Martial Exploits - Trip, Disarm, and Sunder

While there's a lot to love about 4th Edition, one of the things that I have a harder time with is the restriction on options. It's not terrible, of course - much has been restricted on the basis of speed or balance, and those are good design goals. On the other hand, there is the oft-used "stunting" option, but it is, by definition, rather rules-light.

What I'm hoping to do here is bring back other combat maneuvers - disarming, tripping, sundering. But as mentioned several days back in the threat about dark-loving creatures putting out lights, a viable mechanic that allows for some of these things can be situationally appropriate, but extremely powerful as a regular tactic. And there's a lot of validity to that. I've tried to work the options into a system that does make them sometimes useful, without making them the standard go-to choice. As actions are the primary gauge of power in 4E, that's where I've limited it.

[h2]Introduction[/h2]
While most combatants have a firm grasp on the basics of combat - keep your feet on the ground, hold on to your gear, swing at the other guy - down solidly, accidents happen. Sometimes, the only thing separates victory from defeat is a single minor slip-up. Especially if your opponent is able to capitalize on it...

This system integrates cleanly into the 4E D&D combat system, by providing four new maneuvers - which are nothing more than powers that everyone may use - that allow combatants to take advantage of their enemies' mistakes. Mistakes that are represented by a new condition, unbalanced.

[h3]Being Unbalanced[/h3]
A character who is unbalanced is a little slower to react, and a little slower on the offensive, as well. Perhaps he's standing on a floor covered in oil and attempting to keep his footing, or perhaps he's recovering from a blow that nearly caught him, but still managed to throw him back a moment.

[h4]Unbalanced[/h4]

• You take a -1 penalty to all defenses.
• You can't flank an enemy.

A character who is unbalanced can spend a minor action to regain his composure, removing the condition.

[h4]Gaining the Unbalanced Condition[/h4]
A character is unbalanced if he rolls a natural 1, "fumbles", on an attack roll. If a character makes multiple attack rolls as part of a single attack (for instance, if he is attacking an area,) only a natural 1 on the first roll can cause him to become unbalanced.

A character may also become unbalanced as a result of powers or maneuvers used against him.

[h3]Maneuvers[/h3]
Maneuvers are the primary addition of this system. A maneuver is, at its heart, a standard power, as any other. The distinguishing characteristic of maneuvers is that they are usable - or known, if you prefer - by anyone, being nothing more than another form of combat action. A charge could be considered a maneuver, for instance.

[highlight]Minor Feint[/highlight]
You make an attack with no intent to follow through, solely to throw your opponent off-balance.
At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: The target is unbalanced until the end of your next turn.


[highlight]Disarm[/highlight]
Taking advantage of your foe's temporary distraction, you attempt to wrest away his sword.
At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
Hit: One object held by the target is dropped. If you have a free hand, you may choose to be holding the object now. Otherwise, it falls 1d4 squares away from the target, in a direction of your choice.


[highlight]Trip[/highlight]
While your enemy attempts to regain his guard, you swing for his feet.
At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Strength vs. Reflex
Hit: The target falls prone.


[highlight]Sunder[/highlight]
Sometimes, taking away your opponent's tools is the surest way to victory... and right now, he's not expecting it.
At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: You strike your target's carried weapon, implement, or shield, or worn armor. If you choose to strike a weapon or implement, all attacks made using it suffer a -1 penalty until it is repaired. If you strike armor or a shield, the bonus provided by that piece is reduced by 1 until repaired.
Special: If you strike at an object that is already damaged, the penalties stack.


[h2]Conclusion and Feedback[/h2]
My hope is that, by limiting the use of these options to taking advantage of a fumble, they have a solid enough opportunity cost to prevent them from being used too often, while still making them solid options when the time is right. I know that there are a number of reasons that fumbling isn't included, by default, as part of the core system. But I needed to hook off of something, and that seemed appropriate. Especially as a minor action will remove the condition, it is primarily just a minor hindrance.

Other options could be to only have the unbalanced condition be caused by the minor feint maneuver, or add it as an effect caused by select other powers - I can certainly think of a few in the core system that I wouldn't mind adding it to, without thinking it'd overpower them.

