http://www.gutterfighting.org/jellybryce.html

Unless am mistaken an adept can be a far superior marksman to a street sam. You can take improved ability with a fire arm of your choice and possibly pay the magic point to have a smart link 2 installed (or use a laser sight and rely on skill.)

The only problem is that adepts don’t make good generalists while a street sam can fairly easily be quite good in 3 or 4 weapons.

Edward

I sincerely doubt his claim as to seeing the bullet, but that’s still quite impressive.

Even at a measly 500 feet per second your eyes would have to capture sometime within the first .02 seconds to see the bullet somewhere within the first ten feet. While that isn’t out of the realm of possibility, it’s still pretty unlikely. If you want to see the bullet as it leaves the gun (we’ll be generous and give it a full foot), you’re down to .002 seconds; to reliably see that, your eyes would have to capture at all of 500 frames per second!

I guess the test would be, could he stand to watch movies? If so, his eyes almost definitely didn’t capture fast enough.

~J

adepts are luddites...? sheesh, nobody told me!

Short of dissecting the man, it's impossible to know how he did what he did.

But adepts can be far superior gunslingers - but like anything else, once the adept is specialized, (s)he becomes a one-trick pony.

And to be fair, I'm not sure that cybernetics provides any better ability to mimic the gunslinger's abilities.

For all we know, Mr. Bryce may have just spent a helluvalot of his magic points on IA: handguns and a very kind GM allowed him to use the IA dice as a comp bonus to his perception score when applied to firearms.

-Siege

It has previously been proposed that the world is a role-playing game but I am quite confident in saying that god is not a generous GM.

The fooling cybernetics help you be a better gunslinger.

Quickness enhancement (preferably bio) to allow the skill to be purchased at a more favourable cost. And aditional combat pool

Strength enhancement for natural recoil reduction.

Improved int biowear. Additional combat pool

Smart link (or version 2) reduce target numbers

Range finder reduce target numbers at range

Enhanced articulation +1 dice to physical uses of the skill (are there any non physical uses of gun skills)

Reflex recorder +1dice

Image magnification reduce target numbers at range (available as scope).

That is all I can think of off the top of my head but there may be others.

There are just as many ways to improve your skill as an adept but you are more limited in the number of improvements you can take.

Also remember you can mix the 2 and a smart link 2 is probably worth the loss of magic. –2 target numbers and your dice are reduced from 12 to 10 (assuming some combat pool and you reduce your improve skill gun by 2 points)

Edward

nor does using a smartlink-2 require cyberware. you just need smartlink-2 goggles. granted, you'll only get -1 TN instead of -2, but you still get the lower called shot TN.

Ted Williams could tell what seam on a baseball he hit the ball on. Ron Luciano, in his book, The Umpire Strikes Back, talks about seeing Williams do it in spring training, many years after he had retired. They pine tarred the bat and then checked the mark on the ball where Ted said he hit it.

He and Yeager and Neil Armstrong all had 20/10 vision or better as well. Which brings up a new point. It is expected that by 2010 laser surgery will be able to correct eyes to 20/10 vision (nice symmetry there...). So, we are proceeding nicelhy toward building a better human.

Twelve dice, TN 2: 10 sucesses. Eighteen dice, TN 4: 9 successes.

Seventeen dice, TN 2, ~14 successes.

~J

Don't forget the geas possibilities - the adept might not even have to lose the point of magic.

-Siege

Snicker.

Geas the magic loss from "Smartlink 2" with "only when unarmed".

-Siege

Meh. One initiation and you're good again. Definitely worth it. Learn Wildcat, too, for the called shot bonus.

Geas, +12 dice, smartlink.....that's all you need.


Ah, so cheesy. So broken.

Sure Kage - but that's no longer cheesy and broken.

-Siege

Well, unless you've got a skill of 12, you're only using six of those IA points anyway, so it's a crippled character, not a cheesy one.

IA is limited by Magic and Skill. A Grade 6 initiate with Pistols 12 deserves to be that utterly sick with a gun.

~J

If you did nothing but spend magic points on IA: handgun and still managed to live long enough to Initiate not only once, but six times, you can be as cheesy as you like.

