NPC Disarm; Lacking Discipline Check?

[Grendlykins, Simp of Azalin Rex]

As far as I can tell there's one of two scenarios here; either the NPC in question's disarm automatically succeeds on a hit, or the discipline roll is simply hidden from the person being disarmed. Not sure what the go is here.

[Iridni Ren]

As far as I can tell there's one of two scenarios here; either the NPC in question's disarm automatically succeeds on a hit, or the discipline roll is simply hidden from the person being disarmed. Not sure what the go is here.

Bumping this because I experienced a similar result. Perhaps I don't understand exactly how Disarm works, but there was no Discipline check from The Gourmand's Lieutenant in Ghastria.

I would think it's just my ignorance, but the OP is someone I recall as having a firm grasp of NWN mechanics.

Reading the description of how Discipline interacts with Disarm and looking at my PC's Discipline skill, it shouldn't have succeeded.

[zDark Shadowz]

The discipline roll is hidden on combat feat checks.

Whatever their attack roll is, is checked against your discipline skill +1d20. If you want to be safe from Disarm you're going to need 20 more discipline than their attack (when rolling disarm) since its effectively AB +1d20 vs discipline +1d20, and weapon size is factored into the attack roll itself rather than the hidden check so if you have a greatsword better spam those Disarm attacks on dagger users.

I'm not sure if the auto-fail on 1 being turned off on the server affects these checks though, can only tell the saving throws in the log.

[Iridni Ren]

The discipline roll is hidden on combat feat checks.

Whatever their attack roll is, is checked against your discipline skill +1d20. If you want to be safe from Disarm you're going to need 20 more discipline than their attack (when rolling disarm) since its effectively AB +1d20 vs discipline +1d20, and weapon size is factored into the attack roll itself rather than the hidden check so if you have a greatsword better spam those Disarm attacks on dagger users.

I'm not sure if the auto-fail on 1 being turned off on the server affects these checks though, can only tell the saving throws in the log.

Thanks for the explanation.

But if this is how it works, then having a discipline score significantly lower than your AC is largely worthless, correct? If the same roll is used for both checks, then a roll that hit is almost guaranteed to break discipline.

Example: You are buffed to AC 45, and your Disc is 25.

On any hit, the left side of the equation will be 45 or greater. Therefore it will be impossible for the right side to beat it, even having virtually maxed discipline.

That wouldn't seem very balanced: investing in one feat defeats investing 25 skill points.

[EO]

This is hardcoded, and not a bug, so moving this to resolved. There's no debate to be had here about whether it's balanced or not.

[Iridni Ren]

I'm just trying to make sure I understand how it works, since nothing shows in the combat log to give any clue.

It doesn't seem as though it *ought* to work this way, but if it does, I'd like to know

It makes Discipline a far less worthwhile investment.

[SardineTheAncestor]

Yes, that's correct. For the sake of an extreme example, if you have 175 AC and 20 Discipline, and you're fighting someone with like 25 AB (after any reductions), no matter what, if they hit you with a knockdown attempt, you will get knocked down, because they needed to roll a 20 to hit you anyway.

For classes who do not have it as a class skill, Discipline can get pretty high if you skill focus and cross class in it and have a lot of enchanted gear with a bonus to that. What this will do is protect you while you aren't buffed, or protect you from characters who can't even knock you down if they make an attempt with a 20 (which isn't an auto-success; you will be hit, but the game will alert both attacker and defender that the knockdown attempt was resisted).

If someone can only hit you on a 20, they're probably going to knockdown just so you can't fight back. The characters who can't max Discipline have other ways of avoiding damage, usually magic or stealth or something.

Balance doesn't really come into it. NWN doesn't port all of the tabletop game's mechanics 1:1, and even the base game is very different to our server. In some ways, it's good that offensive tactics are generally stronger than defensive ones, but the game wasn't balanced for PvP and usually the scales will be pretty tilted one way or the other. The meta of achieving high minimum scores to avoid failure in a game where you are supposed to experience many successes and many failures also disrupts this design, but it can be thrilling at times, even if it's frustrating at others.

[Iridni Ren]

What this will do is protect you while you aren't buffed, or protect you from characters who can't even knock you down if they make an attempt with a 20 (which isn't an auto-success; you will be hit, but the game will alert both attacker and defender that the knockdown attempt was resisted).

That's useful to know. Thanks.