Difficult terrain & Dexterity bonus to AC


Rules Questions


Quote:

Difficult Terrain

Hampered Movement: Difficult terrain, obstacles, and poor visibility can hamper movement. When movement is hampered, each square moved into usually counts as two squares, effectively reducing the distance that a character can cover in a move.
Quote:

Cross Narrow Surfaces/Uneven Ground

First, you can use Acrobatics to move on narrow surfaces and uneven ground without falling. A successful check allows you to move at half speed across such surfaces—only one check is needed per round. Use the following table to determine the base DC, which is then modified by the Acrobatics skill modifiers noted below. While you are using Acrobatics in this way, you are considered flat-footed and lose your Dexterity bonus to your AC (if any). If you take damage while using Acrobatics, you must immediately make another Acrobatics check at the same DC to avoid falling or being knocked prone.

Are you flat-footed when in difficult terrain?

Last game we had this discussion (PCs moving through thick underbrush, lots of roots they could trip over) and ruled that when moving you were flat-footed, but if you didn't take a move action you weren't. (Unless someone had uncanny dodge).

Want to see what other say.


no you are not your move speed is cut in half and you cannot 5 foot step but nothing else occurse


So there is no open area in the dense underbrush greater than 3' wide, with lots of branches, roots, etc.

Surface width 1-3'= DC 5
and Severely Obstructed +5
Now its a DC 10 acrobatics check, which requires them to make acrobatic checks.
Wouldn't this make them flat-footed and be difficult terrain?

Thick underbrush


Gonna make this easy for you. Unless something specifically calls out that you are flat-footed, you aren't. You might be penalized in some way, but nothing in what you've quoted that says "you're in dense underbrush, you're flat-footed". You're overthinking this. Your second quote is actually for balancing on beams, rooftops (think of a slanted roof, that's certainly uneven), tightropes, etc.

Your underbrush? It's as wide as the planet. Why? You're balancing on the planet, not the underbrush. So it's definitely not narrow. Is your path narrow? Yes. If you think in terms of what parts of the planet in front of you are available for you to walk on, then yes. But underbrush creates difficult terrain, which limits movement. What movement? That part of the character sheet that says 'movement rate'. Not the part that says 'Dexterity bonus'.


the surface of the groud there is not 1-3 inches, even if you did impose something fighter with sword defeats bushes 99 times out of 100, the pichture linked if accurate to what you want wouldnt even impost the extra+5 for (severly obstructed)


The rules for acrobatics cover uneven ground as well as narrow places.
If the ground is uneven you have to make an acrobatics check if the DC is 10 or higher. Rule

Acrobatics specifically calls out that you are flat-footed if balancing.

Quote:

Cross Narrow Surfaces/Uneven Ground

First, you can use Acrobatics to move on narrow surfaces and uneven ground without falling. A successful check allows you to move at half speed across such surfaces—only one check is needed per round. Use the following table to determine the base DC, which is then modified by the Acrobatics skill modifiers noted below. While you are using Acrobatics in this way, you are considered flat-footed and lose your Dexterity bonus to your AC (if any). If you take damage while using Acrobatics, you must immediately make another Acrobatics check at the same DC to avoid falling or being knocked prone.

I said less than 3 feet, not inches. 1-3 feet is DC 5. Severely Obstructed gives +5, which brings the DC to 10.

Width is the area your passing though, not the size of the environment. Even "the width of the planet" is DC 0, a icy cavern floor 100' wide is DC 10.

Spells like forest friend removes underbrush penalties when moving through forests.

Yes, clear cutting with a machete can help create a path.
But doesn't help in combat.


the undergrowth is still not be severly obstructed you would need 10 times the ammount of plant life there for it to be of any hinderance and then they will need to clear a path but so will litterally anything else that may want to attack the party


Ordinary difficult terrain does not make you flat-footed.

Terrain that is so difficult that you have to make acrobatics checks just to walk without falling makes you flat-footed.


Matthew Downie wrote:

Ordinary difficult terrain does not make you flat-footed.

Terrain that is so difficult that you have to make acrobatics checks just to walk without falling makes you flat-footed.

^^This^^

You can always move 5' as a full round action that shouldn't need a check, or greatly reduce it.

The GM should probably allow other means of movement, such as the aforementioned sword vs bushes to move 5' as move action or crawling at quarter speed for example.


Splendor, your example picture (I hope you took it yourself, looks like my kind of place) isn't particularly dense; I went through worse as a grad student. The ground is still even, I can see it through the foliage in the picture. You could push a bush's branches left or right; you have most of the ground to work on. What this terrain would do is impose the movement penalties (the extra squares of movement). Having walked through an area before of waist-deep green briar (imagine kudzu in the south, plus thorns), that wouldn't have made me flat-footed. Flat-footed is the inability to defend yourself via quick responses; other defenses of course still apply. Why? I can push through the brush; my legs have the physical power to do so. It just wasn't fun and left me bleeding if I did it.

Please do not confuse the effects of moving through difficult terrain with those of walking across the typical balance beam, rooftop (remember, I suggested a sloped roof as uneven ground), tightrope, or perhaps a broken up blasted field. No one is balancing in that deep underbrush, they're just wading through foliage, much as if it were a stream of similar height. On the battle map, you'd be passing through a five foot square of medium underbrush if we use that pic as an example. Funnily enough, most characters are using a five foot square of space. Now, you get a narrow bridge, then we can talk about the balancing and whatnot. But that foliage you're having a problem with? Unless you've got someone trying to walk across the top of it, it's not a balancing or uneven ground situation. It's just a 'tromp through the woods' situation. No acrobatics check needed, no one's flat-footed just for moving through this forest's edge.


Matthew Downie wrote:
Terrain that is so difficult that you have to make acrobatics checks just to walk without falling makes you flat-footed.

Actually, I should add: it only makes you flat-footed while moving through the terrain ("While you are using Acrobatics in this way, you are considered flat-footed") - standing still doesn't require an Acrobatics check. So this really only applies to attacks of opportunity or certain readied actions.

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