In any case, i would not call this "tumble through"
But the ONLY mention of tumbling is in the name and we can see from other things in the game, like Elemental Fist and Flying Kick, that names don't restrict the actual rules. Sure, you CAN tumble but you could also dodge and weave, predict the creatures movements or any other descriptive method a player wishes.
Secondly, we're talking about an action that's simple enough that it's untrained Acrobatics check like Balance, Escape, Arrest a Fall and Grab an Edge. If you're going to add extra hurtles to one, are you going to add them to the others too? IMO, it doesn't seem odd that even a low dex and unskilled person might want to slip past an opponent, especially a low Reflex DC one like a String Slime with a DC of 0. Seems just plain mean to impose the crit success results of a Trip for daring to use the maneuver in a way you don't like.
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IMO, it doesn't seem odd that even a low dex and unskilled person might want to slip past an opponent, especially a low Reflex DC one like a String Slime with a DC of 0. Seems just plain mean to impose the crit success results of a Trip for daring to use the maneuver in a way you don't like.
You are moving the goalposts here. If i try to backflip through the room, i am more likely to break my neck then to do anything else. Setting a custom DC for something a player wants to do is pretty standard i think, and as i said, if it does not give any mechanical advantage you can treat it as purely fluff.
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"Try to move through an enemy's space, on a crit fail you snap your neck and die instantly" doesn't sound like a move I'd use very often.
I also think the "can try to move" bit is pretty unambiguous, and the fact that we're deploying tremendous mental gymnastics to frame a signalling of options as a single, mandatory command should be a pretty clear sign that something's not quite right in the conversation. For context, Pathfinder establishes pretty clear differences between moves that are imperative and an essential part of the action, and moves that are optional, and this can be easily seen with slinger's reloads on Gunslinger ways. Let's take the Triggerbrand's Touch and Go:
Your body's shadows mask your hands' steel. You can Step toward an enemy, you can Interact to change your weapon between melee or ranged modes, and you then Interact to reload.
You can Step toward an enemy. You can Interact to change your combination weapon's modes. But you then Interact to reload. It's not that you can Interact to reload, you must. Everything else is optional, so you can Step without Interacting to change modes before reloading, or Interact to change modes without Stepping before reloading. That's why Pathfinder uses "can" statements, to mark when a component is optional. When there are no such options, the wording reflects that, as with the Spellshot's Thoughtful Reload:
As you sink deep into a state of analytical calm and focus on the foe before you, your hands reload a bullet instinctively. Attempt a Recall Knowledge check against an opponent you can see and then Interact to reload.
Notice the absence of "can" statements here. You must attempt a Recall Knowledge check, and then you must Interact to reload. Neither is optional.
All of which is to say: if you want to house rule Tumble Through to require moving through an enemy's space, that's fine, but please be aware that you're house ruling, and that this meaningfully changes how the action works and alters its function as intended by the developers. Hopefully, this should be fine, but if this does break an interaction in a way that is genuinely detrimental to gameplay, be ready to roll that house rule back.
It is also cheesy and lacks common sense. If you do not actually Tumble Through anything, then it's a Stride. Stride cannot be used to sustain. To me, it's that simple.This strikes me as a weak justification when the reason you can't use Stride is specifically, per developer commentary, that you're supposed to Tumble instead because it covers the same use case.
You're right, you're not wrong for saying "not at your table" that's fine, but the logic here is a bit problematic when the thing you're arguing demonstrates cheese is part of the design choice.
Ok, I can see what you are saying.
But let's use a different class with this example. Someone at your table plays a Swashbuckler, says "I am going to Tumble Through", and then Strides 25 feet. Are you giving them Panache?
To me, when the player says my character will Tumble Through, and gains a mechanical benefit from that, then they need to actually make a roll to Tumble Through. Tumble Through is not Stride.
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I have not read through everyone's comments, but put me in the camp that "Tumble Through" to sustain means having an enemy to tumble through.
Does this result in people planning to use leap instead? Possibly, probably. And I look at that as kind of intended, because it forces you to invest in some skill feats to make it good (being able to move up to your move speed), such as quick jump, powerful leap, and probably cloud jump.
Otherwise, if you can just "tumble through" by "striding" around and not trying to go through an enemy why would you bother with the other options?
