SpiritCombatStrategies

Here is the list of Spirit Strategies. Please add or comment! -Clebo

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Sprit Strategies

The use of Donning Spiritual Armor could be used to augment almost any strategy, if the spirit has an additional round of preparation.

1. "Begone, Worms!"

Attacks

Uses Capture to send enemies to a supernatural prison, or a dangerous (but not immidiately fatal) location

Defends with

Principles of Motion (reflexively spends actions to dodge or parry)

Transport (escape to any safe haven, taking several allies)

Comment

Multiple enemies can be targeted at once with Capture. If facing several powerful opponents backed by a sizeable number of weaker allies, the spirit will Capture the most powerful ones first, then deal with the others with other means. Lower powered spirits may substitute Banish for Capture.

How to Defeat

This strategy can be bested by winning initiative and defeating the spirit before it can use Capture. Several Sidereals with Duck Fate, or a single Sidereal using Duck Fate with Trouble Reduction Strategy, can also avoid Capture's effects. (Due to Capture's per-target Willpower cost, a spirit is unlikely to be able to invoke Capture on a group more than twice.) Charm Disruption Technique can also be used against Capture.

Author: Raindoll

2. Mind Flayer

Attacks

Uses Possession or Soul Rapt to gain control of one of the enemies and use his body to attack the others

Uses Instill Obedience to turn enemies into his loyal defenders (or at least get them to step out of the fight)

( Use Malediction or Scourge to reduce the target's Willpower to make possession easier - Xyphoid)

Defense

"Ha ha, you can't hit your own brother, can you?"

Author: Raindoll

3. Bind!

Attacks

Binding

Defends with

Reflexively spends actions stored with Principles of Motion to dodge or parry

Comment

Mental bindings are often better than physical ones. Enemies should be targeted in descending order of power, obviously. Once all the enemies are bound, the spirit may deal with them as it sees fit. The main weakness of this strategy is that only one enemy per turn can be targeted.

Author: Raindoll

4. My big brother will kick your ass

The spirit uses Transport or Hurry Home to run for help. (If he hasn't run away for good, within two turns to several minutes the spirit may use Portal or Transport to return with a bunch of friends.)

Author: Raindoll

5. Hit and Run Melee

The first turn of combat, the spirit attacks with action he has stored with PoM. Usually he will split his melee pool to attack as well. If he judges his opponents are sufficiently weakened, he will abandon this strategy and deal with them as he pleases in subsequent rounds. Otherwise, immidiately after he makes his final attack he will reflexively dematerialize. The next turn, he will re-activate PoM. The turn after that, he will materialize again, and attack. It is more effective if the spirit can re-materialize slightly out of sight/range, and then attack on the turn after that with both his natural pool and the stored actions without worrying about defense. Or, barring that, he should "race to zero initiative", waiting until he rolls a lower initiative than his opponent before choosing to materialize.

Notes

If spirit's can't dematerialize reflexively, this strategy requires minor alterations. Almost spirit with PoM could afford to do two passes with this strategy (attack once and dematerialize, then re-materialize and attack again); far fewer can do three passes.

Author: Raindoll

5. Conservative Melee: Attacks with

Principles of Motion (one per round)

Defends with

full dodge / full parry (supplimented with PoM as necessary)

Notes:

In a number of situations this strategy makes sense for a spirit whose goal is to maximize his survival time (including his chances of survivng the fight), or using an ideosynchratic weapon that drains life over time after it hits. It also makes sense if the spirit expects reinforcements to arrive shortly. Except in special cases such as those, however, this strategy usually doesn't make sense if the spirit's goal is to maximize damage dealt to his enemies.

Author: Raindoll

Comments

Way to go Raindoll! I like these ones. This should definitely help my game, which often includes battles with spirits. I particularly like the "My Brother.." strategy. This could surprise quite a few players. I mean, they attack some puny minor thing to get her stuff. She disappers, and when the players are looting, she returns. Great! -Clebo

Interesting stuff! I'm not sure that Hit and Run Melee is a valid approach though. Even if a spirit can materialize reflexively (I don't think they can), dematerialization costs are almost invariably over 50% of the spirit's Essence pool. This strategy seems extraordinarily reckless in terms of Essence expenditure. - Quendalon