Disarm - Will it work?

[White Warlock]

I made the foolish act of creating a character without first checking to see if "Disarm / Improved Disarm" will even work against NPCs/Creatures in ALFA's TSM. By default, creatures created in the toolset are not disarmable and they must be set to be disarmable in the toolset. Has this been done, or is this just another 'wasted' set of feats?

[Kalrenath]

So far I have been able to disarm everything that is wielding something in their hands. I can't vouch for Improved Disarm having the item land in your inventory though.

[White Warlock]

I have to question your results Kal. I just popped a PC into the game and tried to disarm. Although it indicated i was successful, the weapons remained in the hands of the npc/creatures and the damage remained the same. The success claim was false. This may, however, be due to the PC having improved disarm. I will have to test this further (create a PC with only Disarm), but at this point, i feel reasonably confident that Improved Disarm is not useable in ALFA's TSM due to the 'default,' posed by the toolset, being maintained.

[Kalrenath]

I actually just used it in an encounter less than an hour ago. Disarm "works", except that it destroys the weapon if successful. No idea about Improved Disarm, still.

However i don't think it does much as the creatures seem to keep attacking without a noticable difference to attack and/or damage, and don't provoke attacks of opportunity for fighting unarmed, as if they have the Improved Unarmed Strike feat.

[White Warlock]

However i don't think it does much as the creatures seem to keep attacking without a noticable difference to attack and/or damage, and don't provoke attacks of opportunity for fighting unarmed, as if they have the Improved Unarmed Strike feat.

I noticed the same thing, but more importantly, i noticed they still had a weapon in their hands. As i said, I'll continue to test this, but so far i'm seeing disarm as yet another disabled feat (feats, actually) due to the NPCs/Creatures being left in the toolset's defaulted state.

[Kest]

Is it possible they are using natural weapons and whatever they are holding is just for looks?

[White Warlock]

This is contradicted by the amount of damage they pose (should be 1-3, but the damage, 1-6 or 1-8, is far more inline with the weapons in their hands), as well as them not presenting (provoking) attacks of opportunity, which should be default for most.

Like i said, the default with the toolset is that the ability to disarm is disabled on NPCs/Creatures. For this to be in effect for spawns, all blueprints for the NPCs/Creatures in the toolset need to be corrected, and blueprints for all placed NPCs needs to be corrected.



At this point, i guess the next question is... what is ALFA's policy going to be on disarming NPCs/Creatures? Are the disarm feats going to be limited to PvP only? If so, it's a wasted feat.

[Kest]

Well it's not a super critical issue to take up arms about, I imagine there should be no concerns preventing a fix so that the feat works as it was always meant to.

[White Warlock]

Agreed. It's also an easy fix (basemod should be corrected too). I would be willing to make this 'tedious' correction to alfa's present mods if there are insufficient hands for the task.

[dob85y]

Im glad we have got you WW, i was considering taking my character down this path, in fact i still am, but there is allways the doubt, will it workas its supposed to?

Thanks alot

[White Warlock]

Well, it looks like the next debate will need to be about whether weapons are droppable, as a concern was presented that this would be additional income for anyone with Disarm. Not having them droppable, however, does dramatically undermine much of the neatsie fine function associated with Disarm. So, i guess we have to ask whether weapons should be droppable on npcs/creatures only if someone succeeds in performing a Disarm, whether they should make weapons droppable at all times, or whether to advertise that Disarm is stunted, so people don't waste the feat point(s).

In any event, i got my answer to this for now, and that is Disarm doesn't work as it should. How long it will take before any decision is made to change this, if indeed a decision is made in that direction, i cannot say... but i do know how long it has taken alfa to make decisions on other issues, so my personal recommend is for people not to invest in the Disarm feats (Disarm / Improved Disarm) until such time as a decision is made.

[Brokenbone]

Weapon and all other carried items "droppability" is never a settled discussion, certainly one that's been going on for years. I.e., what's a fair reward, in cases where a superhero or a novice may both cross the path of a snivelling goblin with a club.

However, back to disarm alone: while it's a pain in the ass to remember to click the "disarmable" checkbox (whether in NWN1 or NWN2), nine times out of ten, it's probably appropriate to do so (may not be if the NPC description is "this warrior is made of solid stone, with a giant axe rooted to its hand"). I do not think anyone in NWN1 or NWN2 has ever ruled that this is a requirement of good building, it's just been a discretionary thing.

It's probably a very small silver lining that disarm ends up functioning like sunder in non-droppable weapon cases. There is no prospect for either AI-only, or DM-possessed NPCs, to go run after a weapon that never got a chance to "skitter across the floor", that is, they may in 90% of cases not have a backup weapon in their inventory, and are going to get whittled to death by attacks of opportunity by continuing a combat barehanded without the appropriate unarmed combat feats. When a PC gets disarmed, normal response if you see your weapon somewhere in the dirt is to draw another one, and fight your way back over to it before someone (PC or NPC) steals it! Poor dumb NPCs don't get subjected to that, in this limited case of a "destroyed since not droppable" type disarm.

[dob85y]

A big part of the disarm in the fantasy genre, is to disarm your opponent then force a surrender. Could the NPC after being disarmed have a penalty applied to its morale so it dosnt stand there and be beaten to death while fighting bare handed?

Consiquently any character who chases down un unarmed opponent and kills them is really doing so in cold blood and acting in an evil manner.

[Kalrenath]

A big part of the disarm in the fantasy genre, is to disarm your opponent then force a surrender. Could the NPC after being disarmed have a penalty applied to its morale so it dosnt stand there and be beaten to death while fighting bare handed?

Exactly

While I think it's realistic to have all NPC drop their weapons as loot (where else would it go...?), I'm not too worried about whether or not it's gimped. I've been getting along fine enough with it as it is.

Once the subdual system is in place, i will be a happy cavalier

[Veilan]

Disarming then forcing a surrender requires a DM present, so you can work it out in that scenario anyway.