revisiting Backbreaker from a Realistic instead of Cinematic angle

[Plane]

MA82 has this cinematic technique which struck me as strange since it dips into ST twice, not just for doing swing-crushing damage to the spine but also because the technique itself is based on ST instead of DX.

The strange thing about it is aside from a BLx4 cutoff it doesn't really seem to care how heavy the foe you're picking up is.

It seems like you could rework emulating a realistic backbreaker attempt using Technical Grappling so was curious about thoughts on this.

The most cinematic thing here is all you need to do is setup a normal grapple: it treats picking someone up, reorienting them and then slamming them down onto a knee as being a single attack.

I'm thinking TG could break these down into discrete attacks and if you wanted to combine them in a single second, it'd be either a Combination or Extra Attack to do it.

TG41 (right col) does revisit this but still classes it as Cinematic which I take means Cole wasn't aiming for the most realistic approach even though he shifted the technique basis, swaps it from ST-based to either being HT-based or DX-based (Wrestling skill). I still think this is pretty lumped together though: instead of being something done after a pickup it's done INSTEAD of a pickup.

This doesn't reflect how you might grapple someone, lift them, pause carrying them around for a bit and THEN do a backbreaker, so I think it should be something done afterward.

TG41 (left col) "wrench spine" for example works that way but it only does thrust-crushing not swing-crushing.

It seems like the basic technique here is you lift someone and drop them and they take Fall/Collision damage except you control which part of their body takes it (the spine, instead of random hit location or spreading it around)

Then there's other factors like maybe you don't just drop them but use your arms/core strength pull them down faster than gravity, enhancing the damage.

Part of that also involves the posture change from standing to kneeling I would assume, as you couldn't accelerate them as efficienctly if you weren't dropping down yourself.

This makes me wonder if maybe a realistic approach here would be to treat this like a Judo Throw but with extra penalties allowing it to target a hit location?

You shouldn't be able to easily target spine on a judo throw if throwing them against something flat which is why if there's something thin and pointy (like a chair, or your knee) it should be easier to use that as a lever to target the spine

[kenclary]

Historically, a backbreaker is basically a pro-wrestling stage-combat version of an existing judo throw (more or less): look up "sukui nage." Some non-judo-competition versions of that throw either slam the target down on their head/neck or over the knee. (One problem with the knee version is that it doesn't leave a lot of room to accelerate the victim.)

Note that MA68 has an optional rule that lets Judo Throw target specific locations. So you can throw them onto their skull, or neck, etc.

The MA version of Backbreaker reflects the image of a strongman fully lifting someone over the head and slamming them down on a knee. It's cinematic because it's a fairly ridiculous stunt and not real combat at all.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kenclary

Historically, a backbreaker is basically a pro-wrestling stage-combat version of an existing judo throw (more or less): look up "sukui nage." Some non-judo-competition versions of that throw either slam the target down on their head/neck or over the knee. (One problem with the knee version is that it doesn't leave a lot of room to accelerate the victim.)

Note that MA68 has an optional rule that lets Judo Throw target specific locations. So you can throw them onto their skull, or neck, etc.

The MA version of Backbreaker reflects the image of a strongman fully lifting someone over the head and slamming them down on a knee. It's cinematic because it's a fairly ridiculous stunt and not real combat at all.

It's not efficient combat but it would still hurt. This is basically what Bane did to Batman back in the day and sort of makes sense when you have a grip on someone, since flinging someone like Batman they'll probably manage a breakfall and not land on their head. I guess in theory Bane could've done an Undertaker-esque Tombstone Piledriver but that's probably hard to set up since you need to invert them, not merely hold them horizontal.

We have the 'pickup' in Technical Grappling which I think should be a separate thing. TG24 says you lift them "to crouching height" though I'm not really sure what that represents. Would we need another technique to lift them higher/overhead?

After a pickup you should in theory be able to drop them as a free action and they take collision dmg w/ ground, and stuff like Judo Throw could cover accelerating them down faster than gravity (aiding it) or the only source of damage in cases like zero-G grappling.

[sir_pudding]

Bane is a comic book luchador with magic steroids. He has the cinematic version of professional wrestling.

[kenclary]

This exact thing (realistic(?) applications of Backbreaker) came up in the MAFCCS playtest. The authors ultimately settled on Unusual Training to allow non-cinematic training in Backbreaker, as they didn't want to reinvent any wheels.

However, all of "Judo Throw, targeting the spine," "Sacrifice Throw (drop-to-knees version), targeting the spine," and "Grab and Smash! (MA118)" were all discussed as more realistic versions, that matched the technique shown in Fairbairn's manual.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Plane

MA82 has this cinematic technique which struck me as strange since it dips into ST twice, not just for doing swing-crushing damage to the spine but also because the technique itself is based on ST instead of DX.

The strange thing about it is aside from a BLx4 cutoff it doesn't really seem to care how heavy the foe you're picking up is.

It seems like you could rework emulating a realistic backbreaker attempt using Technical Grappling so was curious about thoughts on this.

The most cinematic thing here is all you need to do is setup a normal grapple: it treats picking someone up, reorienting them and then slamming them down onto a knee as being a single attack.

