So, a situation came up last night where a Villain disarmed a Hero. At the time, I simply had the Villain spend a raise to knock the Hero's rapier out of their hand (they were using a broadsword), and the Hero then spent a raise diving across the deck of the ship to recover it.
While it resulted in a cinematic fight (the characters ended up swapping weapons and then the Hero spent a raise and a Hero Point to disarm the Villain and catch the sword in their empty hand), it seemed too "easy" to disarm an opponent simply by spending a raise.
I did think about making it able to be countered by spending the same number of raises as were spent in the disarm attempt (a bit like soaking wounds), but then it could result in someone choosing to allow themselves to be disarmed on the basis that they can then spend a single raise to pick up the weapon off the deck - I guess multiple raises spent in the attempt might mean the weapon goes further and requires additional raises to recover, but that seems contrived..
I also though it might require a raise and a Hero/Danger Point, but that seems expensive for a momentary advantage that the disarming character might not be able to take advantage of (they would need significantly more raises than the target to make it worthwhile -on the other hand, having more raises then your opponent might make it worth while if you can disarm them and then take advantage of the fact that they don't have a weapon...)
How are other people handling disarming?
I've just been using it as pressure.
I'd err on the side of caution here. Most everything in the game is a 1 for 1 cost. Spend 1 Raise to deal 1 Wound; Spend 1 Raise to negate 1 Wound.
If the cost to perform "Disarm" is 1 Raise but the cost to recover the weapon is 2 Raises, then everyone's going to be disarming as it's more economical.
I would keep the 1 Raise to disarm, and 1 Raise to recover. Basically, the one performing "Disarm" is creating a Consequence for their opponent and the Opponent is overcoming this Consequence. The only real mechanical penalty to disarming is for a duelist using their special 'maneuver' since I believe that's really the only maneuver that specifies the weapon combo needed. It becomes more of a 'story telling' aspect to the fight. It also always someone with a Raise surplus to make their opponent 'waste Raises' to recover a weapon if it's important to them.
John
Thanks all, I might keep it as a single raise as it is largely cinematic - unless of course, one side has more raises than the other in which case they can take advantage of the opening to apply pressure etc.
Yeah, for the most part a disarm really isn't going to hamper a PC in the long term, and many times in movie duels we see one combatant get disarmed, only to scramble around briefly before either picking it back up or getting a replacement
Ostensibly, you could create a new Duelist Maneuver called Disarm that anyone with Duelist Academy can use, but there's already enough cries about how overpowered Duelist types already are.
To be honest, I pretty much agree with John above, in that you're best keeping it at a 1-to-1 ratio, and effectively treating it as a Consequence that is imposed on the target. You certainly don't want to make it too good of a thing, to the point that PCs will use disarms as their go-to tactic to hamper the Villain. I suppose you could treat it as Pressure (either reclaim your weapon for 1 Raise, or do something else for 2 Raises), which makes it useful but not quite a go-to tactic to be employed on a near-constant basis.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
I was thinking about it some more, keeping the one raise to disarm and one to recover works and is a viable tactic when one character has more raises then the other, and therefore gets to take multiple actions before their opponent. They can disarm an opponent (with one raise) and then apply pressure (with their next raise) to force the disarmed character to act in a particular way (or spend multiple raises). They effectively hold the disarmed character at sword point.
Or, you could go the way of oppossed actions in general. Each side can put raises towards it, and whoever puts in most gets the desired result.
I'm not sure that will have the desired effect in this edition of 7th Sea, as fighting weaponless and fighting with a weapon have exactly the same effects, except in the case of Duelist Style special maneuvers.
The one problem I keep seeing is one that kept cropping up in a lot of D&D 3.X games, in that using a disarm tactic can very often become a "go-to" option for the PCs, especially if they are facing a Villian with a duelist style; while the Villain won't suffer any penalties for changing their approach, namely swapping to fisticuffs (Brawl) instead of swordplay (Weaponry) the way that a Hero would, it still cuts into the amount of damage said Villian duelist can do.
It may well get to the point that the PCs' first action in a fight with a Villain is disarm them, which can get boring rather quickly for the GM as well as the players.
Much as I'm loathe to suggest it, perhaps make Disarm a duelist maneuver, one that can only be used once per round (much like Riposte), and that instead of inflcting Wounds, the target is deprived of their weapon for a set (but short) duration (treat as Pressure?). Duelists already have enough going for them, so giving them another tool to play with is dead bottom on the list of sensible ways to approach this.
Or, require the acting character (PC or NPC) to spend a number of Raises equal to the target's Weaponry Ranks (or 1/2 Strength for Villains) to deprieve the target of their weapon until the target spends 2 Raises (again, treating it akin to Pressure) to either retrieve the weapon or draw a new one. At least with this approach, the disarm becomes a serious investment in the part of the acting character, especially a PC, and against a really capable combatant (effective Weaponry 4 or 5) it's going to take most if not all of a PC's turn to do the disarm, which makes it something the character has to consider "is it really worth all my Raises for this?"
To be honest, I'm not sure there really is a "good" answer that doesn't carry with it some degree of problem, the biggest one being the PCs keep using the disarm option over and over simply becaues it's effective to do so.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
Donovon
I understand what you're saying and I would agree if the cost to Disarm vs. Retrieve weapon was not the same. However, even if PC's always disarm a Villain as their first maneuver, the Villain can simply pick the weapon back up with a Raise (With a cool description of course). The only Duelist Maneuver that requires a specific weapon is the Dueling Style's special maneuver. All the rest could technically be done with anything the Villain is wielding...a backup dagger, their sheath, a nearby stick, etc.
