Trip? Disarm? Sunder? Gone forever?

[Mal Malenkirk]

First... The sins of 3.5 don't excuse the sins of 4E. It ought to be a banner on the top of the site.

Second, I don't see that as being disingenuous - I see it as people wishing they actually fixed the issue, rather than avoiding it.

They did fix the issue to my satisfaction, actually. Martial inclined classes have powers to achieve those effect. How often you can do it and how effective it is is balanced against powers of equal values for the other classes.

The wizard can't trip? I don't care.

 

[mmadsen]

First of all, it's simply false that big weapons like what D&D would call greataxes and greatswords were slow by any reasonable definition.

Well, if big weapons were swung the way gamers assume they were swung -- and the way they're depicted as being swung, like sledge hammers or lumber axes -- then they would be slow and do a lot of damage if they somehow managed to hit. But they weren't used that way -- the attacker "choked up" quite a bit, at least with one of his hands, and didn't wind up -- so they were usable in a real fight. And thus they probably didn't do the kind of damage one might expect from a sledge hammer or lumber axe either.

The major advantage of a larger weapon is reach.

Especially when one good hit can end the fight, reach is very, very important. In D&D, with ablative hit points, not so much.

 

[Durlok]

There some powers in the PHB that let you knock an opponent prone - so, essentially, trip. I don't believe there're any disarm powers.

Stunts... There's a brief section about what to do if your players want to do something in combat that's not covered by the rules. It seems to amount to consulting the char to set a skill check DC based on their level and deal damage based on their level. I guess it's good to have, but I was pretty underwhelmed seeing it, honestly.

 

[Dynel]

I'm really, really not trying to be snarky when I say this, but 4e isn't even out yet and there's going to have to be house rukes already (to cover tripping, disarming, and the like)? Wow.

I'd bet that Martial Power will take care of these rules.

 

[MarkB]

I'd bet that Martial Power will take care of these rules.

<Has vision of spur-booted, tin-badge-wearing gunslinger striding into the frontier town of 4th Edition>

"Mah name is Marshal Power, and Ah'm here to clean up this burg. Any rool messes wi' me's gonna get a bellyful o' lead."

 

[Primal]

I'm really, really not trying to be snarky when I say this, but 4e isn't even out yet and there's going to have to be house rukes already (to cover tripping, disarming, and the like)? Wow.

I'd bet that Martial Power will take care of these rules.

As I posted, I seem to recall improvised actions in DMG to handle "ordinary" (i.e. "non-Power") Trip and Disarm attempts. I may be wrong, though?

 

[hong]

As I posted, I seem to recall improvised actions in DMG to handle "ordinary" (i.e. "non-Power") Trip and Disarm attempts. I may be wrong, though?

I'm pretty sure I saw someone else post that as well.

 

[Daelkyr]

Under the heading Additional Rules the first paragraph states:

A few combat situations come up rarely enough that the rules for them intentionally aren't covered in the Player's Handbook ...

It then goes on to describe how to create non-standard attacks or skill checks and how to adjudicate their damage rolls or DCs. It also mentions the "DM's Best Friend".

 

[ptolemy18]

(duplicate post)

 

[ptolemy18]

Or grant combat advantage. But I'd also let a full-blown trip attack go with Str vs. AC.

Not sunder, though. Because it's in most cases pretty... erh... how do you actually sunder? I can only see how you can sunder a hafted weapon with something massive, cleaving, like an axe or a greatsword. But sunder metal weapons?

Happens all the time in Lone Wolf and Cub. "I'll parry your weapon!...." THWACK! Then the guy who haplessly attempted to parry our hero's blade is left standing there with half of a sword and his head split in half. SUPER-dramatic, and I don't know why they didn't keep it in... really, as if any DM is going to place a must-have magic weapon in a position where it can be sundered, or any player is going to throw their dice down in frustration because the DM tells you "Whoops, you sundered the +1 weapon?" ~_~ (Something I actually did do in 3e... "The hobgoblins' corpses have three +1 swords... no, wait, your character sundered one of them, they have two +1 swords.")

Yeah, I do miss Sunder and Disarm. Although as someone pointed out, I didn't miss them in 1e and 2e. ~_~