Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

Why is it that rangers dont get disarm?
I would think rangers would be at fairly decent swordsmen in their own right. Disarming an opponent should be within their skills

I believe it has to do with making a difference between the fighters guild and the rangers guild. Pretty sure it was discussed before.

hmm, seems a little odd to have this one kept out though. Granted I have never had problems with it as orplar. But wouldn't it make more sense to give bash to fighters, and not rangers?

I envision the rangers as the graceful light footed type. Not the walking tanks that could knock over an ogre.

I would think platemail and 5th attack would be a big difference, disarm is simply a swordplay ability that if you are skilled enough, you can do it.

~Lounti

I agree with orplar on that one. A ranger would more likely be adept at disarming rather than bashing

You can make the argument that every class should have the disarm skill - since in tabletop it's just a heavily penalized opposed attack...but since we don't have the luxury of using a medium that was made specifically for those mechanics, you have to make distinctions elsewhere.

While rangers don't have disarm, they have a bunch of spells that do more than make up for the skill (just like every other class that doesn't have disarm). One thing that I think can be done, to make disarm less crazy, is only allow 1 disarm mechanically per fight like the bash skill with mobs. Using disarm once gives you a round or two of no weapon attacks plus a good chance of the other not having improved brawling...that's a big enough bonus. Watching people pvp where 50% of the text is pc's knocking down and picking up weapons, make me cringe...

I think Horace's idea is fantastic, when people spar and they have to say to one-another, "OK, we're not going to disarm during this fight" because spamming disarm ends up being the best way to win a fight just seems strange.

I think disarm is already underpowered. Technically, all the defense is there with no greater benefit than the opponent doesn't fight with his weapon 1/2 a round (if they have quickdraw). They get to respond with their attack of opportunity, but don't go "prone" when picking up their weapon, nor provoke attacks of opportunity from regaining their weapon. Seems a bit skewed already.

I'd like to see better distinctions between fighters and other melee classes though. Saying "well, fighters have disarm and bash" is a weak crutch at best compared to rangers and paladins.

Heavy armor does little, from what I've seen, to stop a ranger or paladin. As it stands, rangers already can take out a fighter one on one in a duel if the fighter doesn't resort to cheesy tactics. Rangers get +1 attack for dual wield that fighters "can't manage to get," healing spells, and can choose a foe to get enhanced damage against.

Selveem - except disarm on mobs works fantastic.. I was just suggesting one way to make disarm less goofy in PVP situations, so a person doesn't have to make the decision of being a code jockey or someone who respects the intended use of the skill.

I don't think disarm should be strengthened purely for player vs. player situations.

Horace wrote:Selveem - except disarm on mobs works fantastic.. I was just suggesting one way to make disarm less goofy in PVP situations, so a person doesn't have to make the decision of being a code jockey or someone who respects the intended use of the skill.

I don't think disarm should be strengthened purely for player vs. player situations.

A lot of mobs, if I remember correctly, now retrieve their weapons? And maybe other people's weapons? I don't know if that's still in the game or not, but I remember there being a number of complaints about the mobs taking their stuff from the ground and it purging when the mob dies.

As for player versus player, why is this such a taboo subject? It's like the moment someone mentions it, everyone treats it as 'that which should not be spoken of."

Regardless of whether or not a person chooses to pursue any form of player versus player interaction, it happens. It's going to happen. If it doesn't happen, why would you be worried about another player? And, if you're not worried about another player, wouldn't being a Market Square-jockey be just as boring?

As much as no one wants to talk about player versus player balance, I really do feel this should be examined. Player versus player also applies to player versus environment. You want to be a powerhouse in both? You play a priest or wizard. Don't act surprised; everyone knows this.

Why should one class be so very potent over all the others?

I bring these things up because, regardless of whether or not disarm is granted to Rangers, there is nothing that makes fighters unique. All of their most powerful skills are cloned in other classes. Bash? Clerics get stun. Kick? LOL, rogues get gouge which is more powerful _and_ blinds. Disarm? Three other classes get it. Riposte? Nope, four other classes get it. Fifth attack? Negated by the multiple attacks gained by rangers when dual wielding. In fact, the only, only skill I know of that makes the fighter class unique is grip. Grip, the skill that is ridiculously hard to increase and rarely works.

I think disarm works well in npc battleand pc battle. In pc battle it allows for someone to regain a weapon based on a conscious choice and feats or skills to respond to it. Mobs sadly cannot always recover or be programmed to pick up weapons and auto wield, because of past issues involving picking up player weapons and attacking players with them.

As for player versus player, why is this such a taboo subject? It's like the moment someone mentions it, everyone treats it as 'that which should not be spoken of."

I see no evidence of this.

