Disarming Natural Weapons. Is it good?

[SangoProduction]

I am thinking that the fact that disarm is only occasionally useful is the largest problem with it. Conceptually, neutering someone's ability to attack is rather useful (disregarding the mind-blowing specialization required to have combat maneuvers not be actively detrimental to use).
Like what's a barbarian going to do without his great axe- oh. He pulled a backup weapon and proceeded to beat you to death. Well. OK then.

But back on topic. If you had a way for disarm to be universally useable (against non-caster-types at least), would it put disarm at least on the same tier as trip? I think yes. Especially if you can make it more difficult to recover your weapon / attack than getting up from trip.

(Granted, the only place I've seen trip builds were on internet forums... and that one guy who played in my game. He was actually excessively effective. Probably just luck. And using a Champion of the Spheres class. But still. Oh and there was like... this one guy who I played with in a winter-themed campaign module. He was... much less effective.)

Well, at least from a defensive perspective. In many, many games, the lethality is particularly low. The heroes are *expected* to survive until the end of the campaign, just like a TV series. Even though if you lost a sword in a real swordfight, you'd be pretty screwed, there are no defensive penalties for having no weapons in PF / D&D. So it doesn't make things die any faster, unlike trip.


Anyway, those were my initial thoughts on the matter. Here's what provoked this question.


Disarm Natural Ferocity

Prerequisites: Duelist sphere.

You may perform disarm combat maneuvers against creatures who are not holding a weapon or object.

Whenever you succeed at a disarm combat maneuver check against a creature, instead of disarming a weapon or object held by the target, you may choose to disarm that target’s ability to use one natural attack of your choice or the target’s ability to make unarmed strikes. The target gains the battered condition until the end of your next turn. As long as the target has the battered condition, the target is treated as though they do not possess the disarmed natural attack or the ability to make unarmed strikes and cannot make attacks or threaten with the chosen weapon.

For the purposes of this ability, unarmed strikes are considered a single weapon, and a creature disarmed of their unarmed strike is unable to make unarmed strikes for as long as they are battered.

Speaking on this specifically... Screws over monks pretty hard. Not going to lie. Suddenly the class whose only gimmick is that they don't carry equipment needs to carry equipment in case he's disarmed. So I wouldn't recommend DMs use it against monks.

But anyway, getting rid of the battered condition requires taking the Total Defense action, which... well, the battered condition is only lasting 1 round anyway, barring getting reapplied next round, which can happen either way. So it's a pretty hard "no, you don't get to attack this turn," unless you've got more natural attacks than they can disarm.
In which case a TD action can release the battered early. And now they need to work to get you disarmed again (with a slightly higher AC/CMD now). And next turn you'll get at least a portion of your attacks to use.


Seems pretty strong, in my opinion. Gets rid of the major (disarm-specific) drawback of not always having a use, making any specialization pointless in those situations. Granted, tripping also has cases where it doesn't have a use, like against those don't walk (ooze, birds, etc). Or giant centipedes. And it still seems to be held in relatively high regard (for martials).
But it's probably more unlikely to run into a flying weapon wielder than virtually any non-humanoid creature. You also can't disarm birds and oozes (without the above talent), and you also can't disarm wolves, but they could have been tripped.

Anyway. I'm rambling. What're your opinions?

[Gruftzwerg]

Imho Disarming as it is ain't that bad as it might seem to others.
It works against melee and ranged weapons, and even against regular casters.

Remind you:

Grabbing Items

You can use a disarm action to snatch an item worn by the target. If you want to have the item in your hand, the disarm must be made as an unarmed attack.

If the item is poorly secured or otherwise easy to snatch or cut away the attacker gets a +4 bonus. Unlike on a normal disarm attempt, failing the attempt doesn’t allow the defender to attempt to disarm you. This otherwise functions identically to a disarm attempt, as noted above.

You can’t snatch an item that is well secured unless you have pinned the wearer (see Grapple). Even then, the defender gains a +4 bonus on his roll to resist the attempt.




snatch wands, spell component pouches, scrolls, potions and whatsoever.

If optimized for Disarming, you sole have a problem with natural weapons. Other builds have other downsides (e.g. crit or sneak attack). And depending on your campaign, you could be lucky to barely face Natural Weapons at all (e.g. a more humanoid/giant oriented game). Imho Disarming has it's own niche like other build types with declared weaknesses (crit, sneack attack, favored enemy...).

