Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I'm considering making a disarm specialist. Do people find them fun? Question is for the player, the other PC's, and the GM.
I remember when I was new to GMing I got frustrated with a player who would Sunder everything in sight, particularly spell component pouches. - I don't want to be "that guy" that GM's dislike. So I'm always hesitant to make characters that make the GM think "why did I even bother looking at my NPC's tactics?"
But I was looking across some barbarian rage powers and saw lots of interesting stuff for disarming, and it sparked some interesting ideas.
But I keep coming back to "Don't be a jerk" and having second thoughts. So, what are people's opinions on disarm builds? (or, I suppose sunder builds, since it's a similar end result)
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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If the point of disarming is to disable enemies - it could become a drag, like you fear.
What might be quite entertaining however is a PC who doesn't bring his own weapons, but steals new weapons from enemies every combat. Don't disarm everyone - just disarm someone every combat so you have a weapon.
Bonus points if you get UMD up to the level that you can do the same for wands; grab and use without time to identify.
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At low levels, it can be kind of exhilarating to disarm mooks. At higher levels, you're more likely to start running into either monsters, casters, or both, especially as BBEGs, so you're less likely to have something to disarm. I'd say it's not the most tactically valuable primary option - I just recently realized this with my level 4 disarm build and decided to start branching out into other options instead of going all-out on the disarm.
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If you are focusing on disarming instead of defeating the enemy the party might get upset.
I remember I was running an AP with a group and one player was a barbarian with a heavy flail. The party got upset since he was only disarming the foes and not doing 1d10+16. I might end a combat, it might prolong a combat.
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Disarm, as I see it, is wonderful backup plan. Maybe invest 2-3 feats into it, and pack a couple of weapons that can help disarm.
You want this as a backup, as you can't disarm spells or natural weapons ;) But when a baddie whips out a nasty weapon that can blow away the squishies in the party, and you're not sure how much health said enemy has, you want to disarm that.
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If the point of disarming is to disable enemies - it could become a drag, like you fear.
What might be quite entertaining however is a PC who doesn't bring his own weapons, but steals new weapons from enemies every combat. Don't disarm everyone - just disarm someone every combat so you have a weapon.
Bonus points if you get UMD up to the level that you can do the same for wands; grab and use without time to identify.
True story.
We all went to the tub room sans weapons and armor, in just robes.
This is the scene where the GM gets to choose where the assassin's get to surprise you. GM Lamplighter, the stinker, had them hiding in the sudsy water in the Tubs.
Cylese, my slayer, preceded to take attacks of opportunity to disarm the ninjas, and use thier weapons against them. She's a two weapon fighter, so she killed two of them with thier own swords. Lots of fun!
Disarm is the trick you keep up your sleeve until you have a rock solid advantage in doing so. Using it instead of attacking just because you specilized in it is not as tatically sound as smacking down your opponents, unless:
You are adjacent to a cliff, lake, or other hazard you can discard the weapon into,l
You need to take the opponent alive
The weapon damage for the opponent is rediculous
Their weapon is better than yours.
Otherwise, doing damage that disarms the opponent from their hp is a better option.
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This is totally dependent on the player, table and game situation. Some people/groups would really enjoy having this PC at the table (sometimes) and some would be totally upset.
Try it out at 1st level. If you and your group like it, keep the PC and build on him. If it turns out to NOT be fun, use the 1st level re-write rules to switch him out to something else.
And always remember the problem with a "One-Trick Pony" - and if you do build him, be sure this is only one "trick" in his handy haversack.
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At low levels, it can be kind of exhilarating to disarm mooks. At higher levels, you're more likely to start running into either monsters, casters, or both, especially as BBEGs, so you're less likely to have something to disarm. I'd say it's not the most tactically valuable primary option - I just recently realized this with my level 4 disarm build and decided to start branching out into other options instead of going all-out on the disarm.
I've got a tenth level Rondelero Duelist (fighter archetype) that specializes in disarm, and disarm can be very powerful, but Rei's comment is pretty much spot on. I ended up taking two-weapon fighting at like fifth level and picking up shield slam so I can take shield master at eleven. Between using disarm and shield slam to control combat I've had a good bit of fun in combat, without being too powerful.
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I find it adds to the fun. Sure, I can specialize in doing maximum damage, but if I do that then combat is over in one round. If I can specialize in just messing with my opponent (I do it via Dirty Trick (blind) and disarm). It leaves my opponent in tact and the rest of my party gets a chance to act (and thus have fun) as well.
This is why I love my Brawler, or more specifically the Martial Flexibility class ability.
The character can be a disarm specialist, or a grapple specialist, or a trip specialist, or any number of combat builds. And change them, on the fly, round by round.
It's pretty much the true power of the class, not the punching abilities. Though those are nifty too.
-j
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This is why I love my Brawler, or more specifically the Martial Flexibility class ability.
The character can be a disarm specialist, or a grapple specialist, or a trip specialist, or any number of combat builds. And change them, on the fly, round by round.
It's pretty much the true power of the class, not the punching abilities. Though those are nifty too.
-j
Man, with a level 11 brawler, I can confirm. You always have the ability to break a fight. Use it wisely and sparingly. At my level I usually just trip or go for damage output though, because the brawler has some seriously high output potential. Sometimes I sunder, disarm, or steal particularly troublesome items, or grapple for funsies (suplexing a triceratops was my character's high point, and I only see if I can grapple crazy huge monsters that aren't going to kill me with a single full attack anymore).
With regards to Disarm: It depends entirely upon the type of opponents you regularly fight. PFS has a habit of giving a nice spread most of the time, but home games can vary widely. I suggest giving your character a set of guidelines like has been provided above... maybe they enjoy a challenging fight and are supremely overconfident (read: arrogant) in their ability.
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Honestly, as long as you can help do damage besides disarm, no one in their right mind should be sour over such a tactic.
How often you should do it may vary by table (unfortunately) but if I were a fellow player, I would be happy to pummel a foe that was disarmed by a fellow party member and if I was a GM I'd be absolutely fine with a disarmer setting up other people for success.
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This is why I love my Brawler, or more specifically the Martial Flexibility class ability.
The character can be a disarm specialist, or a grapple specialist, or a trip specialist, or any number of combat builds. And change them, on the fly, round by round.
It's pretty much the true power of the class, not the punching abilities. Though those are nifty too.
-j
With a Brawler I once disarmed a Gunslinger, taking his loaded Musket from him. I then proceeded to use Martial Flexibility to pick up Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Musket) so I could shoot him with it. Fun times.
A Disarm build is fine. Just make sure you have a backup option. My Trip build Magus was great until she hit the 4-5 tier and things started having flight. At that point, I needed to up her damage output. So just make sure you can still do some damage when disarming either isn't possible (natural attacks) or isn't practical.
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There are also times where disarming an en enemy makes them stronger. If you're fighting lizardmen or troglodytes, disarming their club will just give them two more natural attacks to use.
I had a player find this out the hard way with his Sunder Oracle at a con last year. Fighting a natural attacking Barbarians with three attacks each is much deadlier than the Barbarians using a two-handed weapons and bite.
On the original question of this thread, I've seen a Trip/Disarm Specialist be devastating in combat through his teammates' Attacks of Opportunity. Greater Trip, AoO from all threatening allies, then disarm while the foe is prone for that sweet -4 to CMD. Now when the foe tries to grab his weapon, crawl 5', or stand up, everyone with Combat Reflexes gets more AoOs.
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I find it mostly unfun. A lot of encounters have no backup wpn.
I feel that tripping is worse.
It depends on the encounter. I tripped a barbarian with my monk once and they just stayed prone and full attacked with the penalty to hit. They still brought one of my allies from full HP to negative in one round.
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Tripping needs a rider effect like Vicious Stomp to really matter past tiers 1-2 to 6-7. Of course it's still a good option to take with provoked AAO's from moves, helps people hit, etc. Prone's just not a very meaningful condition after a while. Unless the target's a longbower!How so? -4 AC and -4 attack seems pretty significant to me. Or they can trade those penalties for a one-round Staggered condition and an AoO (spend half their actions to stand up.)
If they're flying, of course, that's a different story.
If you have a foe that hits on a 4, then trip makes them hit on an 8. It's a 20% reduction in accuracy, but they are still going to hit more often than not.
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It's pretty significant early, when prone cuts an enemy's attack bonus to half and (sorta) reduces their AC by about a fourth, but once you leave tier 6-7, those reductions are far less significant. Take a look at cr 9-11 giants or demons for instance.
In a recentish game I saw a huge dinosaur get tripped. It just kept goring(or biting, not sure), because -4 to hit amounted to about a fourth of its to-hit and its ac was stilll around 20-21.
edit: get? meant kept.
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** spoiler omitted **
Wow, your GM sounds awesome! And not smelly at all. :)
I think disarm is like any combat trick - it's a neat trick, but if it's all you can do it gets boring quick. There is also the fact that, in general, combat maneuvers are easier to accomplish than attacks against many creatures, so by focusing on them you're artificially reducing the challenge.
Having said that - it's a great "I am not left-handed!" moment to be able to do it and save the day when you really need it.
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Well, we do occasionally discuss the possibility of a monk build that flurries using a +1 throwing returning amulet of mighty fists.At low levels, it can be kind of exhilarating to disarm mooks.I first read this as disarm monks. LOL How would that work?
Now I'm picturing a monk taking off his amulet and throwing it at people. And it comes back.
