This situation has happened a couple times with different GMs. When involved in a chase the Chase segment asks for an Acrobatics check and I ask to use Agile Feet (from the Travel Domain) to automatically succeed and I have always been told that it is not allowed.
Each time I keep thinking this is a chase and Agile Feet seems, to me, to be the perfect ability to have in a chase. What is it about the Chase mechanic that makes the use of Agile Feet not possible?
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Agile Feet (Su): As a free action, you can gain increased mobility for 1 round. For the next round, you ignore all difficult terrain and do not take any penalties for moving through it. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
Agile feet doesn't let you automatically succeed an acrobatics check, it simply lets you ignore difficult terrain for one round. Chases last longer than one round, and the obstacles are not difficult terrain for the purposes of the Agile Steps ability.
What Imbicatus said. In general it's not difficult terrain that prompts a acrobatics check, but rather climbing over things, etc. More than that these phases usually represent more than 1 round of of time. Without knowing the specific challenge its hard to know if it applies or if using all your possible uses for the day would sufficiently cover the time for that single challenge in the chase.
Yes I agree it doesn't negate the whole chase, but if a specific segment allows for an acrobatics check (to avoid difficult terrain) then why wouldn't Agile Feet work in this case?
Yes I agree it doesn't negate the whole chase, but if a specific segment allows for an acrobatics check (to avoid difficult terrain) then why wouldn't Agile Feet work in this case?
I might allow it to work, but it would very much be a case by case basis where I would have to reviee the impediment and determine if Agile Feet applied (that is negating the penalty of difficult terrain) and if you lasted longer to make it through the entire area.
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Because chases are special rules that don't really map to the rest of the game. As A GM, I would give you a +2 bonus to the roll for a specific obstacle that was based on difficult terrain if you used that ability for that segment. By negating the difficult terrain penalties for that round you gave yourself an effective speed bonus, which per the chase rules is good for a +2 bonus on the roll.
Re-reading the rules for Chases and I see the +2 and I suppose that the best option available it just it seems to me that this is an ability tailor made for a chase and +2 seems low to me.
Thanks for the responses.
Re-reading the rules for Chases and I see the +2 and I suppose that the best option available it just it seems to me that this is an ability tailor made for a chase and +2 seems low to me.
Thanks for the responses.
Obstacle does not equal difficult terrain. Agile Feet does nothing for Acrobatics checks in general; it only allows you to move normally over difficult terrain. In the chases I've played and run, Acrobatics checks are generally called for when an actual obstacle is in the way. That goes way past difficult terrain and into, say, somersaulting over a produce wagon. Assuming that the chase occured in normal terrain, your GM made the right call--no bonus.
However:
If the chase happened to take place in difficult terrain, your movement speed would be higher than the baseline for the chase (say, 30 feet versus a baseline 15 feet). In that case, you would get a boost to checks made to avoid obstacles when using Agile Feet--either +2 or +3 depending on how you want to handle the extra 5 feet.
In any case, chases require (and encourage) a lot of GM fiat to adjudicate special circumstances. Ultimately, she gets to decide whether and to what degree a mobility advantage helps a character during a chase.