The Triceratops Shuffle...how does it work?

[jiriku]

I've read about the triceratops shuffle...where you charge your opponent, score some powerful charge damage, then trample him, move away, and end your turn far enough away to charge him again on your next turn.

How is this executed? Charge is a full-round action and trample would require an additional action during your turn, which you don't have available to spend.

[Eurus]

Never heard of it, but off the top of my head, be riding the triceratops and using Ride-By Attack?

[UglyPanda]

It's mentioned in here: Druid Handbook.

It's essentially: powerful charge, trample, repeat.

[jiriku]

So is it supposed to take two rounds, then?

[Dimers]

I've read about the triceratops shuffle...where you charge your opponent, score some powerful charge damage, then trample him, move away, and end your turn far enough away to charge him again on your next turn.

How is this executed? Charge is a full-round action and trample would require an additional action during your turn, which you don't have available to spend.

I read recently that there's justification for the mount itself taking the Trample feat, rather than the rider. Mounted combat has me hella confused in the first place, so I didn't process the information. Sorry I can't be more useful.

[Quietus]

So is it supposed to take two rounds, then?

Yup, pretty much.

[Runestar]

So what's the point of this combination? To set yourself up for the ability to make multiple charges over the course of the whole fight?

[Orzel]

So what's the point of this combination? To set yourself up for the ability to make multiple charges over the course of the whole fight?

You need a reason to run people over now?

[Runestar]

You need a reason to run people over now?

I am just wondering if there is some synergy or interaction between the two abilities which I am missing. Otherwise, it seems likely a fairly straightforward and intuitive tactic any DM pitting a triceratops against the PCs would use. Nice to point out, but nothing worth going "Ahh..." over.

[Darrin]

I read recently that there's justification for the mount itself taking the Trample feat, rather than the rider. Mounted combat has me hella confused in the first place, so I didn't process the information. Sorry I can't be more useful.

The Trample feat stinks. Actually, it more than stinks, it utterly blows brixashulties from 60' away. Instead of trample damage, you treat it as an overrun attempt that the target can't avoid. Since it's an overrun, your mount only gets one move action, and has to use a standard action for the overrun attempt. *IF* your target fails the strength check and gets knocked prone, your mount has a chance to hit them with one hoof attack.

Trample (Ex) is awesomesauce on toast. As a full-round action, your mount can move up to twice it's speed, and the damage is automatic. The target gets a Ref save for half, or it can give up the Ref save to make an AoO (but takes full damage... so WHY would they do this...?).

The Triceratops Shuffle most likely involves the fact that if you Tample (Ex), you do not have to end your movement on or adjacent to your target. You can move 10' or more away. Your opponent then has to decide if he wants to move+standard attack to close back to melee range, or do something else. If your opponent doesn't close back to melee range, you can then most likely charge him. Never really heard of the Triceratops Shuffle before, but yeah, it does sound like two rounds, but I'm guessing it can be boiled down into a simple IF/ELSE statement:

IF my opponent(s) are adjacent, trample and move away. ELSE, Charge.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

[Runestar]

The target gets a Ref save for half, or it can give up the Ref save to make an AoO (but takes full damage... so WHY would they do this...?).

The DC for trample can be quite high (in the case of monsters with a lot of racial HD and high str score). If you know you cannot hope to make that reflex save (a 9th lv fighter has like...base+3, +2cloak, +1dex or +6reflex?), don't bother making one. Give it up to make a free attack, you aren't really losing anything in the process.

Since we are on the topic, what ways are there to optimize the triceratops for this purpose?

For instance, powerful charge adds +3d6 damage to a charge. Shock trooper lets it sac its AC to damage (and its AC is already low enough to be auto-hit anyways). Martial study/stance?

[Darrin]

Since we are on the topic, what ways are there to optimize the triceratops for this purpose?

For instance, powerful charge adds +3d6 damage to a charge. Shock trooper lets it sac its AC to damage (and its AC is already low enough to be auto-hit anyways). Martial study/stance?

