THE SPIRIT IS STRONG and the flesh ain't exactly a load of dragon drek either... Jerry Stratton ([j--r--y] at [teetot.acusd.edu]) I'm sitting here in the awakened world and suddenly this meanuglynasty muther of an elemental attacks me like drek on a cat. So I punch it inna face, like momma taught me, for a massive (Strength)M1, using my Willpower instead of my Unarmed Combat. Too bad I don't have a sword handy. Then I could do (Strength)M3. Or a pole-arm. (Strength)S3 for that. Why? It ain't the size of the weapon that counts (well, actually, I know a female MedTech that might argue with that; Hi, Vermouth!) -- otherwise, we'd just blast away at those nasty spirits with an assault rifle, or better, a panther cannon. According to the rulebooks, I gotta be up close and personal to do damage to a spirit. So why do I do better when I use a weapon? Against a water elemental? A fershlugginer air elemental? So okay already. Here we got a couple of rules that will make spirits slightly (but only slightly) less useful. Wizards and shamans will be a little less powerful and a little more powerful at the same time. And none of these rules affect full astral combat. It's gotta be sentient flesh doin' the talkin'. Fighting Spirits: Sounds like a Jack Kirby comic book don't it? Nope, this has to do with us flesh types fighting those drekkin' spirits who manifest on the physical plane. If we want to, we can study conjuring -- and only conjuring, no substituting sorcery here, chummer -- and use this to up the staging and as our fighting skill when fighting a spirit. Spirit Combat is a concentration of Conjuring, but remember that this only works on the physical plane. On the astral, you'll default right back to your conjuring. Also, you can, if you really want, specialize in only fighting certain kinds of spirits (nature, elementals, watchers), but that's really pushing your luck. Though I know some people who are just chickenshit enough to only bother fighting watchers. Here's how it works. Your Charisma is the Power of your attack (yeah, and I bet that makes you rockerbabies real happy). Your Willpower determines the Wound Level -- divide by 2 and round down (unless you got a one, but I'd advise a different line of work for ya. Maybe a career as a toaster might be more your line). Your Essence determines the staging -- divide by 3 and round down (again, unless you've got between 0 and 1; can't have less than one unless your essence is 0 or less. Good luck; I'd recommend just pulling out that pole-arm). Yeah, anyone with an essence of 0 or less can't use spiritfighting. Like you care. Your reaction is the lowest of your normal reaction or your Intelligence. When you're using Spirit Combat you're not even really moving. All ya gotta do is touch the thing. It's one of them Zen arts, ya know what I'm talking about? You can still defend against the spirit (using your Spiritfighting as your defense pool, of course), but no dodging bullets or defending against normal people. Oh, and yer wiring is worthless. Oh, and if yer arm and hand are all non-flesh: ya gotta touch it with somethin'. Give it a head-butt, or something. Hope yer insurance is paid up. Everything else remains the same. You'll still do your body resistance with your body, for example. And armor still works as well as it did before (which tends not to be very well against spirits). So what does this mean? Most mundanes don't know drek about spirits. They think that using a big weapon is the best thing, so it becomes the best thing for them. They still use the same old rules. Me, I know better. I've got training in Conjuring, so I'm more effective against spirits with my bare fists than I am with a weapon (though I draw the line at toxic nuclear spirits). Using a weapon just gets in the way of the flesh, and sentient flesh is the best magic weapon in the world, babe. Well, other than a self- adhesive micro-nuke. But where to pin it on an air elemental? Okay, so the example. I've got a Body 5, Strength 6, Quickness 6, Willpower 5, Intelligence 5, Charisma 6, and Essence 6 (I know, I know. I just can't stand surgery. Call me a crybaby). I've got Conjuring/Spirit Combat 4. Suddenly up pops this air elemental. We'll call him Fred. I decide to give him a Zen front kick. I'll be doing 6M3 -- Charisma (Will/3) Essence/3. My defense pool will be 4. I'll be using 4 