Does performing Trip attempts every round ruin Suspension of Disbelief?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

"Use the search, Luke"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

Please mind the misspelling!

 

[mmu1]

I agree with pawsplay, as a fan of MMA... the whole shooting or tripping thing happens alot when a fighter has trained to do this, Brazilian jujitsu, wrestling, and other styles are based around training in tripping or knocking your opponent to the ground. I find it harder to believe that within fights that last as long as 4e's that there is only one "perfect" opportunity to try certain maneuvers. I personally don't find numerous trips or disarms anymore annoying than the goblin who shifts each and every time you miss him with an attack... wow, that goblin has got to be clever to pull this off every time you miss him, even after you've been fighting him for 3 or 4 rounds. Yeah, the fighter or paladin can minimize this, but no other class seems able to adapt at all to it. This is where my suspension of disbelief in trying something over and over again vs. perfect opportunity breaks down.

Agreed. I've seen plenty of fights which went to the ground repeateadly, despite the fact the guy getting dropped knew it was coming, and he'd gotten caught that way 3 or 4 times already.

So, no, it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief in the slightest.

I do think the 3.5 Trip mechanic needs to be fixed - not the 4E way (where "fix" as often as not means "remove" or "stick the old name on something completely different"), but simply by adjusting the mods to make things less binary in outcome.

 

[Imaro]

Annoyance trumps disbelief.

I'm glad YOU feel that way hong, though I think it would be more enlightening if perhaps you were willing to actually discuss, beyond snappy one-liners, what exactly is more annoying about that than some of the continuous over and over again powers both monsters and players have in 4e?

 

[Janx]

In all honesty, realistic fights are kind of goonish. In my experience in a number of boffer combat tournaments and watching several martial arts competitions:

- Someone manages to disarm themselves practically every tenth bout. Expertise does not seem to help much, either.
- Sometimes, someone will pick a nasty attack and use it repeatedly until it works. And it often does. A trip is one possibility. One difference between an expert and a beginner is that an expert will use an attack each and every time there is an opening, and is ready to defend against the next attack whether it's a surprise move or the exact same attack the fifth time in a row. Beginners vary their attacks, but often for no really good reason, and are easily faked out.
- If you've ever watched MMA, it's not uncommon to see, say, a Brazilian jiujitsu fighter use essentially the same combo to take down two or three guys in a row. You would think it would not work, but when the guy actually pulls the move on you, you see why it works.
- One good trip is to attack the torso, and when they step back to avoid or lessen the blow, you step forward and strike them in the chest or chin. That's a trip, and it requires very little force to accomplish. You're taking advantage of the natural reflex to lean back from an attack.

So to sum up, a monk who's fighting style is more like aikido or judo, might implement the effect, but using the Trip maneuver all the time.

The trick, is to give it good description. If for every combat round, I say "I try to trip my oponnent" and the GM doesn't give it any flufing, then most players may envision that my PC keep sticking his leg out, hoping for the bad guy to trip over it.

Whereas, using the Trip maneuver may mean I have using a number of throws and sweeps and redirections.

My suggestion, is go check out more martial arts styles, not just hard styles like tae kwon do, which mainly focus on strikes.

 

[hong]

I'm glad YOU feel that way hong, though I think it would be more enlightening if perhaps you were willing to actually discuss, beyond snappy one-liners, what exactly is more annoying about that than some of the continuous over and over again powers both monsters and players have in 4e?

See, there are shutdown powers, and there are not-shutdown powers.

 

[Imaro]

See, there are shutdown powers, and there are not-shutdown powers.

See, I can agree with this to a point. I feel tripping and disarming in 3.x needed to be fixed...I just don't think the best fix was..."It's a power now"

 

[Cadfan]

Yes, it breaks suspension of disbelief. I can get over it though. The fact is that this is a game, that combat involves rolling dice, and suspension of disbelief is at best a veneer.

My reasons for preferring the 4e system have a lot more to do with the Hongian "annoyance" argument. Its annoying to have all martial attacks as at-will powers because it turns martial character advancement into an exercise in combo building. It also creates a rather breakable game architecture, because every time a feat is released which affects, lets say, Trip, you can stack it onto the already existing feats until you get a Fighter with a dozen trip related feats all at one time, and all of which combine. The power system isolates things more effectively, and stops them from stacking. If a new per-encounter trip power is released, I might take it alongside my already existing trip powers, but this just means I can trip slightly more often or in a slightly different way. It doesn't mean that all of my trips just gained a new attribute that stacked with their old attributes.

 

[el-remmen]

No, it does not.

Though as DM I might apply a circumstance bonus to resist the trip if it is done over and over, as the opponent knows to expect it.

- el-believes-circumstance-bonuses/penalties-can-fix-most-problems-remmen

 

[mmadsen]

Unpredicted openings, vulnerabilities and defenses are generally covered by the 1-20 variation of a D20.

Actually, no, they don't, because you only roll the d20 after you've chosen your optimal maneuver.

What we'd like is a system where sometimes your opponent has opened himself up against a trip, sometimes against a disarm, sometimes against a slash at his hamstrings, etc.

 

[Janx]

Does performing sword attacks every round ruin Suspension of Disbelief?

C'mon folks, a good GM doesn't describe your fighter's constant roll of 1d20 with a longsword the same way, why should a trip be any different.

Consider a different way, an Aikido person NEVER throws a punch or kick. I've trained them at camps, just so they can perform such techniques as an aggressor during learning exercises (as in, how do you teach defending against a kick, when nobody knows how to throw one).

As written in 3e, it assumes a monk does a hard style, like tae kwon do, which is all kicks and punches.

My point, is just because the rules call it a Trip or attack, or grapple, does not mean it should be described as such, or described as the exact same thing every time.

If you're going to complain about a fighter trying to Trip every round, you should also complain about fighters who try to attack with a sword every single round.