D&D 4E Does 4E have disarm?

[Danceofmasks]

Mouseferatu, how will a PC get his weapon back?
However difficult it is to disarm, it's more difficult to retrieve, because you do not have your weapon.
That means, however futile it is to waste actions to get your weapon off you in the first place, it's more futile to attempt to get it back, because you do not have your weapon.
After a disarm, a mob still has a move action with which to pick a weapon up, so meh @ location of item.
If one PC can be disarmed, so can the others. If a tactic is viable against one PC, it'll get used against more. If half the party suffers such a debuff at once, it's game over.
Getting your friends to focus on one mob just so you can get a weapon back is a win for them.
Just so you know, I'm playing in the epic tier. The gap between a PC's good defense and weak defense is at least an additional +2, and that makes a disarm nerf vs. reflex an easy win vs. some characters, and pointless against others.
OAs can be worked around. Provoke one first, or ready to attack during your target's turn, or whatever. It's just one more tactical consideration.

 

[OSD]

Grab and Wrestle? Acrobatic Stunt (immediate reaction could also work, seen in movies, hero gets disarm, does a kick off the villain and grab the sword on its way back down)? Do a disarm yourself? Or one can just simply drop to hit bonuses and only use the strength/dexterity modifier in the first place for the disarm, thus making it more like a tug of war over that one weapon? Disarmed != useless. And focus firing on one creature at a time IS a viable tactic (of course Sun-Tzu could just be spewing crap) a lot of the time.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I don't think you understand the implications of what I'm saying.

Grapple? Erm, all that does is immobilise, and (it's normally) without weapon bonuses, it's going to miss anyhow. 4e grapple is next to useless.

Do a disarm yourself? Without your weapon bonuses, you're more likely to fail than the guy who just disarmed you, so no matter how inefficient the tactic is for them, it's worse for you.

Making disarm a straight resisted stat check? Umm, that breaks the system, too.
Hey look! It's an ettin, it's level 10, and has 28 strength. It takes all your weapons, and whatja gonna do about it?

Focus firing does work. You should always focus fire.
But focus firing in order to just get a weapon back, especially since it's probably a skirmisher or something that just did the disarm, is going to get you pwned by the real threats.

 

[OSD]

Does Ettin's lore or anything relating to its behaviour say it will disarm or do something similar? Is disarming even within the creature's thinking process, from your example, I should be more afraid of the constructs, but again, is it within their thinking process? Your implications seems to look at pure x vs y mechanic with no regards to behavioural mechanics (if the DM makes a custom disarming creature, there will of course be counter measures). Almost every adventurers-soldier-explorer have backup weapons (true in classical time, medieval time, and modern time), your example is at max +6 difference, that's assume you got disarmed on high level magic weapon.

Grapple is only as useless as you think, the book tells you what you can do. But it doesn't say what you CAN'T do. Ever seen a gun drops on the floor, the villain gets it, but the protagonist grab him, trying to wrestle the gun away? Before that, wasn't cutlasses? It's at time like this that one should IMPROVISE (it's even encourage by the books). If your DM can think of disarming in the first place, then you can just convince him/her that whatever your improvisation is should also work. Acrobatic stunt to snatch the weapon back? Athletic leap to surprise and do the same? An immediate reaction to counter disarm? Bring a rope out and garrote the life out of the thief? Intimidate? The actions are almost endless, and they can all be made logical sense. Recovering said item might be EASIER for you to recover if you can convince that since you used the weapon so long, you have an affinity for it. Magic Items can also develope quirks and attachments alignments, or even race and owners! There's also the matter of the one who took your weapon's proficiency with the stolen weapon. Disarm does not break the game, lack of imagination / lack of will to improvise does. Honestly, even a fighter with 8 intelligence should know enough about his own weapon's weakness (logical) if he's at the epic level. The DM should easily allow a similar difficulty in recovering the weapon as it was to disarm to have gotten this far.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Mate, the max difference between having a weapon and not isn't +6, it's +9. +11 if you're pushing the envelope.

What's more, you can't use fluff to justify dodgy mechanics!
If you break the game, then say "that's ok, you can figure something else to unbreak it on the fly", then you're being outright silly.
This is D&D. Improvised actions should always be, at best, slightly less powerful than an at-will.
Is disarming in an ettin's thought processes?!?!
WTF?!
How can it be in an ettin's fluff box, when disarming does not exist as a mechanic?
If it can be done, and experience shows it's brutally effective, then any creature capable of learning would learn to do it!
A 45% swing in hit probability due to one action is outright retarded .. if you have a 50% probability of hitting (as a moderately effective character should), that leaves you with 20s. Not to mention doing <15 damage on a 7[W] attack even if you do hit.

