Registered Member #1401
Joined: 10:57:55 pm GMT 02/21/09
Posts: 43
From what the NWN wiki says, it seems like my animal companion hawk should have the disarm feat right from level 1. I can remember him using it in combat constantly on the last server I played on, but I don't remember ever seeing him attempt it on Thain, even on lowly goblins (who seem to be armed with daggers or short swords ripe for the plucking).
Have I misunderstood the rules? Is there a known issue? Something I'm not doing?
Always Preceding Miggen Registered Member #136
Joined: 4:31:27 am GMT 06/13/04
Posts: 16130
When you say "ripe for the plucking," are you expecting that disarm would drop the weapon to the ground? If the weapon is not tagged as "droppable," then it simply goes into that creature's inventory... they could potentially re-equip it later, but their damage output is significantly reduced until they do.
Check the combat logs carefully as it's likely that if the hawk has the feat, it may be attempting to use it, which would show up in the combat logs. However, even if it's successfully used, you can't "pluck" the equipped weapons of your enemies (unless they're tagged to drop, which isn't the case in most creature blueprints).
In stock NWN, I'm pretty sure the standard palette blueprints don't have "droppable" equipped items--a server module has to be intentionally modifed to set that behavior (and I've heard of servers where you can do this to other PCs and take their gear without consent, which seemed to be a sore point of contention among Players).
Registered Member #625
Joined: 11:10:21 pm GMT 10/02/05
Posts: 1241
Also be aware that Disarm is opposed by DISCIPLINE. In stock NWN, few monsters have this skill to any degree, making Disarm and Knockdown very strong. Thain has customized its monsters, I believe, to have DISCIPLINE fitting to their roles and abilities.
Considering
attempting a disarm applies a -6 penalty to the character's attack roll, and the combatant with the larger weapon gains a +4 bonus per size category of difference
a Hawk will have an extremely difficult time pulling off a Disarm, considering relative size modifiers, attack bonuses, and so on.
Registered Member #1401
Joined: 10:57:55 pm GMT 02/21/09
Posts: 43
In most cases, I'm not interested in acquiring the weapons, but having unarmed opponents is advantageous. I think a little white 'Disarm' notification (like the 'Sneak Attack' one) should show up over the avatar on every attempt, but my memory of this may be wrong.
BTW, making the items droppable is probably ill-advised, as it leads to a lot of crappy weapons that nobody wants lying around, cluttering up and slowing down the server.
This is my boomstick. Registered Member #763
Joined: 2:33:38 am GMT 05/08/06
Posts: 2324
Merikks hawk has done it once or twice. But pretty infrequent. Keep in mind the AI likely doesnt attempt it unless conditions are pretty favorable to do. High AB vs Low AC situations I think.
Registered Member #1401
Joined: 10:57:55 pm GMT 02/21/09
Posts: 43
Ahh. That combined with higher Discipline for Thain monsters might account for it, though I've mostly been dealing with goblins and kobolds, which ought to be on the wimpy side, I would think.
Registered Member #787
Joined: 8:48:31 am GMT 05/30/06
Posts: 1761
Kobolds are rather wimpy, yes, but so are the bird familiars. As already written, and to what limited knowledge I possess of the NWN combat system, the AI will more than likely look for some "sweet spot" between AB vs. Discipline and all that. At a low level, the negative AB the hawk would likely have, and add the creature size into it, and it's likely the Disarm feat will not be used. Though the AI has also been known to spam the various feats, like Knockdown, for many rounds in a row. After a few levels when the hawk has a higher AB, you'll probably start to see the Disarm feat fire more on the lowly lil guys.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
My level 20 wizardess used to get her staff disarmed by bats in Feywood fairly often. The AI does cheat; it looks at your AC, your discipline, the critters' AB and other modifiers (size, etc.) and applies an internal rule-of-thumb to determine whether it will use an active combat feat. If it decides to use the feat, it will generally spam it endlessly until it succeeds.
💅 Registered Member #463
Joined: 1:37:12 am GMT 03/10/05
Posts: 7900
I wouldn't say that's cheating... I would call it a "natural sense" maybe. Too often I find the AI too dumb... it's good to actually have it sometimes not waste a disarm attack over and over and instead only initiate it when needed.
[ The Island of Thain ]
Hawk Animal Companion - Disarm feat
As already written, and to what limited knowledge I possess of the NWN combat system, the AI will more than likely look for some "sweet spot" between AB vs. Discipline and all that. At a low level, the negative AB the hawk would likely have, and add the creature size into it, and it's likely the Disarm feat will not be used. Though the AI has also been known to spam the various feats, like Knockdown, for many rounds in a row. After a few levels when the hawk has a higher AB, you'll probably start to see the Disarm feat fire more on the lowly lil guys.
