In our Pathfinder game this past week a group of baddies had Improved Trip and I used it extensively on the PCs. I did it because looking over the rules, it appears as if you can use Trip on characters standing up as part of your Attack of Opportunity. Specifically, the PRD says the following about AoO
"An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack..."
Under Trip it says:
"You can attempt to trip your opponent in place of a melee attack."
The players were cool with the decision (if a little frustrated) but now I'm curious, since in the Facebook updates (we play Wednesday nights and Stan! makes updates all night) during the game someone made a comment that you can't do a Trip attack as part of your AoO.
What's the right call?
Hyrum.
Super Genius Games
"We err on the side of awesome."
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You cannot trip someone who is prone, and the AoO from standing up resolves BEFORE you stand up, so you wouldn't be able to keep them down doing this.
However, if the AoO was triggered from something else you could certainly do so.
Just keep in mind that they might trigger an AoO from their opponent by trying to trip in place of their AoO (obviously not in the case you describe, as they have improved trip), which gets messy sometimes.
Main thing to note, though: The AoO resolves *before* the action that triggers it. This means that (unless the action has some specific note about being hurt or interrupted during it, such as spellcasting) you resolve the entirety of the action after the AoO finishes resolving.
In this case it goes like so:
1) Player tries to stand (action interrupted by AoO)
2) Opponent gets AoO, chooses to trip. Player is still prone, so trip fails.
3) Player stands successfully.
What Stabbitty said.
Same for disarm?
Disarm guy, he drops his sword, he bends down to pick up his sword provoking AoO, original guy can't disarm again to keep sword on ground?
Nope.
On the other hand, you can perfectly legally ready an action to trip/disarm/whatever when they stand up/retrieve their weapon/whatever and as long as you specify the timing of the readied action properly it works. This does usually require two people working together in order to have an action free to ready, though.
I disagree on both counts.
The prone character does not trigger an AoO for just lying there prone (doing nothing). So the Prone condition doesn't provoke. When he tries to stand up, it is the action of standing up that provokes. To say the AoO happens before he even begins to stand up is essentially to say "The attacker can see the future and knows that his prone oppnonent, who has not moved yet, is about to stand up, so he takes his AoO against the unmoving prone opponent before that opponent begins to rise from prone."
Clearly we're not saying that. Most combatants can't see the future like that.
So, obviously, the prone guy must make some movement, must begin to stand up, and it is that beginning of the act of rising from prone that triggers the AoO after the motion begins, but before the prone guy gets all the way up onto his feet.
Since he is in the process of rising from prone, an AoO or a readied actoin can still be aimed at his feet to trip him, knocking his feet back out from under him and preventing him from rising.
Not sure of that? Try it some time. Lay on the ground. Have a friend stand near your feet. As you try to rise, have him kick/sweep your feet out from under you - you will find yourself returning to prone as a result of his "attack" every time (unless he blows it, which is a missed attack, not a lack of opportunity to prevent you from rising).
Not RAW?
Well, RAW says that an AoO happens "before the action that triggers it", but clearly, the RAW means to say "before the action that triggers it [b]is completed[b]" - if this is not the case then every combatant on the battlefield is able to see the future. Somehow they all know what is about to happen before it happens and they have enough tome to make a normal AoO before their opponent even begins to do the thing that hasn't really provoked the AoO since it hasn't actually been started yet? I doubt it.
The same holds true for disarming someone who is retrieving a dropped weapon. The act of retrieving the weapon from the ground doesn't mean "bending over". "Bending over" is not what triggers the AoO. What triggers it is "retrieving the weapon from the ground".
That AoO can then be taken any time before the triggering act is completed. The triggering act is completed once the guy bends over, grasps his weapon, then straightens back up into a fighting posture. If that provokes an AoO from an enemy, and that enemy wants to disarm him again as part of the AoO, he merely attempts his disarm AoO after the fallen weapon is grasped and before the oppoennt has straightened back up into his fighting posture.
No problem.
In fact, saying he cannot do that is ultimate saying this: "You know how to disarm an opponent who is defending himself proprly. Despite that opponent's proper stance and positioning and complete readiness, you can disarm him. However, you do not know how to disarm an opponent who is off balance, bent over, and in no position to defend himself. It's much too hard for you to disarm an unprepared opponent than it is to disarm a fully prepared opponent."
Poppycock I say. Poppycock!
