[Martial Arts] Unbalance an opponent?

[MrFix]

A lot of media, and seemingly a lot of police techniques include strikes that 'unbalance' or relax opponent via pain or distraction, opening him up for a different, more risky maneuver. Stuff like:

Striking at stomach or groin to distract with pain stimuli and then while the enemy is grabbing either, do a face punch or any other strike

Before or after grapple, kicking opponent's legs from under him so they lose center of gravity, fully relying on your hold to stay upright, and be unable to defend themselves

Pulling garrotted enemy into your back to make defense harder/impossible etc.

I want to say Shock penalty is perfect to emulate these, but of course Shock doesn't apply to active defenses. Is there any RULES LEGAL way to do these things?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by MrFix

A lot of media, and seemingly a lot of police techniques include strikes that 'unbalance' or relax opponent via pain or distraction, opening him up for a different, more risky maneuver. Stuff like:

Striking at stomach or groin to distract with pain stimuli and then while the enemy is grabbing either, do a face punch or any other strike

Before or after grapple, kicking opponent's legs from under him so they lose center of gravity, fully relying on your hold to stay upright, and be unable to defend themselves

Pulling garrotted enemy into your back to make defense harder/impossible etc.

I want to say Shock penalty is perfect to emulate these, but of course Shock doesn't apply to active defenses.

Is there any RULES LEGAL way to do these things?

Targeting vitals and doing enough injury to cause Shock causes a HT roll (1 penetrating damage is usually enough for that unless HP is 20+ or they have High Pain Tolerance.

MA137 allows crushing attacks to do this too, so that's an option for your standard punches for merely -3 instead of the -5 you'd otherwise need for targeting the face for that benefit.

If they fail the HT roll they're going to be stunned and take -4 to their active defences.

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Unbalancing/relaxing opponents via distraction would fall under MA101 "Ruses" I think.

It's based on IQ normally but "Feints Using Non-Combat Skills" perks could open that to other attributes (HT-based Sex Appeal is one example given) probably including other DX stuff (Acrobatic Feints, for example) if you don't want to use normal feints based on your unarmed skill (ie "Cardsharp Feint" or "Jugging Feint" or whatever sleight of hand cops would use)

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Kicking legs to make someone lose center of gravity (before or after grapples) could be done via Push Kick. MA78 gives -2 to the DX roll to avoid falling down if you target legs instead of torso and do enough damage to knock them back at least a yard.

Under basic rules there's apparently no cost if they keep their balance, but in a mock fight we did in Last Gasp, I counted the 'roll DX to avoid falling' as a 1 AP technique.

If they fall it might not mean them falling fully (I'd allow them to try Breakfall to land in a crouch instead, or maybe some other posture with either a bonus or low MoF) but compromising their posture does reflect "off balance" (plus you could charge another 1 AP for Breakfall too)

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other options for messing with legs would be Hook (MA74) or Sweep (MA81 left) or Trip (MA81 right)

You could also Beat (MA101) an opponent's leg if you just parried a kick (or knee) or if someone did a Leg Parry against you. This can either be a normal feint (penalize their ability to leg parry, no very useful) or a defensive feint (penalize their ability to kick or knee you).

How that might work out for lost balance is if they attempt and fail kicks or stamp kicks and might fall down or similar if they fail the followup DX roll (which should probably take the same penalty)

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"Pulling garrotted enemy into your back to make defense harder" just sounds like DX penalty for grappling. MA said that's -2 to parry -1 to dodge, Technical Grappling uses a more interesting system with Control Points doing Passive Control penalties to DX and ST on top of that.

If that's not enough, you could probably also classify it as a Beat, MA101's first bulletpoint you can do it with a weapon after a grapple to compromise either their dodge or parry. If using Technical Grappling this would make it harder for them to prevent you piling on more Control Points (active defenses are made against Improve Grapple technique)

I don't think it could penalize the ST v HT quick contest rolled whenever you try to do choking damage (that would be similar to MoS in a feint subtracting from a followup feint... not an idea I hate TBH) but you could use a "Defensive Beat" to penalize the grappling skill they would use to make 'Break Free' attacks against your grapple (least in TG) to allow you higher chances of maintaining your Control Points instead of giving you higher chances of adding more.

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with the canon stuff out of the way, if yuo're interested in any house ideas too...

I always thought it would be cool to make rolls for stepping (so you can trip just walking around with low DX, bad lighting, bad terrain) and if you were doing that, applying the penalty to kicking ALSO to stepping could make sense. You can assume people have No Nuisance Rolls for Step to avoid rolls at skill 16+, and give some large basic bonus like +10 to it so that in most cases you'd need a lot of problems for your DX before you had to start rolling and risk trips.

[MrFix]

I suppose Sweep or Push Kick work, I just didn't know how it works regarding grappled foes. If he falls and gains penalties for being prone and trying to defend/do melee combat, but I still can retain grip on him and do all the normal things without shifting my own stance, then it's pretty good. Overall, cheers for the advice.