Getting the word out there for a player who is new to the system. If there's anything I miss or you'd like me to expound upon, throw it out there.
GENERAL RULES
Anima is primarily a D10 and D100 System. On tabletop, you can play it with a single set of percentile dice (one marked with 10s digits, and the other with single digits), but on the wonderful realm of the internet we can bypass that. Assuming you've already made a character... How do you use it?
D100's make up the majority of your rolls, covering everything from attack rolls to defenses to saving throws. Anima is also TORGUE APPROVED, as most of these rolls can
EXPLODE on a 90+ for an additional D100 to your total, generating some awesome and rediculous moments. To minimize successive explosions, each additional
EXPLOSION on a given roll is one point more difficult (91 for the second, 92 for the third, etc), to a maximum of 100. There are a few exceptions to this...
- Resistance rolls: The equivalent of saving throws don't explode, but still auto-succeed on a nat 100.
- Critical damage results: If you take a hit to the noggin or lose more than half your remaining HP in a single blow, a D100 is added to the damage you took to see if you're just bruised, or if it lopped off the body part hit. Doesn't explode.
- Fumbles: When you roll poorly (And i mean LEROY JENKINS poorly) a D100 is rolled to see how bad you screwed the pooch. Doesn't explode.
Speaking of Fumbles. If you roll a 1-3 on a skill or ability check, attack or defense roll, initiative test or even a resistance roll, you fumble. YOU DUN GOOFED. Roll a D100 and subtract 15 if it was only a 3, or add 15 if it was a nat 1. The range can be modified by certain effects, so pay attention to what the highest and lowest numbers are.
Lastly, those lovely D10s. D10s are used for Characteristic (Attribute) Checks. Most characters have a starting value between 4 (Average Middleschooler) to 10 (Dwayne Johnson's Strength, Newton's Intellect, Ghandi's Willpower), which you add to OR compare to the difference to your D10 Roll. D10's have a "Soft" EXPLOSION, where if you roll a nat 1 it counts as a -2, and if you roll a 10 it counts as a 12. For example, if you DM does an Addition Method, if your character rolls a 9 with a characteristic of 6, the total would be 15. Alternately, if your DM uses a Differential Method you'd want to roll low because that 9 would mean your 6 minus the 9 you rolled equals a painful -3, and would probably lose.
(Contrarily, an opponent with a characteristic of 5 who rolled a 4 , gaining a total of 9, would lose to you by 6 points using an Addition Method (9 < 15)... but that same pairing (5-4=1) would win by 4 points using a Differential Method (1 > -3). Food for thought, either system works, but some DM's prefer one over the other)
And that's it! You're now ready to go out and save kingdoms, slaughter dragons, and galavant all across the countryside... more or less.
COMBAT
Inevitably, all the skill in the world won't make up for a good old fashioned beat down. In which case, you need to know how to kill your enemies... and in the same breath, not get killed!
STEP ONE: ROLL INITIATIVE
Pretty self explanitory. D100 roll, plus the Initiative score on your character sheet. If you wish to take a particular stance, choke up the blade for more speed/less damage, or prepare spells/powers, you must state so here. Initiative order goes highest to lowest, so hope that you roll well.
STEP TWO: TAKE ACTION
WHen your number comes around, you getta do stuff. There's a limit to how much you can do in a single turn, but the biggest limitation is that each additional action you take sufffers a cumulative -25 penalty. Running, attacking, casting spells and all that fun stuff falls in here. Declare what you want to do, and if you have multiple attacks declare how many you want to use up.
STEP THREE: ROLL OUT!
You roll dice. If you're targeting someone with an ability they roll to oppose you. If there's no opponent, the DM picks a difficulty that you have to beat in order to succeed. Boom. Sparks fly.
STEP FOUR: ADD IT UP, PASS IT ON
Determine the net efffects of your actions, and then pass the turn to the next person in line. Once everyone is done, roll initiative for the next round and do it all over again until one side (or both) is/are defeated.
Now, then question is, how HARD did I hit?
- When you attack, you roll a D100 and add your Attack Score. Then your opponent rolls D100 plus their Defense Score.
- Did you roll higher? If yes, then you deal a percentage of your weapon's/power's Damage. +10% for every 10 points you scored over, -10% (to a minimum of 0%) for each point of Armor they are wearing. For example, attacking with a 50 DMG weapon and rolling 80 points higher than your opponent would net 80% of 50 damage (In this case, 40 overall). However, if they opponent has 3 points of armor that 80% would be reduced to 50%, doing only 25 damage.
