Disarm and Tripping

[Borthos]

A few questions about disarming and tripping opponents:

Does disarming an opponent deal damage? or is it a replacement of the attack itself?

What's the best way of optimizing trip and disarm checks?

And just for kicks, what's the funniest thing you've ever done with a trip or disarm?
For me, a troll tried charging past me and I had Knock Down, a feat that gives me a free trip attempt in melee if I deal 10 or more points. Knock down doesn't state it doesn't happen on AoO's, so I kept the troll locked down when he kept trying to stand up. He was supposed to be hard and the DM got reeeeally mad I kept doing it.

 

[frankthedm]

Does disarming an opponent deal damage? or is it a replacement of the attack itself?

Replacement for the attack that deals no damage. IIRC Sunder on the other hand had some way to cleave into the victim.

What's the best way of optimizing trip and disarm checks?

Be big.

 

[Empirate]

The only way to deal damage after a Trip is with the extra attack granted by Improved Trip, or by using trip effects that rely on damaging attacks, such as with the Knockdown example; or the monstrous feat Awesome Blow. You can cleave into your opponent after a successful Sunder (that breaks the weapon) with the Combat Brute feat (Complete Warrior), which is rather good for other reasons, too. You cannot deal damage by disarming somebody.


IIRC, AoOs happen right before the action that provoked them resolves. So if the Troll wanted to get up, you'd indeed get an AoO, but for that AoO, the Troll would still be considered prone. That means you get +4 to the attack roll, but cannot use the AoO to re-trip the Troll (as it is already [still] prone). It only gets up right after your AoO resolves, and can then be tripped again on your turn.


Trip and Disarm rely on size and Strength, so boosting those helps a lot. The Jotunbrud feat (human only, Unapproachable East), or having a race with the powerful build quality, also provide +4 bonuses, but don't stack with being large.

Disarming is an opposed attack roll, so anything that boosts your attack or reduces the other guy's attack is good. Too many possibilities to list them all.

The Wolf Berserker feat (Barbarian only, Unapproachable East) provides a stacking +4 bonus to tripping and acts as prerequisite for Improved Trip in place of Combat Expertise, which is great if you want to dump Int. The Sweeping weapon enchantment (+1, iirc) provides another +4 bonus to trip checks.

Reroll abilities (such as from the Luck domain, or Luck Feats) are good, as always.


Best story: In my game, the party was jumped by a bunch of Bugbears led by a Bugbear Fighter and a Bugbear Adept. The Adept was a real damage-dealer with his Wand of Lightning Bolt (8th caster level; party was only 6th level...).
So the party's gish runs over and disarms the Wand. The Adept tried to pick it up again on his turn, but the gish used grapple on his AoO to stop him. On his own turn, party gish lets go of Adept (free action, since I ruled the Adept wasn't that keen on maintaining the grapple), picks up the Wand (no AoO from unarmed Adept), and starts blasting the remaining Bugbears. Not surprisingly, they quickly fled.

 

[aboyd]

And just for kicks, what's the funniest thing you've ever done with a trip or disarm?

Hmm. Not sure this is funny, but it was enjoyable. A while back, here on EnWorld the gang was helping me to make an anti-magic anti-hero type NPC. The players of my game hated him, and ended up losing fights against him multiple times. The last time they fought, I knew it would be a TPK unless I gave the players a way out. I decided that the NPC's right-hand man had returned from business, and would be part of the encounter.

As I said recently in this forum, I love the "ranged disarm" feat in Complete Warrior. So I built this right-hand man to be the most amazing ranged disarmer that ever lived. Huge number of attacks, many bonuses to initiative, optimized to always hit with little concern for how much damage he could do, etc.

And then it happened during one game -- the players confronted this anti-hero named Lord Seren, and rather than utterly destroy all of them, Lord Seren simply said, "Disarm them!" Mr. right-hand did five ranged attacks in a single round, and half the group had lost their weapons before even getting a turn. Seren: "Surrender!"

Unfortunately, the players were not impressed, and decided to fight anyway. So they would pick up weapons, get a single strike in (if that), be disarmed again, pick up weapon, get a single strike, be disarmed, and so on. TPK.

 

[BENINHB]

Having a race with the powerful build quality, also provide +4 bonuses, but don't stack with being large.

Ummm that's not quite right. Powerful Build says they are treated as one size larger, not large sized. So if you become large sized you are then treated as being huge. Powerful build does stack with anything that increases size.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

There is the Disarming Strike (I think that's the name) maneuver in Tome of Battle. You do a regular attack and if it hits and does damage, you get a free disarm attempt that doesn't provoke an AoO and the foe can't try to disarm you if you fail. Basically like a wolf's trip ability, but for disarming.

