Spirit Combat "T&T style"
By Tom Kopf Loney
Every spirit, fiend or ghost, has a SPOOK rating. This is
the MR of that being. Player-Characters encountering them must combine their
Wizardry, Charisma and Luck stats to develop their own SPOOK rating. Both sides
then roll 2d (remembering DARO) plus their SPOOK rating, and then compare the
results. The higher result wins. The lower result is then subtracted from the
higher, and the losing side subtracts that many points from the SPOOK rating.
At "zero" points the spirit is dissipated, or the body is open to
possession by the spirit that it is battling.
To expand on this bodily possession, the inhabiting spirit
must distribute its remaining SPOOK rating into all eight of the physical
attributes of the possessed, which become the controlled body’s ratings. The SPOOK rating may be distributed unevenly among the attributes. For
each turn that the body is inhabited, the spirit spends a WIZ point, and once
the WIZ rating is diminished to zero, the possession ends.
The physical being recovers the stats that make up the SPOOK
rating "1" point per every ten minutes that the body is engaged in
Spirit Combat or "in possession" of the attacking spirit. The Player
of said Character is considered unconscious, meaning inactive, during the
recovery. Once the Character's SPOOK is recovered, the Character can then
engage in Spirit Combat to reclaim his body.
The spirit's SPOOK rating recovers 1 point per day. On a
side note, maybe related or not, a spirit, almost every spirit, can only travel
1 mile per day. The one thing the dead know is that it is better to be alive.
Wango D' Strangle
This ghostly apparition isn't just a ghostly apparition.
These are the ghosts of a select few serial killers that were smart enough to
find enough sorcery or influenced by a greater dark force to attain a half-life
in the physical world after their deaths. They like to haunt the graveyards in
which they were buried or are captured by necromancers that use them as guards.
Wangos D' Strangles, Wangos for short, can engage in Spirit
Combat and then throw in a mix of brute physical force. In game play, this
means that the Player must decide whether his Character will prepare for a
mental attack or a physical attack. The wrong choice leaves the stricken
vulnerable to the complete attack without reprise. Wangos must exert a lot of
energy towards the physical attacks, so tend to use Spirit Combat most often. When a Wango goes to "physical" combat, it spends
5 points of its SPOOK rating to put all of the remaining points and 2d into a
melee roll. If the opponent(s) is defending, armor and his Combat Adds are
applicable.
{Editor’s Note: I’m VERY excited about this piece. I have
been considering options for ghostly combat, and I like this one. Tom hit it on
the head, and kept it true to the simple, elegant style of T&T.}
