I know both have their uses and limitations,
I think bull rush is definitely easier, comes online sooner, has a cheaper feat buy in, sets up an easy way to do multiple types of damage from armor spikes, and works wonders with shield smashing. But... You're literally just pushing your enemy backwards, he can still do whatever he wants
Tripping makes the opponent prone, essentially ending their turn, and predictably determines their next turn, opening up AoO from everyone within reach.
Now, the question is, if you had to choose between Power Attack with Improved Bull Rush, or Combat Expertise with Improved Trip, which is the smarter choice?
You don't get Greater Trip until BAB +6, which, IF you have Combat Reflexes AND a DEX bonus, you can immediately make AoO against whoever you trip. Whereas a human fighter can take Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, and Spiked Destroyer at level one...
Be aware that essentially every monster Paizo publishes either gets massive bonuses against trip, or is outright immune. By the time you get Greater Trip, you're at the point where no enemy can be tripped, so what's the point?
It seems like bull rush might be okay if you had superior reach and Combat Reflexes, but meh otherwise -- but I haven't tried it.
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Largely depends on if you're fighting humany enemies much or not. If you fight human-shaped things then they are pretty easy to pull manuevers and trip is really good.
If they are snakes, or flying or spiders etc. that are hard or impossible to trip then tripping is useless meaning bull rush wins by default of actually being usable (saying nothing if it's worth using or not).
Bull rush is more reliable, with a prereq that I'd be taking anyways.
Trip annihilates humanoids, but is useless against too many for me.
If these were bonus feats, then would go with trip with a ranged character, who could go for ranged/ace trip too. Also if the campaign is likely to focus on humanoid foes, or targeted for sweet spot levels. Otherwise, BR FTW.
Even with traits like Snowstrider that expand the size limitations of both maneuvers, their utility is essentially confined to humanoid opponents.
I'm trying to find ways to try make relevant melee characters that don't rely on magic or rage. But the only ways I have found seem to start getting kinda munchkin-y or situational.
Pathfinder really ruined Cleave, even more so if you don't allow it to be combined with Vital Strike (it can be but people argue). So it is not worth pursuing.
Charge is too situational to be the focus of a build.
The best I have found is to keep it stupid simple with Power Attack and Furious Focus, and then go for movement feats... Both to improve your movement and impair or deny the movement of your opponents. But it's pretty underwhelming to play, even if it is relatively effective.
The sword and board ranger with shield brace and a fauchard seems like a wonderful bull rush build. Go critical fishing with the fauchard and earn free shield bashes with every crit, free bull rush with every bash, free armor spike attack with every rush... Munchkin madness for days and days...
The ridiculous CMB bonuses, and the usual progression of both maneuvers lead to free or automatic attacks, which is really appealing.
You can forego an attack for a maneuver which has a higher bonus than your attack would have, plus you get your attack after the maneuver anyways.
Fury's Fall is insane. Would it double your DEX mod if you had Agile Maneuvers? Things that make you say "Hmm."
Looks like trip is where it's at, though, because a prone enemy is a dead enemy.
However, Greater Bull Rush and Sliding Dash, shield bashing the enemy back towards your team could be legit.
But overall, with so many things immune to most maneuvers, it is almost better to be boringly consistent and have good movement instead of tricks.
I really like the ranged trip stuff. Tripping flying creatures is too cool.
Leave the bull rush for the shields and trip to the bows. The bull rush can be good for rearranging the battlefield, which definitely has its advantages. So does knocking everything prone. The Fighter Archer can trip with Volley, which with Greater Trip, could be brutal for everyone within 15ft of him depending how many AoO he has at his disposal.
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If you create a character with a laser-like focus you can make your one trick usable all the time. You will get bored of always tripping or whatever though - trust me on this one.
If you're planning to spend 3 feats ever on a combat maneuver you're going to find it isn't worth doing most of the time, eventually. Unless you've got some shockingly good bonus like a magus using spell combat with the true strike spell.
That is like saying a fighter gets bored hitting things with their sword. You build what you enjoy playing.
There are a few ways I know of to get the combat maneuvers for free making them a great opportunity to build towards. Getting a free maneuver that leads to 2 or 3 AOOs will significantly boost damage output.
As I said previously, you should be able to consistently trip most things by mid level. There are other ways to boost bull rush as well such as Pauldrons of the Bull to make them significantly more likely to hit.
I agree. The only bull rush build I have considered revolves around Shield Slam triggering the bull rush for free after you already hit with your weapon (the shield). Bull rush triggers Spiked Destroyer for free.
