Spirit Combat for creatures without POW or CHA

[Dragon]

In RQ:G, the Spirit Combat Damage chart does not mention any exceptions. It is always POW+CHA. I was wondering how this would affect Vampires and Disease Spirits.

Vampires have no POW, so when engaged by a ghost, they would do little damage. A shaman with 2 or 3 ghosts with a couple points of spirit screen on each could trounce a vampire pretty easily. (with Spell Barrage, one round of Spirit Screen casts and one round of Command Ghost). While the vampire could presumably use its Touch attack to steal back 1d4 MP, it would be losing them at much higher rates. Should vampires get to add their racial maximum POW (their effective MP limit)? 

I presume the vampire engaged in spirit combat would have to roll Concentration to use Touch attack rather than Spirit Combat to steal MP.

Disease spirits and similar spirits (passion, healing) likewise end up with low damage due to the lack of CHA. Is this intended, where a POW 24 disease spirit only does 1d6 MP damage when it wins normally? (Note: Passion is a Spirit Power, so they may have CHA in some cases.)

[Lordabdul]

Hello and welcome!

Vampires have CHA -- see RQB p106. If you don't have the Bestiary, it just says that they have their CHA as per their original species' stats.

Disease Spirits might not be meant to deal spirit damage. Instead, they just try to infect their opponent with a disease, and then flee (see RQB p166). The wording p169 indicates that they "can" do that, which seems to imply that they could also just elect to deal normal spirit damage, but I get the feeling it's a wording problem more than a lack of spirit damage stats.

Edited January 3, 2020 by lordabdul

[Bill the barbarian]

24 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Vampires have CHA -- see RQB p106. If you don't have the Bestiary, it just says that they have their CHA as per their original species' stats.

 

Ah, CHA, yes, but I believe they do not have POW just MPs they have stolen.

@Dragon, I will second lordabdul’s welcome and say that in many cases MPs could probably be used in place of POW, which means a vampire would not want to fight spirits for very long, and especially in sorcerous duels. 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Bill the barbarian

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Ah, CHA, yes, but I believe they do not have POW just MPs they have stolen.

Oops yeah sorry, I got confused. Yep, I agree, their POW is their current MP, I think.

[Joerg]

RQ3 used the current MP for "POW vs. POW" rolls, in spirit combat and in overcoming resistance to magic. While that made gaining a POW experience check a lot harder than the POW vs. POW rolls of RQG, it made magically exhausted super-characters easier to defeat.

Basically, no character wanted to use current personal MP in an encounter until absolutely necessary, and magic point matrices were essential while rules for crystals weren't there, and then crystals were re-introduced four years after publication of the rules. This also made characters who had tapped or absorbed many magic points almost invulnerable to magical attacks that needed to overcome the target's MP.

Both methods are compromises, neither are balanced in any way to create the (or at least my) narratively most desirable outcome. With the RQ3 rules, entities without a POW stat to generate MP were not a problem, as their MP were used anyway. In case of doubt, a summoner would endow such creatures with MP from the summoning ritual, or the creature would have to steal MP somehow.

That makes Spirit Combat or its sorcerous cousin Drain Soul quite effective against such creatures.

 

[Dragon]

6 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Hello and welcome!

Vampires have CHA -- see RQB p106. If you don't have the Bestiary, it just says that they have their CHA as per their original species' stats.

Disease Spirits might not be meant to deal spirit damage. Instead, they just try to infect their opponent with a disease, and then flee (see RQB p166). The wording p169 indicates that they "can" do that, which seems to imply that they could also just elect to deal normal spirit damage, but I get the feeling it's a wording problem more than a lack of spirit damage stats.

Indeed, vampires have CHA, so a vampire with CHA 21 (racial max for a former human) and no POW would inflict 1d6 in spirit combat. Or 1d4 by Touch attack (which also increases the vampires MP by the roll). So a smart vampire would choose Touch attacks most often. In my game I would not require the vampire to make a Concentration roll for that attack. They would need a Concentration roll if they wanted to attack the spirit with a weapon with e.g. Boon of Kargan Tor.

My players have not battled a vampire yet. I like the idea of using current MP to aid their Spirit Combat Damage.

I took the Disease spirits rules to mean they inflict Spirit Combat Damage as well as a level of disease on the same roll 'that is not successfully defended'. They will continue to engage the same target until they have brought the level of the disease higher, 'next degree version of a previous infection'. and it states 'chronic' is the threshold to find new victims. The question is 'chronic'. Page 154 of RiG says the levels are (in Degrees of Illness table): Mild, Acute, Serious, Terminal. But in the description in Thunder Lung implies 'chronic' is the second level and 'acute' is the third level. Clear misstatement somewhere, as the degree is not consistent. Therefore I am not certain of the trigger for disease spirits to seek a new target. I seem to recall RQ2/3 had 'chronic' as the third level (mild, acute, chronic, terminal). But I don't have those books handy while writing this.

Thanks everyone.

My players were in Snake Pipe Hollow battling broos and disease spirits from Fil-ith the Disease Master (I own both RQ2 and RQ3 versions). I will offer them a new Passion of Hate Disease if they want. Since the Ernalda priestesses sent them on the quest for the statue, the priestess will cast Restore Health once they get back. Restore Health is so much better in RQ:G than RQ3. No permanent POW loss.