use their abilities quickly (there's ways around this), but instead, pretty much all of their abilities have huge costs, can't ever be cast for free like the lowest level mage spells, and tend to have upkeeps that have to paid over time, which means that unlike actual mages, they just care about recharge speed, while the others also try to pull off their attacks more quickly. On the other hand, this means that an unprepared summoner is quickly eaten by a half-dead rat. Their stats suck, is what I'm saying.

Finally, they're the ones who have to be nice to NPCs, because summons tend to best researched individually, and you don't want the demon you whistled up last week hunting you down for the indignity. If you have a good relationship, you might also be able to convince them to serve without having to toss a control ability at them.

>>49713011
Note on ki users:
99% of ki users are also, fighters. So they run on roids when with ki and on standby when dry.

>Nobody informing people ki-users can naruto summon shit

>>49713011
Cont.

>>49713057 Beat me to this, but
Things expand when you get into splats. Ki users have a special ability called Seals of Invocation, where you can use combinations of seals to summon specific creatures.

The advantage is that Ki recharges a lot faster than Zeon (that is, mana) does. The disadvantage is that Ki requires that you make a pact with the individual ahead of time and in person while Summoners can just look them up in a book, and you aren't controlling them, you're summoning them and politely asking them to help you out so they're perfectly free to flip you off and run away. On the other hand, Ki users are also perfectly capable of wrecking face on their own, and as >>49713038 pointed out, are also warriors, so hey, it's not as crippling as it is for an actual summoner, who has nothing to fall back on.

Also, ki users are basically fighters, but competent. In case that wasn't clear. They're scary even without Ki, then can use it to do shit like cut spells in half, hit ghosts, light their sword on fire, move quickly, without actually spending any, and by spending it, can do shit like summon nanobots from their blood to shoot lasers at people, teleport, summon giant storms, or just hit /really fucking hard./

>tfw Physical increment Psy Warrior + Physical increment Ki = 17 on all physical stats literally 24/7
Shit was so cash, rest were Rina Inverse-ing cities but I was Flash+Hulk

>>49713144

Ki users also get the best ability names in the game.

DELEVI DEUS ANIMA, DESTROYER OF THE SOULS OF THE GODS.

Giant world-ending spell? Nope.

Giant world-ending KI TECHNIQUE.

>>49713832
Ki users, you should've mentioned, are the only ones that get to make their own "spells". DELEVI DEUS THIRD IMPACT is a... direct approach, but some of the other tricks are just as nasty, i.e. teleport-strikes, stealth-punching, turning into a goddamned statue, HULK-ing out.

>>49714873

Yeah, true enough. They can be a load broader in that way, yeah; since they can do anything you can feasibly build with ki techniques. Easily the most open power source.

File: 1463317140297.gif (1021KB, 375x212px) Image search: [Google]

1021KB, 375x212px

>want to run a kind of Ravenloft-y Anima game set in Moth
>my IRL group will take ages to make characters
>one guy is pretty much guaranteed to do something dumb and get his character killed quickly, then spend another few hours making another one
>I've only ever run one game of AD&D 2e before, so it'll all move at the speed of shit

>>49716879
Suggestion: Copy down the relevant rules onto notecards. Like, the equation for damage dealt and the one for counterattacks? Put 'em on a card. Speed table? Put it on a card. Each Ki technique someone learns? Card. Etc. Hand everyone the cards they'll need. Sped things up a lot in my experience, if only because it reduced how often I had to hit up the book.

>redpill
Barbados is NOT the empress.
Lucanor is.
Lucanor is your ONLY hope for salvation.

>>49720810
It's there much more to say? I mean, if someone wants an actual explanation of the core rules so they don't have to deal with what the book thinks are explanations, we could do that, but I doubt there's too much more beyond that.

>>49721061
I had a question a while ago that I never really got an answer to.

>Say I declare I will make two attacks and two active actions in a turn. I am then attacked by three people, all of whom miss. I make two counterattacks, with the multiple attack penalty (-25 each), which uses up my attacks for the turn. Can I then still make another non-attack active action when it comes to my turn?

