I tried searching on the wiki and google, but I couldn't think of a better term than "knock back" and did not find what I was looking for. Is there a setting that can be changed via the construction set that will decrease the effect of a strong attack from moving the character (or PC) back when struck? I'm trying to balance some much higher damage values than normal to make weapon combat more realistic, but in increasing the amount of damage the weapons do to health, it is making them also cause unrealistic sliding around of characters... getting hit by a sword, sliding back 20 feet and living is a constant problem. Any advice on where to look to modify the effects of this "knock back" would be greatly appreciated.

Look here: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Game_settings

In the Floating point game settings: in the 'K' list.