I just thought about the usage of "Disarm". You use up a full action, you need to "hit" (Succeed in a WS test), the opponent needs to botch a parry (fail his WS test), and nothing happens. The opponend, when it's his turn, just picks up the weapon and hits you over the head with it. Unless picking up a weapon is full action. If it is a fulla action (no evidence of that in the rule book) the fight would just be at a stalemate. disarm, pick up, disarm pick up.

The problem is, that the weapon drops at the feet and not let's say d5 meters on the scatter diagram.

how do you handle Disarm (if at all)?

Well, think of opponents with very powerful weapons, like power or force weapons and so on. Also, considering that it is at least a half action to draw a weapon from a holster/sheath, it could be more to retrieve a weapon.

Cymbel said:

that's what I mean, if I disarm a guy with a force sword, he just picks it up again. I traded a full hit for basically nothing. worst case i get attacked with a single attack, best case, nothing happens. if he has to spend a full action to pick it up, I am just where I started. well not exactly. I lost an opportunity to deal dmg. (well ok, in the best case I hold it in my hands, which is pretty good actually).

If you disarm someone in a real fight, he is SOL. If he has to pick up his weapon, while you are armed and standing over it, he will at least eat a hit.

We've only had to deal with this a couple of times, because Disarm mostly sucks. The following are our groups houserules :

1) Picking up a weapon, or pulling an elevator lever, or whatever is movement. You may not have moved in meters, but you've moved. If you did it while engaged in melee you will still provoke an attack.

2) Additional degrees of success involved in your WS test you can propel the opponents weapon in a random direction via scatter. Each degree gives one additional meter.

3) While you may have spent your entire turn disarming your opponent of their monstrous weapon of doom, your fellow acolytes, or anyone, may grab it. This has led one player to smack a chainsword out of a heretics hand, only to have it be picked up by another heretic lacking the training but reacting very badly to a fear/shock test.

Why don't you just stab them?

Boss Gitsmasha said:

because the opponent has a power weapon, counter attack, the Blood God Axe of Total Annihilation etc. But yeah, that's what the question basically boils down to.

Boss Gitsmasha said:

Perhaps you want to take them alive? You know, for "questioning".

I always likes me to "question" some heretics

How does this sound if you house rule that if an opponet doesn't have a melee weapon then melee attackes on the opponent are auto-hits or maybe percentile bonus to WS of, lets say, +20% or +30%. How does that sound?

If it's a half action to attack why can't the disarming attacker spend his other half action to kick the weapon away to finish out his turn?

Phi6891 said:

I assume bending down all the way to the ground is a half action in itself (unless you drop prone, in which case you have problems, or are Mr. Fantastic), so your opponent actually loses a full action.

That's my bad, I looked too quick in the book. Ok, nvm about that half action kicking the weapon away and stuff. Unless you had a teammate that could do the kicking for you.

What if you are unarmed and the opponent is armed? With the penalty for fighting an armed opponent (-20), you could disarm them and take their weapon if you do it well enough.

alemander said:

The Ready Action is a Half Action. If you are use a Ready Action, you are likely drawing a weapon from a holster, scabbard, pouch, pack, etc. There really is no clear distinction in the rules. Quick Draw allows someone to Ready a weapon as a Free Action, rather than a Half Action.

We ran into a similar situation when I was first playing DH. I had a character who was dueling Elsergi Krin (some foppish honor match), and every time I disarmed him, he would use Quick Draw to retrieve his weapon then attempt to smack me (though I Parried every one of his attempts). However, it ticked me off, as a Player. The weapon is lying in the dirt of the dueling ring, but he has it back in hand whip-fast?

