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

[Nebulous]

I
Try away - it just doesn't work until he's out of hitpoints. Cinematically, once someone is disarmed, the fight is over. In D&D, the fight is over once you're out of hitpoints. And, conveniently, the bad guy never lets go of their weapon until they've suffered a beatdown.

Cinematically, that's not true at all. It's just another element of the fight as the hero/villain retrieves his weapon or finds a backup. It's a source of tension, not a showstopper. In D&D, out of hit points means ONE person is down, and temporarily at that unless dead. Again, it's a source of tension as comrades scramble to help.

 

[tyrlaan]

There are builds that trip. These require an envestment in feats or powers to achieve. Giving those for free to every character is unbalancing.

Giving the same level of power/ability would be unbalanced. Remember, in 3e everyone had the option to trip and disarm, but it was mostly unused unless you invested into the ability (got the feats or whatever). The ability to attempt a trip or disarm at-will does not need to be as awesometastic as those powers that classes grant with similar effect.

And disarming is silly. The hobgoblin example above illustrates it. Except in clearly defined situations I don't think I'd allow it.

Disarming isn't silly. The concept that a creature becomes a crippled sack of XP for the rest of the encounter after being disarmed is silly. Disarming is a sound and straightforward tactic. It doesn't have to be easy to do, in fact it shouldn't be. But it's unfair to punish a player for wanting to try a disarm maneuver because it would break the monster.

On the flip side, would you like the DM using this on you? Ganged by goblin minions who disarm and trip you, now you have to spend a move to stand, and you have lost your weapon. You are effectively out for the fight. Situations that knock you out of the fight (death, petrification) should not be that easy to accomplish.

If these manuevers are in the game, I would expect nothing less than the DM to use the same manuevers against me and the other players' characters. That's one of the way powers are balanced. What's good for the goose is indeed good for the gander.

 

[Nail]

Remember, in 3e everyone had the option to trip and disarm, but it was mostly unused unless you invested into the ability (got the feats or whatever).

...and once you got the feats and weapon, etc, you were so amazing at it that you did nothing else. You missed that part.


See Stalker0's post above. It's good stuff.

 

[tyrlaan]

...and once you got the feats and weapon, etc, you were so amazing at it that you did nothing else. You missed that part.

Well, I didn't say it was balanced in 3e, I just said it was there and had to be dealt with as a result.

See Stalker0's post above. It's good stuff.

Aye, I saw Stalker0's post above. However, I don't understand why there isn't an option 3 where it can be used at the player's discretion and will not be used all the time because it is not clear cut that it is always the superior choice.

I played in a 3e game where my character was a trip monkey and another player was a disarm monkey. We both picked specific weapons and feats to excel at these tactics. We each got to use our specialized abilities about once the entire campaign. Why? I presume because the GM decided that being good at tripping and disarming was too effective/unbalanced. And it wasn't difficult for the GM to nullify our abilities. We went up against a lot of large creatures, creatures with natural weapons, creatures with 4+ legs, creatures wielding 2-handed weapons, etc.

So my first point is I don't think it's all that difficult to stop someone from scoring a trip or a disarm when you're the GM. However, you need to strike a balance or you're being unfair to your players, like in my example above. It would have been one thing if we were just disarming and tripping solely through the generic rules, but we devoted our characters to specific tactics which were reneged.

Which leads into my second point. Tripping and disarming are rational combat tactics, however there seems to be a trend that since they are a challenge to handle as a GM, they should just be ruled out as default combat options. What happened to the 4e mantra of saying "Yes"? As my example above demonstrates, there are plenty of ways to shut abilities like this down when you are the GM. Incidentally, this also means you can keep an acceptable level of control over how often they are effective while still keeping your players happy. As long as you set the ground rules so the players know what to expect, there's no reason for there to be a problem.

And two parting notions for this post:

Just a thought about balancing at-will versions of these abilities. If folks recall, 3e had a character provoke an AoO when trying to disarm or trip. What if doing either as an at-will in 4e did the same? What if it made you grant CA for the turn?

**Not looking to start an edition war!!**In 3e, a 1st level character can perform a standard attack, a bull rush, a trip, a disarm, or a grapple each round. In 4e, a 1st level character can perform one at-will each round (wait I think bull rush is still a choice?). Yes, a character has 2 other powers but one is only once per day, the other once per encounter. It would be reasonable to argue that a low-level 4e character has less options, not more. Therefore, I think having rules for general maneuvers such as trip and disarm would be a very good thing for 4e.