In any case, I'm actual afraid I may have made these too restrictive. As-is, methods of actually using this maneuvers are:

• Your opponent rolls a 1 on his attack and doesn't have a minor action to spend this turn to remove the unbalanced condition;
• You spend an action point to make a minor feint and follow it up with one of the other maneuvers;
• Two allies coordinate to unbalance and then follow it up;
• A foe rolls a 1 on his attack and something provides you with an interrupt attack before he can recover.

Of those, the only I can see being potentially overpowered is for two allies to coordinate - it may be the case that it's a little much, but then, it does also require two rolls.

Comments, questions. Or better yet, suggestions?

Nicely done

I especially like how you handled sundering, not making it so absolute, but still a noteworthy penalty to the opponent ^^

I don't think they're too weak or anything, since anyone can use them.. If anything, the ability to neutralize some of your foe's offensive potential with these maneuvers is huge enough as it is like this.

I like the concept somewhat... but

I think you are right about making these too restrictive. It feels like you are cramming something somewhere you think has no room... because I think you arent choosing to make the room .

I want more at-wills!! they are fun... making more of them is something I want to see right along with more rituals.

I want more at-will powers!!!
double the number available to humans and non .... 6 and 4 a piece!

All you have to do is make sure both the new and old at-wills are worth using and choosing. And if somebody has an at-will which is lame... replace with one that isnt or intensify it till it isnt lame

<aneqdote>
While thinking of a way to do D&D diceless, i came up with maneuver types.. essentially keywords that allowed you to describe the action as normal, guided, deceptive, predictive, instinctive... they were described in a way as to give a rock paper scissors effect. A deceptive move caused the advantages a guided move was attempting to gain to be inverted into penalties. The moves could be of significant effect in part because I was replacing dice.</aneqdote>

It's interesting. The main tricky thing to handle is the disarm ability. First of all, if a monster is disarmed, can it still make (unarmed) attacks? If so how do you calculate the damage, because monster stat blocks just have damage numbers for weapons, and (AFAIK) there isn't a standard way to calculate monster damage like there was in 3e?

One more thing - this seems potentially very powerful against elites and especially solos. Against ordinary monsters it doesn't seem too overpowered (after all the standard is about 4 hits to destroy an ordinary monster, and it will usually take at least 2 hits to disarm it, and they will have to both be consecutive plus you can't use your cool encounters and dailies, so even if disarming a monster turns out to be effectively almost as good as killing it, it's not THAT powerful), but it seems extremely powerful against solos. Against a solo it is very easy to concentrate fire on one target to get the sequential attacks needed, and if you knock away the solo's weapon then it's going to be easy to block out the solo from picking it up. For elites the problem will be smaller, but would still exist.

And also, why is Feint INT vs. Will? It seems to make more sense as CHA vs. Will since you're trying to trick the enemy, like a bluff (and bluff depends on CHA)

This is my try using your idea. And thx it was a great one

Martial Exploits - Trip, Disarm, and Sunder
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Condition: Unbalanced

A character who is unbalanced is a little slower to react, and a little slower on the offensive, as well. Perhaps he's standing on a floor covered in oil and attempting to keep his footing, or perhaps he's recovering from a blow that nearly caught him, but still managed to throw him back a moment.

Unbalanced
You take a -1 penalty to all defenses.
You can't flank an enemy.
A character who is unbalanced regains his balance at the start of his next turn.

Gaining the Unbalanced Condition
A character is unbalanced if he rolls a natural 1, "fumbles", on an attack roll. If a character makes multiple attack rolls as part of a single attack (for instance, if he is attacking an area,) only a natural 1 on the first roll can cause him to become unbalanced.
A character may also become unbalanced as a result of powers or maneuvers used against him.




Basic maneuvers

Minor Feint
You make an attack with no intent to follow through, solely to throw your opponent off-balance.
At-Will * Weapon
Standard Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Bluff vs. Will
Hit: The target gains the unbalanced condition.


