3.5 Trip Question

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:10 am

Just a quick one, does it say anywhere that you can't trip a flying opponent?

I can justify that action pretty easily as knocking a flyer asses over elbows, and they have to take a move action to right themselves. However, humans are really good at justifying the way they think to themselves, so I just wanted to ask if that was prohibited.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 6:16 am

Rules Compendium 145 says what I'd have ruled: use the rules for "failing to maintain speed for the round" for the appropriate maneuverability - generally means losing altitude (and maybe crashing).

And now I can hijack the thread.

Does anyone know which rules were stealth-changed by the RC?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:00 am

As far as I know a tripped opponent who was flying falls. Making Trip an extremely effective mid-air combat routine. Assuming that you can get to the enemy i the first place. But if you have bolos or something that let you do ranged trips, that can quite effectively beat the snot out of flying enemies.

-Username17

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:51 am

FrankTrollman wrote:As far as I know a tripped opponent who was flying falls. Making Trip an extremely effective mid-air combat routine. Assuming that you can get to the enemy in the first place. But if you have bolas or something that let you do ranged trips, that can quite effectively beat the snot out of flying enemies.

Source?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:55 am

That only works with wing based flight though. If it's magical flight, well you don't go down.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:12 pm

The FAQ has this to say:

Being tripped makes you prone. Who can be tripped?
Beholders? Gelatinous cubes? What effect does tripping
have on these creatures? Can a prone character be tripped
again? What about flying and swimming creatures? Many
creatures have neither legs nor any relationship to the
ground or gravity. How does tripping affect them?
Anything using limbs for locomotion can be tripped.
Things that don’t need limbs for locomotion can’t be tripped.
You can’t trip a snake, a beholder, or a gelatinous cube. You
won’t find this in the rules, but then it really doesn’t need to be
in there—the rules can leave some things to the DM’s common
sense.
A creature flying with wings can be “tripped,” in which
case the creature stalls (see Tactical Aerial Movement on page
20 of the DMG). You can’t make an incorporeal creature fall
down. You also can’t trip a prone creature.
Creatures can’t be tripped when they’re swimming (the
water holds them up). Likewise, a burrowing creature is driving
its body through a fairly solid medium that serves to hold it up.

Now leaving aside the fact that this is a fucking stupid answer, as there are in fact many things that don't have limbs that can fall over. And indeed most things that don't have limbs are incredibly easy to flip over (snakes, for example, have to right themselves every time you kick them or even look at them funny), it does specify that using the stalling rules on page 20 of the DMG is what happens when you trip a flier.

Be that as it may, it's actually an incredibly vague answer in addition to a bad answer, because it doesn't say what happens when you trip a pegasus. That winged horse has good maneuverability, which means among other things that it can hover - which normally makes it immune to stalling. No word is in there as to whether it stalls as per that creature having zero movement, or whether it stalls as per going straight to the stall effect (which is that it falls to the ground and takes an asstonne of damage).

The FAQ ruling really is: Your DM will make some shit up when this happens. Just fucking go with it.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:51 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:(snakes, for example, have to right themselves every time you kick them or even look at them funny)

People in America are brave enough to kick snakes or look at them funny?

Wait, I forgot, your snakes aren't dangerous. Over here, what happens is:

1. Declare you are going to trip the snake
2. Make a Fortitude Save vs Poison (DC 50) or die
3. Repeat step 2.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 12:53 pm

Koumei wrote:Wait, I forgot, your snakes aren't dangerous. Over here, what happens is:

1. Declare you are going to trip the snake
2. Make a Fortitude Save vs Poison (DC 50) or die
3. Repeat step 2.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 4:31 pm

Koumei wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:(snakes, for example, have to right themselves every time you kick them or even look at them funny)
People in America are brave enough to kick snakes or look at them funny?

Wait, I forgot, your snakes aren't dangerous. Over here, what happens is:

1. Declare you are going to trip the snake
2. Make a Fortitude Save vs Poison (DC 50) or die
3. Repeat step 2.

Wow. Roy's right.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:47 pm

And yet, Koumei, the expert snake-trippers come from your country...

-Crissa

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:09 pm

RC 145 wrote:Tripping a Flying Defender
A winged creature can be tripped, and if it is, it falls as
if it didn’t maintain its minimum forward speed. See Fly,
page 92.

RC 92 wrote:Minimum Forward Speed: If a flying creature fails to
maintain its minimum forward speed, it must land at the end
of its movement. If it’s too high above the ground to land, it
falls straight down, descending 150 feet in the first round
of falling. If this distance brings it to the ground, it takes
falling damage. If the fall doesn’t bring the creature to the
ground, it must spend its next turn recovering from the stall.
It must succeed on a DC 20 Reflex save to recover; otherwise,
it falls an additional 300 feet. If it hits the ground, it takes
falling damage. If not, it has another chance to recover on
its next turn.

Snakes are still immune to tripping, though.

---

Crissa wrote:And yet, Koumei, the expert snake-trippers come from your country...