 

[BENINHB]

Funniest disarm story??

We were defending a three story tower in the wilderness that we had some time to prepare before the attack. We had cut away all the brush and undergrowth in a 40ft radius around the tower to remove any cover or concealment for the approaching baddies. This gave us an open killing field they had to cross to get to us. We barricaded up the windows of the first floor and blocked the door with our Adamantine Warforged. The second floor was our rogue and I. He was popping from window to window making sneak attacks and since we were sharing one ladder to get clear shots i quickly found i was getting in his way. So up i go to the roof where our wilder is doling out a steady stream of crossbow bolts and torching anyone who came too close with her wild surged energy ray (5d6+5 at level 3!!) I'm running utility at this point. I pop some sunrods and toss them out to illuminate the enemies as they approach, I get off a couple shots with my longbow, then "Listen check" clink clink click, that sounds like grappling hooks!! i run over and start sundering ropes with my dagger but i can only cut one per round and they are coming faster than that. After two rounds i cut two ropes but now there are 3 bads on the roof with us and the turn after 2 more join them. The wilder and I are doing a good job of watching out for each other and are fighting back to back to keep from getting flanked and at the same time we are trying to cut off access to the roof by keeping them corralled in the area were the ropes attach so more guys don't have room to climb up. So we are fighting pretty defensively trying to keep them from taking over the roof when one of the bad guys nat 1's and fumbles, dropping his rapier. I'm a Swash1/Wiz1 at this point so the DM describs that I spot the flaw in his wild technique catch his awkward thrust with my dagger, disarming him with a wink and a grin. Fast forward to my turn...
"I bullrush him"
DM "you what?"
Me "BULL-RUSH"
DM "Really?? You're a wizard dude"
Me "Madness? MADNESS? THIS-IS-EBERRON" (I roll my d20 plus i blow an action point for another d6)
DM "umm you know without improved bullrush you provoke"
Me "Does he have Improved Unarmed Strike??"
DM "No why?"
Me "Cause he's not holding a weapon"
DM "...#%*@"
I Sparta kick the goon and he flies off the roof and he takes out a guy waiting on the rope too. The guy on the rope was toast, he took falling damage and damage from the 200lbs guy landing on top of him. The guy i kicked dropped but must have just been knocked out cause a few rounds later he popped up and started staggering for the edge of the clearing. When i spotted this i said
"I run and jump off the edge of the roof"
DM "roll a WIS check"
"umm, 18"
"Ok, your common sense tells you a fall from 30ft could kill you"
"I got this... Feather Fall!!"
So i charge off the edge of the roof and leap into the air flying down at my foe like a bird of prey... and i biff the attack roll. ARRRGGG!!! Luckily the NPC Druid saw that he was about to escape and hit the area with an Entangle. I followed up by tossing my dagger right between the thugs shoulder blades as he tried to run off and he dropped.

 

[BENINHB]

There is the Disarming Strike (I think that's the name) maneuver in Tome of Battle. You do a regular attack and if it hits and does damage, you get a free disarm attempt that doesn't provoke an AoO and the foe can't try to disarm you if you fail. Basically like a wolf's trip ability, but for disarming.

I think it would be stylish if there was a feat for disarm that worked like improved trip. You bat the weapon out of there hand and then get a free follow up attack if you succeed.

 

[Wyvernhand]

Yea, there isn't for disarm, but there is for sunder. Combat Brute has an option called Sundering Cleave. If you successfully sunder someone's shield or weapon, you get to cleave into the wielder. Unfortunately, sundering as a combat option is...less than desireable in most cases, as that shiney glowy sword you just splintered could have been YOUR sword in about 18-24 seconds. Oh well, easy come, easy go...

 

[BENINHB]

Yea, there isn't for disarm, but there is for sunder. Combat Brute has an option called Sundering Cleave. If you successfully sunder someone's shield or weapon, you get to cleave into the wielder. Unfortunately, sundering as a combat option is...less than desireable in most cases, as that shiney glowy sword you just splintered could have been YOUR sword in about 18-24 seconds. Oh well, easy come, easy go...

You know i hear people say that all the time but in real games i would say our party ends up keeping and using less than 5% of the weapons we loot from our dead enemies. About half gets taken and the other half gets left behind cause its not worth carrying (our dm is pretty strict with weight limits).

A long as you show restraint when the big bad is waving that sparkly glowing sword around and change tactics you still get the best stuff. How often do you really want that mooks master work longsword?? How often does a random mob actually have a weapon worth wielding??