In playing about with what I call the Knockabout rules (Falling, Knockback, Throwing, etc) I inevitably came across Paragon's work, who has been haunting these boards for seven years next month. (Happy Anniversary!) He (I'm assuming he) has been kicking the tires on every edition since the first and has an impressive posting average of over six posts a day. This is someone who has a good grasp of the game, so when I found his
3e Knockback houserule, I was thrilled. I will be referencing it heavily in this post, so I recommend reading through it first.
The aspect I looked at in particular is the degrees of KB. One degree is knocked down (prone), a second degree is knocked back 30' (rank 0) plus prone and add a rank for every additional degree. It wasn't until I read it a few times that I saw the simple pattern to it.
1 Degree = knockdown = 1 move action to reengage close combat
2 Degrees = kb rank 0 (30') + kd = 1 move + 1 move = 2 move or 1 full round to reengage
3 Degrees = kb rank 1 (60') + kd = 2 move + 1 move = 3 moves to reengage
4 Degrees = kb rank 2 (120') + kd = 4 move + 1 move = 5 moves to reengage
5 Degrees = kb rank 3 (250') + kd = 8 move + 1 move = 9 moves to reengage
... and so on. Playing with numbers you could get as high as 10 degrees if you had, say, Solomon Grundy power attack a puppy, but most combats are going to be fairly balanced and therefore would rarely go past 4-5 degrees, particularly for the Push option.
What you get is an increasing loss of actions as the degrees go up (2^(distance rank) + 1(prone))* until an opponent is too far away to reengage in combat. Of course, this can be overcome by the right purchased effects, but for this discussion assume a character of base abilities.
There is a similar loss-of-action economy going on with basic Damage, shown here.
1 Degree = -1 Toughness penalty
2 Degrees = Dazed (lose an action) and -1
3 Degrees = (Staggered = Dazed + Hindered = lose an action + move half effective) and -1
4 Degrees = Incapacitated (no actions)
Both limit action on an increasing scale, but damage effectively has a ceiling on it, with 4th degree failure giving a maximum effect. We could apply this same idea to Paragon's KB house rule and come up with this:
1 Degree = knockdown = 1 move action to reengage combat
2 Degrees = kb rank 0 (30') + kd = 1 move + 1 move = 2 move or 1 full round to reengage
3 Degrees = kb rank 1 (60') + kd = 2 move + 1 move = 3 moves to reengage
4 Degrees = Maximum Knockback = Throwing distance of target's mass (potentially out of combat)
We now have a basic mechanic for knocking people around in combat. The base application would be Paragon's Push maneuver using Strength. Push is defined as a -2 attack with an option to buy off the penalty with a flat extra, or to look at it another way, Push is inherently Inaccurate, which fits conceptually. One could also apply this maneuver to other effects, like Move Object, to swat away opponents at range, but I would recommend bumping the penalty to -5 for ranged attacks, much like the Disarm maneuver. In fact, one could do this:
PUSH STANDARD ACTION
You attempt to push an opponent away. Make an attack check against the defender with a –2 penalty. If you attempt to push with a ranged effect, you are at –5 penalty. If your attack succeeds, take your Strength (or the appropriate effect's rank) and add 15 to determine the DC. The target makes a resistance check using Strength, Dodge or Flight ranks at his choice.
Ranks of Growth will directly add to Strength or Flight value for this purpose; half the rank of Impervious Toughness (i.e. the part that in 3e is actually Impervious) add to it too. Ranks of Defensive Roll will add to Dodge for purposes of this roll. Ranks of Shrinking come off any resistance.
A single degree of failure causes the target to be knocked down; each additional degree will cause the target to be knocked back one step on the distance chart, starting at rank 0 (30 feet). Targets may take additional damage for hitting other objects when pushed, equal to the rank of the distance; its possible under some circumstances such objects could include a person (usually they'll get a Dodge roll against the rank of the push to avoid this).
If you make a push attempt at close range and lose the opposed check, the defender may immediately make an attempt to push you back as a reaction; make a resistance vs the defender's Strength/effect using your choice of Strength, Dodge or Flight as above. If this push attempt fails, you do not, however, get an additional attempt to push the defender.
This is basically a mashup of Paragon's Push and the Disarm maneuver. I particularly like the reversal option at the end, which gives the opportunity for some super-shoving matches. The Advantage Improved Push would remove both close and ranged penalties to Push and the reaction reversal on failed Pushes.
Another application of this mechanic could be making Teleport Attack more balanced and less of a binary effect. In the previous post, I did a lot of playing around with Teleport Attack variations, but didn't actually use the most common one of simply teleporting someone away. In practice, a basic Teleport Attack cost 2pp/rank, requires a close attack and is usually resisted by Dodge, and would either miss (Dodged) or have the full effect of the power (or as much as the Teleporter wishes to use). This gets unbalanced in a hurry, since a rank 5 'Port for 10pp can send a target with Dodge 5 900' (30 move actions) away about half the time on a successful hit, effectively ending combat in most cases, while Str 5 (10pp) vs Tou 5 will give a -1 penalty and a daze on average.
I propose using the Push maneuver as the mechanic for what I call Combat Teleport. Use 'Port rank +15 for DC and Dodge for resistance. Results are identical with the following adjustments:
1) First degree of success is rank 0 distance plus one for each additional degree. Total distance rank cannot exceed 'Port rank.
2) Prone is only available if the effect has the Change direction flat extra and can be used in exchange for 1 degree of success as the 'Porter desires.
3) (optional) 4 degrees is always maximum distance rank.
Tune in tomorrow and maybe I'll figure out a way to blend this with falling damage from vertical 'ports.
*this breaks down a little after 6 degrees when the doubling scale on the Ranks & Measures table goes wonky, but as mentioned before, this will practically never happen in balanced combat.
I've already gone into a lot of detail about this character 
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