Disarm
Taking advantage of your foe's temporary distraction, you attempt to wrest away his sword.
At-Will * Weapon
Requirement: An enemy adjacent gains the unbalanced condition
Immediate Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
Hit: One object held by the target is dropped. If you have a free hand, you may choose to be holding the object now. Otherwise, it falls in one of your adjacent squares, of your choice.

Ranged Disarm
Taking advantage of your foe's temporary distraction, you attempt to shoot away his sword.
At-Will * Weapon or Arcane or Divine (implement)
Requirement: An enemy within 5 squares gains the unbalanced condition
Immediate Action _ Range 5
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Dexterity -2 vs. Fortitude
Hit: One object held by the target is dropped. It falls in one of the adjacent squares, of your choice.


Trip
While your enemy attempts to regain his guard, you swing for his feet.
At-Will * Weapon
Requirement: An enemy adjacent gains the unbalanced condition
Immediate Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Strength vs. Reflex
Hit: The target falls prone.

Ranged Trip
While your enemy attempts to regain his guard, you shoot at his feet.
At-Will * Weapon
Requirement: An enemy within 5 squares gains the unbalanced condition
Immediate Action _ Range 5
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Strength -2 vs. Reflex
Hit: The target falls prone.

Sunder
Sometimes, taking away your opponent's tools is the surest way to victory... and right now, he's not expecting it.
At-Will * Weapon
Requirement: An enemy adjacent gains the unbalanced condition
Immediate Action _ Melee weapon
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: You strike your target's carried weapon, implement, or shield, or worn armor. If you choose to strike a weapon or implement, all attacks made using it suffer a -1 penalty on both attacks and damage until it is repaired. If you strike armor or a shield, the bonus provided by that piece is reduced by 1 until repaired.
Special: If you strike at an object that is already damaged, the penalties stack up to 3 times.


Ranged Sunder
Sometimes, taking away your opponent's tools is the surest way to victory... and right now, he's not expecting it.
At-Will * Weapon or Arcane or Divine (implement)
Requirement: An enemy within 5 squares gains the unbalanced condition
Immediate Action _ Range 5
Target: One creature suffering from the unbalanced condition
Attack: Strength -2 vs. AC
Hit: You strike your target's carried weapon, implement, or shield, or worn armor. If you choose to strike a weapon or implement, all attacks made using it suffer a -1 penalty on both attacks and damage until it is repaired. If you strike armor or a shield, the bonus provided by that piece is reduced by 1 until repaired.
Special: If you strike at an object that is already damaged, the penalties stack up to 3 times.

Kavon said:

I especially like how you handled sundering, not making it so absolute, but still a noteworthy penalty to the opponent ^^

Click to expand...

Thanks. At some point, assuming someone kept trying, it would eventually get absolute - I mean, enough strikes at armor, and it'd no longer provide a benefit. I was tempted, in both cases, to state that "if the item has sustained penalties equal to either the armor bonus provided or the proficiency bonus to attacks it grants, it breaks." Didn't know if that'd be too much, though. I mean, granted, the armor thing sorta is that way already - armor that provides a +0 bonus isn't doing much anymore, anyway. Weapons, I dunno.

Kavon said:

I don't think they're too weak or anything, since anyone can use them.. If anything, the ability to neutralize some of your foe's offensive potential with these maneuvers is huge enough as it is like this.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I didn't think they'd be particularly weak. Hard to use sometimes, yes, but that's intentional by way of preventing them from becoming a standard start-of-combat tactic. I was more concerned that it'd be too much.

Garthanos said:

I like the concept somewhat... but

I think you are right about making these too restrictive. It feels like you are cramming something somewhere you think has no room... because I think you arent choosing to make the room.

Click to expand...

Hrm. So too hard to use, you think? How about the consequences of cutting down opponent offense too much?

Alex319 said:

It's interesting. The main tricky thing to handle is the disarm ability. First of all, if a monster is disarmed, can it still make (unarmed) attacks? If so how do you calculate the damage, because monster stat blocks just have damage numbers for weapons, and (AFAIK) there isn't a standard way to calculate monster damage like there was in 3e?

Click to expand...