I was a bit confused about whether or not counterattacks count as attacks you've declared (i.e., all part of the same active action), or as their own separate active action each.

Also, I slapped together some shit for a 'fighting in poofy ball gowns' thread a while ago, and I could use some input on exactly how shit it is.

>Fighting in ball gowns and such gives a -10 Natural Penalty that cannot be reduced by Wear Armour. 10 DP Style Module to remove.

>Note that it is a Feat of Strength to tear out of normal clothes, armour is treated as breakage(?).
Wasn't sure about the 'flexing out of your armour' thing, though treating it as an unarmed attack vs breakage might be a good idea. Either that or a high-difficulty FoS roll.

>>49721120
>I will make two attacks and two active actions in a turn.
By this I mean 'two active actions, one of which is two attacks'.

Is the english forum for this system down for anyone else here? It just shows a white screen when ever I go there.

>>49721268
The FFG one? FFG no longer have the license to sell Anima, which is why all the PDFs are gone from DTRPG.

Hopefully this means somebody competent can translate all the books again. More likely it means we'll never see any English Anima again, unless somebody like Modiphius picks it up.

Hopefully Gate of Memories sold well enough to get Anima Project to keep going with the RPG.

>>49721303
I don't think the game sold that well and that's pretty lame for the FFG one. I was referring to that cipher one.

>>49721120
Counterattacks count as separate active actions as far as I'm aware, though I'm going by the line, "Remember that a counterattack, even though it is caused by a Passive Action, is still considered an Active Action."
>Fighting in a ball gown
Flexing out of your armor sounds hilarious, and unarmed attack vs. breakage or Feats of strength both sound good, but I don't think there's any canonical way to handle it. For working around ball gowns, personally, I'd just consider that a base effect of Style. Look good while doing shit seems like it's right up its alley.

>>49721268
Cipher-forums, right? It's down for me as well, which is annoying, since I've been consulting it for "Anna Never"'s stats.

>>49709238
Could you share this hack?

>>49721120
Wait, nevermind, ignore what I said >>49722205.

Unless Core Exxet updated this..

At the beginning of your turn, you declare how many active actions you'll take during that turn. If you've declared you'll take 2 active actions, then you have 2 active actions until they're spent. As far as I'm aware, you don't turn them into attacks until you have the initiative, at which point you're the one on the offense and have already spent them, thus making the point moot. So if you have an active action left when someone tries to punch you, spend the active action to punch them back. You don't have attacks 'left' as far as I know, just during your turn, you can use one of your active actions to attack.

>>49709238
seconded on sharing the hack anon. Would love to see how you managed it

>>49723142
should be pretty easy to figure out yourself
just divide everything by 5

The only thing I recall that's not divisible is fumble and crit chances

Make it 1 fumble and 20 crit. Mastery removes the chance to fumble on 1.

OP here, surprised again by the longevity of this thread.

>>49712752
The reason I ask is because the game I'm working on has a summoner job and I'm not sure what to make of it.

I could have them summon little pets that have their own abilities, but that might be too much bookkeeping for a rules lite game. Each job only gets five abilities, so would I need to make new pages for each summon?

On the other hand, Anima's incarnation summoning is an interesting idea. I could just recycle other jobs' abilities and have unique passive summoner traits that make them feel different. The only problem there is limiting the summoner from stepping on others' toes, but I could stipulate that you can only use abilities of jobs not currently in the party.

Summoner has bothered me more than any other job because the traditional interpretation requires a whole new subsystem built specifically for one job.

>>49718200
Lucanor is barred from Emperor-dom, though, on account of the forced Patricide and all.

Barbados has good intentions, she's just not experienced enough.

Also Lucanor is up to Abel-knows-what with all his science and Process and shit. My money's on him having found out about Barnabus and trying to take him down/steal his research.