-Siege

Keep in mind that IA: Pistols only costs a half-point per, so you've got six points of other powers by that point.

~J

Is the lighting fluorescent where you shoot, by any chance?

~J

That guy Bryce is definitely up there with, if not beyond, fellows like Mas Oyama and Bruce Lee.

It's not that amazing. I've seen the bullet from a .44 plenty of times, same as Raygun. Outside. Of course, that's ONLY when I'm staring straight down the trajectory, so pretty much only my own shots. The only time I've ever seen someone else's bullet was when I was right over their shoulder. No way I could see one going across my field of vision. I suppose I could see one coming straight in, too, but I'd rather not test that theory.

So I'd say Jelly's claim of being able to follow a bullet's trajectory is varying degrees of amazing depending on the conditions.

I'm surprised nobody brought up enhanced artwinkulation or reflex recorders for that extra boost.

They had bioware back then?

I remember reading about stories, stories mind you, about some of those old WWII Japanese soldiers who never got the order to surrender learning how to dodge bullets. The secret was said to be the time they'd do a raid or something. They would try to stage an attack around sunset, with the sun hanging low. They could see the reflection of the low sun coming off the bullet traveling toward them and evade accordingly. I assume this was one of those trial and error type things, were you're only wrong once. Also, I also believe this was only against single or maybe a couple of armed opponents and probably at long ranges with bolt action or semi-automatic rifles.

Would eth idea not be to start with pistols 6 IA pistols 6 (3 points of magic) a smart link 2 & range finder a geasa (witch I believed was chosen by the adept with the GMs approval) and 3 points of magic spent on other things. Starting character 12 dice + combat pool of up to 6 moderately impressive average successes for an important shot at med or long range 12.

You increase your pistols skill one point. Initiate increase your IA pistols 1 point and something else with the other ½ magic point.

After doing this 6 times you have 12 pistols and IA pistols 12. For a truly important shot you can role 36 dice (assuming you have at least 12 combat pool) Average successes at medium or long range without other modifiers 24.

Whatever you do you don’t by all the IA pistols at the start before you can use it otherwise you cripple the character.

Edward

Doesn’t max level of IA: Pistols go off of the base skill?

~J

Yeah, it does, page 169 SR3. I'll revise the costs.

Pistols - 6
Edge: Aptitude (Pistols) - (+4 Edge)
Enhanced Skill (Pistols) - 6 dice (3 Magic points)
Increased Reflexes - 2 (3 Magic points)
Combat Pool - 6

Firing Pistol - 18 dice

Karma Pool - Priceless

GM character approval ???

Cheers

QM

You'd better believe there's GM approval needed if you're planning on Aptitude (Pistols) edge. The other dumpshockers didn't forget about aptitude, they just didn't consider it an option.

It can't, nor can it with pistols. Nor, for most intents and purposes, with longbows at shortish range.

~J

Assuming you're watching for the rifle muzzle flash of an enemy in a known position at a very, very long range, you could probably react to it by moving in some direction. I found quotes of 1.5-2.5 second flight times to 1000 meters for different 7.62mm rifle shots (the 7.62x39mm probably takes much longer than that, the .30-06 apparently just about or under 2sec). At night, you could easily see the muzzle flash that far.

At reasonable engagement ranges, though, that's just not going to happen. At 100 meters, you're looking at a flight time of 0.3 to 0.4 seconds, not enough for a normal human being to initiate significant movement, and that still assumes you were basically watching for a muzzle flash from a particular point.

Still, seeing the incoming bullet and then dodging it sounds like BS. As usual for war stories.

In one second you could drop some 4.905ish meters, so I suppose that's possible. Unlikely once you start taking actual time to react and considering that a lot of your body is in the way when it comes to just falling down.

~J

Extremely unlikely in any actual situation where someone is being shot at, certainly. Damn near impossible in any firefight.

Artwinkulation and reflex recorders are only a possibility if the GM will allow geasa - otherwise adding two dice isn't worth the cost in Magic (Imho).

Couple a smartlink with a tricked-out cyber eye and you've got a pretty effective gun-bunny.

-Siege

Two dice in exchange for one potential level of IA:P?

~J