Gnome Berzerker said:
Anybody ever play a Fighter, taking feats that would help in making trip attacks?
I think the concept would be both a fun and competitive one. I just want to know if it's worked in actual play. I'm considering using a Guisarme, and having the Fighter's race be Dwarf (+2 stabilization in 3.5).
The idea of adding a few Monk levels (2 or 4) has entered my mind on this build, since I'd be able to use an unarmed attack as a defense against baddies that get past my reach weapon. I'd still be able to wear light armor and use a few of the Monk abilities.
I used to use Improved Trip a lot when I played the party monk. The downside/upside to it is that it works best against M sized humanoids if the monk is M. On the other hand, for an L sized monk, boy, it's powerful good against a wide variety of opponents. This also holds for centaurs and their ilk (4 legs good, 2 legs bad). The best thing about improved tripping is the +4 attack bonus against prone opponents, so if you succeed in an improved trip attack, your chances of nailing the opponent hard are excellent. Commonly, I would trip on the first attack, and then wale on the other guy with the Imp. Trip bonus attack and subsequent attacks at the higher bonuses. Well, I guess it often wasn't necessary to use all the attacks... It's especially apt against opponents that derive a lot of their AC from armor and natural armor, since only dex and str help against being tripped.
Tripping a stunned opponent was pretty effective too, since they don't get a chance to trip back if you fail. If I really wanted to make a guy feel smacked, I'd stun him (plus dmg), trip him (plus dmg), and finish him off with a swift kick to the posterior. The cute thing about this, is that after each of the first two special attacks, the opponent's AC usually goes down, so the subsequent attacks are almost as likely to hit as the primary attacks. At the end of a stun/trip/smack/smack round, the recipient is typically in dire straits, especially if you have a comrade who's ready to take advantage of his prone/stunned state. Then the opponent has to stand up from prone (move eq.) and pick up his weapon the next round (also move eq.), if he wants to keep fighting.
As a bard, I also found whip-based tripping could be kind of nice, even without Imp. Trip. Whips are well suited to it, with the +2/drop feature, and you can carry several with little encumbrance penalty, so it's not so bad if you lose one. Since they work as ranged attacks, they're well suited to missile weapon specialists. It was usually best when other characters were fighting the same opponent, since they would all get the +4 prone bonus after I tripped him.
I don't think I would devote a lot of resources to specializing in it as a fighter though, unless you happen to be playing a giant centaur or something like that.