An "expert" is someone who did it twice and survived; those guys often didn't even want expertise, and their real ability's surviving DC 50 Fortitude saves.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:21 pm

Which is to say, they're just the one guy in four hundred.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:50 pm

Roy wrote:Which is to say, they're just the one guy in four hundred.

A) a bit less in any case, as there's some infinitesimal odds of an Australian spending their entire life without being bitten twice - maybe not so infinitesimal, given that it's likely that this happens because another species kills them before they meet any snakes.

B) I meant 2 snake encounters; it's strongly implied that each involves more than 1 bite.

C) we don't know for sure whether RL uses auto-success on natural 20 - that'd make those people actually awesome and understandably rare enough that only Australia has enough snake encounters to produce them in appreciable amount.

Nevertheless, their tripping check bonuses probably aren't all that hot.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 3:23 am

I suppose there's nothing stopping you from pinning or kicking snakes in D&D, just that they suffer nothing from being prone itself, and also aren't particularly effected by you targeting a limb (them) to knock them off balance.

-Crissa

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:45 pm

Bigode wrote:(long rules quote)

This part is sort of understandable, then. The minimum forward speed for a pegasus is 0, so it's hard not to maintain it. A pegasus, having wings, falls when tripped (why it falls straight down even if it was charging at full speed and got tripped by an attack of opportunity is a question for another day). A nightmare, not having any, doesn't. And combat resolution being based not on stats but on pictures and flavor text is some new kind of "special".

Btw, an arrowhawk has 4 wings - does that mean it receives a stability bonus?

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:38 pm

Starmaker wrote:This part is sort of understandable, then. The minimum forward speed for a pegasus is 0, so it's hard not to maintain it. A pegasus, having wings, falls when tripped (why it falls straight down even if it was charging at full speed and got tripped by an attack of opportunity is a question for another day). A nightmare, not having any, doesn't. And combat resolution being based not on stats but on pictures and flavor text is some new kind of "special".

Btw, an arrowhawk has 4 wings - does that mean it receives a stability bonus?

Since a pegasus can't fail to maintain speed, it doesn't actually suffer anything AFAICT. As for the arrowhawk, yeah, I guess it gets a bonus, but I'm not sure it suffers anything either.

And how did the translations go, BTW?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:42 am

Well, the Pegasus doesn't go forward if it stalls, I guess. Turbulence?

-Crissa

Echoes · Post by **Echoes** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 2:44 am

Tripping a Flying Defender:
A winged creature can be tripped, and if it is, it falls as
if it didn’t maintain its minimum forward speed. See Fly,
page 92.

Tripping a flying creature makes it act as though it had failed to maintain it's minimum forward speed. It doesn't matter whether it could normally fail such a check, it flat-out skips straight to the "You Fail. Commence Falling Procedures" option.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 3:05 am

Echoes wrote:Tripping a Flying Defender:
A winged creature can be tripped, and if it is, it falls as
if it didn’t maintain its minimum forward speed. See Fly,
page 92.

Tripping a flying creature makes it act as though it had failed to maintain it's minimum forward speed. It doesn't matter whether it could normally fail such a check, it flat-out skips straight to the "You Fail. Commence Falling Procedures" option.

We still have the "Why'd someone tripped while charging straight ahead go straight down?", but sure, that seems correct. And ... that's pretty much what Starmaker said rephrased, and it was right - including of course that it's retarded - BTW, you could say "Ex flight is vulnerable" and try to fix it to be based on actual rules text. Then, look the beholder up ...

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:46 pm

The beholder uses an internal gasbag. I get the idea there has to be something you can grab and throw, ala judo.

Beholders don't even move as fast as falling.

-Crissa

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:25 pm

Crissa wrote:The beholder uses an internal gasbag. I get the idea there has to be something you can grab and throw, ala judo.

Beholders don't even move as fast as falling.

-Crissa

They're probably pretty stable, as otherwise they'd go spinning over the course of normal movement. They'd probably act like floating daruma dolls, or baloons with weighted strings. Even if you flip it over, it just rolls back upright.

That explains why wingless flying things like beholders can't be tripped. I'm not sure why Superman should be untrippable.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:07 pm

Which gets us back to a mechanical effect being based on the fvcking artwork.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:55 pm

Hehe. There's an achievement! Must have used trip on a beholder five times successfully... You learn how to keep 'em spinning for a disorientation bonus.

-Crissa

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:19 pm

Crissa wrote:Hehe. There's an achievement! Must have used trip on a beholder five times successfully... You learn how to keep 'em spinning for a disorientation bonus.

-Crissa

Epic Win is Epic.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:59 pm

There are some instances where Superman and other Justice League members get 'tripped' (hit with bolas) and fall from the sky. Why they fall is a complete question (the time in my memory atm is Batman with a jetpack), but they fall...

I agree with the above though, if you have the ability EX, you can be tripped, and if it is SU, then you can't. You can't trip an Air Elemental or Genie with a bola, but you can trip an Eagle or Hippogriff in the same manner.

Pretty specifically, bola-ing someone's flying mount is likely to be an effective damage option.