WhyAnimaRPGisDumb

This document will first discuss combat briefly, including the effects of gear, and then a discussion of options available to characters (because there's a lot of options, most of which you won't need).

First, please note Table 2 on page 9.  It has the Characteristic Bonus for every stat value.  It operates similarly to the Attribute Modifier in D&D.

First, Inititive is rolled every combat round.  Initiative is equal to d100 + 20 + Dexterity and Agility modifiers - Penalties for weapons and armor.
Players also have a number of actions every turn based on the sum of their Dexterity and Agility, as per Table 37 on page 79.  Actions after the first suffer a cumulative -25 penalty.  Taking damage in combat prevents the target from taking any Active actions that turn.  Being fast is good, assuming you're accurate enough to hit and strong enough to damage your target despite their armor.

Speaking of which, let's look over two weapons and a suit of armor to see what this means.

Weapon			Damage	Speed	Req. STR	Attack Types	Weapon Type	Special			Fort	Break	Pres.
Bastard Sword	70		-30		7/9			Cut/Impact		Sword, Two-Hand	1or2 handed	15		5		25
Matchlock Pistol		+0		4							Projectile	Str 9, Complex	8				3
Pistol Shot		60							Thrust			Munition	Munition		11		5		15

Weapons add the wielder's Strength modifier to damage.  The pistol has its own Strength rating it uses for damage calculations, regardless of how much strength the wielder actually has.
Just rolling an Attack higher than the defender's Defense does not insure damage.  To do 100% of your damage, you must exceed your opponent's roll by 100 points.  Rolling higher means you do more than 100% damage and less means less damage, by increments of 10.

Name		ArmorReq NaturalPenalty	Movement Restriction	Location	Class
Chainmail	30	 		-15			1						Full Plate	Soft

Name		Cut	Impact	Thrust	Heat	Elec	Cold	Ene
Chainmail	4	2		1		2		0		1		0

Armor, as you can see, has its own penalties and bonuses.  Of note here is that each point of of Armor Protection essentially gives 10 points of defense.  This means that to get 100% of your damage against an opponent wearing chainmail while using a Cutting weapon, you would have to beat their defense roll by 140.  Just using that dagger for the Speed bonus on initiative to deny other people of their actions doesn't mean anything if you can't hurt the guy with the heavy armor.  Armor goes all the way up to a 7 rating, for the record.  Higher quality armors do not increase their defensiveness.  They instead reduce penalties.

So, how does someone using a dagger hurt someone wearing Full Plate without rolling super well?  Counter attacks.  Counter attacks do not take armor into account, so a character can attack someone who opened themselves up with a bad attack.  To execute a counter attack, the defender just has to roll higher than their attacker, but counter attacks inherently do half damage.  This means that while the dagger user CAN hurt the warrior in full plate, it will take a long time to take them down.  As a counter attack takes one of your actions for the turn, you can decide to not take one if you don't want to, you can be denied counter attacks if you've been hit for the turn, or you might not have the option if you've already used all your actions for the turn.

Alternatively, if the dagger-user rolls 150 points higher on his Initiative roll than the full plate wearer, he gets Surprise against the armored target, giving the full plated warrior a -90 penalty against the first action taken by the dagger user.

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Now for the fun stuff, character options.  They will be labelled as to which groups would find it useful: everyone, anyone (usually requiring a buy-in of some kind), or specific classes.

Core Rulebook
Ki Dominion (Chapter 10, Everyone and Domine) (Also, Chapter 3 of Dominus Exxet for Everyone and Chapters 5 and 9 of Dominus Exxet for Domines)
Everyone will find Ki Dominion useful, as everyone gets Martial Knowledge every level for free.  Some classes obviously get more than others.  Domine classes will stick with Ki Abilities, which grant passive bonuses to the charater, like more damage, more defense, levitation, slowed aging, and such.
Domine charaters will invest in Dominion Techniques, which are also purchased with Martial Knowledge.  If you wanted to perform supernatural martial arts that have an absurd number of choices available, this is where you go.  From a martial art designed after super speed, fighting like a dragon, gun-fu, and other silly styles, you have plenty of choices.  This does make you require six different stats at high values, though.

