D&D 4E Disarm in 4E

[Cwheeler]

So how do I do my wizard based disarms.. for instance I want a spell where the wizard heated the enemies weapon. And its better in a blast and either they take a point of damage or they drop it. To heck with fighter disarms ;-) me wizard wants it.

Or the one where the cleric commands peace as dominate/charm effect.

Can the cleric do his as an at-will? (sorry I pretty much concluded encounter or daily was required but I think my sarcastic streak is bigger than it used to be.)

I wrote this up, but my hard drive crashed.

It went something like:

Disarm:
At-Will *
Standard Action
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength -4 vs. Fort OR Dexterity -4 vs. Reflex. (martial) Int -4 vs Reflex OR Cha -4 vs Will (Magical)
Hit: The target drops its weapon in its square. Any creature may pick up the weapon, but doing so provokes an opportunity attack. The disarmed creature may make attacks as if they where wielding the weapon, but can no longer apply special weapon properties and powers that the weapon previously granted. The character is also weakened. These changes end immediately when the character arms themselves with a new weapon or implement.
Special: When disarming opponents more than 1 size larger or smaller than you, you take a -2 penalty to the attack roll. This increases by -2 with each size category of difference beyond the second.
Special: You may only use this power when you have combat advantage against an opponent.

This could be modified by feats:

Divine Persuasion:
You may expend your Channel Divinity encounter power to use a disarm attempt as if you had combat advantage.

Other feats could be created for other power sources.

I agree with much of the sentiment that disarm is a bit too wonky to allow for my tastes, but if you do go with making it into a power I would do this: Require a feat to learn the move, and make "Requires combat advantage" as part of the power.

That way at least the player would have to make use of some strategy to make use of the power, and it should fit the simulationist notion of the creature "leaving enough of an opening to allow itself to be disarmed."

That makes SO much sense! Why didn't this come up before?

 

[Garthanos]

Combat advantage with or without the normal bonus ;-).

 

[Cwheeler]

Combat advantage .

Changing the idea of the feat:
Improved disarm (heroic)
Once per encounter, you may count as having combat advantage for the purposes of one disarm attack.

Other possible feats:
Sunder (heroic)
Prerequisites: Improved Disarm.
Once per day, you may destroy a disarmed weapon instead of having it dropped. If the weapon was magical, you can retrieve it for it's full residuum value.

Demand Surrender (heroic or paragon[unsure])
You may may make an intimidate check against a disarmed opponent as if they where bloodied. If they are bloodied, you gain an additional +2 to this check.

Expert Disarmer (Paragon)
You may ignore size penalties while making disarm attacks.

Mass Disarm (Paragon)
You may expend an encounter power to make a disarm attack against every opponent in Blast 3. You count as having combat advantage for the purposes of this attack.

Mass Sunder (Paragon)
Prerequisites: Mass Disarm
You may expend a daily power to make a disarm attack in every opponent in Blast 3. Weapons disarmed this way are destroyed rather than dropped. If the weapons where magical, you can retrieve them for full residuum value. You count as having combat advantage for the purposes of this attack.

Epic Disarm (epic)
You may expend an encounter power to make a disarm attack against each opponent in burst 5 within 20. You count as having combat advantage for the purposes of this attack.

Epic Sunder (epic)
Prerequisites: Epic Disarm
You may expend a daily power to make a disarm attack with against each opponent in burst 5 within 20. Weapons disarmed this way are destroyed rather than dropped. If the weapons where magical, you can retrieve them for full residuum value. You count as having combat advantage for the purposes of this attack.

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The Blast/Burst numbers have been prescribed arbitrarily to give an idea of how the feats would function.

With 'Demand Surrender', I'm not sure if it should be using the skill as-per-normal, or if you could justify having it as 'You may make an intimidate check as a minor action against an opponent you have just disarmed'

Perhaps the latter one should be the paragon version, and the epic version could be 'against multiple disarmed opponents'.

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Another idea: Disarming an opponent with 'natural weapons': The opponent is weakened (save ends), or until they receive healing. If the opponent had it's natural weapon sundered, then it mass pass two saves/receive two healing effects to remove the condition.

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One more thing that needs to be incorporated into the attack power: 'if this opportunity attack hits, then the hit creature does not retrieve it's weapon', possibly with ', and you may slide that weapon 1 square'.

 

[Garthanos]

If I have combat advantage that -4 is really a -2... which is what I was getting at.

 

[Cwheeler]

Ah, of course.

Yeah, I was wondering about that.

The question is: how big a penalty should there be for a disarm attempt. Especially if we're making it so that you can only do it when you have combat advantage.

Because of this, I'm fine with the -4 reduced to -2 thing.

Would it make the power too broken to drop the ' - ' altogether?

 

[Garthanos]

Ah, of course.

Yeah, I was wondering about that.

The question is: how big a penalty should there be for a disarm attempt. Especially if we're making it so that you can only do it when you have combat advantage.

Because of this, I'm fine with the -4 reduced to -2 thing.

Would it make the power too broken to drop the ' - ' altogether?

