Melee Fighting from Prone--Any Benefits?

[Kevingway]

I feel like a slightly hilarious playstyle would be to play a character who fights only from prone. Of course, this requires ways to stand up from prone with no penalty in case of badness, and your movement speed is only 5' with attacks of opportunity allowed to be made against you while moving at any time. But what benefits, through feats or anything, could be attributed to making prone-fighting a valid style aside from something that simply grants the ability to stand up as a free action?

[bjoern]

Fighting from prone is actually situationally useful. A few campaigns ago, we encountered an NPC ogre tripper with a chain and improved trip. He was getting tons of free attacks on everyone by truooing then and then hitting them and then hitting them again when they would stand up. So we just started staying in the ground and taking the penalties, it was better than giving him all those free attacks in us.

[Shining Wrath]

First, you have +4 AC against missile fire - which does include ray & orb casters. Crawling forward to engage the Mailman Sorcerer would be amusing.

Second, it seems as though you ought to be immune to trip. A tripping build seems logical. Then it's similar to ju-jitsiu in MMA: you're used to fighting on the ground, they aren't, you win.

[Werephilosopher]

Stand from PHBII is an 1st-level Wiz/Sorc spell that lets you rise from prone without provoking AoOs as an immediate action. Could be helpful if you need to get up quickly.

[Red Fel]

I feel like a slightly hilarious playstyle would be to play a character who fights only from prone. Of course, this requires ways to stand up from prone with no penalty in case of badness, and your movement speed is only 5' with attacks of opportunity allowed to be made against you while moving at any time. But what benefits, through feats or anything, could be attributed to making prone-fighting a valid style aside from something that simply grants the ability to stand up as a free action?

Well, consider this. A prone target is the perfect target - enemies will want to swarm you quickly, since you're seen as easy prey. That's perfect.

Build a counterattacking build. Use things like Karmic Strike or Robilar's Gambit to ensure that when things attack you, you attack them back. Dip some ToB to ensure that if they don't attack you, you can attack them back. Take Prone Attack (Complete Warrior), and enemies attacking you while you're prone receive no bonus. Take Combat Panache (PHB II), and 1/encounter you can drop prone to cause enemies to lose their Dex to AC against you. Take Dive For Cover (Complete Adventurer) and you actually have a reason to drop prone - doing so lets you reroll a Reflex save.

It won't become a fully viable strategy - it's really not designed to be, in D&D - but it can be made situationally useful, at least.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I feel like a slightly hilarious playstyle would be to play a character who fights only from prone. Of course, this requires ways to stand up from prone with no penalty in case of badness, and your movement speed is only 5' with attacks of opportunity allowed to be made against you while moving at any time. But what benefits, through feats or anything, could be attributed to making prone-fighting a valid style aside from something that simply grants the ability to stand up as a free action?

I'm thinking something like crossbow sniping + burrow speed. You never stand up and spend time underground making it much harder to be detected.

Edit: I just noticed that it says melee fighting in the title, because I am bad at reading.

[Zaq]

The Sloth domain (SpC) specifies that enemies get no bonus to attack you in melee while you're prone. Prone Attack does it better by adding that you also take no penalty to attack, but that's weighing a one-level dip vs. two feats, since Prone Attack requires Lightning Reflexes for some reason.