AoO to trip someone getting up from prone?

Sejs said:
If you have 5 ranks in balance, you are not flat-footed while balancing.

Also, Combat Reflexes lets you make AoOs while flat-footed.
And flying (a pretty normal movement mode for D&D heros) makes Grease pretty useless.
 

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Missed that.. heh (though in my defense he didn't say how many ranks he had).

Flying wouldn't be unreasonable for the opponent at that level as well then. So I guess my side question to this, can you trip a flying opponent, and if so what is the result of the trip?
 

Festivus said:
Flying wouldn't be unreasonable for the opponent at that level as well then. So I guess my side question to this, can you trip a flying opponent, and if so what is the result of the trip?

I believe that yes, you can, but only if they use some physical means of locomotion. Winged flight, essentially. Tag 'em in the wings and they start falling as normal. So you could 'trip' a flying griffon, but you could not trip a beholder, or a mage using the Fly spell.



Of.. course.. I have NO confirmation for this whatsoever. But I do recall reading it.. uh.. somewhere. FAQ maybe? Sage advice?
 

Festivus said:
Flying wouldn't be unreasonable for the opponent at that level as well then. So I guess my side question to this, can you trip a flying opponent, and if so what is the result of the trip?
According to the FAQ (and in this case, I think it's a pretty good ruling), you can Trip a character which uses physical locomotion for flight (i.e. wings), and doing so will cause them to stall. You cannot trip a character which does not require physical action for flight (i.e. a Beholder, or a character using a fly spell), since changing their orientation doesn't inhibit their ability to fly.
 

blargney the second said:
Getting into house rule territory, but we ended up taking the AoO off getting up from prone. It actually works out pretty nicely.

The problem is that tripping becomes useless at low levels unless you've got friends with you. This does't make any sense.
 

Ender_rpm said:
It just makes no sense that I can't knock your silly butt back down when you are trying to get up. As was pointed out, if you have ever done any fighting, thats what happens ALL the time.

Ready an attack to trip when they are not prone. Done.

As an aside, we have a house rule that you can move from prone to kneeling as a non-provoking move action. Ditto for kneeling to standing.
 


Ki Ryn said:
Ready an attack to trip when they are not prone. Done.

As an aside, we have a house rule that you can move from prone to kneeling as a non-provoking move action. Ditto for kneeling to standing.

That thought occurred to me in the shower this morning :) More for trying to rememebr the penalties/bonuses of kneeling, but kneeling none the less. So you take 2 move actions in 2 turns to stand?
 

Caliban said:
I think it's a valid interpretation of the RAW to use an AoO to trip someone again as they stand up.

That being said, the FAQ clarified/ruled/errata'd it such that you are still considered "prone" at the time the AoO occurs, so they get the +4 to hit you, but can't use the AoO to trip you.

I use the FAQ version because:

a) Trip attacks are already powerful enough, and being prone sucks.
b) A lot of people ran it the way the FAQ does, even before the FAQ came out, so I accept that as a valid reading of the rules (just not the one that occured to me when I read them).
c) It makes combat flow smoother, and I can cite the FAQ to settle arguements about it. (Not that the FAQ is totally authoritive, but having a DM ruling backed up by the FAQ tends to settle things faster.)

Actually, the reason to use the FAQ is because it is RAW.

AoO's occur before the action that triggers them. That means the AoO for standing happens before the defender actually stands up. How can you trip someone who isn't standing???

Take a similar example:
Say an attacker without the improved grapple feat is attemptint to grapple a greatsword wielding fighter. This provokes an attack of opportunity. The greatsword wielding fighter is allowed to swing their greatsword because they are not yet in the grapple. Allowing an AoO on standing to trip the defender again would be the equivalent of saying to the greatsword wielding fighter you can't attack because the greatsword isn't a light weapon.

Me.
 

MarkB said:
According to the FAQ (and in this case, I think it's a pretty good ruling), you can Trip a character which uses physical locomotion for flight (i.e. wings), and doing so will cause them to stall.

That's what it was. Right, and if you don't have a high enough maneuverability (i.e. Good or Perfect) or the Hover feat, stalling means you don't meet your minimum foreward speed requirements, and thus you start falling.
 

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