New Adept Power

Weapon Defense
Cost: 0.25
Prerequisite: Combat Sense, Missile Parry
Some Adepts develop even more precise handling of their favorite weapon
than it has been known. The quickest among them extend the ability to catch
slow moving missiles to deflecting even bullets.
Adepts with this power may substitute Dodge (or Gymnastics) with a weapons
skill of their choice when using Full Defense in ranged combat. This only works
against single bullets shot in SS or SA mode and uses up your next action as
normal. The type of weapon has to be chosen when aquiring this power and
its eligibility is up to the GM. Sharp blades like Katanas or guns are fine, but
some club-type weapons might be destroyed when hit. When defending with a
gun, you need to have enough bullets loaded.


This for all those pink mohawk groups out there!

Updated!

So very mohawk

My crazier NPCs may very well have this from now on

Awesome idea... Not worth the point of magic.
Still enjoy the concept though

I'd modify it a bit though.
Make it .25 per point w/ prereq of missile Parry and combat sense. Max point = to missile parry.
Ability extends missile parry to include deflecting bullets w/ hard items such as swords, clubs, sheet metal. Bonus equal adds to parry or dodge

I was about to suggest 0.25 as well.

I was thinking more Vash the Stampede rather than Pink Mohawk..... though Vash often did go pretty Pinky.

Updated. Included Missile Parry.

What about using Unarmed Combat or Palming to catch Bullets?

Now you're stretching suspension of disbelief. If you're going to catch the bullet, somehow this magic power must be able to dissipate all the force behind the bullet (you become Neo) and/or toughen your hands (you become Colossus) so that it can resist that force. Regardless of whether it's the former or the latter why does it only work with your hands? Why can't it work with the rest of your body?

Anime and movies are full of martial arts characters doing just this (I've been watching dragon ball again and this happens at least twice that i can think of). I don't see how it stretches it any further than otherwise, and it fits with the theme of unarmed physical adepts.

If you're going to go that route, go all the way, Hunter × Hunter style.

Bruce Leroy catches Bullets with his teeth...
But that is likely due to the fact that he's the Master...

No, he only "THINKS" he's the master.

Chuck Norris is the Master. He doesn't have to catch the bullets with his teeth. The bullets put themselves there.
And Chuck doesn't have to glow for it.

Does this also defend against indirect spells? if not, would a variant that allows that be balanced? (think lightsaber blocking force lightning, blasting a fireball out of the air with a well placed shot, ect.)

how many bullets does it take to stop a bullet? how about a missile?

also, could there be a variant version for mystic adepts that allows them to shoot incoming rounds out of the air with indirect spells? 'cos i think it'd be cool to be able to blast a fireball out of the air with a blast of ice or visa versa.

EDIT: clarity edit.

Think Ozymandias from Watchmen.




-k

To stop? Negating force worth of bullets. A .50cal round traveling at 500m/s east would be stopped by a .50cal traveling at 500m/s west. It wouldn't be stopped by a 9mm traveling at 400m/s west or a .50cal traveling at 500m/s south.

Deflecting would take a lot less force.

No, but it might deflect it enough to miss, or slow it down enough to not penetrate. Which is equally good for the purposes of not-getting-hurt by it.

Let's say we're in a vacuum because external ballistics is a bitch.

A 52g Barnes .50 has a muzzle velocity of 882m/s. Convert units for Newtons and you have a 0.052kg bullet traveling at 882m/s for a force of 45.864 Newtons.

A 7.45g JHP +P+ has a muzzle velocity of 435m/s. Convert units for Newtons and you have a 0.00745kg bullet traveling at 435m/s for a force of 3.24075 Newtons (7% of the force of the .50 cal).

Someone who has a stronger knowledge of physics than me would have to explain what the result would be of those objects striking each other from head on to a perfectly perpendicular angle (to achieve maximum deflection). I'd assume that head on, the .50cal would lose around 7-15% of its force from the collision. It would be very difficult to tell since bullets are very inelastic objects.

7% seems right to me. A head-on collision would not end well.
(I wasn't sure what the physics values were when I made my prior post, was an off-the-cuff remark over breakfast)

I would guess it would actually be closer to 30-60% of the energy, because the 50-Cal is going to tear through the 9 mm and a lot of energy is going to be used in the deformation of both bullets. Granted a 50-Cal can lose 90% of its starting energy and still be deadly. There's no way the 50-Cal is going to keep going along the same path as it was to start though. Both because the collision will change its momentum and because deformation during the collision will cause it to have an unpredictable flight path and it will probably start to tumble.

