Tripping again

[Max Caysey]

So this have been mentioned numerous times at this board, and even though I have seen the Tripping handbook, and other builds out there, I was wondering what the maximum Trip check is possible within level 20. Lets assume a maximum of LA +2 for race and no templates and no spellcasting. And no cheese.

I personally have it at around +50 but I would really enjoy seeing what you guys can come up with as this have been on my mind for some time.

Thanks

[ddude987]

What does no cheese mean? Some people consider some things "cheese" that others don't and vice versa. Perhaps a rules and or ban list.

[Psyren]

You have to define "cheese" or this will be a pointless exercise. And even then people will just find some trick you didn't define, you adjust your definition to include that, they find something else etc.

[WhamBamSam]

When you say no spells, does that include SLAs/PLAs? Because a Psionic Druegar with feat or two spent on Druegar Expansion is turning Huge as a swift action for 19 minutes at a time 3-5 times per day. Also, Factotum 3 gives Int to the check, but also gives you one 1st level spell per day as an SLA. What about Cleric dips or the like?

Also, what about Tornado Throw? You can clear +50 with some fairly simple movement speed optimization. Hell, off the top of my head, Wildshape Ranger 6/Swordsage 14 with Dragon Wild Shape to become a Very Young Mercury Dragon using Quicksilver Motion and Tornado Throw gets +41 on the very first throw of the maneuver without Improved Trip (after moving 200ft with Quicksilver Motion and 10 more before making the first throw per Tornado Throw's requirements, and after the -4 for being small, +1 for the form having a Str bonus). If you make sensible feat selections, you'll clear +50 easily, and will only continue to go up from there. If you really want the character to have no casting, you can trade out the ranger spells for a feat (Combat Expertise and Improved Trip are both on the list without requiring a combat style) at 4th level via Champion of the Wild. This probably meets your definition of cheese though.

Without any such chicanery, you probably want something like Half-Ogre Totemist 6/Wolf Totem Barbarian 2/Totem Rager 10 with Shape Soulmeld (Mauling Gauntlets) and Improved Soulmeld Capacity twice is probably a pretty good bet. Invest fully in the Sphinx Claws (bound to hands), Mauling Gauntlets (shaped to Arms), max out Str, and you've got +11 (Str while Raging) +4 (Size) + 4 (Improved Trip) +12 (Mauling Gauntlets) +6 Sphinx Claws = +37 before items. If you can make the Int and feat investment, then you could get another +4 through Cobalt Expertise.

[Max Caysey]

What does no cheese mean? Some people consider some things "cheese" that others don't and vice versa. Perhaps a rules and or ban list.

No cheese means no pun pun having 10000 str... Personally I dont know many of the cheese tricks, so I cant mention them all. But I was just thinking that infinity loops and polymorph abuse was not to be used. I was thinking that it should be items, feats, racial and class features that should be included. So no wish or polymorph abuse... nor any druid shapechange abuses.... Hope this clears it up a bit.

Heres what I have:

Goliath Barbarian 1/ Fighter 16/ Exotic weapon Master 1/ Crusader 1/ Marshal 1

Str +14
Powerful Build 4
Wolf-Berserker +4
Improved Trip +4
Exotic WM +2
Sweeping, grasping living chain +6
Tentacle Hide +2
Armbands of Might +2
Musclebound trait +1
Pale Green Prism +1
Marshal cha bonus +8
Total: 48

Some items like Torc of the Titans could be added, but I was thinking base/ pasive bonuses.
Also the fighter could be the exotic fighter variant class from dragon #310 for another +2 for a total of +50

[Giddonihah]

We counting Tornado Throw as a Trip? It uses a trip check afterall, and it can get some obscene modifiers when combined with movement speed increasers.
Chuck E Cheese is probally a cheese build, it has no infinity loops or abusive strength calcs, just really obnoxiously optimised speed, but you can stop litterally anywhere along its optimzation path and cut out every piece of cheese and still claim winner.