Spaniard here. Anima is worse weeaboo rolemaster with animu shit plot and attention-grabbing art (that I don't like personally).

The author is a cretin, the system is needlessly overcomplicated and the fluff may or may not be up your alley.

It has destroyed at least one campaign in my group due to stupidly high variance in rolls causing absurd situations constantly.

I wouldn't touch it again without serious reworking and simplification of base systems.

Make what you will of this information.

>>49722302
I was going off the multiple attacks blurb from page 84, specifically the bit that says 'Remember, however, that it doesn’t matter how many attacks a combatant makes in a turn, they all count as a single Active Action.'

I wasn't sure if this applied to counterattacks or not.

>>49725718
It applies to counter attacks. Basically if you have 2 actions that turn and 2 attacks, youll still get the second action even if you used both attacks but you will take the - for doing more then one active action in a single turn.

>>49725396
... It literally has the same functional variance in rolls as a D20 system. Like, statistically speaking, in D20 terms, the rolls required are:
4, 8, 16, 24, 28, 36, 48, 56 from Easy to Impossible, and then 64 and 88 for Inhuman and Zen respectively, and those are skill checks on the level of "hit a golf ball so well it goes into one hole, bounces, then goes into the next" and "Use your ride skill to ride a perfectly ordinary beam of light, because fuck logic."

The system is also hilariously simple once you're even halfway competent: Roll d%, add bonus, get over target number. If an ability check, roll d10, add bonus, get over target number.

The only halfway-complex section is the part where you have to read the rulebook.

Now admittedly, /becoming/ halfway competent is a hassle and a half, since the book has utter shit layout, but that doesn't change the fact that it's actually pretty simple, especially once you use the splats which actually do a massive amount of streamlining.

>>49725718
Ah, /that's/ the section you were referring to. I thought you'd gotten them through a Ki technique. Yeah, attacks can be spent instead of active actions to counter.

>>49723785
Hm. Each job has 5 abilities, right? You could make Summoners only have 2 abilities that are 'their's, 1 ability called 'Summon Incarnation', and then 2 abilities where the summon's abilities go, with each summon having 1 or 2 abilities. Summon abilities would be weaker than the equivalent class ability, but it'd let a summoner serve as a secondary healer/warrior/whatever or fill in roles that aren't filled on the fly. Maybe charge them an X amount of time to swap summons, or require that they designate a 'stable' of, say, 7 summons during each Downtime, which they can swap through freely, but they can only switch those 7 during those Long Rests.

>>49726736
I'm not that guy who complained about the system, but many systems are simple if you play with it enough.

I do think anima is far more complicated than it needs to be and it's not particularly elegant on how it handle things. For example, some of the worse things about anima is when it tries to be a gritty dark fantasy game while being an anime at the same time. A good example of this are the optional rules like Sanity or Excessive Imbalance of attributes. It's may not be as bad as he made it sound. However, I sincerely think that the game will benefit if it had an overhaul in just about everything. As a lot of things can be broken rather easily. Some of this before even level 3.

>>49698259
>Redpill me
DA JOOS, and, and BBC. CUUCKS!

>>49726736

I'm not saying "roll d100, add modifiers, check table" is complex.

Having several very different subsystems that end up doing very similar things and are mechanically different for no real good reason is overly complex.

Exploding rolls for 90+, then 91+, then 92+, etc. gives absurd variance to rolls, making checks or actions unpredictable, especially on opposing rolls, since a very good exploding defense can turn into an absurdly overpowered counterattack out of fucking nowhere.

As much as I hate d20 and what it did to the hobby for many years, it is far easier to predict and much more fair, or at least reliable.

Anima is heavily based on Rolemaster, just worse in many fucking unnecessary idiotic ways. It does away with a huge number of tables but replaces them with wildly different flavours of "buff yourself, debuff enemy, call help or do damage" with needlessly disimilar mechanics.

Of course, YMMV. But most rules make little to no sense from a purely objective game design standpoint. It makes becoming "fluent" in the mechanics a hassle and even when you are you can get fucked hard (or fuck your enemy just as hard) by dumb "exploding" luck.

