Trip? Disarm? Sunder? Gone forever?

[NMcCoy]

As a novice DM, were I put on the spot for a sand-in-the-face attack, I'd say: "Standard action, make a, hm, Cha attack versus Reflex, hit and he's blinded until the end of your next turn. Sound good? Roll it. Nineteen? Awesome. He reels back in surprise and pain, staggering blindly. Better make the most of it while you can; I don't think he'll fall for that trick again."

 

[Grabuto138]

Sure, you could consider it feinting if you want, though I think most people imagine the stereotypical "sand in the eyes" move would cause the blind condition.

But even if it's feinting the point still holds. Some characters might have feinting as part of their schtick as expressed in powers and maybe feats. But is everybody on the battlefield going to be constantly tossing sand and waving their cloaks in a never ending dance of... feinting? Feinting probably doesn't need to be a standard maneuver and if it is, it should be a relatively weak and limited one.

I have not read close to everything (And I have retained less than that). Are we referring to the fact that everyone can bluff once per encounter to gain "combat advantage?" If so, I can see a lot of interesting ways that the bluff check can be described, including the old "sand in the eyes" trick.

 

[med stud]

As a novice DM, were I put on the spot for a sand-in-the-face attack, I'd say: "Standard action, make a, hm, Cha attack versus Reflex, hit and he's blinded until the end of your next turn. Sound good? Roll it. Nineteen? Awesome. He reels back in surprise and pain, staggering blindly. Better make the most of it while you can; I don't think he'll fall for that trick again."

That's the best way to solve it, really. With the right kind of players it would be a cool moment of an encounter as well. The problem is players of the Asperger- kind (who I suspect to a large degree are message board constructs) who would badger you to allow the sand throwing every time. I've never met those players, if I met them I would have a serious conversation about these issues and if we didn't get to a consensus I would recommend them to seek a new group.

 

[Grabuto138]

As a novice DM, were I put on the spot for a sand-in-the-face attack, I'd say: "Standard action, make a, hm, Cha attack versus Reflex, hit and he's blinded until the end of your next turn. Sound good? Roll it. Nineteen? Awesome. He reels back in surprise and pain, staggering blindly. Better make the most of it while you can; I don't think he'll fall for that trick again."

You say you are a new DM. I think it is pretty cool that your first instinct is a Charisma vs. Reflex check. A strict analysis of the process of successfully throwing sand in an opponent’s eyes might point to Dexterity. I would argue that the literary tradition requires a clever, strong willed hero, probably engaged in witty repartee, to successfully throw sand in the opponent’s eyes. Either charisma or wisdom, whichever favors the story.

 

[NMcCoy]

In the ten seconds or so I gave myself to decide, I thought that basically a handful of sand doesn't take all that much finesse to aim, it's more of a fake-out/moxie thing, but Reflex makes sense to raise an arm or avert the face in time to avoid it.

On a different day, perhaps with a different character, it could as easily have been a Thievery vs. Insight check. The point is that the difficulty makes basic sense and seems "fair" at a cursory glance, the player's happy about their cool trick, and the dice keep a-rollin'. One of the things I absolutely love about 4e and its defenses is that it encourages quick-and-dirty stunts in combat, rather than looking up obscure things in the book. You want to disrupt the necromancer's ritual chant by shouting random incantations at him? Sure! Arcana vs. Will, go for it!

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Saeviomagy,
ever heard of a SAI ? Looks sort of like a small 1handed trident mixed with a dagger or iron bar club.
Oriental weapon, came ot the fore withthe Okinawans, who were lorded over by the Japanese.
To defeat the katana, the Okinawans used the Sai. Brilliant weapon for catching an opponents sword blade. Then you'd use your other sai to shatter the enemy's blade or just hit it so damned hard they'd drop it...or you'd break the swordsman's hand, wrist, skull or even stab him with the sai spike.

