[Martial Arts] Getting the Wind Knocked Out of You

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

Experience could help with taking blows cinematically but I'm not sure how useful they would be in most combat. Harry Houdini is an example of someone who knew.how to tighten but it didn't help him when he didn't know the punch was common.

Unless it was the šedu that killed him with a glyph.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

The film I saw he had some kind of lump that got loose.

Yes, that's right, just sleep. Believe what you are told.

Is there a GURPS exploration of conapircy theories relates to this?

Harry Houdini is the protagonist of some of the vignettes in GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Tuk the Weekah

Not to pick a fight, but commotio cordis is a an example of precisely that--a blow that puts a muscle into spasm without damaging the muscle.

That's an interesting effect, particularly for gaming (and makes for a great justification for an instant dim mak), but the heart is a pretty unique organ - it's even got its own class of muscle - so I'd be pretty reluctant to expand that effect to any other muscle. In particular, with the diaphragm being consciously controllable, knocking involuntary use out of rhythm would in theory just require the target to attempt to breathe to get it back on track.

[Anders]

From this website:

An abrupt force applied to the abdomen often leads to the irritation of the solar plexus resulting in diaphragm spasm. This is mostly experienced by boxers and other sports with forceful punches in the abdominal region. Feeling individuals experience in these moments is described as the wind knocked out.

This force may also occur after the fall on back, which can cause temporary paralysis of the diaphragm manifesting itself as a difficult breathing. The pain felt during the paralysis can remain certain time after the spasm and leads to difficulties in breathing, standing and sitting.

[Flyndaran]

I landed on my chest. So I still wonder what, in Gurps terms, happened to child me.
I'm clumsy, so have fallen many many times in my life, but I've never again had the wind knocked out or whatever occurred on that day.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I landed on my chest. So I still wonder what, in Gurps terms, happened to child me.
I'm clumsy, so have fallen many many times in my life, but I've never again had the wind knocked out or whatever occurred on that day.

Stunned is a logical result from a critical failure involving a fall.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Stunned is a logical result from a critical failure involving a fall.

For over half an hour? Over 1800 seconds and failures seems a bit much. I could move and think fully. I just couldn't inhale more than a tiny bit so I'm not sure if stunned in Gurps terms fits.
Sitting still was a conscious choice, not a physical necessity other than that whole inability to breathe part.

I'm not being fully serious in this question as I get that it would be a hassle to actually play and/or roll for. I was just curious if it could more than very loosely fit anything official.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

One of these days I'm going to figure out these velocity ranges and how many yards create them, that would be pretty cool.

Velocity 1-4 (not depicted on chart, begins at velocity 5 for 3 foot falls) is of most interest due to the fractions below 0.25 doing 1d-3 rule. Particularly since hitting hard surfaces doubles HP for the calculation which can result in some rough impacts even for short falls.

Falls used to be able to do less damage though. In 3e for example, Hellboy pg 76 at 1 or 2 yards you took 1d-4 per yard, -1 point per yard if landing on a soft surface, so falling on something soft would only do 1d-5 or 2d-10 at most 1 or 2 points of damage, but in 4e the maximum is 3 points of damage... but I guess this is replaced by soft objects giving DR against falls. DR 2 from a feather bed turns 1d-3 into 1d-5

I think when I tripped over the fence, even if I wasn't going full sprint, it was a trot faster than a walk so I would have been airborne and freefalling, so it would in all likelihood be a faster fall compared to say, if I failed my DX roll after a missed kick.

In that case, a reduction in velocity by toppling over the non-kicking leg should happen. By how much I'm not sure. http://www.math.udel.edu/~rossi/Math512/2005/Team3.pdf could be useful in this regard since it studies the falling speed of dominoes which fall in a similar way. I'll have to come back to this later though as the physics is a bit beyond my memories of the basics in high school.

The falling/velocity table in Basic is more trouble than it's worth, IMO. I just use the falling damage from DF 2 and Action 2, though I do multiply it by HP/10 rounded down if 20 or higher, the same factor used for Regeneration and healing and x1/2 for HP of 5 or less.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

For over half an hour? Over 1800 seconds and failures seems a bit much. I could move and think fully. I just couldn't inhale more than a tiny bit so I'm not sure if stunned in Gurps terms fits.
Sitting still was a conscious choice, not a physical necessity other than that whole inability to breathe part.

I'm not being fully serious in this question as I get that it would be a hassle to actually play and/or roll for. I was just curious if it could more than very loosely fit anything official.

There are people who get hiccups for years, and GURPS doesn't even have rules for the hiccups.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There are people who get hiccups for years, and GURPS doesn't even have rules for the hiccups.

Pyramid article! April is coming up fast . . .