Jedi-like powers in d20 Modern (kinda)?

[John Crichton]

Okay, there is a good chance this will get moved due to it being a rule-based question. I have been wrestling with this for a few days and it's driving me nuts. Here it is:

I am creating premade characters for a short run I will be doing Monday. The base system is d20 Modern but that's just out of convienence. I am using elements of Spycraft, Star Wars and Four Color to Fantasy as well. I'm trying to create a character that is a master swordsman who has a sword (read: special katana) that can deflect bullets (only combined with his incredible skill that is). Now, the only class or even abilities that duplicate this ability are Jedi. That presents a problems as the character will have no Psionic or Force skills/abilities to go along with his sword mastery. I even consulted Oriental Adventures to see if anything was there. I have gone as far as to looking for Prestidge Classes for help. No dice.

I have been able to use 4CTF to replace other abilities for this character and others but the deflecting bullets thing is different as it is a class ability for Jedi and not so easily removed (with saves and all that). I was thinking of swapping out the Strong Hero Feat Tree plus eating another feat to get the desired effect but I wanted to see if anyone has a better suggestion.

Also, please note that there is no magic in this campaign world.

Thanks!

 

[Mark]

Can the D&D Feat Deflect Arrows be adapted to cover your bases?

*EDIT*

It could be part of a Feat Combination along the lines of...

Exotic Melee Weapon Proficiency (Katana)
Choose one exotic melee weapon from. The character is proficient with that melee weapon in combat.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: The character makes attack rolls with the weapon normally.
Normal: A character who uses a weapon without being proficient with it takes a -4 penalty on attack rolls.
Special: A character can gain this feat multiple times. Each time the character takes the feat, he or she selects a different exotic melee weapon.

Weapon Focus (Katana)
Choose a specific weapon. A character can choose unarmed strike or grapple for your weapon for purposes of this feat.
Prerequisites: Proficient with weapon, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: The character adds +1 to all attack rolls he or she makes using the selected weapon.
Special: A character can gain this feat multiple times. Each time the character takes the feat, the character must select a different weapon.

Defensive Martial Arts
Benefit: The character gains a +1 dodge bonus to Defense against melee attacks.
Special: A condition that makes the character lose his or her Dexterity bonus to Defense also makes the character lose dodge bonuses. Also, dodge bonuses stack, unlike most other types of bonuses.

Elusive Target
Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, Defensive Martial Arts.
Benefit: When fighting an opponent or multiple opponents in melee, other opponents attempting to target the character with ranged attacks take a -4 penalty. This penalty is in addition to the normal -4 penalty for firing into melee, making the penalty to target to character -8.
Special: An opponent with the Precise Shot feat has the penalty lessened to -4 when targeting the character.

Deflect Bullets (Katana)
Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, Base attack bonus +1, Exotic Weapons Proficiency (Katana), Defensive Martial Arts, Elusive Target, Weapon Focus (Katana).
Benefit: The character must have a katana in hand to use this feat. Once per round when the character would normally be hit with a bullet, the character may make a Reflex saving throw against a DC of 20. If the character succeeds, the character deflects the bullet with the katana. The character may make additional deflection attempts up to his maximum dexterity modifier may not attempt to deflect the same bullet more than once. The character must be aware of the attack and not flat-footed. Attempting to deflect a bullet doesn’t count as an action. Bullets or missiles fired by Exotic Firearms can’t be deflected.
Special: A character with the Quick Draw feat need not have the katana in hand at the beginning or the round.

 

[John Crichton]

Thanks for the input. Has helped clear my mind a bit.

I figure that since it's the sword's special properties along with the wielder's skill that I'd just attach the feat (a modified version of your Deflect Bullets feat) to the weapon (using the gadget rules from 4CTF) and leave it at that before my brain started to bubble.

 

[RangerWickett]

Having recently played Metal Gear Solid 2, I was wondering about that ninja's ability to deflect, like, 30 bullets per round as multiple people with machine guns fired at him. Can you deflect multiple projectiles if you take Deflect Arrows multiple times?

How would you simulate that? Maybe make it an alternate version of the Tumble skill, except that you're standing still? You make a Tumble check, and that sets your AC for the turn? So you can't take any offensive actions, just defensive ones? Or maybe he was just using Superior Expertise to give himself +15 AC.

 

[John Crichton]

I'm thinking that with a full-round action that you could use a feat like Improved Deflect Bullets to do the trick. The prereq would be all the above mentioned feats plus having a weapon that can withstand the impact plus Deflect Bullets. This allows you to use your reflex save plus your Dex bonus as the max number of deflections per round. That's just one way you could go in addition to what you said.

 

[Mark]

I'd do something like-

Deflect Bullets: as per above

Greater Deflect Bullets: (1 + Dex mod) squared

Improved Greater Deflect Bullets: (1 + Dex mod) cubed

Epic Deflect Bullets: (1 + Dex mod) to the fourth power (Add in 20th level prereq for this and higher ones)

Greater Epic Deflect Bullets: (1 + Dex mod) to the fifth power

Improved Epic Deflect Bullets: (1 + Dex mod) to the sixth power

etc until game breaks...

 

[RangerWickett]

When do we get to the 'No' feat, which lets you just hold up your hand and stop bullets in mid-air.

 

[John Crichton]

When do we get to the 'No' feat, which lets you just hold up your hand and stop bullets in mid-air.

You mean the 'Neo' feat?

 

[Mark]

Aren't there enough Neofeats out there now...?

 

[Morgenstern]

When do we get to the 'No' feat, which lets you just hold up your hand and stop bullets in mid-air.

We were looking at that for Spycraft since we just put out the Intruder PrC in the Europe book with class abilities like, "Red Pill", "Bullet Time" and "Epiphany". One of my playtesters has been suggesting that we look at how Neo fits as a Mentalist...

The stopping bullets bit actually seems to fit -really- cleanly as the visual description of either telekinetic-based DR, or TK-based AC bonuses. If the DR is high enough to absorb the bullet's damage, the bullet just stops and hangs there. If the AC (such as from the TK Armor feat in PsiHB) is enough to cause the bullet to miss, intead of describing it as deflecting away, just let it hang there. The advantage of both of these over a "Dodge bullets" or "Stop Bullets" kind of ability is that DR and AC bonuses by their very nature apply to ALL the attacks comming in on you (whereas a dodge bullets feat would logically be refined from deflect arrow... and have a very limited number of uses per round...).

TK is also a good explination for his various wire-fu and even flying tricks. Some of the feats already available in the PsiHB would cover these abilities handily.

TK in Spycraft is a Feat-&-Skill thing, but I could see creating a talent tree or series of feats that lets you spend an action point to temporarily gain X/- DR vs. ranged attacks for a round, with X being very large - large enough to regularly stop bullets.