[KillianHawkeye]

I can maybe see how disarming a single natural weapon could work. Like, if you get punched in the jaw you might not be able to bite for a minute.

But disabling an entire unarmed strike? How does that work? If you hurt your hands, you can still kick.

[SangoProduction]

I can maybe see how disarming a single natural weapon could work. Like, if you get punched in the jaw you might not be able to bite for a minute.

But disabling an entire unarmed strike? How does that work? If you hurt your hands, you can still kick.

Yeah. Definitely strange.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

"I have flayed your skin off! But only for this round."

[Gruftzwerg]

"I have flayed your skin off! But only for this round."

yeah, but you may pick it up and wield again on your next turn if you spend the movement action for it.^^


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I mean, we had a discussion recently if natural weapons and unarmed strikes can be destroyed. And that is already hard to fit into the 3.5 rules. But that is at least something that would kinda work in real life.

But "disarming" as defined in 3.5 ( = pick it up again as move action with no penalty later on) is imho problematic with unarmed strikes and natural weapons.

And when seen from the opposite side, you are cutting away of the power for the niche that unarmed strikes and natural weapons have compared to manufactured weapons. For some people this is the main selling point of those builds. That you always have your weapons rdy ("drawn") and can't lose em by any normal means.

[ericgrau]

The improved disarm feat is a bit iffy for reasons given. But considering how highly effective it can be against humanoids not only for melee weapons but also ranged weapons and items, disarming itself can be quite useful. And you can get other huge bonuses without the feat including weapon size (esp against ranged weapons and items), and creature size bonuses. All with no feat. AC is also helpful when disarming a melee weapon without the feat, but not necessary when disarming a ranged weapon or item. That's because the attack of opportunity can make the disarm fail but ranged weapons and items usually mean the target has nothing to attack with.

With a two handed weapon disarming a ranged weapon or item you can get a +4 bonus against a -4 penalty making success almost certain. With no feat or size bonus. In Pathfinder especially I found having more attacks to be more useful than the bonus to disarm more foes, because succeeding on the check is usually the easy part. And if you don't have the PF version of the feat then you may want a way to get rid of the item or weapon more long term. Such as yourself or an ally picking it up and throwing it, or some kind of swift action telekinetic ability if you can get one. But it's not essential. You're still stopping a full attack at minimum, and if you or an ally can disable the foe entirely then that's a huge bonus.

My PF character prompted the DM to metagame a little and have one enemy use the only locked gauntlet I have ever seen in my entire history of playing D&D. It usually doesn't work at all, but when it does it's really effective. And entire buildings might be humanoid based so it really is an all or nothing deal. Yes my PF character could do many other things too. I did get the feat because it was PF and because I heard we'd face a lot of humanoids (but not all foes). I never have gotten the feat in 3.5 but then disarming was also uncommon in general.

[Seward]

Disarm is a niche thing. Mostly it's better to just kill the enemy, or at least beat him up so your buddy can kill him.

That said, here is how I've actually used disarm in real play.

1. Character with reach weapon (and+2 to disarm) has somebody armed intent on attacking him provoke an aoo. Disarm the weapon and they either lose the attack entirely or maybe are reduced to an unarmed strike or shield bash or something, depending on how the gm rules (they tend to be harsher if said person was charging you.

2. Against archers. Although past a certain point sunder with an adamantine weapon is more reliable, and that was certainly the route my high attack mod high melee damage dealers with mediocre combat maneuver modifiers went, even if the party whined about loss of WBL. My actual combat maneuver character would routinely trip archers, then when they stood up, disarm them on the aoo. They are now standing next to you with their bow on the floor next to them. They can pick up a bow (provoking another aoo, usually trip). They can move away from their favorite weapon (again provoking another aoo, usually trip). Or they can draw a backup weapon but not attack. Or they can flail ineffectually with spiked gauntlet/armor/ua. Then they ate a full attack and died, unable to hurt anybody else. Note - less effective vs crossbow archers who can fire while prone, although you can always go for a disarm or sunder from the aoo provoked by their ranged attack.

