Why should figthers be the best at that?
Good yes (they have high BAB, so they'll not be bad at it), but why the best?Not the best, necessarily, but among them. And because blocking enemy movement past them is integral to their role in a party (assuming a melee character anyway). The same is true of all full BAB classes to some degree.
The Cleric (for Sense Motive) or Rogue (for Acrobatics) don't have that as their role and shouldn't be flat-out better than the Fighter at it.
Why would Fighter's be best at counter tumbling? Isn't the heavily armoured, slow moving Fighter exactly who the Rogue would be best at tumbling past?
Doesn't it make more sense that the agile, lightly armoured Monk or Barbarian should be much better at counter-tumbling? And who better to guess a Rogue's tricks than another Rogue?
That's just it, the fighter is not a slow moving armored hulk. Quite the opposite actually due armor training. The get full movement in Heavy armor and can increase the max dex bonus of Full Plate to 5 and the ACP of 0 (6 -1 for Masterwork, -1 trait, -4 Armor Training). This the type of class that would lunge out at you as stick you like a pig if you tried tumbling past.
A fighter in Fullplate can be more manueverable that any other class in lighter form of Armor.
Why should figthers be the best at that?
Good yes (they have high BAB, so they'll not be bad at it), but why the best?Not the best, necessarily, but among them. And because blocking enemy movement past them is integral to their role in a party (assuming a melee character anyway). The same is true of all full BAB classes to some degree.
The Cleric (for Sense Motive) or Rogue (for Acrobatics) don't have that as their role and shouldn't be flat-out better than the Fighter at it.
Why would Fighter's be best at counter tumbling? Isn't the heavily armoured, slow moving Fighter exactly who the Rogue would be best at tumbling past?
Doesn't it make more sense that the agile, lightly armoured Monk or Barbarian should be much better at counter-tumbling? And who better to guess a Rogue's tricks than another Rogue?
A high-level Fighter in heavy armor can move as fast as a Rogue in light armor or a Barbarian in medium armor. Even then, not all Fighters wear heavy armors.
I'm thinking of just removing the STR modifier from the CMD of the creature your trying to tumble around. It wouldn't fix every aspects of tumbling, but it would make it slightly more viable.
EDIT: Damn ninjas.
I'd like to repeat my suggestion: use CMB instead of CMD.
Why? Because CMD is about defending yourself. But I'm not attacking. I'm just moving past you. It is me who is "defending" against your attack through Acrobatics. You are attacking me, that's why you should use your attack bonus.
But then again, CMB contains Strength (and Strength only). So, in your opinion, being strong and bulky helps in stopping people from cartwheeling around you, while your reflexes won't?
Why should figthers be the best at that?
Good yes (they have high BAB, so they'll not be bad at it), but why the best?Not the best, necessarily, but among them. And because blocking enemy movement past them is integral to their role in a party (assuming a melee character anyway). The same is true of all full BAB classes to some degree.
The Cleric (for Sense Motive) or Rogue (for Acrobatics) don't have that as their role and shouldn't be flat-out better than the Fighter at it.
Why would Fighter's be best at counter tumbling? Isn't the heavily armoured, slow moving Fighter exactly who the Rogue would be best at tumbling past?
Doesn't it make more sense that the agile, lightly armoured Monk or Barbarian should be much better at counter-tumbling? And who better to guess a Rogue's tricks than another Rogue?
That's just it, the fighter is not a slow moving armored hulk. Quite the opposite actually due armor training. The get full movement in Heavy armor and can increase the max dex bonus of Full Plate to 5 and the ACP of 0 (6 -1 for Masterwork, -1 trait, -4 Armor Training). This the type of class that would lunge out at you as stick you like a pig if you tried tumbling past.
A fighter in Fullplate can be more manueverable that any other class in lighter form of Armor.
Move speed and dexterity have no correlation. A fighter being able to move full speed in armour doesn't help him lunge out at things and stick them.
If a Fighter had a high dex to take advantage of armour training, he would also have a high tumbling DC.
Likewise, a lower armor-check penalty would affect his Acrobatics check, and thus his tumbling DC.
