Improved Trip with any weapon?

[krazykid]

We had a discussion last night about improved trip. One person was of the opinion that with the Improved Trip feat you could make a trip with a non-trip weapon (eg a longsword rather than a flail) and follow through as normal.

The oposing view was that yes you could try & trip while weilding a longsword but had to make the trip as a secondary attack with your free hand (thus incurring TWF penalties )

- This brings up a third query - if the second view is correct can you trip while weilding a long sword as a two-handed weapon?

Does anyone have an opinion?

 

[Thanee]

It doesn't matter.

You don't need to have hands free, I suppose, you can just trip with your legs.

The only difference for a trip with a weapon as opposed to an unarmed trip is, that you can drop the weapon to avoid being counter-tripped.

This only applies to certain weapons, which have this ability listed in their description, like the infamous spiked chain.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

What's magical about a guisarme that makes it able to be dropped when a longsword can't? Nothing.

Trip attacks are unarmed attacks -- the exception being those made with tripping weapons -- hence the AoO for making a trip attack. Improved Trip removes the AoO (and allows a follow-up attack), but doesn't change the method of attack -- it's still an unarmed attack.

That said, I'd allow the follow-up attack made with Improved Trip to be made with any weapon the character was holding (provided the Trip was successful -- if the Trip fails, there's a counter-trip attempt, and no weapon can be dropped to prevent it, since it was an unarmed attack). I wouldn't apply TWF penalties or anything like that -- the Improved Trip feat essentially allows the follow-up attack to be made as if the original attack never occurred.

Tripping weapons are the exception (spelled out pretty clearly in the 3.5 Combat chapter) in that only they can be used to initiate and avoid a trip attack (which is why the dropping thing comes up).

 

[Grayhawk]

So trip attacks can only be made with a tripping weapon or as an unarmed attack.

Does an unarmed attack require at least one hand to be free?

Or can you (like Thanee suggested) trip with your legs?

It seems that you should be able to make a leg sweep when making an unarmed trip attempt.

But if this is correct, are you then always allowed to make an unarmed attack (kicking, for instance) when both hands are full?

 

[Camarath]

I love rule quotes so here are some.

TRIP
You can try to trip an opponent as an unarmed melee attack. You can only trip an opponent who is one size category larger than you, the same size, or smaller.
Making a Trip Attack: Make an unarmed melee touch attack against your target. This provokes an attack of opportunity from your target as normal for unarmed attacks.

Tripping with a Weapon: Some weapons can be used to make trip attacks. In this case, you make a melee touch attack with the weapon instead of an unarmed melee touch attack, and you don’t provoke an attack of opportunity.
If you are tripped during your own trip attempt, you can drop the weapon to avoid being tripped.

 

[Thanee]

Oh, then you also don't provoke an AoO, when tripping with a weapon (special trip weapon). That's another benefit I missed up there.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Grayhawk]

Does anyone have the answers to my related follow-up questions?

(Please find them 3 posts up from this one.)

Just wondering if the lack of answers is due to it being painfully obvious or because no one actually knows...

 

[Thanee]

According to the glossary, an unarmed attack is one made without weapons in hand. But I think it's quite reasonable to allow leg sweep trip attacks!

Bye
Thanee

 

[dcollins]

Does an unarmed attack require at least one hand to be free? Or can you (like Thanee suggested) trip with your legs?

That's sort of a vague area of the rules. I think most folks on these boards allow trip attacks with a free leg, even if the hands are full. I would like to allow, for example, a two-handed attack plus a trip (or kick) at two-weapon fighting penalties, but there's not much rules support for that.

 

[wolfen]

Does anyone have the answers to my related follow-up questions?

(Please find them 3 posts up from this one.)

Just wondering if the lack of answers is due to it being painfully obvious or because no one actually knows...

Painfully obvious. You can trip despite the presence of anything in your hands. Hold a can of soup in one and your favorite Elvis album in the other. It doesn't matter. Pick up objects at random if you like -- you're not assumed to be using them for the trip. Therefore their presence is incidental, like the color of your armor or the coat of arms tattooed on your...you get the idea. You're not assumed to be tripping specifically with any particular limb, you are assumed to be tripping with an UNARMED limb. The fact that it isn't mentioned in TWF fighting and that it is popular among the Monk literature tends to lean one toward the conclusion that the legs are considered the prime mode of tripping another. Logical, no? I've yet to witness a fighting style that features the use of one's hands to trip someone. And it's not supported by the rules. Your alternative is to use a weapon which can specifically be used to trip.

If you wanna claim you're tripping USING the long sword, well (A) there aren't any rules for that and (B) it simply is not a tripping weapon. Therefore, the DM would have to make a house rule for using random objects to trip a person -- and I'd rule that a long sword is worthless as a trip weapon. In this context, the fact that the sword is normally considered a weapon is irrelevant. Unless it strikes a wounding hit on my legs, I could walk right through a long sword. The same cannot be said of a flail (my grandfather has both, and that flail is a heavy, nasty weapon. It wouldn't take much to drop someone on their butt). A casual circular motion could bring you down even if you were in full armor without so much as breaking the skin.

The down side of a flail is that it's easier to lose the weapon, and this is reflected specifically by your option to release it during a trip. It's like holding on to a bowling ball and deciding at the last moment you don't want to throw it -- either you let go or you're going on your butt. Despite other shortcomings, the rules handle this weapon/rule combo quite well, I think.

wolfen