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It may not make a lot of sense, but that's abstract combat for you. It was likely a balance issue to begin with, so someone couldn't be constantly tripped and never get up off the ground.
I know it's from 3.5, but the D&D FAQ answered this too:
When a character gets up from prone, when does the attack of opportunity take place? When he is still prone? When he is standing? Can the attacker choose when to attack? In one case, the attacker can get a +4 bonus to hit. In the other, he can make another trip attack.
All attacks of opportunity happen before the actions that trigger them (see Chapter 8 in the PH). When you make an attack of opportunity against someone who’s getting up, your target is effectively prone, and therefore cannot be tripped. You could ready an action to trip a prone foe after he gets up, however.
Since PRPG didn't really change how attacks of opportunity worked in this matter, I'd go with the original ruling.
You can't trip someone that's already prone, and you can't disarm someone that doesn't have a weapon yet.
And yet, that's the moment when you get the AoO -- not when they've recovered their weapon or successfully stood up, but before. And since the enemy is still prone or unarmed, your attempt to further trip or disarm them has no effect. They were prone or unarmed before, and they still are -- and you haven't stopped them from performing the action remedying that very condition.
The rules of the game seem to be fairly clear about how such a situation is handled mechanically but it seems that it may become difficult for some to synchronize this process with the narrative flow. I appreciate that. I often find rules getting in the way of a good time. In life as in gaming.
To me (and my group, I believe), the slight hiccup in suspension of disbelief is vastly preferable to the DM (or Player)deployed, uber-tripping (often spiked chain wielding) nightmare that was all too commonplace before the clarification and implementation of the updated rules...
Yeah, yeah, I know I wasn't describing RAW. I think I made that clear in my post.
I just cannot get my head around a ruling that says:
1. Every combatant can see the future
2. You can do some stuff that provokes an AoO and some stuff that doesn't.
3. If you choose to provoke an AoO, because your opponent can see the future, he will attack you before you even twitch a muscle to begin the action that provokes him.
4. Your opponent can see the future but he lacks the foresight (note the irony) to actually slow down his attack by half a second so he could get the results he wants. He has no choice but to attack at the worst possible time which actually somehow happens before you actually provoke him.
5. If you had chosen some other, non-provoking action, or even if you had done nothing, your future-seeing but foresight-lacking opponent could not possibly have gotten an AoO against you.
Which means:
6. "Doing nothing" is safe, but "Doing nothing when you're thinking about prooking an AoO but you haven't actually done it yet is dangerous".
Again I say poppycock!
If the alternative is someone can trip you more often, then so be it. I see no reason to punish a trip-specialist by making him use his specialty half the time (every other round) when I don't punish other specialists (dual-wielders, sneak-attackers, power-attackers, great-cleavers, or whatever) by making them only use their specialty half the time.
To me (and my group, I believe), the slight hiccup in suspension of disbelief is vastly preferable to the DM (or Player)deployed, uber-tripping (often spiked chain wielding) nightmare that was all too commonplace before the clarification and implementation of the updated rules...
If trip-optimized "uber-tripping nightmares" are too common or too effective, it seems to me that the solution lies in balancing the Trip mechanics. Balancing the AoO mechanics instead is kind-of like curing a toothache by removing the part of the brain that senses pain. It works, but the toothache is still really there and all we've done is create new problems.
Especially if balancing the AoO mechanics requires turning every combatant into a walking, fighting Oracle of Delphi.
I think you're reading too much into what an Attack of Opportunity means.
Think of it like this: The game is trying to simulate combat. So while characters seem to be taking turns making single swings with their swords (or whatever weapon they are using, and more swings as their BAB goes up), thats clearly not what is "really" happening. The characters are constantly fighting and defending against each other; the 'attacks' just represent their combat effectiveness--i.e. the higher their attack bonus and the more attacks they get, the better they are represented as a fighter.
So, that prone guy is still defending himself as best he can, deflecting blows with his sword, dodging out of the way, etc. Hes just not as effective at it because his movement is limited and his opponent has the high ground. (This is represented by the -4 to AC/-4 to melee attacks.)
Now, that being said, Attacks of Opportunity are not 'free swings.' They represent a 'lowering of one's guard,' usually in order to focus on doing something else. And this is how AoOs are defined in the CRB: "Sometimes a combatant in a melee lets her guard down or takes a reckless action. In this case, combatants near her can take advantage of her lapse in defense to attack her for free. These free attacks are called attacks of opportunity."
