As I said, I'm really bad at math, but I also stated that the probability to achieve very high results might be over the top. Perhaps it would be best do give the True Blade a different bonus, one that can be calculated a little better. If I can just calculate the average bonus on a probability roll it becomes problematic, but maybe someone can post more acurate calculations.

I'd like very much to thank Heart of a Tiger for his strong in-depth reviews of my work.

First I'll answer about the True Blade. Personally I'm not changing it. Granting it a bonus of +1% Open Roll per level would be definitely broken. A level15 True Blade would open roll 1/4 times he rolls the dice…which is definitely too much…besides, each +1% open roll greatly increases the chances of MULTIPLE open rolling. My calculation of +1%/2Levels compared to 2CPs (hence the two +10 Secondary/Level bonuses removed) is mostly based on playtest (with characters having similar powers due to elan or artifacts). The class tends to be extremely dangerous at high levels, yet a bit unpredictable and still missing the stamina of the acrobatic warrior (high levels of athletics are very interesting and jump still allows very interesting feats in game). More than anything else, the True Blade is a DPS. Part of the balancing is his total loss of flexibility, though, since it has to specialize in the use of a single weapon, although that might not seem a problem for most players, losing flexibility may still always come to hurt.

Well, now about the seconary-based primary abilities…I'd like to retain a certain uncapped system, still I can see the limits of such system. My idea is that the character might obtain a +5 (to attack/defense depending on class) for each 50 points he/she has on the seconary up to 250, after which the following +5 bonus requires a value in the secondary which is increased by a cumulative +50 compared to the previous.

Hence:

+30 -> 350

+35 -> 500

+40 -> 700

+45 -> 950

+50 -> 1250

+55 -> 1600

And so on…Sincerely I believe all characters have better ways of improving their fighting skills than dropping tons of dps and cps on a single secondary ability (becoming useless in all non-combat related situations, on top of that!). Besides, I have to remember that all such bonuses are somewhat circumstantial since they all have some requirement to apply.

That idea could work. There is one thing I still have to say about the Sword Dancer and the True Blade.

As you said, both Jump and Athletics are very useful secondary abilities. To take those bonuses away certailly hurts the True Blade, as those secondary abilities are essencial abilities of the Arcrobatic Warrior(Athleticism improves the time at which you can run at full speed, and Jump is obvious).

Now, the Sword Dancer on the other hand, only gets maluses in areas that do not hurt him at all.

1: He is a dual wielder, so could not use Sleight of Hand in combat anyway.

2: Most Acrobatic Warriors only Wear very light armor (long coat) so that their Wear Armor requirement would be effectifely 0(because of strength or quality armor).

3: He would not use shields because he is dual wielding.

All in all I think the Sword Dancer is too effective, considering his, in normal situations nonexistant maluses, he gets +10 to dance eyery level, no penalties for dual wielding equal sized weapons, and the dodge bonus. All those things make him extremely powerful, and I personally see the dance bonus allone approximately as powerful as the True Blade's only bonus.

I think you're not considering rightly the maluses of the Sword Dancer. A high cost for Wear Armor is relevant, since NOTHING in the system requires an Acrobatic Warrior to go around in light armor, as far as his Wear Armor value is sufficiently high as to allow him to wear heavy armor without penalties, and a jumping/running ARMORED fighter is always better than a jumping/running NAKED one. Besides, the huge limits on shields are there for two very important reasons: first a character could choose to dual wield AND wear two bucklers, second a character could choose to dual wield WITH two shields or two full shields! Now, a character fighting with two full shields +15 (very doable with an expense of just 4CP or 3CP plus tons of luck when rolling for social position using Gaia tables and depending on origins) and a Shield Dodge Module would benefit from a total +90Bonus to defense…at LEVEL1! There are tons of very "munchkin" builds out there, and the shield limitation is there for that. As absurd as it might seem, you might make an acrobatic warrior dual wielding shields and wearing heavy armor, who would definitely benefit from a much higher initiative than a warrior with the same combo!

Besides, dual wielding usually means carrying weapons with relatively low Base Damage. Anyway…let's see what we can do.

SWORD DANCER (ACROBATIC WARRIOR):
An Acrobatic Warrior may choose to “specialize” as a Sword Dancer. This can be done either at character’s creation, when switching class to Acrobatic Warrior or at any level-up if the character is already an Acrobatic Warrior.
A Sword Dancer only applies a Class Innate Bonus of +5 to Life Points and Athletics per Level, but applies a Class Innate Bonus of +10 to Dance per Level. A Sword Dancer spends 3DPs per point of Wear Armor.
A Sword Dancer doubles penalties to Initiative and halves Defense bonuses of Shields, but applies no Initiative penalty for wielding two weapons of the same size and while dual wielding may choose to apply a Dodge bonus equal to 1/10(round down at multiples of 5) of his Dance value.
BREAKDOWN:
PENALTIES: No +10Sleight of Hand/Level. +5Life Points/Level, +5Athletics/Level. Shields have double penalties and half bonus.
BONUS: +10Dance/Level. No penalty from dual wielding same sized weapons. Dual wielding Dodge bonus equal to 1/10 Dance.
 

I reworked a bit the penalites. Now the sword dancer gains his sleight of hand bonus as normal, BUT he's got halved Athletics Bonus and halved Life Points Bonus. These two together should hurt just enough, since they reduce his moving capabilities (and potentially his stamina), and overall endurance, especially considering the very unconvenient use of shields and the high cost of armor allowance.

Interesting works of classes so far… I think I might like them!

Questions abound (two of them):

1) Did you make the classes listed?

2) Did you notice that I sent you a message recently? /completely unrelated to the rest of the topic….