The system does not support disarms.
There are no maneuvers to counter it, there's no equipment which increases resistance to it, the treasure you get assumes you're not going to need more than 1 or 2 weapons, and half the powers in the book assume you have a weapon along with the corresponding bonuses available at all times.
When a system does not support a mechanic, and the mechanic disrupts the maths to an extent where the declaration of "paladins suck because they always get disarmed!" it breaks the game.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Mate, the max difference between having a weapon and not isn't +6, it's +9. +11 if you're pushing the envelope.

What's more, you can't use fluff to justify dodgy mechanics!
If you break the game, then say "that's ok, you can figure something else to unbreak it on the fly", then you're being outright silly.
This is D&D. Improvised actions should always be, at best, slightly less powerful than an at-will.
Is disarming in an ettin's thought processes?!?!
WTF?!
How can it be in an ettin's fluff box, when disarming does not exist as a mechanic?
If it can be done, and experience shows it's brutally effective, then any creature capable of learning would learn to do it!
A 45% swing in hit probability due to one action is outright retarded .. if you have a 50% probability of hitting (as a moderately effective character should), that leaves you with 20s. Not to mention doing <15 damage on a 7[W] attack even if you do hit.

The system does not support disarms.
There are no maneuvers to counter it, there's no equipment which increases resistance to it, the treasure you get assumes you're not going to need more than 1 or 2 weapons, and half the powers in the book assume you have a weapon along with the corresponding bonuses available at all times.
When a system does not support a mechanic, and the mechanic disrupts the maths to an extent where the declaration of "paladins suck because they always get disarmed!" it breaks the game.

This is a very well reasoned argument. Disarm in 4E would be game breaking. The problem is that disarming and getting disarmed is a staple of fiction ,of both fantasy and action movie type. There is a question to be asked here. If disarming is a staple of the genre and the game system is not well equipped to handle it, is this the best system to play with?

 

[Mallus]

Then you haven't looked at it from the mobs' perspective.
They could attack for a small fraction of the character's health, or they can have say a 10% chance to remove the PC's ability to do anything meaningful for the rest of the combat.

The easiest way to fix this is for the DM to not have his opponents use and/or spam unbalanced and/or game-breaking stunt attacks. The DM is in complete control of this situation.

By using this simple method, the PC's still get to attempt a tried-and-true maneuver and a workable game balance is preserved!

(note that every RPG I've ever played required some similar kind of 'gentleman's agreement' w/r/t enemies repeatedly using tactics that were unduly effective thanks to mechanical quirks)

 

[Mallus]

4e grapple is next to useless.

Note that a human using Grapple against an Ettin, or related giant type in 3e is useless too.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is a very well reasoned argument. Disarm in 4E would be game breaking.

Actually, Disarm in 3E can be game-breaking, too (imagine taking a Balors Vorpal Sword, or a Fighters +3 Holy Evil Outsider Bane Bastard Sword). It is a general problem that weapons grant bonuses to attacks (and damage). I don't know how it would work in AD&D or OD&D...
In Shadowrun, it's very hard to really disarm someone - most Runners will be armed to the teeth (which might include cybered-up teeth ). In Torg, characters often have non-weapon skills they can use to attack (Trick, Taunt, Intimidate, Test of Wills, Maneuver), and most replacement weapons they can get would work fine.

The problem is that disarming and getting disarmed is a staple of fiction ,of both fantasy and action movie type. There is a question to be asked here. If disarming is a staple of the genre and the game system is not well equipped to handle it, is this the best system to play with?

If disarming is your primary concern, it is definitely not the best system.
On the other hand, is a system that makes disarming inconsequential a good system, either?

The biggest problem with disarm is that - unlike in fiction - it is hard to measure when you get your weapon back. In fiction, typically one of the following two things happen:
- The disarmed picks up a suitable replacement weapon.
- The disarmed surrenders or retreats.

If someone was willing to accept that disarm just "weakens (save ends)" or causes "-2 to attacks (save ends)", disarm would be feasible. But would it feel "real" enough? Disarming comes close to the territory of "called shots" that ablative hit points don't support well enough.

 

[Mallus]

Disarm in 4E would be game breaking. The problem is that disarming and getting disarmed is a staple of fiction ,of both fantasy and action movie type.

So use disarm sparingly.

There is a question to be asked here. If disarming is a staple of the genre and the game system is not well equipped to handle it, is this the best system to play with?

Well, the 'best system' is little beyond the purview of this thread, eh.. but I can unequivocally opine that 4e can handle disarming well-enough with use of stunts and a little common sense (from people on both sides of the DM screen).

The way I see it, there's always going to be tension between the desire for game balance and the the desire to let players emulate the classic actions/moves of the genre. You can see this most clearly in superhero systems like Champions/Hero (and M&M). In supers systems, some of the powers are admittedly problematic (the last ed. of Champions I had marked them with lovely red 'Stop' signs). I'm talking about abilities that simply couldn't be rigorously balanced, but happened to be classic superpowers. To remove them from the system would be taking important modeling tools out of the player's hands. So, in they stayed, along with warning and caveats and advice to use a little common sense.