So think of the AoO being the result of the defender not defending himself as well as he normally would because he's trying to do something else. Amidst the constant flurry of sword blows between the two combatants, the attacker gets to take advantage of the defenders lapse in defense, and thats where the AoO comes from.
(Its also why you can't take an AoO if you can't see the target, like if an invisible enemy moves through your threatened area. You can't see him and thus can't see the lessened defenses, and thus can't take advantage of them--even if hes walking in circles around you wearing +3 Heavy Iron Boots of Noisy Clomping.)
So getting to the prone guy trying to stand up. The AoO is triggered by the drop in defenses due to the prone guy having to focus on standing up rather than defending himself. Its not so much the actual standing up that does it, its the inability to focus on both tasks at once. As the prone guy starts to stand up (he adjusts his body, puts his hand on the ground for leverage, etc), he drops his defenses somewhat (he can't get his sword up to deflect an incoming blow, or he can't dodge out of the way real easy), since hes busy trying to do something other than flat out defend himself. And thats when the attacker gets his AoO. As hes STARTING to stand up.
Thats why they say the AoO is resolved before the action that triggered it. The attacker is immediately taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the lowering of the defenders defenses in order to focus on some other task.
So I think if you think of combat as occurring in a far more natural and fluid manner then the turn based game seems to suggest, its not really that hard to see how an AoO gets resolved before the action that triggers it is completed.
Theres really no need to be a future seeing psychic for it to work!
So Dale, are you ok with the person trying to stand up being 're-tripped'?
Personally I find it makes sense to allow it.
6. "Doing nothing" is safe, but "Doing nothing when you're thinking about prooking an AoO but you haven't actually done it yet is dangerous".
Again I say poppycock!
You're over-thinking this. But even with over-thinking:
A character reaching for his disarmed sword - his taking his eye off you and bending over to reach for the weapon is what provokes, not his having it in his hand again.
In fact, reading it the way you propose is more silly and unrealistic. Then you're at "getting up isn't dangerous, but being on your feet again is" or "being unarmed and reaching for a sword at your opponent's feet isn't dangerous, but having the sword in your hand again is."
The problem with being able to trip a prone opponent is that they may never get to stand back up. It is very annoying to be on the tripped end of the situation, especially if the tripper has a reach weapon. Realistically it makes sense to do a retrip, but for balance and fun reasons I would go with RAW.
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I completely agree with Blake. Sometimes RAW have to be ignored, and I think this is one of those cases. They are provoking the AOO for attempting to stand up, and using the AOO to sweep their legs out from under them is a very viable strategy for an AOO.
I can see your argument for a balance issue, but its pretty BSey. The person tripping isn't guaranteed to manage the AOO, and this is a party-based game; so if one person is being tripped a lot, someone else bull-rushing them away, disarming them or simply finishing/disabling the guy doing the tripping is a good example of how to deal with this.
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Bleh, it makes perfect sense to me.
You trip enemy one.
Enemy one falls to the ground.
Enemy one moves legs into position to allow him to stand up quickly, but in doing so uses his arms for a split second and can't protect himself. *enter attack of opportunity*
then, enemy one stands up quickly, while defending himself. This is because he no longer needs to use his hands.
Or, if you prefer...
Each turn takes 6 seconds. So these things are happening during the course of six seconds.
In the first six seconds, you trip the enemy.
The enemy pulls his legs underneath him, provoking the attack of opportunity. You swing quickly once you realize what he's doing, and try to trip him. You hit, but he's still in the kneeling position. He brings his weapons up to guard himself, and then completes the process of standing up.
The point is that standing up is a two part process. First is getting your legs where you need them to be. Whether you're just standing up, or doing a prone flip to your feet, your legs have to be in the right position for this. It's the first part of the action.
Which is the part that triggers the aoo.
The second part is the actual push, which brings you back to your feet.
It totally makes sense to me that an attack of opportunity would happen before you stand up. Because before you can stand up, you have to get into position, and while your target knows that you're getting ready to stand up, your vulnerable part comes as you rearrange your body's positioning on the ground. Hence, not seeing the future. Just watching the tell-tale signs of your positioning.