I too dislike the idea of putting Disarm solely in the hands of Duelists via an Maneuver. I DO like the idea that you must devote as many Raises as the opponent has Ranks in Weaponry though. (Treated similar to a Consequence for Wounds, where you have to devote however many you want in one bunch). If this is used, however, there needs to be some penalty for retrieving the Weapon...at minimum it would require the disarmed character to spend that many Raises to retrieve the weapon (Though perhaps not all in one bunch, since they could 'get closer' 'make an attempt' etc until they'd devoted enough Raises to picking up their weapon). This has the same 'net effect' of 1:1 but does make the costs higher all around to keep it from being used every fight.
John
I agree that there doesn't seem to be a good way to handle this. I've been talking about it with one of my players (a fellow GM in another state), and we've been waffling between making it work like an Opportunity, enforcing that the one performing the disarm spend at least one Hero Point to make it happen, or applying it as a contested action (especially if the disarm could lead to the loss of a weapon, such as fighting on a beam between ships).
We haven't really decided what works best for our group yet, and by the sounds of things, it seems house ruling based on groups is probably the best approach to this.
"Smilies exist because no one's bothered to create a sarcasm font." --Lost_Heretic
I think in the end, the best overall solution, both in terms of mechanics and avoiding player abuse, is to just treat it like Pressure, with the target either having to spend a Raise to reacquire their weapon, or two Raises to do something else, such as draw another weapon and attack, or make a barehanded swing or an unsportsmanlike kick to somewhere beneath the belt.
It probably lacks the kind of flair that having actual disarm mechanics might provide, but it's also not quite as prone to rampant abuse as disarm mechanics have been in other RPGs (D&D 3.X I am staring you dead-center in the eyes).
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/
Remember the Approach and improvise mechanics. for villains, this is a little trickier, but if a player is disarmed, then the action to pick up their weapon may be a different approach, so would cost two raises to do it . For example, say a character decides to attack with their saber using brawn+weaponry. The villain disarms them. To pick up the weapon might well be finesse+athletics. That’s improvising, so it’ll cost two raises. Against villains, the only time disarming will be worth it will be if they’ve got a pistol, are a duelist or have a trademark weapon. The rewards in all of those cases are fairly baked in-the players are denying the villain access to their more powerful abilities.
Well any other characters in play coud react to this and spend a raise to recover your weapon and another to throw it back to you or just spend a raise to hand you their weapon. You could also grab an improvised weapon or draw another weapon.
Anyway, I agree on the change of approach to recover it yourself, it should involve spending an extra raise on that action and fighting with your bare hands you'd take an extra raise each time it's used. That is unless you had advantages that would help there (dinamic approach) or you had to roll for the next round.
Peasant
I think you may be taking the definition a bit too far. If you're using your weapon to attack someone (Regardless of how you've described it), then retrieving said weapon would definitey fit into your approach. I agree with Salamanca that if you start charging an Extra Raise for things like Disarming, it will not be fun and it will be the opening move of almost anyone since there's a Raise benefit to it.
John
Okay someone may have mentioned this already but there is a systemic problem with making Disarm 1 Raise. Specifically, you get what happened in the example duel (disarm, recover, disarm, trade weapons, etc.) played out in the extreme. As a Villain disarming a hero prior to the hero’s action could very easily force a change of action and thus a penalty, it would always be more efficient to disarm than not unless you have only one raise. As mentioned above, many gaming groups and players will likely struggle to escape the “D&D mindset” when first playing this game and if imposing conditions (blind, prone, disarm) is too easy, many players will do it as a matter of course.
There are a few solutions. I happen to prefer the following:
“Disarm costs a number of Raises equal to the opponent’s X (with a minimum of 1)”
The X could be Fighting, Strength, or virtually any other statistic that reflects the target’s natural ability or cultivated skill to not get easily disarmed. After all, it should be more difficult to part a duelist from his sword than a drunk sailor from his club. In my opinion, disarming an opponent should be expensive because of all the potential, and potentially lasting, negative effects it can impose.
For an in depth discussion of how this and other conditions could be resolved, see this post.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”
- H.L. Mencken
An alternate suggestion for a "Disarm" perhaps?
Generally, the only time we see someone using a disarm is when that person has had extensive training in swordplay, which in this system tends to be characters with a Duelist style. But, instead of creating a new Maneuver (I'm of the opinion that Duelists have going for them already), why not just treat the existing Bash Maneuver as a narrative equivalent to a disarm? Mechanically it's the same effect, just that instead of a punch to the face or a whack with the hilt of your weapon, the Bash is instead described as that you've instead briefly deprived your foe of his weapon.
This actually works pretty well when dealing with Brutes, as the GM can narrate it as once those Brutes who've been deprived of their weapons spend their "action" scrambling to recover said weapons, noting why they're not dealing damage once it comes time for the Brute Squad to act.
It's a little tricker when facing off with a Villain (or a Villain using this on a Hero), but the reduced damage accounts for the opponent having had to pause their attack sequence in order to recover their weapon, throwing off their timing/pattern/rhythm and making their follow-up attack less effective than it'd normally be.
Using a good example of a cinematic duel, during the Chatty Duelists sequence in The Princess Bride, there's a point where Westley knocks Inigo's sword out of our favoriate Spainard's hand and up into the air. Inigo takes a few steps back, pauses, and then catches his sword before continuing the duel. Using the above idea, Westley would have spent a Raise to use Bash against Inigo, who spent his next Raise to do a Bash of his own though narratively described in terms of the scene as an elaborate series of parries since he's not doing any damage.
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/