Disarm

[bcadren]

Short proposal:

Disarm - Translocations - 3 - Blinks target's weapon 2-6 spaces away, depending on spell power and weapon weight. Depending on target's AI, it will either switch to a backup weapon, attack unarmed or waste turns running after the weapon. Base power of the enemies' weapon is added to the target's MR for the purposes of this spell.

[Azrael]

I like it, but if it works as posted it should probably be higher level. Blinking an orc warlord's 2-3 weapons five spaces behind you in a corridor is to powerful to be level 3.

On a similar note, there should be more translocation spells like this. It's a fun school, and should be added to.

[Galefury]

That really depends on how resistible it is. For example Confusion is also level 3.

But I don't really see the point of adding this spell. It could replace one of the Warper starting spells, but it's not like any of those are bad. Also it would let people with Tloc skill levels mess with enemies without training Hexes, which is not clearly a good or bad thing.

[BlackSheep]

There's a Jiyva mutation that steals weapons from monsters that hit you. It's great fun, and I wish it were more common. If a spell or item (ooh, there's an idea for an unrand!) that allows disarming were added, I think it should work like the mutation.

[daggaz]

Disarm should be in the game, but it should be a melee ability, not a spell. You could always just ammend confuse to give a chance of the opponent dropping their weapon to keep spellcasters in the loop, anyhow.

[Sandman25]

Perhaps this can be a special property of Short Swords category (like reaching/cleave etc) or just Short Sword weapon. Thematically it is more suited for stabbing attacks with daggers (surprise attack hurts arms) but these are already overpowered while short swords are rarely used because of qblades and sabres.

[MoogleDan]

Perhaps you could simply make it Translocations / Hexes? There are already too many pure Tloc spells out there, and that combo hasn't been done yet. Regardless, I think this is pretty cool if only for the fact that it's a non-polymorph-based ability to yoink away distortion and holy wrath weapons from uniques you just barely escape a scuffle with : P Maybe make the success chance based on the enemy's HD though, or possibly even their EV? MR just doesn't seem right for resisting telekinesis aimed at something a guy is simply holding...

[Matanui3]

I like the idea of a disarming weapon, that could have a chance to drop the enemy's weapon at its feet (perhaps with a lesser chance to fling it one space away instead), causing it to lose turns as it rearms itself.

[BlackSheep]

If enemies took any time to pick up and wield weapons, dropping weapons at their feet would do something, but as it stands now they could just pick up their weapon and attack on the same turn.

[prozacelf]

It occurs to me that this could be a way to expand the usefulness of Tukima's Dance. The player could (smite?) target a monster and if it loses the MR check the weapon becomes a player ally. The player can still self-target of course.

Tukima is a spell that seems cool, but is currently almost never worth spending 5 spell levels on. Maybe this could help it out.

[Siegurt]

Really Tukima's is a pretty good spell, it's just annoying to have to wield each weapon you want to animate though,

[DracheReborn]

Disarm seems like something that monsters will find more useful than players. Players after all are far more likely to have a highly enchanted damage dealer in their hands. Monsters carrying strong weapons is much more situational.

Compare that to Cleave, for instance. 1 player facing multiple monsters occurs far more often than 1 monster facing player + allies. So Cleave is great as a player ability.

I'd rather have Disarm be a spell than a weapon effect (TLoc/Hex seems perfect). The way things are set up now, everyone gets the same weapon effects just by having the right weapon. If every hobgoblin or orc with a shortsword has a chance of knocking that battleaxe out of your hands, it's going to get terribly annoying. There's at least more control over who gets access to Disarm as a spell.

Along those lines, how about a Unique who casts both Disarm and Tukima's Dance? Now everyone can have the Xom experience

[red_kangaroo]

Really Tukima's is a pretty good spell, it's just annoying to have to wield each weapon you want to animate though.

[siprus]

If it's implimented i think it should be hex/translation. And maybe mace Tukima's dance ground targeted spell. (maybe add 1 spell level to compensate)

[prozacelf]

Really Tukima's is a pretty good spell, it's just annoying to have to wield each weapon you want to animate though,

When was the last time you learned Tukima?!? It's OK but you need to luck into a book with it, and have hexes trained to 10 or 12 or so, and carry around extra weapons.

