Thrown Weapon Disarm Shenanigans

[jacobbissonette]

On disarm:

Nor can you avoid it by dropping the weapon to the ground or throwing your weapon up in the air just before the packet is about to hit you, thus claiming that the weapon was not in your possession at the point of contact of the spell

Hypothetical situation: Rogue throws a terminate, via throwing knife, at Mage. Mage quickly casts disarm weapon and hits Rogue before the terminate hits Mage.

Question: Is the thrown weapon disarmed before the terminate landed, because it was thrown without coming to rest, or does the terminate land and the disarm hit another target if any. Further, if the disarm counts before the terminate, is the terminate blown?

 

[elliotbay]

If I recall correctly, it is a local ruling that the item is still in the target's possession for the purposes of shatter and disarm until the item comes to rest, so here's my order of events:

Disarm leaves Mage's hand. Whatever happens to the mage now doesn't affect that he's thrown a Disarm.
Terminate leaves Rogue's hand. Whatever happens to the rogue now doesn't affect that he's thrown a Terminate.
Disarm hits Rogue. He is now prevented from picking up his thrown weapon for 5 seconds, even if he can get to it in that time.
Terminate hits Mage. Ouch.

The order of the former two and the order of the latter two don't matter for the purposes of resolution.

 

[Renner]

Assuming the rogue does not have an off hand weapon, I would agree with Jimmy. If said rogue has an off hand weapon, I would go with the weapon actually still in hand over the one they just threw.

 

[jacobbissonette]

So then, bringing in shatter, Mage now throws shatter instead of disarm. Based on your current resolution, it would appear that the terminate lands and then the weapon shatters if it has not come to rest. Or is it different with shatter?

 

[Renner]

Same resolution I would go with.

 

[evi1r0n]

I think we are taking a rule that was intended to avoid cheese and applying it in odd places. A thrown weapon or gas glob is a shatterable/disarmable item. As long as the person isn't throwing it to avoid the effect, I don't think the effect would land after it has left the attacker's hands.

 

[Avaran]

I think the intent of the rule there is to avoid cheating through cheese; I think it goes to intent. If a person has intended to throw a Thrown Weapon at someone and gets hit with a Disarm or Shatter after it has left their hands, it is no longer a hand-held item which would result in a "no effect" call for a Disarm (assuming no Spell Shield/Reflect Magic or other applicable defense) or Shatter (if the target was specified; the spell descriptions are pretty specific in that Disarm/Shatter effects hand-held items first if no target is specified, followed by Player's Choice if a generic "item" is called; or no effect if the call doesn't apply to anything the person has/is holding). If the intent is to drop or throw an item to avoid the spell, then I would say they take the effect and I'd have a chat with the player about not cheesing rules.

Jimmy, I don't see any reference to this in the Local Clarifications thread, and I didn't find anything on the Marshal board, but my Search Fu might not be up to snuff. Could you provide a reference please?

 

[elliotbay]

I fear my only reference is a remembered field ruling (ie "that's the way we've always done it"), followed by my own interpretation of this passage:

Nor can you avoid it by dropping the weapon to the ground or throwing your weapon up in the air just before the packet is about to hit you, thus claiming that the weapon was not in your possession at the point of contact of the spell.

Tone issues aside, this passage tells you what doesn't happen in a specific instance, but not why from a rules mechanic perspective. Given that I don't want to be in the business of deciding what someone's intent was, I think the easiest answer to why that circumstance works the way it does is that something is still considered in your hands for the purposes of a disarm spell until it has come to rest.

Ron and Adam: You favor a ruling based on whether we think the target of the disarm was cheesing it. That makes me uncomfortable on the face of it, but consider this scenario. Mage throws a disarm at Rogue, who only has his one weapon, a throwing weapon, left. Rogue thinks: Oh crap. If this lands, I'll be completely defenseless. I need to find some way to incapacitate this mage, and to do that, I need to throw this weapon at him before the disarm lands. "Terminate!" In this case, he was indeed trying to get rid of the weapon in order to not be affected by the disarm, but was that cheesing it? Would it change your answer if I hadn't included the last clause of Rogue's thoughts? In reality, in the middle of battle, your thoughts don't form words, you just decide and do. Who's to say how much of his decision was to not lose his weapon, and how much was to terminate Mage? Anything that Rogue comes up with after the fact is merely a rationalization. I'd prefer to instead rule on what happened, rather than on how noble I think the player's intent was.

