Advice for Dealing with Improved Trip Feat

[Samothdm]

Gang,

Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for - a grab-bag of ideas and suggestions that I can dole out over the course of my upcoming adventures. This is the first time I've DM'd a player with the Improved Trip feat, but I figured that you all had done it and would have suggestions.

And, SweeneyTodd, thanks also for your input. I actually did talk to this player and he's aware that I'm looking for ways to tone down his tripping a little bit. He's been very cooperative, actually.

For example, he didn't really complain about a harpy (with 4 fighter levels) was pecking off members of the party with her mighty composite longbow. He left it to the ranger (archer) to take her down. That was a tough encounter for them.

On the other hand, tripping something like a Rakshasa or Vampire (not a "true" vampire, but kind of) just seemed so... anti-climactic. If it were just a human fighter of the same level as the Kensai I probably wouldn't mind. But, tripping something more "fantastic" just seemed a little too easy. But, next time, armed with a bunch of these suggestions, I plan to be more ready for him.

 

[Storm Raven]

On the other hand, tripping something like a Rakshasa or Vampire (not a "true" vampire, but kind of) just seemed so... anti-climactic. If it were just a human fighter of the same level as the Kensai I probably wouldn't mind. But, tripping something more "fantastic" just seemed a little too easy. But, next time, armed with a bunch of these suggestions, I plan to be more ready for him.

Tripping a rakshasa shouldn't be that big of a deal, since most of its powers don't rely upon straight hand to hand attacking. Casting invisibility as a response (on the standard rakshasa spell list) is an obvious move. Blasting the kensai with magic missiles, or making friends with the enlarged combat machine with charm person would work too. Changing shape to a bigger, tougher humanoid form would seem in order as well (like an orc or bugbear).

For a vampire, domination comes to mind, to turn the kensai against his own allies.

 

[Samothdm]

Tripping a rakshasa shouldn't be that big of a deal, since most of its powers don't rely upon straight hand to hand attacking. Casting invisibility as a response (on the standard rakshasa spell list) is an obvious move.

Yeah, I had him do that and start running away, but the Rogue had an item to see invisibility or something like that (a potion, I think) and the Kensai ran him down.

Blasting the kensai with magic missiles, or making friends with the enlarged combat machine with charm person would work too.

Yeah, I tried the charm person thing, too, but because of the Paladin levels and such, this guy's got pretty good saves.

Changing shape to a bigger, tougher humanoid form would seem in order as well (like an orc or bugbear).

That's something I should have done. Hindsight...

For a vampire, domination comes to mind, to turn the kensai against his own allies.

Definitely. This was a weird kind of pseudo-vampire thing (from The Banewarrens) that didn't have domination. His fallback was to turn to gaseous form upon being reduced to 0 hit points and then fleeing to its reliquary to reform. This was the second time they fought the creature and they did the smart thing by destroying the reliquary first and casting hallow before the vampire-thing reformed so it couldn't retreat. They did everything right... I was just hoping for something more cinematic than, "I trip him and then take my follow-up attack." As a Pal2/Ftr4/Kensai 3, he's embued his halberd (with the Kensai special ability) so it does holy damage on top of the normal damage, and when enlarged and with all his fighter feats like Weapon Specialization and such, he did something like around 42 points of damage in one round, and this bad-guy only had 65 HP to start with. The combat was over in 3 rounds, despite the vampire-guy using his natural powers to "turn living" (which didn't work on the Paladin because it's a fear-effect) and that kind of thing.

 

[ST]

Actually, I'm thinking I came off as grumpy in this thread; if so, I apologize. Creative solutions are good things. Please read Samothdm's responses to what I wrote as what I was trying to say.

I have to admit that when I ran NWN (the only times I've run 3.x are online), I just upped the Discipline skill for any "boss", which felt very artificial, but did allow the Trip-Guy to wade through hordes of lesser enemies on his way to the BBEG. It sounds like you'll be doing something similar, but better integrated into the logic of the game world, and I hope it works well.

Good luck!

 

[Storm Raven]

Yeah, I had him do that and start running away, but the Rogue had an item to see invisibility or something like that (a potion, I think) and the Kensai ran him down.

So, it wasn't the kensai, it was the kensai acting in concert with at least two other players, expending a number of resources to bring down their enemy? This is a problem why?

Yeah, I tried the charm person thing, too, but because of the Paladin levels and such, this guy's got pretty good saves.

Sure he does, but he's not immune. You can, of course, alter the spells on the rakshasa's list. I would have selected something like fly for a third level spell (since it is an obvious choice for a rakshasa).

That's something I should have done. Hindsight...

Sure. But then its not the player that's the problem, its the use the the villain's resources that's the problem. Plus, a rakshasa isn't a "stand up and fight" opponent, he's a sneaky behind the scenes and attacking from far away opponent. If you want a BBEG to stand toe to toe with a 9th level combat character, you need to pit him against things like giants, vrock, or pyrohydras.

Definitely. This was a weird kind of pseudo-vampire thing (from The Banewarrens) that didn't have domination. His fallback was to turn to gaseous form upon being reduced to 0 hit points and then fleeing to its reliquary to reform. This was the second time they fought the creature and they did the smart thing by destroying the reliquary first and casting hallow before the vampire-thing reformed so it couldn't retreat. They did everything right... I was just hoping for something more cinematic than, "I trip him and then take my follow-up attack." As a Pal2/Ftr4/Kensai 3, he's embued his halberd (with the Kensai special ability) so it does holy damage on top of the normal damage, and when enlarged and with all his fighter feats like Weapon Specialization and such, he did something like around 42 points of damage in one round, and this bad-guy only had 65 HP to start with. The combat was over in 3 rounds, despite the vampire-guy using his natural powers to "turn living" (which didn't work on the Paladin because it's a fear-effect) and that kind of thing.