And on a related note, starting at minute two, collisions of a pellet with a bullet in flight (the rest is pretty cool to). It's from the side, but still interesting-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Qf...mp;feature=fvwp


Aside: Stealth Sigma you're talking about momentum, not force. The units are N-s.

I had no idea that bullets (and metal sheets) operated like liquids under that kind of pressure.

That was really cool to watch.

Right, but given the distances that are probable to be involved, there may not be enough distance between the impact point and the target for the deviation to cause the bullet to fly on a harmless trajectory.

I think the best way to handle a power to permit you to shoot bullets in mid air is to treat it as giving you the ability to perform a ranged parry on full defense (Weapon Skill + Reaction).

Makki... strongly disagree. At 0.25 point it's BADLY undercosted. It allows the character to use his ATTACK stat as his defense stat.

I could see 0.75 or 0.5. (that'll come down with a gaesa requirement if allowed). But at 0.25 way under even with the prereq (yeah 0.25 to be able to do the first... then 0.25 more to add the second against bullets. Too cheap for a melee specialist).

Melee weapons skills include unarmed combat I'll point out.


There's a fairly vocal contingent who always argues adepts are overpriced, but I'm not among them. Adepts are some of the most useful magical types if done right (because they don't need to invest in known spells or even magical skills. They can focus their magic purely on enhancing their specialty while spending points normally elsewhere. And can also benefit strongly from mixing magic and machine to best effect).


Really cool slow motion link. Right at the 2:00 mark there's some great footage of bullet hitting bullet it looks like.

This makes me think of Red Dwarf: specifically, Gunmen of the Apocalypse, one of the best episodes ever.

"The call me the kid! the Rivera Kid!" *mariachi strum.*

I had a thought about this a way back.

I would say that you MUST have some kind of Initiative ware/power for that to work.

Think of it this way.

IP's 1 : Person reacts normally
IP's 2 : Person is twise as fast as a normal person
IP's 3 : Etc...
IP's 4 : Etc...

An average heavy pistol could have a bullet speed of 400-475 m/s
For someone with 4 IP's they would perceive the bullet at (lets say 400m/s) a speed of 100m/s

Instead of demanding a specific adept power for it I would instead set up a few conditions:
Melee Weapon: Must have a melee weapon OR a ranged weapon with Melee Hardening (to not get shot to pieces)
Character must have a specialization or Maneuver called "Bullet Deflection".

You get a negative range modifier equal to the range of the attacker - the closer they are the higher the penalty.
(If enemy shoots at extreme range you have 0 modifier - if they shoot at short range you have -4D6 modifier)
Penalty is offset by your amount of IP's - It's easier to time a block the further away the shooter is.

Defender rolls his Melee Weapon skill instead of dodging VS attacker successes

It's enough of an investment in skills and gear or abilities for something that is more a flair for the dramatic than being effective.

It would make IPs even better than they are allready...

Not really as it would ONLY be applicable to this combination.

Dodging a bullet is simpler than trying to INTERCEPT a bullet with a weapon - hence the negative dice modifier due to bullet speed and/or range.

This means that trying to intercept a bullet and parry it is exceedingly difficult unless your perception speed is enhanced.

Also, you dont get your reaction for this test that reaction enhancers usually gets a bonus on. All you have is your skill with a blade and your IP's to gauge your reaction speed.

We could say that you get SKILL+REACTION BONUS instead to keep it in line with reaction/dodge tests and up the required successes instead.

Take a knife to a gunfight... CUT THE BULLETS IN HALF!

My Orc adept can now punch bullets

OUT

OF

THE

SKY!

Do they pierce the heavens?

I'd keep it at .25 especially with the otherwise fairly weak missile deflection talent pre-req. It requires a full defense so the probably somewhat small savings in karma from not having to invest in dodge does not seem like a big deal to me.

I agree, taking this doesn't necessarily make the character better at dodging, it just opens up a new way to do it that saves them a little bit of BP/Karma. And at the cost of .5 worth of magic points (since they have to get the fairly mediocre missile deflection as well).

quick edit: clarification