Every missed shot against you becomes a chance to improve your cover, break line of sight, or reposition toward (or away from) key objectives—perfect for an agile, ranged-focused Operative who wants to stay alive while lining up Aim shots.
In the cramped corridors of Inner Sphere megastructures and the jagged debris fields of the Frontier, veterans talk about “ghost-walkers”—Operatives who seem to occupy the one square bullets never quite reach. To onlookers, Elusive Targets look preternaturally lucky; to those who know better, it’s ruthless training built on micro-adjustments, predictive movement algorithms, and an almost psychic feel for trajectories.
Commission security reports describe them as “statistical anomalies in motion,” noting that surveillance footage often shows incoming fire tracking perfectly until the last fraction of a second, when the Operative is simply no longer there, already sliding behind a bulkhead or dropping off a catwalk. In Ebon Syndicate circles, surviving a Syndicate hit-squad and walking away without a mark is the sort of rumor that turns a nameless gun into a legend.
Elusive Target Feat 1
Source Player Core pg. 131
(Reaction)
Trigger: A Strike targeting you fails.
You move out of the way as you elude your attackers. You Step.
Non-Combat Applications
Crowd Navigation: The same instincts that dodge bullets help an Operative slide through panicked crowds, closing on a target without jostling or drawing attention—vital during riots, evacuations, or stampede events in the Inner Sphere.
Hazard Timing: Elusive Targets learn to read repeating hazards—door crushers, plasma vent cycles, drifting debris in low gravity—and move at the exact safe moment, often teaching less agile allies when to follow.
Social Theatre: In tense negotiations, a subtle lean away from a thrown glass, a tilting chair that just misses a collapsing balcony, or “accidentally” avoiding a falling fixture can unsettle would-be assassins and convince observers that fate itself favors the Operative.
Societal Impact
Security Doctrine Changes: Elite bodyguards and Chronologist field teams are trained to watch where Elusive Targets move, not where the danger currently is; their post-miss position often predicts the next ricochet, hazard, or counter-attack zone.
Myth of the Untouchable: Stories about Operatives who “can’t be hit” spread quickly in Outer Sphere warzones. This perception can be more valuable than armor, causing foes to waste ammo or call off frontal assaults, assuming they’re up against some Rift-twisted luck rather than honed reflexes.
Adventure Hooks
The Untouchable Mark: A client hires the PCs to capture a data thief rumored to be “bulletproof.” The truth is that the target is an Operative who has perfected Elusive Target; the challenge is to corner them where there’s nowhere left to Step.
Training the Next Wave: A Chronologists Guild outpost contracts the party’s Operative to train their Initiates in evasive movement after several tuners were killed during sabotage. The PCs must design live-fire drills while a real enemy prepares to exploit the chaos.
Rift-Drift Duel: On a derelict station slipping in and out of Rift-space, two Operatives with Elusive Target face off in a running gunfight where every missed shot sends someone a step closer to an airlock, a temporal tear, or a sudden drop into the void.
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