If Fly and Swim are separate skills and separate speeds, why isn't burrow a skill as well as a speed? I can think of a few situation that it might be useful.
Please, God, no.
I hate Fly as a skill, personally, thus adding more like it is even more displeasing.
I had no issues with Fly being a Maneuverability variable. Swim is bad enough.
I think we only need one skill for that stuff athletics.
Why not Float? And Slither? And Bounce?
Am I the only one that wants to WALK or RUN any more? Where are MY skills!?
darth_borehd wrote: I can think of a few situation that it might be useful. When fine-sized PCs go all "Wonder twin powers, activate...form of a dildo" with medium-sized characters.
darth_borehd wrote: If Fly and Swim are separate skills and separate speeds, why isn't burrow a skill as well as a speed? I could really dig this. :D
Not to mention climb is a skill and also a listed speed.
Why not only a "movement" skill, which would includes different sub-categories. Like Perception with smells,listen, ...
You can be good at moving, climbing, flying... And you get racial bonus for sub-skill. Or you can have a feat to get a bonus.
Examples:
-Birds have a low movement skill, but receive a +8 on flying movement.
-Black Dragons have some ranks in movement skill, plus bonus on fly and swim
-Bob the fighter has no ranks, but took flying feat for +4
-John the rogue has lot of ranks, and is a very agile swimmer/flyer/climber.
-Movement is a class skill for Druids
-Dwarves have racial modifier on burrow...
Or something like that...
Perhaps it could be rolled into one skill, Athletics, which would work like craft, perform, profession, knowledge, etc. That is, you could choose to take ranks in Athletics (walk/run), Athletics (Burrow), Athletics (Fly), Athletics (Swim), Athletics (Climb), and so on.
What would the Burrow Check be for?
Swim and Climb (and now Fly) have skill checks to deal with fact that moving using those modes have the possibility of consequences (drowning for Swim and falling for Climb and Fly). Burrow has no associated consequence. You either can burrow through a material or you can't (speed may be reduced by some materials) and in case of the tunnel collapsing you just continue borrowing your way out.
For those who wish to see the movement related skills combined, I think they are distinct enough with enough possible causes for checks to keep them separate. Also the skill to move in any one medium does not necessarily relate to movement in another.
As for the Fly skill, while some see no purpose for it, after reading it through a couple of times I understand that it builds upon and replaces the old flying maneuverability categories while maintaining a bridge for backward compatibility with the older maneuverability rules.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber
While it somewhat maintains backwards compatibility, you still have to spend time with old monsters trying to fix them so they work how they're supposed to. It doesn't make the game faster, it slows it down, finally, it invalidates many feats on monsters there were supposed be good fliers... like Dragons, for instance. These creatures all need to be rebuilt to accommodate the new skill. It also makes flying a much less viable spell choice for spell casters, who now need to sink skill points into their spell selection. By that token we should bring back the "control form" skill that lycanthropes used, and force all characters to make a check when undergoing some sort of transmutation/polymorph effect.
Zootcat wrote: Why not Float? And Slither? And Bounce? Here's a few more.
Sleep, Wake, Breathe, Sit, Stand, Skip, and Swallow.
Player: I drink my potion of Blur
DM: make a Swallow Skill Check.
Player: Damn, I rolled a 4!
DM: You dribble most of the potion down the left side of your cheek, the dirt and dust in the air kicked up by the battling soldiers leaves dirty streaks down the side of your face.
Player: Dammit!!!! Now I look like a 50/50 bar. I knew I shouldn't have put those points to Spot last level!
Robert
Freesword wrote: What would the Burrow Check be for?
Swim and Climb (and now Fly) have skill checks to deal with fact that moving using those modes have the possibility of consequences (drowning for Swim and falling for Climb and Fly). Burrow has no associated consequence.
No, you can drown in the material you borrowing through. Also the weight of the material could crush you. The DCs could be set by the material
Freesword wrote: You either can burrow through a material or you can't (speed may be reduced by some materials) and in case of the tunnel collapsing you just continue borrowing your way out. It's not that simple. Digging a foxhole in mud is a lot different than digging a tunnel through snow or scurrying under sand.
Freesword wrote: For those who wish to see the movement related skills combined, I think they are distinct enough with enough possible causes for checks to keep them separate. Also the skill to move in any one medium does not necessarily relate to movement in another. I agree.
Freesword wrote: As for the Fly skill, while some see no purpose for it, after reading it through a couple of times I understand that it builds upon and replaces the old flying maneuverability categories while maintaining a bridge for backward compatibility with the older maneuverability rules. I agree. It helps creatures like dragons who can now put points into it and not be stuck with the clumsy category.
darth_borehd wrote: It's not that simple. Digging a foxhole in mud is a lot different than digging a tunnel through snow or scurrying under sand. Be careful there, that could be turned into an argument for Burrowing subskills. ;)
I use my Burrow (Sand) skill to pursue the desert ankheg!
How about having a general movement skills for moving through different media - one for ground movement, one for aerial movement, one for movement through a dense medium. The skills could be:
Aerialist (Balance [aerial], Climb, Trapeze)
Athlete (Balance [ground], Jump, Tumble)
Swim (Balance [submerged], Aquatics, Burrow - assuming you want such a skill)
Note that a 'Balance' skill is included in all of them. With swimming/burrowing a balance check is mostly used for orientation, (telling which way the water's surface is, burrowing your way in the direction you think the rest of the part is et cetera.)
I also think that the higher level Fly spells would allow the subject to substitute their best Balance subskill, so they can move as easily as if they were walking or swimming on air, rather than moving through an unfamiliar medium.