Katana's are good wepaons, but, in a dirty street fight or close up battle, orin a dungeon, I'd rather have a cutlass you can stab with, or a gladius and a shield/armour
Several samurai were known to have beenkilled when their long blades got stuck in the ceilings or walls of houses, inns etc.

Each weapon has advantages, none is "the best".
The very best weapons IMHO are the handaxe, staff, dagger, sling, spear, and crossbow.

-Handaxe can be thrown or meleed, but most importantly it's *useful*, especially with a hammer back, for cutting logs, freeign trapped friends, hammering in pitons or whatever.

-Quarterstaff is seriously one of the best weapons around, most folk don't realize this though. It's useful for many things, opening trpaped doors, a tent pole, lever, checkign water or mud depth, walking aid (do you know how many folk break their legs or ankles just walking on rough ground?!) etc.

-Dagger, utility tool, close up dirty fights (grappling tight tunnels etc), also good for bartering, before paper currency, a fine dagger could be easily traded.

-Sling, far more lethal than realize, dirt cheap, lots of free ammo! if your'e good with it small game cna keep you form starving.

-Crossbow, small game with blunt bolts, large game with broadheads, very accurate so you can assassinate someone from ambush (bows are horribly innacurate by comparison), IMHO, fantasy worlds would have equivalents of glassfibre for bow limbs (like superb elven woods etc).

-Spear, with a baorspear, that is a cross peice below the blade, you cna kill large creatures without them pushing up the blade to eat you! Against armoured folk, if they don't have greaves, you can cripple them by stabbing their shins. You can form basic pike formations. Stab someone through an arrow slit. Some uses as per a quarterstaff. Stops charges. etc.

 

[SDOgre]

That's not really true. Steel has been around for about as long as iron, going back to more than 1000BC. Problem is it was just difficult to make and only available in relatively small quantities. It could be used only for relatively small objects, like swords and armor. The Bessemer process was a breakthrough in mass production. Bessemer made steel cheap enough to be used as a structural material in buildings or for building warships.

I stand corrected. I guess I shouldn't just type things off the top of my head. You are correct that the Bessemer process was about mass production not quality of steel.

I guess when I talk about improved iron vs. steel I'm talking about modern steel. Steel as we know it didn't begin to show it's head until the early 1500s to the 1740s with Blister steel and Crucible steel. Before that historically the term iron was often used for what technically might be steel, though in it's most primitive and weak form.

 

[Hussar]

Actually the transition from tachi to katana took place roughly around the Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568 to 1600).

True, however, the development of katana hardly peaked at this time. It wasn't until well into Edo that you see real strides in the process. Now you're into 1700, 1800 (ish). Not all that far off.

As far as not having decent steel, again, I point to Damascus steel which was extremely high quality and available in Europe after about 1000 CE.

 

[Stormtalon]

Count me in the group cheering the demise of Sunder. Most absolutely annoying thing I've ever faced as a player is having the DM toss in a guy with that damned sword Shatterspike just to take out our weapons. If I never have to make sure that my first good weapon is adamantine (always adamantine, nothing BUT adamantine throughout an adventuring career) just to stave off sunders, I'll be a happy, happy man.

 

[el-remmen]

In 3e, no one tried these stunts without the feat.

I love these kinds of blanket statements.

Context is everything, and while disarming (for example) is a sub-optimal choice in most situations w/o specific feats - the whole point is that it still exists as a choice - what matters to me is not that it is likely to fail - but rather that in the context of a desperate situation when that calls for the villain to be disarmed before he can stick the mystic doo-dad in the cosmic whatsit (because, let's say, that even a solid crit won't do enough to take the foe out in one hit) - if the disarm were to succeed, it is all about the excitement in that moment against the odds.

Otherwise, it shouldn't be easy without training - it should only be possible.

In other words, I have seen people try it (and both fail and succeed) without the associated feats - because the D&D game I play is a game of high adventure against difficult odds, not a game of carefully calculated mathematical probability weighed against consequences.

But everyone plays a different game, I guess . . .