multiple animuses / animi from chi spells

[Axelmania]

Can anyone find anything preventing this? Seems like by channeling chi rapidly you could create a bunch of these and send them into battle like an army.

[drewkitty ~..~]

I had the distinct impression from reading the texts that the char's mind went with the Animus when it went out.

[Axelmania]

Animi appear to have their own intelligence, they're able to animate your body and even use your martial arts when your chi spirit is out mind-walking. They appear to be limited to 'defensive' martial arts, although the extent of what that includes isn't particularly clear.

[eliakon]

The magic Animus seem to, in theory, be able to have this done assuming you have the hundreds of PPE available. But considering the restrictions on Chi Magic it seems unlikely (but not impossible) for someone to have both the amount of Chi and PPE needed to pull this off effectively.
Also the magic Animus are not nearly as combative as the others, most of them do not have any combat abilities or access to the persons skills, meaning that they would not be very effective combatants (H2H none, with no bonuses of any kind!).

The martial art Animi are described in singular terms (creates the animus not a animus, and preying mantis style even talks about being unable to use the animus yourself if it is doing something else)

[Axelmania]

Mantis mentions it? I'll need to review... a lot of spells use singular terms though, you could say the same of the 'Magic Warrior' spell in Federation of Magic too probably, or 'Create Golem'.

PPE isn't hard to get since there's a Chi>PPE spell so if you're in a place with a flow of 4 positive per melee then you can regain 1 PPE per melee.

The strength of some Animi aren't so much in HtH skill but in simply having a really strong or tough metal or wood robot going around to soak up attacks, or maybe a flaming guy to set fire to a base.

Since it says that the animus can defend the body with defensive martial arts known by its creator, it seems like it should be possible to also use those defensive arts while outside the body too...

Otherwise I guess we would give them 1 attack per round like a level 1 char with no combat skill? Still enough to use chi powers or throw the occasional punch but no speed demon.

I suppose with the chi spirit absent, some remnant of defensive HtH could remain in the body and maybe the animus must remain in the body to draw on it?

[eliakon]

Mantis mentions it? I'll need to review... a lot of spells use singular terms though, you could say the same of the 'Magic Warrior' spell in Federation of Magic too probably, or 'Create Golem'.
The difference is that the singular term in this case is that it seems to imply that the specific animus in question is not just the creation of 'a' animus but the creation of the characters specific animus. Just like a character only has one astral body, the implication seems to be you only have one chi spirit and one animus (via Pao Chi martial art)

PPE isn't hard to get since there's a Chi>PPE spell so if you're in a place with a flow of 4 positive per melee then you can regain 1 PPE per melee.

To get the PPE for these spells though at that would take more time than the duration of the spell itself.

The strength of some Animi aren't so much in HtH skill but in simply having a really strong or tough metal or wood robot going around to soak up attacks, or maybe a flaming guy to set fire to a base.

That could be true

Since it says that the animus can defend the body with defensive martial arts known by its creator, it seems like it should be possible to also use those defensive arts while outside the body too...

Only the Animus of Pure Chi (or whatever it is called, I don't have my book handy) says it has that ability. While a GM can choose to house rule that they all possess it, the lack of mention of it as a listed ability in any of the other Animi would mean that technically they can not perform that function. It would seem that martial arts are the 'special power' of the Chi animus

Otherwise I guess we would give them 1 attack per round like a level 1 char with no combat skill? Still enough to use chi powers or throw the occasional punch but no speed demon.

That could be a useful house rule I suppose

I suppose with the chi spirit absent, some remnant of defensive HtH could remain in the body and maybe the animus must remain in the body to draw on it?

Again that is a workable house rule for a GM to use.

[Axelmania]

I ended up checking Tong Lun Kung Fu on page 200 but could not figure out where it mentions Animus under Praying Mantis. Was it a different page?

[eliakon]

I ended up checking Tong Lun Kung Fu on page 200 but could not figure out where it mentions Animus under Praying Mantis. Was it a different page?

Gah, I was confusing it with the Rifts MC version that grants an Animus.

[Axelmania]

WB25p38, I see what you mean now, pretty cool.

Wasn't there something about if you got any of those "Mystic Martial Arts Powers of Rifts China" from 25 onward (ISP powered) that you couldn't have any normal psychic abilities? That kept me from taking too close a look at them since I like me my Super Psionics... although the sum of all of these might possible eclipse the sum total power of all standard psychic powers so maybe I should take a closer look....