GMS - How do you handle Knockback?

[Jeff Wilder]

Do you just handle it on an ad hoc basis?

What powers/descriptors can cause knockback?

When do they? When don't they?

(I'm not talking about comparing Damage to Toughness for the Knockback modifier, BTW. I'm talking more generally.)

I finally settled on "I decide if a power can cause knockback. If it can, and the power-user wants to do so, it's a -2 to hit."

 

[ValhallaGH]

I only allow knockback with damaging powers and powers that apply the Knockback extra (see the Trip power).
Any Toughness save failed by 5+ results in knockback (distance rank = damage - knockback modifier). Any power with the knockback extra acts as damage equal to the rank of the extra.
Nothing else can cause knockback. Period.
The closest alternative is throwing a character (see Grappling rules). This is usually done via Super-Strength or Telekinesis.

Of course, now that I'm running M&M 3, Knockback is just a complication. "He hits you, sending you flying. Make a toughness save. ... Have a Hero Point for being knocked around the battlefield."
I like it, since random wolves don't get shot by a pistol, slide 50' across the hill side, wobble to their feet, and attack the party. Anymore.

 

[Walking Dad]

Yes, I like the M&M 3 approach. But I would not give a HP for every knock-back. If it is mostly a description with no real mechanic disadvantage to the player, he doesn't get a HP.

(Being thrown from a flying castle by knock-back -> HP
Same to smeone with a decent Flight power -> no HP)

 

[ValhallaGH]

Actually, I use it to get the hero away from the villain, letting him use his move action to manipulate the doomsday device.

Which is a complication always worthy of a Hero Point.

 

[Walking Dad]

Actually, I use it to get the hero away from the villain, letting him use his move action to manipulate the doomsday device.

Which is a complication always worthy of a Hero Point.

??? why didn't he, manipulate the doomsday device with the hero next to him?

 

[ValhallaGH]

Suspension of disbelief.

 

[Piratecat]

When someone saves their toughness save badly and I think it's cool to throw them through a wall (or possibly a whole building), I describe the knockback. If it screws them somehow, I also give them a hero point to make up the lost move action to get back into the fight.

I'm a little more stringent when fighting on top of a skyscraper or on the edge of a volcano.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Okay, so y'all use it pretty much as a Complication. (I do, too, but I do allow doing it deliberately -- with an appropriate, usually physical, power -- at -2 to the attack. I even allow deliberate Knockback chains, at additional -2 per target.)

In our session on Sunday, the Bay Area Freedom League (BAFL) met up with the Big Bad (so far) of my campaign, and a couple of them peeled off to attack on their own. The telekinetic-telepath got his Flight nullified by a second villain (but wasn't aware, as he was standing -- not flying -- on the roof of a 43-story building) and the Big Bad knocked him back 500 feet. The look on the TK/TP PC's player's face -- "I'm still conscious. I activate my Flight." "It doesn't seem to be working ... " -- was awesome.

500 feet, 43 floors. Through a decommissioned trolley. BOOM. (Don't worry, he survived, albeit out cold. Yay, force fields!)

 

[Piratecat]

In our session on Sunday, the Bay Area Freedom League (BAFL) met up with the Big Bad (so far) of my campaign, and a couple of them peeled off to attack on their own. The telekinetic-telepath got his Flight nullified by a second villain (but wasn't aware, as he was standing -- not flying -- on the roof of a 43-story building) and the Big Bad knocked him back 500 feet. The look on the TK/TP PC's player's face -- "I'm still conscious. I activate my Flight." "It doesn't seem to be working ... " -- was awesome.

500 feet, 43 floors. Through a decommissioned trolley. BOOM. (Don't worry, he survived, albeit out cold. Yay, force fields!)

And that, Jeff, RIGHT THERE, is why I play MnM!

 

[Heathen72]

Look, if they say so nicely, I have no problem if someone doesn't wants\ to play in my game. I mean, my style of game isn't for everyone.

Admittedly, though, I think even the best, most self-secure GM would feel a little hurt at the rejection, but you have to remind yourself that a lot of people have played your game and enjoyed it.

My suggestion is that you get right back on the GMing horse and find another potential player. And think of what the first player is missing out on.