D&D 4E Disarming in 4E

[AbdulAlhazred]

They will be 11th level, so none of them will have this power.

I was just trying to figure out ahead of time what crazy stunts they might attempt.

Hey, are laniards against the Law of Nature in D&D?

No, but notice there is no reference to lanyards being used by footsoldiers. They were popular in mounted combat and at sea where loss of the item in question was both likely and the item could not be retrieved feasibly. Presumably the same was not generally true if you were fighting on foot and there are disadvantages. It could be difficult or inconvenient to switch weapons or drop your weapon if necessary. More critically an item of that type could be taken advantage of by your opponent, become caught in something, etc. Judging from the fact that they have been rarely used by infantry I'd guess that probably means the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.

You might want to say "well, it should be up to the player to decide" except D&D doesn't model that kind of subtlety very well. The sure result is going to be everyone would rope everything they might ever want to drop to their body and you'll have a rather silly kind of situation with only some variable level of DM punishment going on to deter it (which inevitably starts arguments or makes players feel picked on).

So it is just one of those things. If a player really insisted on doing it then I guess I'd just have to cook up a situation where it might get them in trouble, but I'd hope it just won't ever come up.

 

[babinro]

We've always treated disarm as a -2 to attack rolls and damage rolls. Allowing no use of weapon properties or critical hit dice until which time a new weapon is obtained.

Otherwise if a monster write up has several implement and weapon options, then simply removing the powers tied to a weapon or implement will work. The idea being that the act of disarming is useful, but does not inherently break the game anymore than any actual rules based condition.

The most common form of disarming comes in epic tier as a result of dominated creatures having no particular action worth taking for one reason or another. The action then becomes, "I'll throw my weapon/implement 1d6+1 squares in direction x" <scale the dice in accordance to creature size>.

 

[malcolm_n]

We've always treated disarm as a -2 to attack rolls and damage rolls. Allowing no use of weapon properties or critical hit dice until which time a new weapon is obtained.

Otherwise if a monster write up has several implement and weapon options, then simply removing the powers tied to a weapon or implement will work. The idea being that the act of disarming is useful, but does not inherently break the game anymore than any actual rules based condition.

The most common form of disarming comes in epic tier as a result of dominated creatures having no particular action worth taking for one reason or another. The action then becomes, "I'll throw my weapon/implement 1d6+1 squares in direction x" <scale the dice in accordance to creature size>.

Never considered doing something like that, and I'll thank you not to point out the option to my players . Kidding of course, the dominated thing is an interesting idea. Just remember it can be done to them too.

 

[RangerWickett]

In 4e rules-as-written, I would just run it through reskinning.

You have a power that trips? Okay, that represents that you knocked the guy's weapon away, and he dives to the ground to get it back.

You have a power that dazes? Well actually you knocked his weapon away, and he has to use his move and minor to get it back; he grants combat advantage.


In my own games, I give PCs inherent enhancement bonuses, so losing their magic sword isn't such a big deal. To disarm, you first grab your opponent (this represents getting the leverage), and then as a standard action you make an attack vs. Fort to disarm, knocking the weapon up to 2 squares away, or grabbing it.

Sure, for a moment the enemy has no weapon, but he just needs to pull out a back-up weapon. You spend two standard actions to make him waste a minor action; it's only really useful if the badguy has no back-up weapon, or if his primary weapon is really, really special.

 

[Squizzle]

Hey, are laniards against the Law of Nature in D&D?

Game rules do not represent the laws of nature within a setting; they represent a way to play a game taking place in the setting. Having lived the first 25 years of my life in South Jersey, I can, for instance, comfortably assure you that Monopoly is not an accurate representation of Atlantic City, but it is a game that takes place in Atlantic City.

 

[TarionzCousin]

It's a good thing none of my players frequent this board. It will be much easier to judge their disarm attempts since they won't know any of this stuff!

 

[Fifth Element]

Disarming works against the PCs. The PCs will always have at least one person with a weapon, while the monsters often don't.

4E combat is very abstract, and adding some of these things that were in 3E doesn't fit very well with the system. An improvised attack should do it when needed.

 

[eamon]

There's several reasonable ideas above, but I thought I'd highlight a few pitfalls to avoid rather than adding new ideas.