Hrm. Good point in that there's no default fallback for disarmed monsters. Downside of powers being built the way they are. Offhand, I'd suggest that they can still use their normal powers, but at a penalty equal to the proficiency bonus that's ordinarily provided by the weapon. (Yes, I'm aware that technically, monsters don't have a proficiency bonus, just an attack bonus. Thus why I'm calling it a penalty.)

Damage is a little trickier. I suppose our options would be to either leave it the same and consider the penalty to attacks enough, drop it by, say, two die sizes (which gets wonky if the monster was using a small weapon, like a dagger,) or go the more involved route and create a table of standard unarmed damage/size category. I'm leaning more towards the last, but does that make it too much work to look up? What do you think?

Alex319 said:

One more thing - this seems potentially very powerful against elites and especially solos. {clipped text describing problem}

Click to expand...

And this is an excellent point. Thank you - this is 100% of the feedback I needed - issues where the tactic would, despite limitations, be just too powerful. Given the considerations above, the penalty to attacks and possible damage penalty, is it still too much, d'you think? Offhand, I think most solos are monstrous type creatures that don't use weapons, but there are cases where that is the case. Still, I think that, with the penalties above, it may be fair enough as-is.

Alex319 said:

And also, why is Feint INT vs. Will? It seems to make more sense as CHA vs. Will since you're trying to trick the enemy, like a bluff (and bluff depends on CHA)

Click to expand...

This is just a good call. I'm making the change now.

Here's a good way of thinking about it.

Let's say I sunder an opponent's weapon using your rules, giving them -1 to attacks for the rest of the encounter. Assuming they used to hit 50% of the time, they now hit 45% of the time. Thus I have reduced their damage output by 10%.

If I instead hit him with a regular attack and took away 10% of their hit points, that would have reduced his expected survival time by 10%, thus also reducing their expected damage output for the rest of the encounter by 10%.

This means that this kind of sunder is essentially worth as much as taking off 10% of their hit points. (Of course, there are other considerations than expected damage output. Monsters can provide benefits to their team other than damage, such as flanking and battlefield control, so killing them might be preferable. But sundering reduces their damage output immediately, while hitting them doesn't reduce their damage output at all until their hit points fall to zero.)

You can apply a similar analysis to other abilities like disarm that affect opponents for the rest of the encounter.

Now, consider some examples (I just randomly flipped through my MM, so I don't know how representative they are):

The Greenscale Darter (Level 5 Lurker, MM p.178) has 50 hit points. At level 5, players will probably be doing around 10-15 points of damage on average with a basic attack (let's say 1d8 for the [W], plus 3-5 attribute bonus, plus 1-2 for weapon enhancement bonus, plus 1-4 more for extra damage based on the at-will used, feats, and such) Now sundering is equivalent to doing about 5 damage, so it is not a useful ability.

But suppose that instead of sundering him you disarm him of his blowgun. This forces him to use his club, and let's say it about halves his combat effectiveness. Thus it's equivalent to about 25 damage. Since it usually takes two actions to disarm him, it's about balanced with the other options.

Now suppose you're fighting Orcus (Level 33 Solo, p.206). Notice that there are actually very few solos in the MM that actually use held weapons - Orcus is the only one I can find at the moment. Orcus has 1525 HP, and if you can disarm him of his Wand of Orcus then he can't use his main standard action attack. He still has other attacks, but he can't use his main standard action attack. Suppose we rule that he can make an unarmed attack at 2 die sizes below his Wand of Orcus attack, and he doesn't get the necrotic damage because that comes from the wand. So instead of doing 2d12 + 12 + 1d12 necrotic (31.5 average) damage, he does 2d8 + 12 (21 average) damage, reducing the damage output by one-third. Of course he still has other attack powers, but losing the range on the Wand of Orcus means he can't stand back to use his powers and tactics most effectively. So let's take 1/3 as an estimate of how much his power drops.

Thus disarming Orcus is worth about 500 points of damage. You'd be hard-pressed to do anywhere near that much damage with any other power, even a 29th level daily.

(Note that once Orcus is disarmed, it's easy to pick up his weapon immediately, spending an AP if necessary, so he can't pick it back up.)