I'd like to repeat my suggestion: use CMB instead of CMD.
Why? Because CMD is about defending yourself. But I'm not attacking. I'm just moving past you. It is me who is "defending" against your attack through Acrobatics. You are attacking me, that's why you should use your attack bonus.
CMB and CMD reward size and strength more than dexterity. Basically, it would be harder to slip between the legs of a giant than a gnome, which is counter intuitive.
Actually, since CMB doesn't reward dexterity at all without a feat, it's even less realistic than CMD.
10+CR +2 for every attack after the first. The Red dragon from the first would have a 38 to over come then (2 claws 2 wings and a tail), and gives a realistic idea of what you are dodging, flailing tentacles or a swift sword. Heck would finally give dual wielders a niche ("damn he's hard to tumble from")
I'd like to repeat my suggestion: use CMB instead of CMD.
Why? Because CMD is about defending yourself. But I'm not attacking. I'm just moving past you. It is me who is "defending" against your attack through Acrobatics. You are attacking me, that's why you should use your attack bonus.
This actually makes a lot of sense. Only problem is tumbling by would too easy.
I'm still awaiting game reports from people who played 3E and the monks and rogues broke the game by tumbling safely every round. Automatic tumble success was the NORM by 10th level or so in D&D, and it as fully intentional. The classes that utilize it are too squishy to do melee well, and needed the tactically flexibility to maneuver into flanks or away when things go south.
And Deadman, I refuse to go through every single PF skill to respond to your question, but looking them over you can see 95% of skills a) have flat DCs only, some lower than others, all easily capable of autosuccess all the time by mid or high levels if invested in enough; b) use opposed skill check rolls and thus are much more stable and balanced than the CMD system and require some sort of skill specialty on the part of your foe in order for there to be challenge; or c) some combo of a and b.
If you don't want tumble to be auto-success, at least oppose it by some other skill (if not acrobatics itself, like Sword and Fist wisely suggested) to make the whole thing better balanced.
BAB has nothing to do with tumbling, why should it have to do with disrupting it? BAB also has little to do with "martial skill" in the metagame sense when you consider all the medium and poor BAB progression monsters that still nonetheless have a higher BAB than the PC Fighter they're supposed to be an even CR encounter for.
Anything I want to post that points to common sense here gets erased and filled with anger text. I will decline to think about this thread anymore.
I feel your pain.
I'm still awaiting game reports from people who played 3E and the monks and rogues broke the game by tumbling safely every round. Automatic tumble success was the NORM by 10th level or so in D&D
If you just take the 3.5 model, it becomes too easy for every class (not just rogues and monks) to get +15 tumble. Pathfinder makes it easy to take cross class skills. Especially if all you are aiming for is an easy to hit DC.
Paladins, Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers, Druids will all just be maxing out acrobatics until they can hit DC 15 as matter of course and any poor sap who trys to utilize attacks of opportunity into their character build will be laughed at for the futility of it.Tumble does need to be something that both scales with level and isn't easy to accomplish, or it breaks the system in the other direction even worse than 3.5 did.
And just to maybe add something useful; What would the numbers look like if the DC to tumble past an opponent was their BAB + their Reflex saving throw?
This would give both martial characters and "quick" characters a score that adds together to make it hard to tumble past them. It scales with level, and kind of makes sense. How good someone is at melee and how fast their reactions are make up the determiners of whether you successfully tumble past them or not.
And just to maybe add something useful; What would the numbers look like if the DC to tumble past an opponent was their BAB + their Reflex saving throw?
Might be a nice base. However, if going this way, I'd use the 10 + BAB + Reflex avenue, or call for opposed rolls (Acrobatics vs BAB + Reflex).
The +10 in CMD in in there for the very same reason it is in AC, or several DCs when it comes to overcome another one's defense; it assumes one side 'taking 10' on their defense; I see little reason to break with that.Hmm... this would make the Ranger the king of tumbling denial... is this intentional?
