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[Zelekendel]

The problem with this logic is that you're taking the two extremes and trying to break the  concept with them.

I already mentioned that this is not meant to put huge fantasy weapons at level with effective fighting weapons. Mind you, unarmed strike is not one of those, and would suffer other penalties, as no sensible warrior would fight unarmed against an armed man given the option. Neither would many sensible men take a huge greataxe (a fantasy weapon, really - but that's another question) to personal combat and not expect to be killed.

And what besides the class artwork says the Weaponmaster has to use a Greataxe? I've played one often, and the slowest weapons I've used are the Heavy Battle Mace (-15 initiative IIRC), and the No-Dachi (-30).

And who says that I'd have to use the attacking creature's size for anything? You?
Excuse me, but I believe I as the GM would be the judge of that.

Somehow the tone and the content of your reply suggests to me that you're trying to shoot me down for its own sake (or possibly "defending the official rules")

[FearlessElbow]

The problem with this logic is that you're taking the two extremes and trying to break the  concept with them.

I agree that I was using extremes, but I genuinely wasn't trying to break the concept.  I wanted to try it out, practically, because it was an interesting idea and you asked for opinions.  There was honestly no pre-prepared plan to break your idea.  I'm not into doing that.  The game should work exactly how the GM wants it to work, and should be fun for everyone.  Again, you asked for opinions.  And the extremes I chose just made the example clearer.  I'm sorry if I didn't make that plain.

I already mentioned that this is not meant to put huge fantasy weapons at level with effective fighting weapons. Mind you, unarmed strike is not one of those, and would suffer other penalties, as no sensible warrior would fight unarmed against an armed man given the option. Neither would many sensible men take a huge greataxe (a fantasy weapon, really - but that's another question) to personal combat and not expect to be killed.

So are you suggesting more or less eliminating these extremes from the game?  Because if, for example, a Martial Artist has Malla Yuddha, in terms of the game mechanics he's going to be absolutely fine waltzing in against armed men.  And the point of having a Great Axe in the game is that this IS fantasy, and people will want to use those weapons (not me, for the record - not enough style).

And what besides the class artwork says the Weaponmaster has to use a Greataxe? I've played one often, and the slowest weapons I've used are the Heavy Battle Mace (-15 initiative IIRC), and the No-Dachi (-30).

Nothing.  In fact I wasn't even thinking of the artwork.  It was purely an example.  That's all.

And who says that I'd have to use the attacking creature's size for anything? You?
Excuse me, but I believe I as the GM would be the judge of that.

No, you don't have to.  Maybe my wording was a little off there.  Again, I'm sorry.  It's just a suggestion on the basis that a small person with a big weapon isn't a great deal different in reach from a large person with a small weapon.

Somehow the tone and the content of your reply suggests to me that you're trying to shoot me down for its own sake (or possibly "defending the official rules")

Not at all, and I'm really sorry you thought that.  I was just replying to your request for what people thought.  I didn't think you only wanted people to tell you if they found no problems with it.

And as much as I love the system, I'm not interested in just blindly defending the rules.  Look at my answers to Raybras' suggestions.  Raybras is clearly stepping away from the book rules in some areas, and that's absolutely fine.  Heck - there's a reason we even have a Houserules thread in the first place; so that we can look at different people's approaches and share our own.  I wouldn't even come into this thread if I wasn't interested in seeing these things and considering them.

But one final time, I'm sorry you got upset by my post. I really wasn't trying to rip you to pieces or anything.  I was looking at it purely practically for ease of use for you (there's a lot of calculations to make on the weapon-reach option, especially if you have two groups fighting with each person having different weapons) and for enjoyment for the players (a player who likes his PCs to have ludicrous-sized weapons is not going to enjoy having his butt-kicked in every single combat encounter).  I was trying to help, and if my tone came across badly, I'm sorry.  I'll bear that in mind in future.

Houserules is houserules.  You can go for whatever you want.  That's the point of them.   

[vytzka]

3) That to me is a no-brainer.  I hadn't even realised they had that option.  I absolutely agree that Tao's should never be allowed that disadvantage.  Unless.... they're using one of the weapons listed in DE that work specifically for certain MAs and not for others.  That way, they're limiting what MAs they can buy.  But never, EVER allow it for Unarmed.  That's just a free CP usually.

According to AS in the French Forum FAQ thread, you're not supposed to be able to take Exclusive Weapon: Unarmed. Exclusive Weapon would apply to a single martial art in that case. Which IME works pretty well (i.e. it results in Tao not taking EW either way but personally I prefer rules that say you don't want to over rules that say you can't).

[Spirit_Crusher]

The problem with this logic is that you're taking the two extremes and trying to break the  concept with them.