Tripping at range eliminates the danger of failing and falling prone yourself. It also makes the archer a little more versatile in a lot of scenarios. Combined with the Archer Fighter archetype, you can also Sunder at range, so shooting wands and holy symbols becomes a thing.
A melee fighter needs any access to extra damage they can get, so free maneuvers are worth the feat tax to perfect them. Ranged characters need to be able to provide more versatility.
Be aware that essentially every monster Paizo publishes either gets massive bonuses against trip, or is outright immune. By the time you get Greater Trip, you're at the point where no enemy can be tripped, so what's the point?
It seems like bull rush might be okay if you had superior reach and Combat Reflexes, but meh otherwise -- but I haven't tried it.
Am currently running a campaign in book 6 of a published AP with characters at 17th level.
Trip is still effective against ~80% of encounters.
Please explain when exactly this "no longer usable" threshold is reached.
Tripping makes the opponent prone, essentially ending their turn, and predictably determines their next turn, opening up AoO from everyone within reach.
Depends on your build.
I've been looking at a battlefield control fighter with Shield Brace, a reach weapon with the trip property, and Shield Slam.
If you had Greater Bull Rush not only could you position opponents who closed to melee, they will provoke from your party members while moving and fall prone if they hit a wall.
Wrong.
Assuming you have planned for it and taken the proper feats, the trip maneuver triggers a AoO against the target, so you still do damage and the target is prone. This helps everyone in your party way more than just damage dealt.
I'd still argue that opting to trip an opponent is very rarely a superior option to just using that action to do more damage.
Felling Smash -> AoO from Greater Trip -> AoO from Vicious Stomp
Or, if you have a reach weapon, just trip them as they approach and then deal your damage with your second AoO. If you also have shield Brace and Shield Slam, you can keep this up indefinitely while denying an opponent the opportunity to attack.
I'd still argue that opting to trip an opponent is very rarely a superior option to just using that action to do more damage.Felling Smash -> AoO from Greater Trip -> AoO from Vicious Stomp
Or, if you have a reach weapon, just trip them as they approach and then deal your damage with your second AoO. If you also have shield Brace and Shield Slam, you can keep this up indefinitely while denying an opponent the opportunity to attack.
I'm so glad someone brought this up. The Shield Brace/Shield Slam/Power Attack/Felling Smash/Greater Trip/Vicious Stomp is the exact sort of munchkin madness melee characters have to rely on to be beneficial.
Be aware that essentially every monster Paizo publishes either gets massive bonuses against trip, or is outright immune. By the time you get Greater Trip, you're at the point where no enemy can be tripped, so what's the point?
It seems like bull rush might be okay if you had superior reach and Combat Reflexes, but meh otherwise -- but I haven't tried it.
Am currently running a campaign in book 6 of a published AP with characters at 17th level.
Trip is still effective against ~80% of encounters.
Please explain when exactly this "no longer usable" threshold is reached.
Tripping makes the opponent prone, essentially ending their turn, and predictably determines their next turn, opening up AoO from everyone within reach.Depends on your build.
I've been looking at a battlefield control fighter with Shield Brace, a reach weapon with the trip property, and Shield Slam.
If you had Greater Bull Rush not only could you position opponents who closed to melee, they will provoke from your party members while moving and fall prone if they hit a wall.
Just for funsies I looked at what I thought would be the worst case scenario - book 6 of Strange Aeons - assuming everything would be some sort of monstrosity that couldn't be tripped.
Even there, it ends up not being totally useless. Out of approximately 41 sets of enemies, 19 of those are outright trippable, 4 of them are unlikely with cmd in the upper 40s into the 50s, and 5 are in between (they have an ability to become airborne but aren't constantly flying.)
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Be aware that essentially every monster Paizo publishes either gets massive bonuses against trip, or is outright immune. By the time you get Greater Trip, you're at the point where no enemy can be tripped, so what's the point?
It seems like bull rush might be okay if you had superior reach and Combat Reflexes, but meh otherwise -- but I haven't tried it.
Am currently running a campaign in book 6 of a published AP with characters at 17th level.
Trip is still effective against ~80% of encounters.
Please explain when exactly this "no longer usable" threshold is reached.
Don't know what but I'm guessing you're still fighting a lot of humanoid shaped enemies then.
As someone showed early for lv10 or 11, there were A LOT of non-trippable creatures in the bestiary for that CR. If your game has a large variety of creatures you'll likely find tripping to not be that great. If your game has lots of humanish things then tripping can stay relevant.
I'm so glad someone brought this up. The Shield Brace/Shield Slam/Power Attack/Felling Smash/Greater Trip/Vicious Stomp is the exact sort of munchkin madness melee characters have to rely on to be beneficial.
