Painless Knockout

[jacobmuller]

From another thread

Humans can be knocked unconcious by a zero point blow to the head and failing an HT roll.

I didn't think it was possible to get a knockout without injury.
Can someone point me in the right direction please? All I can find is the Knockdown and Stunning section on B420:

whenever you are struck in the head for enough injury to cause a shock penalty you must make an immediate HT roll to avoid knockdown and stunning.

And, basically, Shock is caused by Injury which is caused by damage that has penetrated armor, yes? Although there are Afflictions that can result in knockout without causing injury but that's a different story.
Thank you for any pointers

[Erik_Nielsen]

You are correct; in 4e, you must do damage in order to force the HT check.

In 3e, OP was correct: any blow to the head causing 0 or more damage called for a HT roll to avoid going unconscious.

[pieclone]

I don't know that I can agree with 4e RAW in this case. Rotational force applied to the head with sufficient speed can KO someone but cause no actual physical damage. If you were to move to grapple someone's head and then displace it fast enough you can put them clean out with nary a bruise.

Which thread was the OP quote from?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by pieclone

I don't know that I can agree with 4e RAW in this case. Rotational force applied to the head with sufficient speed can KO someone but cause no actual physical damage. If you were to move to grapple someone's head and then displace it fast enough you can put them clean out with nary a bruise.

Which thread was the OP quote from?

External injury is one thing.

Brain injury is another.

KO is a sign of your brain being abused - there are no safe knockouts. Concussion has lasting, cumulative harm on the brain.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by pieclone

I don't know that I can agree with 4e RAW in this case. Rotational force applied to the head with sufficient speed can KO someone but cause no actual physical damage. If you were to move to grapple someone's head and then displace it fast enough you can put them clean out with nary a bruise.

Which thread was the OP quote from?

I don't think you can grapple and "displace" a head fast enough to cause knock out without inflicting damage to the neck.

[Anthony]

Well, there are several ways to do knockout without damage via RAW (e.g. Affliction (Unconscious)) and in reality (anesthetics aren't entirely safe, but don't generally cause lasting damage), but none of them involve an impact.

You can cause a concussion with no surface injury fairly easily, it just requires applying a substantial amount of fairly diffuse force to the head (and no, this isn't 'grapple and displace', it's 'hit someone with a large, heavy, padded object') but lack of surface damage isn't the same as a lack of damage.

[pieclone]

Originally Posted by Bruno

External injury is one thing.

Brain injury is another.

KO is a sign of your brain being abused - there are no safe knockouts. Concussion has lasting, cumulative harm on the brain.

I agree entirely about the danger of a concussions but I take it that this sort of internal brain injury isn't something that can be represented within GURPS RAW? I'm not sure how I'd do it at any rate. I think I prefer the 3e 0-pt rule for that although I'm always open to argument otherwise.

KO via choke is potentially dangerous as well and the vast majority of MMA fighters are smart enough to tap a few seconds before that light dims.

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I don't think you can grapple and "displace" a head fast enough to cause knock out without inflicting damage to the neck.

I've seen an extremely well trained martial artist of around 250lbs perform this action without causing much more than a general "soreness" which otherwise did not prevent the target from moving his head after the fact. Obviously this is anecdata and the fellow wasn't dropped into an MRI afterwards to check how well his neck had coped with the stress.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by pieclone

I've seen an extremely well trained martial artist of around 250lbs perform this action without causing much more than a general "soreness" which otherwise did not prevent the target from moving his head after the fact. Obviously this is anecdata and the fellow wasn't dropped into an MRI afterwards to check how well his neck had coped with the stress.

That's plenty to be a point of GURPS damage -- if you did that move twenty times on someone in short succession, do you really think that wouldn't have a reasonable risk of death?

[Kromm]

It isn't theory but fact that unconsciousness induced by physical force – whether or not you can see or even feel the aftermath – causes brain injury. You cannot "switch off" consciousness harmlessly. The safest option is a drug; anything besides that is a lot less safe, and produces trauma, even if you cannot see it without an MRI. GURPS posits that the smallest quantum of such trauma is 1 HP. From my reading of relevant journals, I think even that is generous, and that quite possibly HP/3 or even HP/2 might be most realistic.

Another thing I've learned from reading is that you cannot trust boxers and other martial artists on this issue. The culture of their sport encourages them to believe that many of these injuries are trivial because they cannot be felt or seen easily. This doesn't make these people right; they are subject-matter experts on violence, not on neurology. Neurology has some pretty scary things to say about knockout, which is universally a symptom of damage.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by Erik_Nielsen

You are correct; in 4e, you must do damage in order to force the HT check.

In 3e, OP was correct: any blow to the head causing 0 or more damage called for a HT roll to avoid going unconscious.

Ah, the light dawns - it's a long time since I looked at 3e rules. Thank you.