>>49706317
>>49709517
>>49727892
>>>/reddit/

>>49727823
... Okay, yeah, that's more than fair.

>>49727923
I think this is just a difference in tastes thing. Personally, I'm rather fond of each of the characters having different mechanics; one of the main things I hated about 3.5 was the fact that everyone basically just went 'refer to spell X for your abilities in the index'. It didn't really feel like there was a difference between a wizard and a cleric besides that one could arbitrarily wear armor and they had two different spell lists. In this, someone who's using Elan for their powers feels completely different from a summoner, which feels completely different from a wizard, even if all three of them use some form of straightforward offense, and it does allow for differences among those who like tracking resources and playing strategically (Zeon users) those who like blasting away consistantly (psions) and those who like firing off an "ultimate attack" to end each fight (Ki users, though I don't think I've ever actually had a player who /did/ that, they preferred buffing.)

But yeah, it's definitely a YMMV thing, agreed.

>>49727923
>by dumb "exploding" luck
Like a nat20 in D20?

>>49729357
In combat, yes.

Otherwise, daily reminder that skill checks cannot crit RAW, so if you need 21+ on dice, the check is impossible.

>>49724870
...the fuck? Barbados is a chick? I thought the leader of that organization was a dude or am I mixing up that imperium guy name?

>>49729864
The loli-empress? Elizabetta Barbados/Anna Never?

>>49729999
Oh, i'm retarded. I thought that was the name of the leader of the Imperium.

>>49730022
Elisabeta Barbados is Loli Empress
Barnabas is the head of Imperium

>>49727823
>>49725396
LOGSE boy at the attack!

>>49727823
I guess agree to disagree? I think it helps things be scary if a monsters stats are so high you cant even follow them. It means I as GM can make scary ass shit based off rules and stats having them do insane things to a pc/npc without having to house rule "its just so awesome" and with the whole different ways to buff people in the game a smart party even has hope of getting themselves to a stat level that has a hope to keep up with it. Anime and grim dark do not need to clash, both can mesh with the other if want them to.

>>49706012
Anon, I run a Hub game on Roll20. This means all of my players are the only Anima fans in existence. Fight me.

>>49709238
My problem with that anon, is "more balanced" as you say, is relative. A game with character spending flat 50% DP on Attack/Defense is completely balanced in of its own right. Additionally, you say "broader-skillsets", but not everyone has a broad skillset anon. In fact, you're basically punishing specialists for wanting to be specialists and forcing them to be generalists.

I am biased I suppose though. The Hub game I run is super overpowered, and balance is completely broken. In fact, just earlier today I had a player break 7000 Initiative and 10,000 Attack, to cause more than 130,000 damage in a single hit. So yeah... I'm biased hah.

>>49734813
>just earlier today I had a player break 7000 Initiative and 10,000 Attack, to cause more than 130,000 damage in a single hit.
How? I really want to know if this is legit or not.

>>49735019
Well, it is legit, but the game has glut itself on an intense array of homebrew artifacts and abilities and stuff. Additionally, we disregard the "Stacking Bonus" rule, wherein no matter the source of a bonus, you take the higher of the two. So a +20 All Action Bonus and a +45 AAB would amount to +45 instead of +65. In my Hub game, we stack everything.

Without the homebrew powers, you can roughly achieve combat numbers of 1000 if you allow for stacking and the game's resources are plenty. Lower powered games, or games without artifacts cannot reach those numbers.

So it's... "legit" for us, but not by the book that's for certain hah.

>>49735432
Fair enough. I suppose, theoretically, there is no level cap so it's not impossible without those homebrew artifacts, merely highly implausible.

>>49698259

Tried to play the wargame variant. Turned out it was completely imbalanced.

>>49734771
They're.