I'm also thinking that a natural flyer would have a version of Athlete which substitutes Balance (aerial) for Balance (ground) to represent them being good at aerobatics (Aerial Tumble) and flight-assisted leaps & landings (Aerial Jump), but clumsy on the ground. Maybe call that the 'Fly' skill.
Fly (Balance [aerial], Jump, Tumble)
I could think of a few times when 'swallow' may have come in handy...
Zootcat wrote: Why not Float? And Slither? And Bounce? Would 'float' cover beholders? Or would we need a seperate one for 'hover'?
I think we need 'Moonwalk', so we can break it down old-school, MJ style. :D
And just think how confused the Orcs would be...
MarkusTay wrote: I could think of a few times when 'swallow' may have come in handy...
Zootcat wrote: Why not Float? And Slither? And Bounce? Would 'float' cover beholders? Or would we need a seperate one for 'hover'?
I think we need 'Moonwalk', so we can break it down old-school, MJ style. :D
And just think how confused the Orcs would be...
But what if orcs line up behind the PC and moonwalk in sinc with them, which results in them transforming into a monster - or does that only happen with zombies?
As for swallow, I've got 'Gurgitation' as a secondary skill/talent in my homebrew for use by thieves, sword-swallowers and other specialist performers. Don't recall any PCs ever taking it.
My cousin told me about a game he played in wherein the GM had a player make a "piss check."
They have climb, they have swim, they now have fly, all of these come of strength and are tests of the character's athletic ability. Why not do what they did with other skills and consolidate them into a single skill like athletics.
I really do not like the addition of a fly skill for druid, sorcerer and cleric with a passion. A druids ability comes off their physical prowess, but a sorcerers and wizards ability comes off their weaving of magic to fly so a spellcraft check would be more relative if you really need to make a skill check.
I understand why they added this skill, same reason we have the climb and swim skill, some people will be better at it then others. I think a better approach would be to seperate movement from skills and establish feats for them, which they have done with flight, for examples consult races of dragons. I really like what they have done with those feats and I think they could take the same approach with climb, swim, burrow or whatever type of movement you can come up with.
I would of posted this as a new thread, but cannot seem to find the new thread button, sorry this is my first post, let's hope this first post of mine does not get a wand of disintergrated pointed at me.
respectable feedback would be welcome on my approach
trwb wrote: I understand why they added this skill, same reason we have the climb and swim skill, some people will be better at it then others. I think a better approach would be to seperate movement from skills and establish feats for them, which they have done with flight, for examples consult races of dragons. I really like what they have done with those feats and I think they could take the same approach with climb, swim, burrow or whatever type of movement you can come up with.
I would of posted this as a new thread, but cannot seem to find the new thread button, sorry this is my first post, let's hope this first post of mine does not get a wand of disintergrated pointed at me.
respectable feedback would be welcome on my approach
Paizo's removed the Add New Thread to some of their older forums, including this one, so I'd suggest if you want to start such a thread you go to the Pathfinder RPG General Discussion forum.
As for movement feats, I'd be concerned that the PCs will need too many of them and they'd lag behind in combat strength because they're short of their other feats, or that they'd be too many easy magical get-arounds.
darth_borehd wrote: If Fly and Swim are separate skills and separate speeds, why isn't burrow a skill as well as a speed? I can think of a few situation that it might be useful. It follows the precedent of Climb, Swim and now Fly being skills, and it might be nice to be able to remove the 'Profession (miner)' from Kobolds and replace it with a Tunneling / Excavation skill.
5 ranks in Knowledge (architecture and engineering) might provide a synergy bonus to your Tunneling check.
Some of the tunneling speeds in D&D are, IMO, kind of insane.
Do Badgers really need to be able to tunnel through 10 ft. of earth every six seconds? Xorn and Earth Elementals cheat with Earth Glide and that's cool. Thoqqua cheat by melting stuff out of their way, and thats oogy, but fine. Bulette are just hardcore, and I won't risk their ire by questioning their tunneling superiority. Giant Ants build enormous underground complexes without any burrow speed at all, and that's fine too, since they don't need a burrow speed to *dig a hole* any more than my dog does. Blue Dragons are just pushing sand aside and White Dragons are pushing through snow, so I'm fine with that too, but Badgers need to lay off the crack and put down the adamantine pickaxes, 'cause they're going *way* too fast. :)
Zootcat wrote: My cousin told me about a game he played in wherein the GM had a player make a "piss check." I actually used to joke about that when I played bards back in the 2nd edition days...
Let's see, Bard enters combat on belly full of ale... really needs to go badly... but holds it rather than letting it fly as he's wearing his best new courtier suit and is afraid he'll stain the pants... nevermind his opponent's blood (or his own).... Okay, in 3.x terms that would be a -2 penalty to all Attack rolls but a +1 circumstance bonus to AC (due to hopping about while holding it... works kinda like a makeshift Dodge), and a -4 penalty to physical skill checks. 35% chance each round of "losing it" (aka peeing on self) if there is a nearby source of running water. Penalities and bonuses removed if bard spends 1d4 rounds relieving self.
Set wrote: Do Badgers really need to be able to tunnel through 10 ft. of earth every six seconds? Xorn and Earth Elementals cheat with Earth Glide and that's cool. Thoqqua cheat by melting stuff out of their way, and thats oogy, but fine. Bulette are just hardcore, and I won't risk their ire by questioning their tunneling superiority. Giant Ants build enormous underground complexes without any burrow speed at all, and that's fine too, since they don't need a burrow speed to *dig a hole* any more than my dog does. Blue Dragons are just pushing sand aside and White Dragons are pushing through snow, so I'm fine with that too, but Badgers need to lay off the crack and put down the adamantine pickaxes, 'cause they're going *way* too fast. :) I'd be reluctant to face down crack-head badgers armed with adamantine pick axes myself.:P
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