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In searching the forums I keep finding people in posts saying that a Monk who disarms someone without using a weapon, then the Monk ends up with the weapon in hand.
I'm having a problem finding that in RAW, although I do see the leap in logic people are making.
The Disarm action states: "If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped."
What this sentence says to me is that the item does not go from the hand of the opponent to the hand of the monk. This sentence says to me that the item goes from the hand of the opponent to the ground, and the Monk has the ability to automatically pick up the item (ie. a free action). However, picking up an item provokes an attack of opportunity if threatened. So, if the opponent has someway to threaten the monk (say the opponent has Improved Unarmed Strike) or an opponent has an ally who threatens, then the Monk picking up the item still provokes an attack of opportunity?
Do I have this right? If I don't can someone clarify for me and point me to the rule that says the item jumps from the opponents' hand to the monk's hand?
Thanks.
Try to think about why there would be a rule stating that if you disarm with your hands empty you get the item, and you'll see that one interpretation makes sense while the other does not.
So, what you're saying is that I have it right RAW. Cool.
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Try to think about why there would be a rule stating that if you disarm with your hands empty you get the item, and you'll see that one interpretation makes sense while the other does not.So, what you're saying is that I have it right RAW. Cool.
Perhaps it wasn't your intent, but that comes across in an incredibly smug, "I'm going to dismiss any idea that contradicts me without applying rational thought to it" sort of way. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I thought I'd give you a heads-up to how it sounded anyway so you could clarify if you want.
Anyway, to elaborate more on what I meant:
There are two ways to interpret the auto-pickup rule:
OPTION#1: In this option, you treat "drop" and "pick up" as non-loaded english words (as opposed to loaded rules terms like "attack" and "cast" which have extremely specific meanings in the rules - much more specific than their normal english meanings) and thus allow for more flexibility of meaning - for instance, "drop" can just refer to the releasing of one's grip, without any reference to whether or not the released object hits the ground; after all, with a sufficient updraft you could release a lightweight object and it would move up instead of down, but that wouldn't cause it not to have been "dropped".
With this in mind, you can easily picture the auto-grab rule to mean that you grab hold of the enemy's weapon and wrench it from their grip.
OPTION#2: In this option, you interpret "drop" and "grab" to be loaded rules terms (much like "attack" and "cast" - see above) which use only a very specific meaning when used in the rules and all other normal english meanings of the words are irrelevant. With this idea, the auto-grab rule means that you either knock the weapon out of your enemy's hands without grabbing it (maybe punch it out of their hands?) or else you grab it and take it away and then drop it on the ground yourself. Either way, you afterwards bend over and pick it up off the ground, but do so in less than a second as it's now become a non-action (note: not a free action) when it would normally be a move action.
In order to interpret the auto-grab rule at all you have to make a decision one way or the other about how to treat the words "drop" and "pick up". Since both options require the same number of decisions, they are both equally close to/far from RAW.
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Disarm
You can attempt to disarm your opponent in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Disarm feat, or a similar ability, attempting to disarm a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack.If your attack is successful, your target drops one item it is carrying of your choice (even if the item is wielded with two hands). If your attack exceeds the CMD of the target by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands (maximum two items if the target has more than two hands). If your attack fails by 10 or more, you drop the weapon that you were using to attempt the disarm. If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped.
RAW - you, as the gm, choose if a character actually must provoke an AoO to "pick up the weapon.
RAI - You're supposed to get the weapon because you spent the feats or we're brave enough to go up against a guy while unarmed. Moreover, it makes it harder for the disarmed guy to get his weapon back.
I've always ruled that if disarm someone without a weapon, you get that weapon in hand, unless you don't want to.
Yes, Jiggy. I was being a bit smug. I thought it appropriate given your first response, which came off as sounding pointless and non-helpful.
But as far as your second response goes, I think there's a third option. The disarm CM states, "If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped."