Renner: For the purposes of a disarm, only handheld items are valid targets. If the thrown weapon is indeed a valid target, then it's the recipient's decision which weapon to drop. If it's not, then it's not. I don't think we should create a "valid target, but last in priority" category.


As for switching it to shatter, I was surprised to find that there is no similar passage in the rule book about not throwing shatterable items down. Nevertheless, it's similar enough to disarm that I would rule it the same way for consistency. Mage gets one last bit of revenge against the weapon that struck him down, and the weapon gets one last strike in before crumpling to a useless pile of scrap.

 

[evi1r0n]

Ron and Adam: You favor a ruling based on whether we think the target of the disarm was cheesing it. That makes me uncomfortable on the face of it, but consider this scenario. Mage throws a disarm at Rogue, who only has his one weapon, a throwing weapon, left. Rogue thinks: Oh crap. If this lands, I'll be completely defenseless. I need to find some way to incapacitate this mage, and to do that, I need to throw this weapon at him before the disarm lands. "Terminate!" In this case, he was indeed trying to get rid of the weapon in order to not be affected by the disarm, but was that cheesing it? Would it change your answer if I hadn't included the last clause of Rogue's thoughts? In reality, in the middle of battle, your thoughts don't form words, you just decide and do. Who's to say how much of his decision was to not lose his weapon, and how much was to terminate Mage? Anything that Rogue comes up with after the fact is merely a rationalization. I'd prefer to instead rule on what happened, rather than on how noble I think the player's intent was.

Your example requires a reaction time that isn't a thing. I have rarely seen a situation where you would have that much time to think and act between the throw and when it hits. The passage you quote says "Nor can you avoid it by dropping the weapon to the ground or throwing your weapon up in the air." To me that reads throwing something away with the sole intent of avoiding the spell. I say if it's a valid thrown weapon or gas globe attack, it's no longer a hand held item when it leaves the hand.

 

[Avaran]

I think that in the heat of combat, it's pretty difficult to have that scenario play out; depending on distance, it would require clairvoyance on the part of the Rogue to know that the Mage is going to toss that Disarm at him. It is more likely to happen with greater distance between caster and target, so I'm not saying it's outside the realm of something that could happen, but then it'd be a lot easier to "see" negative player intent (dropping to cheese the effect). I'd agree in the Shatter thing having a similar intent as Disarm and the "cheese" factor.

My thoughts go more toward the intent/spirit of the rule than anything else, as well as simplicity. If we say that someone can't be disarmed if there's nothing in their hand(s) (per the spell description), that's straight-forward, simple, and complies with current standards; same with Shatter, if Rogue isn't holding a Thrown Weapon in his hand(s) when a Thrown Weapon is shattered, there's nothing to Shatter. That way we aren't making any sort of exception(s) for Thrown Weapon (or other weird things, which is what I think this would be) or overly complicating certain situations. Does that make sense?

 

[elliotbay]

Ron: You're right. In combat, you don't think words. In fact, with most decisions, you decide, and then later figure out why you decided that way, rather than the other way around. I've seen it happen that a guy threw aside his shield to avoid it getting shattered. He wasn't thinking words, just trying not to be affected by the packet. A lot of input goes into your mind when you decide what to do, and indeed, there's no time to consciously sift through it. That's why it's especially difficult to rule on the basis of intent.

Anyway, so you say you'd only make them take it if there were no other possible reason for dropping the thing? What if they want to pull out a different weapon quickly? I've dropped things on the battlefield when sheathing it would take too much time. That sure could look a lot like throwing the thing away to avoid the effect. The other thing you have to consider is time delay. There's a fight with spells being thrown left and right, and Fighter decides his shield is a liability. Is that the reason he dropped his shield, or was it because of Mage starting to incant with an evil gleam in his eye? Sometimes, even the player doesn't know. That situation would rarely come up, but the rules should be consistent even given these weird circumstances.

Adam: I think our perspectives differ on what constitutes an undesirable exception. To me, "For the purposes of disarm and shatter, an item is still considered in the target's hand until it is both at rest and the target's hand is not touching it," is a useful clarification, and can be applied in a variety of situations, weird and mundane, whereas "If you throw aside an item for the sole purpose of avoiding the effects of a disarm or shatter spell, that item takes the effects anyway, but if you throw aside the weapon for any other reason, you're safe" is a weird exception that complicates things. I think I understand where you're coming from, in the sense that I can predict how you'll feel about certain things, but I do not share your perspective.

