Combat Clairvoyance: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"He who sees his own doom can better avoid its path. He who sees the doom of others can deliver it."''|'''Eldrad Ulthran''', ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''}}

 

 

 

 

Is often accompanied by [[Spider Sense]], which warns the user of vague danger instead of predicting specific attacks.

* In ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' Negative Man (''nee'' Flash Forward) can see the immediate future but due to his relative wimpiness his only use in a fight is coordinating his teammates based on his visions. Eventually he loses control of it and can't stop seeing the ''distant'' future, before being given medication that suppresses his powers altogether.

* ''Dream Girl'' in pre-any-reboots [[Legion of Super-Heroes]] could do this. Not only that, her ability to do it was taken from a much older LSH story.

* [[Superman]] villain Massacre. Superman eventually figured out that Massacre's actual ability is being able to read his opponent's nerve impulses to predict their actions and knocks him off guard with a ricochet attack and presses the advantage to keep Massacre from regaining his bearings.

** Ravager has the same power. In the final issue of ''Terror Titans'', she wipes the floor with Clock King by [[Fighting Dirty]] and not giving him time to react to his visions.

*** Actually not the same power. It was retconned later that her power is based on [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]. Deathstroke, who shares the same powers as Ravager, explained this too her.

** Of course, Anakin's ability to see the future seems more like a curse than a blessing in [[Star Wars|Episode 2: Attack of the Clones]] and by [[Star Wars|Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith]] we know it's more of a curse than a blessing.

*** Well, prescience plus [[Genre Blindness]] is a curse. Doesn't the GFFA have stories about [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|self-fulfilling prophecies]]?

{{quote|At least according to the record, he'd been hitting the correct response buttons in the milliseconds after the trigger stimuli algorithm had been run, but ''before the actual images appeared onscreen'', and the computer had not been able to handle near-simultaneous input and output. He'd crashed the thing three times before he'd evidently [[Cover-Blowing Superpower|decided to slow down a little and let the program catch up]].}}

* General Buford makes a speech about what will happen at [[Gettysburg]] if he allows the Confederates to take the high ground before the Union infantry arrives. Though this is due to being [[Genre Savvy]] as a result of decades of experience as a professional soldier rather than any superpower, he does reference the trope.

== [[Literature]] ==

* In the ''[[Dune]]'' series, the Kwisatz Haderach has the ability to (among other things) see into the future, which is used in combat. Mentats can also see the future by way of "projecting" the possible outcomes of a given choice, but their role was not usually that of a front line combatant. And yet when it came to combat, prescience proved useless because of too much happening too fast. During one fight, the most Paul could see was that possible futures include him winning and him being carried out as a corpse. <ref>How unlike Frank Herbert, to introduce a super-cool idea and not quite follow through.</ref>

* {{spoiler|Prince Po}} from ''[[Graceling]]'' has a variation of this as his [[Differently-Powered Individual|Grace]]. While he can't see the future, he ''can'' sense people's intentions toward him. If someone's going to punch him, he'll know it before they so much as twitch. He's a very talented hand-to-hand fighter on his own merit, and his Grace amplifies it exponentially.

* One spectacular aversion in the book ''Iapetus'', in which after the normal protagonist has had his complete helplessness around espers repeatedly proven to him, he encounters a community leader of an esper colony; a physically brutal sociopath who enjoys killing "monkeys" and feels the protagonist has stolen his girl. And who is unconscious after one punch to the jaw that nobody sensed before it landed.

** Not just spells, but various feats, class/race abilities, skills and item properties work as boosts to Initiative rolls, keep you from being subject to surprise attacks, be able to use interrupting abilities, move out of the way, have someone else take the damage, or otherwise ticking off the GM.

** This is also what numerical "insight" bonuses represent-- knowing where an opponent's attack will land makes a character harder to hit, and knowing where an opponent's weak spots are going to be positioned makes a character better at hitting him.

* In ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' this is part of the reason that Eldar psykers are effective in close combat. The other reason is the rest of their repertoire of powers usually involve eldritch lightning or psychic flames.

* Averted for the Oracle of Tzeentch - he is possibly the greatest seer of the universe but his powers are only useful in long-term Xanatos Roulettes; he is actually blind to the present (one head sees the future and the other the past) and so physically a pushover by greater demon standards.

* Psycho Mantis from ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' does this by reacting to your controller input. {{spoiler|He becomes a much easier opponent if you plug your controller into the P2 port so that he can't read you.}}

* The [[Our Vampires Are Different|Vyrewatch]] in ''[[Runescape]]'' have the ability to predict what move an opponent will make with a normal weapon. This allows them to dodge all attacks, making them immune to all weapons, except the one you make during the quest they're introduced in.

* In ''[[Warcraft]]'', this is part of why it's a bad idea to fight Nozdormu, Aspect of Time. The others are his colossal other [[Time Master|temporal based powers]], such as the fact that even if you did manage to kill him he could rewind time and try again, and of course the fact that he's a giant dragon.

** Actually Nozdormu is destined to die, although where, when and how is unknown. He was gifted with the knowledge of his own death to keep him from misusing his powers over time. Basically unless you're the destined one, you can't kill him.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Foreshadow in ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' is a crimefighter who occasionally partners with [[The Cowl|Battlecat]], battling organized crime in New Orleans. He's an almost unbeatable hand-to-hand combatant due to his ability to see just far enough into the future to know what they will do. He's even used this power to dodge bullets. The Eye of God, an expert swordsman and member of the super-terrorist group known as "The Mujahedin", can do the same thing. One wonders what a fight between Foreshadow and the Eye of God would be like.

* {{spoiler|The Girl}} of ''[[A Girl and Her Fed]]'' has this power.

[[Category:Stock Super Powers]]

[[Category:Combat Clairvoyance]]