Trip is an Encounter Power now

[Wolfspider]

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

This sums up the disconnect quite well, I think.

 

[hong]

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.

Right. Trip is a shutdown power, and the one thing that annoys almost everybody, IME, is being shut down. Wish they'd just come out and say it, though, instead of claiming that it's too complicated or whatever.

 

[Falling Icicle]

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.

I can see where you're coming from, but I think alot of the problem was the way they handled such things in 3e. Since you had multiple attacks, and any of them could be a trip, disarm, etc, you could disarm someone and hit them for damage in the same round. If you had to chose between disarming a foe and doing damage to him each round, it becomes a more strategic choice, rather than a no-brainer.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

When a heroic fighter in a fantasy game can't do what even any simple karate student in RL can, I have a problem.

The Monk class hasn't been released yet.

 

[Bishmon]

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.

In elite mixed martial arts, it's not as easy to trip someone as you might imagine. Sure, it's relatively simple for a karate student to walk up and trip an average guy, but elite fighters, it doesn't really work like that. Not only are takedown attempts tough to come by in mixed martial arts because recklessly trying to close distance leaves a fighter wide open to devastating strikes, even if you get a good attempt, it's far from guaranteed that you'll get the takedown if the other fighter has good takedown defense.

It's actually much easier, and much more common, for fighters to clinch up and force each around than it is for either guy to actually take the other one down.

 

[Falling Icicle]

In elite mixed martial arts, it's not as easy to trip someone as you might imagine. Sure, it's relatively simple for a karate student to walk up and trip an average guy, but elite fighters, it doesn't really work like that. Not only are takedown attempts tough to come by in mixed martial arts because recklessly trying to close distance leaves a fighter wide open to devastating strikes, even if you get a good attempt, it's far from guaranteed that you'll get the takedown if the other fighter has good takedown defense.

It's actually much easier, and much more common, for fighters to clinch up and force each around than it is for either guy to actually take the other one down.

That's where the attack roll vs defense comes in. A more skilled opponent has a higher defense rating and is thus harder to trip.

 

[Pale Jackal]

I can see it being tough to trip someone when a fight with armor, swords and spears are involved.

Nor have I ever seen a movie where there's repeated trips on one side or the other.

Indeed, I can imagine a fight right now, where one otherwise competent opponent is repeatedly tripped... you might as well begin playing some circus music, right there.

Though this does make me think and maybe this has been mentioned before: but maybe you could expend an action point to reuse a per-encounter power? I'm not sure whether a per-encounter power is worth an action point... but seems fairly nifty to me.

 

[humble minion]

That's where the attack roll vs defense comes in. A more skilled opponent has a higher defense rating and is thus harder to trip.

So a skilled, high-level fighter or martial artist finds it a simple matter to trip an untrained mook, but no matter how easy he finds it and no matter how numerous and inept his enemies might be, he can still only trip one per encounter. Bruce Lee is surrounded by 3054 blindfolded 1-legged drunks with middle-ear problems, and he can only trip one of them.

That's my main concern about 4e combat. Arbitrary limitations on the martial classes' actions because of the at-will/encounter/daily paradigm, with no in-character justification. Really eats at the suspension of disbelief for me. I suppose there may be a way of getting extra uses of a limited-use power through action points or similar, but it's still pretty suboptimal in my book. Here's hoping there's some way of converting daily powers to encounter powers or encounter powers to at-wills, as the PC levels up. That'd make a bit more sense as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Bishmon]

That's where the attack roll vs defense comes in. A more skilled opponent has a higher defense rating and is thus harder to trip.

But again, even the attempts are hard to come by. A fighter just can't practically attempt a takedown against a skilled opponent whenever he wants because of how easily it would expose the fighter to strikes. And that problem would only be exacerbated if his opponent, you know, was wielding a sword. It's one thing to try and get inside the range of a fighter's punches and knees. It's another thing to try and get inside the range of a piece of sharpened steel that reaches five feet out from the guy's body.

I think limiting a trip power to once per encounter is an elegant solution to a tricky problem.

 

[Falling Icicle]

But again, even the attempts are hard to come by. A fighter just can't practically attempt a takedown against a skilled opponent whenever he wants because of how easily it would expose the fighter to strikes. And that problem would only be exacerbated if his opponent, you know, was wielding a sword. It's one thing to try and get inside the range of a fighter's punches and knees. It's another thing to try and get inside the range of a piece of sharpened steel that reaches five feet out from the guy's body.

I think limiting a trip power to once per encounter is an elegant solution to a tricky problem.

Okay, so its really hard to trip someone, so hard it requires an encounter power, but grappling them, that's easy?

Sorry, I'm just not seeing it.