Precognitive Parry

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Prerequisites: Trained By A Master or Weapon Master; Danger Sense or Precognition; and one melee combat skill at 18+.
Precognitive Parry (IQ/H) is a cinematic skill. Buying it requires an 18+ melee combat skill and at least 2 advantages: either Danger Sense or Precognition and either Weapon Master or Trained By A Master.GURPS Martial Arts p 62 It benefits from the higher of MA47's Forceful Chi or B256's ESP Talent.
It is introduced as an alternative to Enhanced Time Sense to allow parrying normally unparryable bullets/beams. A normal failure still allows you to choose a defense which works (like a dodge) while a crit fail misleads you and prohibits it (you cannot attempt to dodge attacks you think will miss, it makes you overconfident).
The skill also helps against melee, thrown, or slower missiles. It can be rolled to get a bonus. Failure causes a penalty and crit fails make you think it will miss and prohibit defense.
==when to specify==
"You may opt" means it is not mandatory to incur this risk, making precognitive parry an active rather than passive/reflexive use.
The interesting thing like that, is it effectively seems to be a "free action", and normally those can only be "turned on" at the start of a turn. Using free actions during opponent's turns is only usually allowed via Power Dodge.
For that reason, whether or not to "have it turned on or off" should probably be specified during one's turn, not spur-of-the-moment during attacks.
Power Pseudododge rules might be extrapolated to apply outside the physical abilities opted in on P167 ("movement ability" or "physical transformation") perhaps with base skill derived from something other than Basic Speed. S127 still bases dodges on Basic Speed even when IQ subs for DX in parries/blocks. It might make sense, when using Psychic Duels or activating mental abilities on others' turns, to sub IQ for DX when calculating Basic Speed, in terms of calculating a "mental dodge".
==Parry Missile Weapons==
How this skill would interact hasn't really been specified. B212 normally allows only large thrown, small thrown or low-tech missiles. High-tech missiles (bullets) require ETS to do at -5.
Precognitive Parry thus seems to substitute not just for ETS (which can't parry bullets on it's own) but rather for the COMBINATION.
PMW doesn't appear to care what implement is being used, nor synergize with any skill in certain weapons. Using Social Engineering approach, it could traditionally make sense to allow a skill roll in appropriate melee weapon to influence the PMW roll.
Post-traditionally with this new approach (the PP skill allowing no-penalty melee parries) it functions sort of like an add-on technique, except with a setup roll instead of a penalty.
There doesn't seem to be synergy, but the SE approach could perhaps use Parry Missile Weapons (not halved) to set up Precognitive Parry, or vice versa.
Another approach might be to nerf Precognitive Parry: instead of success letting you do a no-penalty roll with your melee skill, just have success give you 1 second worth of Enhanced Time Sense to allow you to use Parry Missile Weapons.
PMW might also be approached as a technique instead of a skill: consider how it has +4/+2 vs thrown weapons which CAN be parried normally (B376 -1 large -2 small). This basically gives +5 to parry large, +4 to parry small in respect to that.
MA92 design rules let you buy off defensive penalties 1-for-1. "final default modifier can never give a bonus" is obviously a soft rule (some techniques DO give bonuses) so that's probably a "benefit" you buy for -1 to skill (much like ignoring the cap of 9 on wild/move)
"Inability to defend against a broad category of attacks" would apply a +1 bonus here: you could argue PMW doesn't protect against close-combat attacks, which is close enough to 'melee attacks' (non-ranged).
The 1 benefit / 1 drawback cancel-out means you could just buy the difference of +4, which would cost the same as buying a hard skill up to DX.
Balancewise the benefit is you get a bonus to parries based on an underlying skill instead of an entirely new one, but the downside is that it only works with parries you can do with that skill, so it wouldn't float to all weapons as PMW does, unless you took Technique Adaptation.
