Remove the damage from Knockdown

[SanTelmo]

I'm not very supportative to this, after playing a char with IKD. In a duel against a warrior who was probably 2 levels lower than me, I succeeded once to knock him down. Every other time he resisted it. (And as far as I've noticed, this is resisted quite often by a trained warrior (or large monsters) because of their high discipline and loot that raises your discipline. I often found myself not spamming it in duels because I wanted to hit on each hit rather than get them -maybe- once down.

Disarm can be quite useful in PvP either way, you can just grab the weapon and it pretty much ends the battle right there.

But I do agree that this is strong and fairly easy way to keep wizards and other weak discipline classes down but isn't Hold Person or some other disable spell equally useful against a low will warrior? Not to mention that we have both discipline potions and PfA potions to somewhat counter both.

I think that removing the damage from them makes them a lot more useless, maybe a bit too much.

[UnholyWon]

Knockdown is brute force and powerful trauma meant to bring a person down. I say the damage okay, and knockdown should remain as is, no change.

[BrittanyPanthas]

Its not supposed to be a knockdown, in D&D its called 'Trip'

Trip

You can try to trip an opponent as an unarmed melee attack. You can only trip an opponent who is one size category larger than you, the same size, or smaller.
Making a Trip Attack

Make an unarmed melee touch attack against your target. This provokes an attack of opportunity from your target as normal for unarmed attacks.

If your attack succeeds, make a Strength check opposed by the defender’s Dexterity or Strength check (whichever ability score has the higher modifier). A combatant gets a +4 bonus for every size category he is larger than Medium or a -4 penalty for every size category he is smaller than Medium. The defender gets a +4 bonus on his check if he has more than two legs or is otherwise more stable than a normal humanoid. If you win, you trip the defender. If you lose, the defender may immediately react and make a Strength check opposed by your Dexterity or Strength check to try to trip you.
Avoiding Attacks of Opportunity

If you have the Improved Trip feat, or if you are tripping with a weapon (see below), you don’t provoke an attack of opportunity for making a trip attack.

Tripping with a Weapon

Some weapons can be used to make trip attacks. In this case, you make a melee touch attack with the weapon instead of an unarmed melee touch attack, and you don’t provoke an attack of opportunity.

If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the weapon to avoid being tripped.

[Porkolt]

I was always under the impression that kd was hardcoded, which is the reason that there are simply no servers that have changed it.

[SelfishMan]

Its not supposed to be a knockdown, in D&D its called 'Trip'

Trip

You can try to trip an opponent as an unarmed melee attack. You can only trip an opponent who is one size category larger than you, the same size, or smaller.
Making a Trip Attack

Make an unarmed melee touch attack against your target. This provokes an attack of opportunity from your target as normal for unarmed attacks.

If your attack succeeds, make a Strength check opposed by the defender’s Dexterity or Strength check (whichever ability score has the higher modifier). A combatant gets a +4 bonus for every size category he is larger than Medium or a -4 penalty for every size category he is smaller than Medium. The defender gets a +4 bonus on his check if he has more than two legs or is otherwise more stable than a normal humanoid. If you win, you trip the defender. If you lose, the defender may immediately react and make a Strength check opposed by your Dexterity or Strength check to try to trip you.
Avoiding Attacks of Opportunity

If you have the Improved Trip feat, or if you are tripping with a weapon (see below), you don’t provoke an attack of opportunity for making a trip attack.

Tripping with a Weapon

Some weapons can be used to make trip attacks. In this case, you make a melee touch attack with the weapon instead of an unarmed melee touch attack, and you don’t provoke an attack of opportunity.

If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the weapon to avoid being tripped.

Well, yes. But in PnP, you get 50 different posibilites of what to do with your opponent when you trip him. Grapple, smash his head against the ground till the brain plops out from the ears, kick him in the balls, chop off his feet so he can't run, etc.

In NwN, you can just smash the shit out of him. And then, if you don't have like disabling/holding consumables (HP, tangle bags, sonic burst etc), if KD does no damage, then in 1vs1 it becomes absolutely useless and redundant?

[DollarPhil]

I have a love-hate relationship with this skill.  It's great to lock down stuff you have real difficulty hurting (see the 3-4 KDers spamming on one of the Vrocks near the end of the demonic invasion), but it's also a Win Button against even a prepared no Disc class. Potions of Disc have been a good way to make it less crazy, but they are not common enough to spam preemptively. I think that either a modification of a an arcane defensive spell (Shield?) to grant KD immunity or a large Disc boost, more Discipline items for caster classes and so on would be best.

KD is nasty because its uses are unlimited unlike all other stuns (spells, Stunning Fist, Tanglebags), so can be chained until you hit, then with no penalty (+4 to hit a KDed target) when you get them. Even if they resist, you still damage them, and you can use it on every attack unlike wandspam or stun spells. Hold Person on the other hand, if they're Claritied or wearing a Mind of the Ooze, you wasted a resource. Stunning Fist, you can use fort save gear against and there's some good gear for that. Against spells and tanglebags, any class can get saves or immunity by using gear and buffs, but discipline is far harder to get. Yes, KD costs a feat, but so does a Spell Focus or Extra Stunning, etc.

if the feat's hardcoded, the way to balance is to throw in Discipline points and immunities to resist it some other way. It should be a nasty trick vs unprepared enemies, but not against somoen expecting a fight.

