Before we started our most recent game, my group did a round of playtesting and discussion, and few things gave us as much pause as the knockdown rules. Some of the group argued that they should be kept as a balance consideration to give non-mages a bit of a leg up, or "because the game designers must have put them in there for a reason, dagnabbit!" The 'nays' generally argued that no gun is ever going to produce enough kick to knock down a target without also knocking over its wielder, or that with the rules as they stand, it's far too easy to knock over an average-body human and it has the potential to turn any fight (especially against multiple assailants) into a tone-breaking Keystone Cops scenario. I remember one of our playtests had two gunbunnies shooting it out in a parking garage and both of them ended up sucking pavement at least twice. Another had a sammy trying to forcibly evict a group of barrens squatters, and so many of them ended up on their hoops that he might as well have traded his Predator in for a sack of banana cream pies.

We finally decided to houserule it, and as it turns out, my group's playstyle has kept it from coming up even once. I know there are other groups that make a practice of getting shot at a fair bit more than my runners do, though, and I was wondering how the rule tended to be handled by Dumpshock at large.

I never really envisioned knockdown as someone being knocked-down from the force of the blast, but rather crumpling to the ground from the shock of being hit. In that moment before adrenaline kicks in to mitigate the pain of being hit could be quite excruciating and hard to remain on ones feet.

It could also be as simple as an involuntary reaction. If you touch something red-hot, you would likely jerk your hand away quickly. Its not because the red-hot item used any force to push your hand away, but more of an involuntary reaction. The same could be true for someone getting shot and flying backwards through a plate-glass window. It wasn't the force of the shot that sent them flying, but merely an involuntary reaction of trying to move out of the way.

Just my .02 nuyen

According to some soldiers I talked to, a caliber 7.65 (like the rounds used in the AK47) do have the power to stop you in your tracks when you're running and get shot from in front of you. So they should have the power to knock you over if you're standing.
But going down to caliber 5.56 NATO standard, those don't carry very much punch. The guys explained that charging people took two to four rounds in the chest and only then stumbled when they realized "Hey, damn, I been shot four times... oh shit, I'm dead.". So, yeah, the knockdown rules do not seem to reflect reality very well.

Mythbusters proved (twice) that bullets aren't going to knock people down or send them flying or anything. I seem to recall that it took a deer slug in a shotgun in order to a stationary unbraced target to fall off a hairpin trigger.

I do agree with Redcrow though, the knockdown rules are likely more along the lines of a person going 'Oh crap, I just go shot' and jerking to try and dodge, and maybe that puts them off footing, or they're more simply 'stunned' than 'on the ground'. Personally I don't use them, but that's more because I've never really looked at the rules than anything else. I figure the only time it should ever come up is when you've got things like gel rounds or people purposefully trying to knock someone down. Guess I should give them a look-over to see if they seem really broken or what.

So, looked over the rules real quick, I can see how they could get a bit out of hand. It isn't that hard to do 3 boxes of damage to someone with a gun, even when you factor in that the person gets to soak the damage before the comparison.

Easy fix might be to make it 2x body or greater for the knockdown. 6 damage is enough to more than half kill someone with a body 3 in the first place, so I can certainly see them going down from the pain (not because the bullet lays them out) for a moment. Still, if you think about it, 3 boxes is almost 1/3 of a 3 body person's max health, once again I can certainly envision them going down from the pain of being shot (I mean, if I shot you, I'd imagine you'd be fairly stunned/incapacitated from pain for at least a couple seconds)

I use the knockdown rules as written, with one notable exception...

I sometimes just ignore them if I forget about them, or ignore them because I feel the scene doesn't need it.

Knockdown doesn't seem to really discriminate much between different vectors of damage, so I just always figured it was just your body's ability to cope with trauma being overwhelmed for a bit. I've seen people who have been severely burned go a few steps and just crumple up before, for example. Some people can function and fight through pain well, while others don't. Knockdown combined with the wound modifiers rules hits me as good a way of handling it as any. It allows for people to sometimes be effectively incapacitated despite being technically conscious, which I consider a plus.

Should pain resistance effects resist knockdown, then? Hmm.

This happens in my group the most often. Which is why I voted "no."

Ditto here. I do reserve the right to added back in for dramatic flair. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif)

You know, you can still shoot when on your back -- just laying back against something doesn't change your ubergun into a banana cream pie. Knockback is just something that lets you know, "Hey, this combat is getting deadly!" Getting knocked back a few times = dead (not from the knockback, but from the damage that caused the knockbacks). If people are trading shots, knocking each other back, then someone's doing something wrong -- someone would be running to put themselves in a more advantageous spot.

In the real world it sucks because you're positioned to eat rounds with your groin and femoral arteries rather than getting impacted on the trauma plate or at least the heavy armor on your torso. On the other hand, in a game without hit locations, shooting from supine isn't a bad place to be.

My sentiments exactly. If you are often in the position of enduring a knockdown, you're tactics have failed you. Personally, as a 'kinder, gentler GM', (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) , I wouldn't mind seeing a PC knocked down a couple of times, till he changed his tactics.

I always forget to bring the rule into play, so I will say No.

As written, the knockdown rules are hilarious with Blast Element Damage(street magic.) After a certain force, anyone is automatically knocked in their ass. Its pretty hilarious.

Blast 10. Even if they resist all the damage.* Because it maxes out at 10 to knockdown, which auto-knocks down.

Means you can knock great dragons out of the sky, no save.**

*Though I think you have to take one point of damage after resist to make the check. Which makes it Force 9.

**Other than resisting the spell and soaking the damage...which generally doesn't happen to the same degree as dishing it out. Remember, a Blast combat spell deals Force in damage plus those net hits, and the total resist pool (Body + Wilpower) has to get up to Force * 3 + Spellcasting Pool to have decent odds of success.

Fairly sure there is a penalty to your dodge or a bonus to the attacker (even ranged) when you are prone. Could be wrong though, maybe that was 3e.

In most systems, it's a bonus to melee attacks against a prone opponent and a penalty to ranged attacks against a prone opponent. I'll check my books when I get home.

Offense:
Melee +3 against Prone Defender

Defense:
Defender Prone -2 (Melee; against Ranged only within 5m)
Defender Prone +4 (Ranged, only >20m)

Presumably, the +3 attack and -2 defense (both for Melee) stack, so that's bad. On the other hand, going (or being knocked) prone actually give you +4 Cover in most Ranged Combat. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Honestly, I like it because it encourages players to take shooting positions other than standing and running in the center of the room, which is what they seem to do otherwise. That said, tactically speaking, my players are a few fries short of a happy meal. They need this stuff to make common sense decisions like bracing behind cover low to the ground rather than making an obvious target of themselves. I do tend to forget it in some fights, though, which is pretty much the case with the entire ruleset, taken in pieces.

Have your security forces use gel rounds the first pass, then send in the barghests in the second pass. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

Same here, although I do acknowledge they may not be all that realistic.

Still compare to other SR rules they're not that bad. People DO fall back after being shot (especially in the US), and that's gonna be ever more likely with all the Simflicks in 2070.

The knockdown rule is good when combined with the rule that says you have to roll body+willpower to get up after a knockdown.