Trip is an Encounter Power now

[Falling Icicle]

http://thetome.podbean.com/2008/03/01/the-tome-ep-46-perkinsgirard/

Making something like trip an encounter power (and one that only requires a single roll) as opposed to something everyone can do, that invariably requires someone to haul out the book, and that requires a batch of checks is an awkward tool to use. We can still have the battle scene in which I trip you or knock you off a bridge - but it moves more quickly, and the player who can trip knows exactly how it works and what his limitations are."

I can't say I'm very happy about this.

Trip is too difficult to do, but we can give everyone several special abilities to keep track of instead? I really don't get it. Just say that trip is an Attack vs Reflex, and if you hit, they are knocked prone. Easy as pie. But I guess that would be too difficult for us gamers to remember. :\

 

[small pumpkin man]

Hopefully the particular encounter power he's talking about also does damage, (most of them seem to do) allowing room for what you're talking about as well.

 

[psionotic]

Thank you Gawds. The Improved Trip rinse-repeat strategy was something I really disliked about 3.x, especially for those with reach weapons.

 

[The Little Raven]

I can't say I'm very happy about this.

Trip is too difficult to do, but we can give everyone several special abilities to keep track of instead? I really don't get it. Just say that trip is an Attack vs Reflex, and if you hit, they are knocked prone. Easy as pie. But I guess that would be too difficult for us gamers to remember. :\

If it's a part of the basic rules, then it's something that everyone is supposed to learn, whether or not their character would ever use it.

If it's part of a class's abilities, then it's something only players of that class need to learn, since it's part of that class's shtick.

 

[Falling Icicle]

The problem with Improved Trip is that it gave a free attack. If trip used a standard action and didn't give a free attack or damage, you'd have a good reason not to use it every round.

 

[Falling Icicle]

If it's a part of the basic rules, then it's something that everyone is supposed to learn, whether or not their character would ever use it.

If it's part of a class's abilities, then it's something only players of that class need to learn, since it's part of that class's shtick.

Only melee characters would need to learn the trip rules. That, and the existance of grapple rules contradicts that point. They expect everyone to know how grappling works, but not tripping? Besides, as I pointed out, it could be done in a very simple, intuitive way.

 

[hong]

It seems kinda odd that you can shove someone back all day, but you can't shove them _on_ their back more than once.

 

[Doug McCrae]

That seems reasonable to me. I think tripping would be quite hard to do in melee, requiring special training.

 

[Falling Icicle]

That seems reasonable to me. I think tripping would be quite hard to do in melee, requiring special training.

Problem is, I can show you plenty of simple martial artists in real life that can trip each other alot more often than once every 5 minutes, but apparently D&D heroes, with their heroic martial exploits, can only trip once per battle. :\ When a heroic fighter in a fantasy game can't do what even any simple karate student in RL can, I have a problem. If they're going to make it a power, fine. But at least make it an at-will power.

 

[FourthBear]

While I can certainly understand people being annoyed by Trip (and, I suspect, Disarm) being moved from basic combat tactics to special per encounter exploits, I am glad they've gone and done it. While tripping and disarming actions are OK once in a while, I find a diet of them annoys me as a DM. It's actually a bit weird, but I find Trip and Disarm focused PCs very irritating. I guess it's because you don't really find those tactics that commonly in fantasy fiction outside of cases where one character completely outclasses the other or at the end of a long conflict. Characters able to Trip, Trip, Trip round after round just set my teeth on edge. It just doesn't simulate the kind of fantasy action I'd like to see at the table.