So, things not to do:

• Don't use a plain Strength attack - these are never a good idea since they don't scale. Make it a normal attack that can use a weapon and all it's bonuses; then (if necessary) subtract a fixed number for balance.
• Don't try to compute the change to attack rolls in a simulationist fashion (i.e., what you would do in 3.5). 4e's attack and damage scaling isn't based on any kind of in-game "reality"; so amongst other things PC's attacks use a completely different maths than monster attacks. Rather, follow the lead set by conditions and impose consistent changes regardless of starting point (e.g. the -2 penalty to attack and damage rolls).
• Don't let someone buy a new at-will power with a mere feat. Essentially your house rule is probably a new at-will power; feel free to look at hampering powers like Vicious Mockery to get a feel for what's an acceptable power level for a standard action at-will and ensure that your house rule fits in that context. Although you shouldn't be able to buy a new at-will with just a feat; it might be reasonable to retrain an at-will without any other cost.

 

[Jhaelen]

Those are the most reliable, though if the page 42 method is TOO easy, then PCs may want to do it all over the place.

That depends on the actual mechanical effect of successfully disarming a monster.

For many 4e monsters, disarming them will (or rather should) not result in a noticable reduction of their effectiveness. They'll just pick it up again, continue fighting with an improvised weapon or unarmed.

I.e. the maneuver shouldn't be more effective than any other at-will option the disarming pc might have used instead. If the maneuver is particularly difficult to pull off, you can allow it to be slightly more effective.

Or to answer the OP more directly:
"After a moment of confusion, staring at his empty fists, the ogre bellows with rage as he starts pounding with his flailing fists on the pc who disarmed him."

 

[CovertOps]

There's several reasonable ideas above, but I thought I'd highlight a few pitfalls to avoid rather than adding new ideas.

So, things not to do:

• Don't use a plain Strength attack - these are never a good idea since they don't scale. Make it a normal attack that can use a weapon and all it's bonuses; then (if necessary) subtract a fixed number for balance.
• Don't try to compute the change to attack rolls in a simulationist fashion (i.e., what you would do in 3.5). 4e's attack and damage scaling isn't based on any kind of in-game "reality"; so amongst other things PC's attacks use a completely different maths than monster attacks. Rather, follow the lead set by conditions and impose consistent changes regardless of starting point (e.g. the -2 penalty to attack and damage rolls).
• Don't let someone buy a new at-will power with a mere feat. Essentially your house rule is probably a new at-will power; feel free to look at hampering powers like Vicious Mockery to get a feel for what's an acceptable power level for a standard action at-will and ensure that your house rule fits in that context. Although you shouldn't be able to buy a new at-will with just a feat; it might be reasonable to retrain an at-will without any other cost.

The following is an explanation of point 2.
I just want to add to this a bit. The primary reason not to use disarm in 4e is this. If you start with the logic that if the PCs can do it so can the monsters. Reasonable right? The problem with that is the math involved in calculating PC attacks vs Monster attacks. Monster attacks are based completely on the level of the creature and usually have nothing to do with the weapon they are holding. This means that disarming a monster doesn't really do anything (mechanically) in the game world. PCs on the other hand take massive penalties to hit and damage when disarmed. For the worst example I'll use a level 30 character. By level 30 you'll have a +6 weapon and if that PC is using a Long Sword then being disarmed just gave that PC a whopping -9 to hit (-6 from the enhancement bonus of the weapon and -3 from the proficiency bonus). Also his or her damage just went from a d8 to a d3 (unarmed). With a typical at-will power doing 2[W] at level 21+ that means you just went from 2d8 + 6(enhancement) to 2d3 on at-will attacks and that doesn't even consider encounters or dailies.

I also agree with his other two points and suggest that if someone wants to use "disarm" then you create a new "condition" called "Disarmed" and give it some penalties like the other conditions found in the PHB and as suggested balance it against other hampering powers (above suggested Vicious Mockery).

Personally I'm of the camp 0 hp = disarmed, but I feel that anyone who wants to try and add disarm to their game should be armed not just with what you shouldn't do, but why you shouldn't do it because it gives you the understanding of the consequences of the changes you might make. I don't know any DM that wants to break their game and this is one of those areas where if you poke it too hard you will. This path leads back to the one trick pony and let me tell you how well we ate when that sacred cow was butchered with 4e.