 I'm only replying to the first question (the second was already answered…in another time, in another space…). Yes, I did all of them plus a few based on home made elans…the reasons they're not posted is elsewhere in this forum.

Okay, wanted to make sure.

Seriously, I'll say this again and again if I have to:  You ROCK!!

Seriously, though, it's alright for other users to use these classes, right?  I'm asking mainly because of circumstances, among other things.

The more playtest, the better! Everyone who's interested in the stuff I post should feel free to use ALL AND ANY of it! I post it so I can share it, and feedback is always welcome, because it lets me improve my game experience as well!

Elric of Melniboné said:

1: Dual wielding shields equals munchkinism^3 and should be banned from this game anyway.

2: Considering the bonuses of the Acrobatic Warrior, he might be better of with light armor, Ars Magnus, Impossible Weapons and ki stuff. But yeah, more armor is better than less in general.

I like the new Sword Dancer build, it feels a lot more balanced.

Thanks for your feedback, Heart of The Tiger! It was extremely helpful so far! As you may easily understand I HAVEN'T playtested 100 classes, and the same goes for many other creations made by me, so a different point of view comes in very handy, in order to better balance my additions to Anima!

Dual wielding shields is very powerful, but I don't feel like denying it, for there is no real reason why a character shouldn't go around bashing with a couple of shields or full shields (provided enough strength). Besides, dual wielding shields most of the time causes severe Initiative drawbacks along with low damage output, so it works really well only for pure-tank characters, who should invest on Secondary Weapon Defensive Style Module and Guardian Magnus (hence 50Notice) in order to really be "efficient".

Ah, right, playtesting works in any case.

However, what I meant was for story usage, but I've also gotten a group in the works for playing.

Meh, oh well, either way.

So, Iet's talk about the Determinist. I like this idea very much, the class feels like a pure ki mage. The one BIG concern I've got with that variant class is, that it can exploit some of the rules like no other class does. I'm talking about the classes ability to apply the "Technique Pushing" ki ability to maintained or sustained techniques. If you apply that ability to a technique that allows you to raise a ki shield which relies on a constant Zen ability (440) for defense, the automatic defense is increased to 660(!). Normally thtat would be possible, but only for 1 round, after that, the effect would go back to 440. With your ruling, one could maintain it that high for as long as he has ki points. This is game breaking. I know, you need many many ki points to do that, but with this class variant and a 1 CP advantage you can have 360 ki points without ever investing one DP into ki points.

I suggest reducing the effect of that aspect of the Determinist's ability somewhat. Perhaps you should exclude predetermined attack/defense from the allowed maintain/ sustainabe effects.

 You've made an interesting point there. I knew from the very beginning when designing this class, that the rule about making forced techniques "maintained" would be his "big-up". Now, as you can easily see, the Determinist isn't definitely going to spend on Attack/Defense, and is DEFINITELY going to fight using Predetermined-Effect Techniques. Hence, eliminating them from the rule isn't a feasible option.

I must say that the Determinist, although looking almost allmighty with his predetermined set of techniques, has the big flaw of being a "supernatural" specialist. Bring him to a place where supernatural powers don't work (anywhere near the Inner Sea or places specifically designed to suppress supernatural powers), and he's definitely done for. Also, when facing a Nemesis specialist (even without using my nemesician class), the Determinist might just take 1 turn too much to raise his/her defences. All in all, the Determinist is very powerful, but at the same time extremely frail at the inside (tsundere?).

Now…forcing a sustained technique sincerely is most times not doable simply because of AMAZING ki cost. Of course the Determinist can afford the cost of a 660Predetermined Shield or Additional Defenses technique, but how many turns are required for that character to pull off such feat?! I don't think even a very HIGH level Determinist might pull off such technique in a single turn, even spending 5 fatigue points to increase his accumulations. I don't think he/she would be able to do so even with a Maintained technique. And the predetermined defense is possibly THE ONLY DEFENSE this character has, so probably the Determinist isn't going anyway to force his defensive technique, for the sole reason that it would cost too much precious time (in addition to a fair amount of ki). Anyway, avoiding "auto-win" situations is always important, hence let's make it like this. When forcing a Maintained or Sustained technique, the effect of Forcing the technique does not vanish abruptly after the first turn, but "fades" at a rate of 10% per turn. Hence a Maintained Forced Technique will have its effects increased by 50% during the turn it's used, then 40% the first time it's maintained (2nd turn of use), then 30% the following turn, and so on. On the sixth turn, the "forced" effect will be completely vanished.

For a 440 Predetermined technique, it goes like this:

1st turn: 660

2nd turn: 616

3rd turn: 572

4th turn: 528

5th turn: 484

And then again, I say we're talking about a technique that in order to be forced probably required no less than 4-6 turns of accumulation.

Any thought about this solution?

 To Technique Pushing: Like I understood the ruling is: If I push a maintained (okay, there is nothing about sustained, but I think it works similar) technique at the beginning, it is pushed as long as I maintain it. I can't push an already active and maintained technique. I don't see there a point which states, that the "pushing effect" stops after one round. Perhaps some error in my reading, but I'm not sure.

So long,

F3nr1s said:

It works like this: If you apply technique pushing to a technique that can be maintained/sustained, the effect of technique pushing only exists for the first round, after that the technique has its normal effect. At least that's how read it (english version of Dominus Exxet). The wording is a bit unclear, that's for sure.

As for the diminishing effect… honestly I don't know. On the one hand it's a mathematical solution to the problem, on the other hand it's complicated and clunky to some degree and that's the very last thing this game needs. I have to think about this, maybe I'll come up with something.