I know that "fixing Tukima" is not the point of this thread, but we can improve it and have non-Jivya disarm for not a lot of effort, unless the Tukima code is more of a pain than I think.

[daggaz]

A quick way to balance melee weapon disarming with regards to monsters is to use weapon skill (assuming they have it) as a primary variable. My weaponskill vs your weaponskill, with various modifiers etc thrown in for example type, size, enchantment, what have you..

That would be interesting in that a melee focused player is going to outclass most of the popcorn orcs, while a mage who is clutching a dagger of protection with zero ranks in small blades may find that dagger getting removed from their grip more often than not..

[Amnesiac]

Disarming a mage with a dagger of protection/strong brand or an enhancer staff would be sooo annoying and it will make them avoid melee combat entirely.

[dck]

No because mages don't exist.

[DracheReborn]

A quick way to balance melee weapon disarming with regards to monsters is to use weapon skill (assuming they have it) as a primary variable. My weaponskill vs your weaponskill, with various modifiers etc thrown in for example type, size, enchantment, what have you..

OT for this thread, but I think that all weapon effects should work this way, i.e. based on Weapon skill or else having Cleave/Reach/etc as a separate, passive ability (that Fi/Gl start with, and that other backgrounds can learn from manuals). It just doesn't seem right to me that someone with 0 Axe skill can cleave just as well as someone with 27.

[siprus]

What do you mean? You cleave much slower and deal much less damage if you cleave with 0 axe skill. Do you want there to be double scaling on this abilities?

[DracheReborn]

What do you mean? You cleave much slower and deal much less damage if you cleave with 0 axe skill. Do you want there to be double scaling on this abilities?

I mean you can still potentially hit 8 opponents around you the very first time you pick up an axe. It makes more sense to me that a skilled axe wielder is better at timing his stroke to hit multiple opponents. (I know, I know, realism takes a backseat to gameplay).

Double scaling is an issue though. So my alternative proposal is to have Cleave/Reach/etc as separate passive abilities. You can cleave only if you have both an axe and the cleave ability. Think of it as a special axe technique that you have mastered.

And the problem this is trying to solve is that this way, you can differentiate backgrounds based on weapon type, and you can control which enemies get weapon effects.

[reaver]

Disarm seems like something that monsters will find more useful than players.

They probably would, but I think it would be so annoying that it wouldn't be worth it. It would cause a spoiler you need to carry a back up weapon. Some players would immediately wield another weapon after getting disarmed. A player could forget to take their weapon back after the fight. You would need to have it drop at their feet to avoid hurling their weapon into lava or deep water, so it would just play keep away for two turns. If a player is fighting multiple enemies, they might have to remember to grab their weapon back when there's a lull in activity.

OT for this thread, but I think that all weapon effects should work this way, i.e. based on Weapon skill or else having Cleave/Reach/etc as a separate, passive ability (that Fi/Gl start with, and that other backgrounds can learn from manuals). It just doesn't seem right to me that someone with 0 Axe skill can cleave just as well as someone with 27.

That would be good for flavor but terrible for gameplay. Playing Axes or Polearms puts a fun spin on on tried melee, and this would remove that effect for the early game.

[DracheReborn]

They probably would, but I think it would be so annoying that it wouldn't be worth it. It would cause a spoiler you need to carry a back up weapon. Some players would immediately wield another weapon after getting disarmed. A player could forget to take their weapon back after the fight. You would need to have it drop at their feet to avoid hurling their weapon into lava or deep water, so it would just play keep away for two turns. If a player is fighting multiple enemies, they might have to remember to grab their weapon back when there's a lull in activity.

Oh I agree. One Disarming Unique would be enough. Similar to Maurice being the only opponent able to steal items.

That would be good for flavor but terrible for gameplay. Playing Axes or Polearms puts a fun spin on on tried melee, and this would remove that effect for the early game.

My alternative proposal (separate passive ability) would have Fi and Gl start with it, but no one else. The warrior backgrounds kind of lack differentiation right now, IMO.