My mind is just going weird places today. Maybe I need more sleep.
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Well, we do occasionally discuss the possibility of a monk build that flurries using a +1 throwing returning amulet of mighty fists.At low levels, it can be kind of exhilarating to disarm mooks.I first read this as disarm monks. LOL How would that work?Now I'm picturing a monk taking off his amulet and throwing it at people. And it comes back.
My mind is just going weird places today. Maybe I need more sleep.
No, no, he takes off his fists and throws them at people.
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No, no, he takes off his fists and throws them at people.Well, we do occasionally discuss the possibility of a monk build that flurries using a +1 throwing returning amulet of mighty fists.At low levels, it can be kind of exhilarating to disarm mooks.I first read this as disarm monks. LOL How would that work?Now I'm picturing a monk taking off his amulet and throwing it at people. And it comes back.
My mind is just going weird places today. Maybe I need more sleep.
My first thoughts were just like Fromper's, too. Though it quickly became obvious that they were intending some kind of "robo rocket fist" type thing though.
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If you're going for a combat maneuver specialist, always have a backup plan. Preferably straight up damage dealing.
My warpriest of Shelyn specializes in tripping people with his glaive - the advantage of a goddess with a favored weapon with reach. But if the situation isn't right for it, he's still got 18 strength and a two handed weapon, with Power Attack coming soon (he's only level 2), so he can just bash the enemies when necessary.
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I think disarm is one of the most limited maneuvers. It has it's place, but seems to effect the least amount of things and offer the least advantage.
Trip is potent in some places as it debuffs and almost always provokes to correct. Although at latter levels many things can not be tripped.
Grapple is very powerful, and effects most things. Although it is the same thign over and over.
Dirty trick is my personal favorite. True is mostly used for blind, but the flavor you can add doing it can be lotsa fun. I pants people to entangle them, my monk slowly strips down using his vast amount of clothes as dirty tricks until I am running around in shorts borrowing other things to use.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Thank you all for weighing in. Since it was specifically the Impelling Disarm rage power that inspired me, I think I'm going to back off some on the disarm part (not entirely), and look into a throwing weapon specialist. If you get up next to him, it just happens to be your weapon he's throwing.
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Thank you all for weighing in. Since it was specifically the Impelling Disarm rage power that inspired me, I think I'm going to back off some on the disarm part (not entirely), and look into a throwing weapon specialist. If you get up next to him, it just happens to be your weapon he's throwing.
It will also vary party-to-party.
A party with a lot of ranged users won't like a trip specialist, since it hurts them more than it helps them. On the other hand, a party with a lot of melee types, especially with a lot of 3/4 BAB classes, will probably love having tripped opponents.
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Main issue with disarm is that it really only applies to enemies with manufactured weapons drawn. If the enemy lacks manufactured weapons, then disarm is useless. If the weapons aren't drawn, disarm doesn't apply, as it becomes the Steal combat maneuver. Plus, there are a few manufactured weapons that can't be disarmed at all.
So, easily half of the enemies you will encounter can be disarmed, while the other half can't be disarmed at all. I think disarm is very useful, but I wouldn't build the character around only that. On a side note, if you go the disarm route, there is a "Snarl Shield" shield upgrade in the Gnomes book which gives disarm to shields used as weapons.
For character designs, I'd take a disarm AND another maneuver specialist, instead of just the one. Disarm is just too reliant on the opponent to provide disarm-able weapons for use as the entire character concept.
Beyond that, I think the main issue with Sunder heavy characters is a lack of familiarity with the sunder rules. If you make a sunder focused character, bring a cheat sheet for the GM regarding the HP and hardness of objects and weapons. The sunder rules are fun and simple if the info is easy to access, but it's spread in the book and online, which makes it aggravating for the GM.
Really, any maneuver focused character should bring a cheat sheet for maneuver rules to hand to the GM. Makes things go much smoother.
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Beyond that, I think the main issue with Sunder heavy characters is a lack of familiarity with the sunder rules. If you make a sunder focused character, bring a cheat sheet for the GM regarding the HP and hardness of objects and weapons. The sunder rules are fun and simple if the info is easy to access, but it's spread in the book and online, which makes it aggravating for the GM.
Also make sure you're using the current sunder rules and not the old sunder rules. Magic items can be sundered much more easily now.
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I've really enjoyed my Lore Warden Fighter, who has a sprinkle of disarm, dirty trick, and trip, as well as the whip mastery stuff. He is less effective against big scary beasts, but awesome against humanoid combatants. He does have a sword for those situations, and dirty trick can still help a little.
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I used to be a disarm specialist, with a whip and all. But then I found I had a very "disarming personality"... (grin-wink)
but lately I've discovered another way of doing "dirty tricks" (no - not THAT kind, those normally cost extra!).
