D&D 4E Disarm in 4E

[Garthanos]

Agree entirely Rothe.

but then having a disarm that was mechanically using athletics (vs Fort +10 or Ref +10 give the target the choice) in place of intimidate is not a heavy jump and is close to an at-will.. instead of an encounter.

 

[Rothe_]

At-will, but it would work on bloodied enemies. And you'd have to incorporate the high DC of intimidate into the athletics disarm in some way.

 

[Garthanos]

At-will, but it would work on bloodied enemies. And you'd have to incorporate the high DC of intimidate into the athletics disarm in some way.

oops it pretended to be an at-will its actually a "you cant try again this encounter... against this opponent"

ah so it is an encounter per target limited ability.

 

[CovertOps]

Which is why my idea for disarm is pretty much the same - though it's worse, because it requires a standard action.

The Kuo-Toa can hit you and disarm you in a single round. Then the Kuo-Toa Harpooner reels you in and someone else, a minion slave perhaps, picks up the weapon.

What would really work is to have the Marauder run past a Warlock with a pact blade, drawing an OA, while the Harpooner has a readied action to reel him in. Then the Marauder kicks the pact blade into the water. Bye-bye implement!

What this comes down to for me is that any player asking for an at-will disarm is looking to recreate the cheese which is the 3e disarm, or the bag-o-rats, or pun-pun, or spiked chain trip attack fighters, or any of the 100's of other broken combos that you could build in 3e. If you try to build a power that is at-will and start talking about scenarios where with a single attack (or even a series of actions) you can reduce the effectiveness of an opponent (PC) by 50% (or more) for the rest of the encounter then everyone will be using this power above ANY others. This would be the "new" version of instant kill powers which they (the 4e designers) have repeatedly said they took out of the game ON PURPOSE.

Are you saying that you can only attempt the combat maneuvers listed in the book?

That's a far cry from "you can attempt anything you can imagine."

Pick an effect or condition and re skin it as disarm (someone did this a few posts up). You CAN attempt anything you can imagine. You just have to describe the effects in terms 4e can handle and re flavor as necessary. 4e is not prepared to handle a permanently dropped weapon or implement (caveat: unless you get rid of magic weapons and proficiencies and build those bonuses directly into the PC in which case a dropped weapon would have no impact other than requiring the PC to draw a new weapon - minor or free action with quick draw).

 

[LostSoul]

If you try to build a power that is at-will and start talking about scenarios where with a single attack (or even a series of actions) you can reduce the effectiveness of an opponent (PC) by 50% (or more) for the rest of the encounter then everyone will be using this power above ANY others.

I think you overestimate the power of disarms.

I ran the first battle from KotS, using disarms at-will. Effective? Ineffective? You be the judge. Next time I'll pick something at a higher level where there's an elite monster that relies on a weapon and see how that works out.

[sblock]Init:
M 23
S 5
K 16

A 8
B 10
C 18
D 18
E 15

Round 1:

M1 moves up, charges the cleric. 16 v AC 16; 4 damage.
M2 moves up, charges the cleric. 11 v AC 16.
M3 draws a javelin, moves up, throws at the cleric. 17 v AC 16; 4 damage.
M4 draws a javelin, moves up, throws at the cleric. 10 v AC 16.
M5 draws a javelin, moves up, throws at the cleric. 6 v AC 16.

Dwyver the elf ranger moves next to the bushes, twin strikes both minions next to the cleric. 13 v AC 16, 25 v AC 16. M2 is killed.

Castor the dwarf cleric hits M1 with priest's shield. 15 v AC 16. He shifts forward a square.

K1 (Dragonshield) moves up and charges Albert the human fighter. Crit; 9 damage, and he's marked.
K2 moves up and charges Castor the cleric. 24 v AC 16. 9 damage, and he's marked.

Edgar the tiefling fey-pact warlock curses K1 and fires an eldtrich blast at him. 19 v R 13; 12 damage.

Betty the human wizard drops a cloud of daggers on M1. 7 v R 13.

Albert the human fighter attempts to disarm K1. 24 v AC 18+2 (he has a shield, so AC is fine). K1 drops his short sword in his space.

S shifts, loads a firepot, and fires at Castor. 18 v AC 16; 5 damage and 2 ongoing fire.

M2 dies from the cloud of daggers.

