The Bullet-Catch

Mage Information

Description: For masters of the martial arts, the ability to catch an arrow, knife, or spear in flight provides a legendary measure of practical skill. No one can catch bullets that way, though... or can they? The Akashic Tradition, of course, refined such techniques back when the Five Metal Dragons brought their hated firearms to the battlefields of China. And although the velocity and stopping power of such weapons has increased geometrically since those early innovations, anything is possible with a sufficient understanding of the Way.

System: By adding a Forces 2/ Life 2/ Time 2 Effect to the Arrow Cutting feat (see Chapter Nine, p. 428), a Tao-shih can indeed catch bullets. Forces slows the bullet’s kinetic energy, Life hardens the skin against the projectile, and Time quickens the character’s reflexes to incredible speed. To perform such feats, an Akashic mage who’s aware of the attack can cast the Effect, focus it through Do, and then roll his Dexterity + Do as if it were a dodge against the gunfire. If he scores more successes than his attacker, he catches the bullets before they can hit him. Whether or not this stunt is vulgar magick depends on where the martial artist is at the time. Although it would be vulgar in most places, it might be considered coincidental in regions that accept a superhuman martial-arts paradigm.