Characters who focus on Tripping

[NOhara24]

Hello Playground,

I have an unarmed PC who has levels in Monk (and others) who centered his build around tripping his opponents. His build works very well, and he knows his stuff and it's really quite nice to play with a character who is so well-versed. My issue is this:

I know there are ways to make combat variable and exciting for him and the party, but tripping and the conditions that it causes (prone, an AoO to stand up...) are just so damaging that it seems like the only way I can keep this character under control is to throw enemies that A) he is less likely to be able to trip or B) enemies that can't be tripped at all. And everyone knows the issue with that - why play a character centric to tripping foes if none of them can be tripped?

Does anyone have any ideas?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Well, a couple of things spring to mind:
1) Ranged attackers aren't in range to be tripped. If they are, the monk's at least been lured away from the rest of the party.
2) Large and larger opponents get a bonus to resist trip attempts.
3) Opponents with four or more legs get a bonus, too.
4) Opponents with a high Tumble skill can stand up as a free action (DC 35). Still provokes, but allows them to full-attack afterwards, if the monk is in range. The AoO can be avoided through concealment (smoke, for instance) and by making a five-foot step before standing.
5) General control abilities will limit the monk (entangle, web, wall-of-meat summon monster spam).

Take care not to overwhelm the player! If tripping is their speciality, they should succeed more often than not.

[emeraldstreak]

Hello Playground,

I have an unarmed PC who has levels in Monk (and others) who centered his build around tripping his opponents. His build works very well, and he knows his stuff and it's really quite nice to play with a character who is so well-versed. My issue is this:

I know there are ways to make combat variable and exciting for him and the party, but tripping and the conditions that it causes (prone, an AoO to stand up...) are just so damaging that it seems like the only way I can keep this character under control is to throw enemies that A) he is less likely to be able to trip or B) enemies that can't be tripped at all. And everyone knows the issue with that - why play a character centric to tripping foes if none of them can be tripped?

Does anyone have any ideas?

Take a step back and evaluate what's going on a higher level. Tripping is a form of crowd control, and there are three general ways to deal with it:

Deny

up resistance to the crowd control
be a threat outside of the crowd control's reach


Diminish

lessen its impact. For trip, that would be better action economy, for example being able to stand up as a swift action without provoking as skill trick
increase the number of targets beyond what the crowd controller can take on in a turn


Go first

crowd control the crowd contoller, or otherwise incapacitate his threat potential




Obviously, choosing just one expression of these to deploy over and over makes combat stale.

[zlefin]

the main thing i'd say is to have a variety of enemies, so there's times his builds is really effective, and times it's not.
that lets it not be an always win button, while still being very helpful sometimes.

also avoiding small numbers of trippable foes.

and remember: you can attack without standing up, sure the penalties are severe, but sometimes it may be better than eating a bunch of AoOs and getting tripped again.

[Bucky]

You can always just increase the number of enemies (with less power per enemy) and their tactical sophistication.

If the monk's locking one man of three, he's doing his job but not ruining the encounter.

If the enemy isn't standing up but instead takes the penalty to attack the monk from prone, it's still a fight but the monk has earned an advantage... and made himself the target of choice if he stays close enough to trip again.

If the enemy is an archer engaging from the other side of some hostile terrain, the monk's still relevant but needs to use the rest of his kit in fast movement and jumping to bring his tripping to bear. And he won't get in the archer's face to end the encounter before the archer has a chance to show up.

If the enemy's mounted and has the Ride modifier to keep their feet if their mount's tripped, it's a fair fight. The monk should have some chance of tripping the mount even through its extra-legs bonus.

In short, a competent tripper is an excuse to design more tactically interesting encounters.

[Boggartbae]

the main thing i'd say is to have a variety of enemies, so there's times his builds is really effective, and times it's not.
that lets it not be an always win button, while still being very helpful sometimes.

also avoiding small numbers of trippable foes.

and remember: you can attack without standing up, sure the penalties are severe, but sometimes it may be better than eating a bunch of AoOs and getting tripped again.

This. Let them be effective sometimes, and then other times have them fight purple wurms.

Also, for a funny visual, the opponents can trip them while they're prone, so the fight just ends up with everyone on the ground wrestling in the mud.

[Malimar]

You're probably already aware of this, but I'll point it out on the off chance you're not, because it affects the tripper's effectiveness:

An Attack of Opportunity happens before the action it interrupts. Therefore, the AoO for standing up from prone a.) targets Prone AC but b.) cannot be used to re-trip, because the target is still Prone until the Stand Up action is concluded; you can't just keep the foe on the ground indefinitely using trip AoOs.