My interpretation thereof :D
Rulings for 3.5 were very clear that you cannot trip someone again who mechanically is still prone, and that the AoO resolves before the opponent loses his prone status. How Jason or James would rule it now is anyones guess.
Rulings for 3.5 were very clear that you cannot trip someone again who mechanically is still prone, and that the AoO resolves before the opponent loses his prone status. How Jason or James would rule it now is anyones guess.
Or readily available all over this site considering how many times they've gone over this already.
It runs exactly the same way it did in 3.5 and they like it that way.
AoO's happen before the action is completed and you still have the prone condition therefore cannot be tripped as part of the AoO that you provoke while getting up.
Rulings for 3.5 were very clear that you cannot trip someone again who mechanically is still prone, and that the AoO resolves before the opponent loses his prone status. How Jason or James would rule it now is anyones guess.Or readily available all over this site considering how many times they've gone over this already.
It runs exactly the same way it did in 3.5 and they like it that way.
AoO's happen before the action is completed and you still have the prone condition therefore cannot be tripped as part of the AoO that you provoke while getting up.
Makes sense and I approve. :p It'd make a trip monkey character too hard to deal with, once he'd get someone on the ground.
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I know it's from 3.5, but the D&D FAQ answered this too:
Since PRPG didn't really change how attacks of opportunity worked in this matter, I'd go with the original ruling.When a character gets up from prone, when does the attack of opportunity take place? When he is still prone? When he is standing? Can the attacker choose when to attack? In one case, the attacker can get a +4 bonus to hit. In the other, he can make another trip attack.
All attacks of opportunity happen before the actions that trigger them (see Chapter 8 in the PH). When you make an attack of opportunity against someone who’s getting up, your target is effectively prone, and therefore cannot be tripped. You could ready an action to trip a prone foe after he gets up, however.
It was basically a balance (no pun) issue. But there is one major thing that has changed from 3E to PF, and that is that targets are harder to actually trip now. That may be cause to think again, or might not be. I still agree, no tripping the prone, but the fact that a combat Manuvers are generally harder to pull off should be considered.
In 3.5, allowing this basically means that a Tripping character can neutralize foes consistantly and they have no real defense. In PF, it may just mean that they go down and might stay there a round or two.
" can't disarm someone that doesn't have a weapon yet."
Is it just me or would a disarm attack on someone with out a ready weapon be a great way to simulate drawing a foe's weapon from their belt during combat?
ex: Light weapon fighter vs 2h axe fighter. Ave fighter has back up dagger on belt. Axe fighter sunders light fighters sword. Light fighter now with no weapon makes a disarm attack to draw dagger from axe fighters belt.
Would this work, or is it cheese?
1. I'd allow it.
2. The rules for disarm don't seem to support that, however.
3. Slight of Hand seems to be what you'd have to use.
As fun as it would be to perma-trip an enemy, it would suck to have it done to your character. Nobody wants to play a game where they spend every combat being punished by game mechanic loop holes created by fudging with the rules to make a fantasy game more "realistic."
Tripping is powerful enough as is. No need to make it ridiculous.
1. I'd allow it.
2. The rules for disarm don't seem to support that, however.
3. Slight of Hand seems to be what you'd have to use.
*Face palm*
You are correct. This is obviously slight of hand.I'll be quiet now.
The discussion here mostly assumes that there are two states during the action of standing up. At some point you start prone, and then you are in a standing position, and the attack happens somewhere in those to phases.
I am in the position that there is an in-between situation when the person is attacked when half way though standing up. I would allow players to do it.
However, as a DM, this is a kind of a cruel move because unless all the PC's are built to withstand trip attacks it can easily lead to TPK. I mean I can throw a party of 5 against a party of higher level fighters specializing in trip, using a strategy that gets them a surprise round, and TPK in no time.
The discussion here mostly assumes that there are two states during the action of standing up. At some point you start prone, and then you are in a standing position, and the attack happens somewhere in those to phases.
I am in the position that there is an in-between situation when the person is attacked when half way though standing up. I would allow players to do it.
However, as a DM, this is a kind of a cruel move because unless all the PC's are built to withstand trip attacks it can easily lead to TPK. I mean I can throw a party of 5 against a party of higher level fighters specializing in trip, using a strategy that gets them a surprise round, and TPK in no time.
Yes, that's one good mechanics reason to stick with RAW.