Note that if you have the ability to threaten at 10' and 5' somehow (spikes+reach weapon, imp ua+reach weapon etc), the archer can't avoid the disarm (or sunder) attempt if they want to fire their bow and it is usually far more reliable at shutting down their presumably dangerous full attack then just doing damage to them with a single aoo. If they tumble away and take one shot you still protected your party from the volley, which is a decent use of what was probably a double-move action to get into that position. You can now move over and straight up disarm/sunder or maybe trip them next round.

3. If you have a massive advantage in this category (think fullbab martial vs wizard) snatching away a maximize metamagic rod or a wand/staff that has been giving your party trouble might be a good move on the approach. Most wizards find that kind of move really surprising and don't tend to have contingencies for it. Also useful vs plot tokens. But you need to be able to force a miss on the aoo, either via high AC or provoking it with something else(usually movement) or eliminate the maneuver aoo via feat or reach AND suck up the -4 for a barehanded disarm so it ends up in your hand. As with archers sundering might be more reliable, but sometimes you don't want to do that (your own mage wants that metamagic rod, or it is a plot-important item you are grabbing)

3a -same idea but a buddy or unseen servant or something grabs it before the enemy can recover. Usually for a plot important item as tying up 2 characters actions just to take one item away is normally bad action economy unless that item poses a serious danger to the party in enemy hands.


.....

so...on topic. Disarming natural weapons, presumably with some kind of temporary "move action to recover" mechanic similar to picking up a weapon or drawing a backup weapon won't be that useful. Maybe vs some kind of grapplemonster that has only one attack that is dangerous in that way but mostly you either won't stick it (any critter with dangerous natural weapons is likely big, high bab and strong at most levels) or it won't mitigate enough damage to be worth an action.
Normally the problem with disarm is they can just pick it up again. It's right there.

[liquidformat]

Hmm this really reminds me of Ty Lee from Avatar, more or less you hit a pressure point that disables attacks from a certain natural attack for a round. I think introducing and using battered condition is very important for disarm to work on natural attacks as dropping a natural attack is otherwise just strange. Also I think you might have to rework unarmed strike some to not be dysfunctional. Also this kind of opens up a door that could potentially make disarm abused, if I can disarm a natural weapon and apply battered condition to said natural weapon then why can't I simply do the same to someone's arm which would effectively disarm them of their weapon for a round and a move action as battered condition on the arm could cause them to drop their weapon too.

[ericgrau]

So there have been some points about when disarming is good and when it's useless. The thing is when it works it's super good. Taking a super good niche thing and making it much less niche by making it also apply to natural weapons is going to make a mess. Better to leave it in its niche and be aware of how to use it without focusing your character on a niche. Improved disarm is really only for campaigns loaded with humanoids with weapons, and even then there are partial defenses as there should be. Being able to fully disable someone with an easy check isn't great, just like power gaming an un-passable spell save DC causes all kinds of trouble and both should be reserved for rocket-tag type campaigns only.

[Seward]

Taking a super good niche thing and making it much less niche


Trouble is that it is a niche thing that requires the same investment as less niche things (like grapple and trip) to be successful against a broader range of targets...which still remains very narrow (MANY opponents don't use weapons in any meaningful sense, either because they have natural weapons or non-weapon attack forms as their primary offense).

Grapple can shut down a spellcaster, make spell likes harder and disable an archer and force 2h weapon fighters to resort to fist or spikes and reduce the # of attacks of a natural-weapon-melee, and pins an enemy in place for a followup full attack.

Trip shuts down archers, cuts most attack routines down to a single attack, keeps a spellcaster/sla user from getting out of reach so they at least have to concentrate and makes everybody endure a full attack.

Even with all that, most feel those combat maneuvers become ineffective vs more and more opponents as you level.

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Going to the second tier of combat maneuvers


Disarm does nothing to natural weapon users, nothing to spellcasters/SLA users, does nothing to keep your opponent in reach for a followup full-attack. It generally can screw up one charge, or mess up a full attack routine of a weapon user for one round, unless you do it barehanded in which case it can


Sunder does everything disarm does in terms of screwing up attacks, but ensures they have to use a backup weapon not just pick it up off the ground. It can also sunder spell component pouches and holy symbols, or wands or similar so it has some utility vs non-martials, although not as much as grapple/trip. The only thing that makes disarm better is if you use disarm barehanded you can get their stuff without hurting your WBL. But with a -4 penalty for unarmed, you need a pretty big advantage (like beefy martial snatching a wand away) disarm to be superior to sunder.

