Can Dominate disarm a person's weapon?

[Dice4Hire]

This doesn't strike me as anything fundamentally different from what spellcasters in earlier editions were capable of at comparable levels.

Right away, that would be an argument for me not to allow this kind of stuff. I do not want to go back to the "Mother may I?" play of high level 3.5.

As for the topic, I would probably not allow it, or let the monster do basically the same damage without it. Maybe a dice down or a -2 to hit at worst.

As for dominating getting rid of player's weapons, I would have them return if magical, whether thrown or not. And at the level they are likely to run into dominate, I think they would be magical.

 

[Jack Jericho]

Something that a few posters seem to be missing when it comes to applying this trick to players:


So you can use any melee power that requires a melee weapon with your unarmed attack.

You are only crippled in the sense you lose any magical bonus and the benefits of feats. Your unarmed strike has a proficiency of +2.

The people this trick is going to really bugger are ranged weapon users, as you can't throw your fist.

How do you have a proficiency with your unarmed strike without being a monk or a brawling fighter? Unarmed Strike tends to do less damage than a weapon.

Also, you actually can throw your unarmed strike with the right feats or items.

 

[Rechan]

How do you have a proficiency with your unarmed strike without being a monk or a brawling fighter?

From the PHB:

When you punch, kick, elbow, knee, or even head butt an opponent, you’re making an unarmed strike. A simple unarmed attack is treated as an improvised weapon.

Nothing about not being proficient with it.

From the monk entry:

You can make unarmed attacks with much greater effectiveness than most combatants can. When you make a weapon attack such as a melee basic attack, you can use the monk unarmed strike, which is a weapon in the unarmed weapon group. This weapon has the off-hand weapon property and a +3 proficiency bonus, and it deals 1d8 damage.

It doesn't say "You're proficient in unarmed strike". It just says that yours is better than average.

Anyone is proficient in punching someone in the face with their fist. Monks and brawlers are better at it.

As far as "do less damage", well honestly if I have to choose between nto using my powers because I don't have a weapon, and doing less damage, I'm going to pick the latter.

 

[Camelot]

How do you have a proficiency with your unarmed strike without being a monk or a brawling fighter? Unarmed Strike tends to do less damage than a weapon.

Also, you actually can throw your unarmed strike with the right feats or items.

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I would be very interested in knowing what feat could possibly do that.

From the PHB:

Nothing about not being proficient with it.

From the monk entry:


It doesn't say "You're proficient in unarmed strike". It just says that yours is better than average.

Anyone is proficient in punching someone in the face with their fist. Monks and brawlers are better at it.

As far as "do less damage", well honestly if I have to choose between nto using my powers because I don't have a weapon, and doing less damage, I'm going to pick the latter.

Except if you look at the proficiency bonus of improvised weapons, they are all "n/a," meaning whether you are proficient in them or not, it doesn't matter. There's no proficiency bonus.

On top of that, the damage is 1d4 with a fist and 1d8 with something you can pick up and swing. Not very good. So yes, they do much less damage.

 

[Argyle King]

From the PHB:

Nothing about not being proficient with it.

From the monk entry:


It doesn't say "You're proficient in unarmed strike". It just says that yours is better than average.

Anyone is proficient in punching someone in the face with their fist. Monks and brawlers are better at it.

As far as "do less damage", well honestly if I have to choose between nto using my powers because I don't have a weapon, and doing less damage, I'm going to pick the latter.

I think the point was that improvised weapons (which include unarmed strike) do not grant -by default- a proficiency bonus.

I completely agree with you that I'd rather use my power than not use it, but that doesn't change that it's a good tactic to have your opponent toss away their weapon. Some monsters (iirc, the Balor is one) require their weapon for certain attacks; this is also true of some classes which require that they be using a certain type of weapon for a power to work.

 

[Blue]

There is only one power in the game that let's PC's steal weapons from monsters in a fight. It's Excorcism of Steel (Fighter 17).
Like with the dominating trick, if a player uses it frequently and has a tendency to "abuse" it, I would come up with some house rules covering the issue, and also make him feel the pain when monsters get the same idea.

Something's broken when "Attack your friend" is considered normal everyday use of a dominate, but "Drop your weapon" is considered "abuse" and requires a house rule.

Disarm can be save-vs.-suck as we've seen in earlier editions so it looks like it's not designed in to happen often, but that it has such drastic effects is a brittleness in design.

 

[eamon]

In-game, dominating someone should allow dropping a weapon -perhaps throwing it a bit (though for most weapons, that wont be far). As a player, I'd expect my DM to do exactly that if that's what works best. If I just killed that mind-flayer's brood, I don't expect to be coddled by it - that's ridiculous and absolutely not acceptable in any way - I'd much, much rather accept an occasional minor imbalance than a broken story. It's about the story, not the balance.

Having said that, it's perfectly reasonable to adapt the rules, since there is something fishy going on. It's not reasonable, after all, for player's and monsters to react so differently to the loss of a weapon/implement. I'd say it's only natural that a monster has an unarmed attack that's no more than +3 worse than it's normal attack and perhaps a slightly lower damage die. But, conversely, if a "monster" human fighter takes only that penalty, well, then a "hero" human fighter shouldn't be dramatically different.

For that matter, picking up a weapon is just a minor action - is it not? So usually, throwing away the weapon is just a waste of time. Additionally, since PC's do more damage and have less hitpoints that monsters anyhow, the "charge ally and provoke a bunch of OA's" strategy works much better against PC's than for PC's.

It's be an odd situation in which throwing away a weapon - if fairly adjudicated - would be better than that. A reasonable barbarian, for instance, can drop an ally in one crit, if he's charging...

 

[Kingreaper]

I suppose the major question is: is domination supposed to make the creature behave as though it's on your side, or as though it is utterly suicidal?

ie. if you dominate a surrounded solo, can you force it to make a Ranged Attack against itself?

 

[Solvarn]

This came up in my last game session. One of my players has a new dominate effect. He dominated a creature with a greataxe, and then said "The creature throws the greataxe as his action."

Caused a bit of a rules debate. On the one side, it seems extrememly powerful, as there really isn't that much in 4e that can disarm a creature. But throwing a weapon is a basic ranged attack, that's an at will power that would seem to fit the definition of dominate so I couldn't see any rules fault with it.

Anyone got any rules citation that I might be missing...one way or another?

Yes, dominate allows for an at-will action.

He could free action drop the axe, or make a ranged basic if it's a thrown weapon. Thrown weapons return.

If it isn't thrown, it's improvised, no proficiency bonus and 1d4 damage. That's for PC's.

For a monster I'd give a -2 penalty and 1d4 damage on that type of attack. If it doesn't have the thrown weapon property it doesn't return.

 

[CovertOps]

• As a player would you want a monster to do this to you?
• As to the die type of damage. This falls apart as soon as you leave heroic tier and perhaps even sooner. Monster damage is not and has never been based on the weapons they use. Trying to "reverse engineer" monster damage from using a weapon to not using a weapon is ill advised, or should Orcus start doing a d4 when he gets disarmed?
• Slippery slope. If being disarmed for a monster (or PC) means anything other than a minor inconvenience (minor action to recover the weapon, -1 to hit) then it means you're allowing a game mechanic to change encounter difficulty. As others have said, if this benefit becomes "too good" then you will see a return to the 3e one-trick ponies. Dominate does not need to be more powerful than it already is.
• 4e already handles "disarmed". It's called 0 hit points.