Controlling Trip (3.5e)

[Rewen]

I'm kind of new to role playing games. I believe I have a pretty good understanding of the rules but I could be missing something.

Trip seems overpowered. I don't get why tripping with a weapon is a touch attack? Dual weilding range weapons with Imp. two-weapon fighting (among others) gives a player FOUR attempts to trip in one turn?

With touch being generally the lowest AC, this makes it too easy for a player of lower level to knock down almost any thing. Am I missing something?

[Medic!]

Trip is a great battlefield controller, but after the touch you still have to win an opposed check, your str vs their str or dex (whichever's higher). And if you fail they can usually attempt to trip you back for free. Trip is great, but there are definately measures that can be taken to prevent it from being effective at all.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Trip seems overpowered. I don't get why tripping with a weapon is a touch attack? Because you only need to physically hit them, there's no going through armor or anything like that, as long as they don't dodge you, you're capable of knocking them over.


Dual weilding range weapons with Imp. two-weapon fighting (among others) gives a player FOUR attempts to trip in one turn? 1) Tripping deals no damage in and of itself, Improved Trip does change that by giving you a free extra attack against someone you successfully trip, but once they're down, they're down.
2) You can't trip with ranged attacks, if you're talking about reach weapons, they're generally two-handed and therefore cannot be dual wielded without loosing the benefit of reach.

That being said, Tripping is one of the more effective melee options. It's by no means broken though.

[tyckspoon]

I'm kind of new to role playing games. I believe I have a pretty good understanding of the rules but I could be missing something.

Trip seems overpowered. I don't get why tripping with a weapon is a touch attack? Dual weilding range weapons with Imp. two-weapon fighting (among others) gives a player FOUR attempts to trip in one turn?


As mentioned above, there's the contested check after the touch attack to actually cause the trip; you can rig that in your favor, but it's a lot harder than making the touch attack (size and having multiple legs give huge bonuses to it, and are qualities that are generally found on things that already have high Strength scores.. which means that a lot of monsters, in general, aren't worth trying to trip unless you're also as big and as strong as an Ogre.) You also can't normally make a trip attack with a ranged weapon, so you need to get near/have your targets get near you to do it (there's a feat which lets you do it somewhere, and bolas have the special property of letting make a ranged trip.. but that's yet more investment in the trick.)

[marcielle]

Don't forget, things larger or possesed of more limbs than you get bonuses like nobodies business against tripping.

[Medic!]

As mentioned above, multiple legs, dwarves, and each size catagory larger than you is worth a +4 each in the other guy's favor on the opposed check. Being disarmed or having your reach weapon sundered also puts a bit of a damper on trip-happy PCs.

That being said, I've been "that guy" before and brought the spiked chain fighter that trips then disarms everything in sight mercilessly and caused the DM to rip his hair out. The most rewarding part was tripping the guys with longbows and being asked, "What? Not gonna disarm them?" No sir. Sure ain't.

[stainboy]

OP: If you're new to the game, take a look at some of the things spellcasters can do (even low level ones). Tripping multiple times per round is kind of a cool trick but not a big deal.

[Ernir]

A one-trick pony is only a problem if their trick is always applicable. Does your mix of opponents include its fair share of Large+ creatures, quadrupeds, fast flyers, ill-accessible ranged attackers, and well-prepared spellcasters?

In any case, I'd advise against heavy-handed houseruling to nerf trippers at this point.

[herrhauptmann]

It starts to die by level 10, when monsters start being really big and/or really strong.
Starts taking more and more optimization to keep up with the monsters.
And it's so easy to shut down too. Throw varied enemies at them like you should be doing, and let him have his turn in the sun.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I'm kind of new to role playing games. I believe I have a pretty good understanding of the rules but I could be missing something.

Trip seems overpowered. I don't get why tripping with a weapon is a touch attack? Dual weilding range weapons with Imp. two-weapon fighting (among others) gives a player FOUR attempts to trip in one turn?

With touch being generally the lowest AC, this makes it too easy for a player of lower level to knock down almost any thing. Am I missing something?

Go look at the 1st level spell Grease. One casting per combat makes most of the enemies prone or flat-footed at low levels, since you're generally not facing more than 3.
At 3rd level, you get Web and Inisibility.
At 5th level, there's Sleet Storm, Stinking Cloud, Displacement, and Fly. At 7th level, there's Black Tentacles and Solid Fog.
At 9th level, you get Wall of Stone, Wall of Force, Cloudkill, and Dominate Person.
At 11th level, you get Acid Fog, Wall of Iron, and Mass Suggestion.
At 13th level, you get Mass Hold Person (useful for those brutes and sneaks), plus a variety of useful utility.
At 15th level, you get Prismatic Wall, Maze, and Irresistable Dance.
At 17th level, you get Astral Projection, which when combined with Plane Shift, is basically "I sit in my super protected and mundanely and magically hidden fortress/demiplane of doom while adventuring as normal", Gate, which for a mere 1000 XP allows you to summon a heavily templated dragon of 34-40 HD, and Shapechange, which allows you to turn into that dragon, minus the templates.
And starting at 5th level, you have enough spell slots to cast two spells per encounter, minus cantrips and utility, and the number only goes up from there.

Now does the tripper look so powerful?

[Rewen]

Great tips all around! You are right, that's really all the build can do properly. I have just been using too many easy humanoid enemies. Balor inc!

[marcielle]

All others aside, if you are fighting other humanoids with character levels instead of Dragons and such(for example, an urban campaign) tripping is pretty darn good. Readying an action to Improved Trip a caster(they won't always have the luxury of long range in urban) prety much shuts them down as they add violent movement on top of your damage to the concentration DC. But if you reall wanna trip you NEED to be a swordsage. Throwing your enemies up into the air whenever you trip them is just awesome. Beating your other enemies with afore mentioned poor sod is hilarious.

[Vladislav]

Please don't go into the other extreme by always having your PCs face nothing but Giant Quadrupeds of Doom. Give the tripper a chance to shine once in a while.