[Azoth]

Can't forget Pride domain for +4 to opposed checks so a Cleric dip is in order. Also Modified Expansion power for 7pp to go up 2 size categories.

[WhamBamSam]

When you say Shapechange, do you mean Wild Shape? Because again, I refer you to the Ranger/Swordsage from my above post. I actually did the math wrong too. The first trip check is actually +81, not +41, before Improved Trip.

Even without Wild Shaping, you can jack up movement speed pretty high for Tornado Throw. Passive Way Monk 2/Swordsage 4/Shadow Sun Ninja 10/Swordsage +4 starting from a regular human, has 70ft/round movement. Using the same Quicksilver Motion+Tornado Throw combo he'll get +20 to his first trip check and +88 to his last one just from Improved Trip and Tornado Throw bonuses. A Raptoran with the Air Heritage feat has 40ft more movement per round, and so hits +28 on the first check and +112 on the last one. And that's with a Str of 10, no traits, no other feats, and no items.

What if I'm just using Alter Self to get my high movement form on? That limits me to 120ft movement and requires I be some manner of exotic type (in my case a Dragonwrought Kobold, because that's how I roll, but a Neraph would also work perfectly well, possibly better) but it's still easily going to break the +50 threshold. Two builds spring to mind off the top of my head.

Venerable Dragonwrought Arctic Kobold Marshal 1/Fighter 1/Warblade 5/Thrall of Juiblex 4/Warblade +4/Master of Nine 5 will be a little tight on feats, but you can make it without flaws through Elder Evil worship (I'd go for Zargon or the Leviathan for fluff purposes) if you skip out on Improved Trip. Take Kobold Endurance with your Warblade 5 bonus feat. Your move speed will be 120 (Alter Self into Mercury Wymling) + 10 (Absolute Steel Stance) for a total of 130ft, or 140ft moved prior to the first throw, which is +56 right there. Even with the Arctic Kobold variant reducing the racial Str penalty, you're still taking a -9 between that and size before point buy, but Kobold Endurance gets 4 back, which still leaves you at +51, assuming point buy only gave you 10 Str before racial adjustments, and you still get to add your Cha to the check. Plus, you have the at will ability to summon oozes with a 4 round duration, so finish your tornado throw with all your enemies relatively close together and add insult to injury as they are engulfed by a Gelatinous Cube.

A slightly better and less evil version might be Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold Monk 1/Warblade 5/Tatooed Monk 5/Shadow Sun Ninja 9. You have the speed bonus of a Monk 15 and Mercury Wyrmling form through Alter Self (actually you can hit the 120ft movement speed cap with a number of dragon wyrmlings without having to be tiny, but perfect maneuverability is nice). So that's 170ft movement (Monk's unarmored speed bonus and Absolute Steel are both enhancement bonuses, so they don't stack).

Basically, at level 20, trip check optimization looks a lot like Tornado Throw optimization.

EDIT:
We counting Tornado Throw as a Trip? It uses a trip check afterall, and it can get some obscene modifiers when combined with movement speed increasers.
Chuck E Cheese is probally a cheese build, it has no infinity loops or abusive strength calcs, just really obnoxiously optimised speed, but you can stop litterally anywhere along its optimzation path and cut out every piece of cheese and still claim winner.Chuck E. Cheese doesn't actually work as Divine Impetus is a standard action by RAW, but yes, it's pretty easy to jack up movement speed for Tornado Throw.

Assuming you want to do it without Tornado Throw, I forgot about Wolf Berserker for the Totem Rager build I posted and didn't bother with traits. Those would bring the check up to +42 without items. With a +6 item and +4 inherent bonus to Str it's up to +46, and with the Sweeping Grasping Living Chain, Armbands of Might, and Pale Green Prism it's up to +55. Better if you can change from Half-Ogre to Psionic Druegar with its Expansion PLA.

[Giddonihah]

Chuck E Cheese recieved errata that stopped it from working anyways, entirely cheese regardless. Your post on conventional Tornado Throw is what I meant by 'cutting out the cheese', though I have an itching feeling that you missed something. Was it possible to get a cheetah's sprint? I remember there is a outsider (or perhaps psionic) race that gets some great speed bonuses.

