Tripping people without Martial Throw

[Chuk]

Which of the non-martial maneuvers would be used to trip someone? I figure Martial Throw could be a trip, but shouldn't "ordinary" people be able to trip?

On a more general note, what happens if people who didn't buy a Martial Maneuver want to do it anyway? For stuff that's just a "better" version of regular maneuvers, like Martial Dodge or Offensive Strike, just saying "you can't" is good enough. I mean, I could do a jump kick on someone, but I wouldn't get any in-game benefits -- it'd just be a normal Strike, and my "martial" dodge would still only add 3 to my DCV.

But what about things like Choke Hold or Martial Throw? I mean, anyone can try and grab your throat, right? How do you guys handle this?

[TaxiMan]

If a character isn't skilled at tripping, I'd figure at best you're forcing the victim to make a skill check. If the victim outright sees the trip coming or makes a PER roll, they aren't tripped. DEX roll if they can't see it, if that's all they have. Breakfall, Acrobatics, stuff like that are complimentary or nullify the trip. I'd modify the victim's roll(s) by circumstances, -3 to +3 max.

Paying points for maneuvers should be worth it!

[TaxiMan]

Oh, on choking etc. A targetted "grab" would be at -8(?) for the neck! If they make it, I'd give them the 2d6 NND.

Or, you could say they do normal Grab damage since they aren't very good at choking - the victim squirms and can still manage to breathe.

[SleepyDrug]

For martial artists, you have throws and the legsweep. I'd actually consider a trip to be the Takedown manuver.

Speaking as someone who has to restrain people as a regular part of my job. It isn't easy to do, i see no reason why an untrained person should be able to trip people.

Rather, i'd agree with TaxiMan

[Ranxerox]

If the character can perform a sucessful called shot to the legs and the target failed to make their dex roll, I would be willing to say that the character had tripped the target.

[Kristopher]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "tripping" someone.

In a direct confrontation between two people, yeah, an untrained person is going to have a very hard time tripping his opponent.

It's a lot easier to trip someone when they're not looking out for it. In other words, by surprise. Heck, you can trip someone accidentally if they're not paying attention.

[Lord Liaden]

As far as tripping someone goes, I generally use a variation on the Grab maneuver, with the appropriate Modifier, and call it a trip. I figure if you can Grab and Throw someone, you can just as readily trip them. When you look at attempts to trip someone in sports such as wrestling and judo, it looks as though strength factors into the struggle as well as skill.

I take a different approach for moving targets, though, allowing characters to use a Grab/Trip maneuver to overbalance their opponent so that he falls and takes his velocity/5 as damage, similar to a Martial Throw but without the Strength damage added.

I run a Choke without the Martial Maneuver as a Called Shot Grab to the head region (specifically throat). The damage isn't NND, but I do use the head Hit Location modifiers for the damage done while squeezing the victim.

[Fireg0lem]

There was a DH article, I think a free one, a while back that included rules for 0-point manuever construction. It did open a can-o-worms with an abortable attack, but this problem could easily be solved by making 0-point Trip and Choke manuevers.

[Chuk]

Originally posted by Kristopher
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "tripping" someone.

It's a lot easier to trip someone when they're not looking out for it. In other words, by surprise. Heck, you can trip someone accidentally if they're not paying attention.

Yes, this is more what I was thinking of, rather than trying it in direct combat -- a Grab and Throw would probably represent that well enough. But I saw someone running down the hall the other day and realized that if I'd just stuck my leg out he probably would have gone flying, and I was trying to think of how to represent it in Hero.

Thanks for all the good advice so far on this thread!

[Pseudo Nymh]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden
As far as tripping someone goes, I generally use a variation on the Grab maneuver, with the appropriate Modifier, and call it a trip. I figure if you can Grab and Throw someone, you can just as readily trip them. When you look at attempts to trip someone in sports such as wrestling and judo, it looks as though strength factors into the struggle as well as skill.


I've done it the same way, for the same reason.

[zornwil]

I'm certainly not saying that I wouldn't allow a character to trip another in some circumstance (in which case grab and throw will work well, IIRC I've done things like that), however, on the whole, the notion is that you're paying for the ability to do something predictably with a reasonable chance of success in combat. Paying a few points for a "martial" maneuver is how the game models many such maneuvers. I think that's really the way to go if it will be something the character wants to do with any regularity.

I also think you should be very careful in what you allow an unskilled character to do against a skilled one. It's fine for Joe Schmoe to trip John Doe, but it shouldn't be routine for him to trip even the martial arts instructor NPC who has minimal but HERO-skill level martial arts.