[daggaz]

I dont think doing this with disarm (or melee specials in general) would have a detrimental effect at all on the game, but would instead add a new dimension to crawl which is othewise a bit lacking. And it would be easily balanced by the fact that monsters scale up with depth (worms generated in D:10 have more hitpoints than those from D:1 for example), so early monsters would be be real bad with weapons as well. Or by limiting the number/type of monsters/weapons that can use the effect, as mentioned above.

Making non-melee focused spellcasters (or mages if using common names isnt beyond your pale) think a little more about the dangers of the melee environment is not a bad thing, especially if it means A) you can get an important piece of your equipment put on the floor and B) you may very well have to choose between leaving it there or possibly dying.

As it stands now, the current interplay between melee monster and spellcaster player character is pretty two dimensional.
1) destroy the monster from a distance using damage/summons/incapacitating effects etc...
2) escape if the monster gets too close and personal thru a variety of options...

[dck]

You don't need to be "melee-focused" as someone who mainly blasts things to bits to be able to competently beat up people since beating up people in crawl is really easy.
Making monsters capable of disarming you would be awful, almost as awful as making random backgrounds start with passive skills no other character will ever see in practice.

[daggaz]

You don't need to be "melee-focused" as someone who mainly blasts things to bits to be able to competently beat up people since beating up people in crawl is really easy.

And you wouldn't need to be either under the proposed change. You could still blast things to bit quite easily. It would just make it more interesting in the case where you DO end up standing toe-to-toe with a couple orc warriors. Blink out immediately, or try to retrieve your staff of fire first?

Making monsters capable of disarming you would be awful, almost as awful as making random backgrounds start with passive skills no other character will ever see in practice.

Yes, I agree. Doing X would be just as bad as killing babies with nuclear bombs full of AIDS. Or you could come up with an actual argument based on reasons that are related to the topic at hand.

[DracheReborn]

almost as awful as making random backgrounds start with passive skills no other character will ever see in practice.

Why won't other characters see it in practice? If made available in fairly common manuals, any character who wants it should be able to get it.

[dck]

Well there's the fact disarming monsters would be awful because it'd water down melee combat overall (which is the most tactically interesting part of crawl) by adding some random weapon skill vs monster HD/melee fighter flag check that nullifies your offense. Of course this is terrible, so what happens in practice is everyone carries two extra good weapons or so and randomly has to wield one of them when engaging in melee combat. What happens is also that the act of hitting people itself (which is the least interesting part of melee combat) becomes insanely tedious because you have to check whether you're still wielding your weapon or not after every swing. Not to mention weapons that require less skill to be used are now annoyingly being flung all over the place.

@DracheReborn: If you make them common enough that everyone who wants it can get them then what's the point in making the process of getting them so convoluted to begin with? Gl and Fi are distinct enough as they are, even if Fi is often inferior to Gl.

[mikee]

Just a quick response to the concept of a spell that disarms monsters: I think that this has some pretty fundamental balance problems, aside from the fact that I think it possesses the gravity of 'summon banana peel so that monsters trip on it'. Very early in the game, a large amount of a monster's damage (maybe like 50%) comes from the weapon that it's wielding. So against like a kobold or an ogre, disarm sounds SUPER. Later, this equates to using a spell of some level to reduce the average damage you take by like 5 or 6. Surely you could use a spell and a turn to just kill the monster faster or whatever. In short, this idea seems to me like adding something for the sake of adding something.

[DracheReborn]

I thought the idea that a low level spell should give a boost early, while being fairly useless later, is in fact a design goal? Or am I misunderstanding something?

[mikee]

It would be useful until about d:4 and then become completely useless. What level should it be, 0? =P

[BrewFall]

What if this were a whip ability? It would be clear which monsters could disarm, wouldn't be too common, and makes flavor sense. Also it wouldn't make sense if it activated with much frequency, because it could obviously become annoying if it happened too often, but I think it would be interesting if you had to keep it in mind.

[Silk]

What about expanding Apportation, allowing it to Disarm monsters by targeting their tile? It would give the spell more sense in the earlygame (though its MP cost would need to be increased).

[prozacelf]

It would be useful until about d:4 and then become completely useless. What level should it be, 0? =P

Golly, there is a level 5 spell that might not be totally useless if we added disarm to it