Willpower Depletion / Spirit Combat

To attack another entity's force of will, the attacker must engage the defender in formal spirit combat.  In spirit combat, both parties match their Willpower against one another in order to gain dominance over the other.  Priests, Paladins, Shaman, and Gunslingers have the capacity to initiate spirit combat.

For each round of normal melee or missile combat, there can be three rounds of spirit combat.  At the beginning of the round, both participants in spirit combat roll a normal initiative.  Spirit combat begins on the lower of the two rolls, and three such rounds occur at four segment intervals from the time of the first spirit combat initiative.  Thus if a Gunslinger invoked spirit Combat against a demon, and the rolled initiatives were, respectively 4 and 6, the three rounds of spirit combat would occur on segments 4, 8, and 12.

On each of the three spirit combat rounds that occur within the standard combat round, the character must match his or her spiritual attack against the demon's (or spirit's) spiritual defense score.  For example, a Gunslinger with Willpower 15 would have a spiritual defense of 15 and a spiritual attack of 17 (they get +2 to spiritual attack as part of their character class).  Concurrently, the demon matches its spiritual attack against the character's spiritual defense.  The Universal Matrix is used for all spirit combat rolls of this type.

For each round of spirit combat, the following table can be used for assessing adjustments to current Willpower.  Spirit combat generally ends when either the character or the demon has been reduced to zero Willpower.

While spirit combat is in place, neither the character nor the summoned creature (or spirit, or Undead monster) can engage in any other actions.  A character involved in spirit combat can move at ¼ normal movement speed, parry physical blows at -4, or cry out for help, but that is the limit.  Neither the spirit nor the player character is able to invoke innate powers, or fight in normal combat.

Characters with at least a 5% empathic rating may attempt to aid or receive aid from another player character during spirit combat.  In doing so, the person giving aid must make physical contact with the engaged player character.  An empathic player can aid (or receive aid) in the form of a one-point bonus to spiritual defense.  This is the only other exception to power activation limitations during spirit combat.

Characters lending aid share all the same restrictions and vulnerabilities as the character that is primarily engaged.  For practical and logistical reasons, a maximum of five people can aid any one individual.

Multiple characters cannot gang up on a single demon.  A character can engage directly only one other person, creature, demon, or spirit at any one time.  The converse is true for demonic hosts.  For example, one powerful demon could not directly attack a group of six or seven people.  Nor could a band of three Priests engage a singular summoned creature concurrently.

Characters are at an advantage when fighting against a named demon.  All demonic hosts and summon creatures have true names which they generally keep hidden from public knowledge.  However, if a character somehow learns the demon's true name and speaks against that name while engaged in spirit combat, the demon then defends at -1.

If a demon or summoned creature's Willpower is brought to zero, that creature is then dispelled from the material world. This banishment lasts for one week per level plus remaining Willpower points of the victor.  If the demon loses all of its Willpower without ever scoring a successful attack on its vanquisher, then it is forced to reveal its secret name (if the character remembers to ask!)

If the character loses, however, then one of the following bad things happen as a result of being spiritually overcome: