Improved trip and knockdown?

[CoffeeIncluded]

I know that knockdown is 3.0 and we're playing 3.5, but the PC is a monk so I figure he could use all the help he could get. :smalltongue: anyway, my main question is this: improved trip gives you a free trip attempt as a follow up to a melee attack that does more than 10 damage. Would Knock Down would ​allow for an additional melee attack from Improved Trip, or is that used up in the attack that started the trip in the first place? I did a quick rules patch last session by saying "Yes, but you can only make one trip attempt per round." What do you guys think? For context, the party is level 6 and also consists of an archer ranger with a wolf companion, a gnome cleric whose player is very new to the game and her saber tooth tiger skeleton, a bard, an artificer, and a tiefling wizard who is the most optimized of the bunch. And the monk is a dwarf.

[OldTrees1]

Since the latest version of Knock-down(SRD) does not prohibit Improved Trip and Improved Trip's default is to work, I think that RAW Knock-down does trigger Improved Trip (remember a prone/stalled creature cannot be tripped again until they stand/recover).

However I would judge it less by RAW and more by how it ought to be for your game. I see only positives from allowing the Monk to have more cool stuff of this nature.

[T.G. Oskar]

That's pretty much the gist of the trick - Knock-Down grants a free trip attempt, and to get the benefit from Improved Trip, you must succeed on a trip attempt. Thus, if you succeed on the free trip attempt granted by the Knock-Down feat, you should get the extra attack. If the problem lies on how many trip attempts the target will get, remember three things about Trip: first, once the target is prone, you can't attempt another trip; second, that the main benefit of knocking the target prone via Trip is preventing movement (the target doesn't lose its Dex bonus to AC) as the penalty to the target's AC against melee attacks only affects so much; third, that a failed trip attempt provokes a counter-trip from the opponent, which neither Knock-Down or Imp. Trip negate.

If you're worried about how this move can potentially seem OP because the Monk will be knocking people left and right, note that this is a favored tactic of Wolves (so you don't need to spend a lot to use the tactic against your players), and that the counter-trip can be enough to prevent free trips and extra attacks against pretty much all opponents (or else, the player may end up resenting being tripped so much, if only because of the attack penalty from the prone condition). You can get a similar set-up via the Snap Kick feat, but in a much limited way: a mild penalty, but you end up with 2 attacks as part of a melee attack, which can be part of an attack action, a full-attack action, or if you extend that up, potentially a Spring Attack/Bounding Assault/Rapid Blitz combo, so extra attacks for a Monk aren't exactly that hard to get.

That said: the Monk should get all the help it can. The team should get all the help it can: the Wizard and the Artificer might potentially overshadow the party, the Wolf has the exact same tactic the Monk uses, but feat-less, and the Monk is the only party member that seems to fight in melee (aside from the Wolf and the Smilodon skeleton). Considering that, the Monk's trick is actually tame.

[Curmudgeon]

I know that knockdown is 3.0 ...
Knock-Down has been released twice under 3.5 rules. The first was when Deities and Demigods got an official 3.5 update. However, the most recent version, which replaced the DaD update, was when Wizards of the Coast released the 3.5 System Reference Document here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) and included the feat in "Divine Abilities and Feats" (Rich Text File document). The SRD has been repackaged in a more convenient HTML form and you can find the feat here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown).

[Darrin]

Knock-Down has been released twice under 3.5 rules. The first was when Deities and Demigods got an official 3.5 update. However, the most recent version, which replaced the DaD update, was when Wizards of the Coast released the 3.5 System Reference Document here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35) and included the feat in "Divine Abilities and Feats" (Rich Text File document). The SRD has been repackaged in a more convenient HTML form and you can find the feat here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown).

Is your stance on the 3.0 errata then that it doesn't apply to the 3.5 version?

[CoffeeIncluded]

Ah, thank you so much! Yeah, that definitely makes things a lot easier and I can make a clear ruling now (they both apply).

[torrasque666]

Is your stance on the 3.0 errata then that it doesn't apply to the 3.5 version?
Mine wouldn't be. It had an update, therefore there's more relevant rules info than the errata. Thus, the errata is no longer in effect.

[Curmudgeon]

Is your stance on the 3.0 errata then that it doesn't apply to the 3.5 version?
I think that's obvious. How could a change to a previous version apply to an updated feat which hadn't even been written yet? The 3.0 erratum applied to the 3.0 feat, but then the 3.5 version replaced the 3.0 version.