[Yalta]

I think that either a modification of a an arcane defensive spell (Shield?) to grant KD immunity or a large Disc boost, more Discipline items for caster classes and so on would be best

This sounds good by way of compromise. Shield is maybe powerful enough already? Maybe Clarvoyance/Clairaudience could boost your Discipline by 20 or so, as you see the trip or charge coming? Wouldn't last very long but would give you a decent chance of resisting a knockdown in an emergency, without giving complete immunity.

[DollarPhil]

My thought was that in a similar way to how you can have PFX up to pre-empt mindspell stuns, you could have an anti-KD spell of a similar cost. I figured Shield would be good as it is fairly cheap for arcane classes and rogues (the main losers to KD) and expensive for others who have Disc, although then there's the fighter/UMDer problem... A partial solution would be to make Pots of Disciplne as dirt common as PfG and PfE, but that still ends up being a supply counter not a preparation one. I have a dislike of handy rare(ish) potions because it widens the gap between people who know the optimal ways to get them and those who don't.

A wizard walking round with anything short of Imp Invis is still an easy KD target no matter what he has up. There's no way to avoid having to start a fight rather than respond. My two fastest losses on mages to muggings were both times against PCs with non-obvious defense spells up (wards, statbuffs, insulation, MA, ext Shield) against characters with KD.

A thing about KD is the DC is based on the attack roll against Discipline. Unlike for spells, where saves and immunities (temporary or permanent) are easier to get hold of than DC boosts, attack bonus boosts are particularly easy to acquire. On the other hand Discipline bonuses tend to only come on gear that is designed for classes that already have the skill.

[Howlando]

I'm not opposed to making it easier to get discipline (minor bonuses from spells, more +disc items, more of the potions that give +discipline), but I definitely think KD as a powerful ability for melee-based classes is important.

[UrkoNeedsAStiffDrink]

KD Spamming in PvP is bad etiquette. If PCs are doing it against other PCs, then thats cheap if you ask me.

[Nightshadow]

The way to balance it, I'd say, is to do what another server did, and after every time you're KD'd, you get a  +5 to discipline for a few rounds, this bonus would stack, so if you're KD'd twice, you suddenly get a +10, even for a wizard this grants a decent chance of resisting a third KD. Alternatively, after succeeding on a KD, apply a -4 AB to the KD'er for 1 round, making it so that while the other person can't fight back, the KD'er just pulled off a complicated maneuver and is having difficulty recovering from it (penalty negated with IKD).

Also, more potions of discipline would be nice.

[Howlando]

KD Spamming in PvP is bad etiquette. If PCs are doing it against other PCs, then thats cheap if you ask me.

Respectfully, that is not correct. Use of the Knockdown feat is, at present, completely unrestricted and it is in no way poor form or bad etiquette to use this feat. There -are- limitations and counters to this feat that do exist, although certainly in situations with highly buffed up PCs with massive AB it can be quite devastating. But of course so are any number of things.

The way to balance it, I'd say, is to do what another server did, and after every time you're KD'd, you get a +5 to discipline for a few rounds, this bonus would stack, so if you're KD'd twice, you suddenly get a +10, even for a wizard this grants a decent chance of resisting a third KD.

That might be nice.

[UrkoNeedsAStiffDrink]

Respectfully, that is not correct. Use of the Knockdown feat is, at present, completely unrestricted and it is in no way poor form or bad etiquette to use this feat. There -are- limitations and counters to this feat that do exist, although certainly in situations with highly buffed up PCs with massive AB it can be quite devastating. But of course so are any number of things.

Oh, ofcourse its not against the rules, I just personally think its cheap to have every attack be a form of KD. Not that I'm speaking on behalf of anyone else.

[Decimate_The_Weak]

I don't think knockdown is overpowered, but... I don't think it should be able to be spammed.
 
If anything, I simply say make it a full-round action. Because honestly, why would you knockdown someone who is... knocked down?

[Nightshadow]

KD'ing someone who is already KD'd does nothing, they still get up one round after the first KD (unless they're an NPC trying to run, then KD'ing them simply doesn't work, they continue moving), it's where you KD someone at the start of each round (after they get up) that's KD spamming, unless I'm wrong about this... I never did use KD that much. Anyway...

I don't think knockdown is overpowered, but... I don't think it should be able to be spammed

There's no reason for it not to be possible to spam. "Hey, good job knocking down this demon, keep at it!" "I can't, there is now an invisible barrier up around his legs, preventing me from tripping him again regardless of how much I try or what methods I use!"

Yeah... Doesn't make much sense, does it? Keep in mind this is an RP server, everyone, not a PvP server. Eliminating or reducing the strengths of certain classes because they are perceived as 'overpowered' when there are ways of countering them easily is something I would rather not see on this server, especially when there is no IC reason for such a thing, like cool-down timers on knockdown.

With all the discipline buffing items on this server, there's no reason that even a wizard couldn't get 10+ discipline fairly soon (fairly easily, too, if one were to put ranks in it), which is enough to grant a good chance of resisting knockdown.