The only thing that separates a ghost puncher from a loony who’s beating at the air shouting, “Take that, you ghost!” is the ability to actually see and touch ghosts. In the Ghost Punchers game, that ability is the Arcane Background “Spirit Medium.”
I recently updated Spirit Medium, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to virtually pass it around and see if my fellow savage have any insightful comments.
Arcane Background (Spirit Medium)
Requirements: Novice
Arcane Skill: Spirit Medium (Spirit)
Starting Power Points: 10
Starting Powers: 2
Available Powers: Beat Stick, Blast*, Bolt*, Boost/Lower Trait*, Burst*, Chomp, Confusion*, Damage Field*, Eviction Notice, Ferocious Fist, Ghost-dar, Lock Down, Shove Off, Slow*, Word of Binding (*Only affects ghosts.)
Through rigorous study, natural gifts, head trauma, or some other quirk of fate, mediums are able to sense and interact with the spirit world. Not all mediums take up the mantle of the ghost puncher. That’s fine. We can’t all be heroes.
Spiritual Conduit: As an action, the medium can open his senses in order to see, hear, and touch the spirit world. While the conduit is open, he can see auras around the living and the horrific shapes of the ghostly dead. (Seeing a particularly ghastly ghost when or where he isn’t expecting it may require the hero to make a Fear check.) He may also touch and damage spiritual entities (like, say, ghosts) with his bare hands as if the entity were not spiritual, and those entities can likewise touch him. This conduit remains opens for 15 minutes.
Trappings: The powers of the medium are largely invisible outside the spirit world. The common observer might see a medium tracing symbols in the air, chanting, or inscribing strange runes, but exhibiting no signs of actual supernatural power. Inside the spirit world, mediums’ powers are often accompanied by trappings that glow brighter the stronger the effect. The specific trappings are based on the medium’s background and training. A Roman Catholic exorcist may have iconic religious trappings, for example, while a scholarly occultist may have ancient sigils and strange runes.
Spiritual Blindness: When a medium rolls a 1 on his Spirit Medium die (regardless of his Wild Die), he is Shaken and his Spiritual Conduit closes, blinding him to what’s happening in the spirit world.
Every time I take the game out for a test-drive, it seems I find another layer of complexity to peel off, but I think this is pretty close to the final version. What do you think? Is it sufficiently fast, furious, and fun? If you see room for improvement, please drop me a comment and let me know.
