What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

It costs 40 pts but apart from giving the same as Combat Reflexes and allowing you to consider your action (which is not important in a forum-based game), then what combat-benefits do you actually get from having ETS?

I seem to recall some cinematic abilities requiring it. Such as "Parry bullet". but apart from that, does it actually do anything? Are there other rules that require it that I cant' find?

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

You automatically go first if no one else has it, that’s a reasonable benefit.

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

You also get the perception benefits of being able to notice very quick things (like bullets in flight, individual frames of a film per the description). You should get the same chance to notice something in combat that a normal person would given time to study the same scene. No more "you didn't notice X because you were distracted by the fighting".

There aren't a lot of hard mechanical benefits listed in the skill. For combat specifically, the benefits are limited because the advantage specifically does not change your physical reaction time or alter your drilled reflexes, reactions, kata, combo moves, etc.

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

There could be significantly more benefits if you have Tactical Shooting. Specifically, I'd allow you to completely ignore the Situational Awareness rules. I also think it would be appropriate if you could never suffer from Surprise, even partial surprise, if you have ETS, but unfortunately that's not part of the RAW rules.

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

Given that you can parry bullets with it when you cannot do so without it, and that it gives you the same +1 to all active defenses as Combat Reflexes, it kind of does, doesn't it? I mean, even if you're able to watch the bullets, a parry tends to be a drilled reaction to an attack. And actually going first with your physical actions, as opposed to being stuck thinking about what you'd like to do while your foes without ETS get to actually move before you if they're physically quicker, leads to the same conclusion. If it truly didn't change your physical reaction time at all, you'd still be unable to parry bullets and you wouldn't be guaranteed to go first.

It just doesn't help you in combat or enhance the speed of your physical actions as much as many players would like or expect it to given the description, mainly because it doesn't cost enough for that to be balanced. For that, you need to add things like Altered Time Rate, improved Basic Speed, improved DX (possibly with odd limitations on what it affects), and so on.

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

Being able to parry bullets is a highly cinematic skill, and I don't think it implies that ETS is what lets you move fast enough to do it. Consider that when you get in to ultra-tech, ETS is actually pretty common for robots or cyborgs, but Parry Bullets is almost unheard of.

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

As an aside, where is the text about ETS letting you parry bullets? Precognitive Parry notes that the skill lets you parry bullets without having ETS (which indirectly implies that having ETS lets you do so), but the description of ETS itself doesn't note that ability. It has to be off somewhere else in the rules -- but where?

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

Characters with the Parry Missile Weapon skill and ETS can parry bullets (at -5, presumably because of the physical limitations of the body). Precognitive Parry allows you to parry bullets without penalty (you start the parry before the attack, so you don't have to move as fast).

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

It doesn't imply it, it outright says it in RAW. Parry Missile Weapons without ETS won't let you parry bullets, with ETS it will.

A +1 to active defenses (although this is no better than Combat Reflexes) and the ability to reliably go first in combat vs. those without the advantage also argue for some improvement in physical as well as mental reaction time.

Re: What combat benefits does Enhanced Time Sense give?
 

In the modifiers section for the Parry Missile Weapons skill.