It adds the "pick up the item dropped" part for which there are core rules for. Picking up an item triggers an AOO. Just because the rules for disarm allow an "automatic" pick up, doesn't negate the AOO. The Disarm ability would need Errata to add that this automatic pick-up does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
And I state this all assuming I've not missed some bit of errata or come clarification from the designers, which is why I originally came here. Because from what I saw in the rules, both under Disarm and AOO it seems pretty clear to me that the weapon does not fly from one hand to the other. But then again, I see it mentioned by posters several times on these forums as just a fact.
So what I'm really asking is, are forum members and lots of players just assuming/house-ruling/wanting it to be it flies from the defender's hand to the attacker's hand, or is there a RAW reason why this happens that I'm missing it. Because the rules I've been able to find on the subject are pretty clear.
Disarm
You can attempt to disarm your opponent in place of a melee attack. If you do not have the Improved Disarm feat, or a similar ability, attempting to disarm a foe provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of your maneuver. Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack.If your attack is successful, your target drops one item it is carrying of your choice (even if the item is wielded with two hands). If your attack exceeds the CMD of the target by 10 or more, the target drops the items it is carrying in both hands (maximum two items if the target has more than two hands). If your attack fails by 10 or more, you drop the weapon that you were using to attempt the disarm. If you successfully disarm your opponent without using a weapon, you may automatically pick up the item dropped.
RAW - you, as the gm, choose if a character actually must provoke an AoO to "pick up the weapon.
RAI - You're supposed to get the weapon because you spent the feats or we're brave enough to go up against a guy while unarmed. Moreover, it makes it harder for the disarmed guy to get his weapon back.
I've always ruled that if disarm someone without a weapon, you get that weapon in hand, unless you don't want to.
Thanks for your answer
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And I state this all assuming I've not missed some bit of errata or come clarification from the designers, which is why I originally came here. Because from what I saw in the rules, both under Disarm and AOO it seems pretty clear to me that the weapon does not fly from one hand to the other. But then again, I see it mentioned by posters several times on these forums as just a fact.
So what I'm really asking is, are forum members and lots of players just assuming/house-ruling/wanting it to be it flies from the defender's hand to the attacker's hand, or is there a RAW reason why this happens that I'm missing it. Because the rules I've been able to find on the subject are pretty clear.
It's pretty obvious that no one is picturing the item flying from one set of hands from the other - we're talking about someone grabbing the item and pulling it out of the other person's grip. If you can't consider the topic without trying to present your opposition's view in the most ridiculous light possible, then there's not much point in discussing it with you.
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Wow, smug indeed.
Riggler,
It seems that you had the answer you wanted before you posted...
This makes me think that you only posted it to be justified by your GM peers. Since that is not happening, you're turning nasty.
To be honest, it sounds like you're trying to use a literal interpretation of the rules to screw over a player. I urge you to remember that this is a game in which everyone is supposed to have fun. players tend to feel jipped when a gm enforces a literal translation when the intent is obviously the opposite. Ultimately it's your decision as GM. Just be careful not to alientate your players and make sure you're doing this for a good reason.
My bad, using the term fly.
But I think I've discovered from where everyone's confusion about how the disarming while not having a weapon ends up in the one doing the disarming's hands.
Apparently that IS the way it worked in 3.5. But it certainly is not how its written in Pathfinder.
Yes, Jiggy. I was being a bit smug. I thought it appropriate given your first response, which came off as sounding pointless and non-helpful.
+1, and not just because we share an avatar. I find Jiggy's comment about "being smug" ironic given the smugness of his first answer.
Wow, smug indeed.
Riggler,
It seems that you had the answer you wanted before you posted...
This makes me think that you only posted it to be justified by your GM peers. Since that is not happening, you're turning nasty.
To be honest, it sounds like you're trying to use a literal interpretation of the rules to screw over a player. I urge you to remember that this is a game in which everyone is supposed to have fun. players tend to feel jipped when a gm enforces a literal translation when the intent is obviously the opposite. Ultimately it's your decision as GM. Just be careful not to alientate your players and make sure you're doing this for a good reason.