Magic (Chapters 11 and 12, Mystics) (Also, Chapters 4 and 5 of Arcana Exxet)
To access Magic, you must buy The Gift advantage for two points.
Magic is the relatively simple art of casting spells to end the world.  The wizard has to focus to pull Zeon points out of their pool to use on casting a spell.  It's worth noting that some schools of magic don't play well with others, and learning spells from schools that oppose each other takes more of your Magic Knowledge.  And Necromancy plays well with no one, so if you're a necromancer, you're only doing necromancy.
Falling under the same catagory are summoners.  Summoning comes with two flavors: summoning and binding, and Invocations.  You can summon various otherworldy creatures and have them follow you around (with a Control roll) or bind them to an item to be released to fight alongside you at a later point.  This means with enough preperation and some good rolls, a Summoner can have a LOT of combat versatility, but each summon bound to him eats away at his daily Zeon.  Invocations are Final Fantays-esque summons.  You cast them, make your roll, they come out, and they do their thing before leaving.  Each requires the summoner to perform a specific action before they will fight for the summoner, though.

Psychic Powers (Chapter 13, Psychics) (Also, Chapter 8 of Arcana Exxet)
To access psychic powers, you must buy Free Access to Any Psychic Discipline for two points or Access to One Psychic Discipline for one point.
Psychic Powers can be used over and over, but they require a Willpower roll.  Failure causes Fatigue, which gives penalties on all future rolls until the fatigue is recovered.  Throwing fire, mind reading, teleportation, and more are available.

Elan (Chapter 23, Anyone)
Elan is technically available to anyone, but if a player doesn't put at least one point in Elan, I probably won't bother with it.
The gods of Anima can grant powers onto their chosen followers that emulate them well enough.  Do things properly, get more Elan points for a specific god, and get more powers.  Do things improperly, lose Elan points, and lose access to those powers.  The are fourteen choices, seven of which (Beryls) are good and seven of which (Shajads) are evil.  This is more of a role playing challenge for power, as a player cannot purchase more points of Elan aside from spending Advantage Points on the Elan advantage at chargen.

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Arcana Exxet
Metamagic Advantages (Chapter 3, Mystics)
These grant the ability to modify already known spells at the cost of Magic Path points.  Only useful if you want to specialize in one school of magic or have more Magic Path than you know what to do with.

Sheele (Chapter 7, Mystics)
If you wanted to summon your own Fairy to follow you around, here you go.  They come in a variety of flavors dependent on what magic you know.  Or you just get a random one if you don't know any schools of magic that get fairies.  They require Zeon points every day just like a Summon.  Anyone can have a Sheele as long as they have the Zeon points to support it, as long as they have a Summoner friend to create one for them.

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Dominus Exxet
Legacies of Blood (Chapter 6, Anyone)
Not generally worth the points required, but if you want to have power based on your bloodline, here you go.

Ars Magica (Chapter 7, Anyone)
If you wanted to spend Martial Knowledge on silly techniques or silly weapons, this is your favorite chapter.  It really doens't get any more Anime than this chapter.  The Minor and Major Ars Magnus aren't worth it for a Domine character, but they're really good for more martially inclined characters.  Who doesn't want have a stream of "infinite" attacks or to be Naruto and divide himself up into a bunch of copies?
The Compendium of Impossible Weapons is just a fun read for everyone.  Monofiliment Weapons, gun-blades, musical instruments, capes, and LORD OF THE INFINITE SWORDS (because Gilgamesh didn't do nuthin' wrong) are just a few of your choices.  As Impossible Weapons require a bunch of Martial Knowledge to use, a player will generally want to plan out a path to unlock them.

New Weapons and Armor (Appendix 1, Anyone)
Just in case there weren't enough weapons already, here's some more.  It's not really necessary, but it's here nonetheless.

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Promethium Exxet (The whole book, Anyone)
This is the Artifact book.  If you buy the Artifact Advantage, you can get an artifact from here. A one-point Artifact has a Power Level of 1, a two-point artifact has a Power Level of 2, and 3 for 3.  Power Level 4 and higher artifacts are not available at chargen because you don't get to have Mjolnir at chargen.  Sorry.