What kind of options do you guys go for with spirit hunters? I'm thinking more about mundane characters or aspected mages with weird powers, like null adepts. I'm thinking maybe a silver dagger and bullets along with a laser pistol.

High willpower and charisma. You might be able to take banishing, I'm not sure. Our first GM allowed it, but as I'm discovering he house ruled a lot without telling us. This is now causeing problems.

Anyway, melee skill. Does a bow and arrow still hurt them?

Flamethrower, watergun (for fire elementals) Tess' blooms (to raise background count.)

Anything that does massive damage. The have immunity normal weapon a good chunk of the time, but a vindicator with ex ex will still have a shot at hurting it.

hmmm, will think more.

Actually the Seven Samurai Archetypes had a Bug Hunter (for hunting bug spirits). A lot of those skills were anti-spirit as well, you might want to take a look at em. Don't have the link right now, so somebody else will have to link it.

I made a witch hunter character once... int and will were both 6 or higher, and I gave him dual natured (10 point SURGE flaw) but magic resistance 4 and astral hazing. While he could be targeted from the astral, target numbers for most spells were 10 or higher, making him extreamly resistant, and the background count he generated helped too.

I went with shotguns for damage... with rocksalt or Big D rounds they do quite a bit.

JaronK

Lasers work. Tasers work (personally I'd go with tasers, electrical damage work better against certain spirits, ok... so the damage is stun, big deal). Flamethrowers, yeah, they're nice too (be careful not to damage the fuel tank).

But being an Otaku works surprisingly well too. Eat Willpower 9 and Charisma 11!

You'll have to bite the bullet and get some sort of magical ability or be otherwise able to astrally perceive (ghoul, shapeshifter, SURGEling, cyber zombie if your GM is completely insane) if you want to hunt spirits besides shedim and bug spirits since they can just de-materialize. The only way I know of for completely mundane character to hurt a spirit on the astral is with FAB, and that is way too slow and opens a whole can of worms, or rampant awakened bacteria if you will.

Adept with a rating 10 virtuoso performace created. Oh, hello there mr fire elemental, let me start ballroom dancing. *adept dances, elemental is enthralled*. Unless elementals force is > 12, elemental poofs. Adept stops dancing.

Love the ideas, especially the Dual Natured flaw. Can you astrally perceive or are you just dual? I'm thinking of a Van Helsing or D type char (I can hear the groans already ) with some kick a$$ weapons, some weird powers and dressed in a black hat and black long coat. Like I mentioned before, what about this?

Null Adepts and Negamages.

Thanks for the ideas!

Dual Natured means not only can you Astrally Perceive, but you take no penalties for performing non-magical tasks while doing so.

Actually, that witch hunter was based on Van Helsing...

If you're dual natured, you're always astrally percieving, but you don't take the usual +2 TN penalty for mundane actions. This makes the character able to see through any illusion, and detect any spell. Of course, you can be attacked by purely astral targets without being able to fight back unless they enter melee, which is why it's a flaw.

JaronK

The magic resistance helped didn't it? I'm sure the astral hazing worked too. I hear lasers are really good against spirits.
This char of mine would also hunt down rogue paranormals as well such as vamps and wendigo's.

How effective was your char JaronK? Did he get his butt kicked or did he do the kicking?

Here's a question:


How does a taser work on a water elemental?

If spirits are unaffected by stun, perhaps you'll tell me the difference between disrupted and destroyed?

How does a taser work on a water elemental? The normal way I suppose. I'm afraid I do not quite grasp the point of your question.

sorry, I mean, is the electrical damage damage harder to resist because they are made of water. more conductive..whatever

I knew someone would say something like that.
I was expecting more like "you shoot it, it hits"

I understand, but there is no additional damage to water elementals due to electrical damage. The only thing related is that electrical spells become area effect in water.

I guess it wouldn't matter since they don't exactly have armor anyways.

Except great forms.

I'll probably be flamed so badly because of this that I'll need hospitalization, but all I have to say is:

"Who you gonna call?"



Back on-topic, though:

toturi:

Regarding what you said about electricity and Water Elementals, would a cold- or heat-based weapon or spell work?

I realize that it would probably take a LOT of either to incapacitate a Great Form Elemental-- even temporarily--but could it be done?

--Foreigner

Foreigner, I'm sorry, but we must now cook you alive and serve you up as a stew

Or, at very least, groan, whimper and possibly weep.

Dawnshadow:

Stick to the "groan, whimper, and possibly weep" part.

Between the scar tissue (twenty-plus surgeries for my various ailments) and the weight problem caused by my love of good food, I suspect that what didn't boil off during the cooking process would be rather tough--if not completely inedible. Not to mention that I'd probably taste pretty bad because of the drugs I have to take just to function somewhat normally.

If anything at all was left, I don't think that even a starving cannibal would enjoy it.

However, ghouls and the like (the various Essence-stealers, for example) are another matter.



--Foreigner

The thing to remember about materialised spirits is that they have Immunity to Normal Weapons. So if you can convince your GM that the weapon you are using is not Normal, then it is useful against materialised spirits. What I have suggested are the usual weapons that GMs consider to be not Normal. Some other suggested weapons may be grenades (blast damage), gyrojet pistol (blast damage), liquid nitrogen (cold damage).

Elementals are not listed as being immune (or even resistant) to their own element in canon. Technically a water Cannon works quite well against a Water Elemental, while a Flame Thrower is still a valid choice of weapon against a Fire Elemental. The only consideration is whether the attack is considered to be Elemental in nature.

Brings new meaning to "Fight fire with fire." Most people focus on opposing elemental attacks because of an elemental's vulnerability to such assaults.

Can't find the sheet at the momemnt but I've half made such a character type before.

Going from memory he was part of an order of phycial adepts who trained and specialized in spirit/paracritter hunting.
This order/school taught a few basic skills and standard adept powers, but outside of those, members were encouraged to develope their own particualrs to their adept powers.
Standard skills:
Martial arts: w/Focus Willpower
Force of Will technique for combating spirits.

Standard Powers:
Astral Perception (geased with the Obvious Magic flaw)
Distance Strike (optional use of Incantation geas)
Improved Reflexes (level of choice)
Killing Hands is highly encouraged but not mandatory
Magic Sense or Improved Senses also suggested but not madatory.

One of the unique methods taught by the order is the use of Force of Will in combination with Distance Strike allowing spirit hunter adepts to make ranged strikes against spirits giving them an advantage over normally fighting them face to face in melee via Force of Will.

I also thought about using the Spell-as-Adept-Power (forgot the name) ability that got edited/cut from MitS to allow them to throw Astral Barriers up at will (which isn't too out of place since they can create wards why not be able to slap a barrier up on short notice as well) But the costs were way to prohibitive.

Personally i like the idea that joe shumoe that is a bit of a leader and has an attitude, can take spirits on with a solid curtain rail. I also agree with the thought that anybody intending to take on spirits should carry a telescoping staff.

So, for weapons, I am thinking about a laser pistol, stun baton and water cannon and flame thrower. Are there any stats for man portable water cannons or flame throwers?

Flamethrowers in CC, Water cannon would be a spray tank filled with water, also in CC.

I think hazing is aspected to not negatively affect the person, but I'd have to look at it again to be sure. Is there a reason no one commented on the super virtuoso adept power?