I'm thinking TG could break these down into discrete attacks and if you wanted to combine them in a single second, it'd be either a Combination or Extra Attack to do it.

TG41 (right col) does revisit this but still classes it as Cinematic which I take means Cole wasn't aiming for the most realistic approach even though he shifted the technique basis, swaps it from ST-based to either being HT-based or DX-based (Wrestling skill). I still think this is pretty lumped together though: instead of being something done after a pickup it's done INSTEAD of a pickup.

This doesn't reflect how you might grapple someone, lift them, pause carrying them around for a bit and THEN do a backbreaker, so I think it should be something done afterward.

TG41 (left col) "wrench spine" for example works that way but it only does thrust-crushing not swing-crushing.

It seems like the basic technique here is you lift someone and drop them and they take Fall/Collision damage except you control which part of their body takes it (the spine, instead of random hit location or spreading it around)

Then there's other factors like maybe you don't just drop them but use your arms/core strength pull them down faster than gravity, enhancing the damage.

Part of that also involves the posture change from standing to kneeling I would assume, as you couldn't accelerate them as efficienctly if you weren't dropping down yourself.

This makes me wonder if maybe a realistic approach here would be to treat this like a Judo Throw but with extra penalties allowing it to target a hit location?

You shouldn't be able to easily target spine on a judo throw if throwing them against something flat which is why if there's something thin and pointy (like a chair, or your knee) it should be easier to use that as a lever to target the spine

I don't think you can emulate it using Technical Grappling, at least not as you're describing it. Not being able to lift someone into position if their weight exceeds 4xBL is a huge limitation on the use of Backbreaker.

First, GURPS has been using 150 lbs. as the weight of the average person as a go to since at least 3rd Edition, if not earlier. Even if you train Backbreaker up to ST+3 in the technique, that ST+3 does not change 4xBL to 4x([ST+3]x[ST+3]/5) to enable you to lift someone you otherwise wouldn't be able to. The person still can't exceed a weight of 4x(STxST/5) for you to lift them to execute Backbreaker. You need ST 14 to reliably lift the average person, and at ST 20, if the person weighs 321 lbs. you're out of luck. You'd mostly be using the technique on women and children at ST 12 (116 lbs.), on young teens and children at ST 11 (96 lbs.), and at on children at ST 10 (80 lbs.), even as a cinematic technique.

Second, we need to do some reading between the lines on BL and time. We have a few written touchstones. BL is the maximum weight you can lift overhead one-handed in one second. 2xBL requires two seconds for a one-handed lift. 8xBL requires a two-handed lift and four seconds. 4xBL requires interpolation, and what is implied is that 4xBL can be achieved by either using a two-handed lift for two seconds, or a one-handed lift for four seconds.

Backbreaker uses a two-handed lift (you're grasping the torso with both hands), so it should take two seconds. If we consider the attempted lift to start with the turn you grasp the torso and be completed on your second turn when you execute the Backbreaker, the lift does take the two seconds. Since you're also getting a grasp on the person and bringing them down on your knee in those two seconds, arguably you're already moving as fast as possible and therefore can't use either a Combination or Rapid Strike in addition, not that either would allow you to decrease the time needed to execute a lift. You'd still need the two full seconds, even in a realistic version of Backbreaker.

As others have said, the Backbreaker default to ST allows the traditional strongman, who usually isn't very fast (arguing for no better than averge DX and HT, or low DX and higher HT) to do Backbreaker, which is a fairly common occurrence, cinematically. It's something you might want to keep, possibly allowing a default from DX and/or HT as well.

The 4xBL limit will restrict who characters with ST 12 or less can use the Backbreaker on, which might require either the Bully or Callous disadvantages. The character probably gains a negative Reputation as a disadvantage acquired through play as well.

[sir_pudding]

Bane probably has ST 20+ some of it with Super Effort and a Chemical PM. He presumably can easily dead-lift one Batman.

[Varyon]

Roughly speaking, lifting something up into the air and then throwing it down (rather than dropping it) would add the speed at which you can throw the thing to whatever speed gravity imparts on it. For the former, if we assume Max Range corresponds to a 45-degree throw over flat ground with negligible wind and air resistance, that means this speed (in yards per second) is (20*Max)^1/2, if we round the acceleration due to gravity down to 10 yards/second/second* (from ~10.7). Note this ignores differences in how well one's musculature supports a given vector of throwing (I think humans actually throw things straight forward a little more easily than straight up or straight down).

I don't think you can normally throw a character very far, of course. If you can throw one 10 yards (which would be impressive), that gets you a speed of around 14 yards/second. Simply lifting them straight up probably puts them about 3 yards above the ground, which would make a simple drop to the ground around 7 yards/second, so you're going at around double the speed of a fall (the fall itself only adds +1.7 yards/second - gravity has less time to pull on the target before they hit the ground if they're already moving at 14 yards/second; you can work this out via a sum of squares of the two speeds; in general, you can probably just say it's the larger of (1.5*lower speed) and (higher speed)).