>>49736212
Wargame was a special flavor of stupid. It had some fun stuff but jesus fuck the balance and skill level requirement was abysmal.
>Dinah mystics
>Church exterminators (This actually got fucking buffed)
Both of these are OP and auto-pilot
>Wissen, Azur
both of these are DMD perfect execution perfect numbers
>Empire (Not imperium)
Middle of the road as fuck
>Black sun, light, darkness, wanderers and class stacks
Not a faction.

>>49734275
>I guess agree to disagree
Yeah, that seems about right. I can not say I've played with that many people when it comes to anima, but i've seen a lot of disagreement when it comes to rules. Sometimes, I can only wonder what type of house rules are spread between english, spanish, and french speakers.

A gm can certainly create monsters that can be a fearsome opponent, but players also can create equally fearsome things as low as level 1. For example, I can't imagine the exercise of four summoners in the same party as a gm. That just looks like that would be...well...a demonic version of Pokemon on roids I guess.

>>49698259
No.

You may not like it, but it's definitely substantially different from D&D and its clones.

>>49729442
>Otherwise, daily reminder that skill checks cannot crit RAW
actually, they can, there's a variant rule (at least in 3.PF) in the DMG and I dunno why half the GMs use it because the damn nat1

Reminder nothing you do in gates has any meaning!

>>49727823
>>I'm not that guy who complained about the system, but many systems are simple if you play with it enough.
no
are you retarded?
A system isn't simple just because it becomes intuitive after a long time of play.
Simplicity isn't an absolute quality, it's always relative to something else, even if it's only the the cognition of the users of a given system.

>>49727923
The fact that you think your opinions are "purely objective game design" considerations is pretty sad Anon.

You're not smart enough to understand why your arguments are fallacious, that's fair. But at least don't assume that just because you can't see your fallacies, they're not present.


Anima is a shit game, but that's unrelated to your personal failings

>>49698259
I've written copypastas on this shit a few times now, so I'll be brief. I've played it on it's original spanish version, and it doesn't even make sense on it. The combat is crap, as it has some good ideas (You hit with a higher roll, you do more damage), but overcomplicates them with absurd choices (Counter breaks the entire maneuver system, as well as rolling to defend). Also, to calculate how much damage you deal you need to go through too many steps (Compare attack and defense, round down, multiply defense score against that type of damage by 10, substract from there, and calculate the percentage of the weapon's damage) that as a DM, in real time, is just too much of a hassle to handle.

Skills are FUCKING EXPENSIVE. There's like 30 of them, and they cost normally exactly as much as attack/defend skills, the ones you're actively encouraged to pick (It works more on a DnD paradigm that say, BW or SR). This does not mean attack/defend is cheap, it's not, but you just cannot have decent skills here. Also a -30 penalty on not having them trained is just ridiculous. Not stopping here, combat is based in just flinging at each other without doing any actual damage, until some of you get a lucky strike, thanks to the die exploding in 90-100, and then you're disabled for the rest of the combat.

Percepcion is a main stat even though it does jackshit except increasing like 3 skills.

Wizards are absolute crap unless you're using the Arcana Exxet. Ki is OP if you're using Dominus Exxet.

Everything is just d20 but multiplied by 5 because higher numbers are cool and they're trying SO badly to be Final Fantasy: The RPG. I can see why people want to like it, as it's ridden with good ideas, but brought down by horrid explanations of them, a setting that's a weaboo's wet dream and which the only people that matters are the established NPCs (And don't you forget it), and mechanics that flat out are ridiculously overcomplex.

>>49737845
>>49698259

In short, it's really, really close to being a great system, but it falls apart due to the incompetence of the authors to do the math when it comes to the mechanics. So yes, anon, it's a heartbreaker. Very much so.

>>49737845
... Skills only cost 1-3 per rank, and your attack/defense are capped at 50-60% of your skill points total. Wizards wreck face even without Exxet (ever seen a creation mage with a grudge?), and with the Exxets /everyone/ wrecks face because that's where shit like Sheeles and metamagic show up for casters.

