Knockback and Realism

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The easy solution is: 'only slams do knockback'. It's not totally true, but the exceptions tend to be powerful enough that knockback is the least of your problems (for example, the tank cannon in UT would cause knockback to a human; the fragments of the corpse would probably be spread as much as twenty yards away from the point of impact).

Bean bag and baton rounds exist, and clearly do something.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Bean bag and baton rounds exist, and clearly do something.

Bean bag and baton rounds knock people down by inflicting pain and injury, not by momentum transfer.

[Gigermann]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Bean bag and baton rounds exist, and clearly do something.

According to the little bit of research I did on the subject (for reasons I don't recall), they don't knock the target back/down, just make them double over.

Ninja'd :P

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Bean bag and baton rounds knock people down by inflicting pain and injury, not by momentum transfer.

That is true, but GURPS rules use knockback for this, for some reason. You would need to change this if you were going to have only slams do knockback.

Originally Posted by Gigermann

According to the little bit of research I did on the subject (for reasons I don't recall), they don't knock the target back/down, just make them double over.

"Only slams do knockback" doesn't do anything for this.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

That is true, but GURPS rules use knockback for this, for some reason.

That is fixable. The easy answer is a new enhancement:

Improved Knockdown: any hit for sufficient injury to cause a shock penalty requires a knockdown check (B420).

Then take every weapon that lists double knockback and replace it with improved knockdown.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That is fixable. The easy answer is a new enhancement:

Improved Knockdown: any hit for sufficient injury to cause a shock penalty requires a knockdown check (B420).

Then take every weapon that lists double knockback and replace it with improved knockdown.

Shouldn't the amount of pain have something to do with it?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kopheay

I like the result, but dislike the method of getting there. The way I see it, ordinary knockback rules worked great, until you scaled up to the immense weapons of speculative fiction. This solution solves the problem at hand, but still is vulnerable to superscaling. Not to mention it would make memory batons underwhelming in smaller guns.

So? Baton and beanbag rounds are underwhelming. Why would a memory plastic baton be vastly better? They're a riot-control munition, not intended to be effective at killing or wounding.