I'd still argue that opting to trip an opponent is very rarely a superior option to just using that action to do more damage.Felling Smash -> AoO from Greater Trip -> AoO from Vicious Stomp
Or, if you have a reach weapon, just trip them as they approach and then deal your damage with your second AoO. If you also have shield Brace and Shield Slam, you can keep this up indefinitely while denying an opponent the opportunity to attack.
Not even close to munchkin madness. It's just a concept for battlefield control as a martial.
If I wanted to munchkin it there would be no point in combat maneuvers, nothing would survive the first round of combat.
Don't know what but I'm guessing you're still fighting a lot of humanoid shaped enemies then.
I think humanoid shaped is an important point here. It's not just humanoids who are vulnerable to trip, fey are even more. Monstrous humanoids have full BAB progression, but are usually bound to two legs and often to Medium or Large size. Aberrations, outsiders and undead are erratic when it comes to trip, meaning there are some which are rather vulnerable to it. So while trip is situational, it's not limited to humanoids.
And if trip would simply work all the time, it would become as tedious as mundane attacking - at least to me.
Be aware that essentially every monster Paizo publishes either gets massive bonuses against trip, or is outright immune. By the time you get Greater Trip, you're at the point where no enemy can be tripped, so what's the point?
It seems like bull rush might be okay if you had superior reach and Combat Reflexes, but meh otherwise -- but I haven't tried it.
Am currently running a campaign in book 6 of a published AP with characters at 17th level.
Trip is still effective against ~80% of encounters.
Please explain when exactly this "no longer usable" threshold is reached.
Don't know what but I'm guessing you're still fighting a lot of humanoid shaped enemies then.
As someone showed early for lv10 or 11, there were A LOT of non-trippable creatures in the bestiary for that CR. If your game has a large variety of creatures you'll likely find tripping to not be that great. If your game has lots of humanish things then tripping can stay relevant.
In every AP I've ever run, the majority of opponents remain humanoid with class levels all the way through to the end.
Yes, there are a lot of high CR creatures that cannot be tripped, but I've never seen them as the focus for a campaign. Even Wrath of the Righteous, ending at level 20, 10th tier mythic, had quite a few opponents that could be tripped all the way to the end.
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Trip is better than the Bestiary makes it look. Adventures often create high-CR enemies by using class levels to boost giants, monstrous humanoids, oni, etc. Giant slug monsters, winged demons, krakens and so on rarely get class levels.
My most recent generation of PCs includes a Tripper, a Shield Slammer, and a Grappler. The Tripper is also a Dirty Trick Fighter who can take anything without a super high CMD out of combat by spamming Dirty Tricks (though honestly I only use that once in a while since “Haha, you don’t get a turn!” could get old quickly)
Overall I’d say that Trip is a great trick for those who have enough feats to afford it. You will dominate trippable foes and make them easy for your allies to finish off, but enemies will still be able to fight back in theory, unlike if a maxed out Grappler pins them or a Dirty Trick Master applies more conditions than they can remove in a round.
Moving folks around with Bull Rush (my PC did so exclusively with Shield Slam) can be the most satisfying maneuver when you get the chance to push somebody off a cliff, out of a window, or perhaps down a well (sorry, Timmy). Whether or not Shield Slamming a flying creature against a wall should result in it crashing is probably a DM decision made table to table (my DM allowed it), but trippable creatures can be knocked prone with Shield Slam too, and once again there’s a certain satisfaction in bouncing somebody off a wall, tree, etc onto the ground to get beaten some more. Depending on the casters in your party some options like “Push enemy back through Wall of Fire” might exist too.
I think, like pretty much everything in this game, you need to have the right party and situation to capitalize on either of these feats. If I am THE frontliner and I'm backed up by a DPS archer, I'm probably going with Bull Rush so I'm not granting our foe a +4 AC vs the archer when I make them prone and can keep them off of the backline. If I'm in a party with two or three bruisers, I'd probably want one of us to go trip so we can just eat up whatever decides to fight us. Personally, I like Bull Rush better since I can move someone, which can be super useful in forcing them to take an action to close again (goodbye to that full attack!) or just knock them into/off of something. Trip has the benefit of greatly reducing movement (crawling is pathetic), but doesn't always stop a full attack (-4 sucks, but some things can just eat the penalty and be fine).
Sidenote: Has it ever been officially clarified what happens when, for example, someone charges past you and you AoO them with a Bull Rush, knocking them 20ft to the side? Or if you AoO them 20ft back as they charge you? Obviously they are moved, but what happens to the rest of their turn/actions?