i'm messing around with the system and i just had my first combat encounter. in order to help everyone learn the combt mechanics, we generated a room and put some security guards in it, and had the players fight them.

in turn one, a wookiee player tried disarming a security guard, and succeeded. then the security guard picked up the gun (move action) and fired it at the wookiee. so in essence, disarm knocked the pistol to the floor, he used a manueever to pick it up (i figured picking it up off the ground was the same as retrieving it from a backpack that may be closed), and fired it without penalty.

we then had a long debate about whether or not that was legal (i think it was?) and then we debated the utility of disarm. for a three advantage special, i'm willing to concede that i was probably using it incorrectly, but i didn't notice anything in the rules updates or the rule book about how best to implement it.

help me fantasy flight games rpg forum-- how am i doing it wrong?

i've come to this conclusion:

given the cost of disarm, and given that all the times we've seen disarm in star wars: darth vader pulling han solo's blaster out of his hand, luke skywalker chopping rifles in half, etc

with the single exception of darth vader disarming luke in a light saber duel, and luke using the force to get his lightsaber back--

all of those times involve the opponent losing their weapon for the duration of the encounter. so i'm going to assume that "knocking the weapon to the ground" really means either "completely breaking the weapon" or knocking it far away from the opponent, or even yanking the weapon out of the persons hands, into the disarmer's hands. i'm going to argue that it would take an action to search for the gun, to see where it went, and a movement action to run to it/ grab it. i guess i'll also use some grenade scatter die or something to figure out where it landed.

what do you think?

please, if there is a simpler rule in the book, please let me know about it… i think i've encountered a kind of a game mechanics black hole with this one. clearly disarm is one of the more powerful things you can do (second only to a critical hit apparently), and yet the rulebook doesn't discuss it at all, and only mentions it in passing twice-- once in a table for spending advantages, and the other time in the description of a cybernetic anti-disarm limb.

I think an action to find and another to retrieve is plenty for a normal disarm. Spending a triumph should, too… because it makes for good story, and the needs of play are different from those of movies.

The disarm of Han by Vader is no disarm action… it is a force action, using telekinesis, possibly combined with mind control (to open the hand).

The disarms of Luke in ESB and ROTJ are varied… one being a simple disarm, overcome with TK, another being beating him with furniture (advantages spent), and the final one in ESB being a double triumph by Vader, spent to crit and to turn the tide…

Chopping rifles isn't disarm, either… it's sunder. Luke is spending advantages galore, but not disarming. he'll, he sunders against the speederbikes.

First off. Luke doesn't sunder the speeder bike, I'd say he attacked it - having breach and all armour/soak doesn't go into effect. Although I do wonder "how" he did it, some sort of "hold action" would be necessary for that to happen, since vehicles moves fast and across distances pretty quickly.

Second. Disarm should perhaps be powerful. Let the weapon land within short range, not engaged, that means 1 manoeuvre to move to it, and 1 manoeuvre pick it up. That means no action, or taking 2 strains for the picking up manoeuvre (add more if the ground can hide the weapon - like in a jungle or field of tall grass. A perception check would be appropriate). Further, the disarm could also, if possible, end up in the attackers hand - that is unless he's shooting from a distance or using a two handed weapon (as part of some disarm attempt it should be stated before hand methinks). If engaged in melee and the weapon ends up within short range, two manoeuvres are required to move to the weapon in my reading of the rules, since 1 manoeuvre is required to disengage, then 1 to move to it.

Third. I'd like a potential manoeuvre to go for the disarm, regardless of advantages. Like the secondary aim option - where one get setback dice instead of boost dice, for hitting hand-held items or the like:
-In this case its probably more appropriate that sunder comes into play - if successfully hitting the weapon or device with a gun or knife or sword or axe or whatever - the weapon gains the sunder quality. Damaging it once by default as long as there is an uncancelled success on that aimed attack roll, then spend more advantages (2 per weapon "health" level?) in an attempt to render it useless. This attack damages and hits only weapon, not wielder. Of course exploding blasters should have some sort of blast effect?
-If this aim manoeuvre and attack is an attempt to disarm, decrease the disarm cost once, or make it successful even with no advantages - 2 advantages can then perhaps be spent on increasing the distance the weapon flies - up to a maximum of medium range of course.

hmmm

i'm not a huge fan of adding a lot of rules to things, but i think you're right, changing it from "force the target to drop the weapon" to "weapon falls to the ground, nearby. requires one move action to travel to the weapon, one move action to pick it up (and/or perhaps one action to find the weapon)" isn't huge. still, with something like disarm (a kind of a basic feature of combat), which is also a somewhat high ranking action to spend advantages on, it probably deserves at least a paragraph in the rule book-- i'd love to see an official FFG ruling on this.

i dont want to think about adding blast effects to exploding rifles, or giving the player the ability to determine how far away it lands, i prefer rules that are more pure or mechanistic, or at least rules that are easily generalizable to other situations. i dont see how it can end up in the attackers hand without spending additional actions, etc. i dont intend to restrict the narrative component of fighting, and paradoxically i think several extra layers of rules kind of does that.

anyways thanks so much for the quick comments!

The rules already allow you to "go for the disarm"

You roll the dice hoping for a success…in this case rolling enough Advantages…why would it be better to allow spending successes to do it? Mechanically its the same except you don't have to declare thats what you're doing…just know that if you roll well enough you get to do it.

I LOVE the system as it is…takes all the crap out of picking what special manuever you want to try, assigning penalties and then finally rolling…

Just roll to hit…then IF you get advantages…figure out what special moves you want to use them on…it really is pretty freaking cool.