Realistic disarm rules

[Anonymous]

Does anybody else feel that it is just too easy to disarm a foe?

By the SRD rules Conan d20 uses, if you fought a character who had the same characteristics as yours, you would have a 50% chance to disarm him! :? Sometimes it is even far easier than hitting such a foe with your weapon!
I don't know, but the idea of one whole army disarming other army in battle seems disturbing. Too many swords on the floor, I guess.

I always thought that disarming one foe would be quite difficult, a maneuver that would only work whenever the disarming character is far better with the weapon than his foe.
A 10th level fighter disarming a 1st level thief is fine. A 1st level thief having a 50% chance to disarm a 1st level pirate is crazy.

What about adding some points to the Disarm difficulty so it's not so easy? Perhaps the Reflex save could be added to the difficulty, so you'd need more than a bit of luck to Disarm anyone.

Any thoughts/ideas/comments will be welcome.

 

[argo]

You are over-simplifying things. Firstly don't forget that, unless you have Improved Disarm, a disarm attempt draws and AoO and if that AoO deals damage the disarm attempt automatically fails. If the opponents really are clones of each other then the odds are probably prety good that that AoO will be a success (as attack bonus tends to outstrip defence once you get above low levels) so that right there will stop most disarms right away, it will probably also nullify the "one army disarms another" scenario seing as Improved Disarm is not a common "military" feat. If both opponents do happen to have Improved Disarm then you have two masters squaring off against each other and that should indeed be an interesting fight.

Secondly, again given your proposition that both combantants have the same disarm modifier, you are wrong about there being a 50% probability of success. A disarm is an opposed roll which means that it is a case of conditional probability. IE: if the defender rolls a 2 the attacker has a 90% probability of success, if the defender rolls a 19 the attacker has a 5% probability of success. I could try to dig out my old PSTAT text and figgure out what the true blind probability is in this case but I hated that course and so I really don't want to 8) (the numbers in this case are further influenced by the special case that, since this is an attack roll, a 1 is an auto-fail and a 20 is an auto-success. Moreover, since both characters have the same stat modifying their attack roll a tie will prompt a re-roll which adds enough uncertanity to the equation to give me a headache.) but maybe somebody else will.

Thirdly, if disarming was so darn easy I think that we would have seen more power-disarm character builds in the last three years. But that hasn't really been the case.

In short, I think the disarm rules are fine as-is. Hope that helps.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I see your point, Argo.
So there's no need to worry as long as I don't give Improved Disarm to worthless low level NPCs. That sounds very logical to me.

PS:Thank you for your help, hope the powergamer in my group doesn't find a loophole :lol:

 

[Qjedi]

PS:Thank you for your help, hope the powergamer in my group doesn't find a loophole :lol:

*shudders* Like whirlwind attack, improved trip and combat reflexes?

Ugh...

 

[Anonymous]

In my experiance disarming an opponent isn't that big a deal in 3rd Ed. There are no immediate penalties for being disarmed in melee unlike previous editions where you took a penalty to armor class, except for taking an AoOp if you try to attack and then most N/PCs just use their move action to draw a new weapon or pick up the orginal their next turn and attack, and if they have the quickdraw feat its not even an inconveniance.

 

[Qjedi]

I guess a lot of the issue comes down to this:
Is the person being disarmed OVER 5th level?
5th level is where they start gaining multiple attacks as a fighter and where they start getting the really kickass weaponry in most games. A 5th level fighter with a +2 keen sword is really going to be hurt by losing that weapon, even if he can pick it up again. Losing a second attack in the round, or the other various activities with a full attack action DOES hurt.

Just not horribly. *g*
I personally like the Disarm rules because at that point, the major baddie and the hero can "Duke it out, mano-a-mano, bareknuckled brawlers"

It's just kinda cool to me. What do the rest of you think?


Later!

 

[Anonymous]

In Conan, most folks won't have a weapon that can't be easily replaced by a nearby sword, dagger, axe, jagged hunk of metal, rock, flaming torch, flaming bush, Pict, or small tree.

Thank you, lack of dependenced on 'balanced' magical items!