Well, the one puzzling thing about Trample (Ex) is even though the damage is more or less automatic, it does *not* knock your opponents prone, even if they do fail the save. It'd be nice if there was some kind of Improved Trip or Knockdown you could add to the trample attack, but trample is one of those oddball attacks that doesn't work well with other feats (mostly because it doesn't use an attack roll).

As far as Martial Study/Stance... I was fiddling around with some Warbeast builds that add 1HD and in some cases can add a bonus feat (base creature has 2HD, 5HD, 8HD, etc.) and I was looking at Martial Study... I can't really find any rules against animals being able to perform maneuvers or get into stances, but it doesn't quite feel right to me that they should. I may dig into ToB and see if I can find something, but by RAW I don't think there's anything preventing an animal from taking Martial Study. And there are some martial arts that are inspired by and base a lot of their techniques on animal traits/abilities. Would anyone really have a problem with a tiger learning Tiger Claw maneuvers?

[Runestar]

I can't really find any rules against animals being able to perform maneuvers or get into stances, but it doesn't quite feel right to me that they should.

It may take a bit of refluffing (more animalistic, rather than martial arts) but it should be possible.

Imagine one adding fire damage to its attacks, turning invisible or teleporting...

[kpenguin]

Wuxia dinosaurs. Brilliant.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

so WHY would they do this...?

Because Damage far outpaces HP , meaning that they can use the AoO to kill you whilst only having moderate damage.

note: this is the reason many DMs maximize HP rolls...

[Susano-wo]

Especially since the AoO interrupts the action, so you can literally kill it before it takes its action. Cue anime cutscene here :P

[Bibliomancer]

It may take a bit of refluffing (more animalistic, rather than martial arts) but it should be possible.

Imagine one adding fire damage to its attacks, turning invisible or teleporting...

It would certainly be within the fluff for some animals to take maneuvers from the Tiger Claw discipline, although those wouldn't be appropriate for a triceratops (unless you can picture it jumping on top of you).

[Volkov]

A triceratops that jumped on top of you would make you a very dead man indeed.

[faceroll]

The target gets a Ref save for half, or it can give up the Ref save to make an AoO (but takes full damage... so WHY would they do this...?).

If you have a low reflex save and readied action to stab it with a spear.

[jiriku]

As far as Martial Study/Stance... I can't really find any rules against animals being able to perform maneuvers or get into stances, but it doesn't quite feel right to me that they should.

Druid solves this concern nicely, and usually has feat slots to spare, plus it has some good self-buffing spells for this attack.

Currently I'm thinking triceratops wild shape with bite of the werebear for +16 strength, animal growth for +8 strength more and a size increase to the damage dice. This should increase the charge from 4d8+20 (avg 38) to 6d8+44 (avg 71), and the trample from 2d8+15 (avg 24) to 3d8+33 (avg 46.5), which is a damage increase of ~87% for the charge and ~94% for the trample. Plus, the larger size give it more reach when charging and makes it easier to trample more targets.

Wasn't there some spell or feat or maneuver somewhere that allows you to turn your charge into a line that gives you one attack on every target in the line of the charge? Could that be combined with the Knockback feat from RoS or the Tiger-blooded feat from ToB to repeatedly knock a target further back along the path of your charge and hit it repeatedly in the same charge?

[Optimator]

Animal Growth won't work.

[Darrin]

Wasn't there some spell or feat or maneuver somewhere that allows you to turn your charge into a line that gives you one attack on every target in the line of the charge? Could that be combined with the Knockback feat from RoS or the Tiger-blooded feat from ToB to repeatedly knock a target further back along the path of your charge and hit it repeatedly in the same charge?

Whirling Blade (spell): requires a slashing weapon, Triceratops' gore is piercing.
Desert Tempest (maneuver, Desert Wind 6): doesn't count as a charge, can only attack a target once
Tornado Throw (maneuver, Setting Sun 9): doesn't count as a charge, but you can repeatedly pummel an opponent every 10'. Knockback or Tiger-Blooded doesn't seem to add anything, unless you're adding Dungeon Crasher to the mix.

Hmm... Trample (Ex) + Knock-Down + Improved Trip would be pretty fantastic (particularly if you ignore the idiotic Sword & Fist non-errata).

Animal Growth won't work.

Enlarge Person or Expansion should work just fine.