D&D 4E Tripping, Disarm, and other maneuvers in 4e

[fireinthedust]

So my group was forced by the thieves' guild to steal objects from around town. One of them was the flail owned by a massive Ogre, the captain of the guard for this evil organization. Now, the ogre was about 9 levels higher than the party (this was to get them thinking, not fighting), so I didn't expect them to actually challenge it in combat... silly me.

The party tried to disarm the guy, and I said that, if they did a called shot to his hand and did enough damage, it would sting him enough that he'd drop the flail. This involved use of a hero point for the special maneuver, like we've done in M&M.

This after one PC tried to run around behind him and set up a trip by kneeling behind his legs while the barbarian shoved him. The barbarian was knocked prone and smashed, leaving the fighter trapped by himself behind the ogre warhulk... ok, long story short, the Party's (cleric, warlock, wizard, rogue; everyone else standing back going "no, guys, what are you doing?") targeted the ogre and got the flail, then everyone ran for it. (and yes, I've introduced a policy of "no, you did that so you're going to live with it" for stupid moves)

My point: What are some special maneuvers for 4e? I saw the grabbed rules. Are Trip and Disarm too powerful to allow for 4e? I ask as someone who skipped 3.x due to ...well it taking too much time to homebrew adventures for (getting monster stats right).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So my group was forced by the thieves' guild to steal objects from around town. One of them was the flail owned by a massive Ogre, the captain of the guard for this evil organization. Now, the ogre was about 9 levels higher than the party (this was to get them thinking, not fighting), so I didn't expect them to actually challenge it in combat... silly me.

The party tried to disarm the guy, and I said that, if they did a called shot to his hand and did enough damage, it would sting him enough that he'd drop the flail. This involved use of a hero point for the special maneuver, like we've done in M&M.

This after one PC tried to run around behind him and set up a trip by kneeling behind his legs while the barbarian shoved him. The barbarian was knocked prone and smashed, leaving the fighter trapped by himself behind the ogre warhulk... ok, long story short, the Party's (cleric, warlock, wizard, rogue; everyone else standing back going "no, guys, what are you doing?") targeted the ogre and got the flail, then everyone ran for it. (and yes, I've introduced a policy of "no, you did that so you're going to live with it" for stupid moves)

My point: What are some special maneuvers for 4e? I saw the grabbed rules. Are Trip and Disarm too powerful to allow for 4e? I ask as someone who skipped 3.x due to ...well it taking too much time to homebrew adventures for (getting monster stats right).

Disarm and Tripping are not regular combat maneuvers, but are available as power options. Generally speaking, both options can indeed be imbalanced if available "at will".

It has never come up in my games so far, but if it did, I would probably take something from the DMG p.42 guidelines. I think a "fair" way to resolve is to make it an attack vs Reflex and Fortitude, but only available if you have combat advantage (and/or the enemy is bloodied perhaps?). This makes it always a hard choice to use it.
But still, Disarm is the most problematic, since some creatures might be useless without their weapon, and a single attack shouldn't be that effective. You'd need generous rules for "re-arming" (like the NPC can always pick up the weapon in his next turn.) Of course, also many monsters don't use weapons, and it's useless against them. It definitely hurts player characters hard, since they will eventually need enhancement or proficiency bonuses granted by their weapons and implements.

 

[tyrlaan]

Disarm and Tripping are not regular combat maneuvers, but are available as power options. Generally speaking, both options can indeed be imbalanced if available "at will".

Not taking your proposed implementations into account, but could you elaborate on why you feel trips and disarms would be imbalanced if they were at-wills?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not taking your proposed implementations into account, but could you elaborate on why you feel trips and disarms would be imbalanced if they were at-wills?

well trip not so much (well maybe) but disarm, lets look at it from a PC point of view

my 15th level fighter has a +4 longsword, and expertise in it and focus in it... so I get over my bas +3 prof + 2 expertise and _4 magic to hit, and +2 feat and +4 magic to damage... +9/+6 If you disarm me, and I draw my back up dagger that is non magical I lost 9 points of attack and 6 points and 2 die codes of damage...
that is the most effective attack in the game...bar none.

 

[tyrlaan]

What are you defining as the DC for that?

 

[Nymrohd]

Plus you cannot really say that trip is out of the game given that there are tons of options for knocking someone prone. By paragon level you can have several different builts that have a chance to knock a target prone each round.

 

[Turtlejay]

Basically they become uber basic attacks. In most situations not really, as you are trading a standard action for the chance to take away an opponent's action (to stand up or draw a new weapon), but vs a solo or elite, this could be too much.

I'd allow the target a saving throw to keep his weapon if you feel you need to add it (the above example was a good one, and played well IMO). Alternatively, you could make the disarming a skill challenge contained in the fight. I'm sure it would not be tough to come up with a handful of skills you could use, make it impossible to fail so that failing a check only means one more round of deadly combat with a guy 9 levels over them, not failure of the mission.

Jay

 

[nightwyrm]

It's not hard to build a trip monkey in 4e. Just play a polearm fighter that has the footwork lure at-will and the polearm momentum feat, and you have a fighter that effectively has a tripping at-will.

 

[tyrlaan]

I don't think I'm following the logic that disarms and trips are so game-breaking. If you make them insanely simple to do, well then yes. But if they are a balanced option I don't see a problem.

I don't see why someone shouldn't have the option to try to disarm an opponent every round if they want to, but that doesn't mean they have to succeed each try.

How did you handle trips and disarms in 3e, since they were inherent to the game rules?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I'm just brainstorming here, but here's what I'm thinking about for trip and disarm:

Bullrush is an attack versus Fortitude to push the target one square (the target must be Small, Medium, or Large). It could be argued that Reflex would have just as much to do with avoiding a Bullrush as Fortitude, but seeing as larger enemies generally have greater Fortitude defenses it works in the case of not being able to push something much bigger than you (instead of the cumulative -4 penalties per size category in 3E).

With this in mind, I propose that Trip should also be an attack versus Fortitude. However, I also think that it shouldn't be quite that easy, so you could make it so a creature could make a save versus being knocked prone even on a successful hit.

Disarm is a bit trickier. I'm thinking that it should be an attack versus Reflex. Perhaps it could also require a failed saved to be effective? Disarm is particularly tricky since magical weapons grant bonuses to attack that the system relies on. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if you houseruled the game so that instead of using magic items players merely got bonuses to attack based on the bonuses they would have gotten had the campaign used the normal rules for magical items.

The only problem I can think of at the moment is that requiring enemies to fail a save to be tripped or disarmed would keep players from using these maneuvers at all. After all, why should they use a technique that has only a 50% chance of working when they could use a power?