WotC Mailbog Podcast up

[Cadfan]

Dude, I dunno, the suggestions in this thread are really pretty good. I hope that any Coasties reading this are slapping their foreheads and going "OF COURSE!" at the moment.

Which solutions were those?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Which solutions were those?

What is the meaning of life?

Answer: 42.

Also sounding cool were treating it like an alternate Prone status (move action, it's all better), and Merric's recommendation of making it an alternative "nonlethal combat" move.

For people who have no problem tripping gelatinous cubes, disarming bears shouldn't be a problem.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I can understand removing sunder, but removing disarm is bollocks. They could have went the same route as grab. Describing disarm in narrative is a dumb idea IMO. I might add disarm rules to the Players Guide to Violet Dawn...

 

[Herremann the Wise]

The basic problem is that there are several ways you can handle someone being disarmed, and they're all bad.

...2. Its not that difficult to do, and the disarmed opponent suffers a small penalty, either by drawing a different weapon, or artfully recovering the original weapon. This has a couple of problems. First, disarming stops being a meaningful penalty if everyone has multitudes of replacement weapons, or if everyone can just regain their original weapon without meaningful inconvenience. It may even be completely pointless if a replacement weapon is just as good as the original. Second, it makes fights seem like a farce, where everyone is continuously dropping their weapon but no one can manage to capitalize on it.

I'm not sure I agree with your thinking on this one and I'm not sure I agree with their thinking on the podcast either. They pretty much said:
- Disarm is not good because it's too situational
- Dramatic narrative disconnect (used to smash the opponent further rather than force a surrender)

Firstly, will everyone have a second weapon? Will it be as good as the primary? The main problem here would seem to be a second set of stats for the secondary weapon. While in 3E, the work for this would not make anyone blink, in 4E it goes against the "complete information, keyword" mantra. As for the in game effect, I don't see a problem. If the enemy does not have a second weapon, well that's just good/effective tactics on the part of the disarmer.

Secondly, retrieving the original weapon is going to both use up action resources (minor/move/standard/minor & move) as well as more than likely leave the character open (granting combat advantage). To my mind, this is a significant penalty. A savvy group of players should be able to take advantage of a disarmed NPC.

Thirdly, how situational is being disarmed? As others have mentioned, if you disarm a bear's claw, perhaps this could be described as a stinging blow to the bear's claw rendering it unuseable for a turn (the bear is considered to be disarmed for a turn but automatically "retrieves" it's weapon at the end of the disarmer's next turn). As well, since the bear is still armed (presumably it's other claw and it's bite), it does not grant combat advantage. However situations may still come up (such as the ochre jelly) that might be a little harder to exception against. Still, as others have mentioned, if you can trip a titan...

To design rules for disarming, EVEN BEFORE you consider how to make those rules mesh with monster design, you need to figure out what the penalty should be for being disarmed, and then to decide whether that penalty is reasonable in the overall context of the game, and how difficult it should be to inflict.

I think disarming should be harder than an opposed attack roll. Perhaps a standard -4 penalty to a disarming attack opposed by the defender's attack roll.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Cadfan]

Secondly, retrieving the original weapon is going to both use up action resources (minor/move/standard/minor & move) as well as more than likely leave the character open (granting combat advantage). To my mind, this is a significant penalty. A savvy group of players should be able to take advantage of a disarmed NPC.

I guess this is where we differ. I find that to be a pretty lame penalty. Like trip, except worse, and with a greater likelihood for unclear rules outcomes. And in game terms, its an effect that is kind of disconnected from the logical purpose of disarming someone- the most practical effect of the "move action to recover" disarm solution is to make disarming someone into a way to slow down their movement. That's not really the point, is it? You want to disarm someone so that they're unprotected and you can kill them at your leisure, right? It kind of turns disarming into a weird form of tripping.

I'm ambivalent on the whole "sure, you can disarm a bear" thing as well. I guess I don't find tripping large monsters that unrealistic, so those analogies don't work on me. You knock the dragon's leg out from underneath it, it scrabbles back to its feet. Ok. Same with tripping a gelatinous cube. You knock it off kilter, it bounces back into position. Whatever. And on top of that, while its constantly ignored on this forum, its worth remembering that the rules don't actually give you carte blanche to do those sorts of things. The DM has explicit discretion to disallow uses of powers that don't make sense. He's encouraged to come up with ways for power use to make sense wherever possible, definitely, but that isn't the same as declaring that anything goes.

I think the basic dichotomy I set up describes the problem.

If being disarmed is a major sanction, it should be very tough to do. If its a fight ending sanction, it should be just as difficult as reducing someone to zero hit points. The easiest way to accomplish that is to declare that it actually requires reducing someone to zero hit points.

If being disarmed is a minor sanction, it shouldn't be so tough to accomplish, which means it will happen more often. But then you have to worry about whether its turning into a farce, and whether players will figure out workarounds to turn it into a game ending sanction yet again (I disarm him with an encounter power, you push him a space with an at will, now he can't get his greataxe back, and the high level solo NPC barbarian is completely screwed out of all his best abilities). Plus, you have to figure out all kinds of rules for how your foes fight while disarmed.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The idea I like for both Disarm and Trip - if you want to keep thas a standard combat option - would be to require Combat Advantage to use them.

This gives a nice incentive _not_ to attempt a trip or a disarm - because you have an increased chance to use sneak attack or land a strong power against your foe.

If you succeed, you gain a minor (but possibly situational useful) benefit - for example, if your opponent is dazed for one round, but your party members are not in position to benefit from it (perhaps intentionally so, because they wanted to force their opponent to spend his remaining action to move, not attack), you trip him so they still get CA the next round.
There are situations were trip is not so great - everyone (that is interested in attacking your opponent) is already flanking your target - better use a strong attack now, instead of tripping him. Particularly because you know the current combat advantage is guaranteed, a successful trip is not!

Free tripping in 4E can be very nasty - trip your foe, shift one square, and see him spending his standard and move action to move to you. If you can only trip while you have combat advantage, the situations where you would want to spend actions to merely trip your foe and not deal damage go down.

I think this works similarly well for disarm.

Of course, actual play-testing would be required to see if tripping isn't still too powerful.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Merric's recommendation of making it an alternative "nonlethal combat" move.

Probably my favourite approach suggested so far.

 

[Leatherhead]

I have seen far too many action flicks to just throw away the idea of two (or more) people fighting over the same weapon so they can use it on the other.

I think that sentence works somehow.

 

[MerricB]

Probably my favourite approach suggested so far.

Thank you.

One of the troubles with representing it with a condition is just how many different things that condition represents. After all, a wizard disarmed of his or her wand can still cast spells... but the barbarian needs to draw a new weapon, and the Wampa needs regeneration...

Cheers!

 

[I'm A Banana]

The idea I like for both Disarm and Trip - if you want to keep thas a standard combat option - would be to require Combat Advantage to use them.

This gives a nice incentive _not_ to attempt a trip or a disarm - because you have an increased chance to use sneak attack or land a strong power against your foe.

This is kind of a keen idea. I'd like for everyone to have something special they can do when granted Combat Advantage. No reason to let the Rogue have all the fun. It represents the "see an opening!" aspect really well without forcing it to be limited to gamist mechanics, making it a potential "always-on" ability that you still won't always be using.

Interesting...