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The swashbucklers Opportune Riposte, as well as some other feats such as the Bastion feat Disarming Block, allows you to attempt to disarm an opponent on their turn as a reaction (or free action after a reaction). I couldn't find any discussion on this from my (probably inadequate) searching, so I thought perhaps I could take it up here. There may be rules that handles this, but I have in that case not found them.

While the critical success, critical failure and failure effects are relatively straight forward, the Success states:

Disarm Description wrote:
Success You weaken your opponent’s grasp on the item. Until the start of that creature’s turn, attempts to Disarm the opponent of that item gain a +2 circumstance bonus, and the target takes a –2 circumstance penalty to attacks with the item or other checks requiring a firm grasp on the item.

If an opponent triggers a disarm on their turn and it becomes a success, do they get an unfixable -2 to attacks with their weapon effectively a round if it happened on their first action? If disarm happens on your turn it don't impede the opponent on their turn and only helps subsequent disarm attempts and attacks outside their turn. The difference in effect is substantial. You could even build around using Disarming Block and Assurance Athletics (augment with Shield Warden) to cause a guaranteed -2 on attacks against enemies with low Reflex (given they trigger a Shield Block).

There is also the Swashbuckler feat Disarming Flair that change the end point to the person disarming's end of turn and introduces a way for the victim get rid of the debuff. RAW this is a downgrade compared to the default variant with shorter duration (unless your turn is right before theirs) and a way to get rid of the debuff (given you value penalty over action economy).

So how do you solve this? The easiest is of course to ignore it and use RAW in the few cases it comes up (and as GM preferably shut down players actively exploiting it). Other variants may involve allowing the creature to do the Interact action described in Disarming Flair to get rid of the penalty. Or you could simply say that the creature in question is capable of instantly readjusting their grip during their turn (unless hit by Disarming Flair) effectively making Successes into Failures.

Personally I am slightly partial towards the last option, as I feel it close to the effect of the non-reactive/normal Disarm while also making sure the Disarming Flair feat is a straight upgrade (although it could make it too good when using disarm, and making Disarming Block when not having it situational at best. But then again Swashbucklers are the ones most likely to disarm outside their turn).

Any thoughts on the topic, or am I seeing a problem where there is non? I could also be missing a critical rule I overlooked.


HumbleGamer wrote:
Also, shield of reckoning has the flourish trait, so it would be limited to 1 per round.

The description of Flourish: "Flourish actions are actions that require too much exertion to perform a large number in a row. You can use only 1 action with the flourish trait per turn." Isn't your turn and an enemy's turn distinct turns and therefore outside the scope of Flourish?

One counterargument against me is that this opens up using the Ready action on Flourish single actions at the same turn you use a different Flourish action (unless there is something I missed preventing it). I does cost a reaction and an extra action and continues MAP, so I can only see a few situations where it could be useful, and even then it could be done better by different feats.

I got nothing against the 'once per round' interpretation (would effect very few thing and close some possible exploits) but if that was the intended interpretation why not simply write "once per round"?


Shield of Reckoning (from now on SoR) is a hybrid of the Shield Block reaction and the champion's reaction. Does that mean that extra reactions for its components be used for SoR, or is it a totally separate reaction that only can be used by the general reaction?

I can't see any specific mention of a ruling, but best reason I can think of for it to have the Flourish trait while being a reaction is to prevent multiple uses of SoR on a single enemy's turn, pointing to multiple reactions. Otherwise you end up in this weird situation where triggering SoR on your turn (for example mount + enemy AoO) is detrimental, given you got other Flourish actions. Thoughts?


1) Does the Support Benefit of Animal Companions, particularly the bear and bird ones that deal damage, count as coming from the animal companion (a separate entity) or as an extension of the PCs attack? In a situation where an enemy has weakness 5 slashing, would a bear-supported Strike from a PC with a sword deal the weakness once for the entire Strike or once for the PC and once for the bear? Same with resistances, would a resistance all 5 be subtracted separate from the PC and the bear? The Support Benefit text is written form the animal POV pointing to it (as a separate entity) being the one doing the damage, but I kind of suspect that is not the case.

2) Mature Animal Companions can do stuff even if you don't command them. Does this happen after your actions are done, or can you decide/declare that you will not use Command Animal this turn and use their one action at any time during your turn? If it is the last option, is this sufficiently different from your actions that your companion can Stride/Strike before you use an action with the Open trait (like riding into position before a Whirlwind Strike)?

Edit: This was split into several threads on advice against walls of text