Hello,
I have a Unchained Halfling Rogue (lvl12) PC/Player who has focused and invested quite a bit into acrobatics. He quite frequently wants to run up walls, run up the backs of PCs to jump off them and then attack while flying through the air. When moving through a threat square he says he is jumping to take advantage of expert leaper. Thematically all these things are totally awesome. His rolls on average are in the mid 30s to high 20s. But to what extent do I reign in the awesome and say hey you can't run 40 feet up a wall, leap off it, twist and attack a wyvern.
Hello,
I have a Unchained Halfling Rogue (lvl12) PC/Player who has focused and invested quite a bit into acrobatics. He quite frequently wants to run up walls, run up the backs of PCs to jump off them and then attack while flying through the air. When moving through a threat square he says he is jumping to take advantage of expert leaper. Thematically all these things are totally awesome. His rolls on average are in the mid 30s to high 20s. But to what extent do I reign in the awesome and say hey you can't run 40 feet up a wall, leap off it, twist and attack a wyvern.
He's still limited to his move speed in how far he can move in one turn, whether that's moving spaces on a map or running up a wall. I'd second vorpaljesus' suggestion; as long he's not taking any more actions than what is normally allowed and not getting unfair advantages I'd recommend adhering to the Rule of Cool, especially when he's invested so heavily into that aspect of the character.
The "running up the wall" bit would actually be a Climb check, not an Acrobatics check, and he can use tricks like Wall Climber and Wall Scramble to halp out with these.
We have several Acrobat players in our area, and they typically use jump to ignore difficult terrain and obstacles. When they need to get up a wall, we usually let them jump up the wall as high as they can (Acrobatics check) and then climb the rest of the way up (Climb check). For a vertical leap, the DC is 4x(distance in feet), so a 10 foot jump would be a DC 40.
So it sounds like his current Acrobatics levels would let him leap about 6-8 feet up a wall (and that's typically where his feet would land, so we usually let their hands grab on a foot or two higher), and anything past that would be a Climb check.
(Also note that he can't jump or climb further than his normal running speed, and unless he has some tricks up his sleeve, he can't change direction on a charge.)
As long as he isn't throwing off the rest of the party and he's making the DCs you set, I'd allow it. Rule of cool is a pretty powerful rule in the groups I've played in and DMed. Just keep in mind that he can't go more than his speed without other special abilities/feats. And if he fails that check going up a 40 foot wall, he's definitely gonna take some falling damage unless he has feather fall or something. He's clearly invested a lot into this, so I wouldn't discourage it as long as he's operating within the rules.
I'm not sure I'd go for the running up the backs of PCs - there's a difference between "pass through an ally's square" and "trample all over an ally". But as others have said, let him go for it. It's cool, he invested in it when he could have invested in other cool things. In fact, he would probably be MORE awesome if he had invested in better ideas and just bought an item that lets him fly.
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...dotting for reference.
I have a character in PFS with a +25 in acrobatics so I became very interested in figuring out what kind of fancy stuff I could do, but it really varied from GM to GM. Many were not sure what to do with some of the unusual things I tried. I was playing a swashbuckler, so how could I NOT be flashy. :)
I mostly agree with others here.
As for running up the back of another PC, if he can make the jump check to jump over them I don't care so much how it is fluffed. Please do entertain me with a description!