dice to attack. My reaction is 5 (my intelligence). Let's assume I attack first, since it makes life easier (mine, anyway), and we already know how Fred attacks, since we haven't changed anything for him. I roll (11,7,5,2) for 3 successes. That brings the damage up to Serious. Now, Fred has to resist 6S3, and he does so normally. Next, he attacks (hopefully at a penalty), and I'll resist with my defense (4) and then Body, as normal ('cause he's attacking me physically). Note that spirits don't have to fight back. It'll often be in their best interest to use one of their special powers instead. (Of course, they won't get defense, then.) Incidentally, it looks sort of like this makes mages and shamans kick-ass when it comes to spirits. But c'mon! What sane mage is gonna go toe to toe with a spirit on the physical plane when all they gotta do is cast spells, exorcise, or go astral? I did know a priest once, who was almost certainly a conjuring adept; he'd go the distance all the time, but he was a pretty big guy, too. FIGHTING SPELLS Here's one of those neat little things that just makes mages quake in their boots. Mundanes with spell pools. Spellfighting is a concentration off of Sorcery. All it does is give you a magic pool, and the only thing the pool can be used for is personal spell defense. Totally useless for mages and shamans, but us Cajun mundanes can use it to give us just a few more seconds to run. Oh, and a mundane can't have a spell pool greater than the lowest of Essence or Willpower. You'll have to roll initiative with your Intelligence. You don't get to do anything else while spellfighting (there have been rumors it works while in spirit combat, but it's hard to tell -- few chummers who've had a spell cast on 'em while fighting an elemental have lived to tell about it, spellfighting or not), but the initiative roll will tell you if your spellfighting pool gets refreshed before the next turn. Mundanes can't bond with foci, and thus can't make use of them in their spell pool. You're on yer own, chummer. And make sure no one's firing at you -- you ain't got no dodge while you're spellfighting. And no defense, either. Nuthin' but the Zen, man. Oh, and like spirit fighting, there's a pretty much useless specialization: specific spell types. I suppose specializing in Sorcery/Spellfighting/Detection might be useful, but you better hope that's a Detect Lie and not a Slay Idiot spell you're Zenning out for. LEARNING SPELLFIGHTING & SPIRIT COMBAT Most mages and shamans already have Spirit Combat, since it's part of their conjuring. Some mundanes will as well, if they've been expecting a trip into the astral plane. While mages and shamans have spellfighting as part of their sorcery, it's not something they use -- their normal spell pool is superior to a spellfighting spell pool. But any mundane who knows sorcery also knows how to spellfight. It's not common knowledge. In order to test it out, ya gotta stand still and concentrate while some kind soul casts a spell on you. Standing still for a power bolt isn't conducive to long life. Of course, now that we know about the spellfighting and spirit combat concentrations, we're gonna want to learn 'em, right? Only 1.5x Karma instead of 2x karma? Hmm? Heh. Life is never that easy. When someone gets spellfighting and spirit combat as a side effect of sorcery and conjuring, it's because they've been studying and hitting the books. Tell 'em about spellfighting or spirit combat and they'll say, "Hey, yeah! I bet I could do that!" even though most of 'em ain't gonna try it before hell freezes over. But if you wanna bypass all that extra learnin', you gotta find a friendly mage to help you practice. You can't practice spellfighting without a few spells to fight. And, dare I say, you can't practice spirit combat without fighting some friendly spirits. And not the kind you find over at O'Malleys. If you can convince your local mage to do this, then you can learn these concentrations. (Boyo, you'd better trust the chummer...) It's rumored that a few military and corps groups have special forces trained for this as well, but it's expensive. Turnover's high for mundanes in the sixth world. >>>[Some gamemasters may decide that being able to use Spiritfighting and Spellfighting requires a Priority of 1 (0 for metahumans) in magic.]<<< -- Jerry Stratton (07:47:23/05-29-92)