Trip? Disarm? Sunder? Gone forever?

[pawsplay]

Tripping and disarming in most fantasy action seems to happen to mooks, surprised characters and worn-down opponents, not to the Dark Lord at the climax of the adventure.

It worked on Darth Vader.

 

[Dragonblade]

Sunder, Disarm, and Trip were horribly broken in 3e. I'm glad they are mostly gone (relegated to powers anyway). Good riddance. I consider their absence a very positive feature of 4e.

 

[Aaron]

But if the rules don't spell it out for you, with a table and everything, then you can't do it? That's what you are saying? Newsflash, that IS a videogame.

The DMG tells the DM to say "yes" and goes on to include several sections and a couple of tables to help the DM adjudicate their players doing something interesting outside of their powers. Trip, disarm and sunder ARE in 4e. As is a whole host of things not expressly covered under their own section headings in the PHB. It's really not that hard to figure out.

So we are paying for a book that tell us that we can create house rules?

 

[hong]

So we are paying for a book that tell us that we can create house rules?

Yes. Yes, you are. You even get a nifty framework in which those house rules sit, so you don't have to do it all on your lonesome. Isn't that cool?

 

[Primal]

Yes. Yes, you are. You even get a nifty framework in which those house rules sit, so you don't have to do it all on your lonesome. Isn't that cool?

Although I'm a "naysayer", I have to admit that the rules are pretty well laid-out and explicit for most "improvised" situations which may come up in play.

 

[med stud]

If you would strike a blade hard enough to break it if it was stuck in something, your opponent would lose his hold of it before it broke. The feat or maneuver Sunder essentially gave you the opportunity to use anything that deal damage and use it to destroy your enemies weapon. IMO that's just silly.

Disarming is fine as long as you can't do it all the time. It's one of those things that can add drama in small doses, not against every enemy in a fight.

Trip is still in, in the form of powers.

 

[FourthBear]

It worked on Darth Vader.

There certainly does seem to be a lot of disarming going on in Star Wars, but I'm still not persuaded that allowing Disarm to be an attractive default combat tactic will lead to anything I want to see in table play. I have to admit that I don't recall the combat scenes in Star Wars well enough to comment on this. Did the effective disarming occur at the end of a combat scene or the beginning? Jedi fights in particular seem to be very poorly suited for simple disarm rules, since any intelligent PC or villain would immediately and repeatedly go for the Disarm, remove the light saber and then trounce the foe. Unless you like to have Jedi with 2-3 back-up light sabers.

 

[Mallus]

So we are paying for a book that tell us that we can create house rules?

New to role-playing games, eh?

 

[Fifth Element]

<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."

I'm picturing a cross between Bravestarr and Captain Power.

Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[Aaron]

New to role-playing games, eh?

New to 4th ed.

The 3.5 gave me the rules I'm asking for here.