WotC Mailbog Podcast up

[Rechan]

I do agree with them about Disarm being anti-dramatic. The "Instead of disarming him and chatting with him or having some significant moment, we disarm him and just hit on him some more." If that's the intention, then you can just wrap up any condition as 'disarm' and continue to wail.

The problem comes when that completely shuts down a monster because you used one ability. All 4e powers hinge on one of four things: damage, movement, penalties, and limiting the economy of actions (knocked prone = waste a move action, dazed = only one action, etc). All of these hinge on duration (immediately resolved, end of your turn, or save ends). So a disarm would have to fit into one of these categories, and no matter how you handled it, it isn't going to "fit" right, or at least isn't going to make happy many people who want disarm.

 

[MerricB]

The problem comes when that completely shuts down a monster because you used one ability. All 4e powers hinge on one of four things: damage, movement, penalties, and limiting the economy of actions (knocked prone = waste a move action, dazed = only one action, etc). All of these hinge on duration (immediately resolved, end of your turn, or save ends). So a disarm would have to fit into one of these categories, and no matter how you handled it, it isn't going to "fit" right, or at least isn't going to make happy many people who want disarm.

More problems from disarm come from when the PCs are disarmed:

You are wielding a +3 magic wand, of which you are then disarmed. You can still cast spells (although the fighter who is disarmed can't attack effectively), but all your bonuses need to be recalculated.

Disarm sounds great, but when it's a mechanic that a player or monster can basically choose to apply, it starts sucking badly.

Cheers!

 

[MadMaxim]

Well, for those in the mood for describing every action in their game, you could do as they suggested on the podcast; once an opponent hits a certain amount of hit points or below gets disarmed and surrenders. That's great for those people, but for the ones who like to have their options backed up by some crunch it sort of sucks... But then again, 4th edition was seemingly made through a serious mathematical excerise to make it completely balanced and that can be both good and bad. I'm not saying the approach to designing 4th edition is inherently bad, but it sure was different. And, of course, you're never going to get any of the game's designers or developers to straight up say they botched a rules system until the next edition comes around (which was seemingly the strategy for making 4th edition look better than 3rd edition).

As for most of the pronounciations, Dragon Compendium sure got me covered

 

[darjr]

And, of course, you're never going to get any of the game's designers or developers to straight up say they botched a rules system until the next edition comes around (which was seemingly the strategy for making 4th edition look better than 3rd edition).

Did you listen to the podcast? Did you hear the parts where there were differences of opinion between the two? For example, one thought that the value of accuracy was to high and the other thought it was correct, just not appreciated.

Anyway, I think the question was misunderstood. Page 42 of the DMG (yes, again) implies that you should just do an opposed check.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Well, for those in the mood for describing every action in their game, you could do as they suggested on the podcast; once an opponent hits a certain amount of hit points or below gets disarmed and surrenders.

Yeah, see, the problem with their suggestion on this is that it make disarm a DM fiat action, not a player choice.

Player: "20! Crit! Take that foul orc!"

DM: "Your blow strikes the weapon from his hands, and the orc surrenders."

Player: "What? I was taking his head off!"

DM: "He has critical information you'll need later."

Next combat:

DM: "Your blow runs the orc through."

Player: "But I was going to disarm and interrogate him!"

DM: "Sorry, he didn't need to live."

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Yeah, see, the problem with their suggestion on this is that it make disarm a DM fiat action, not a player choice.

Depends how the DM handles it. Whenever my players reduce an enemy to 0 HP, I tend to just say "Finish him" and give them a chance to describe what they're doing more dramatically/violently/whatever. In that case, disarming/disabling works just fine.

 

[Cadfan]

Did you listen to the podcast? Did you hear the parts where there were differences of opinion between the two? For example, one thought that the value of accuracy was to high and the other thought it was correct, just not appreciated.

Anyway, I think the question was misunderstood. Page 42 of the DMG (yes, again) implies that you should just do an opposed check.

Not to mention that they discussed minions in similar terms, with one of them concluding that he didn't like minions that much, and the other concluding that minions were awesome, but not worth 1/4 the xp of a regular monster.

 

[MerricB]

Probably the best way to handle a disarm in 4e (with the disarm only occurring on the "death" of the monster), is to call it as the non-lethal option.

For, as you may know, when you hit the monster with the killing blow you have the option of not killing them. Just say all your attacks are attempting to disarm (code for non-lethal damage) and when the monster finally is subdued, the weapon is sent spinning across the floor and they surrender.

Cheers!

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I personally think my previous suggestion in this thread is a good one. Since it can happen any moment in combat, only hinders the opponent till they use a Move Action and works into the rules perfectly. Only thing that changes is changing the narrative from knocking them down too sending the weapon flying.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Disarm is one of the things that works well in movies, but not so well in roleplaying games.
Picture the situation: the black knight has your hero against the wall, but suddenly you succeed in disarming him!
In the movie you´ll let him regain his footing and weapon, and the fight continues.
In a rpg, you can bet that one of your players will shout "he dropped his weapon! Let´s cut his TONKERS of! Or roast them over a fire!"