[ddude987]

You said +2LA. Is this with LA buy off? Regardless, Lolth Touched is +1 LA for a +6 str. As far as I can tell enlarge person and expansion stack, so getting your size to gargantuan, Goliath counts that as colossal as far as I can tell. So...

Str +20
Size +12
Wolf-Berserker +4
Improved Trip +4
Exotic WM +2
Sweeping, grasping living chain +6
Tentacle Hide +2
Armbands of Might +2
Musclebound trait +1
Pale Green Prism +1
Marshal cha bonus +8 <-- this can be bumped higher
Total: +62

[WhamBamSam]

Chuck E Cheese recieved errata that stopped it from working anyways, entirely cheese regardless. Your post on conventional Tornado Throw is what I meant by 'cutting out the cheese', though I have an itching feeling that you missed something. Was it possible to get a cheetah's sprint? I remember there is a outsider (or perhaps psionic) race that gets some great speed bonuses.Cheetah's sprint only works on a charge. The only LA+0 Outsiders I know of are Neraphs and various races with the Otherworldly feat. There is a psionic feat you can take multiple times to increase speed, and with enough Psionics you can easily pull off a better wind-up than with just Quicksilver Motion.

If you're using Alter Self like I was, the amount of fly speed you can get caps at 120ft, even if there is a better form than a Mercury Dragon.


You said +2LA. Is this with LA buy off? Regardless, Lolth Touched is +1 LA for a +6 str. As far as I can tell enlarge person and expansion stack, so getting your size to gargantuan, Goliath counts that as colossal as far as I can tell. So...

Str +20
Size +12
Wolf-Berserker +4
Improved Trip +4
Exotic WM +2
Sweeping, grasping living chain +6
Tentacle Hide +2
Armbands of Might +2
Musclebound trait +1
Pale Green Prism +1
Marshal cha bonus +8 <-- this can be bumped higher
Total: +62Psionics/Magic Transparency makes Expansion and Enlarge Person not stack, because of the rules that say size bonuses from multiple spells don't stack. The spell and power interact as two spells would. He also said no spells and no templates, though I've admittedly kind of been kinda cheating when it comes to spells with various SLAs.

[Giddonihah]

Psionics/Magic Transparency makes Expansion and Enlarge Person not stack, because of the rules that say size bonuses from multiple spells don't stack. The spell and power interact as two spells would. He also said no spells and no templates, though I've admittedly kind of been kinda cheating when it comes to spells with various SLAs.

Instead of Expansion+ Enlarge person which doesnt work, you just need to find a way to get the Giant Size spell, either through an item that casts it, or a Scroll. If at a high enough caster level it puts you straight to colossal with a monstrous +32 str boost. Ya sure it doesnt last long, but when was length an issue? Also custom permanent Belt of Giant Size is awesome.

Then with Goliath you would be treated at Colossal+

edit: Also it looks like I was thinking of the Xeph race for speed.

[Max Caysey]

Thats sure is some high numbers... cool!

[ddude987]

Psionics/Magic Transparency makes Expansion and Enlarge Person not stack, because of the rules that say size bonuses from multiple spells don't stack. The spell and power interact as two spells would. He also said no spells and no templates, though I've admittedly kind of been kinda cheating when it comes to spells with various SLAs.

Transparency is a variant rule that not everyone plays with.

[WhamBamSam]

Transparency is a variant rule that not everyone plays with.
The default rule for the interaction of psionics and magic is simple: Powers interact with spells and spells interact with powers in the same way a spell or normal spell-like ability interacts with another spell or spell-like ability. This is known as psionics-magic transparency.Transparency is the standard rule, and the variant rule of no transparency renders the game pretty much non-functional.

[Psyren]

Transparency is a variant rule that not everyone plays with.

Incorrect, it's the default. NON-transparency is the variant rule.