Can Dominate disarm a person's weapon?

[Aegeri]

I hadn't thought about it in that way, I can see the logic though and actually that would make dominate a bit more useful against a solo (who often can just be moved a bit or similar). Yeah, I would allow that actually looking at it (the compendium is handy).

At the same time, the concept of a ranger somehow managing to shoot himself in the face with his own longbow is distinctly hilarious. Probably worth allowing solely for that.

Dominating Monster: Execute yourself with your bow!
Ranger: *Stabs himself in the eye with an arrow*
Dominating Monster: MUAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH!!!!!

 

[ExploderWizard]

Are you waxing nostalgically for THACO, 1 hp first level wizards, and level draining undead?

THACO can take a hike. The rest is ok.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This will go into a more meta conversation than I'm intending, but that's because I don't view 0 HP as being mercilessly run through and ones guts hanging out all over the floor. 0 HP represents an inability to fight anymore and one way I view that is being disarmed.

I can see 0hp as being exhausted, knocked out, or killed. Disarmed is very different. Fantasy fiction is full of characters that fight on after being disarmed. The mechanics which make disarmed as bad as 0 hp are the problem.

 

[tyrlaan]

A few points to I think that are worth considering...

• Monsters and PCs do NOT follow the same rules, and therefore do not have to follow the same rules
• Monster statblocks have limited scope to make life easier for the GM, NOT to shoehorn monsters into limited actions
• Claiming disarm alters the difficulty of an encounter is analogous to saying using ANY debuff available to a PC alters the difficulty of an encounter. In other words, yes it does but so what?
• If PC Bob carries a "golf bag" full of weapons to a fight, and Dominating Monster Zero spends an action EACH ROUND making PC Bob toss a weapon, that's a probably pretty stupid tactical move on Dominating Monster Zero's part. Dominating Monster Zero could have instead made PC Bob slaughter his buddies, thereby eliminating threats Dominating Monster Zero was otherwise ignoring.
• Using dominate to force someone to walk off a cliff is probably more punishing than forcing someone to drop a weapon.

After those considerations, if someone still thinks disarm is too powerful, treat it like almost falling of a ledge - give the target a saving throw to hold onto the weapon.


If PCs are constantly using disarm on your monsters (or you're worried they will) then it has become too powerful a mechanic in your game and you need to mitigate it. Saying "no" is not mitigation. Mitigating requires a "yes, but" mentality which frankly I hope any GM I play under always has over the "no" mentality. Some ideas to mitigate:

• Institute my suggested saving throw rule above. I would especially do this if you are a "what's good for the goose" GM because otherwise your players will hate you
• Put the PCs up against more (but not ONLY) opponents that don't rely on their weapons
• Tweak the damage expressions to something a bit lower, but not pathetic, when a monster is disarmed (as someone suggested earlier in the thread)
• Have enemies carry spare weapons. Seriously, what weapon wielding individual doesn't carry a spare? The eschewing of extra weapons seems to be endemic of 4e thanks to the game math

 

[CovertOps]

Common sense says the fight is over at 0 hp. If disarmed = fight over there are some martial artists who might take exception to that.

And there would be some monks that agree with you about not being affected...pretty much at all...by being disarmed. But they are the only such class whose mechanics support it. Oh wait....they're unarmed fighters to begin with aren't they....

 

[Argyle King]

Part of the problem -IMO- is that gear matters too much. 4E is better in this regard than 3E was because it assumes less items (3), but there's still a very heavy reliance on gear. Except in special circumstances (i.e. Excalibur,) I think the character should be more important than the gear. However, this is a part of D&D, and it's something which is somewhat needed to go along with the idea of gaining levels as presented with D&D.


Personally, I always carry a back up weapon. It may not be quite as good as my main weapon, but it's good enough that I can get by if need be. Also, it's not that hard to replace items in 4E.

 

[CovertOps]

Part of the problem -IMO- is that gear matters too much. 4E is better in this regard than 3E was because it assumes less items (3), but there's still a very heavy reliance on gear. Except in special circumstances (i.e. Excalibur,) I think the character should be more important than the gear. However, this is a part of D&D, and it's something which is somewhat needed to go along with the idea of gaining levels as presented with D&D.


Personally, I always carry a back up weapon. It may not be quite as good as my main weapon, but it's good enough that I can get by if need be. Also, it's not that hard to replace items in 4E.

I'm with ya. The game shouldn't be about your "stuff", but about the characters and what THEY can do. I like the concept of "Inherent", but it seems like it is a little rough around the edges.

 

[eamon]

Part of the problem -IMO- is that gear matters too much. 4E is better in this regard than 3E was because it assumes less items (3), but there's still a very heavy reliance on gear. Except in special circumstances (i.e. Excalibur,) I think the character should be more important than the gear. However, this is a part of D&D, and it's something which is somewhat needed to go along with the idea of gaining levels as presented with D&D.

