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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fiddlerjones" data-source="post: 4292530" data-attributes="member: 31576">Your complaint about a helpless opponent not losing their ability bonus to AC and whatnot could just be one of 4E's rule problems - every edition has them.  Still, the situation described below is, to me, one of the situations in which a prudent DM forgoes the combat rules and just has the axe connect and the head come off.The idea here is not that you can't attempt to use a human as a sheild (or pin another creature, or disarm, or trip), it's that you can't do it effectively in combat, and thus a power is required to give you a real chance.  Personally, if I had a player that tried to, say, disarm an opponent, I'd call for a difficult check of some sort.  Even in 3.x, most conceivable actions were not covered in the rules for this reason.  Admittedly, 4E uses more abstractions (looking at you, healing surges), but this is mostly an issue of player adjustment, and I feel like most players and DMs will be fine with it after adjusting to the feel of the system.</blockquote>