Might be a nice base. However, if going this way, I'd use the 10 + BAB + Reflex avenue
Yeah good call. It's a little bit clunky, but I think you would need to look at those numbers before they get modified by things like resistance bonuses, morale bonuses, etc, or it will scale too fast and become impossible again. Just straight up 10 + BAB + base reflex save (with dex bonus). I guess boosting dexterity to increase ones reflex save would be the only way to raise your tumble defense through secondary effects.
Hmm... this would make the Ranger the king of tumbling denial... is this intentional?
Nope just worked out that way lol
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What if tumbling would always provoke AoO but, for the purpose of those AoO, the tumbler's AC and touch AC would be his acrobatics check result? If the defender's attack roll result his higher than the tumbler's acrobatics check result, the defender would still need to hit the tumbler's real AC with the same attack roll result.
Do you think it could make tumbling viable from level 1 to 20? I checked the attack roll modifiers of some of the big monsters in the Bestiary, and it seems like it's way under their respective CMD.
I think I will give it a try.
EDIT: Alternatively, instead of throwing 1d20, the defender could "take 10" on his attack roll and if the tumble fails, the defender would have to make a real attack roll against the tumbler to confirm the hit.
How about the same as the feint check DC: 10 plus BAB plus DEX modifier.
No Sensing of Motive required. Just skill at attacking and some physical aptitude for preventing those pesky tumblers.
The issue with that is there are no Feats or Items to increase it, nor will it ever compensate for the Class Skill buonus. It doesn't have enough ability to keep up.
Either BAB + Ability or a skill really is perfect, we just don't seem to have a good skill to make it.
I actually think Sense Motive works fine...I visualize using Acrobatics to avoid AoO's as doing some unpredictable move that allows you to evade...similar to a "head fake" to get past a defenseman in basketball/football. Sense Motive would let you "read" your opponent and know where they're going to move before they do it.
BAB isnt really an approximation of martial skill for non-humanoids; just look at something like an orcha whale zombie and tell me it's got great martial skill.
If there is anything, it would be feats like weapon focus and class features like sneak attack.
Still, i dont think martial skill has to matter that much; its still factored in if you want to HIT with the aoo.
Instead of +10 dc for full speed, maybe make full speed standard and half speed -10 dc?
If you just take the 3.5 model, it becomes too easy for every class (not just rogues and monks) to get +15 tumble. Pathfinder makes it easy to take cross class skills. Especially if all you are aiming for is an easy to hit DC.
Paladins, Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers, Druids will all just be maxing out acrobatics until they can hit DC 15 as matter of course and any poor sap who trys to utilize attacks of opportunity into their character build will be laughed at for the futility of it.Tumble does need to be something that both scales with level and isn't easy to accomplish, or it breaks the system in the other direction even worse than 3.5 did.
I pretty much totally disagree with that. So what if all those classes you cite invest in acrobatics to tumble until they can hit that DC without rolling? That's a pretty big investment for most of them, particularly if they're wearing armor that penalizes their check.
I don't think being able to tumble really needs to scale with level. As I see it, it's less about the opponent you're fighting and more about your ability to move without dropping your guard. And once you've mastered that, you've mastered it.
But even if you wanted to have it scale with level, my experience with the skill is that using the CMD is not the value to use. I like combat maneuvers fine for a lot of other uses - overrun, bull rush, grapple - but not tumble.
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I don't think being able to tumble really needs to scale with level. As I see it, it's less about the opponent you're fighting and more about your ability to move without dropping your guard. And once you've mastered that, you've mastered it.
The issue is this is that it effectively charges one Feat (and only one Feat) to ignore AoOs entirely by mid-levels. You just put the Favored Class bonuses into Acrobatics and buy Toughness (or the Feat in the Human preview fom the Advanced Races Guide that gives you the HP and the Skill oint from your favore class every level).
But even if you wanted to have it scale with level, my experience with the skill is that using the CMD is not the value to use. I like combat maneuvers fine for a lot of other uses - overrun, bull rush, grapple - but not tumble.
This, I can agree with to some extent. CMD's not ideal, I'm just personally skeptical of most of the alternatives proposed thus far.
