Rope used for tripping?

[Seth1221]

OK one of my players recently came up with this idea:

During a fight he threw a rope with a special loop prepared earlier under the enemy's feet. He wants to pull the rope in the proper moment so the loop would lock on the enemy's foot and trip him. His idea was to roll for a reflex save to see if he succeeds - my proposition is a dexterity check to see if he makes the trick on a proper moment + strenght check to see if he trips the enemy. Do you have any further/better suggestions?

[ericgrau]

That seems awfully hard to pull off. Regardless it would be a trip attempt in the end, i.e., and opposed strength check. What's up in the air is the initial attack to reach the target. Maybe an improvised bola making it a -4 or -8 to hit on the ranged touch attack? It would then have a 10 foot range increment.

[Seth1221]

I was also thinking about making a special skill trick out of this - I know it will be an attack really hard to succeed but my player is really on to this whole rope fetish so I want to help him as much as I can without breaking the system.

[ericgrau]

-8 was assuming non-proficiency plus improvised weapon. Some kind of skill trick or feat would drop it to -4. Of course the whole thing is pretty ad hoc so you could adjust the penalties as desired. And keep in mind it is a touch attack so that makes things easier.

[Cicciograna]

Hmm, I'd go with a (BAB + Dex) check against enemy's ranged touch AC to see if the rope catches the foot, and if successful a Reflex save by the enemy to avoid being tripped (DC = value previously rolled by the PC), obviously without the opportunity to trip the player.

The rationale behind these choices is the following:

* (BAB + Dex): pulling the rope is essentially a feat of coordination, not strength. The DMG states that to actively achieve something, checks are to be used instead of Saving Throws (page 33-34), so this would be a Dex check. But as this action requires not only eye-hand coordination, but a general feel of battle times and pacing, I assumed that a martially trained character should be more able to succeed than a simple commoner, so BAB should play a role too.

* Ref Save: the enemy is not avoiding to being catched (he was doing this on PC roll), he's trying not to be tripped, that is to say not to lose footing as one of his leg is suddenly pulled aside. You could grant him some bonus to the ST if his size is greater than that of the PC (maybe +2 for every size step).

[QuantumSteve]

-8 was assuming non-proficiency plus improvised weapon. Some kind of skill trick or feat would drop it to -4. Of course the whole thing is pretty ad hoc so you could adjust the penalties as desired. And keep in mind it is a touch attack so that makes things easier.

Non-proficiency and Improvised Weapon don't stack. You're always considered non-proficient with an Improvised Weapon (unless you have the feat); that's where the -4 comes from. Also, I think the trip rules would work just fine for this.

[the humanity]

use rope is a weak skill. I'd let him make a use rope check against his enemies reflex check and if he gets it on there, he can trip as a swift action as long as the rope is in his hand.

[DwarvenExodus]

use rope is a weak skill. I'd let him make a use rope check against his enemies reflex check and if he gets it on there, he can trip as a swift action as long as the rope is in his hand.

I'd pick a movement, or at least a standard action, but otherwise, yeah.

[Gnaeus]

I don't think the reflex save should have anything to do with it.

1. Low DC Rope Use (10? 12?) to use the rope as a tripping weapon.
2. Touch attack. No penalty because of step 1.
3. Trip check as normal. If he fails, he can drop the rope to avoid counter-tripping per normal trip rules.

It really isn't too different than tripping with a chain.