I also honestly do believe having them resolve afterwards makes no IC sense. Again with the disarm. Your moment of vulnerability is not after you got the weapon back. Your moment of vulnerability getting up is not after you're back on your feet.
The discussion here mostly assumes that there are two states during the action of standing up. At some point you start prone, and then you are in a standing position, and the attack happens somewhere in those to phases.
I am in the position that there is an in-between situation when the person is attacked when half way though standing up. I would allow players to do it.
However, as a DM, this is a kind of a cruel move because unless all the PC's are built to withstand trip attacks it can easily lead to TPK. I mean I can throw a party of 5 against a party of higher level fighters specializing in trip, using a strategy that gets them a surprise round, and TPK in no time.
TPK is a bit overstated, I think.
Those tripped players can fight from prone. Yes, it's a penalty to their attack rolls, and their enemies get a bonus to their attack rolls, so it might tip the scales. But unless you're talking about a fight that was already a close call, such as the climactic "boss mob" fight at the end of a dungeon, or some other plot-critical key fight, then I don't think your generic 4-fights-per-day garden variety encounter will get enough mileage from prone enemies to go all the way to TPK.
You want TPK then forget trip, forget disarm, and hit the PCs with monsters that are optimized for grapple, including grab and constrict. Put in at least one for every PC and by the second round all the PCs will be nicely grappled, pinned, and being slowly crushed to death in a vice they cannot escape. And that won't even take any lose interpretations of any rules.
I didn't mean to say so much that you can trip them in a moment of vulnerability as soon as they are finished standing, so much as I meant that you can trip to prevent them from getting up. Seems to me that smacking someone in the knee while they are standing up will be as effective for keeping them down as it was to knock them down in the first place. It is not so much to do with a stack of events resolving as does it make sense that you should be able to prevent the action. In the situation such as disarm, couldn't a disarm attack when someone is picking up their sword off the ground just as easily be seen as you kicking the sword out of their reach? For Trip can't it just be that you push them down as they try to stand up? I don't see the need for an exact stack of events that happen one after another for these cases.
I didn't mean to say so much that you can trip them in a moment of vulnerability as soon as they are finished standing, so much as I meant that you can trip to prevent them from getting up. Seems to me that smacking someone in the knee while they are standing up will be as effective for keeping them down as it was to knock them down in the first place. It is not so much to do with a stack of events resolving as does it make sense that you should be able to prevent the action. In the situation such as disarm, couldn't a disarm attack when someone is picking up their sword off the ground just as easily be seen as you kicking the sword out of their reach? For Trip can't it just be that you push them down as they try to stand up? I don't see the need for an exact stack of events that happen one after another for these cases.
It is for balance reasons. Balance often trumps realism in theses games. Would you like it if your character were stuck on the ground, and could do nothing about it?
Actually the tripping character is still very viable under this interpretation of the rules. If their initial trip is successful, every attack is at a +4 to hit. That include the attack of opportunity. Finally the opponent(s) MUST spend a move action to stand up barring having taken some sort of feat or being serpentine (And in the second case never be tripped). That effectively staggers them, or they can take a -4 to attack rolls. Casters are almost completely unaffected by this, aside from getting hit even more often, and melee classes are the ones who will get pinned down. Melee classes also have the best CMDs in the game. Coincidence?
To those requiring a fluff explanation as to how you do something before the attack provoking it is done: You don't. You perform it before its completion. Basically WHILE you are starting to get up Fred the Fighter tries to trip you. You are in effect a quadruped while you are on the ground. Therefore you use your other three limbs to stand and laugh at Fred, then trip him. None of this is in the rules, but I guess this could be how that scenario would play out in a narrative light. As someone who knows grappling, this is why you use both hands to grapple.
One last question: Why doesn't prone guy just trip the tripper? That's what always happened in my games when a chain fighter hit the field. We all agreed that it would look very silly as well.
One last question: Why doesn't prone guy just trip the tripper? That's what always happened in my games when a chain fighter hit the field. We all agreed that it would look very silly as well.
The penalties to attack rolls apply to CMB rolls so a -4 to trip someone who is specialized in tripping is likely to fail. The other thing is that most trippers I have seen use reach weapons, and if you are not able to threaten them then you can't trip them.
The discussion here mostly assumes that there are two states during the action of standing up. At some point you start prone, and then you are in a standing position, and the attack happens somewhere in those to phases.