But they did do something more cinematic than trip him and whack him. They destroyed the vampire once, hunted down the reliquary, and cast hallow, all before they finally got rid of him. That's a pretty involved BBEG slaying.

 

[Philip]

What's all the hostility? If this guy likes tripping, by al means, let him. As everyone pointed out there are enough situations and opponents that come up when trip isn't all that useful. Otherwise it will indeed turn out like an arms race.

Just work with him, create tripping targets for him, but make them more like lightning rods. Opponents that look like BBEG, or just challenge him to trip them. No harm done if he succeeds, because he was meant to trip them. You have PCs that use power attack and big two-handed weapons all the time, and you have guys that trip all the time, why is the first ok, and not the second?

Example: A friend of mine was making a high level adventure, and he created these four twinked out 12th lvl orc archers. He was verily gloating with the idea that the party would be seriously hurt by these guys.

I pointed out to him that the archers (standing on the proverbial parapets) and their tactics were very easy to foil. A spell that targeted their Will saves, any spell that blocked line of sight, etc. etc. would do so.

His initial reaction was to shore up their Will saves, to give them immunities, and to force the PCs into a situation where they would have to fight the archers on their terms. I advised against this because I thought it adversarial and railroading.

What I advised was to add a lot of low-level orc archers, and mix'em in with the dangerous four. That way the PCs will be fooled into thinking that the whole band are all just low-level orcs, and might cause them to hold off on the serious blasts spells for one round. Alternately, if they do blast the orcs, they will not be able the target the champion orcs that easily, as most orcs will look the same to them. But more importantly, when they do unleash their powerful area of effect spells and their mighty powers, slaying handfulls of orcs, they will feel empowered, even though they might be hit by a barrage of missiles from the champions.

So, if your other players are not bored by his constant tripping, work with them, not against them. If he's having fun and you're not, you don't need to take away his fun to increase your own fun. You are DM, you have more options than that.

 

[Samothdm]

What's all the hostility?

No hostility at all on my end. I was probably a little bit "rant-ish" in my post. Basically, I'm just looking for ideas and suggestions to make the combats more varied and get the other characters involved a bit more.

 

[James Jacobs]

Use more behirs in your game. They have a special quality that should work out quite well against trip attacks.

 

[Samothdm]

So, it wasn't the kensai, it was the kensai acting in concert with at least two other players, expending a number of resources to bring down their enemy? This is a problem why?

It's not really a "problem". It's just that two of my main villains in the campaign were both defeated by tripping, which just seems so, as I said, anti-climactic. It's not that I don't want this guy to trip. That's not my point. In this thread, I was just looking for some things I could do to throw the group off a bit, keep them on their toes, and make them realize that the Kensai isn't always going to prevail with the trip technique. That's all.

Sure he does, but he's not immune. You can, of course, alter the spells on the rakshasa's list. I would have selected something like fly for a third level spell (since it is an obvious choice for a rakshasa).

Yeah, I've done flying stuff before. I'm just looking to broaden my repertoir of ideas.

Sure. But then its not the player that's the problem, its the use the the villain's resources that's the problem. Plus, a rakshasa isn't a "stand up and fight" opponent, he's a sneaky behind the scenes and attacking from far away opponent. If you want a BBEG to stand toe to toe with a 9th level combat character, you need to pit him against things like giants, vrock, or pyrohydras.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. The rakshasa did do a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff prior to his confrontation with the party. I think I just overestimated him and his ability to use his magical mind-powers on the group. When the final confrontation occurred, the Kensai guy tripped him and whacked on him until the rakshasa turned invisible and tried to flee. I've never DM'd a rakshasa before and I probably just overestimated him based on the way the rest of the party (minus the Kensai) normally deals with stuff. That's really more a part of my other thread, I guess (about integrating a veteran player with a group of inexperienced players).

But they did do something more cinematic than trip him and whack him. They destroyed the vampire once, hunted down the reliquary, and cast hallow, all before they finally got rid of him. That's a pretty involved BBEG slaying.

That's true... I guess I didn't think of it that way. It's partly because the first time they destroyed him was at the end of the previous session, so it was very climactic... the vampire-thing turns gaseous and flees after the party was pretty damaged by his minions. But, then, within the first 10 minutes of the follow-up session they had destroyed the reliquary, cast hallow, tripped the vampire-thing, and hacked him apart. So, from that standpoint, it was kind of a let-down. But, yeah, I'm probably putting too much of that on the Kensai player when it was really more involved than that.

Still, the ideas for ways to overcome tripping in this thread have been great! Obviously from the responses I'm not the only one who has thought about this before.

 

[the Lorax]

Tripping heifer

I have a player in one of my regular games who is going for a very similar technique. It can be reasonably effective, but I've gotten a couple of good ways to counter it.

Improved Sunder - either on BBEG or BBEG's bodyguard. Wood is easy to sunder.

Grappling - awful hard to trip while pinned down grappling, even if its just a mook.

Dwarves - Dwarven skills help out a bit in this regard.

Disguise the BBEG - putting down a bunch of non-painted orc figures and 1 nicely painted one tells people righ off who the important person is. If there is a possibility of confusion over who is in charge of the bad guys, then use yer minis to help you succeed in that bluff.

Narrow Corridors - the Squeezing rules make 5' wide corridors a real bitch for a party with someone who is size large.

Marshall as a BBEG ally - from the Minitures Handbook, a Marshall with the Art of War minor aura can help the BBEG and all the mooks resist tripping action.

Try some of these - and keep in mind that if the BBEG knows the tactics of the PCs, he should try to counter their tactics. Let the BBEG INFORM the players himeself that he has prepared for their tricks.