Allright so I'm a new player in this game (but have played a lot of Roleplaying games before) and I just made my first character for Anima. Seeing that Style was a skill I immediately felt I wanted to be extremely stylish, so I made my character, a wealthy young man with a magical hat (Artifact: with the magic effect that everyone thinks it looks good), average people stats in most skills and a nice 275 in Style.

Seeing how I made an (Extremely) stylish character I thought I'd ask for some creative and cool ways to use the skill, obviously I will think of a lot of these myself but some suggestions from experienced players are appreciated.

 Assuming you're starting at Level 1, given how many DP you've invested in Style (instead of other things, like Combat and other skills), you might find your main use of it is things like "When I get hit, the blood makes a really stylish pattern on my face." or "I fail massively at Stealth, but when everyone turns and sees me, they just think 'Hey, that guy looks cool!'".

Even starting with a Power of 10 (giving you +15 to your Style), and a Natural Bonus, 275 Style equates to about 500 out of your starting 600DP.

You could have reduced the cost to 1DP per point of Style, I suppose, but even then you're using up either all your Secondary points, or reducing the amount you spend on Primary abilities (like Combat, the stuff that saves your life).

I love the Style skill, but with minimal /no other skills and/or limited Primaries, you may find you've taken a lot of the fun out of the game for yourself.  Particularly if you already have an artifact that makes you look cool anyway.

Just a note of caution.  :)

 Maybe so but with Jack of All trades my secondary abilities are still not that bad and I don't intend to get into fights.

All good then.  :)

The "Not Getting Into Fights" thing is kinda dictated by your GM, but if you can get away with it, cool.

 Hey. I noticed we still haven't said anything about what Style can be actually used for.

We have started a new campaign (and this time, I'm a player and not the GM) and my Char has the highest style of all (about 60 points at Lvl 2). 

I have talked with the GM and some of the uses of style could be:

- Get the attention of everyone around
- Change the "air"/"presence" of the char. For example, my char could try to appear with a majestic aura/presence
- Support other skills like music, intimidate, persuasion, leadership etc., but this depends on the situation. To play a song correct, style wouldn't help at all, but to be on stage and to improve the overall performance, style could be used (and could help, that some misplayed tones would be ignored).
 

But I must agree with Beadle: A char only with one secondary skill is rather … useless. Sorry to say this, but Anima is a combat-heavy system, so to think you can life without any combat skills, you will only be killed. If only one other player plays a combat-heavy char and most enemies would be also combat-heavy and kill your char without problems. And: If you have no other high skill, for example some skills from subterfudge, social and so an, you would be useless. You always look cool, but you can't really do something different. Your char would only be a dragged around through the other players, without a real use. In combats, everyone will fight, your char would be jumping behind cover, in social situation, your char would look cool, but he wouldn't have the best skills for this etc..

So long,

 Aww…it didn't seem that combat heavy when I looked at it and making a fairly average guy that excelled at one thing seemed like a quite well working idea. And being a guy that everyone kind of instinctively likes and who's always in the center of attention seemed cool and is something few other games give an option of (at least not an as easy to use and as effective as this). Being a character that is quite useful in social encounters even though he isn't that good with words also felt like an interesting concept. Sure I might have gone a little bit overboard with the ammount of points as I'm prone to do but I really didn't have much else I wanted to spend those points on.

I'll discuss it with the GM and if he says that it's going to be combat heavy I might make a new character or drop out of the game.

Seriously, it's a great game.  And you can still be great at the social stuff.  Trust me - a 1st-Level character with about 60-something in Style or Persuasion is very, VERY good.  And if you really want to Min/Max on the Social skills further than that, you can.

For your Advantages you could pick some combination of Charm, Natural Learner (Field, Social), Aptitude in a Field (Social) and Élan with someone like Gabriel.  They would boost your Social skills quite a bit.

I don't know what character-creation system you're using (original Core Book Rules or Core Exxet), but if its the former, then you can put your Natural Bonus into Style (since you're maxing out Style, I assume you have a Power characteristic of 10, so this adds an extra +15 on its own).  If it's the latter, then you get not only a Mental Natural Bonus (again, +15), but also a +10 Bonus (you get 5 of these per level).

And if you chose Acrobatic Warrior, you get +10 Style per level (until that bonus hits +50).  Or a Freelancer gets to add +10 to 5 different skills every level, one of which could be Style.

Your Style could be VASTLY in excess of anyone else at your level.

Leave yourself 300 DP to spend on Attack and Defend, and you will be golden.

Style is basically just a passive skill to look cool while doing other stuff.

Another option for a character with a lot of Style and other social skills would be the Paladin or Dark Paladin. They both get +5 Style per level along with a cheaper cost to buy more Style as well.

A style score that high has to have some benefit in combat.  You would think it would help with initiative rolls because the opponents are distracted by the hat.  Or just before the killing blow the villain steps back and says, "Before I kill you, please tell me this…. Where did you get that hat."  Of course the story is long winded and buys time for help to arrive.

Stilgar said:

I would say, that this is wrong.. A high style score doesn't need to have some benefit in combat. There is nothing, which would support this statement. I could also say, that Art must have some benefits in combat, but there ist nothing, who would support this either.

And initative malus for others, because the "style" distracts them, or that the enemy doesn't kill someone, but asks weird questions, don't sound very realistic. Rather I would say, that it should bring benefits in the rollplaying part of the game.

If the GM gives some benefits, it is his opinion, but "style" is a skill of the social group, it isn't necessary, that it gives combat benefits.

So long,

There is no precedent for Style to be used in Combat, that is true, but the guy just dropped 500 DP on and some serious creation points just to get an epic level style of 275!  Sure he can't fight his way out of a wet paper sack, but DANG he looks good in that hat!  It has to have some in game benefit.

I browsed through Those Who Walk Amongst Us and nobody has a style of 275.  Omega, The Ultimate Being has only a 200 in his Lord of Infinity form.  The rulebooks states, "At very high levels, a successful Ability Check would allow the thunder and lightning of a storm to provide rhythmic accompaniment to a character's theatrical movements."  This is under Style on page 46.  If Omega gets this kind of treatment with a score of 200, imagine what this guy's hat could do!  At the very least, when this guy walks in the room, everyone is going to stop what they are doing and check out that hat.  I mean seriously, this is one amazing hat!

This would definitely be a fun character to have in your party.  Just to watch the DM scramble to adapt his descriptions to accomodate that hat!

In my opinion style is only for rpg-benefits. Yes, I really like this skill. Honestly it's my favorite. But I took it only fluff-wise. Our gm never allowed it in combat and I didn't want it as a benefit in such situation. And blood drops looking cool on your face isn't an attack bonus in our group.

But he allowed it to be "used" in some social situations. Dancing in the ballroom and you just missed a difficulty. Yeah, you're not as good as the other dancers, but hell you move somehow special and it looks great. You missed the Etiquette roll and normaly it would be some little faux pas, but hey it was something amusing even the offended party couldn't be serious mad about. I'm talking about small misses and not by 40 points.

But hey. It's only my opinion and if it suits the playstyle of your group to give some benefit in combat then do it. It's your game.

~ Sofia Corba

Beadle said:

Only attack, block and dodge bonuses are capped at +50, class bonuses to secondary abilities can be stacked without limit. 

 Stilgar said:

My character has 275 in style, with or without hat, the hat just has the magical power that says that everyone likes it and as it is the lowest level of magic artifacts I don't expect more (though the GM has said that he will give the hat an additional bonus).

For combat bonuses, I expect none unless I have a crowd watching in which case "becoming crowd favorite" should be a possible use for style.