Do Nothing

King Bumi : Listen to me, Aang. There are options in fighting, called "jing." It's a choice of how you direct your energy.
Aang : I know.
[holding up his fingers as he counts them off] 
Aang: There's positive jing when you're attacking and negative jing when you're retreating. 
King Bumi: And neutral jing, when you do nothing!Do Nothing (B364) is a Maneuver. It is sometimes required if a character is stunned or after suffering a critical hit:
*B556 middle column (critical head blow) has a "knocked off balance" which mandates it, but it doesn't function like a stun (there are no defense penalties, retreats are possible, no HT or IQ roll needed to snap out of it)
*B556 right column (critical miss) has a "lose your balance" outcome which uses the phrase "can do nothing else" and does not use the capitalized reference to the maneuver. It doesn't mention obligating the maneuver, but seems to fall somewhere between the "off balance" above and standard stun in that it only gives -2 to active defenses. There is no mention of being unable to retreat. Since active defensesARE allowed, "nothing else" can't be taken entirely literally: it likely just means "cannot attack again that turn" for those with Extra Attack
**B557 has a similar statement for Unarmed Critical Miss Table which similarly specifies "not even a free action". It's unclear if free actions would be prohibited if dating a Do Nothing or when stunned.
==Active Characters==
B362 notes:
*An “active character” is involved in the combat and able to take action.
*A character who is knocked out, asleep, etc. is not active.
*But someone who chooses to do nothing is still active – “Do Nothing” is a valid combat maneuver
For representing a "less than Do Nothing" B557 notes that if you "drop your guard" (only possible on the Unarmed Critical Miss Table) there is a -2 to active defenses, you suffer double Feint penalties and Evaluate bonuses against you are doubled. This is probably a reasonable thing to apply to people who are knocked out or asleep: but since you can't do active defenses the only relevant change would be to Evaluate, doubling the maximum output to +6 which exceed the +4 for Telegraphic Attack in GURPS Martial Arts.
This -2 is similar to the lose your balance except it doesn't explicitly prohibit making free actions or using any remaining Extra Attacks.
*it should be able to stack with stun, causing -6 to active defenses: in fact it should be possible to drop guard at -2, make a 2nd attack and stun yourself AND crit-fail for an extra -6, for a total of -8 to active defenses for that turn.
==Combat Cards==
There are four variations of the maneuver represented on yellow cards:
*upper-left Do Nothing: when chosen intentionally for some reason (lacks obvious incentive, see below section)
*lower-left Do Nothing (Stunned): for when a HT roll is needed to recover (aka "Physical Stun")
*upper-right Do Nothing (Mental Stun): for when an IQ roll is needed to recover
*lower-right Do Nothing (Surprised): as above, doesn't appear to have any meaningful difference
==Incentives==
When someone is not forced by a stun to Do Nothing, there is usually a lack of an obvious reason why someone would choose this maneuver.
One might be the RP aspect: it has been stated that maneuver choice is obvious, so someone who chose All-Out Defense rather than Do Nothing might be obviously on-guard, and provoke conflict, RP-wise. Mechanically that doesn't yet have any crunch representative, except perhaps the Situational Awareness rules in Tactical Shooting.
One simply might be to qualify as "rest" to recover Fatigue Points.
In Last Gasp it gives a bonus to Action Points recovery rolls compared to Evaluate to represent that on a micro-scale, even though AP recovery does not actually tabulate into FP recovery (yet).
Basic Set basically covers two situation where there is a benefit to choosing it:
#B419 mentions when at 0 HP or less, both choosing this and not attempting active defenses allows forgoing the Will roll each second to stay conscious: staying conscious is automatic. So it can be wise to Do Nothing if later action could be more useful than early action.
#B420 has a similar note for 0 FP or less: "roll before each maneuver other than Do Nothing" is a requirement the maneuver avoids. Failing the will roll doesn't just mean you fail to do an attempted maneuver: it also means being forced to take Do Nothing maneuvers until FP is positive. So choosing it early when action is less important guarantees being able to attempt it later when it's more important. 