Bull Rush is pretty crappy if you don't have a handy pit of lava nearby, but it is kind of a feat like "dodge" which is also objectively crappy, and is better than Mobility - it at least has SOME use. But mostly it is a feat you take to get to another unrelated feat, not just one that gives +2 to the same maneuver.

All of these are significantly inferior to grapple/trip but have the same feat structure and investment to get better. They NEED to be expanded somehow to be worth spending feats on, although they'll have some niche uses if you don't invest resource in it (get free bonuses from class abilities or just by being big/strong/high ac)

Honestly maybe the thing to do is just combine disarm/sunder into one maneuver and make any prereqs for either be filled by the combined feat. That would remove the downside of sunder while keeping its expanded uses compared to disarm. I get why OP is playing with this idea but I don't have a good solution.

[ericgrau]

Taking a super good niche thing and making it much less niche

The removal of context is pretty horrible here. Super good when it works, usually bad because it's super niche. That's the whole point. But make it much less niche and you're in for trouble.

[liquidformat]

Honestly maybe the thing to do is just combine disarm/sunder into one maneuver and make any prereqs for either be filled by the combined feat. That would remove the downside of sunder while keeping its expanded uses compared to disarm. I get why OP is playing with this idea but I don't have a good solution.

As I have been doing homebrewing I combined the pf called shot feats with the sunder feats as they seem to thematically share some similarities. I actually quite like the idea of tacking on the ability for disarm to work against natural weapons and giving the battered condition for a round, it thematically sticks with the functionality of disarm really well. In the end I don't think it will really break the game or even cause much of a difference, just like grapple and trip, disarm is dependent on size so beatstick monsters with high str and larger size are going to be very hard to use disarm against and those are normally the creatures you would like to use it against and have natural weapons. So this makes for a nice added ability that won't make much of a difference. Also a lot of monsters have 3+ natural weapons so its not like you are going to shutdown a creatures entire attack routine you're just going to cut some of its damage output.

[Seward]

Good targets for disarming natural weapons are things like spider or viper, which aren't super strong or high bab for their CR but dangerous if their weapon hits. A real beast of a disarmer might be able to manage a (youthful) dragon's mouth, disabling its only weapon with superior weach and its breath weapon and on slightly easier scale, you could disable a wyvern tail or scorpion sting I guess.

But in general yeah, barring poison, negative energy or similar dangerous secondary effect disarming natural weapons will be extremely challenging past level 6, similar to grappling or tripping a dire tiger, made worse by the fact it only stops one weapon.

[icefractal]

Screws over a Monk real hard though.

[Seward]

Screws over a Monk real hard though.

Speaking as somebody who played a monk to level 15.....

taking away unarmed strike for a round would have just resulted in me using a weapon. I usually had a reach weapon in hand to make use of my combat reflexes feat, or if not a kama to do trip attacks with to be safe against countertrip on failure. I didn't have quickdraw but there was always a flurry of shuriken if I didn't already have a weapon out. Normally though I always drew a weapon when I moved if I started a round empty-handed, just to have more options. YMMV with other monk playstyles. You would take away the stunning fist, barring a ki-strike type weapon out, and while my monk went the grapple route, I imagine that this "natural weapon disarm of unarmed strike" would also take that option away too.

[liquidformat]

Screws over a Monk real hard though.

How much if any it screws over monks as well as anyone else that uses unarmed strikes really depends since as stated above unarmed strike isn't very well defined. This would require some added definition in the disarm ability or unarmed strike. Another question which Seward's comment highlights is how would disarm [bite] effect other things requiring the mouth like breath weapons, verbal components, or speaking? Or if your claw was effected by disarm could you still hold a weapon in that claw or make somatic spell components?...

I actually think it could be interesting to have the disarm NW rules interact with the called shot rules but only be able to target jaw, claw/foot/hand, tail, eye, and so forth. Doing so would pull disarm NW away from size and just put a flat -5 to -10 depending on appendage to the touch attack roll. Doing so would also prevent disarm from being able to work against unarmed strike.