---------

Now, probably what you're shooting for with the disarm power is something that is useful situationally, but not something that you're using every combat. Thus probably it should be calibrated so that sundering or disarming just an ordinary melee weapon is almost never a useful thing to do, but it can be useful if there are special powers that key off the weapon.

Obviously you're the one who knows exactly where on this scale you want the disarming and sundering to be, but this type of analysis can help you get to that point.

Terraism said:

Damage is a little trickier. I suppose our options would be to either leave it the same and consider the penalty to attacks enough, drop it by, say, two die sizes (which gets wonky if the monster was using a small weapon, like a dagger,) or go the more involved route and create a table of standard unarmed damage/size category. I'm leaning more towards the last, but does that make it too much work to look up? What do you think?

Click to expand...

Tables that could be useful for this purpose exist on page 185 of the DMG. What I'll probably do, though, is just reduce whatever dice the monster would use to d4s, and keep the same damage bonus. If the power dealt 1d6+2, it now deals 1d4+2. If it dealt 2d12+18, it now deals 2d4+18. If it dealts 3d4+6, well . . . I'll improvise. Maybe 3d2+6 damage.

I'll bring this up to my players to see if they want to use this system, but I like it not so much for the new maneuvers, but rather for the critical fumble penalty. It doesn't do too much on its own, but it gives enemies (of the fumbler) a chance to take advantage of it (at the cost of using their own powers).

Two changes I'll likely make:
· When you fumble, you can't spend the minor action to recover until your next turn.
· When you minor feint, the target becomes imbalanced to you only. This prevents (IMO) a lot of the issues others were bringing up, like with solo monsters. Now the rogue can't feint, then have the fighter sunder or something like that. The rogue can feint, then spend an action point to trip or whatever, but I don't see that being overpowered (though it does steer the player away from his rogue powers a bit).

These changes emphasize on my goal of penalizing the critical fumble rather than supporting 3.5's combat tricks.

~

Disarm and sunder effects have always been nightmarish in terms of long-term campaign logistics and consistency. Your temporary equipment damage solution is an elegant way to do it; it does not deny the party loot, nor does it unfairly benefit monsters with natural weapons/armor - just throw some kind of a healing clause on there for removal of penalties to natural weapons and armor, and you've solved the sunder problem very tidily.

The disarm problem is more enduring. It was always problematic in that it was devastating against some monsters, and completely unusable against others. You haven't found a fix for this, and I can't see a way to implement it in 4e, simply because of the way weapons get used in statblocks. It's easy enough to adjust their stats for losing a weapon; most attacks based on that weapon still do a multiple of the appropriate damage dice of a weapon of that type and size. A Salamander Lancer (large) has to attacks that do 1d12+6 damage; one is his basic longspear attack, and the other explicitly requires a longspear. Thus, if he lost his longspear, we can safely say that his basic attack would deal 1d6+6 damage, reach 2, ongoing 5 fire.

The problem is this: the salamander's melee capabilities are now 1d6+6 damage, reach 2, ongoing 5 fire. Total. He is completely incapable of doing anything else in melee. You've defeated a level 14 brute in two attacks.

This happens for hill giants, and the Efreet Fireblade, and the Marut, and the Cambion Hellsword, and...

You get the idea. Disarming is fundamentally unbalanced, and makes the DM's life hard; either some of the PC's enemies will be completely and utterly neutered within two rounds, or there's a big chunk of the Monster Manual he can't use.

I like the sunder, though. I like it a lot.

In real life, to implement a disarm on somebody you pretty much A) already have them defeated or B) totally outclass them (the preceding according to my fencing teacher)... In the movies its far more common and usually only a delay of game ie they are forced to scramble after the weapon and avoid at least one or two attacks while doing it.. after all the person disarmed has both position and motivation to maximize the recovery of their weapon not the guy who still has there weapon.

Disarm is a higher grade power even in the movies... and Sunder is like adding weapon hitpoints too much record keeping especially if its a move everybody has...sigh. Maybe put it in as battlerager fighter power but not on the base list. So with a burst of supernal strength you strain both your and your enemies weapon force item saving throws and cross your fingers its the enemies who's breaks.