You are absolutely right, Darksmokepuncher. I did have an answer before I came here. I thought I made that clear in both my first and second post. What I was asking is whether I missed something in the rules that would have led people to believe it worked differently.
I'm not looking for justification from other GM peers nor am I looking to screw over players, I'm looking to run RAW as best as possible so that my players actually know what to look forward to and so that if I go off RAW I can inform my players ahead of time.
It appears some players memory of how disarm worked in 3.5 is where the confusion is coming from. I skipped that version.
It's pretty obvious that no one is picturing the item flying from one set of hands from the other - we're talking about someone grabbing the item and pulling it out of the other person's grip. If you can't consider the topic without trying to present your opposition's view in the most ridiculous light possible, then there's not much point in discussing it with you.
On the contrary, I can think of situations where the disarm isn't grabbing the item at all. You could be kicking the weapon out of the hand. You could be hitting a pressure point which makes them open their hand and drop the weapon. You could, as is often seen in many films & television shows, grabbing your opponents arm and smashing their hand into a wall and making them drop their weapon.
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Gonna have to agree with Darksmokepuncher - it sounds like you're trying to make it work a certain way instead of accepting the obvious.
Here's a little RAW quiz for you, Riggler. Consider the following granted power from the cleric's weather domain:
Lightning Lord (Sp): At 8th level, you can call down a number of bolts of lightning per day equal to your cleric level. You can call down as many bolts as you want with a single standard action, but no creature can be the target of more than one bolt and no two targets can be more than 30 feet apart. This ability otherwise functions as call lightning.
So first it tells you how many bolts you can call down. But the second sentence says you can call down "as many bolts as you want" with a single standard action. It doesn't say "as many of those bolts as you want", it just says as many as you want. Clearly, this bypasses the earlier restriction on the number of bolts, right? I mean, that's what it says - so it obviously must be RAW.
Also, it says that no creature can be the target of more than one bolt. It doesn't say more than one bolt at a time, it just says more than one bolt. In fact, it doesn't even say that just you can't target them with more bolts, it says they can't be the target of more than one bolt. So clearly, once you strike someone once, they become unable to be struck by lightning again for all of eternity. I mean, the text is pretty clear, so this is obviously RAW, right? I guess people must just be houseruling the ability to be struck by bolt after bolt in subsequent rounds, right?
Context and flow are inherent parts of writing. If you ignore the obvious context and flow of a piece of text, then you have actually moved further from the rules "as written", rather than closer, because "as written" includes context, grammar, flow, etc by definition.
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It appears some players memory of how disarm worked in 3.5 is where the confusion is coming from. I skipped that version.
Except that some of us (myself included) didn't play in 3.5. I, for one, started with Pathfinder as my first tabletop RPG. So no, the idea that a weapon-snatching disarm involves neither flying weapons nor bending over is not just a 3.5 artifact. It's a reasonable interpretation of the text on its own.
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You are absolutely right, Darksmokepuncher. I did have an answer before I came here. I thought I made that clear in both my first and second post. What I was asking is whether I missed something in the rules that would have led people to believe it worked differently.I'm not looking for justification from other GM peers nor am I looking to screw over players, I'm looking to run RAW as best as possible so that my players actually know what to look forward to and so that if I go off RAW I can inform my players ahead of time.
It appears some players memory of how disarm worked in 3.5 is where the confusion is coming from. I skipped that version.
You contradict yourself here. You are attempting to either establish your current view as correct by RAW, or be informed of the correct interpretation. That is to say, you ARE looking to be justified, because the alternative is to be discredited: no one wants that.
RAW is very important, don't get me wrong. However, RAI is what we get when we apply common sense and an understanding of context and grammar.
When we read the rul now, we are forced to conclude that RAW intends the unarmed party to have the option to lay hold o the weapon immediately after the disarm attempt. Therefore, penalizing said party is unecessary.
