Knocking someone back into someone else

[Toric]

Just started running Bash! for my group this past Sunday and we had a blast! One situation arose however that I wasn't sure how I should handle and figured I'd ask here to see how some of you folks would handle it.

One of the heroes used a Push attack on a bad guy. He generated a ton of knockback. It just so happened that there were several other bad guys in a row behind the guy who got knocked back. This was a group of minions and I believe we had five of them all lined up nicely. So the hero generated upwards of 100 feet of knockback, blasting the guy backwards where after a mere five or six feet, another bad guy was waiting. Behind this second bad guy was a third, and then a fourth and finally a fifth.

Since they were minions I just pretty much ruled that they all slammed into each other Three Stooges style and ended up unconscious in a tangled pile. I was okay with that because they were minions but if this had happened with actual villains, I would like a better way to handle it.

So how would some of you more experienced GMs handle this situation? If the first guy in a row is hit and knocked back 100 feet but there is a guy directly behind him about five feet away, does he automatically slam into him or does the second guy get a defense roll to try to get out of the way? How much is the knockback reduced when the first guy runs into the second? Any interpretations would be greatly appreciated.

[BASHMAN]

The minions solution was perfect but for villains here's what to do:

Badguy #2 in the conga line takes damage from the impact equal to the damage that Badguy #1 took. He takes knock-back based this damage (don't forget to deduct 10' per point of Brawn). If he takes enough Knock-back to get thrown back, Guy #3 gets hit- BUT I'd make the damage be reduced by the same amount the Knock-Back was of Guy #2. Eventually the momentum would slow to a stop. Hope that helps.

[Toric]

So if I'm understanding you correctly it would work like this:

Bad Guy #1 takes 100 feet of knock back. His Brawn of 2 reduces this to 80 feet. He flies back into Bad Guy #2, who takes 80 feet of knock back reduced by his Brawn of 2 to 60 feet. Bad Guy #3 takes 60 feet of knock back, reduced to 40 feet by his Brawn of 2. Bad Guy #4 takes 40 feet of knock back, reduced to 20 feet for his Brawn of 2. Bad Guy #5 takes 20 feet of knock back, reduced to nothing because of his Brawn of 2. And there the conga line ends.

Does that sound like about what you had in mind, Bashman?

[BASHMAN]

Close. Remember when the guy takes 80 feet of Knock-Back, he's taking x8 damage from the impact. Guy #2 takes that same damage. HE also takes Knock-Back equal to 1' per point of damage (even if he soaks it all) minutes 10' per point of Brawn. So if Guy #1 takes 80 feet of KB, for 56 damage. He knocks into Guy #2 who takes the 56 damage. He soaks x4 and ends up soaking 28 and taking 28. With his Brawn of 2, he takes 36 feet of Knock-Back. That is x3 Damage from the impact, which ends up being 21 damage. Guy #3 has 2 Brawn, he ignores the Knock-Back (only 1' gets by) and his x3 Soak manages to eat up all the damage as well.

PS- aiming your punch so that it does "Conga Line Damage" should be a called shot. Otherwise this is too simple.

[Toric]

Ah, okay. I see what you're doing here. I was forgetting that getting knocked into another person qualifies as "hitting something" during knock-back and that damage would apply. I was only thinking about how far each subsequent person would be knocked back, totally forgetting that they would all take damage as they are slammed into each other.

Your second point about it being too simple to do this without using called shot is a good one too. I was wondering if this should be automatic if the bad guys were all in a line or if there should be some difficulty involved. In our case, this was a Push Arrow (concussive force). Do you still think that in this case a called shot would be appropriate to try to knock the first guy into the guys lined up behind him?