Note: the -5 penalty relative to PMW's +2 to parry small thrown is a net -7, so if you add that to the -2 to parry large weapons you get a -9 to parry bullets with Enhanced Time Sense
*Dodge This in Gunplay (pyramid 3-57 p 9) doesn't go quite that far under Incoming! because it only applies a -7 or -8 to parry pistol or rifle bullets, and actually reduces this further by assuming a +2 parry for "if you can see it you can predict it"
Cole says "Parry most thrown weapons at no penalty or -1, arrows at -2 or -3, and bullets at -5 or -6. This is close enough to the guidance for Parry Missile Weapons that it shouldn’t break the game" but this is actually FAR from what PMW does.
*Cole is correct that -5 or -6 for bullets is close to the -5 for bullets under PMW, but you need Enhanced Time Sense to get that in the first place
*PMW is MUCH BETTER (+4 or +2) at parrying thrown things than this implies: no penalty or -1 is pathetic by comparison
**Cole was probably thinking how -1 resembled the -1 for thrown and -2 for small thrown, but that was for those NOT using the PMW skill
*arrows at -2 or -3 isn't particular close to "minus zero" for PMW
The key aspect missing from Cole's approach of using the Speed/Range table penalties to DX is that it ignores the Size Modifier to Intercepting the Projectile
*Cole DOES apply the Size modifier under Incoming but while that correctly emulates "small things are hard to notice" it doesn't emulate "small things are hard to parry". You would need to exactly place a sword much more accurately to intercept a bullet compared to a beachball, even if they were traveling at the same speed.
**applying the SM to the 2nd roll (DX) makes things far more gritty and realistic
***this could be applied to parrying weapons too, but only for fighting invisible or tiny foes who wield visible weapons, where the weapon is the largest part
****in the case of large foes, you could just watch the movement of their larger-limbs to gauge the path of small weapons wielded by them. In the case of long/narrow weapons though, you should use the range modifier to the limb to figure out total penalty to hit the limb, and only use that if it's better.
*****here thrust/swing could matter: you could be at max penalty (super small) to parry "just the tip" of a weapon (particularly an impaling one, super-thin) attacked from a perfectly perpendicular angle, but be much more able to parry swings since you can see the visible ark of a weapon which is long.
==sacrificial dodges with your limbs==
With PMW you can just deflect bullets with weapons (or 2 DR wristbands/gloves) and they aren't subject to damage.
The result of precognitive parry is more like a block than a parry, in the sense of using B484's Damage to Shields, except the damage ALWAYS applies rather than only applying when MoS on a defense is less than DB+1.
MA124's Parrying Weapons mod for Harsh Realism for Unarmed Fighters has a similar approach except instead of MoS less than bonus, it's MoF less than penalty, and results in "attacker hits parrying limb instead" on slight failures.
*the problem with this is it makes crit fails more likely and crit successes less likely, and has problems with "fail by one" rules that exist for hit locations or in Ten Tweaks for grazes
**a more consistent approach would be to give all parries (vs weapons or otherwise) a +3 bonus, and treat it like 'damage to shields', where if the DB made the diff (MoS<=DB) then limb takes damage instead of deflecting it
PP applies damage to the parrying implement (be it extremity, limb, or weapon) regardless of the MoS.
The funny thing is this is how sacrificial dodges work and they don't even require a special skill. Where PP excels though is:
*it might not be possible to sacrificial dodge for yourself (example: "step" your torso in front of your hand, to avoid getting shot in the hand)
*when you do sacrificial dodge for others, it might be assumed to be torso or random hit location, so you perhaps could not choose a high DR weapon to take the hit instead
==Shields==
Weirdly there seems to be no Precognitive Block skill for blocking bullets.
Dodge This has a good idea for giving shields some sway. If done after perceiving the attack (attack is declared, per roll is made, THEN attack is rolled) then a block can be done at no penalty (ignore speed, and optionally ignore SM as suggested above) where success treats it as cover.
*Prone/Kneel/Crouch for DB 1/2/3 assumes SM0 so you could likely do Kneel/Crouch/Stand as SM-1 dwarf
**SM+1 giant would probably need to Prone/Kneel to get full cover from DB2/3 with full cover from DB1 being impossible
***you might perhaps qualify for "half cover" from DB1 while prone at SM+1 though.
****Or 'standing' as an SM0 w/ DB3 or SM-1 w/ DB2.
==References==
Category:Active Defense Options
Category:Skills