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If you attempt to move through an enemy’s space and fail the check, you lose the move action and provoke an attack of opportunity.
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Is that provocation only from the enemy occupying the space you attempted to move through or do you provoke outside the normal moving-through-threatened-square paradigm from anyone who threatens you? RAW, I'd lean towards an open-ended provocation. RAI, I'd lean towards only provoking an AoO from the occupier. This came up just now in an online PFS scenario, so there's that usual extra level of rules stickler-ing to account for.
I read that as "you try to leave your space, provoking from anyone who threatens that space (for the usual leaving-a-threatened-square reason), but fail to move forward so that you remain in your space and lose your move action". To me, that says the same thing less ambiguously.
I think the only reason they added the bit about provoking was because some people would think that because you didn't move anywhere then you also didn't leave your threatened space so there would be no AoO, so they added that bit to make it clear that there still is an AoO even though you didn't move anywhere - because you TRIED to move somewhere and that's when you provoked.
I'm sure there are some who will say otherwise.
Looks to me like it's each GM's call.
As for the spoilered question, I say "yes" - IRL, insects can do this just fine so I see no real difference. If there is motivation (e.g. I'm hungry and that looks yummy) then they'll figure it out, though for comedy's sake they may not figure it out immediately. And don't forget that slightly-above-average WIS score - that should give them enough common sense and intuition to manage it, even if they bumble about for a round or three trying to work out the complexities involved.
The ambiguity comes from the middle ground this character's check fell in. Against two abreast enemies, he tried to move through one of them. Failed that check, but he beat the CMD of the other defender. Does the other defender still get an AoO, i.e. does he provoke for failing to tumble through even when he doesn't provoke for tumbling past?
I acknowledged that. The question is whether the provocation noted in the quote in my OP is limited to the occupier of the square or is free for any threateners to capitalize on.
If we were tumbling past everybody, that would hold without question. That is not the situation I outlined. Per the quoted text, it seems that when you fail to tumble through a square, you don't provoke for leaving the threatened square. After all, it is entirely possible the occupier doesn't threaten that square. You provoke for failing to enter the occupier's square. The question is not whether you provoke from the adjacent enemy for leaving his threatened square. It's whether you provoke from the adjacent enemy for failing to enter the occupied square.
There is no reason to think you would provoke for "failing to enter".
Please read the quoted text in the OP.
I agree with Brf. I think you might be overthinking this, Jamesui. You can never provoke more than once per opponent for the same action. In attempting to tumble through the space of an enemy with adjacent friends, you make a tumble check against each. If you succeed in all cases except the one you're trying to tumble through, you provoke without moving. You've already used acrobatics to avoid the AoOs from the adjacent enemies, so you just get one from the enemy whose square you were trying to enter.
Jamesui,
We're all reading the quoted text.
When you provoke an AoO for leaving a threatened space, those AoOs happen in the space you're leaving, not in the space you're entering. In other words, the AoOs actually happen BEFORE you actually leave the space. It's a bit of a paradox, but that's the rule.
So forget acrobatics for a moment. You are standing next to an orc. You move out of your space and the orc attempts an AoO. He decides to trip you and succeeds. You're now prone and still adjacent to the orc. You never left your space, your move action is over, and you're prone from an AoO you provoked when you TRIED to leave your space.
This is true even if you move directly away fro the orc. Think about it, even without any other rules, just an orc trying to hit you with a battle axe. If you move directly away from him, leaving your threatened square, but now he has to make his AoO in your NEW square, he cannot - his battle axe doesn't have reach. But that's not how the rules work (if it did we would never need the Withdraw action). That orc takes his AoO while you are in your starting space before you get to the next space where you're out of his reach.
All that being said, the same thing applies to your quoted text. You try to use acrobatics to move through an opponent's space but fail the Acrobatics check so you provoke from the opponent and from everyone else who threatens your space.
There is room for argument about whether you make separate Acrobatics checks against everyone who threatens you. In the interest of faster game play, I have it be just one acrobatics check - you do well, they can't attack, but you screw it up and stumble about like a clumsy child, everyone gets to take his shot. Other GMs might make you roll separately for each opponent. But they all get to try to make that AoO.
It'd be easier to grok this if the line in the Acrobatics definition said something like "you provoke an AoO from that enemy" or "you provoke as normal." But it doesn't. It's just a naked "you provoke." So what I'm really wondering is whether this is a case of specific overriding general, and in the specific case that an enemy blocks you from tumbling through his square, that naked provoke lets everyone have at.
All that being said, the same thing applies to your quoted text. You try to use acrobatics to move through an opponent's space but fail the Acrobatics check so you provoke from the opponent and from everyone else who threatens your space.
I think this more or less addresses what I'm asking.