Parry Missile Weaons... with missile weapons

[JCurwen3]

In the past week I've seen two examples of something that was just incredible and that I'm not sure how to do, or if it can be done, in GURPS.

On the anime Naruto: Shippuden, two fighters (admittedly with special chakra based abilities, including eye-based powers) are going at it, and start attacking each other with thrown shuriken. One of them in one scene actually throws a shuriken at where his opponent's thrown shuriken will be (he can properly estimate its trajectory and then throws his shuriken accordingly), effectively knocking it out of the way... basically parrying the thrown missile with his own equivalent thrown missile.

On the series Alphas, I saw Cameron Hicks do this with bullets! He shoots his gun so that his bullet effectively knocks an incoming bullet out of the way. Hicks is a guy with "hyperkinesis", which (from Wikipedia) "allows his brain to process movement at a much faster rate than others. This gives him amazing athletic feats of timing, superhuman reflexes and perfect accuracy with firearms or thrown objects and also allows him, for example, to predict trajectory by eyesight."

So I was wondering... in GURPS, how are these abilities handled? Obviously ETS comes to mind as a prerequisite, but it's much more than that.

[Langy]

The Area Defense perk in Gun Fu does exactly this.

[vierasmarius]

Check out the Area Defense perk (Gun Fu, pg 17). It's specific to firearms, but I could see something similar for Heroic Archers or Thrown Weapon Masters. In fact, it would likely be easier, since the projectiles would be larger and slower.

EDIT: And my post was ninja-parried by another post...

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Langy

The Area Defense perk in Gun Fu does exactly this.

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Check out the Area Defense perk (Gun Fu, pg 17). It's specific to firearms, but I could see something similar for Heroic Archers or Thrown Weapon Masters. In fact, it would likely be easier, since the projectiles would be larger and slower.

EDIT: And my post was parried by another post...

Thanks to both for the answer, that's perfect!

I suppose the -15 is the estimated average SM of any given bullet; that makes sense. Larger (or potentially smaller) projectiles should presumably have a better (or worse if smaller) SM, if one wants to bother with calculating SM per projectile.

The +1 from Combat Reflexes... I assume this is from the +1 to general Parries and not on top of that.

The +6 from ETS is... +1 from Combat Reflexes, and the +5 is... what does this represent? For cancelling the "hidden penalties" from the speed of the bullet? If that's the case should this be higher for slower projectiles, and lower for faster ones?

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

The +6 from ETS is... +1 from Combat Reflexes, and the +5 is... what does this represent? For cancelling the "hidden penalties" from the speed of the bullet? If that's the case should this be higher for slower projectiles, and lower for faster ones?

Using the Parry Missile Weapons skill, only someone with ETS can parry bullets, and is at -5. Presumably the +5 that ETS gives to Area Defense represents moving from -10 (the normal TDM for an "impossible" task) to -5. For slower projectiles, I don't think the ETS bonus would apply, since the projectile isn't going so fast as to be invisible to the unaided senses. But the base penalty would go from -15 to around -5 (modified by projectile size per the PMW skill). Or, drop the -15 and replace it with the estimated Size/Speed modifier for the projectile.

EDIT: Actually, on looking up real-world bullet statistics, I don't think the -15 fits the expected Size and Speed penalty. A .40 S&W bullet is approximately an inch long (-11 Size), and has a velocity of ~360 to 400 yd/s (-14 Speed). Most other bullets will be in the same ballpark. Maybe the -15 penalty is based on half the Size/Speed penalty for bullets, on the grounds that it's a Parry, which uses half the base skill. Anyways, it's probably simpler to just use the penalties from PMW for muscle-powered projectiles. It's a cinematic ability however you slice it, so it makes sense not to use real-world numbers.

[munin]

I think the Area Defense perk only allows you to shoot down projectiles aimed at yourself ("incoming"). To shoot down projectiles aimed at someone else, you might also need the Sacrificial Parry perk (or a specific Area Defense version of it) and your parry might also take range penalties to the target (you need as much time as you can get so you shoot it down at nearly the last instant). Otherwise, the Area Defense perk allows you to shoot down a bullet anywhere in your line of sight (or your weapon's range) at no penalty, which doesn't seem right.

[ericthered]

Wait, you want to shoot a bullet, with a bullet, while blindfolded and riding a horse?

oh, wait, not blindfolded. The horse seems fair game though.