Madcap Prank (Su): At 9th level, a street performer can use performance to discomfit a target within 30 feet, causing its clothing to become tangled, its headgear to fall down over its eyes, or even causing it to slip and fall or otherwise be made to appear a fool. The target must make a Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard's level + the bard's Cha modifier) each round that it hears or sees the performance, or it takes one of the following random effects each round: 1—blinded, 2—dazzled, 3—deafened, 4—entangled, 5—fall prone, 6—nauseated. Each effect lasts 1 round. This performance replaces inspire greatness.
So I just do a little dance step - flip my skirts and have surprising results - at 30'. ("nauseated? well! no accounting for tastes I suppose...")
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My first thoughts were just like Fromper's, too. Though it quickly became obvious that they were intending some kind of "robo rocket fist" type thing though.No, no, he takes off his fists and throws them at people.Well, we do occasionally discuss the possibility of a monk build that flurries using a +1 throwing returning amulet of mighty fists.At low levels, it can be kind of exhilarating to disarm mooks.I first read this as disarm monks. LOL How would that work?Now I'm picturing a monk taking off his amulet and throwing it at people. And it comes back.
My mind is just going weird places today. Maybe I need more sleep.
Hey, it's a Plok amulet! (Talk about a blast from the SNES past.)
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Beyond that, I think the main issue with Sunder heavy characters is a lack of familiarity with the sunder rules. If you make a sunder focused character, bring a cheat sheet for the GM regarding the HP and hardness of objects and weapons. The sunder rules are fun and simple if the info is easy to access, but it's spread in the book and online, which makes it aggravating for the GM.Also make sure you're using the current sunder rules and not the old sunder rules. Magic items can be sundered much more easily now.
Double check then, where are the "current" sunder rules?
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Double check then, where are the "current" sunder rules?Beyond that, I think the main issue with Sunder heavy characters is a lack of familiarity with the sunder rules. If you make a sunder focused character, bring a cheat sheet for the GM regarding the HP and hardness of objects and weapons. The sunder rules are fun and simple if the info is easy to access, but it's spread in the book and online, which makes it aggravating for the GM.Also make sure you're using the current sunder rules and not the old sunder rules. Magic items can be sundered much more easily now.
The rules as they appear on the PRD are the "current" sunder rules. I don't know what they used to be. I just know that we had a player once who at some point in the past played a sunder specialist. When the GM sundered his weapon he retreated into the CRB for like the next hour trying to find the rules as he knew them. Finally he found something online that said it had been errata'd to work the way it does now.
Googling tells me this used to be in the CRB on p. 468 "An attacker cannot damage a magic weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon struck." In the same post it says it was changed from the 4th to the 5th printing. old thread here for reference
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Ah, thanks. A minor change.
My Core rulebook (old version) says you require a magic weapon with at least the same enhancement bonus in order to sunder another magic weapon.
Now, instead, you have this bit:
Hardness and Hit Points: Each +1 of a magic weapon’s
enhancement bonus adds +2 to its hardness and +10 to its
hit points. See also Table 7–12 on page 175.
So you can now sunder regardless of enhancements, it just becomes much harder.
In example, a +1 adamantine longsword. Longsword is a one-handed blade, so the normal version has 10 hardness and 5 hp. Adamantine adjusts the normal version by +1/3 more HP over the normal version and changes the hardness to 20. Since we round down, it has 6 hp and 20 hardness. Then the +1 adds 2 hardness and 10 HP, so the +1 adamantine longsword has 22 hardness and 16 HP.
So, thanks to the change, we can now destroy a +1 adamantine longsword with "only" 38 points of damage from a non-enhanced weapon.
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That seems really easy.
So, thanks to the change, we can now destroy a +1 adamantine longsword with "only" 38 points of damage from a non-enhanced weapon.
Not really, except for seriously targeted builds. Remember that that is 38 points of damage in a single attack, not 38 points of damage total.
Otherwise, you wind up nickel-and-diming it, with only what damage per attack exceed 22 counting toward the actual damage accrued.
Which is why, even at first level, caryatids are not all that threatening. 3d6, average 10.5, against a standard longsword, hardness 10, might not roll high enough to damage it.
Higher sub-tiers goe back to normal, but it is less of an issue, especially since the target weapon has a chance of being either magical or special material, with a higher hardness.
Which is a little sad, considering the abject fear and terror those golems used to inspire in previous editions.
I recall in an old game I ran, having a high level paladin and the rest of his party put away their holy weapons hurriedly when they realized what they were facing, some switching to cheap backup weapons, others making unarmed attacks or resorting to improvised weapons. The looks on their faces on that realization was priceless. The stammered hasty excuses later when I insinuated their behavior was... less than valorous, was even better.