Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 4603431" data-attributes="member: 8158">That a DM can use some vague guidelines to jury-rig a disarm rule on the fly only makes it &quot;untrue&quot; in the sense that a DM can whip up a house rule whenever he feels like making a granny shot. Otherwise, it's absolutely true that 4th edition rules do not make allowances for disarming someone without a power. If you don't believe me, go check out the last podcast David Noonan did with Mearls before he was let go. They say it's intentional that there's no disarming in 4e, and they proceed to explain their rationale for dropping the maneuver. In the interest of making a case as to why it's better to have actual rules in place, let's look at your homebrewed disarm. It's a melee weapon attack versus Reflex -2. So, the attacker is going to get the benefit of his melee weapon's proficiency bonus, but the defender doesn't get the benefit of his AC bonus. That gives the attacker an edge that the -2 penalty is hard-pressed to even wash out. So, you've whipped up a way to go knocking the weapon out of an opponent's hand that's about as reliable as attacking them for damage. Are you comfortable with that? According to Mearls and Noonan, that's an undesirable thing, but I'm a little more optimistic. I'd be curious to know how else it works.A disarm can shut an opponent down completely, or it can be a meaningless trifle. There are other factors to figure out. Does the weapon just drop in the disarmee's square? And we all know what action it takes to pick up an object in your square, right? Or, does the weapon go flying off to some other square? It'd be good to know this before I try the maneuver. But, page 42 just doesn't help us out with any guidelines for this, true? So, it's a house rule or bust.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Felon, post: 4603431, member: 8158"] That a DM can use some vague guidelines to jury-rig a disarm rule on the fly only makes it "untrue" in the sense that a DM can whip up a house rule whenever he feels like making a granny shot. Otherwise, it's absolutely true that 4th edition rules do not make allowances for disarming someone without a power. If you don't believe me, go check out the last podcast David Noonan did with Mearls before he was let go. They say it's intentional that there's no disarming in 4e, and they proceed to explain their rationale for dropping the maneuver. In the interest of making a case as to why it's better to have actual rules in place, let's look at your homebrewed disarm. It's a melee weapon attack versus Reflex -2. So, the attacker is going to get the benefit of his melee weapon's proficiency bonus, but the defender doesn't get the benefit of his AC bonus. That gives the attacker an edge that the -2 penalty is hard-pressed to even wash out. So, you've whipped up a way to go knocking the weapon out of an opponent's hand that's about as reliable as attacking them for damage. Are you comfortable with that? According to Mearls and Noonan, that's an undesirable thing, but I'm a little more optimistic. I'd be curious to know how else it works. A disarm can shut an opponent down completely, or it can be a meaningless trifle. There are other factors to figure out. Does the weapon just drop in the disarmee's square? And we all know what action it takes to pick up an object in your square, right? Or, does the weapon go flying off to some other square? It'd be good to know this before I try the maneuver. But, page 42 just doesn't help us out with any guidelines for this, true? So, it's a house rule or bust. [/QUOTE]

Verification