Trip? Disarm? Sunder? Gone forever?

[Andur]

There are plenty of powers which cause opponents to be disarmed, go prone, be pushed, pulled, or slid around.

As far as sunder, was asinine to begin with, who was going to sunder that +25 Hackmaster sword the baddie was using anyway?

 

[mmu1]

In 3e, no one tried these stunts without the feat. Disarm in particular, was an abominable choice without the feat. Something you'd only try against an opponent that was so outclassed, he was the eqivalent of 4e minion.

So 4e players complaining they can't do without training something they didn't do without training in 3e are being disingeneous, IMO.

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.

 

[Kishin]

You, sir, have clearly never seen katanae in action.

Because no such thing exists.

Katana is both singular and plural.

[/linguistic quibble]

 

[mmadsen]

OTOH, I would point out that 4e combat is abstract and trying such specific actions is probably not in keeping with the abstract nature.

You've got to be kidding. There is very little abstract about 4E combat except hit points. Everything else is very detailed, with specific "exploits" for every possible tactical act.

 

[SDOgre]

Let me see if I can't infuse a little history logic in this discussion if I may.

I agree that I've always had issues with how easy trip, disarm, and sunder were in 3E. They could make big bad guys look stupid and took away from the heroic clash feel of the fight in most cases. But I also had a historic problem.

Disarm is really a move developed in fencing. The fencing style of fighting developed after the middle ages.

1. With the introduction of cannons and primitive guns it no longer made sense to wear heavy armor (ala the late medieval knight) it just slowed you down and didn't provide any reasonable protection.

2. If your enemy is not wearing heavy armor there is no reason to use big heavy weapons. They're just slow. A quicker weapon makes more sense.

3. Light quick weapons led to the development of what we might call the fencing style of fighting, particularly in duels, where disarming a foe could humiliate him. You had no intention of killing him.

This style of fighting for me doesn't have the medieval feel because it was developed after the middle ages. So I've never liked it in my games. In the middle ages the best way to disarm a foe was to knock the weapon out of his hand with a vicious blow or cut off his hand.

Trip is something that would always be useful but not easy to do in combat. Thus something that happened by luck or someone really skilled at it.

Sundering of weapons was something that happened in combat all the time but not by choice as much as by chance. Weapons in the middle ages were made of iron, not steel, and breaking was a part of combat, thus a knight always carried more than one weapon.

Sundering shields, well, that was more a factor of the type of weapon your enemy was using and the durability of your shield.

Either way sundering was very difficult to do on purpose it was more a random part of combat.

Sorry for the long post. I teach history for a living.

 

[mmadsen]

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.

So does getting stabbed or shot.

 

[Ipissimus]

-snip-

Good points all, though there is also a dramatic side to the game as well.

I've found that most gamers I know don't really play the game like real life, though, they want to play it like a movie. And fair enough, what's a fantasy game without the fantasy? Pick any fictional samurai, jedi or pirate and that's what they want to feel like while playing DnD.

I think there's a strong case for making disarms, sunders, etc. martial encounter powers rather than feats. Or perhaps a feat that gives it as an encounter or daily power. For one, all the fictional characters I can think of for whom these types of maneuvers are commonplace are highly skilled combatants, going into the realms of superhuman skill with their chosen weapon (Zatoichi, I'm looking at you). Even then, they don't overuse the ability, because that would be boring.

On the other side, you want to make them effective without becoming overused. These things work in drama where pacing dictates combat rather than effectiveness. The problem with 3E disarm, grapple, trip, sunder is that once the players 'get' the rules and build a character around them, all they tend to do is the one move over and over and over ad infinitum. It's essentially the same problem I had with straight attacks in 3E: roll dice, deal damage... yay... go to sleep until your next turn... repeat forever...

Yeah, now chomping at the bit for Martial Power.

 

[jeffh]

2. If your enemy is not wearing heavy armor there is no reason to use big heavy weapons. They're just slow. A quicker weapon makes more sense.

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.

Second and more importantly, this is almost exactly backwards as far as how the actual arms race went. People used smaller weapons, not because they were faster (by and large, they're not), but because a shield was essential for keeping one alive. When heavy armour became more prevalent, it was so effective as to render a shield redundant, and that is when and why you start seeing big two-handed weapons not designed for formation fighting. It's true that most of them could crack armour better than their smaller equivalents, but the same is true of a (one-handed) mace or warhammer. The major advantage of a larger weapon is reach.

 

[Zalgarde]

Wait, so is trip/disarm in 4e a feat, a weapon property, or power, or skill, or attack option, or none of the above?

I saw so many suggestions of how to do it, and comparisons saying "well it should be this instead of this" that I'm not even sure what they are to begin with.

EDIT: and whats a stunt? I haven't been following 4e really closely, but I thought I'd heard of most of the stuff, but I totally missed stunts.

 

[Xzylvador]

Uhm, aren't there some powers in PHB that do trip and more? IMO, any power that reads "and your target(s) is/are knocked prone" is a better trip than anything I've seen in 3.5. There were a couple, can't name 'em right now, but there were (some ranger sweeping whirlwind stuff, amongst others, that knocks everyone in a burst 1 prone by slashing at their legs, sounds like trip^2 to me).

Sunder... Meh, I'd rather loot a working weapon.

The disarm does have me worried, so far haven't read any power which can do that, which is even more annying if you read the Death Knight (MM50).
An expert knowledge check lets you know that it's dazed and weakened if you have its sword (quite nice thing to do to a lvl25 elite soldier, eh) and it's got 2 abilities that do heaps of damage that mention (swordsword required), but nowhere in the 3 books can I find a way to get the damned sword away from it...