I am in the position that there is an in-between situation when the person is attacked when half way though standing up. I would allow players to do it.
However, as a DM, this is a kind of a cruel move because unless all the PC's are built to withstand trip attacks it can easily lead to TPK. I mean I can throw a party of 5 against a party of higher level fighters specializing in trip, using a strategy that gets them a surprise round, and TPK in no time.
TPK is a bit overstated, I think.
Those tripped players can fight from prone. Yes, it's a penalty to their attack rolls, and their enemies get a bonus to their attack rolls, so it might tip the scales. But unless you're talking about a fight that was already a close call, such as the climactic "boss mob" fight at the end of a dungeon, or some other plot-critical key fight, then I don't think your generic 4-fights-per-day garden variety encounter will get enough mileage from prone enemies to go all the way to TPK.
Being prone is a -4 to both the PCs AC and attacks. If your big stupid fighter is fighting someone he has an even chance to hit, for example, and who has an even chance to hit him - trading hits - then prone will make him be missed roughly half as often AND miss twice as much.
It would go from trading roughly one hit for one to one hit for three. That does have the potential to kill in an otherwise fairly even encounter - especially since with the penalty for being prone his attakcer is very unlikely to fail to keep him tripped if he can take the AoO from standing to trip again.
There is also the reach weapons strategy noted above. You cannot take 5 foot steps when prone, which means an enemy with a reach weapon who can keep you permanently tripped can pretty much slaughter you at will with no risk of even your gimped from-prone melee attacks.
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The discussion here mostly assumes that there are two states during the action of standing up. At some point you start prone, and then you are in a standing position, and the attack happens somewhere in those to phases.
I am in the position that there is an in-between situation when the person is attacked when half way though standing up. I would allow players to do it.
However, as a DM, this is a kind of a cruel move because unless all the PC's are built to withstand trip attacks it can easily lead to TPK. I mean I can throw a party of 5 against a party of higher level fighters specializing in trip, using a strategy that gets them a surprise round, and TPK in no time.
TPK is a bit overstated, I think.
Those tripped players can fight from prone. Yes, it's a penalty to their attack rolls, and their enemies get a bonus to their attack rolls, so it might tip the scales. But unless you're talking about a fight that was already a close call, such as the climactic "boss mob" fight at the end of a dungeon, or some other plot-critical key fight, then I don't think your generic 4-fights-per-day garden variety encounter will get enough mileage from prone enemies to go all the way to TPK.
You want TPK then forget trip, forget disarm, and hit the PCs with monsters that are optimized for grapple, including grab and constrict. Put in at least one for every PC and by the second round all the PCs will be nicely grappled, pinned, and being slowly crushed to death in a vice they cannot escape. And that won't even take any lose interpretations of any rules.
Nah, any wizard worth his salt prepares for a grapple. Being grapples is after all a death sentence.
Ergo a ring of blinking at mid levels, or a grease spells at low levels.
You still have to make the concentration check to get the grease spell off, and most wizard don't prep the same spell more than twice. If grease has a material component you also have to be able to get to it.
From the PRD
Grappling or Pinned: The only spells you can cast while grappling or pinned are those without somatic components and whose material components (if any) you have in hand. Even so, you must make a concentration check (DC 10 + the grappler's CMB + the level of the spell you're casting) or lose the spell.
I completely agree with Blake. Sometimes RAW have to be ignored, and I think this is one of those cases. They are provoking the AOO for attempting to stand up, and using the AOO to sweep their legs out from under them is a very viable strategy for an AOO.
I can see your argument for a balance issue, but its pretty BSey. The person tripping isn't guaranteed to manage the AOO, and this is a party-based game; so if one person is being tripped a lot, someone else bull-rushing them away, disarming them or simply finishing/disabling the guy doing the tripping is a good example of how to deal with this.
As for "balance" : There is also the possibility of standing up a second time in a round by using your standard action to do so, after having been tripped the first time with an AoO.
Spiked Chain wielding monstrosities ? Well, besides the heavy investment in Feats (Combat Reflexes, Greater Trip ), if it really bugs you, nerf the Spiked Chain - either make it an "Exotic Weapon" again (used to be one in 3E ), or limit its availability ?
Besides - AoO interrupt actions in mid-use, before completion... say like moving past an opponent, triggering an AoO, ending your movement there and then. Not conveniently in the square where you started of your turn.