I don't think being able to tumble really needs to scale with level. As I see it, it's less about the opponent you're fighting and more about your ability to move without dropping your guard. And once you've mastered that, you've mastered it.The issue is this is that it effectively charges one Feat (and only one Feat) to ignore AoOs entirely by mid-levels. You just put the Favored Class bonuses into Acrobatics and buy Toughness (or the Feat in the Human preview fom the Advanced Races Guide that gives you the HP and the Skill oint from your favore class every level).
Let's be a little more careful. You ignore AoOs for movement within a threatened area as long as you either make just a half-move or make a significantly harder full speed tumble. So it's not like it's free of all conditions.
Plus, I like the idea of feats that increase the tumble DC of an area you threaten by +5 or maybe +10. Then, you get to choose to specialize in that sort of thing yet big and ponderous creatures that happen to have a lot of BAB because of high hit dice aren't automatically harder to tumble around.
What about a DC equal to 10 + their hit bonus and a +2 for every threatened square tumbled through? Basically, they take 10 on an attack roll and you use your acrobatics check as your AC. The longer you spend moving around in a creature's threatened area, the harder it is to avoid an attack.
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People have noticed the problem before. However, I dislike the idea of using CR as a solution. CR is an artificial construct, divorced from the game world. More importantly, such a system would mean that a skilled warrior was as easy to dodge around as a decrepit wizard, and there would be absolutely no way for the defender to make this more difficult. Meanwhile a character could easily make it trivial at even the lowest of levels with feats, class features, or magic.
I agree here, but I'm not sure I agree with any change to the mechanic, as this works both for and against the PCs. The idea that a skilled warrior can't just ignore a skilled warrior, but a wizard bumbles about the battlefield with little hope.
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What if tumbling would always provoke AoO but, for the purpose of those AoO, the tumbler's AC and touch AC would be his acrobatics check result? If the defender's attack roll result his higher than the tumbler's acrobatics check result, the defender would still need to hit the tumbler's real AC with the same attack roll result.
Do you think it could make tumbling viable from level 1 to 20? I checked the attack roll modifiers of some of the big monsters in the Bestiary, and it seems like it's way under their respective CMD.
I think I will give it a try.
EDIT: Alternatively, instead of throwing 1d20, the defender could "take 10" on his attack roll and if the tumble fails, the defender would have to make a real attack roll against the tumbler to confirm the hit.
That's an interesting idea. I think it might fix the problem at high levels, but at low levels I think the tumbler would end up hit significantly more often than they are currently.
After doing the math, I'm afraid I don't agree that there is a problem with tumbling. I don't believe it should be a 100% guarantee and there should be a danger of missing, just like with anything in combat. Honestly, if you really don't want to get hit, you might as well just use Spring Attack.
That said, I can agree that using CMD against the acrobatics check was an odd decision and it is nice to see some ideas for alternatives here.
I think something like this may be getting there. Switch the die roll. Maybe it works something like the "ride skill" mechanic where the acrobat could swap CMD/AC for his or her acrobatics + a flat number or acrobatics + a roll or a acrobatics + a roll with a bonus.
As it is, the mechanic is totally lame--I agree with the OP.
[I]nstead of throwing 1d20, the defender could "take 10" on his attack roll and if the tumble fails, the defender would have to make a real attack roll against the tumbler to confirm the hit.
That's an interesting idea. I think it might fix the problem at high levels, but at low levels I think the tumbler would end up hit significantly more often than they are currently.What if tumbling would always provoke AoO but, for the purpose of those AoO, the tumbler's AC and touch AC would be his acrobatics check result? If the defender's attack roll result his higher than the tumbler's acrobatics check result, the defender would still need to hit the tumbler's real AC with the same attack roll result.
Do you think it could make tumbling viable from level 1 to 20? I checked the attack roll modifiers of some of the big monsters in the Bestiary, and it seems like it's way under their respective CMD.
I think I will give it a try.
EDIT: Alternatively, instead of throwing 1d20, the defender could "take 10" on his attack roll and if the tumble fails, the defender would have to make a real attack roll against the tumbler to confirm the hit.