#*a crit fail on this Will roll also induces a HT roll and even normal failure on that causes a Heart Attack as per Mortal Conditions, so doing nothing at 0 FP is one way to avoid the risk of that.
#**While a HT roll to prevent it makes sense, it's not entirely clear why being strong-willed makes one less likely to risk a heart attack when pushing energy limits.
==Losing Control==
B396 notes: regarding the necessity of Move or Move and Attack maneuvers when at "high speed"
:if you were stunned and forced to Do Nothing, you would trip as described above
==Active defenses==
B551's overview can be worded in a bit of a confusing way, as it might lead to double-counting a -4 penalty.:
:‡ Defenses are at -4 if taking Do Nothing due to stun.
Notes on preceding pages don't mention any -4 taking effect during the Do Nothing Maneuver, instead the penalties are worded as if they take effect immediately during whatever maneuver you were in the middle of while stunned, and that stunning just forces your next maneuver to be Do Nothing
*B381 "you are -4 to active defenses and cannot retreat, and must Do Nothing on your next turn."
*B420 "If you are stunned, you must Do Nothing on your next turn. You may perform any active defense while stunned, but your defense rolls are at -4 and you cannot retreat."
Interestingly, even though it obligates the NEXT maneuver to be a Do Nothing, it doesn't appear to transform the existing one into a Do Nothing (like an inverted Wait) so any unspent Extra Attacks or Movement Points in theory could still be used up: so there's a delay until the stun actually inhibits non-defensive movement.
==Defense is nothing==
The idea that you can defend whilst "doing nothing" is supported elsewhere. B557:
:You can do nothing else (not even a free action) until your next turn, and all your active defenses are at -2 until then.
Which means that active defenses can be done in situations where even free actions can't be done.
==Retreats==
B364's left column "Movement: None!" can lead some to question if retreats are legal. Clearly "movement" is not absolute here (one can make active defenses when using a Do Nothing, a parry or a dodge involves moving body parts!) but it refers to whether or not you get something like a "Step" as other maneuvers like Attack or Concentrate.
The confusion can be since retreats function similarly to a step, and involve the same distance of movement.
B364's middle-column Change Posture phrasing is "Movement: None. You remain in place as you change posture". There is no exclamation mark here, and Do Nothing lacks the added sentence.
B364's right-column Aim exception to Step is "Exception: You cannot step if using a braced, twohanded weapon" which presumably is identical to "None" in that context.
B366 for Wait also has "Movement: None until your Wait is triggered."
The only maneuvers which explicitly call out retreats as off-limits are Move and Attack in basic set and Committed Attack in Martial Arts. Some see this as grounds to think that the three "None" maneuvers are allowed reactive retreat pseudo-steps even if they can't voluntarily take a step when not attacked.
*the counter argument would be that since Move and Attack and Committed Attack do not have Movement: None it becomes necessary to state that Retreats are off-limits since they aren't inherently as a result of "None"
B377's "To exercise this option, you must move away from your attacker: at least one yard" is the key here. It notes:
*"You cannot retreat while in a sitting or kneeling posture, or while stunned."
The lack of specifying only postures/stun and not Movement:None maneuvers (Do Nothing, Change Posture, Braced2hAim, Wait) should probably not be seen as reason to imply they could do retreats though, since Move and Attack is also not explicitly mentioned.
Probably the best indicator that you can actually do retreats during a standard (non-stunned) Do Nothing is actually the Combat Cards. The 3 stun variations of Do Nothing all note "cannot retreat" while the basic card does not.
If "cannot retreat" were an inherent property of Do Nothing maneuvers then one would expect to see it consistently stated on all four combat cards, instead of just the three stun variants.
The mention of inability to retreat next to stun in Basic Set could in isolation be seen as just noting how it modifies the current non-Do-Nothing maneuver which might otherwise be capable of a retreat, but the use of it on a card implies that retreat-inability is something that isn't present on standard Do Nothings.
If that's the case and "None" does not prohibit retreats it should allow making retreats during Change Posture / Aim / Wait as well even though they don't allow changing one's hex with a step otherwise.
Category:Maneuvers