Hullo and welcome!
I'm in a 3.5 Eberron Campaign, and have a question concerning the Improved Trip feat (go figure).
Yeah
My character carries an 2-handed greataxe and also has the Improved Trip feat. In combat, axe in hand, he attempts to trip an opponent. As I understand it, this would be resolved by first succeeding in an unarmed melee touch attack (that would not provoke AoO due to IT).
Yes.
SRD said:
Prerequisites: Int 13, Combat Expertise.
Benefit: You do not provoke an attack of opportunity when you attempt to trip an opponent while you are unarmed. You also gain a +4 bonus on your Strength check to trip your opponent.
If you trip an opponent in melee combat, you immediately get a melee attack against that opponent as if you hadn't used your attack for the trip attempt.
Normal: Without this feat, you provoke an attack of opportunity when you attempt to trip an opponent while you are unarmed.
Of course, the wording of this feat and the description of the trip attack is written with the assumption that there are only two possibilities: tripping whilst unarmed, or tripping with a trip weapon...
This phrase might help a little: "you immediately get a melee attack against that opponent as if you hadn't used your attack for the trip attempt".
If you are making a melee attack
as though you hadn't made a trip attempt, then you're making a melee attack in whatever way you would have done had the trip attempt not occurred. In your case, with a greataxe.
Assuming confirmation, I would then need to succeed in an opposed Str test.
It's a Strength check for you, but it could be Strength or Dexterity on your opponent's side.
SRD said:
If your attack succeeds, make a Strength check opposed by the defender's Dexterity or Strength check (whichever ability score has the higher modifier).
Assuming THAT confirms, my opponent would be prone and would have the chance to make a melee attack.
You would have the chance to make a melee attack, yes.
Here's where my question comes into play: since the trip itself requires an unarmed melee touch attack, would my follow up attack also have to be unarmed as well? My feeling is that the melee touch is simply to confirm contact to initiate the trip, for example, sticking my leg out. Once my opponent has fallen prone, I can then follow up my attack with the greataxe I've been carrying in my hand the whole time.
The alternate understanding from players in my group is that I have to actually BE UNARMED to make a trip attempt, and therefore my greataxe would not be in my hands and available for the follow-up melee attack.
This is not as straightforward as I might have believed before I started looking at the situation properly. It's not in the FAQ. It's not explicitly covered - as far as I've been able to tell - in the Rules of the Game articles. However, there is one little section buried in
All About Attacks of Opportunity (Part Two) that could perhaps help you out here...
Rules of the Game said:
There are some tricks you can use to threaten those adjacent squares when you're using a reach weapon. If you're a monk, your unarmed attacks continue to threaten the squares adjacent to you. Even if you're not a monk, you can use a smaller weapon to threaten the adjacent squares. You'll have to hold the reach weapon in one hand and wield the smaller weapon in the other hand. Since most reach weapons are two-handed weapons, you're only holding onto the reach weapon, not wielding it, and you don't threaten an area with it.
Although the rules don't mention it, letting go of a two-handed weapon with one hand or putting a free hand back on the weapon is a free action for you. Drawing the smaller weapon requires an action, but if you have the Quick Draw feat, it's a free action. Note that you can take a free action only during your turn.
[...]
When you do so, you don't threaten any area with your larger weapon until you wield it in two hands again.
If we take the above advice as Official, which your DM may or may not, the sequence of events would work like this:
1) As a free action, you take one hand off your two-handed weapon to make the trip attempt. (
In the movie version,
you wave your axe as though about to strike, your opponent steps to avoid, you take one hand off the haft of the weapon to grab your opponent by the scruff of the neck.)
2) You make the opposed check. (
Movie version: you try to use the momentum from your opponent's initial sidestep to throw him by the collar over your outstretched leg, whilst he tries to wriggle or rip his way out of your grasp).
3) Assuming you're successful, your opponent hits the deck.
4) You shift your "tripping hand" back to the axe as a free action and attack with your axe as though you had not used your melee attack for that turn. (
Movie version: your opponent is hurled to the ground, and you take advantage of the fall to grab the haft of your axe and swing for real, whilst your opponent cowers and tries to roll aside...)
Of course, the Improved Trip feat doesn't help you with the fact that if you fail to trip your opponent, they get a free attempt to trip you in turn. Something else to bear in mind is that unless you have the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, you
don't threaten any squares for the duration of your trip attempt.
Normally this wouldn't be an issue: a reactive trip attempt doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity anyway, and you can threaten again as a free action (by returning your hand to your weapon) once the sequence is resolved. However, if your opponent (or his allies) have readied actions, I'm sure there's some way that this momentary disadvantage could be exploited by a cunning DM... perhaps by having an adjacent mook stand by to grab or disarm you when you take a hand off your greataxe.
Not likely to come up often, but I thought I'd mention it... Hope all that helps!