Slamming them into your knee rather than onto the ground subtracts about a yard from the fall, although if you're strong enough to actually lift someone above your head, gravity probably isn't contributing much to the attack. While a knee is hard, I think this would count like a fall onto a normal surface (rather than a soft or hard one), much like falling onto another person would be; maybe you could call for 1.5x normal collision damage (rather than the x2 of "hard surface"). I'd say this uses the lower of whichever Grappling and Striking skills you're using (probably Wrestling and Brawling, respectively), at -4 to hit (half the normal penalty to target the spine). If you're enough stronger than them to pull this off, you probably have enough control that their defense is going to be pretty poor (if using TG/FDG), so you could probably get away with Telegraphing your attack, for net +0 (but +2 to the opponent's defenses). On a Failure, you need to roll against DX to avoid falling (balancing on one leg while throwing someone down isn't easy); optionally, the GM may require a second roll against your striking skill to manage the knee-bit properly; failure here means the foe still takes the calculated damage... but so does your leg!

I'm away from my books, but I'll leave it up to you to play around with this to see what sort of damage a character would be able to manage. I suspect that within human ranges of ST, against human opponents, the result will be... disappointing.


*Again, setting G = 10 yd/sec^2, throwing something straight into the air at 10 yards/sec would take 1 second to slow to zero, then 1 second to fall back down, giving it a final velocity of 10 yards/sec. Throwing it at 20 yards/sec takes 2 seconds, for final velocity 20 yards/sec, and so forth. Throwing something at a 45-degree angle means you can work out the vertical and horizontal velocity vectors using the Pythagorean Theorem for an isosceles triangle
2*a^2=c^2
with a being both the vertical and horizontal speeds (which are equal), and c being the actual speed. We can figure out a from Max - Max is the speed of the horizontal vector (a) multiplied by the amount of time it takes for it to fall (a/10). Thus,
Max = (a^2)/10
and so
a = (10*Max)^1/2.
Plugging this in, we get
20*Max = c^2
and thus
c = (20*Max)^1/2

[Plane]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Bane is a comic book luchador with magic steroids. He has the cinematic version of professional wrestling.

It is feasible for large men to lift small men overhead (see it all the time in IRL pro wrestling) and it is possible to drop someone onto your knee.

The main difference is pro wrestlers who know how to protect each other will soften that blow, someone trying to injure would not.

Originally Posted by kenclary

all of "Judo Throw, targeting the spine," "Sacrifice Throw (drop-to-knees version), targeting the spine," and "Grab and Smash! (MA118)" were all discussed as more realistic versions, that matched the technique shown in Fairbairn's manual.

The main problem w/ Grab and Smash is it requires you're holding whichever location you attack and you can't actually grapple the spine AFAIK just the torso.

I guess if it were possible to grab+smash to target an eye by grappling the head you might allow torso grapples to smash sublocations into objects?

So were you figuring we add the damage of a fall/collision plus the thrust damage an offensive judo throw can add to that?

The knee seems like something of a necessity than a bonus. I know any crushing attack from rear can target the spine but it seems like at some point a large enough crushing attack (like flat ground) shouldn't be able to make such targeted hits.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Roughly speaking, lifting something up into the air and then throwing it down (rather than dropping it) would add the speed at which you can throw the thing to whatever speed gravity imparts on it.

Yeah although it's possible people might be able to throw downward with more force they can throw forward, could probably test that with medicine ball slams.

[kenclary]

(Looking back through the playtest discussions, from 15 years ago, it's pretty clear that we were, uh, grappling with 3 problems: 1) GURPS' collision rules are super simplified, 2) GURPS' rules for things like judo throws and grab and smash etc are very handwavey, and 3) all those rules are not reconciled with some universal physics rules. Note that fixing all that was out-of-scope for any GURPS supplement, and possibly ungameable. Also, Technical Grappling doesn't address those issues and would only add complications.)

Originally Posted by Plane

The main problem w/ Grab and Smash is it requires you're holding whichever location you attack and you can't actually grapple the spine AFAIK just the torso.

I guess if it were possible to grab+smash to target an eye by grappling the head you might allow torso grapples to smash sublocations into objects?

The "all-out grapple and strike" version can, in fact, target the spine when you grapple the torso.

So were you figuring we add the damage of a fall/collision plus the thrust damage an offensive judo throw can add to that?

Outside of any "GURPS doesn't really cover that sort of physics/biomechanics detail" issues, I still wouldn't add falling damage, since the fall to "land" on the knee isn't far enough to warrant extra damage (in any realistic judo throw / grab and smash solution).

The knee seems like something of a necessity than a bonus. I know any crushing attack from rear can target the spine but it seems like at some point a large enough crushing attack (like flat ground) shouldn't be able to make such targeted hits.

Getting into the nuts and bolts, the spine is a joint. Or really a bunch of joints. You can target the spine with a throw by spiking the body in a way that tries to bend the spine in a bad direction. (Might as well target the neck.)

When I have (accidentally) dropped someone on my knee, it hurt their back, but not exactly their spine --- more it hurt some of their core muscles. So the knee doesn't necessarily make it easier to target the spine specifically.