Disarm rules

[Najo]

Then counter them, your post is vary vague.

You mean like listening to the designers talk about being influenced by WoW?

3E + MMO design + Minitures design = 4E

Yes there are original elements but the majority of what makes 4E different from 3E is based on lessons learned from MMOs. I focus on WoW because it's the most influential.

You left out +return to pre 3.x fun, adventure+4e ease and fun of DMing

The only people I have met in person that do not like D&D 4e yet haven't played or ran it or they only had a partial session at a game store. Pick up either Shadowfell or the corebooks andactually play through a session and then come back and tell us how it went for you.

4e is not D&D copying WOW, it is D&D learning from things WOW did right and then boiling down the Roleplaying experience and removed the barriers to entry RPGs face, namely learning to DM and finding a group to play with.

4e has fixed the DMing issue better than any previous RPG ever has. The finding a group to play will fix itself with time once most of us are playing 4e, which is inevitable.

 

[Minigiant]

Disarming never made sense in D&D to me. No one would ever practice with all the nonhumanoids and giant enemies you'll face. And since trained fighters rarely get disarmed it's worse. The best I can think of is Str vs Fort and a hit target can't attack until they go prone once per encounter.

 

[darkdragoon]

Disarming presumes you are facing another being of similar size or lesser AND carries something to disarm.

On the other hand, a power that gives a penalty to attack or damage works on anything that attacks or does damage.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just visualise "reducing foe to 0 hitpoints and choosing to let him live" as disarming him.

Eugh! No...just...No!

While disarming is often the end of the fight, it is not always the end of the disarmed person's actions. Frequently, disarmed foes run off and warn others, pull another weapon, pull some kind of escape, and so forth.

The advantage of a PnP game over an MMO is not supposed to be having broader options for rationalizing the limitations on your options. The advantage is supposed to be that you can attempt anything your character could reasonably do. That ought to include knocking a weapon out of someone's hands without beating them down to zero hit points...<snip>...disarming isn't something magical and arbitrary like a silence spell. It's something an ordinary person can actually do in a fight, but you're content that a character can't attempt it because it'd be too powerful.

Shouldn't the ability of a person to physically do something be enough justification for having rules for doing it?

Agreed 100%

Also, I'm thinking if Errol Flynn could do it in a movie, or Grey Mouser could do it in a novel, it should probably exist in some form in a FRPG.

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Here's the #1 reason why Disarm doesn't work in 4E.

Open the MM and look at a random monster. Here, I'll do it -- Earth Titan. It has a +20 to hit with its basic attack, and it does 2d10+6 damage. It's described as using a greatclub, so presumably that's what it uses to attack.

Now, knock the club out of its hands. What does its attack look like now?

I agree that this is probably the #1 reason...and I agree with Psychic Robot that this is a failing in the system.

After all, its not just weapons that get disarmed in other games, fiction and movies, its also shields, wands, staves, keys, and just about any other thingy someone might hold.

You're pretty clearly looking for a game that puts a heavy emphasis on simulation and verisimilitude, and one that has a very strict connection between the rules and the specific events in the game world.

I just want to be able to do what a normal trained warrior- or one from a good adventure/fantasy movie- could do. Disarming is one of those things.

Disarming is often seen as a main tactic in the most intelligent and honorable of warriors- sometimes virtually the ONLY tactic of reluctant fighters who favor pacifism and only fight when forced to do so.

Its absence in 4Ed is an annoying void.

 

[generalhenry]

Disarming is often seen as a main tactic in the most intelligent and honorable of warriors- sometimes virtually the ONLY tactic of reluctant fighters who favor pacifism and only fight when forced to do so.

hehe, that's exactly the problem disarming at 0 HP solves.
Perfect balance for honorable and dishonorable warriors.

0 HP isn't dead. 0 HP is defeated which typically means dead but can mean other things.

 

[darkdragoon]

Psh, Flynn is paragon if not epic, and that's where the current disarm power is. That or change up the Swordmaster.

 

[Wormwood]

Curiously, I think it's one of the system's greatest successes.

This. This X 1000.

 

[Saeviomagy]

In most of the cinematic fights I've seen, a disarm will end the fight.

In the rest, disarm is typically not the first thing tried, nor is it usually used in every single fight.

Putting an effective disarm manuever in the game as a basic maneuver that anyone can do craps all over both of those concepts in one go.

So - if you haven't taken exorcism of steel and you're desperate to disarm people, describe your reducing of people to 0 hitpoints as disarming them every so often. If you have taken it, congratulations: you're that skilled warrior who occasionally will disarm an opponent halfway through the fight.

OR go back to 3.5 style disarming where only specific character builds ever tried it and those specific builds did it as their opening move (and often their subsequent moves) on every single opponent that had a weapon, typically crippling their opponent completely.

And felon - the big difference between an MMO and a Tabletop rpg is using your imagination to fill in everything that the rules don't. If you have some other factor that divides the two, then please, tell me.

 

[keterys]

So, given how powerful the effect _can_ be (which sucks, cause it's now useless to those it's less effective against), it might be reasonable to allow disarm against bloodied or grabbed targets only, vs Fort and Ref (one attack roll, but has to beat both) at -10 to your attack roll, and the enemy gets a save to hold onto it enough that no one else can get it, but it still needs to be re-equipped.

There, a disarm rule to satisfy the 'It can be done' crowd, while keep it reasonable for a Solo who is pretty useless without his weapon.

Yeah, that was worth adding to the game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

hehe, that's exactly the problem disarming at 0 HP solves.
Perfect balance for honorable and dishonorable warriors.

0 HP isn't dead. 0 HP is defeated which typically means dead but can mean other things.

Actually, in the light of abilities like the Minotaur's Ferocity- which triggers when the creature reaches 0HP and:

Dying: When your current hit points drop to 0 or lower, you fall unconscious and are dying
4Ed PHB p293

I'd have to say your interpretation of 0HP is a little off.

At the very least, being unconscious at 0HP absolutely negates the option of doing something after you were disarmed- an option both 3.X characters and action heroes have.

In most of the cinematic fights I've seen, a disarm will end the fight.

In the rest, disarm is typically not the first thing tried, nor is it usually used in every single fight.

Putting an effective disarm manuever in the game as a basic maneuver that anyone can do craps all over both of those concepts in one go.

Your experience with the cinema obviously differs from mine. Its a classic maneuver in swashbuckling movies for the disarmed person to draw another weapon, catch or snatch a weapon from someone else, or improvise a weapon from his surroundings.

Sometimes, the disarmed foe can even swing a temporary hostage situation with a holdout dagger and an innocent bystander.

Think Errol Flynn and his foes- you might have multiple disarms in a fight between 2 skilled opponents. Think of a typical melee fight involving Captain Kirk- he rarely holds onto his first weapon.

How many times have you seen both protagonist and antagonist become disarmed, fighting with fists, feet and teeth, only to find themselves scrambling for a free weapon both spot on the floor 15 feet away?