 

[Avaran]

"If you throw aside an item for the sole purpose of avoiding the effects of a disarm or shatter spell, that item takes the effects anyway, but if you throw aside the weapon for any other reason, you're safe" is a weird exception that complicates things.

But isn't that what the spell description is outright saying (or at the very least, implying)?

Pg 117 for the Disarm Spell description:
"This spell causes the target to drop one specific hand-held item ... You cannot avoid this spell by borrowing a weapon and thus claiming the the spell doesn't affect you because the weapon isn't "yours". Nor can you avoid it by dropping the weapon to the ground or throwing your weapon up in the air just before the packet is about to hit you, thus claiming that the weapon was not in your possession at the point of contact of the spell."

For me, it's a simple check:

Is an item being held in the victim's hand(s)?

If YES, then <procedure>

If CHEESE, then YES <procedure>.

If NO, then "no effect."

Either way, there has to be a "Check for cheese" because it's written into the rules, and it's the job of the Marshals to judge that every time it happens. To me, the "weird exception" is built-in.

I think that "check for cheeese" becomes easier the longer you're around the game/combat because it gets easier to read body language and intent the more you see and experience combat. For example, most of the time when someone is tossing a weapon down, they are almost always immediately reaching for something else or turning to do something else (not always, but the vast majority of times I'd say that is true).

Does that make more sense? I could just not be explaining this well.

I do not share your perspective.

Fair enough. =)

 

[elliotbay]

For me, it's a simple check:

Is an item being held in the victim's hand(s)?

If YES, then <procedure>

If CHEESE, then YES <procedure>.

If NO, then "no effect."

"If CHEESE" is never a simple check, in my mind, because you're reading intent, and in general, we're all just trying to follow the rules and play the game. One might interpret the RAW to require that check for intent, but to me: "Nor can you avoid it by dropping the weapon to the ground or throwing your weapon up in the air just before the packet is about to hit you" should work no matter why the target is dropping the weapon to the ground or throwing it up in the air. Though the tone is clearly judgmental toward the target in the 2 cases listed, it doesn't explicitly call for a judgment of intent.

Using the previous sentence, written in a similar tone, as an example: "You cannot avoid this spell by borrowing a weapon and thus claiming the the spell doesn't affect you because the weapon isn't 'yours'." The way that reads to me, it simply says that ownership is not something considered in this spell, only possession. Though it's still clearly implying that these people are reprehensible, it doesn't require that you check whether someone is trying to "cheese" the rules, it simply defines the extent of the spell. Granted, the next sentence (that we've been arguing about) isn't as clear about why the scenario doesn't work, so my interpretation is one that seems to make the most sense holistically.

 

[Avaran]

Let me try to break it down a bit more...

For me, tossing a weapon (that isn't meant to be tossed) into the air is different than throwing a weapon (that is meant to be thrown) at someone; those are two separate and distinct things to me.

If I see someone tossing a Sword (spear/polearm/bow/etc.) into the air, they are clearly not using said weapon for its intended purpose. But if they are hurtling a Dagger of Doom™ AT someone, with the intent to do harm (calling damage / Terminate / effect), it gets pretty easy to tell intent in that context; the same could be said if they are tossing the Dagger of Doom™ straight into the air without calling damage or an effect.

Would your answer change if the target were an Arrow instead of a Thrown Weapon?

Tossing something on the ground seems like less of an issue than a Shatter, because you're essentially Disarming yourself (though potentially less than 5 seconds). In the case of Shatter, being Shattered with the projectile in mid-air and having the effect/damage still count is probably no different or silly than being able to use a Riposte on an Arrow or Bolt from 30+ feet away.

Overall, I think both ways are potentially convoluted, but for different reasons (When did it come to rest? When did YOUR five second count start? Aren't you a little short to be a storm trooper? vs What was your motivation? Are you ready for your close-up? What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?). Either way, our Mage friend is having a terrible day; poor guy probably took that Terminate to the toe!

P.S.

My submitted form was an invalid!

 

[obcidian_bandit]

P.S.
My submitted form was an invalid!

This happens if you leave a window open for a while before posting. I think the forum numbers posts as they are created based on the posts that exist at the creation time, but doesn't check to make sure the numbering is correct until it gets posted. This means that if you open reply then post a few minutes later, the numbering is probably correct. If, however, you open a reply, wait a few hours, then post, chances are good that someone else will have posted in the meantime, meaning that their post got the same number as your post was trying to use, making your post invalid. Hitting "Submit" again I think pulls a fresh number.