The d% is basically a d20 though, yes, agreed, and Perception might only affect a couple skills, but those are really important skills. Especially if you're using Core Exxet's updates, which make core stats significantly more important.

>people tring to play anima as if it was d&d making the game break and then hating it
Every fucking time

>>49737952
>Really important skills
I knew some faggot would respond this. Yes, It's important, but still, not worth the points considering you can just buy ranks in the skill and get a MUCH greater benefit, as a 10 in Perception would yield just a +15. And other stats give you more than just skills.

>only cost 1-3 per rank
Most skills will cost 3 for you. And you get them in increments of 5, so 15 per 5 ranks in a skill. That is massive, when you consider you are left with 200 points to invest after attack/defense, which are pretty much forced to max if you want to stand a chance at melee. Also separating defense in different skills is kinda retarded.
>and your attack/defense are capped at 50-60% of your skill points total.
And they cost the same as the other skills. Thus, you can only get 4-5 skills (maxed). How is this sane? Also, yes, while some skills cost 1, they are 4-5 if you're lucky, and pretty much locks you on those.

> Wizards wreck face even without Exxet
Yes, by shit I meant they suck ass to play, not that they are not OP. Also, as a side note, I love how the "Kill instantly" spells suck ass, while at the same level you can do MASSIVE damage, which would basically do the same

>>49737968
>The game's mechanics break, this means you're playing it wrong.
Fucking faggot.

>>49737730
ow the edge

>>49738488
>most will cost 3 for you
No, most will cost 2, the ones that cost 3 will be the ones that don't mesh well with your class

>>49738488
When everybody pays the same as you and you have more than enough to share in several skills, attack/defense and ever supernatural you can't really say something is overcosted.

>>49738488
Have you thought that, maybe, is not intended that you have everything maxed? Even if you buy lots of stuff, secondaries, primaries, etc you can at level 1 beat Knights and shit who are 3rd level

Currently I'm going to start a 1st level game and my shadow has a weapon table, a martial art, 85/85 atk/def, and 8 secondaries rounding between 40-80

>>49738585
Also a couple of ki powers

>>49722249
>>49723142
The PDF is on my computer somewhere but I can't find it. The basic changes are
>d20 task resolution. Characters get 120 starting DP instead of 600, with +20 per level.
>Fumble on a natural 1, critical success on a 19-20.
>4 starting CP since a 5% fumble chance is equivalent to the Bad Luck disadvantage
>The skills are Athletics, Creativity, Knowledge, Perception, Social, Subterfuge, and Vigor. Basically, you advance entire categories instead of individual skills. There's an option to make all the magic-related knowledges the Lore skill instead if the GM wants.
>You can specialize in a specific use of a skill, works like Advantage in 5E (roll twice and take the higher result) or alternatively you can make it a flat +3 bonus.
>No penalties for being untrained in skill categories
>Classes are reworked to work with these changes
>Defence values are passive, not active. Characters get bonuses to hit if the defender has 'run out of dodges' instead of defender taking a penalty to dodge.
>Damage is something like "For every two points you exceed your enemy's Defence Value, rounded up, you deal damage equal to (Weapon Damage + Strength). Weapon damage values are divided by 10.
>Zeon costs for spells are divided by 5. Zeon costs the same to buy but since you get 1/5 the DP, it works out the same

The following change works wonders but pisses a lot of ANIMA players off, so if you

>There are four stats instead of 8. Might is your Str + Con, Agility is your Agi + Dex, Intellect is your Int + Per, and Will is your Will + Pow. Anything derived from one of the old stats derives from the new stat instead. Players get half the characteristic bonuses per level, and characteristic raising advantages cost double.

>>49738559
Not really. It's not a matter of balance, it's a matter of being useful in more than 4 skills (Which is nothing given how many there are)
>>49738529
Most of the skills cost 3, so most of the skills "do not mesh well". This I don't precisely like, as it promotes little variety within the same class. 2 is an exception, and 1 a rarity, depending on your class.
>>49738585
I don't exactly want maxed skills, considering there's no early cap, but I'd want to be efficient in a few fields. Right now, that is only feasible if most of those fields are the ones you have at 1.

