D&D 4E Disarm Let Us Count the Ways.

Tony Vargas · Jul 7, 2018

AbdulAlhazred said:
Does weakened actually adequately reflect the effects of disarming on a PC?

My opinion hasnt changed

Tony Vargas said:
Disarm was obviously problematic to use against PCs, thanks to early 4e dependence on enhancement bonuses.

So it's a major abstraction

Or are you also proposing these various effects include "you drop your weapon" and all the concomitant system effects?

Nah, too much of a pain for too little payoff.

AbdulAlhazred · Jul 8, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
My opinion hasnt changed
So it's a major abstraction

Nah, too much of a pain for too little payoff.

OFTEN I think its too little payoff, OTOH I still think that 'game logic' is a thing that many players want and need in order to enjoy playing. It is also not NECESSARILY too little. When you have a guy wielding some super powerful sword, being disarmed and still basically wielding the same sword is just WEIRD and kind of undermines the whole point of the thing.

Garthanos · Jul 8, 2018

AbdulAlhazred said:
When you have a guy wielding some super powerful sword, being disarmed and still basically wielding the same sword is just WEIRD and kind of undermines the whole point of the thing.

Getting half as much out of every action is somehow the same?? You have funny thinking going on.

There is a mmo GW2 where your 4 or 5 primary moves are based on weapon the rest are independent.

But do you smash them with a shield or slamb them with a shoulder/forearm? And are the mechanics actually that different except for some reduction in effectiveness. Mechanics are very broad strokes already. I think it is a mistake to pretend they are precise.

One of the fantasy tropes really does allow heros to be not very dependent on their equipment most of the time. The in game pile on of to hit failures and un fun that would cause is just plain contrary to the game play and this trope.

Garthanos · Jul 8, 2018

In real life being disarmed is a massive disadvantage defensively not just offensively ... ie game play is absolutely not about realism. There is more than one reason if you can disarm your enemy they should give up. (you demonstrably outclass them and they are now so severely impaired that the movie scenes are irl nonsense)

Garthanos · Jul 8, 2018

What I think @Tony Vargas was saying wasnt worth it was the effort of of going through and recomputing all the individual elements of here it is without tool and ie all the rigor of going through and making sure after you remove those truly dependent on items bits and so on just isn't valuable as the purported benefit in comparison to just laying on a broad brush stroke like using weakened.

The use of inherent bonuses and making heroes explicitly better at improvised weaponry would be a couple of things we can do to make sure they arent more impaired if taken in detail than the quick and dirty general rule.(Weakened being the QAD)

Garthanos · Jul 9, 2018

Garthanos said:
Drawing on aggressive spirits within them you cause your enemies weapons sprout giant thorns, heat dangerously hot or burst into flames or similarly turn on them. A giant warg gnawed his own claw under the influence of this magic.

Might work as a single Power.... and make a side remark about the uninitiated thinking it was separate spells.

This I think will indeed make a great level 1 daily, and particularly vivid.

As a daily it might have significant effect even on a miss...

Here is possible way to flavor it.

1-2 : a wood/hafted weapon bursts into flames or a metal weapon super heats claws and teeth etc do the same (fire damage);
3-4 : a wood weapon or metal weapon handle grows thorns or poisonous spikes (similarly painful thorned vines grow from flesh poison damage)
5-6 : the weapon attacks its bearer ... bites and claws at self

Garthanos · Jul 9, 2018

Probably not in any finished form but here is something

Tony Vargas · Jul 9, 2018

Garthanos said:
In real life being disarmed is a massive disadvantage defensively not just offensively ... ie game play is absolutely not about realism. There is more than one reason if you can disarm your enemy they should give up. (you demonstrably outclass them and they are now so severely impaired that the movie scenes are irl nonsense)

Yep, which brings us back to disarmed-at-0-hps. Or Disarm as an alternate skill check to force surrender, similar to the existing Intimidate option.

If you're not defeated when disarmed either a) you can keep fighthing effectively unarmed or with a backup or improvised weapon or b) you fairly quickly re-gain your original weapon, perhaps forced to go on the defensive, move/dive/whatever to retrieve it.

Garthanos said:
What I think Tony was saying wasnt worth it was the effort of of going through and recomputing all the individual elements of here it is without tool and ie all the rigor of going through and making sure after you remove those truly dependent on items bits and so on just isn't valuable as the purported benefit in comparison to just laying on a broad brush stroke like using weakened.

The use of inherent bonuses and making heroes explicitly better at improvised weaponry would be a couple of things we can do to make sure they arent more impaired if taken in detail than the quick and dirty general rule.(Weakened being the QAD)

About that, yes. Weakened would reduce damage on a hit more than re-calculting everything with a back-up weapon or improvised weapon or unarmed strike; and, but, even with inherent bonuses going, it would probably hit more often... so it's a fair aproximation.

"Weakened & cannot use powers & properties of the weapon" (save ends) could work, too, for a bit more detail. Or 'weakened & cannot score critical hits." You can take it prettymuch anywhere you want, thanks to the wonder of exception based design.

Garthanos · Jul 10, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
Yep, which brings us back to disarmed-at-0-hps. Or Disarm as an alternate skill check to force surrender, similar to the existing Intimidate option.

If you're not defeated when disarmed either a) you can keep fighthing effectively unarmed or with a backup or improvised weapon or b) you fairly quickly re-gain your original weapon, perhaps forced to go on the defensive, move/dive/whatever to retrieve it.

About that, yes. Weakened would reduce damage on a hit more than re-calculting everything with a back-up weapon or improvised weapon or unarmed strike; and, but, even with inherent bonuses going, it would probably hit more often... so it's a fair aproximation.

That is my thought in general

Tony Vargas said:
"Weakened & cannot use powers & properties of the weapon" (save ends) could work, too, for a bit more detail. Or 'weakened & cannot score critical hits." You can take it prettymuch anywhere you want, thanks to the wonder of exception based design.

Maybe I suspect that kind of comprmise on simplicity is what [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] was looking for.

Garthanos · Jul 10, 2018

AbdulAlhazred said:
There's lots of ways that 4e has already sliced this. I was really suggesting one specific technique that 4e has NOT used, which is to allow an expenditure of 'points' to invoke one of the choices you did NOT put into your trained list of powers. Its really a way of doing basically a 'page 42' except you're able to leverage another existing power's text. That would be a different way of handling it as well, force an additional check to see if you can invoke the power. Failure would mean you'd maybe just get an MBA instead, not terrible, but not as good as a regular at-will.

I almost suggested making the swap out an exertion (healing surge/vitality point) but that seems too costly... so maybe the skill check might indeed be good