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Attacking a held light source
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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 4673957" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>Just to complete the picture:</p><p></p><p>No.</p><p></p><p>The closest option offered by the rules is to make the character unconscious or helpless, then just take his stuff.</p><p></p><p>Any option that allows a character (PC or NPC) to take stuff from other characters in general is easily abusable (as expanded upon above) so that is why the rules do not allow it.</p><p></p><p>Sure, you could give your NPC a special power to allow this, but think twice before implementing it. If you only use it rarely, and for thematically appropriate monsters, then it is okay. If you use it all the time, the players will realize you're just circumventing the rules to give NPCs options the PCs can't have. For "monstrous" abilities this can be okay, but not for something as simple as snatching stuff (sundering, disarming, etc).</p><p></p><p>In the end, there was a reason 4E did not include rules for these types of actions.</p><p></p><p>And that reason is that balance dictates you can't short-circuit your opponent by stealing his stuff.</p><p></p><p>Either your rules for sundering etc are worthwhile (i.e. better and faster than killing the foe outright) and thus unbalanced (everybody would want to use it all the time). Or they are balanced, meaning less effective than standard combat. In which case, noone is going to use the rule, and so why have it in the first place?</p><p></p><p>Sure, you could have the rule written in such a way that characters with a baseline disarm capability will find the option to be less effective than standard combat, and then have specific monsters have improved versions of the ability, crossing the boundary into a worthwhile option. But really that changes nothing. You would still see demands from players to learn the improved disarm, which you still could not allow.</p><p></p><p>So feel free to implement something for your own campaign. Now at least you know why there aren't any official rules on the matter, and you know what can of worms you'll be opening. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 4673957, member: 12731"] Just to complete the picture: No. The closest option offered by the rules is to make the character unconscious or helpless, then just take his stuff. Any option that allows a character (PC or NPC) to take stuff from other characters in general is easily abusable (as expanded upon above) so that is why the rules do not allow it. Sure, you could give your NPC a special power to allow this, but think twice before implementing it. If you only use it rarely, and for thematically appropriate monsters, then it is okay. If you use it all the time, the players will realize you're just circumventing the rules to give NPCs options the PCs can't have. For "monstrous" abilities this can be okay, but not for something as simple as snatching stuff (sundering, disarming, etc). In the end, there was a reason 4E did not include rules for these types of actions. And that reason is that balance dictates you can't short-circuit your opponent by stealing his stuff. Either your rules for sundering etc are worthwhile (i.e. better and faster than killing the foe outright) and thus unbalanced (everybody would want to use it all the time). Or they are balanced, meaning less effective than standard combat. In which case, noone is going to use the rule, and so why have it in the first place? Sure, you could have the rule written in such a way that characters with a baseline disarm capability will find the option to be less effective than standard combat, and then have specific monsters have improved versions of the ability, crossing the boundary into a worthwhile option. But really that changes nothing. You would still see demands from players to learn the improved disarm, which you still could not allow. So feel free to implement something for your own campaign. Now at least you know why there aren't any official rules on the matter, and you know what can of worms you'll be opening. :) [/QUOTE]
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