Knockback in DC Heroes is one of those rules that feels small until you actually see it in play. You throw a punch, you roll high, the target goes flying. The book lays it out clean... Column Shifts on the Action Table minus the target’s weight in APs equals the distance they’re sent back. That distance is in APs too, so you can translate it directly into feet, yards, or city blocks.
It’s not just about cinematic flair. Knockback is a damage engine hiding in plain sight. The second the target hits a wall, a car, a lamppost… anything solid… you make another Physical Attack with an AV/EV equal to the Knockback distance. That attack is Killing by default. Which means a single punch, if it lands right and the environment is unfriendly, can do more than your Strength could ever manage directly.
This is where fights start to feel like comics. A hero with average Strength can still end a fight fast by using position. A two AP thug weighs about 200 pounds. If you manage three Column Shifts and they only weigh two APs, you’re throwing them one AP of distance, twenty feet, into whatever is behind them. Even one more Column Shift and suddenly it’s forty feet. A dumpster, a brick wall, the hood of a car… all of those have Body ratings, and any positive RAPs from that impact are damage.
The danger runs both ways. Environments with walls, stairs, and clutter are lethal to anyone light on their feet. Human-scale heroes need to think about where they’re standing. If you get hit hard enough and bounce into something solid, you might take more damage than from the hit itself. The system doesn’t care if it’s poetic or fair. You go flying, you hit, you roll. If your Current Body Condition drops below zero and no one has Last Ditch Defense or First Aid ready, you start dying.
What I like about this rule is how it forces tactical thinking. Every punch becomes a spatial decision. Where is the wall? How heavy is the target? Can I risk swinging full force without sending someone through a plate glass window? That last part matters if you’re trying to avoid Killing Combat. Knockback damage that escalates into fatal territory is an easy way to forfeit Hero Points for the adventure.
And you can invert it. Planned Knockback is its own maneuver. You can declare you’re trying to shove instead of smash, converting your RAPs into distance instead of damage. Combine that with environment control, narrow alleys, bridge railings, rooftop edges... and suddenly you’re playing positional chess instead of just trading dice rolls.
When I run street-level sessions, I keep Knockback front of mind. No fight is just two figures in a vacuum. It’s always about the room, the ledge, the clutter, the drop. You start to see how even a moderate Strength hero can dominate a fight by using those quiet, brutal physics the game bakes in.
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