I already mentioned that this is not meant to put huge fantasy weapons at level with effective fighting weapons. Mind you, unarmed strike is not one of those, and would suffer other penalties, as no sensible warrior would fight unarmed against an armed man given the option. Neither would many sensible men take a huge greataxe (a fantasy weapon, really - but that's another question) to personal combat and not expect to be killed.

And what besides the class artwork says the Weaponmaster has to use a Greataxe? I've played one often, and the slowest weapons I've used are the Heavy Battle Mace (-15 initiative IIRC), and the No-Dachi (-30).

And who says that I'd have to use the attacking creature's size for anything? You?
Excuse me, but I believe I as the GM would be the judge of that.

Somehow the tone and the content of your reply suggests to me that you're trying to shoot me down for its own sake (or possibly "defending the official rules")

I'm the last one who would "defend the official rules", but I believe you're missing an important point. Riddle of Steel, which I love, is a great realistic melee system with a cluncky rpg attached. It's meant to be realistic. Initiative in TROS isn't ven rolled: the two sides declare simultaneously if they're attacking or defending.

Anima characters do supernatural things. The system is not meant to be ultra realistic. It's more abstract, and balanced far better than one would suppose at first sight. The caps on how much you can spend on attack and defense each level are a sign of how important those values are to the overall game balance. The malus you suggest would cripple slow weapons in my opinion. And what about magic bonuses? Would a +20 sword become + 40 to attack and +0 to ini?

[Lizbeth]

The caps on how much you can spend on attack and defense each level are a sign of how important those values are to the overall game balance. The malus you suggest would cripple slow weapons in my opinion.

While I admit that this rule is over the top, I have to say that he have his point.

You see, Init (unless the difference is close to 150 for good chances to surprise, 100 with Legacy of Blood) is generally less important than damage. Going first have ability to put opponent to defensive, but as a drawback it can lead to a counter attack, and in general counter attacks are more effective than attacks because opponents degree of failure in attack is added to counter attack.

Also guy with a big SWORD and in heavy armour is fine. Guy with a dagger or a rapier and with a heavy armour is strange in terms of style.

The point is, the damage is more important than init, and this rule tries to balance it.

[FearlessElbow]

The caps on how much you can spend on attack and defense each level are a sign of how important those values are to the overall game balance. The malus you suggest would cripple slow weapons in my opinion.

While I admit that this rule is over the top, I have to say that he have his point.

You see, Init (unless the difference is close to 150 for good chances to surprise, 100 with Legacy of Blood) is generally less important than damage. Going first have ability to put opponent to defensive, but as a drawback it can lead to a counter attack, and in general counter attacks are more effective than attacks because opponents degree of failure in attack is added to counter attack.

Also guy with a big SWORD and in heavy armour is fine. Guy with a dagger or a rapier and with a heavy armour is strange in terms of style.

The point is, the damage is more important than init, and this rule tries to balance it.

I'm afraid I don't agree that Damage is more important than Initiative.

Assume the two are roughly equal in skill.  The guy with the better advantage is going to hit the other 50% of the time, thus putting the second guy on the defensive.  He's maybe only got a 40% chance of doing any damage with each successful hit (so overall he damages his opponent 20% of the time), but he's not getting hit back that turn.

If he fails (the other 50% of the time), because of Counter-Attack bonuses his opponent has a slightly better than 50:50 chance of success.  Say 55% chance, if he gets to attack (overall 27.5%). He might do damage 50% of that time, so overall he's doing damage 13.75%, compared to his opponent who's doing so 20% of the time.  But he almost never gets to stop his opponent launching at least one attack.

Sure, on those occasions that he DOES hit, he's hurting him more (more LP, greater chance of critical).  But it's also reasonably likely that his opponent either puts him on the defensive or defends successfully every single turn.

Also, the initiative guy could easily go "On the Attack", and get a + to hit, reducing the chance of his opponent attacking even more.  If his opponent ignores it, he's at a disadvantage to his defence.  If he goes "on the defence" he's at a disadvantage on attack.

He could do Absorb Hits, but he's likely to suffer more damage if he does.

I'd say it's pretty balanced.

[Sharpandpointies]

Just going to note that it has been clarified on the English forum as well (I can't remember when, but I know it has because *I* asked that question once) that if someone who fights 'unarmed' wants to get 'exclusive weapon', they are allowed...

...but that limits them to a SINGLE martial art.  Ie, they can't use any bonuses from other ones, or they suffer the penalty of -30 on all rolls, attack and defense (even if 'defense' is 'dodge').