>>49738708
I recommend you to look at the classes and write down how many 3 skills you have and how many 2 you have, you'll be surprised 2 is the majority

>>49738757
I will when I'm back home, but might be a 2nd edition thing, because I clearly remember 3 being the majority

>>49738757
Second edition also added that you get to double the stat bonus on one mental and one physical skill per level and a couple of +10 every level

>>49736792
Edamiel, who let you near the internet?

>>49738996
Mostly porn and facebook.

>>49738502
>I tried to use WoD as a dungeon crawling game and that's why it's shit!
>I also used D&D for a deep thoughtful political thriller, and it was shit!

>>49739090
Fair enough. At least you're easier to deal with than Zemial, who somehow got access to youtube comment sections, /r9k/ and /s4s/.

>>49738708
>Most of the skills cost 3, so most of the skills "do not mesh well".
You haven't played the game.
The class that has the MOST skills at 3 is Weapon Master with 2 at 3 (intelectual like (most) warriors and domines and subterfuge, but he won't be sneaking anywhere if he's wearing plate to start with) meaning he has 2/7 superclasses at 3, 1/7 at 1p and 4/7 at 2 (average), out of the total skills(in core, mind you,38 total) has 17/38 total at 3.

This is not "most", to go on shitload of these are basically fluff (and most require massive investment) and 1 of them is flat out useless unless you can see magic.

>>49738797
Here, I'll do it for you.
Classes with 1 3 cost, 6 2 cost: Warrior, Acrobatic Warrior, Technician, Tao, Shadow, Wizard, Illusionist, Wizard Mentalist, Summoner, Mentalist, Warrior Mentalist
Classes with a 1 cost, a 3 cost, and the remaining at 2: Paladin, Dark Paladin
Classes with 2 3's and a 1: Weaponsmaster, Ranger, Assassin,
Classes with all 2's: Warrior Summoner and Freelancer, but the Freelancer gets an additional +10 to 5 skills.
Classes with 2 3's, and 2 1's: Thief.

And there's 7 skill categories. The vast majority of skills are going to cost you 2. The ones that your class sucks at are going to cost 1.

>>49739229
Warlock is in the "all 2's" as well, anon.

>>49739245
>Warlock
Fuck, missed that, yes it is, thank you.

>>49739229
Fuck. The ones that your class sucks are going to cost 3. 1 is for the ones your class is amazing at.

>>49739229
Thief also has also appraising at one since it's part of the class' skill set.

>>49739349
A number of classes have an additional discount to a single skill, I just didn't really see the point of posting that. 1 skill doesn't change much.

>>49739397
He's nitpicking so he'd go and say "Yeah but why doesn't thief have appraisal?"

>>49739506
Hm. Fair enough. Okay, adding to >>49739229,
Warrior has Feats of Strength at 1.
Paladin has Withstand Pain at 1.
Dark Paladin has Composure at 1.
Ranger has Trap Lore and Animals at 1, Herbal Lore and Medicine at 2.
Assassin has Stealth at 1, Composure and Memorize at 2.
Wizard has magical appraisal at 1.
Illusionist has Slight of Hand and Persuasion at 1.
Summoner has Occult at 1.

>>49739206
>>49739229
The fact that skills are mostly "fluff" doesn't make them suddenly not count when it comes to skill pricing. On the other end, my mistake. I remember skills feeling really overpriced, so I might assumed they had more threes.

>>49698259
It's a clusterfuck and it haves an non intuitive system

>>49739761
The fact that are less than HALF on one class who has the most locked means that you're a full on fucking idiot.

>>49737704
Did you want me to word that differently, Anon? I'm sure you have heard that same phrase "But it's actually simple once you've played it a long time." People say that about DnD and I wouldn't even recommend that game for first time roleplayers. Might have changed supposely with fifth edition.

