Less of a chance of a stun when disarming

[Kent]

Currently, if you disarm someone, they are stunned for a fixed time, I think it's 6 seconds.

I think this is unrealistic. It should be possible to have little or no stunning time involved, for example, you knock the sword out of my right hand, and I immediately follow up with a left hook to your jaw.


So I would like to request this time period be a random one, from 0 to six seconds in duration.

[jilliana]

I just walked through the scenario in my mind and I agree with the random stun time.
I know when I used to be involved in martial arts and someone did something to me I either 1, expected it and my reaction time wasn't as long as if I were to 2, be caught off guard in which time it would be more of a "wow" moment and be slower to do something in return.

[Jirato]

The reason why it's 6+ seconds, is because most attacks are standardized to 5 seconds.

Without the stun, or with a shorter stun duration, the below would be possible, which pretty much makes disarm useless.

#ACTION {^With a twists of his wrists, he manages to disarm you}{#send get dagger}
#OK. {^With a twists of his wrists, he manages to disarm you} NOW TRIGGERS {#send get dagger} @ {5}.
#test disarm Jirato
Otarij swings his fist toward your right arm! (Off: 200098 vs Def: 100)
5 crush damage - (right arm)
With a twists of his wrists, he manages to disarm you, sending your copper dagger clattering to the ground!

You pick up a copper dagger.

Also, "twists of his wrists", time to fix that.

[jilliana]

The reason why it's 6+ seconds, is because most attacks are standardized to 5 seconds.

Without the stun, or with a shorter stun duration, the below would be possible, which pretty much makes disarm useless.

That occurred to me moments before I read this. :P

[Kent]

The reason why it's 6+ seconds, is because most attacks are standardized to 5 seconds.

Without the stun, or with a shorter stun duration, the below would be possible, which pretty much makes disarm useless.

#ACTION {^With a twists of his wrists, he manages to disarm you}{#send get dagger}
#OK. {^With a twists of his wrists, he manages to disarm you} NOW TRIGGERS {#send get dagger} @ {5}.
#test disarm Jirato
Otarij swings his fist toward your right arm! (Off: 200098 vs Def: 100)
5 crush damage - (right arm)
With a twists of his wrists, he manages to disarm you, sending your copper dagger clattering to the ground!

You pick up a copper dagger.

Well, first of all, it's tough (or as I understand it, it's supposed to be tough) to pick up a weapon unless you first move to position avoid. Whether this is coded consistently or not, you would be in more of a position to answer.

So once in a while the stun lasts is 0 seconds, which meant he saw it coming. Yes, that's the point, sometimes the disarm is rapidly recovered from and thus useless. Now often does that happen? 1 in six. Sometimes it would last 1 second, sometimes 2, sometimes 3, 4, 5...etc. In any case, the opponent is delayed that amount of time, is he not?

[Alexander]

Because executing a disarm takes five seconds itself, the only time disarming is useful is when your foe is unable to pick up the disarmed weapon for six seconds and you are thus able to follow up with an attack to your opponent while they are still disarmed. Otherwise, your foe will simply retrieve their weapon and attack you before you can execute your next move, and you have therefore done nothing but stalled yourself, wasted energy, and opened yourself up to an incoming attack. Randomizing the stun duration will mean you have a five in six chance of in fact making your own situation worse, despite having made a successful disarming roll. Hardly acceptable odds.

If some kind of timer is put on a weapon preventing it from being retrieved for at least one second longer than it takes to execute a disarm, then the stunning aspect is completely unnecessary. As I don't believe this is the case, I imagine this is why the stun lasts as long as it does.

I do not recall ever having had any issue picking up a weapon in position engage or range, though I admittedly rarely find myself in the situation where I am in such a position without a weapon at the ready, or at least on my person.

[Kent]

Because executing a disarm takes five seconds itself, the only time disarming is useful is when your foe is unable to pick up the disarmed weapon for six seconds and you are thus able to follow up with an attack to your opponent while they are still disarmed. Otherwise, your foe will simply retrieve their weapon and attack you before you can execute your next move...

Again, the mechanic that prevents the foe from "simply retrieving their weapon" has been overlooked. It's not simple at all.

You try to pick up a short sword, but cannot manage it while under attack.

There is also a worse outcome where I tried to pick up a weapon a couple of times and tripped and had to stand before I could resume, I don't recall the wording on that one.

The disarmed foe has to switch to position avoid first, which costs him 3 seconds of round time. Add this to the random stun time of 0 to 5 seconds, and the playing field shifts to 3 to 8 seconds without that weapon. That's only assuming he is successful on his first attempt, because

You are unable to get away from the hostiles engaging you in combat!
Round time: 3 seconds.

is what happens if you fail to switch out of position engage in order to be able to pick up that dropped weapon.

My suggestion brings you to make a decision whether to attempt again to switch to position avoid, or to go into unarmed combat, or to draw a dagger (or other backup weaapon) from your sheath and use that instead of trying to recover your lost weapon. It adds an element of strategy and uncertainty to our melee combat all the while resounding with realism.

Again, only the coders can answer whether the "weapon pickup while in combat" mechanic is coded consistently for NPC's and PC's. My suggestion takes place in a system where it is coded the same.

[Rias]

Disarm is a big item on our look-over-how-it-works list.

[jilliana]

Disarm is a big item on our look-over-how-it-works list.

Makes me wonder how many lists the staff has. :)

[Isiaa]

Like... fifty. I'm sure they split the to-do lists by guru, urgency etc. And then lists for where to go for which code etc etc.

[Acarin]

I'd like to suggest a random stun lasting from 6 to 12 seconds to address the variability in stun time some have suggested.