4) Opponents with a high Tumble skill can stand up as a free action (DC 35). Still provokes, but allows them to full-attack afterwards, if the monk is in range. The AoO can be avoided through concealment (smoke, for instance) and by making a five-foot step before standing.
You can't 5-foot step while Prone. When Prone, you are limited to crawling 5 feet as a move action that provokes. I think?

[Rynjin]

^Correct.

Also keep in mind that tripping is very SOFT CC and takes away from his damage potential whenever it's done. You can trip one guy and still do good damage with a 5 Feat chain, but tripping a crowd takes you out of the damage game entirely.

It feels worse than it is, really. Being tripped only really cripples archers (since you cant fire a bow while Prone), everybody else can act normally with penalties while on the ground (taking a -4 to-hit and AC). That's roughly equivalent to a flanking Unchained Rogue giving the enemy a -2 to-hit (and effective -2 AC because they're flanked) but also dealing weapon+Dex+enhancement+Sneak Attack to damage.

HOWEVER, I know how annoying it can be to GM. I would consider talking with him and discussing branching out to different combat maneuvers as well. I try to incentivize this with houserules (making Improved Maneuver Feats scale to their Greater versions at BaB +6 and making Combat Expertise, Power Attack, and Improved Unarmed Strike non-Feats that anyone can use). There's fun combos you can do as a Monk with Trip, Grapple, and Bull Rush particularly which aid breaking up the monotony for him and let him perform the same role with different options for the enemy types. More viable options = one option will not dominate every combat and you can feel better using more varied enemies that are resistant or immune to one of his options like Trip. It's a win-win.

[Fizban]

You could simply reduce the penalties for being prone: -2 and crawling speed is still totally worth doing, but isn't completely crippling if you then have the foe keep fighting from the ground. Say that "prone" initially puts people on the ground, but they immediately roll over into sort of one-knee crouch that's still bad for fighting, but not quite laying flat out and too stable to be put down again until they fully stand up. But crawling on their knees is still crawling.

[Akal Saris]

I think the above suggestions are all helpful. I just want to add a note of caution not to go overboard. Make some encounters impossible to trip (flying, oozes, wurms, swarms, incorporeal creatures), make some difficult (ranged opponents, large creatures, quadrupeds, encounters with multiple creatures), make some standard (human fighters), and make some easy to trip. Also, it's worth keeping in mind that tripping is a tactic that's very effective at low levels but higher level creatures often have multiple powers that reduce its effectiveness.

[Goaty14]

4) Opponents with a high Tumble skill can stand up as a free action (DC 35). Still provokes, but allows them to full-attack afterwards, if the monk is in range. The AoO can be avoided through concealment (smoke, for instance) and by making a five-foot step before standing.


Somewhere there is a feat for standing up as a free action, or attacking while getting up in CAd

-1 Level of Theif Acrobat (ECL 6) allows them to stand up as a free action without provoking AoOs
-2 levels allows you to attack from prone without penalty (ECL 7)

-Combat Acrobat feat PHBII (ECL 6) allows you to make a DC 20 balance check to avoid falling prone from anything.
-Additionally, the "Stand" spell (ECL 1, Sorc/Wiz, Duskblade) allows an ally to stand from prone without provoking AoOs. Put this spell on a sorcerer, pair it with a bruiser, and go to town with a challenging encounter.

[Eldariel]

Move the paradigm partially away from the melee brawl. Spellcaster and SLA user enemies ([Monstrous] Humanoid Casters, Outsiders, Dragons, Fey, High Undead like Liches and Vampires, etc.) don't care about tripping nearly as much; quickened teleport works either way and they engage at range with spells (that can summon some fodder to melee/be tripped while doing magic stuff themselves).

There's no real reason for higher level characters to fight bruisers all day - magic is common for both sides. And the pure melee things are usually pretty strong and big, so it's easy but not entirely trivial to trip then. Rogue/Dex types have skills and skill tricks to get back up easily enough so they don't mind that much.

[Fizban]

Move the paradigm partially away from the melee brawl.
Since you've summed it up enough I can succinctly respond to it: What if he likes the melee brawl? That's what ticks me off about "the forum's" advice regarding tripping (and other things). If the DM wants to run melee brawls, at any level, telling them to stop running melee brawls isn't very helpful. If the only problem he has is that trip is a little too strong, expecting him to upend everything else just to avoid making a nerf is ridiculous. That's why the DMG says the DM can change the rules, rather than demanding they git gud if the PCs are out of control.

As for at higher levels, the OP hasn't said anything about what level they are. It's entirely possible they're only 4th (enough to have both "levels in monk" and "others"). It's also possible the DM uses tons of classed humanoids rather than monsters- I'll be the first to point out this is a bad idea, but if that's how he's running it then telling him to use monsters is again, not helping.

Myself, I've left the trip penalties as-is while nerfing a bunch of other trip stuff, but cutting them in half is even faster. I'm kinda annoyed I never thought of it before, though I'd also put in a clause for standing up while withdrawing without penalty, so it's still not a complete lockdown.

