Okay so today I found this blog post: http://www.digitalscryer.com/293/ibm-paten...ging-exo-armor/

It got me to thinking that this would make a cool adept power, bullet dodging. The author of that post even hints that it might be effective in CQC. Now I don't have access to all the books so I dunno if a power like this exists already, if it doesn't, does anyone have any ideas what the stats would be to make it balanced? Or is it potentially game breaking?

Some fluff: The user senses disturbances in the ambient mana field such as high velocity projectiles or people about to shoot a gun (maybe a check of some kind to determine success at this) and then subconsciously calculates the trajectory, then instinctively gets out of the way.

This could also be used to protect a person I guess, being able to sense when the person becomes a target and then instinctively jumping in the way of the "bullet" bodyguard style. Thoughts?

+Ranks to ranged dodge if the shooter is more than 20m away.
1 rank could cost... 0.75 PP?

I'm thinking it should cost more than just upping your Dodge skill, as it would stack with as well as being active all the time, but less than the cost to just raise your attribute.

I did not read the link but before I do, what about Combat Reflexes? It is the bullet dodging power.

All our combat adepts start with 5 levels

BlueMax

You're thinking about Combat Sense. It adds to surprise tests as well as defending against ranged and melee attacks - it is bullet dodging and then some.

Adepts can also take improved reflexes and improved ability: dodge. For slower projectiles such as grenades or arrows, they can take missile parry, to catch them right out of the air.

Yes yes, Combat Sense. I find it Wunderbar.

BlueMax

Kind of OT, but the guy writing that blog post has no idea of the technical realities involved in any of those things. The issues to making the exo-suit work are: Actuators, sensors, processing, and actually surviving the G's from the suit accelerating you out of the way of a supersonic projectile. Given Shadowrun's levels of technology, I don't even know if something like what he describes would be feasible in 2070.

But as far as an adept power, other powers kind of have it covered, and a power that just does bullet dodging would be tough to balance against everything else available to improve that particular aspect.

You could just slap a Geas onto your Combat Sense, if you really wanted something to be bullets only, I guess.

Combat Sense + Improved Ability: Dodge

-paws

That plus Improved Initiative so you can use future actions defensively, would make you very, very difficult to kill. Infact, change that to Move-by-Wire for extra Dodge goodness.

- J.

Stick with the Increased Reflexes (or whatever the magical IP booster is).

MBW's Dodge bonus is redundant with Improved Ability: Dodge since they're both skill modifications. Plus, reducing your magic reduces the max rating of your Combat Sense.

-paws

Wow. I think that's my first double post here...
-paws

It's interesting;; from the original patent mentioned in the article and its links, I didn't immediately picture it as an Iron Man-esque exo suit. My immediate feeling was that it'd be more like electro muscle stimulation; triggering your own muscles to react in the correct, very fast, way.

I actually think something like this would be a lot simpler to engineer using currently existing technology, we have muscle stimulators already and it would be much more portable and power friendly. I imagine it might function somewhat like a reflex recorder maybe? I dunno, I'm very tired, night all.

Well, you could make an adept power that lets you add dodge dice to a defense roll, or double dodge when on full defense. So you'd have the same defense dice on ranged and melee attacks. Of course, you'd probably have to give it a fairly decent cost. Maybe a cost of 2 power points.

Wasn't there an Adept power from SotA 2064 called "Side Step" that gave you combat pool dice just for dodging?

I don't have the book infront of me but I think the cost was similar to improved skill, and with SR4 doing away with combat pool I'd say Improved skill Dodge would do the same thing for you.