Trying to use the Chase rules on page 232 of the GameMastery Guide and I'm unclear on the two-move / three-move thing.
It seems to me that PC's have the following choices each round:
A) Move across the square as a move action, then resolve the obstacle as a standard action.
B) Move across the square as a move action, then do something else (cast a spell, etc.)
C) Try to move across two squares as a full-round action, having to resolve both tests on the card they left.
So that leaves me with two questions:
1) Why do the rules mention moving three squares? Did they mean two?
2) If you take option C, can you also attempt to resolve the obstacles on the second square?
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The problem with the wording here is that if you really can move three squares as a full-round action and only resolve the two obstacles on the first square, you're far better off doing this, as you avoid the obstacles on the second square. That can't be right.
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1) No, it did in fact mean that you can move three squares forward. However this is balanced out by the much higher consequence of failure--you might go forward one, you might not move, you might not move and then can't do anything next round. It becomes a tactical choice--you risk losing much more for failure and the chance of failure is much higher, but you might be able to skip later challenges you would have difficulty in. For example in one PFS scenario, there is a chase scene with one square that has a choice between diplomacy and a CMB roll. The next square's choice was between a swim and a fairly high DC acrobatics, and after that an escape artist or intimidate. My group's paladin could easily make the diplomacy, and a just under 50/50 chance to make the CMB roll. However the next square's swim and acrobatics, because of his -8 armor check penalty, were both physically impossible for him to succeed at, and the later intimidate would need a 15 on the die (escape artist impossible). He *had* to attempt the triple move or he would not be able to complete the chase scene, period. Had he failed just one roll by less than 5, he would have to go backwards and attempt the triple move again.
2) I suppose if you *really* wanted to you could try but there would be no purpose in it. Getting through the obstacle yourself does not *remove* the obstacle for others, you simply get through yourself (this sometimes makes difficult to explain when it is things like Disable Device, I usually do so by saying it is a heavy door that latches shut behind you, and others can only slip through if you stay behind to hold the door open).
To answer your concern with moving three squares being "far better off," most designed chase scenes make sure the two choices are quite different so that (with the likely exception of rogues and bards) it is unlikely that one character will find both options easy and so most will only attempt this in a pinch.