Potion of fly.
Yar!
You get knocked prone, you stand up, you take the AoO (he cannot trip you again with this AoO), you 5' step into him, then punch him in the face with your aldori dueling sword.
Rather than running up to him, you let him come to you (so he can't 5'step away, putting himself 15' away from you instead of only 10).
Use the Ready Action to your advantage if you know he's a tripper. Ready an action to Sunder his polearm if you tries to trip you with it, for example. Or get the feat Strike Back so that you can attack him even if he's outside your reach (via a readied action).
If he is not readying an action to Brace against a charge, then Charge him to get up in his face. He has to 5' step back to trip with his polearm, which keeps him close enough for the first things mentions (stand up, 5' step up to him, sword-punch to the face).
Get the Drag Down feat to trip him when he trips you as an immediate action.
Take a 2 level dip into Rogue and for your rogue talent, take Stand Up (Ex): "A rogue with this ability can stand up from a prone position as a free action. This still provokes attacks of opportunity for standing up while threatened by a foe." Then also take the feat Fast Crawl. Now you can make a 5' step while prone (no AoO for leaving his threatened area), stand up as a free action (taking an AoO if he has a non-reach method of attacking, otherwise no AoO as you're outside(inside) of it's reach threatened area), then full attack!
Take a 2 level dip into Ninja and take a rogue talent as your ninja trick, and take Rogue Crawl (Ex): "While prone, a rogue with this ability can move at half speed. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal. A rogue with this talent can take a 5-foot step while crawling." Then take the feat Ki Stand. This does the same thing as the 2 level rogue dip above, but with the added versatility of opting to use a ki point to stand up without provoking at all.
Of course, with Ki Stand you don't need to 5' step while prone at all, so doing this also opens up other choices for Ninja Tricks.
Multiclass into some other class that grants Ki (monk) and get Ki Stand.
Get a ranged weapon to deal with richards who refuse to duel you with honor (in melee, without tripping).
Just some ideas of the top of my head.
~P
Some pretty great suggestion already. Don't forget that the Pathfinder Society Fieldguide has an enchant called Dueling (not the same as one on the PRD) that adds double your enhancement bonus on combat maneuvers that use weapons (trip, disarm, and sunder) as both a bonus to your CM and CMD.
If he is not readying an action to Brace against a charge, then Charge him to get up in his face. He has to 5' step back to trip with his polearm, which keeps him close enough for the first things mentions (stand up, 5' step up to him, sword-punch to the face).
All the rest of your post had great advice, but this one is a bit off - unless you also have a reach weapon (which I assume the Aldori swordlord does not).
If you charge a guy with a reach weapon, he still gets to make an AoO and he might trip you, which completely ends your charge (remember the -2 AC while charging affects your CMD too). You would end up prone and at most you might still have a move action to stand up (which provokes again) or remain prone while he hits you next round then he steps back anyway (up to 30' since he doesn't even need to 5' move unless you also have a reach weapon).
All he gets for "bracing" is extra damage (very nice, but not required and failing to "brace" in no way makes it possible to charge through his reach without provoking).
Be better at disarming than he is at tripping.
OR
Just be BA enough to eat the -4 and kill him from the ground.
For both of those, it helps if the Aldori Swordlord also has a reach weapon (seems unlikely). Otherwise, he has to use his actions crawling (and provoking) after he's tripped, allowing his enemy at least two attacks for every one of his.
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For both of those, it helps if the Aldori Swordlord also has a reach weapon (seems unlikely). Otherwise, he has to use his actions crawling (and provoking) after he's tripped, allowing his enemy at least two attacks for every one of his.Be better at disarming than he is at tripping.
OR
Just be BA enough to eat the -4 and kill him from the ground.
I suppose that is true. I would let someone disarm a reach weapon without threatening the person holding the weapon, but RAW probably doesn't support that.
Would that mean that using a readied action to sunder or disarm the polearm would also not work?
Disarm says "You can attempt to disarm your opponent in place of a melee attack." So if you cannot reach your opponent, you cannot disarm him. But a generous GM might rule that "your opponent" includes "your opponent's weapon" in which case you can reach his weapon so maybe you can disarm him - but that's a generous ruling.
Sundering is more problematic. Almost all the time, the reach weapon is in your opponent's space, so sundering it on your own turn is only possible if you can reach your opponent's space. But using a readied action to sunder the weapon when the opponent sticks it into your space to attack you seems like it should be possible. However, note that (by RAW) when you ready an action, you actually change your initiative and take your action BEFORE your opponent's action, so technically, his weapon is still in his space, out of reach. By RAW. (Also, this is true for readied Disarm attacks as well, in case a generous GM decides that "your opponent" includes his weapon).
But that is weird. Basically you ready an action to Sunder (or Disarm) your opponent's weapon when he attacks you with it but then you actually have to do it before he makes the attack which seems to be an oxymoron. Or a non-sequitur. But it is RAW.
So I think the answer to both ideas, even as readied actions, is "No, you can't do it".
However, I'm sure I would allow the Sunder and probably even the Disarm attempt, but now we're getting into houserules territory.