M3 draws his spear, moves in adjacent to Castor, readies for when he has flanking.
M4 draws his spear, moves in adjacent to Castor, readies for when M5 gets adjacent to Castor.
M5 draws his spear, moves in adjacent to Castor.
M3 attacks: 22 v AC 16, 4 damage.
M4 attacks: 13 v AC 16.
M5 attacks: 17 v AC 16. 4 damage. Castor falls at -3 hp.

Dwyver the elf ranger moves to get a clear shot at M3 and M5, then twin strikes them. 22 and 13 v AC 16. M3 dies.

Castor makes a save against the fire. 6, fails. Makes a death save. 3, fails.

K1 picks up his short sword and shifts forward a square, adjacent to Albert and Betty. Albert makes a disarm attack as an immediate reaction: crit. K1 drops his sword in his square. K1 readies an action to kick Albert when he's flanked.
K2 moves forward, shifts to flank Albert.
K1 attacks Albert: 16 v AC 19.
K2 attacks Albert: 20 v AC 19. 5 damage.

Edgar moves over a step, curses K2, eldtrich blasts K1. 14 v R 13; 21 damage.

Betty delays until Albert goes.

Albert disarms K2. 24 v AC 18+2. Shifts back a square.

Betty thunderwaves K1, K2, and M5. 20 v F 14, 21 v F 14, natural 1. K1 & K2 take 11 damage. K1 is killed, K2 is pushed back 2. As a minor action she uses Mage Hand to throw the dragonshield's short sword 5 squares away, behind the PCs. Betty spends an AP to thunderwave K2 and M5 again. crit, 15 v F 11. M5 dies, K2 takes 11 damage.

S throws a firepot at Albert. 15 v AC 19.

M5 moves up, grabs K1's sword, and throws it to K2.

Dwyver twin strikes K2. 20, 23 v AC 18. 14 damage. K2 is killed.

DM calls the fight over.[/sblock]

 

[Rothe_]

Disarms are not broken at lower levels, since the difference in damage and hit bonus is much less. Later on the weapons get more crucial.

Also, you did not have elites or solos, and you did not truly try to exploit the disarm so that one character disarms and another grabs the weapon or pushes the enemy away.

Disarm could work in some cases with almost any kind of rules, but in other situations it can be horribly broken. You should make the rules so that they can handle most situations without being unbalanced.

 

[LostSoul]

Yup. Actually I want it to be "unbalanced" - that is, obviously a good choice - in certain circumstances.

I will run through the fight with Murkelmor in Thunderspire; he's an elite guy with a magic weapon.

Then maybe some drow.

 

[Rothe_]

I still think that a maneuver that is available to all (like bull rush, grapple etc.) should not be better than an encounter power (or most at-wills) for doing something that might happen often. They should be situational things.

 

[CovertOps]

Yup. Actually I want it to be "unbalanced" - that is, obviously a good choice - in certain circumstances.

I will run through the fight with Murkelmor in Thunderspire; he's an elite guy with a magic weapon.

Then maybe some drow.

The point that Rothe and I are trying to make is that at level 1-5 you will see very little impact from a disarm. By the time you hit level 30 you're talking about -9 to hit (assumed +6 enhancement and +3 proficiency bonus) from an at-will power. That is just ridiculous. If you then further allow the weapon that was disarmed to be picked up by someone else and thrown off a cliff or to the bottom of a lake you have just removed a target from combat permanently. This is basically an instant kill effect. Do what you like to your game, but don't try to suggest that a "true" disarm will work well and balanced in 4e.

 

[Garthanos]

Since LS hasnt fully enumerated his house rule idea.. too much more is speculation .. he might be restricting it to once per encounter per target (just like intimidate) ...he might be requiring CA... he might be using a attribute based attack roll, instead of a skil (so its less pumpable)l and giving the target a +5 bonus on its defense (and maybe ability to choose there best defense against it). ... he might penalize it further by 5 if the target isnt bloodied.. and he might give a magic item bonus to the defense of the target...
and see his main idea may be a pc disarming an npc (he implied it once even though he made an icky example of gimping a pc).

A lot of ideas have been sent his way for creating suitable restrictions and I am totally not certain what he glommed on to.

The problem is I can see very few ways of making it anything but almost always either completely useful.. or so unlikely you are playing a huge gambling game.

he has said

Disarming only when bloodied: That's okay too.
Encounter only: That's fine, I can see it.