Ghostly Movement

Ghostly Movement is a subtype of Warp, allowing an entity to move at their full Move whenever unobserved (see details below). It's most commonly used for "Slasher" type entities who, despite moving at a walking pace, seem to cover a lot of ground whenever they're not seen.

Details

Ghostly Movement: Warp (Accessibility, Only if unobserved, -20%; Accessibility, Only places you could walk/climb to, given time, -20%; Extra Carrying Capacity, Medium, +20%; Range Limit, -50%) [30].

Notes

Requires a Move maneuver in combat. You can get anywhere within Move yards, provided that nobody is looking and that you could have gotten there “the hard way,” given sufficient time. For example, you could move from the floor of an office into the heating vent above you, with the grate closed behind you, in a second. As a special effect, any mundane requirements for getting from A to B replace Warp’s usual success roll, and Warp fails if you can’t meet them; e.g., if you would need a Lockpicking roll, you must know Lockpicking, while if you would have to unscrew a bolt, you require a wrench. The GM decides whether this is “actual” Warp, some sort of super-speed, or simply a special effect of being a psycho killer. 30 points.

Examples

Examples of creatures which have it:

• Psycho Killer with DX+HT 13
• Handsome Stranger with DX+HT 12
• Ripper with DX11/HT13
• Man In Black variation Tulpa based on Mature Tulpa (H81) based on Specter (H27) based on Spirit (B263)

Why DX/HT are relevant is the Basic Speed which derives from them: this is 6 for the Ripper/Strange and 6.5 for the PK.

Using the +20% Sprinting bonus (rounds down) means a maximum move of yards/second of 7.

This is why Warp was given Maximum Range of 10 yards: they are limited to their move speed in addition to that (always less).

The Watcher has something similar in that it uses a Move maneuver instead of a Concentrate, but presumably would still require a success roll: it uses no roll required to remove it!

Tactics

This ability is resisted by "hard" obstacles that would completely bar a creature's movement, but has seemingly no affect on obstacles that would slow movement. Deep snow, water, rivers, stairs, traps and wires, loose marbles, caltrops, etcetera, are all bypassed. This can make a ghostly-moving creature particularly dangerous in situations with hazardous or treacherous terrain!

Discussions

• Ghostly Movement, Variants -- on the Steve Jackson Games Forums