The Powers

Each Witch gets a particular power with which to fight the forces of evil. It is linked to her sorcery quality, but the loss of the power does not always deprive her of the ability to cast spells. However the power provides a quick and more convenient weapon than spell casting. The Witch gets no choice about what her power will be, it is simply something she is born with. A non Witch could take a power quality as some form of natural talent. However, they should stick to something ‘psychic’ like Empathy or Telekinesis, as Time Freezing and the like is harder to rationalise for a non Witch/Demon. If you have taken a power as a talent rather than part of the witch quality, you should use the system from the Buffy rules as it stands. The Buffy Corebook and Monster Smackdown have a variety of powers and abilities for characters and demons that convert easily to a Charmed style. However, for it is worth putting rules to the Halliwell’s powers so you can use them in your own game with your own characters.

Telekinesis (Pru) - functions just like Telekinesis in the Buffy rules.

Precognition (Phoebe) - Use the ‘Psychic Visions’ quality but for a more active power the Director may allow the character to make a power roll to gain impressions from objects and people.

Time Freezing (Piper) - The use of this power requires a power roll, with the success level determining the amount of people affected. For each two success levels achieved, one person is frozen in time for a minute. If you roll well, you can use extra success levels to lengthen the time of the freeze. For each additional two success levels you may add an extra minute of time. However, success levels can only be use to freeze people or add to their time, not both. Many powerful Demons are immune to this power, also Warlocks modify the roll by -3 and all Demons modify it by -5. For instance, Piper wants to Freeze her Warlock assailant. Her willpower is 7 and her sorcery level is only 2. She rolls a 7 giving her a total of 16, but as her opponent is a Warlock the roll is modified by -3 for 13, a success level of 3. Luckily she only needed 2 success levels to freeze one person, so the Warlock stops for 1 minute. If he hadn’t been a Warlock, she would have gained 4 success levels and been able to keep him frozen for an extra minute, or frozen a second person.

Orb (Paige/Leo) – This power functions just like Teleport, but with pretty blue lights. It requires a power roll to activate, but luckily failure just means it doesn’t work. This is not a power that will put you in a wall. It is possible but extremely difficult to Orb between magical dimensions but apart from that most places are fair game. The Director will set higher difficulties for attempts to cross greater distances. To give you a baseline, crossing a city should be a pretty average use of the power. The only proviso for using this power is having at least some idea about where you are going. You must have been there before, or at least have a very good idea about where it is. Saying ‘I’ll Orb to the bad guy’s lair’ is no use at all unless you know where it is. An ‘Orber’ can also teleport items into their hands that are in their line of sight by calling them, such as the gun the bad guy is pointing at you. This requires you to be able to say the name of the item aloud and make a power roll with a -2 penalty.

Healing (Leo) - This power is usually a power for a Whitelighter but it can be a Witch power as well. The mechanics are simple; it costs one life point to heal someone of two life points worth of damage. You must decide how many points you wish to use before making the roll. Then you need to get one success level for every ten life points you wish to heal. Failure costs you two life points, but does allow you to try again. Of course, this only works for your friends. So the Witch with this power may also heal herself at a rate of one life point each round. However, this counts as an action.

Upgraded Powers

Upon gaining her Sixth level of the Sorcery quality, a Witch may gain another power. It costs 15 experience points to gain a new power, which must have some sort of relation to her original power. Whenever making a power roll for the second power, treat the sorcery quality as if it was five levels lower than it is. The second power is never as strong as the primary one. Gaining a third power is up to the Director, but shouldn’t even be considered without a Sorcery quality of at least twelve.

Astral Projection (Pru) – A secondary power to Telekinesis, this power allows the Witch to leave her body and become insubstantial. While using this power the witch appears to pass out and remains unaware of what is going on around her body. However any feelings of pain will register and allow her to return. While projecting the Witch moves twice as fast as normal and may pass through walls and other mundane barriers. She is invisible to most people, but may become visible by making a power roll, and it takes another roll for her to be able to be heard. She may never become substantial, or use other powers through her astral form. At any time she may return instantly to her body, with no more effect that feeling a bit groggy as if just woken up.

Vanquishing (Piper) – The advance for a Time Freezing Witch is the ability to blast demons back to hell. Each success level gained when using this power does 10 points of damage to a demon. However, if that isn’t enough to destroy the evil creature, the damage is not applied. This power will not work on anything that isn’t a Hell creature, and many of the more powerful ones are immune to the power, or at least very resistant. In such cases grant them more life points whenever this power is used on them.

Empathy (Phoebe) - This advance to precognition is detailed in 'The Magic Box' supplement for Buffy.

Other Powers
The Buffy and Angel games both offer more options for new Witch powers. The following can be found in the Buffy and Angel books and work pretty much as they are for new Witch powers, Disembody, Flight, Hypnosis, Illusion (level 1 – level 2 as upgrade), Influence, Regeneration and Telepathy. Some of these powers are fully detailed as player character qualities, and others are demon abilities. Some are quite potent and should only be allowed as upgrade powers. The rules in the Angel Corebook for creating demons may also be a useful source for more powers.