No offense intended; but (as opposed to what you say next) this is nonsense. Do you expect a specialist swordfighter to be barely affected by the loss of weaponry? How are you going to pan-fry a fish without a pan? How do you intend to post to enworld without a network? How did David kill Goliath?

Tools matter. They really do. Characters are more important than their tools not because tools don't matter, but because characters choose the right tools for the right job. If you're playing a humanoid (as in tool-using rather than bipedal) creature, then your dependance on tools is not a weakness; it's a strength: the farm-boy that goes on to slay the dragon doesn't do so in a boxing match: he uses the right tools (Vorpal weapon X) in the right way (with talent, strength and experience), at the right time (not before he has that experience, and with every tactical advantage possible).

The problem is not that D&D PC's depend on tools. For some campaigns, the dependance on magic tools is problematic, but we have inherent bonuses to deal with that problem. Tool-dependance isn't a problem, but the fact that these characters - smart and skillful enough to be able to fight the good fight against foes far more powerful than they by virtue of their skill at arms - these smart tool-users can easily be outwitted simply by disarming them.

Which of course brings me to the next you say: something I can only agree with wholeheartedly:

Personally, I always carry a back up weapon. It may not be quite as good as my main weapon, but it's good enough that I can get by if need be. Also, it's not that hard to replace items in 4E.

The disarming problem is a combination of three factors:

1. Weapon Dependance
2. Ability to neuter weapons
3. Lack of backup weapons.

Fix any one of those three factors, and the problem disappears. Fixing weapon dependance doesn't make sense (though it would be reasonable to ensure that both PC's and monsters play by the similar rules - i.e. use house-ruled/inherent bonuses for PC's just as for monsters so that losing a sword has roughly the same impact on either - a +3 to attack and about twice the damage die, or conversely use greater penalties for monsters).

However, using backup weapons makes perfect sense in-game, and nicely resolves this issue: it's a terrible option to disarm someone if that person can just draw a different weapon, if the alternative is to run past all your allies (provoking OA with CA) and then off a cliff. And it doesn't even require a house rule!

 

[eamon]

I DMed a Sundering Monk in 3.5 and I have to say it was far from crippling. I don't know if this was the officially stated party line on why Sunder was dropped from 4.0, but I can imagine one of the (if not the biggest) reasons Sunder was dropped was because they were such cumbersome rules. Hardness and HP for every weapon, every armor, every shield... and since Monsters Aren't Characters(TM) they would need to set up a whole new set of damage for each monster; figure out which powers were or weren't usable, etc. It would be FAR too cumbersome to add a Sunder or Disarm mechanic to the RAW.

Fortunately, DMs have far more flexibility in terms of making spot decisions. It's MUCH simpler to say "Okay, the monster rolls D6's instead of D8's for damage until he gets his axe back" in the spur of the moment than it is to figure out "disarmed" stats for every monster in the book.

I did have one whip-wielding disarmer in another 3.5 campaign (I think it was the same player as the monk too) and while he was quite effective at taking people's weapons away, it was pretty much all he was capable of doing. It was his shtick. And even then I would never have called it game-breaking.

Yeah, that's my experience too. I'd say tripping and enlarging were more problematic than sundering/disarming in 3.5. The last 3.5 campaign I ran went from level 1 to 14/15 and explicitly permitted pretty much anything; I actively encouraged "creative" combinations so long as they make sense in-game - this was a world, where it was expected for people to try to use (particularly low-level) magic creatively to make a living.

Someone figured out the standard trick of avoiding healing spells and just using bulk wands of cure light wounds - which is just fine, and all NPC's did that too. Someone figured out that dragon slaying was trivial using ray of clumsiness - but if a first level spell could be so devastating, it's only reasonable dragons would know of this and use equally simple countermeasures (e.g. scintillating scales). Yes, some combo's are broken - but it's always possible to find some component of the combo and change that component rather than just say "don't do that" without in-game motivation (e.g. the "Ray of" spells were altered to deal fixed damage rather than rolled damage to avoid empower+maximize problems); and then you're left with a world where PC's feel they're actually being challenged because the bad guys really are out to get them - even with dirty tricks, and that the only things the DM will limit are those that undermine the essence of the setting (such as low-level wizards commonly taking out ancient dragons).

It's OK if players sometimes outsmart you or that occasionally some combo crops up which, if permitted, should really be used by everybody always. The point isn't that you run a perfect game or that anything goes, the point is that the PC's have a choice, and especially that player's have the feeling that their choices really matter.So, I try to play so that any solution - no matter how "unfair" or unbalanced - works so long as it makes sense in game (including the assumption that non-unique effects will have be used by others - if making infinite oregano is permitted, it won't have a high market price).

 

[ExploderWizard]

Tool-dependance isn't a problem, but the fact that these characters - smart and skillful enough to be able to fight the good fight against foes far more powerful than they by virtue of their skill at arms - these smart tool-users can easily be outwitted simply by disarming them.

Only someone who stores all his wits in a sword can be so easily outwitted.