As for rangers and disarm, I would say that rangers spend more time attending to different things (e.g. woodland lore, protecting furry rabbits) than they do learning some of the finer points of weapons usage. I see the fighter learning to disarm but not the ranger. On the other hand, I find it hard to accept that any class of character with GM weapontype doesn't have the "grip" skill. I'm not sure how the code works regarding successful disarm attempts, but would hope it takes the weapon skill of the target into consideration.

I think how heavily a ranger looks into different things depends on rp.
Orplar being an elven ranger of tymora, seeks to perfect his skills. All of them. Combat and passive alike. As an elf he has a certain affinity for swordplay as well. Along with all sorts of other quirks. I think it should be one of this things it is 'available' to the player, but should rely on what they have upt forth RP wise for that particular character.

But Orplar, one of the ingrained truths of the ranger class is an affinity and love for the outdoors...so much so that they eventually get spells from their connection to it. You can role play your character as loving martial combat, and that can be represented by the skill levels you train, but you can't say your ranger can put the same sort of focus on it as a fighter does.

That's like saying a fighter could start getting divine spells because he really likes the outdoors too...but obviously that's silly.

I honestly wouldn't mind seeing rangers get the disarm skill available to them *AFTER* other combat feats have been added to the game. If the fighters could gain additional feat points for specific combat feats, perhaps even on a 'special combat list', I think that would be a wonderful start.

But then again, that's another topic to be discussed. Over all, I'm for the rangers having the skill only after the fighters have the ability to make themselves more distinct (additional combat feats).

Part of bash not being the differentiator may come from the fact that plain warriors can learn bash, and so blocking it from rangers would mean *removing* that learned skill from them if they trained it as a warrior. I think we try to avoid that, and this may be part of why bash isn't the discriminator that's used between fighters and rangers.

Horace wrote:While rangers don't have disarm, they have a bunch of spells that do more than make up for the skill (just like every other class that doesn't have disarm).

*IF* that were the case.

Paladins have a larger spell list than rangers, including a much stronger set of restorative/healing spells, plus dispel evil, layhands, full-time detect evil and etc:

disarm (27)

They get disarm half-way through their career.

Frankly, ANY warrior should be allowed to learn and train warrior skills, IMO. Classes shouldn't be distinguished by the skills that are taken *away* from them, rather by additional abilities that set them apart.

Much like we used to have clerics of different faiths that used to have incomplete spells lists, because we said we wanted to "distinguish" clerics of different faiths, and what we ended up with was certain faiths/alignments totally locked out from accessing crucial spells like Restoration, etc. Or we used to have wizards with incomplete spell lists because we wanted to "distinguish" them apart.

Warrior guilds should have a base, common skill set that includes a complete compliment of combat maneuvers. A ranger, even though it is a *specialized* warrior, is still a warrior, first and foremost. Fighters do excel in combat beyond the others, but that's what bonus feats are for in D&D standards. That's what feat trees like weapon specialization and whirlwind attack and others are for. Things that only a fighter either has access to the feats, or is one of the few with enough feat points in their career to afford the trees.

IMO, that's the direction we should go, it will make the fighters overall stronger, more competent warriors.

Please don't forget that many feats that are "good in D&D" do not translate well to the MUD.

Case and point: Spring Attack. How do we code something like this? You move out of the room and end combat, come back in and attack?

Something like whirlwind requires a good portion of code and is as relatively worthless in the MUD as Great Cleave is. Why?

Well, in D&D even as a high level it's very likely you'll fight a bunch of little people and get yourself surrounded. In FK? That's frowned upon and you get kicked out of areas. If you use it because you're helping out a lowbie, you're sapping away almost every bit of their experience by using either.

Feats are nice, but they aren't a very viable solution without more flexibility and deviation from Cannon source.

As for Rangers, technically they should also get fifth attack. They should also have disarm. They should get two-weapon fighting free, if they choose that route. I'm not denying that.

I'd be cool with everyone in the game having disarm - if it could only be used once in a combat...maybe even one attempt period, fail or succeed. I don't care, I just don't like the idea of being able to mash it and not effect your attacks.

You guys all have a point...I mainly just don't like the idea of changing it specifically to be better in pvp

I didn't make the post with the intention of recieving the disarm for secifically pvp purposes. The thing I want to figure out PVP wise is how the heck a warrioreven has -chance- agains wizards, but THAT is for a differen thread.

I like what Kregor said about the 'warrior' class as a base should have a set bit of skills. I dont think every class in the game should get disarm, wizards for example? I cant see them disarming anything intentionally, elenthis may stumble and knock a weapon out of someones hand, but thats just because he is clumsy.

I also like what Kregor said about rangers being the warrior first and foremest. We are the warriors of the wood. The ones that do put the extra rp, and woodland routines into our characters days because we do have an affinity for the outdoors. But we still came into it as warriors. I do have a fighter of Mielikki too, and his rp is totally different from orplars in so many ways.