KB Dmg, Old Rules, and Steve

[Osprey]

Knockback Damage
I seem to remember an old rule that said that you could never do more dice of damage with knockback than with the original attack. Does that rule still apply (if it ever was a rule)?

Ex. Swatter has an 8d6 HA x1.5 increased knockback. He attacks Flyboy (flying) does 10 body x1.5 = 15 - (roll 1d6) 3 = 12 inches KB into a solid steel wall.
Would Flyboy take 12d6 of damage?
THX


AFAIK there has never been such a rule; there's certainly no rule like that in 5E.


__________________
Steve Long
HERO System Line Developer


Being the Geezer I am-== :)

I vaguely remember such a rule from 2nd (or maybe 3rd) edition.

[Arthur]

You may be thinking of the rule that states that hitting a wall cannot do more damage to you than its combined DEF and BODY. This makes perfect sense, as hitting a particleboard wall is not going to deliver 12d!

Here's how it works, IIRC: KNB is figured. You then slam into a wall. If you take less than its total DEF, it is undamaged. If you take more than its DEF but less than its BODY, you take full damage and the wall is damaged but still there. If you take more than its DEF and BODY, you take that total number of dice, and KNB is reduced by that much.

This is a fairly simple concept that is hard to explain. Example time:

You take 11" of KNB. 3" away is a wall with DEF 2 and BODY 5. You take 7d N from the impact. Since you already travelled 3", the wall absorbs another 7" worth of your momentum, leaving 1" left. You then go the extra 1", winding up 2 m on the other side, with a roughly character-shaped hole in said wall.

I think that's the official rule. If not, it should be, IMO.

[scholz]

I wasn't thinking of the def/body limition. I may have been thinking of the shrinking, zero g, and flying mods.
The latter two are now clearly die modifications, and the former is a distance mod.
Shrinking could net you many more inches of distance without increasing the damage. That may have been what I was thinking.