[Eldariel]

Since you've summed it up enough I can succinctly respond to it: What if he likes the melee brawl? That's what ticks me off about "the forum's" advice regarding tripping (and other things). If the DM wants to run melee brawls, at any level, telling them to stop running melee brawls isn't very helpful. If the only problem he has is that trip is a little too strong, expecting him to upend everything else just to avoid making a nerf is ridiculous. That's why the DMG says the DM can change the rules, rather than demanding they git gud if the PCs are out of control.

As for at higher levels, the OP hasn't said anything about what level they are. It's entirely possible they're only 4th (enough to have both "levels in monk" and "others"). It's also possible the DM uses tons of classed humanoids rather than monsters- I'll be the first to point out this is a bad idea, but if that's how he's running it then telling him to use monsters is again, not helping.

Myself, I've left the trip penalties as-is while nerfing a bunch of other trip stuff, but cutting them in half is even faster. I'm kinda annoyed I never thought of it before, though I'd also put in a clause for standing up while withdrawing without penalty, so it's still not a complete lockdown.

First, it's very likely at least level 6 due to Monk Improved Trip, which is already quite high.

Second, that's not very fair to a player who clearly put some effort into being good at something midgame. Pregame, fine, define the rules as you please. But midgame, heavily nerfing a one-trick pony's trick is poor form; even if you give them free retraining or whatever, that means they have to put extra effort into rebuilding the character, which is effort that should not be taken for granted (they may not even have the temporal resources for it) particularly since the player might not have a plan B.

This is doubly true since the system comes with built-in options to challenge players more broadly. Spellcasting is 90% of the system; it's a huge waste of system potential if only the PCs use it. Every monster type has their own caster-like members, classed or innate. Why make things monotonous?
And anything the PCs do, anyone else can do as well.

Casting enemies doesn't mean there's no melee brawl though; all basic caster classes and monsters can summon stuff that gets in there and punches stuff. All can also buff themselves and get into the fight. And elusive squishies make for good targets for mobile melee types to hunt anyways. Thus the DM can still cater to that while varying the challenge up so that Tripping isn't oppressive without making it useless either.

Why **** the player over if you can resolve the situation while also introducing more depth to the tactical part (something combat maneuvers speak in favour of the players wanting)? Particularly since the alternative is like to cause sour feelings.

[Fizban]

Standard player-centric bias that assumes the DM is unimportant and doing a bad job. There are four players who must be accommodated by one DM, who it should be assumed is otherwise running a good game. Suggesting they re-do what could potentially be a ton of work in order to accommodate a single player due to an unforeseen problem, is not fair. Demanding they be perfect enough to anticipate all problems is also not fair. Assuming the game will be "monotonous" because it doesn't match your expectations and thus this huge waste of potential must be corrected, is putting your values above that of someone else's game.

And please tell me how nerfing a -4 penalty to a -2 will "**** the player over." The DM has a right to play the game they want to play as much as anyone else, funny how it's never the DM getting screwed over. If in some other game a DM started wrecking the PCs with char-op'd casters and they asked him to nerf some of those spells- not even cut off the builds but just nerf a couple spells they think were too strong to begin with, would that be "screwing over the DM?" What if they used a trip build?

Well actually it'd receive the same response: you guys suck at optimizing, git gud. Because you can't screw over the DM by asking them to change the rules, the same way you can't screw over the players by changing the rules, because actually responding to rules problems during a game is apparently not allowed. Nevermind that the DMG explicitly allows it and the DM is literally the person in charge of doing so. You know what's more important than RAW? Literally everything else, keeping the game running smoothly chief among them. Nerfing a single problem element when it shows itself to be a problem is infinitely easier than overhauling your entire metagame to accommodate it.

-Edit: though I don't know why I'm letting myself be drawn into this again. The only reason I quoted you in the first place was because you actually summed up your point about shifting the paradigm. Most people aren't honest enough to admit the shift, instead pretending these are things that should have already happened, and actually having it stated outright means I can respond to it without putting words in anyone's mouth. Just accept that a nerf is a legitimate solution and we can be done here.

[Eldariel]

Standard player-centric bias that assumes the DM is unimportant and doing a bad job. There are four players who must be accommodated by one DM, who it should be assumed is otherwise running a good game. Suggesting they re-do what could potentially be a ton of work in order to accommodate a single player due to an unforeseen problem, is not fair. Demanding they be perfect enough to anticipate all problems is also not fair. Assuming the game will be "monotonous" because it doesn't match your expectations and thus this huge waste of potential must be corrected, is putting your values above that of someone else's game.