You lot are focusing pretty heavily on the "DP Investment" portion of Secondary Abilities. Don't forget that natural bonuses, especially after Core Exxet play a fair part in keeping player's skills up to decent levels. Especially if they have solid characteristics.

As well, freebies I like to include for my players involves giving free "Cultural Roots" as per Gaia: Beyond the Dreams, and 20 points of Notice and Search. I also replace "Increased Natural Bonus" from the GM's Toolkit with "Superior Natural Bonus", a homebrew version that either doubles the characteristic and natural bonuses to a single field, or to all fields depending on 1 or 2 CP invested. Though that's extra stuff really, never had a player take it.

>>49741663
Free cultural roots really should be a core mechanic, it adds a good amount of flavor and boosts a good number of skills to the base competency level.

>>49741663
And remember, "Cultural Roots", as per the Rules of the still untranslated Gaia 2, are double the bonuses they are in Gaia: Beyond the Dreams. So you either need to double the bonuses you'd get from Gaia 1, or halve the bonuses from a country in Gaia 2. I prefer to double the old bonuses, extra background skills are always fun.

For NPCs though, it's best not to give them the freebies unless they're suppose to be above the herd like PCs are. Gnosis /Natura 10+ basically.

>>49740990
>Might have changed supposely with fifth edition.
Fifth ED is still core 3.5 with less trap options but same other caveeats.

>>49741752
>Gnosis /Natura 10+ basically.
That is absurd important m8

>>49741808
Yes and no. According to the book, PCs are *always* Gnosis 10 or higher. To play anything less would be boring, according to the system. And I tend to agree. But if someone wants to lower peep's gnosis, it's up to them.

Regardless, what I do is give half Cultural Roots bonuses (using Gaia 2 numbers), for Gnosis 5 NPCs, and full Cultural Roots bonuses + bonus Notice/Search to Gnosis 10+ NPCs. This is clearly not absurd, as a lot of setting characters would be effectively PCs and thus have 10 or higher Gnosis.

Personally though, I give 20 Gnosis/20 Natura to my players for shits and giggles. I like having characters who unconsciously warp reality around themselves. What works for me won't work for everyone though.

Did they reduced the sharingan's cost to 1 CP? 2 was too much for what little it could do

>>49741752
Nah, I think cultural roots are fine to give to npcs for free if the gm really wants to. Most of the cultural roots can't be used against the pcs actively to a degree that it matters.

>>49742187
nope.
that whole section needs revising in general.

>>49742135
Honestly I feel that either going already into the "has given up (most) humanity to break his own barriers" is less interesting than the man bound by his simple humanity being tempted to break free of it to fight the supernatural by slowly creeping into supernaturality himself.

>>49743191
What does that have to do with Gnosis? Gnosis is how much fate loves you/how close to being a main character you are/how much you passively warp reality/how often you get into adventures.

>>49745366
This. You don't hit "Has given up Humanity" until 25. Even 20 is only "Pure Daimah/Devah/etc Wizard" level.

>>49698259
it breaks the golden rule of tabletop games and makes warriors (or more specifically technicians) quadratically stronger as they level while wizards are the linear class

We had a player in our game who cheated.

At the time that we discovered he was cheating, we had 900 DP to spend on our characters from leveling up. His character was using silly string or some shit to tie up enemies he fought, and he got into a fight alone with something meant for the party and despite putting up an unreasonably good fight, he was defeated.

Someone suspiciously noted he had a 200 base on his attack, impossible since that means he spent 400 on it, and must have at least 150 defense, which is 350. That's 700, more than the 60% limit on his class toward primaries. We kept counting he spent something like 1500 DP on his character and had lots of unaccounted for bonuses.

Ultimately when he realized we were noticing issues with his character he claimed to have made accidental mistakes despite being a notable rules lawyer in the group and wanted to instead reroll his character using Chimera to get 2000+ DP at level 1.

>>49748742
Yeah, shitty people will be shitty no matter what the game is.