Yeah, I noticed that too. Tumbling would be slightly less useful and more unpredictable during the lower levels, but at least it would make it works during the higher levels without to much investment, and if you invest in it with feats and magical items, it would work most of the time. Furthermore, a skilled acrobat could use tumbling to make his opponents waste their AoO against him, if they choose to do so, thus giving safe passage to his allies. It would also make Combat Reflexes slightly better as a feat, which is a good thing in my book.
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Hence my proposal for allowing Rogues and Monks half their class level to Acrobatic Tumble checks... there might be options to create that, I've not read all the books front to back.
To me, it would alleviate changing an existing mechanic for all classes, but bolster those that need to tumble the most. Those soft, supple, squishy non-magical classes.
I suppose it is true that those two classes need help. I'd just rather make them actually good at their intended purposes than throw them the bone of being insta-good at tumbling.
So, for the record, what I've come to the conclusion of from this thread is that Mobility should be revised to give a large bonus to Tumbling that doubles at 10 ranks of Acrobatics. That makes it really good instead of a speed-bump and helps out tumbling people in general. This will accordingly be added to my House Rules document.
I woluld also have been convinced CMD as such had issues...but I knew that already.
I am hearing a lot how one can get high acrobatic ranks with magic items, feats, class bonuses. But the opposite is true. You get +6 belt of dex, i get belt of +6 dex and strength (double the cmb bonus). You get skill focus (up to +6 bonus), i get ring of protection 5. You get +5 magic item for acrobatics, which means you have a net +3 to tumble if i did my math right. But all my stuff helps my ac, attack, cmd (against other stuff), and you have wasted a feat on a check you can barely make.
Mmm, year-old necro. Classy.
Also, the rogue is spending less gold than you to be better at tumbling. Seriously, belts of strength and dex are way more expensive than ranks in Acrobatics is free and Skill Focus (Acrobatics). And with just one belt and feat to have a 60% chance to beat the CMD of a dragon, let alone your character. Not to mention that items that provide acrobatics bonus aren't on any major slots (boots) so they won't take up slots you need for Dex and such. So, your character is spending a shit ton of money to beat a rogue that just put ranks in Acrobatics and took Skill Focus, and you think that's a good enough point to necro a dead thread? Congrats?
One year later, I would like to point out that in 3.5, tumbling at full speed in the 12-17 level range was often done, because you where playing something that could not survive a full attack from something with a 15 foot reach. Sometimes the terrain was also difficult. It wasn't just a flat DC 15 = auto win tumbling situation, it was most likely something someone invested in their whole career. The difference was there was a chance a fighter might be able to pull it off. To me, the game was more fun when you had people jumping all over the place. Longer combats where several people get hurt and have to figure out how to extract themselves from danger are much more interesting in my eyes that combats where fighter walks in, him and monster hit each other, everyone else blasts monster, repeat. You end up with the guys that are most likely in melee getting beat up a lot, and the guys that avoid combat hardly ever taking a scratch. Then when they DO run into a bit of trouble, they have no instincts or answers as to how to remove themselves from said trouble.
Maybe it's just, you know, something that's generally more difficult to do than jump over a hole.
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I think it should be hard to tumble against monsters of great size.
Why? What has an easier time getting past you, without you noticing, a scuttling beetle to whom you are a colossal giant, or a rugby player who is of similar size? Getting by something that is bigger seems like something that should be easier. In the example of a halfling and an ancient dragon, the halfling should be able to dart through the space between legs, or under a wing gap, or beneath an outcrop that's low enough the dragon would have trouble seeing into, or even just scuttle by.
Now that it has been a year later I can give my anecdotal description of Tumble from our games.
In 3.5 multiple characters would learn Tumble and usually by level 8-9 they would stop bothering to even roll it when moving half speed. It just succeeded and (this combined with how easy concentration checks were to make) attacks of opportunity effectively stopped being a part of the game.
In Pathfinder no one even bothers trying to Tumble because it is too hard.
I would suggest coming up with a houserule that is some kind of middle ground between those two extremes for home games. Neither of the rule sets handled Tumble DCs properly, imo.
