[Martial Arts] Skills of the Week: Hypnotic Hands and Precognitive Parry

[johndallman]

Hypnotic Hands is an IQ/H esoteric martial arts skill, with no default and prerequisites of Hypnotism at 14+ and Trained by a Master. It enables you to induce a trance-like state in a single victim, who must be able to see your hands to be affected. Defences against hypnotism or chi-based mind-control abilities both work against this attack.

Precognitive Parry is also an IQ/H esoteric martial arts skill, with no default and prerequisites of Trained by a Master or Weapon Master, either Danger Sense or Precognition, and a melee weapon skill at 18+. It enables you to parry attacks that arrive too quickly for a normal parry, such as bullets or beams, without having Enhanced Time Sense, but it only works against attackers you're aware of.

Both skills first appeared in Martial Arts for 3e, and are described for 4e in Martial Arts. Both are "external" arts, boosted by Forceful Chi. Neither has a default, and no skills default to them.

To use Hypnotic Hands, pick a victim, and begin concentrating on him and making the gestures, which gives -2 to your active defences. It's best to have some cannon-fodder to keep him busy while you're doing this. When you chose to try to affect him, roll a quick Contest of your Hypnotic Hands against his Will, with the following situational modifiers: +0 after one turn of concentration, +1 after two turns, +2 after 4, +3 after 8 and so on, with no upper limit. There's a range penalty of -1 per two full yards of distance between you, plus any visibility penalties. If you win the Quick Contest, the victim is mentally stunned for as many seconds as your margin of victory. If you use Invisibility Art at this point, he's at -5 to notice you. If you use Hypnotism, you can do this even in combat, and the victim doesn't get the +5 to resist for being an unwilling or unaware subject.

To use Precognitive Parry, roll when you receive an eligible attack, adding the better of Forceful Chi or ESP talent. If you fail your Precognitive Parry roll, you can still dodge, unless the Precognitive Parry roll was a fumble, when you're sure it will miss and hence don't bother. If you succeed, you can interpose a weapon or limb, as if you were parrying a melee weapon attack with that weapon or limb, with your usual modifiers for a parry. The weapon/limb suffers the damage from the attack as if it had been the target, unless your parry succeeded by 5+, in which case the attack is deflected without doing any harm. The skill is mostly useful if you have an extremely tough or immaterial weapon, such as a Force Sword.

Precognitive Parry can also improve your defences against attacks that can normally be parried, such as melee attacks, thrown weapons, or missiles slower than bullets. If you make your Precognitive Parry roll against them, you get +1 to Parry, but failure means you get -2, and a critical failure means you don't try to parry, because you thought the attack would miss.

Martial Arts doesn't mention Basic's "force shield," a DR 100 force field shaped somewhat like a low-tech shield, springing from a small generator worn on the wrist, and used with a specialisation of Shield skill. I reckon you could use Precognitive Parry with the Block defence for that kind of shield, since it's very light compared to a physical shield.

Naturally, these skills only show up on templates for cinematic martial artists, some of which are in unexpected places, like Aliens: Sparrials. Gun-Fu clarifies Precognitive Parry vs. Double-Weapon Attack, and Power-Ups 1 has advice on Hypnotic Hands used with imbuements; Power-Ups 3 and 7 have talents and wildcards for these skills. Chinese Elemental Powers discusses resistance to chi-based Hypnotic Hands.

I've never used these skills, never having played a cinematic martial-arts campaign. Have they done anything cool in yours?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I've never used these skills, never having played a cinematic martial-arts campaign. Have they done anything cool in yours?

I thought you've played in Madness Dossier? Sandman Regimen doesn't include Hypnotic Hands or Precognitve Parry, but broader TbaMs in the setting might. It does include the Hypnotic Freeze technique (as does Kleil), which is, IMO, better than Hypnotic Hands; it is faster, usable as an active defense, and afflicts Daze rather than Mental Stun.

I think if a taisher player with Precognition wanted to learn Kleil, I would probably allow Precognitve Parry with Sandman Regimen and an Unusual Training perk, since it fits the logic of the setting.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I thought you've played in Madness Dossier? Sandman Regimen doesn't include Hypnotic Hands or Precognitve Parry, but broader TbaMs in the setting might. It does include the Hypnotic Freeze technique (as does Kleil), which is, IMO, better than hypnotic hands; it is faster, usable as an active defense, and afflicts Daze rather than Mental Stun.

I have, but only as a Gurkha Commando, who concentrated on edged weapons and guns. The whole campaign was much more technothriller in style than seems to be common, from looking at your and PK's campaign logs. We didn't have a taisher at all, and our Golden Child's player was good at the "incomprehensible to normal people" bit.

I think if a taisher player with Precognition wanted to learn Kleil, I would probably allow Precognitve Parry with Sandman Regimen and an Unusual Training perk, since it fits the logic of the setting.

Seems plausible to me.

[Phantasm]

The most I've done is use Precognitive Parry with a force sword/lightsaber to parry blaster bolts in my Star Wars game. For that, I required a prerequisite advantage (Force-Sensitive [5], otherwise mimicking the effects of Magery 0) to be able to train in it.

In order to speed play, at the start of each turn, even before the first action is taken, I had everyone who had it roll Precognitive Parry so they could sense attacks directed their way that turn, rather than slow down play by making them roll it and then Parry on every attack. Not exactly RAW, but I was also trying to bring some folks from That Other Game to GURPS, so I ultimately erred on the side of fast-and-loose.

[ericthered]

I don't like the extra roll on precognitive parry. Its a roll that lets you make another roll. The one time I could have used it I declared the game to use Unusual background (can block lasers and bullets) [10] instead. I don't think I even remembered that skill.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I've never used these skills, never having played a cinematic martial-arts campaign. Have they done anything cool in yours?

Precognitive Parry has only appeared in a huge cp 3e dimension-hopping game and was sued for the usual purpose. No Hypnotic Hands that I can remember but that character has Secret (4 arms) and the long cloak he used to cover that up which would have gotten in the way of such displays.

I've actually only seen Hypnotic Hands once in the movies. Bruce Lee of course. Well, maybe one more time but the guy was trying to channel Bruce Lee.