- Did the opponent roll higher? If you're at range, you missed. If you are in melee, you missed AND that gives your opponent an opening to strike back. If they have any attacks they haven't used, they get to interrupt your turn with an immediate counterattack. Half the difference, rounded down to the nearest 5, is added to their counter-attack roll. If you missed by 32 points, they would get a bonus of +15 to their counter attack. This can be repeated any number of times, if both combatants have enough attacks, leading to some intense melee brawls.
- If someone gets hit for more than 50% of their current HP, that person suffers a critical hit. Roll a D100, and add it to the final damage of the hit. That number is the difficulty for the opponent to resist severe physical trauma that could incapacitate them. The opponent rolls 1d100 + their Physical Resistance, and if they fail the check the difference determines how bad the injury truly was.
Keep in mind, if anyone gets hit who doesn't have a special effect to negate it, EVEN IF THE ATTACK DOES NO DAMAGE, the person hit loses the ability to run, attack, or cast active spells/powers. The first blow often decides the flow of the battle.
INTERMEDIATE COMBAT
MULTIPLE ATTACKS
By default, each character only gets one attack per round. This attack uses the character's full ATK score. A character who dual-wields weapons takes a sleight initiative penalty and gains an additional attack with the off-hand weapon, but the second attack is at a -40 penalty (or -10, if you have the Ambidextrous Advantage).
As characters level up, each time their ATK score reaches a multiple of 100 they gain the option to reduce their accuracy in exchange for more hits. At 100 ATK a character can make two base attacks at a -25 on all of them, which can be combined with an off-hand weapon for a third attack that takes a total penalty of -65 (-35 with Ambidextrous). At 200 ATK, a character can also make 3 base attacks with a -50 to all of them, which can be combined with an off-hand weapon for a fourth attack at a -90 penalty (-60 with Ambidextrous). Starting to see a pattern?
It might seem like a pretty steep penalty but it has the advantage of forcing an enemy to defend themselves multiple times, which causes the ENEMY to take penalties as well! A character who has to defend multiple times:
- Suffers a -30 penalty on the second defense.
- Suffers a -50 penalty on the third defense.
- Suffers a -70 penalty on the 4th defense.
- Suffers a -90 penalty on all successive defenses.
This makes focusing a single enemy an overwhelming them with a swarm of attacks very efficient but it also lets a skilled character take on multiple opponents by splitting his attacks between them to try to knock them off balance before they can attack.
MANEUVERS
Maneuvers let you do fancy stuff with your attacks other than just doing raw damage. It's part of what makes combat in Anima so cinematic. Most of these maneuvers are intended to create openings in your opponent's defenses, or to cripple their ability to fight back.
- AREA ATTACK: For a -50 penalty you can attempt to take out multiple opponents in a single swing. Small weapons/unarmed attacks can hit 3 targets, Medium weapons can hit 4 targets, and large weapons like greatswords and polearms can hit 5 targets with a single Area Attack. Since this is a single attack roll that ALL of the targets have to defend against, unless an opponent physically stops your weapon their counter-attacks are delayed until ALL of the targets are resolved.
- TAKEDOWN, TRAPPING, DISARM: For a moderate penalty, you can force an opposed characteristic check against your opponent to knock them to the ground (-30, testing attacker's STR or DEX vs opponent's STR or AGI), immobilize them (-40, with both parties testing STR or DEX), or knock the weapon from their hands (also -40, and STR or DEX). A glancing attack (less than 100% dmg, ignoring armor) puts the attacker at a -3 for their Characteristic test, but a precise blow (more than 200% dmg, ignoring armor) grants a +3 bonus. Since most of the force goes into maneuvering the opponent, trapping and takedown maneuvers can only deal half the final damage, and disarm maneuvers deal no damage whatsoever.
- DIRECTED ATTTACKS, DISABLES: When attacking an enemy with specific weak spots/vital points, you can choose to take a penalty to your attack to ONLY hit that point. This is useful, because hiting a vital point like the head or the heart only has to do 10% of the target's current HP in damage to force a critical test, which can take feeble enemies out of the fight in a single strike. Alternately, you can attempt to disable ANY part of the enemy's body with a directed attack, treating it like a vital point... but the enemy only takes half the final damage. If it does cause a critical hit, the full damage is added to the crit test.
- AT WEAPONS POINT: For a whopping -100 penalty, you can put an opponent in a position where the slightest move will tip you off, and drive your sword through them. If the attack would cause any damage, it instead deals no damage BUT they are put At Weapons Point. While they are put "At Weapons Point" you can interrupt anyone's actions as they are declared to make an attack against your victim, unless the person acting has Suprised you through high initiative or an undetected action.
More to come...
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 15:41, Tue 18 Aug 2015.
