Disarm Rules

[Severus Snape]

I am currently running an HU campaign, and the players (and you know who you are!) prefer to disarm the opponents instead of trying to outright kill them. I am more than fine with this - they are heroes and shouldn't resort to killing unless absolutely necessary. My problem lies within the rules for disarming, and not the fact that they are using the tactic.

The HU book states: A successful strike means the weapon has been knocked out of the opponent's hand. This, to me, seems like it is a little skewed in favor of the attacker. There is no AR value listed for the weapon, so it's assumed that a disarm attempt would be against the default AR of 4 (meaning you have to roll a 5 or higher for the strike to be successful). The opponent can dodge, yes. But this gives the advantage to whomever wins initiative in a combat round, as whoever wins initiative can call for a disarm, forcing their opponent to continually burn actions to dodge the disarm attempt and not being subject to any type of counter-attack.

How do the rest of you GMs deal with disarm? Has anybody modified this so that it's not as easy as it sounds?

Also, how much SDC do normal weapons have? One of my players is using a firearm to disarm an opponent, specifically targeting the weapon itself with his fire. How much damage can a weapon take before it is destroyed?

[Killer Cyborg]

Parry?

[novatomato]

Heya snape, I've been thinking about this (I am after all a player in this game and I think I started this disarm thing) and thought that, well yes they can dodge to avoid it and that is really the only option but, and here is where I go off the tracks, consider the nature of the dodge, if I want to avoid getting my hand slapped all I need to do is move my hand a bit which doesn't really negatively affect my movement for a retaliation. With this in mind I thought, why not make the dodge an auto-dodge with full or almost full bonuses from normal dodge?

[Severus Snape]

@KC: Parry still takes up an action.

@nova: I knew one of you guys would come out here and offer an opinion! I like the idea of the auto-dodge. I may steal that and use it. After you guys are done with Draskal. If you survive.

[The Dark Elf]

@KC: Parry still takes up an action.

Isnt it only if you opponent has NO hand to hand. So give em all hand to hand. I do.

This is how I play it.

[Rockwolf66]

Ok I'm looking at the disarm rules and they seem to be geared towards the form of style where I kick the knife out of the guys hand not the sorts of disarms that I have been trained. Now most of the disarms that I have been trained or acted as the Uki for a friend who was training involved the person doing the disarming to get control of the weapon and keep it. Not knock the weapon who knows where so that you can fight with the other guy over who gets to use that weapon. In fact the Jujitsu disarms that I know of origionally had you stabbing the other guy to death with his own knife. The Krav Maga disarms that I have experianced from the Uki's point of view had me end up looking at the airsoft Glock 17 go from being in my hand pointed at my training partners face to suddenly in his hands.

On the flip side of this if I tried to disarm someone who has been trained in weapon retention I'm going to get shot if i try to take their gun away. Alot of it has to do with body position and leverage. heck grab the rifle barrel of someone who knows how to retain a longgun and you will be lucky if all they do is toss you to the ground and don't shoot you.

Gamewise: if one is playing heroes Unlimited then if the PC's have the training then let them disarm mooks right and left. As far as the main villans go have the villan roll a parry to retain their weapon. that will indicate that they have repositioned the weapon so that they can retain it.

[Killer Cyborg]

@KC: Parry still takes up an action.

Only if you've got no HTH skills.
In which case, I don't have a lot of sympathy for you.