[daemianmack]

It does. The relevant snippet from my .emacs.d:

  ;; For tramp with my bash config, the prompt of which terminates
  ;; in a newline. Tell tramp how to detect the end of my prompt.
  (setq shell-prompt-pattern "
  ")

The value of the shell-prompt-var is a literal newline. (That newline entered, naturally, with a C-q C-j.)