[Sharpandpointies]

Personally, I'm not fond of messing around with the Initiative adding bonuses to hit.  Like Fearless Elbow points out, it can give a ludicrous bonus to hit for unarmed people, and tends to favour Shadows and Acrobatic Warriors as the levels go up (as those classes get +10 to initiative per level, which can grant some pretty ridiculous levels of bonuses pretty quickly).

Throw in the fact that 'Fast Reflexes' suddenly becomes a bonus to hit as well, and things might start getting out of control.

Anima initiative isn't realistic in that it favours absolute speed over situational - ie, it considers only 'how fast does the weapon move?' versus Reach ('how fast does the weapon have to be to get there first?').  It does this, I suspect, to avoid the massively complicated sort of initiative rules that were coming out in the Dragon Magazine for AD&D in the early 80s, where a half-dozen different factors were being considered for initiative, all the way down to the actual height of the character in question.

One could certainly houserule in initiative as a bonus to attack, instead, but I suspect one would see some pretty dramatic changes in the effectiveness of various different character types, pretty quickly.

I would be curious to see how playtesting goes with your houserule, Zelekendel.

[Heart of the Tiger]

If high initiative gave bonuses to hit, it would unbalance certain things. Do not forget, the "excessive imbalance in characteristics" rule from Dominus Exxet. Someone with really high dex and agi would get multiple bonuses to hit against someone with low dex and agi. If character A had for example dex 17, agi 18 , and character B had dex 9 and agi 6, character A would get an all action bonus of 130 against character B. That's the current rules.
If character A would also get a bonus to hit based on his/her initiative against character B, I think that would go too far.

[FearlessElbow]

Personally, I'm not fond of messing around with the Initiative adding bonuses to hit.  Like Fearless Elbow points out, it can give a ludicrous bonus to hit for unarmed people, and tends to favour Shadows and Acrobatic Warriors as the levels go up (as those classes get +10 to initiative per level, which can grant some pretty ridiculous levels of bonuses pretty quickly).

Throw in the fact that 'Fast Reflexes' suddenly becomes a bonus to hit as well, and things might start getting out of control.

In his defence, Zelekendel does specify this is "weapon initiative" only, not innate character initiative.  So Class Bonuses, Quick Reflexes, and even Armour don't necessarily get included.

Just the difference in weapons.  Mind you, that's still a pretty big range (90, excluding Enormous weapons etc), so you've got up to a 45 point advantage on Attack (equivalent to 90DP, or about 4 levels).

And you also have certain Martial Arts that grant initiative bonuses - do they count as Unarmed Weapons Initiative for these purposes, or as Innate Class Bonuses?

[Sharpandpointies]

Point taken, and thanks for the clarification.  That does change things, but I agree that it's still a little off.  Getting even a +20 to hit is considered a big enough deal in the rules that it can cost a chunk of DP and MK for the ability to get that bonus once against another character.

And as you say, +45 to hit is almost 2 levels worth of Attack/Defense DP. 

[bleakheart26]

On the draw backs of them, their defense is ALL or NOTHING. So when they get hit it is the same thing as standing point blank into an angry apes arm as it slams into you.

How is this the case?

I'd also like to hear this. If you're talking about putting up a shield against attacks and not reaching the attackers roll with your projection roll then no, that just works like normal defense in terms of how much damage they would inflict AFAIK. It's written rather unclear, but that's the case with many things in the english translation.

Well if their ability is not All or nothing, You have me wondering if there is one good spot where a lot of these unclear or poorly written translations are lined up and written down so everyone could start learning it the way it should have been written.

[Raybras]

another houserule i forgot
We don't use unification of ki, but are still permitted to take Innate Power(sp?)
The Base Power Pool for ki gives that same base to all other pools.
so power 12 would give a base of 14 to each ki pool.

[vytzka]

Dominus Exxet offers a CP cost in place of level modifier for legacies of blood. I think it could also be a more elegant way to handle nonhuman races (especially in short campaigns where advancement and thus impact from LA is limited), has anyone tried it?

[VoidKnight]

Dominus Exxet offers a CP cost in place of level modifier for legacies of blood. I think it could also be a more elegant way to handle nonhuman races (especially in short campaigns where advancement and thus impact from LA is limited), has anyone tried it?

I tried this a while back with a character who used a custom race from the other forums called Black Dragon. It was normally a 4 point legacy with a +3 modifier or vice versa (cant remember) which turned out rather hilariously as a 7 point advantage. He insisted on staying around in his transformed form most of the time so he was always in a brown hooded robe with a wolf-shaped mask. He walked all hunched over to disguise his deformations so the rest of the team called him Quasimodo ^^ (He and I kept his character's Legacy a secret from the start)

Luckily he also took some really crippling disadvantages to bring him down to the rest of the party's level. I recall mentioning him to him that it might be better to keep a point or two of level adjustment but he adamantly refused.