I've been in a long discussion with a friend over the power of trip in the game. He's seen a lot of trip monkey builds over the years with 3.0, 3.5 and now Pathfinder, and finds that tripping is one of the most powerful mundane effects you can do in the game.
What I find really odd,...
Are you asking as a DM or player? This is important because your available resources are not the same.
Flying makes you immune to the prone condition.
Concealment will give the same miss chance against trips as it does against normal attacks.
Enlarge Person/Righteous Might will increase your CMD. +1 for size, +1 or +2 for strength bonus.
Any kind of strength or dex bonus Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, or magic items.
Cover bonus will add to your CMD.
Are you asking as a DM or player? This is important because your available resources are not the same.I guess it would be more from a GM perspective. Neither of us are gamist GMs. We aren't out to get the players, just to use the rules to tell stories, so when munkinism starts to kick in, we aren't eager to start an escalating war with the players, rather it's more about just talking to the player and telling them to tone it down a bit.
Still, getting more mechanical ideas always helps.
Use archers and other ranged attacks. Difficult terrain will also make it harder to get to the intended trip victim. Having minions(low level summons count)in between the tripper and the NPC is also an option. Once they get to you though, the only defense is a high CMD. Rings of protection also affect CMD.
off-topic: Different people also have different views on what is an acceptable power level as far as making a character. What are they(players) doing that is taking things to far?
Creatures without legs (snakes, oozes) can't be tripped. Also, for some of the creatures in the MM with multiple legs their CMD is higher against tripping. Don't know where the rules are for that though.
Everything that adds to your attack and damage. Because for a lot of characters, the correct answer is 'just fight from prone already'.
Creatures without legs (snakes, oozes) can't be tripped. Also, for some of the creatures in the MM with multiple legs their CMD is higher against tripping. Don't know where the rules are for that though.
Core book, page 201. Each additional leg adds two to the CMD.
And I'll have to 2nd (3rd?4th?) what those above have said: flying really puts a damper on trip. I made a fighter who specialized in tripping foes and was always a bit disappointed when NPCs and monsters started showing up floating in the air. Luckily the GM didn't have one in every encounter, so I never felt like I was being singled out. So take that to heart in your GMing: taking away someone's special ability is okay every once and a while, but do it too often and it really sucks for the player.
Everything that adds to your attack and damage. Because for a lot of characters, the correct answer is 'just fight from prone already'.
Always a good option. PCs assume that bad guys on the floor are completely neutered, and it's funny to see the bad guy still be just as annoying.
Stone Stability is one of the revelations of the Stone Mystery Oracle that provides a +4 bonus to your Combat Maneuver Defense when resisting a bull rush or trip attempt while standing on the ground
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What I find really odd, and perhaps the APG will fix this. Is that there are no class features for Monks to be able to defend themselves from trips, beyond the option of taking Improved Trip as a class feature. Even the monk's "maneuver training" only adds to CMB and not to CMD, which just seems bizarre. You'd think that thematically, the Monk should outclass the Rogue in terms of things like doing back flips to stand up, or rolling tumble actions to avoid AoO.
Well, the monk does get to add his Wisdom bonus and special Monk AC bonus to CMD, so that should improve it quite a bit. :)
Always a good option. PCs assume that bad guys on the floor are completely neutered, and it's funny to see the bad guy still be just as annoying.
What are the rules for fighting from prone, anyway? I know that if you're prone you take a -4 Armor Class penalty, but what about offense? Can you still attack? Any restrictions? What about combat maneuvers? Do you still threaten adjacent squares while prone?
It's not core, but it always bothered me that in Pathfinder only rogues get a shot at "leaping to their feet" while other agile characters cannot. So, I houseruled that "leaping to your feet" is an Acrobatics check with a DC of 15 (you can always raise it if that is too mundane a DC). It doesn't eliminate the AoO that the rogue talent does (so the rogue talent is still useful for rogues), but it also doesn't take a move action per normal.
I ruled the Acrobatics check is a swift action (not a free or immediate action), so you can't do it and other swift actions in the same round of course. Good luck!
What are the rules for fighting from prone, anyway? I know that if you're prone you take a -4 Armor Class penalty, but what about offense? Can you still attack? Any restrictions? What about combat maneuvers? Do you still threaten adjacent squares while prone?
Always a good option. PCs assume that bad guys on the floor are completely neutered, and it's funny to see the bad guy still be just as annoying.
The combat section, "Combat Modifiers" has a table for the attacker and another table for the defender. "Prone" is on both tables.
For the attacker, you're -4 to melee attacks and -0 on ranged attacks, but only crossbows and shuriken can be used while prone.
These penalties apply to all combat rolls, and your -4 AC to all attacks against you, which means that both penalties apply to combat maneuvers you make (-4 CMB) and others make against you (-4 CMD).
Personally I found trip to be not that great from player point of view. At the low levels the players CMB isn't good enough to trip as CMD is often higher than AC. By about 4th level trip starts getting good and that last till about 8th level. After that it's starts it decline in usefulness and by level 12 it's hardly used anymore. The CMD starts getting too high again and tripping becomes much more difficult to pull off. Like in a recent fight with Balor, 17th level characters and not one could trip thing on anything better than 19 on the to hit roll..
Now from a monster point of view as DM trip is much more effective used by larger monsters against players due the CMB bonus from size and high strength scores. By the higher levels the a lot of the opponents players face tend to be large or bigger in size.
A heads up about the flying defense. Foes that fly are often casters with bad BAB, so disarming is an annoying alternative. My cleric of Calistria almost neutralized a flying wizard by using his whip to take away his wand.
Everything that adds to your attack and damage. Because for a lot of characters, the correct answer is 'just fight from prone already'.That's just as well because when you are on the floor your AC is at -4. Not a great place to be.
I only say this because I know a lot of people who automatically feel that they HAVE to give up a full attack, and they HAVE to take an AO, just to say they are standing again.
If you can do respectable damage from prone, or have a full attack option that is a lot better than a single attack, it's a good trade.
Yes, it's a disadvantage to be tripped. It's also a disadvantage to be on fire, underwater, or turned to stone. It's an adventure, did you think nothing bad would happen?
Just a side note, i just realized that if you're flying you can't be tripped by epic failing your own attempt. cool.