In real life one needs to outclass an adversary.. I usually translate that as having 10 levels better ... ie a boost of 5. if two of that comes from CA... then you have a -3 left over ...a compromise?

The D&D fighter disarm is at 17th level but is unrealistically nice (having the weapon hop in to your own hand)

The Palidan power 9 "stands alone" weakens adjacent enemies in a burst (save ends) and does 2d8 + Charisma damage.. reskin a little....and you have commanding your enemies to stand down and those affected drop their weapons loosing all will to fight or even if they arent using weapons their attacks litterally have no heart in them. (it is a daily).

A level 5 ranger daily power also has weakened save ends (does damage a plenty).

A cleric level 3 command is an encounter power that skins very nicely to telling them
to drop there weapons and give up.... but no damage and is wisdom versus will...
A single target is dazed until the end of your next turn. And you can knock the target prone or
slide them a number of squares equal to 3 + your Cha mod. (either they scramble after the weapon... or dive trying to pick it up immediately).

Another less pacifistic cleric one...could be skinned as blasting the weapon a way with a thundering divine reprimand and does 1[W] + Str mod thunder , and you push the target 2 squares and knock it prone.

Any of the ones that produce damage if you wanted it more pacifistic could be skinned as your adversary is being disheartened and demoralized losing there will to fight. The reason for the knocked prone if they had there hit points gone could be them prostrating themselves before the cleric. IF they still had hitpoints they scrambled to recover the weapon after a momentary lapse of judgement.

My fighters encounter power spinning sweep could knock them down or it could be skinned as their hand is damaged and there weapon goes to the ground at there feet and they are immediately following it or spending an action to draw a new weapon... leaving them vulnerable while they do it.
1[W] + Str mod damage, and enemy is knocked prone.

shrug... for me enough powers can be skinned as a momentary disarming of enemies... that I am well not as sympathetic to the project as I might be >I skipped version 3 of the game...(I did play a very short lived session or two and I did purchase WOT and a psionics handbook for the art) rumor has it disarm builds were abusive and unrealistically easy<.

 

[Cwheeler]

Hmm... I think I'll stick with the -4 dropping to -2. Just because odd-numbered bonuses/penalties aren't the norm in 4e.

Thanks for the list of disarm-like powers! a useful reference.

rumor has it disarm builds were abusive and unrealistically easy

Yeah, I've heard that. That's why I'm trying to build a ruleset here that's fun and usable, and won't go breaking the game, even if you specialize in it. (And can be used against the players from time to time without totally ing them over)

Edit: Huh, I forgot that this forum had an obscenity filter!

 

[Garthanos]

if you cant normally do it at all without the combat advantage and still ends up with a -2 when you have it then thats fine.... In part because movies/books make disarming happen very frequently and even the outclassed is 10 levels is arbitrary ;=) 8 is pretty outclassed too.

Sweeping Strike is the cool one to me in part because its low level and encounter.
1 a trip which slams the enemy solidly in to the ground (the weapon is used to distract maybe not even itself actually hitting).
2 a weapon attack which cuts there legs out from under them vicious as you want.
3 a disarm causing them to voluntarily drop and retrieve the blade or leaves them similarly vulnerable drawing a new one (if they have more hit points or if not just give up the fight after prostrating themselves)

I still think better examples of how to use re-skinning instead of assuming people would just pick up on it should have been in the game from the beginning. (other games which made use of the concept gave re-skinning examples in every character design example and under every power)

Zero hit points for me has become solidly enemy defeated with many different implications possible... depending on the nature of the attacks made and how the player skins those attacks, not just unconscious or dead.

D&D even gives heros a last second choice on their attack follow through when the enemy hits zero hit points so that even if the attack was nasty.. they could change their mind.

 

[Rothe_]

IMO it is easy to disarm minions. Just declare that you are disarming them, roll, and if you hit, they are out of the fight. I do it all the time. Minions can be removed from the fight for a multitude of reasons - the game mechanics for each of those reasons is that they lost all their hp.

You don't really need to be able to disarm "properly" challenging monsters without spending an encounter power or a daily. Those powers could have weaken, stun, daze, fall prone etc. effects that well describe such tactics. In addition to this, obviously the 0hp mechanic works.

In movies you don't see disarms in the really tough fights vs. main villains, other than at the very end. That represents the 0 hp surrender thingy. You do see a lot of disarms in fights with multiple people, but those could just be minions.

 

[Stuntman]

I'd probably stay with: 0hp? If you decide so, the opponent is disarmed and at sword point instead of killed (or unconscious). Simplest solution.

This I agree with. Any rules that disarm a creature has the potential to apply a -2 (or -3) to attacks and hamper damage for a potentially longer duration than any power. Look at existing powers. There are at-will and encounter powers that reduce an enemy's attacks by -2 for one turn only. Dailies may impose the penalty until a save. If you have an at-will that disarms, it can potentially give the creature a -2 or -3 to attacks for the rest of the encounter. Just disarm the weapon and toss it over a cliff and that's it for the rest of the encounter if he has no backup weapon. That is just way too powerful compared to any existing powers.