I’ll hop in with two tid bits of my own.
Regarding positioning with a weapon not in hand:
Part of winning position is successfully threatening your opponent with your weapon so that they may not advance or successfully diverting their weapon so that you can break past. In general, keeping the business end trained on your opponent is safer, and doing otherwise is risky and situation (Feint, Aggressive stance, the like).
Regarding releasing an incapacitated opponent from a lock:
According to Zero Stats = Incapacitation (BWG 489), incapacitation via physical stats leaves the victim conscious, albeit in a sore way. They should be able bounce back right away when released. Since Lock only affects physical stats, that’s the end of it. If you release an opponent incapacitated by a Lock, they’re no longer incapacitated.
However, Lock seems like the action for stuff like choke holds too, and they’d be a little different.
Choking
First of all, incapacitation via mental stats represents loss of consciousness. If you allow asphyxiating Locks to affect mental stats, they can knock their victims out. Unlike being released from a joint lock or pin, lack of consciousness is a little sticky:
If a character is knocked unconscious and it matters how many beats, volleys, etc. it takes them to come to, call for a Steel test. They’re out for as long as they hesitate.
Outside of extended tests, you can Say Yes as well. Do they get up right after the roden assassin is kicked off of them? Yes! Can they lock the unconscious guard in the Lord’s chamber before she comes to? Yes! Can they expect her to stay down for the entire heist? No, people don’t really stay unconscious for that long unless they’re injured.
Which leads to the guidelines: if a nonplayer character is choked unconscious by someone inending to kill them, they’re dead; If by someone who doesn’t intend to kill them but hasn’t done this before, roll the DoF. On a 1, the character is dead anyway. If a player character choked them, they have one chance to save their victim from certain death with an appropriate medical skill test (ye olde CPR).
Conventional wisdom is that a choke hold can kill within thirty seconds. In a Fight, that’s a very long time. To take a page from the Star Systems hack rules for being on fire (p.118), one exponent per volley/exchange seems to be a good rate of advancement for a death countdown.
So here’s a rule you can use:
Choke
You may script Choke instead of Lock. Choke functions identically to Lock, except the attacker tests at +1 Ob and Choke reduces mental stats and social skills in addition to physical stats and fighting, shooting and magical skills.
Once all of a character’s stats are reduced to zero by a Choke, they fall unconscious. At the end of the next exchange after they fall unconscious, they take an Incidental wound as from their attacker’s bare fist. At the end of every following exchange, this wound advances one exponent, all the way to Mortal, at which point the character is dead (or spends Persona to miraculously recover).
If the Choke is released, the wound is set at its current exponent. Choking wounds do not bleed, but otherwise function like ordinary wounds. Each successful Choke against the character inflicts its own wound.
You may switch between Locking and Choking by scripting the opposite action. Test against the victim with current accumulated penalties, but reset to the results of the new Lock or Choke. For example, when switching from a 3D Choke to a Lock, if you roll 1 MoS, the new Lock is 2D rather than 3D. Switching to a Lock from a Choke counts as releasing the Choke.
So, a chokehold from someone with B4 power against someone with B4 stats and B10 Mortal Wound will kill them in around 25 to 30 seconds, assuming an exchange is around 3 seconds. Right in line with the data.
I recommend restricting Choke to Martial Arts, Garrote or its own skill.