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ocato
2008-09-14, 07:26 PM
I've been reading the Dungeon Crasher fighter variant and something fails to click in my head. Bull rushing is effectively a forceful push, and you are pushing someone into a wall to do damage. I get that. In fact, I adore it. However, I don't seem to understand why this doesn't apply more broadly. Pushing someone into a wall sounds rough, but wouldn't slamming them down onto the ground with a trip be equally devastating?

Now, I'm willing to notice that general consensus is that fighters aren't that good, and this variant is typically considered a solution, but it seems pretty narrow-minded (well, it's for dungeoneering, so it ought to be a little narrow in scope). Would allowing Dungeon Crashers to add this damage on trips be too much? I mean, my obvious first concern is exactly the type of character I was working on when I realized this: A reach tripper. So if Johnny trips alot leaps into the fray and starts 8d6+3x strength mod tripping people, then following it up with an attack, what are the chances of anything getting out alive any time soon?

Of course, this all becomes irrelevant when you throw Huge 4 legged creatures into the mix, but it stands as a concern:

Should Dungeon Crashers be crashing in three dimensions or two?

Keld Denar
2008-09-14, 07:52 PM
I know there is kind of a concensus over on the boards formally known as CharOp that if you were above your target (like, flying), you'd get DC for knocking someone back into the ground.

I dunno if tripping would have enough force to bounce someone's head off the ground to do that much damage...

metalbear
2008-09-14, 08:03 PM
I also have been wondering if there is a way to apply the Dungeoncrashing damage to a wider use, and the best I could come up with is if target is bullrushed into another enemy you only roll half as many dice, but the target and whomever they where just knocked into must both make saves (not sure if it should be a reflex or an opposed check) or be knocked prone. Mind you this solution has no basis whatsoever in any rules, much less in Dungeonscape, I just think it's cool.

Eldariel
2008-09-14, 08:05 PM
Generally the Char Ops idea was flying above the opponent thus giving you a vertical surface to smash the opponent to. Although I agree that getting tripped and such should also cause damage - it's a violent fall so 1d6 or so would make perfect sense.

ocato
2008-09-14, 08:08 PM
I know there is kind of a concensus over on the boards formally known as CharOp that if you were above your target (like, flying), you'd get DC for knocking someone back into the ground.

I dunno if tripping would have enough force to bounce someone's head off the ground to do that much damage...

My reasoning is that if you push someone 5 feet into the wall and do that much damage, grabbing them and slamming them directly into the ground should do at least as much. Tripping is a slightly vague idea, and a good shoulder grab/leg sweep can put someone on the ground with at least as much force as slamming them into a wall, if not more. As for the chain, I imagine if someone lasso'd your legs and ripped them out from under you with sufficient force, they'd end up higher than your head when you hit the ground in a pile. Granted this is all cat-girl killing speculation.

Chronos
2008-09-14, 09:21 PM
Trips aren't necessarily rough, though. In the D&D rules, it's just a catch-all term for anything you do in a fight that causes your opponent to end up on the ground. In real-world terms, that can also include various throws and the like, in some of which your opponent actually goes to the floor of his or her own volition, because resisting the throw would result in much worse.

KillianHawkeye
2008-09-14, 09:30 PM
Only if your tripping method involves using a Spinning Piledriver to smash their head into the ground. :smallwink:

Seriously, though, 8d6 reach Improved Tripping? If it sounds overpowered, it usually is.

Keld Denar
2008-09-14, 09:36 PM
Chronos has a point, not all trips are catastrophic banana peel style head over hands drops. Wolves tend to trip foes they bite, but its more of a pulldown than a violent upset. Granted, being dragged to the ground by a wolf would definitely suck, but there just aren't the forces involved the same way you violently accellerate a body, then watch its momentum transfer through every part of its body as it experiences a rapid deceleration followed by a nearly equal acceleration in the opposite direction.

Man, physics is so grizzly...

Prometheus
2008-09-14, 10:20 PM
It did always strike me that the feat tree focuses on opportunities to trip and grapple rather than damage dealt during. I would have thought wrestling would count for something, especially we are talking about a universe based on theatrics.

ocato
2008-09-14, 10:29 PM
I think it might be a little silly to go on about how ridiculous it is to expect that much damage to be done to someone who is grabbed and violently thrust into the ground but to see no inherent flaw in the exact same damage being done by someone who is grabbed and violently thrust into a wall. While trip is a very broad term in D&D, a dungeon-crashing fighter would most likely be throwing his opponent directly into the ground (to go along with his door mashing, trap kicking, and baddie shoving).

Andras
2008-09-14, 11:52 PM
I would say the difference is momentum and/or acceleration. If you're tripping someone, their weight pulling them downward isn't going to produce the same impact as barreling someone into a wall. Think of it not as throwing so much as charging and headbutting them into something.

Attilargh
2008-09-15, 02:02 AM
Andras there probably has it best. When you Bull Rush someone into a wall, you're not only using your strength, but also mass to deal damage. If you were to do the same with a takedown, you'd not only need to throw the sorry sod to the ground, but would actually have to then body-slam them afterwards.

Hal
2008-09-15, 06:07 AM
This gets into homebrew territory, but I'd see it as reasonable to allow a dungeoncrasher to take a feat which allows them to apply half of the dungeoncrashing damage on a successful trip attack.

Since this is coming from dungeoncrashing, it seems to make sense that this only works on non-weapon based trips (no spiked chain cheese). If you're going to let this apply to the spiked chain, I'd say that it should have full damage but also have a reflex save to reduce damage, making it similar to a wizard's AoE attacks.