I really hate it when co-players would rather go for semantic twisting of logic instead of common sense to wriggle themselves out of an unfavourable position.
I also honestly do believe having them resolve afterwards makes no IC sense. Again with the disarm. Your moment of vulnerability is not after you got the weapon back. Your moment of vulnerability getting up is not after you're back on your feet.
Your moment of "vulnerability" is when one is halfway up, and has commited oneself to the course of action but having not yet completed it... halfway up from the floor, knees still bent, leaning on your weapon when that AoO hits you.. or your fingers gracing your weapons hilt when the attacker's blow sends it flying again.
AoO can after all be taken the moment they are convenient (as witnessed by a large+ opponent being able to decide in just which sqaure/moment its AoO will be used - it is not bound to attack at the first opportunity at all ), not when the target would like it.
I didn't mean to say so much that you can trip them in a moment of vulnerability as soon as they are finished standing, so much as I meant that you can trip to prevent them from getting up. Seems to me that smacking someone in the knee while they are standing up will be as effective for keeping them down as it was to knock them down in the first place. It is not so much to do with a stack of events resolving as does it make sense that you should be able to prevent the action. In the situation such as disarm, couldn't a disarm attack when someone is picking up their sword off the ground just as easily be seen as you kicking the sword out of their reach? For Trip can't it just be that you push them down as they try to stand up? I don't see the need for an exact stack of events that happen one after another for these cases.It is for balance reasons. Balance often trumps realism in theses games. Would you like it if your character were stuck on the ground, and could do nothing about it?
"Balance" is well-served by using both actions (standard and move) to get up.... Most people have only one AoO each round.. Or use acrobatics to move out of the threatened square (no-one keeps you from using it prone)....crawl away (yeah ou get an AoO, but you are still prone, crawling explicitly notes that... Or countertrip or grapple the villain...
Nevermind that most people do not even agree what exactly is "balanced", which depends rather much on which end of the sharp-n-pointy object you are standing.
"Balance" is well-served by using both actions (standard and move) to get up.... Most people have only one AoO each round......
I was assuming a trip focused build. If the build is not trip focus it most likely won't have the trip line of feats. In the case of a trip focused build they will have combat reflexes and make sure their dex is high enough to keep you in place if the machine gun tripping attack tactic was legal.
Just a quick note - the discussion is interesting, and part of me says trip machine guns should be legal, but this is addressed specifically in the CRB FAQ. No trip during the AoO from standing.
Imagine that the way they choose to stand up is to roll themselves so their body is between you and their legs, then stand up with their legs protected. The process of positioning themselves and getting up on their knees is where the AoO happens, but going from prone-on-face to almost-prone-on-knee isn't going to cost a full move action, so taking them back to prone-on-face doesn't help you. Once they are on their knees, standing from there shouldn't provoke.
Just don't ask me how to imagine it working if you're flanking them, 'cuz I can't tell you.
Your moment of "vulnerability" is when one is halfway up, and has commited oneself to the course of action but having not yet completed it... halfway up from the floor, knees still bent, leaning on your weapon when that AoO hits you.. or your fingers gracing your weapons hilt when the attacker's...
Unfortunately for you the developpers says otherwise... They say it's when you begin to gather you force/place yourself in position/whatever at the begining of your action that you got your AoO...
Or else if I try to get away from you, giving you an AoO, do you trip me half-way from the next square ? And where do I fall if so ? In the same square ? Between square ? In the other square ?
Wooooo, triplock argument again!
Yeah, this thread seems to surface about once a month. I don't know if people are unable to search forums/FAQs or if they just like arguing about it.
Wooooo, triplock argument again!Yeah, this thread seems to surface about once a month. I don't know if people are unable to search forums/FAQs or if they just like arguing about it.
I think people like to argue, in general.
But in regards to Tripping/disarming/whatever else follows the same basic rules, they forget that this is the Rules forum. People post to this forum to find out what the rules actually say about stuff. If they want house rules, or why people don't like what the rules say, they need to go to a different forum.
1. I'd allow it.
2. The rules for disarm don't seem to support that, however.
3. Slight of Hand seems to be what you'd have to use.
*Face palm*
You are correct. This is obviously slight of hand.
I'll be quiet now.
Actually it would be the Steal Combat Manuver
Note this thread appears to have started prior to the FAQ posting and been resurrected since, but from here on out there's relatively little excuse.