Knockdown and Shock

Sometimes a fight is decided not by damage but by control: a target that’s been knocked off its feet or thrown out of its rhythm stops being a threat for a brief window. In Last Frontier, two distinct effects handle this — knockdown (a physical fall that sweeps the target off its feet) and shock (a temporary stun). Let’s break down what triggers them and what they do.

Knockdown: sweep the target off its feet

Knockdown is when a successful attack drops the target to the ground and flings it along the line of the blow. It triggers after non-zero, non-lethal damage: if the attack landed and dealt at least one point of health, the game rolls for knockdown.

What triggers it

• The attacker must have a knockdown chance greater than zero (a character/weapon property). Without it, the target simply takes damage and stays on its feet.
• The chance is capped to the 0–100% range and is checked with a roll after damage is dealt.
• The target must not be protected from control: a permanent immunity to being knocked down, or a temporary immunity from an ability (for example, “Juggernaut” from the melee branch), fully blocks knockdown.
• Some abilities grant a guaranteed knockdown: for example, “Brutalize” from the melee branch floors the target on a critical hit (but the target’s immunity is still taken into account).

What it does

A knocked-down target is thrown along the exact angle of the attack until it meets an obstacle, a trigger, or another character on its path. The fling distance depends on the damage, with bonuses stacked on top for a critical hit, melee, a burst, grenade/area and long-range shots, and explosions. Light targets fly farther, heavy ones less far.

• Chain reaction: if a flying character slams into another, that one can be knocked further — but only if the flier’s mass is no less than the mass of whoever it hit. Otherwise the flier stops in front of the heavier one.
• Loss of control: while the knockdown lasts, the character is forcibly moved toward the landing point, and move and turn commands are ignored. After a set delay the character gets up and becomes able to act again.
• Feedback: a KNOCK label pops up over the knocked-down target, and a SLAM label over the victims of a chain collision.

Shock: throw them out of rhythm

Shock is a stun: a temporary danger window that throws the character out of a confident combat rhythm. Unlike knockdown, it isn’t a fall but a status condition with a timer.

• What triggers it: in the current version, shock is applied by explosive effects — grenades, charges, and mines with a configured shock duration.
• How it works: the “shocked” state holds until its timer runs out; a repeated shock only extends the window rather than stacking.

Loss of mobility — a related effect

Alongside shock sits loss of mobility — a “can’t reposition or retreat” condition. It’s also applied by explosive effects (around 10 seconds by default), and it can be blocked with the corresponding immunity from an ability. If shock and knockdown break the rhythm, loss of mobility cuts off the retreat.

What this means for the player

• Knockdown is a control tool: for it to work you need a source of knockdown chance; raw damage alone won’t floor a target.
• A knocked-down target flies along the line of attack — mind the obstacles and allies behind it, or the chain reaction may catch your own.
• Shock and loss of mobility come mainly from explosives — one more reason to value charges and mines as a means of controlling space, not just dealing damage.