Let me ask you this: Why would the line about disarming without a weapon be in the book if it wasn't supposed to have a different outcome from a standard disarm?
Let me ask you this: Why would the line about disarming without a weapon be in the book if it wasn't supposed to have a different outcome from a standard disarm?
I can't speak for Riggler, but I have have asked myself this same question about unarmed disarm attempts.
As for your question, I would answer that with a "standard" disarm, the player already has their hands full with their own weapon, so of course they couldn't pick up the disarmed weapon for free.
Your interpretation of the rules, and honestly I can understand your interpretation, works if you assume that a disarm attempt is just grabbing the weapon. How is that supposed to work with a dagger exactly? How do you grab a wielded dagger with your bare hands and not injure yourself? A spear, an axe, a club... sure, I can see you grabbing the weapon there. But a double-edged dagger? No, in this case a disarm attempt is done some other way. Such as striking the hand or wrist that holds the dagger. In that situation the weapon would fall to the ground. That's why I've wondered about this rule. Again, I can't speak for Riggler (even though we look alike).
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It adds the "pick up the item dropped" part for which there are core rules for. Picking up an item triggers an AOO. Just because the rules for disarm allow an "automatic" pick up, doesn't negate the AOO. The Disarm ability would need Errata to add that this automatic pick-up does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Can you even take an AoO while unarmed? Attacking while unarmed without UAS (including while gauntleted) provokes an AoO, if I recall.
And the word you are not bothering to include is very important - "automatically." There is no rule for "automatic" actions other than the English definition of "they happen." It doesn't say you can pick up the weapon as an immediate action - a defined game action inside a defined game time space. Automatically throws the whole "pick up a weapon" out of whack because there is no defined game time space. The logical conclusion is you gain control of the disarmed weapon without any consequence.
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How is that supposed to work with a dagger exactly?
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No, in this case a disarm attempt is done some other way. Such as striking the hand or wrist that holds the dagger.
With one hand, you twist their wrist or bash their hand into something as you described; then you have the other empty hand ready to grab/catch the dagger as they release it. Seems legit to me.
Also, how is a dagger supposed to sunder full plate?
How exactly does, say a dagger, help you trip? Does a dagger really have a chance of sundering plate armor?Rather than publishing a huge list of weapons and what you can and can't do with them (most of which would be "well, I can see some circumstances where this would work, so it should be on the trip list"), we're allowing you to use weapons with trip maneuvers.
As you start walking down that road, be sure to stop by the Inn of Should A Dagger Be Able To Harm Someone in Plate At All and Why Doesn't My +5 Deflection Bonus Protect Me From Swarms?
Being able to find an example of something getting (very slightly) wonky doesn't mean that the general rule doesn't work that way. A dagger can sunder full plate because it's a weapon and weapons can sunder things. As referenced above, just because the specific example of the dagger-sunder is a little weird doesn't mean we must be mistaken about weapons being able to sunder armor. Similarly, just because the take-a-dagger-out-of-their-hand example requires creative fluffing doesn't mean that we need an alternate interpretation of the auto-grab disarm rule.
So whatever other issues you may still have with the disarm issue, "how do you grab a wielded dagger?" is not a valid argument.
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Speaking out of game terms for a second...
As a martial artist, I can tell you that disarming a double edged weapon, like a dagger, and taking it for yourself is something that we are trained to do. It is possible, and, to an experience fighter, is a relatively easy thing to accomplish.
Back in game...
+1 Cartigan. Action economy wins. "Automatically" is the key here. If it requires no action, you can't take action (AoO) against it.
*Even if you ruled that you could AoO, Cartigan is right that it would provoke and AoO as is, so it is not advantages for the disarmee to take it even if he does get one.
**I still say no AoO.
It adds the "pick up the item dropped" part for which there are core rules for. Picking up an item triggers an AOO. Just because the rules for disarm allow an "automatic" pick up, doesn't negate the AOO. The Disarm ability would need Errata to add that this automatic pick-up does not provoke an attack of opportunity.Can you even take an AoO while unarmed? Attacking while unarmed without UAS (including while gauntleted) provokes an AoO, if I recall.