I disagree with the proposed changes: certain creatures should be just that hard to tumble around. Two things to keep in mind:
1. A character that really wishes to tumble passed any enemy should invest in appropriate gear. +10 to acrobatics is not even very expensive at levels 10+
2. The majority of creatures encountered at any given level have an abysmal CMD that most characters that invest into acrobatics have no trouble tumbling passed. That there still exist CR-appropriate creatures that make it a challenge is something to be thankful for
3) CR 18 Dragon, Red, Very Old, CMD 49
Our stalwart rogue managed to worm his way to 18 and now has 26 dex max ranks and a +5 chain shirt and now needs a 21, a 0% chance.(+28)
I am pretty sure that every rogue would've switched to a mithral chain shirt +X by that point.
So you got an additional +1 and probably another +5 competence bonus from another source. Even a +10 competence bonus sounds realistic. So he would have a skill between +33 and +39, Which would put the success-rate between 25% and 50% in case of the dragon.But I still see the problem.
I think instead of CR +10, you could add a bonus to the tumble attempt depending on the size difference of the creature.
Either:
Add +2 for every step the creature is larger than the tumbler.
Add -2 for every step the creature is smaller than the tumbler.
Or:
Apply the inverted size modifier to the tumble roll.
Assuming that the rogue has a +5 competence bonus on acrobatics, you would add either a additional +6 or +4. That would be a +39 (50%) or +37 (40%) for a medium sized rogue. Make that a +10 competence bonus and he is at +44 (75%) or +42 (65%).
Everyone, who unsuccessfully tried to swat an insect that passed by, knows where I got that idea from.
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Adjusted, the DC's and chance of the rogue for the above listed
1) 16, 75%
2) 22, 85%
3) 28, 100%Gasp someone got better at something as they leveled up, rather than worse. Hold me Martha the rogue might actually attempt a (swoon) full movement acrobatics check.
Wow, you are actually proposing that a Rogue with no special investment in Acrobatics (no special item, no skill focus, medium DEX) makes his acrobatics check against almost all opponents.
For this result, just go back to the 3.5 rule of near auto-win at Tumble.
Even better, just make it auto-win and avoid rolling dice.
But but but I was watching some anime last night and the badass ninja was jumping between his enemies with no problem at all and why that's not in Pathfinder!!!!!1one11eleven
And and and when he swung his swords the enemies exploded and then he shouted HIYAAAA and a demon meteor fell from the sky and kill all bad guys and lol he was like level 4 cuz that was episode 5 of the series and whai dat not in game?
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Wow, you are actually proposing that a Rogue with no special investment in Acrobatics (no special item, no skill focus, medium DEX) makes his acrobatics check against almost all opponents.For this result, just go back to the 3.5 rule of near auto-win at Tumble.
An element of 3.5 that broke no games whatsoever. In fact, it helped keep a relatively weak class more functional by enabling it to get into combat position without overly punishing it for getting there.
In 3.0, we used the creature's currently equipped form of attack (or natural attacks) as a passive; so 10 + attack bonus. That's the tumble DC. For Pathfinder, CMB +10, or using the same method, works brilliantly - we just never stopped this theory from 3.0, so I guess we never even noticed if the rulebooks said to do something different ^^;
I actually think I'll try this... assuming it even comes up. As yet the only Dex characters played at my table have been the sit-back-and-shoot types and not the tap-dance-around-the-BBEG types (and all played by one person).
An element of 3.5 that broke no games whatsoever. In fact, it helped keep a relatively weak class more functional by enabling it to get into combat position without overly punishing it for getting there.
Wow, you are actually proposing that a Rogue with no special investment in Acrobatics (no special item, no skill focus, medium DEX) makes his acrobatics check against almost all opponents.For this result, just go back to the 3.5 rule of near auto-win at Tumble.
And in turn reach weapons are broken (as in, they don't work properly due to Tumble being so easy). There is a reason that I never once played a polearm wielding character in 3.5, but it is the first PC I am playing now that my group has switched over fully to Pathfinder. Attacks of opportunity actually (sometimes) matter now, thank god.