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I get feedback that you can't use Mobility or Vexing Tumble in combination with Tumble Through (I'm aware of severe limitations due to speed being halved - so that is not part of the question).
The argument goes: Neither Mobility nor Vexing Tumble is a stride. To me this seems only to focus on the first two words and ignores the last sentence of the action.
Tumble Through
You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy. Attempt an Acrobatics check against the enemy’s Reflex DC as soon as you try to enter its space. You can Tumble Through using Climb, Fly, Swim, or another action instead of Stride in the appropriate environment.
To me Mobility as well as Vexing tumble qualify to be
a) another action instead of stride
b) the appropriate environment (threatened squares)
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I'm a bit confused when you say "Neither Mobility nor Vexing Tumble is a stride", as Mobility is not an action whatsoever. It modifies the Stride action.
If you are asking if Mobility would apply to Tumble Through, I believe it would not, as Mobility works when you take "a Stride action" rather than when you Stride generically. I don't believe this is a definite answer, as some would say that Striding off a subordinate action would still qualify. I'm seeing both arguments ways, at least. I would personally allow Mobility to work on subordinate Strides, though it is an ambiguous ruling.
Vexing Tumble is a separate action from Tumble Through entirely and does not interact with it in any particular way.
The text in Tumble Through stating "another action instead of Stride in the appropriate environment" refers to Climbing, Flying, Swimming, maybe Burrowing, or perhaps even something like Balancing. It seems clear it is not meant to apply to things like Vexing Tumble.
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For Vexing Tumble the rules are quite clear. It is a separate action, and no, it can not be used to replace a stride subordinate action in the Tumble Through action. The appropriate environment qualifier is in the same sentence as it's talking about climb, fly, and swim, which are all the standard movement options for an environment the player might be in. Stride is still an appropriate action for threatened squares, which is an abstract game concept, not an environment.
Mobility, on the other hand, there's a valid argument either way. For reference, the relevant text on subordinate actions:
An action might allow you to use a simpler action—usually one of the Basic Actions on page 469—in a different circumstance or with different effects. This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects, but is modified in any ways listed in the larger action. For example, an activity that tells you to Stride up to half your Speed alters the normal distance you can move in a Stride. The Stride would still have the move trait, would still trigger reactions that occur based on movement, and so on. The subordinate action doesn’t gain any of the traits of the larger action unless specified. The action that allows you to use a subordinate action doesn’t require you to spend more actions or reactions to do so; that cost is already factored in.
Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions. For example, the quickened condition you get from the haste spell lets you spend an extra action each turn to Stride or Strike, but you couldn’t use the extra action for an activity that includes a Stride or Strike. As another example, if you used an action that specified, “If the next action you use is a Strike,” an activity that includes a Strike wouldn’t count, because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action.
The relevant question here is can these subordinate actions be modified by other feats. Personally, I think it's pretty clear that yes, they can, as I don't see anything specifically limiting that, but multiple reminders that activities are not the same as subordinate actions and can't replace them, such as with Vexing Tumble not being able to replace a stride action, since it's, well, not a stride action.
I mean, I can see an argument that the idea here is to have the subordinate action be a base version of it, but in that case what about feats that increase (or decrease) movement speed? Obviously those would apply since they directly affect your movement speed, and thus your stride, but how is that any different than mobility, which also modifies your stride directly? That's just my 2 copper, though. Take it or leave it :)|
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@xethik - I like the balance example !!
Can you tumble through when of a ledge or is an enemy on a ledge blocking you 100% by RAW?
Another example I found - a 5 foot corridor with a (small) pit trap. You could leap over it - especially if it is already open.
Now take a mephit flying over the opening. Do you now need fly or is leap another action instead of Stride in the appropriate environment.
@Aw3som3-117 - I need to dig deeper into the subordinate actions.
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Mobility and Vexing Tumble seem to do similar things, but they do them differently.
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Mobility is not an action. Mobility just "decorates" how your Strides work, when you meet its requirements: "When you take a Stride action to move half your Speed or less". Tumble Through is an activity with a Stride as a subordinate action. So Mobility would be applicable to the Stride part of it - you moving out of threatened spaces with Tumble through would be protected by Mobility.
Sadly though, Tumble Through itself has the Move trait, so that would still trigger AoO/Stand Still. Which is a bit surprising, since activities with subordinate actions typically don't explicitly repeat those traits, they just quietly inherit them from their subordinates. If the only part of Tumble Through with a Move trait had been the Stride, then Mobility would have been effective.
I'm not sure if this is intentional - maybe the designers thought a rogue merely Striding around was fine, but you should still be interruptible when you're trying to actually pass through a space an enemy is trying to block. Or it could be a bug.
If it's a bug (or if you just decide to allow it) then it'd still be nontrivial to use. While Tumbling Through the monster's squares are difficult terrain, and Mobility asks you how much of your speed you've used. So for example to cross a Medium creature in one action you would need a speed of 30: spend 10 to enter the creature's space, and 5 more to exit. 15 <= (30/2) so you're safe. To traverse a large creature, you'd need 25ft of movement, so a Speed of 50 to stay protected by Mobility.
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Vexing Tumble has "tumble" in the name, but it doesn't actually involve any of the Tumble Through activity. Vexing Tumble is an activity of its own that includes a Stride as a subsidiary action.
Vexing Tumble doesn't have the Move trait, the only thing that could provoke an AoO is the subsidiary Stride. Therefore you could use Mobility with it to stay safe.
And in fact this is relatively easy. Vexing Tumble says you're moving up to half your speed. This doesn't actually reduce your speed, it just places an upper bound on how much of the budget you're allowed to use. Coincidentally this happens to ensure you'll also stay within the budget limit to benefit from Mobility.
However, that's not hugely useful. If you had Mobility, the only reason to use Vexing Tumble would be to gain panache without having to use Tumble Through (which definitely provokes). The other functionality of Vexing Tumble, moving without provoking, is already fully covered by Mobility. So spending lots of feats to get this out of class feat... not really a great deal, but nobody promised you it would be.
On the whole I'd say Vexing Tumble is not a really great feat. It's one of those feats that serves two masters: non-provoking mobility and getting panache. And you pay for both, because level 6 is a bit expensive for this kind of effect.
The name is also a bit unfortunate because it makes you think that you could tumble through enemies - maybe even multiple of them - while avoiding AoOs and getting panache. But the name is more a throwback to 1E tumbling and a bit deceptive in 2E.
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A far-out reading of Vexing Tumble is that it does allow you to go through enemy spaces. It starts with "You tumble around your foes..." which could be read as pure flavor text. But Paizo is somewhat notorious for blurring the lines between flavor and rules text, to the dismay of players used to for example MtG which uses clear differences in font to divide them. In addition, uses of various skills are sometimes used without capitalization, like instructions to "hide" for example. And "around" could also mean going through someone's space, on the assumption that most creatures don't fully fill their squares.
It's a far-out reading, but if it allowed you to tumble through potentially multiple creatures AND avoid some reactions, that would be actually quite close to the right power level for a level 6 class feat.