Quick Question:

Arsenal Pg. 159 states, "If they [the defender] successfully defend against the attack (i.e. they score more hits than their opponent), they knock the weapon out of their opponent's hand."

SR 4 Pg. 150 states (in the section regarding called shots and the disarm effect), "If the modified Damage Value of the attack exceeds the target's Strength, the target loses his grip on the object. The GM determines whether or not the object is damaged and how far away it is knocked."

Is the comparison in the SR 4 rules (Modified DV vs. Target Strength) used when applying the Disarm maneuver from Arsenal? Is it superceded by Arsenal? Is it only applicable when trying to Disarm via Called Shot without the Disarm maneuver? (i.e. not having to beat the target's strength with your modified DV an implicit benefit of disarming via the martial arts maneuver as opposed to the called shot)

Official input especially would be helpful here. Thanks.

Yeah, I've been really curious about this as well. At least I'd like to think a lanyard could help, but the mechanics are rather fuzzy.

I don't really see a problem here.

The disarm rules out of the SR4 BBB still apply when a.) you are attacking, b.) you are calling a shot (Free Action in addition) and c.) you do not have the Disarm martial arts maneuver.

The Disarm maneuver from Arsenal applies when you have the Martial Arts quality and the requisite Maneuver, and you are defending.

I imagine the SR4 Method being more of an aggressive, brute-force method towards disarming, whereas the Disarm maneuver from Arsenal is more technique, countering, and finesse. The mechanics bear this out, in my opinion, as it's pretty tough for most people to disarm using the BBB's disarming rules, while it's comparatively easy to do so with Arsenal's.

Aye, the rules in Arsenal are solely for using the Disarm maneuver.

Bleh. Alright. I guess I just find it kinda disheartening that the lanyard doesn't really help you hold onto your weapon when someone tries to disarm you. Plus, I'm assuming you guys intended the lanyard to be added into the defense pool when someone attempts to disarm you the normal way, correct? Because otherwise it doesn't really seem to do anything unless you glitch and your GM makes up a test on the spot.

The sling and lanyard help out with both the Maneuver "disarm" and the Called Shot "disarm", as in both cases there's an opposed test made.

With the Called Shot, the attacker suffers the -4 called shot penalty, and the defender gets a bonus from his sling or lanyard because it adds bonus dice to any "test to determine whether or not he can hold onto the weapon" (which is what this test is about to do). This makes sense to me.

With the Maneuver, you're doing this defensively... you get a penalty to Full Parry, the attacker tries to club you with his pistol, and he gets a bonus since the maneuver you're executing means he's making a "test to determine whether or not he can hold onto the weapon." The problem I've got here isn't that I don't see where the bonus works its way into the system... it's that I'm not sure I'm comfortable with lanyards making me better at pistol whipping someone who's trying to maneuver-disarm me.