And the word you are not bothering to include is very important - "automatically." There is no rule for "automatic" actions other than the English definition of "they happen." It doesn't say you can pick up the weapon as an immediate action - a defined game action inside a defined game time space. Automatically throws the whole "pick up a weapon" out of whack because there is no defined game time space. The logical conclusion is you gain control of the disarmed weapon without any consequence.
On your first question, no, they don't. But I had my PC monk disarm a guy who actually did have Improved Unarmed Strike AND was threatened by the guy's ally on Saturday. So that's really how the question came up. And this was a Pathfinder AP. Yep, they stuck IUS on a dude that had a shortspear.
I get what you are saying about automatically, though. They have used a non-game term in the mechanics. And I can see the logical deduction that since they didn't use a pre-defined game term, then it must be a new game term. And that new game term could mean a action that happens as a free no action ... perhaps? I mean I can get there.
Someone else stated what would be the difference to include that line in disarm about doing so with no weapon if it provoked an AOO, for one you could pick it up as a free action.
We know:
1. The weapon is dropped on the ground.
2. The weapon can be picked up.
3. Picking up an item provokes an AoO.
There is nothing outrageous about this interpretation. Nothing at all.
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It says "the dropped weapon." It does not say "the weapon that dropped to the ground."
It also says "automatically." This, as Cartigan pointed out and we have already discussed, is not a game action. Therefore, a game action (AoO) cannot play against it.
Ergo, if you disarm someone while unarmed, you have the option of automatically retaining the disarmed weapon.
You don't "pick up" something that's falling.
You "catch" something that's falling, or you "snatch" it.
Are you guys kidding me?
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You don't "pick up" something that's falling.
You "catch" something that's falling, or you "snatch" it.
Are you guys kidding me?
I wouldn't think so.
Numbing blow that causes the wielder's hand top pop open. Believable if you believe in Stunning Fist, really. Or just hit you rfunny bone...
Hand is open, weapon sitting there. As part of disarming, you gpick it up from the open hand.
Remember that English is a funny language. And that words can be a very ambiguous communications method.
Heck, look at Greater Disarm. Not only do you knock the weapon out of your opponent's hand, you knock it 15' in a random direction. And, potentially, cause his shield to go flying off at the same time, if you roll well enough...
This is one of those cases where I think it is reasonable to assume that they included the extra line because it is a special rule. I mean why bother even writing it if it weren't an exception. To me it is saying that you automatically get the weapon if you pull this of unarmed. Not that you use a free action or a swift action to get it but that you automatically get the weapon.
As far as the use of Automatically in a very brief review of the book the word is most often used to indicate things that just are... not swift or free actions.
You can't get an AoO against a non action, which is what automatically pretty much entails.
I believe concerro is correct. I withdraw my earlier post saying that it seemed like a fair call.
The Table: Actions in Combat lists "picking up an item" as provoking an AoO, but doing so is listed as a move action, not an 'automatic' or even free action.
As such, there seems to be no reason to think it would provoke an AoO.
My mind has been changed on this somewhat. Improved Disarm states that a Disarm does not provoke an AOO. So if an attacker has Improved Disarm, I think it's pretty clear that automatically picking up the item does not provoke an AOO in any way as it is part of the CM: Disarm.
However, I think it's still plausible that an AOO would be drawn in the case of an attacker without Improved Disarm who picked up the weapon. But come on, how often will that happen
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However, I think it's still plausible that an AOO would be drawn in the case of an attacker without Improved Disarm who picked up the weapon.
You mean in addition to the attack they already provoked for attempting the disarm in the first place? Nope. You can only provoke once per action from a given enemy.
However, I think it's still plausible that an AOO would be drawn in the case of an attacker without Improved Disarm who picked up the weapon.You mean in addition to the attack they already provoked for attempting the disarm in the first place? Nope. You can only provoke once per action from a given enemy.
:/