As a GM, I rule that if you want to Ready anything, you have to be carrying it. I don't care if it's nestled safely at the very bottom of the backpack that is securely strapped to your torso, you're carrying it then I'm fine with that. If you're not carrying it, then it will take a Full Action, or more, to retrieve it. So basically, if you Disarm an opponent, and the weapon falls at his feet, it will take your opponent a Full Action to Ready that same weapon. I feel not being able to get the Parry bonus for a Balanced weapon and not getting to attack are punishment enough, so I forego anything like calling for a Agility Test to successfully retrieve/Ready the weapon. If the character has Quick Draw, this retrieval time is reduced to a Half Action. Obviously, it would be faster to simply Ready or Quick Draw an alternative weapon…sadly, many NPCs are not listed as having a hold-out weapon of some kind. So I give them one, depending on their background and personality type. Elsergi Krin might have a Poniard (a Fast Weapon), which does considerably less Damage than a Power Sword, but is also more difficult to Parry. Any NPC of my own devising always have one or two hold-outs for this very reason.

Otherwise, Disarm is crap. Better to attempt Knock Down…unless they have Leap Up.

I also allow Disarm at -10 to flip an opponent's weapon from his (normal, not concealed) holster or scabbard (the Difficulty imposed because the weapon is not exposed), but rather than opposing WS it opposes Agility, with the same results…possibly taking your opponent's weapon away from him.

IdOfEntity said:

This is the easiest adaptation of the rules, and - I'm sure - the intended consequence of bending over in the middle of combat to retrieve a weapon. Interacting with anything while in melee (whether your hacking a computer terminal, unpacking a crate, using a control panel, whatever) should be considered movement - movement which drops your guard and affords your opponent a free strike.

I like the houserule of "scattering" the disarmed weapon by the degrees of success, but I think you can take it or leave it (I'm going to take it though!) - the real core is that picking up a weapon off the ground provokes an attack and is a half action. The half action is the "move" to get low enough to scoop up the weapon (assuming of course your acolyte doesn't have freakishly long arms hah).

I think then it's an additional half action to "ready" the weapon - meaning not just picked up, but picked up in the right orientation such that it useable in combat.

Quickdraw, as written, does not specific that the weapon needs to be on the character's person. In fact, it doesn't specify ANY range at all… but use your heads guys … if a weapon is 20m away, does that mean a character can ready it as a free action? So why do you think they could ready something at their feet (aka out of arms reach)? You can ready things for free that you can reasonably reach… and in that regard, I think you could "ready" the weapon for free, but it would still take a half action to "move" to the item at your feet (also drawing a free attack from your opponent).

Based on some of the new uses for acrobatics listed in the Inquisitor's Handbook, I'd also say you could use acrobatics to avoid the free attack (i.e. roll to the ground, grab the weapon, and spring back up - whatever).

So to summarize the benefits of a successful disarm using this framework of rules (which I really don't consider house rules, as their implicit in the core rules to me at least), against an enemy with:

> no special talents… he spends a half action to bend over, you get a free attack, then he spends a half action to ready the weapon.

> quickdraw… he spends a half action to bend over, you get a free attack, he readies the weapon for free and attacks you.

> quickdraw and acrobatics… he spends a half action to bend over, using acrobatics to attempt to avoid a free attack, he readies the weapon for free and attacks you.

… also note that when you get a free attack, he can't parry because he has no weapon in hand (assuming he wasn't dual wielding).

2. Did I miss something about the "Disarm" Talent? As it is, it doesn't seem that useful. If I disarm a guy with a power-sword, he just picks it up again. I traded a full hit (I succed a WS test, opponent fails a WS test) for basically nothing. Worst case I get attacked with a single attack, best case, nothing happens. If he has to spend a full action to pick it up, I am just where I started. Well not exactly. I lost an opportunity to deal dmg.

What kind of action is "picking up a weapon from the floor"? A single action, full action? Is it a "ready action"? Does it have a movement component (e.g. I get a free hit)? Should the scatter diagram be used with a number of meters equal to the WS success levels?

Hi Mike!

2. Good points here, and something we should address in errata. Picking up a dropped weapon should be a full action I'd say (no movement as it's at his feet), and I do like the idea of it scattering DoS metres away (feels very swashbucking, with the enemy's sword flying away!). Alternatively, what about a certain number of DoS allowing the attacker to simply take his enemy's weapon? Give them a try and let me know how they go, I can see either working well to buff up the Disarm action.?

Hope these help out Mike, and thanks for playing!

Tim Huckelbery

vogue69 said:

Then why don't you just shoot them?

Boss Gitsmasha said: