Trip Fest

[Aramis Simara]

Hello all,

The group I'm DMing has a monk who like to use trip attacks and a druid with a wolf animal companion who trips. Fights with humanoids has become a tripping fest. What steps would opponents take to avoid being tripped in combat or lesson the chance of being tripped?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Get reincarnated as a dwarf.

Enlarge Person for the size and strength bonus.

Polymorph into something with lots of legs.

Use a reach weapon like a guisarme, and trip them first!

-Hyp.

 

[starwed]

Well, size makes a difference. So using enlarge person and similiar effects will help.

I believe there is a magic item in Complete Adventurer which gives you a +2 on strength checks, which could be useful, and is pretty good value.

Having the prone attack feat (from CW) removes any penalty from being tripped.

Also, simply having a higher strength or dexterity should help. The wolf in particular shouldn't be very efficient at tripping.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Well, bonuses to strength or dexterity help directly (bull's strength, cat's grace, etc.). Increasing your size (enlarge person) or stability (being a dwarf or goliath) also helps. You could also be mounted and have a good Ride skill. As a remedy, you can have a really high Tumble skill (DC 35 to free stand, as per epic usages anyway) or prone attack (requires lightning reflexes).

 

[Darklone]

The obvious solutions: Fly (or other high mobility solutions) and use ranged combat. And casters don't care about being tripped, they care about getting chopped to pieces.

 

[Dross]

Comming from the other side of buffing: make the trippers smaller, weaker, or not able to get to you (limit movement from tanglefoot bags for example).

For the Wolf animal companion it may be slightly easier as it's saves will not be as good.

For the monk and Druid to react to other situations that limit their chances to use trip.

Also, if the PC's take measures against being tripped, use their tactics.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

This is just one of those problems with 3E. It's become much too easy to do "specialty moves," and you're seeing the result. I'm all for cinematic battles and the cool special maneuvre once in a while, but when every battle becomes trip-AoO-repeat, the cheese-factor hits factor 10/10. Not to mention slowing down the game. :\

 

[thorian]

Steadfast Boots from Arms & Equipment Guide.
Wearer cannot be tripped or pushed back and non-light weapon considered set against charge.
6000gp.

 

[Bad Paper]

Use nothing but snakes against them.

 

[Mouseferatu]

This is just one of those problems with 3E. It's become much too easy to do "specialty moves," and you're seeing the result. I'm all for cinematic battles and the cool special maneuvre once in a while, but when every battle becomes trip-AoO-repeat, the cheese-factor hits factor 10/10. Not to mention slowing down the game. :\

You know, I just haven't seen this. We use special maneuvers, but only where appropriate. IME, the fact that the game allows for them means they happen at all, but I've yet to see them happen to excess.

And BTW, you know the whole "trip-AoO-repeat" trick doesn't work, right? The AoO happens before the action that causes it. In this case, the AoO is made right before the person tries to get up; you cannot trip them, as they're already down.