I Trip Him with Staff!

This thread got me curious about actions such as this.

Let’s use a concrete, not-uncommon (and fully narrative) example:

I’m a wizard with a Great Staff (longest). (For the pedants who would point out this isn’t in the table in the back, pretend I said Spear.) I find myself in the heat of melee unexpectedly and I either don’t have time to cast any spells or my I’m critically close to injuring myself should I tax myself further. I’ve got the Advantage, keeping the gentleman at bay with the end of my very long stick, and I pull ye olde Gandalf move - I spin around and bring my staff down on his knee or thigh.

Out of the narrative, I intend for my character to trip this nice fellow who is trying to give me his knife (and it’s not even my birthday!) and lay him out so that I can then get the hell out of dodge. Trouble is, the only actions I see in Fight capable of knocking an opponent off their feet are Charge and Push, both of which would lead to my poor wizard switching to his Hands and ceding the advantage - and in this scenario, that just doesn’t make sense.

I’m sure I’m missing something, so someone help me out here - how would you script this?

Charge switches you to your hands, but if it’s successful it lets you win the advantage with whatever weapon you’re holding.

…Which still isn’t right, because your wizard isn’t built for charging and you already have the advantage.

Some kind of push or trip with a weapon would work well, but I don’t think there’s a way to script it currently.

I had thought of maybe “Beat” - or maybe Strike with the optional rules about falling down when you get hit in the legs in place. But it’s still slightly unsatisfying. I mean, I grant you that tripping someone with any weapon would be REALLY hard unless you’ve got a great weapon skill, but that doesn’t mean you can’t attempt it! Does BWHQ have any advice for how to script such a thing?

Zelbinian remembered there are optional rules for being knocked down from leg hits, and I think this makes a lot of sense.

Unless you’re using something like a long pole, tripping someone is pretty much a strike, isn’t it? I mean, imagine tripping someone with a sword or battleaxe? You’re going to do horrible damage. So I like the idea of tripping by striking at the leg.

I have, in the past, used special Staff skills that incorporated the weapon into the Push action. I think they’d be worthy inclusions in Gold.

Would it be ok for us to see those Skills?

More generally, do you have advice for how to handle it when someone wants to do something in Fight that just doesn’t seem to fit the available actions? Rare, I know, but it does happen from time to time.

For things that don’t fit regular actions, we just use Physical Action and a stat test.

How would you set the Ob for this? Vs Power?

Sounds right, though vs Speed would make a lot of sense too. Don’t forget advantage/disadvantage, too.

Another option: You could leave the Fight and make a versus test. If you are successful, you get your Intent. If you fail the Fight continues.