 

[LostSoul]

...and once you got the feats and weapon, etc, you were so amazing at it that you did nothing else. You missed that part.

In 4E, Improved Trip would look something like this:

Improved Trip
Benefit: You can use the Improved Trip power.

Improved Trip Feat Power
At-Will ♦ Weapon
Standard Action ♦ Melee weapon
Requirements: You must be unarmed or wielding a spiked chain, flail, halberd, scythe, or sickle.
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. Fortitude
Hit: The target falls prone. Make a secondary attack.
Secondary Target: The same target.
Secondary Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage.
Miss: If the target can make opportunity attacks against you, you fall prone.
Special: If you are using a spiked chain, flail, halberd, scythe, or sickle, you can drop your weapon instead of falling prone on a miss. The weapon is on the ground in your square.

3E's trip would look like this:

TRIP: STANDARD ACTION

• Target: You can trip a target adjacent to you that is smaller than you, the same size category as you, or one category larger than you.
• Opportunity Attack: The target makes an opportunity attack against you.
• Strength Attack: Make a Strength attack vs. Fortitude defense. If you are using a spiked chain, flail, halberd, scythe, or sickle, add in the modifiers for the weapon.
  Hit: The target falls prone.
  Miss: You fall prone. If you are using a spiked chain, flail, halberd, scythe, or sickle, you can drop your weapon instead of falling prone on a miss. The weapon is on the ground in your square.

 

[Neubert]

**Not looking to start an edition war!!**In 3e, a 1st level character can perform a standard attack, a bull rush, a trip, a disarm, or a grapple each round. In 4e, a 1st level character can perform one at-will each round (wait I think bull rush is still a choice?). Yes, a character has 2 other powers but one is only once per day, the other once per encounter. It would be reasonable to argue that a low-level 4e character has less options, not more. Therefore, I think having rules for general maneuvers such as trip and disarm would be a very good thing for 4e.

I see your 5 attack options and raise you 6 attack options (1 daily, 1 encounter, 2 at-wills, the bull rush and the melee/ranged basic attacks - I figured racial wouldn't count).

Anyhow, I did like your suggestion about having the opponent take an opportunity attack when this is attempted.
Perhaps something like:
Disarm
At-Will * Weapon
Standard Action * Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Str-2 vs Dex (or Str vs Dex+2)
Hit: The target's weapon falls to the ground in his space.
Special: This power allows the target to make an opportunity attack against you, no matter if the power hits or misses.

Perhaps it should even fail if the monster hits on its OA.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Cinematically, that's not true at all. It's just another element of the fight as the hero/villain retrieves his weapon or finds a backup. It's a source of tension, not a showstopper. In D&D, out of hit points means ONE person is down, and temporarily at that unless dead. Again, it's a source of tension as comrades scramble to help.

Yes, you're right. Either the villain is totally unaffected by the disarm or he drops the weapon, has no backup and surrenders.

Furthermore, he doesn't retrieve his weapon and then immediately get disarmed again. And again. And again. Which is exactly what happened with disarm and trip in 3e.

In other words, what you're seeing is an encounter or daily in action. And it's possible to narrate most effects as being a temporary disarm. Blind, stunned, dazed, slowed, immobilized could all be visualised as "the villain used part of his turn picking up his weapon" or "the villain attacks ineffectively without his weapon before picking it up again".

 

[howandwhy99]

I believe the option to try and trip or disarm these guys is always available to the Players. They simply always fail unless they have the appropriate powers.

 

[tyrlaan]

I believe the option to try and trip or disarm these guys is always available to the Players. They simply always fail unless they have the appropriate powers.

...are you trolling?

 

[webrunner]

For at-will tripping:

Knockdown Assault for Fighter: (PHB Heroes)

It's Str vs Fort that does a tiny amount of damage and trips, and can be charged with


On Disarm:
Oddly enough, there's a monster with a power immune to disarming:

Scepter of the Chosen Tyrant (Standard, at-will) Psychic, Weapon
+33 vs Armor Class; 1d10+9 damage (crit 6d10+19), and the target takes ongoing 10 psychic damage (save ends). Fzoul can't be disarmed of this weapon.