And please tell me how nerfing a -4 penalty to a -2 will "**** the player over." The DM has a right to play the game they want to play as much as anyone else, funny how it's never the DM getting screwed over. If in some other game a DM started wrecking the PCs with char-op'd casters and they asked him to nerf some of those spells- not even cut off the builds but just nerf a couple spells they think were too strong to begin with, would that be "screwing over the DM?" What if they used a trip build?

Well actually it'd receive the same response: you guys suck at optimizing, git gud. Because you can't screw over the DM by asking them to change the rules, the same way you can't screw over the players by changing the rules, because actually responding to rules problems during a game is apparently not allowed. Nevermind that the DMG explicitly allows it and the DM is literally the person in charge of doing so. You know what's more important than RAW? Literally everything else, keeping the game running smoothly chief among them. Nerfing a single problem element when it shows itself to be a problem is infinitely easier than overhauling your entire metagame to accommodate it.

-Edit: though I don't know why I'm letting myself be drawn into this again. The only reason I quoted you in the first place was because you actually summed up your point about shifting the paradigm. Most people aren't honest enough to admit the shift, instead pretending these are things that should have already happened, and actually having it stated outright means I can respond to it without putting words in anyone's mouth. Just accept that a nerf is a legitimate solution and we can be done here.

You basically seem to always ignore the other half of the equation. Half the time you advocate giving the DM a ridiculous amount of extra work and the other you totally ignore how the player feels. It's a game where compromises must be made and "change everything" is a far more demanding and not necessarily any more gratifying a solution than using system-internal solutions that require next to no effort.

The game is a contract between all the participants; if any act with zero regard for the others and without accounting for the circumstances of each other individual, it won't work. If you learn nothing else of this, please take a while to consider the whole and how any given action influences everyone involved.

[Telonius]

My take on it: it's a Monk who's managed to find a niche where he's effective. Let him do his thing here; likely enough he's having trouble everywhere else.

[ericgrau]

Fight prone. It's usually better than getting up. It's a -4 but it's better than an AoO.

[Deophaun]

My take on it: it's a Monk who's managed to find a niche where he's effective. Let him do his thing here; likely enough he's having trouble everywhere else.
^^^ This.

Stop worrying. If tripping is a problem, then I'm going to venture to say that the real problems is your encounters themselves are monotonous melee-slug fests and that you need to look at adding more variety. And I don't mean that you add it with the idea of countering the monk, I mean you add it just to be different. You need more flying, you need more ranged, you need more fireball throwers, you need more invisible assailants, you need more crazy terrain, you need more swarms of things, you need more huge solo bosses, you need incorporeal, you need enchanters. If you have variety, trip will take care of itself: it will be awesome sometimes, and it will be almost useless sometimes, and that will be true for almost anything except Tier 1/2 classes.

[lord_khaine]

Fight prone. It's usually better than getting up. It's a -4 but it's better than an AoO.

This i would say, just get a higher number of enemies. And add some that can either survive the AoO for standing up and punching back. Or have a reasonable chance of hitting the monk back despite a -4 penalty to hit. Honestly, in most cases just adding some large opponents should do the trick.

[Geddy2112]

+1 to variety, including variety in a single encounter. Say the party is up against undead: give the monk some easy trip targets like bipedal skeleton/zombiesque undead, difficult trip targets like quadrapeds or zombie spiders, and something impossible to trip like a ghost.

IMO Variety in encounters is more fun for all parties, DM included.

[edathompson2]

Hello Playground,

I have an unarmed PC who has levels in Monk (and others) who centered his build around tripping his opponents. His build works very well, and he knows his stuff and it's really quite nice to play with a character who is so well-versed. My issue is this:

I know there are ways to make combat variable and exciting for him and the party, but tripping and the conditions that it causes (prone, an AoO to stand up...) are just so damaging that it seems like the only way I can keep this character under control is to throw enemies that A) he is less likely to be able to trip or B) enemies that can't be tripped at all. And everyone knows the issue with that - why play a character centric to tripping foes if none of them can be tripped?

Does anyone have any ideas?

I may be off base here, but why penalize the player that put some thought into what he wants to do?

80% of DMs focus on combat as a measuring stick for whether they are good as a DM or not. The only thing that matters is if your players are having fun.

Trip doesn't help with puzzles, skill checks, ability checks, traps, diplomacy, role play, mysteries, or natural disasters.

I wouldn't totally strip him of his focus. Give him a few grunts he can always use it on and maybe have other monsters it has no affect on. But don't go the extreme of stripping him of what is making the game fun for him by never having monsters he can affect. That will just create a you versus him mentality.

[Calthropstu]

Tripping might seem good, but when you come down you'll regret it. Drugs are bad mmmkay.

[Telonius]

Tripping might seem good, but when you come down you'll regret it. Drugs are bad mmmkay.

Well, at least until he's level 11. No effect after that.