Critical Fail Trip Attempts

[MerlinRedbead]

Howdy, y'all

Playing around with an idea for a flying blade fighter, and I'm curious if tripping the enemies is a reasonable focus for the AoO's.

I've seen multiple threads about if it is possible to trip with a non-trip weapon, and have not seen an official ruling, so I'm leaving that segment up to my GM unless someone has a truly official ruling.

My question here is if you critically fail on a trip attempt, but your total is within 10 of your target's CMD, do you fall prone?

[Java Man]

What is this "critical fail" you speak of?

[Alderic]

Rolling 1 on the check ?

I don't see why you should fall prone, barring some optional/house rules regarding critical hit/miss

[swoosh]

FAQ on trip weapons

Dunno why you think you'd need a trip weapon to trip, since all the trip property does is let you drop your weapon instead of getting knocked prone if you fail by 10 or more.

Alderic wrote:

I don't see why you should fall prone, barring some optional/house rules regarding critical hit/miss

Trip rules say that if you fail by 10 or more you're knocked prone instead. Because Paizo really doesn't like martials.

But if that happens if you fail by 10 or more, by definition if you fail by 9 or less you don't.

[Ascalaphus]

1) You don't need a Trip weapon to trip people.

2) If you try to trip someone but fail the roll by 10 or more, you yourself trip. Allthough a combat maneuver is an attack roll and a natural 1 always fails an attack roll, it doesn't necessarily fail it by 10 or more.

3) A Trip weapon can be dropped instead of you yourself dropping prone if you fail the trip maneuver by more than 10.

[Dallium]

Alderic wrote:

Rolling 1 on the check ?

That's just an automatic fail. Officially, there is no such thing as a "critical fail." Rolling a 1 on an attack or saving throw automatically fails. It does nothing else.

Rolling 1 on a skill check just means you rolled a 1. If you have a +5 and the DC is 5, you passed.

[Alderic]

The question "Rolling 1 on a check" was actually an answer to the second post about critical fails.

And the rest was an answer to the OP question.

But I agree it wasn't very clear ;)

To make it clearer, I agree that rolling 1 on an attack roll, or a Combat Maneuver, is just an automatic fail. I also agree that failing a trip attempt by less than 10 doesn't make you fall prone, even if your attack roll was a natural 1.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Ascalaphus wrote:

1) You don't need a Trip weapon to trip people.

2) If you try to trip someone but fail the roll by 10 or more, you yourself trip. Allthough a combat maneuver is an attack roll and a natural 1 always fails an attack roll, it doesn't necessarily fail it by 10 or more.

3) A Trip weapon can be dropped instead of you yourself dropping prone if you fail the trip maneuver by more than 10.

My instinct for a Tripping character is to choose Tripping weapons that are cheap and you wouldn't miss them when they are gone. I'd be upset about losing my Magic Halberd to a catastrophic Trip attempt, but if I lost my Kama, I'd just shrug my shoulders and pull another one off my belt.

Another thought I've been having is the Throwing Shield. That's also a Tripping Weapon. Wear a Blinkback Belt, and it will always return to your belt no matter how badly you fail your roll. To capitalize on ranged Attacks of Opportunity, you need Snapshot Feats.

[Dallium]

Alderic wrote:

And the rest was an answer to the OP question.

Oh dang you aren't the OP, my bad.

OP, there's no such thing as critical fails.

[MerlinRedbead]

I apologize for the confusion, in our group we call them critical fails. What I meant was rolling a natural 1 on a trip attempt, which y'all have answered rather unanimously, thank you

Ascalaphus, additional thanks for pointing out that resource.