Well, for Step it's clear why you would bother with it – to prevent triggering a reaction. For Leap, you'd bother with it if either there's some terrain you don't want to set foot in, a pit or comparable gap you want to cross, or if some other feature grants you a Leap (e.g. Maneuvering Spell). You could also be really good at Leaping in a way that's not replicable by Tumble Through (jump spell, leaper's elixir, steam knight stance).I have not read through everyone's comments, but put me in the camp that "Tumble Through" to sustain means having an enemy to tumble through.
Does this result in people planning to use leap instead? Possibly, probably. And I look at that as kind of intended, because it forces you to invest in some skill feats to make it good (being able to move up to your move speed), such as quick jump, powerful leap, and probably cloud jump.
Otherwise, if you can just "tumble through" by "striding" around and not trying to go through an enemy why would you bother with the other options?
It was a rhetorical question.
I understand their are specific use cases where a "free stride" to sustain wouldn't be as helpful as being able to step (for no reaction) or to jump over terrain that would otherwise be impossible or require several extra actions to get you into position (going around an impediment) but those are situations with limited frequency in my experience. Attacks of opportunity are not uncommon, but not very common either (it's kind of campaign dependent on what you're fighting commonly). And terrain is also highly dependent on GMs and content being used. In a lot of APs, I don't think difficult terrain or elevations become a common theme in combat. So in probably 80% of combats you would "tumble through nothing" to sustain, which just doesn't feel like the intention to me.
Requiring an enemy to tumble through, or to leap a short distance (or invest several skill feats) or step all seem relatively balanced to one another. Letting someone tumble through without an enemy doesn't feel balanced at all compared to the other options.
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I'm also in the camp where using using Tumble Through to just Stride feels wrong to me.
After reading this thread, I'm simply going to house rule that Dancing Invocation is a one action ability that lets you choose one of Step, Leap, or Stride and then Sustain as two subordinate actions. This solves the problem of enabling quickened strides or other subordinate actions, while allowing for the developer intent to include strides without mandating Tumble Through strides.
Thats, .. that would cause it to not work with longjumps or any other activities that included these movement actions though?I'm also in the camp where using using Tumble Through to just Stride feels wrong to me.
After reading this thread, I'm simply going to house rule that Dancing Invocation is a one action ability that lets you choose one of Step, Leap, or Stride and then Sustain as two subordinate actions. This solves the problem of enabling quickened strides or other subordinate actions, while allowing for the developer intent to include strides without mandating Tumble Through strides.
Yes that's correct.
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I'm also in the camp where using using Tumble Through to just Stride feels wrong to me.
After reading this thread, I'm simply going to house rule that Dancing Invocation is a one action ability that lets you choose one of Step, Leap, or Stride and then Sustain as two subordinate actions. This solves the problem of enabling quickened strides or other subordinate actions, while allowing for the developer intent to include strides without mandating Tumble Through strides.
I'd probably add the alternate movements, since the weird Tumble Through hack was added to address the playtest feedback regarding issues with a sustained flight form requiring two actions per round- one to sustain, and one to fly or hover.
But yeah, a one action ability is definitely cleaner and clearer.
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I'm also in the camp where using using Tumble Through to just Stride feels wrong to me.
After reading this thread, I'm simply going to house rule that Dancing Invocation is a one action ability that lets you choose one of Step, Leap, or Stride and then Sustain as two subordinate actions. This solves the problem of enabling quickened strides or other subordinate actions, while allowing for the developer intent to include strides without mandating Tumble Through strides.
But not allowing Tumble Through, either?
IMO, it doesn't seem odd that even a low dex and unskilled person might want to slip past an opponent, especially a low Reflex DC one like a String Slime with a DC of 0. Seems just plain mean to impose the crit success results of a Trip for daring to use the maneuver in a way you don't like.You are moving the goalposts here. If i try to backflip through the room, i am more likely to break my neck then to do anything else. Setting a custom DC for something a player wants to do is pretty standard i think, and as i said, if it does not give any mechanical advantage you can treat it as purely fluff.
This is sensible to me.
And i was wondering this because of Sayre's post about backflipping across a room presumably with tumble through as if its just automatic acrobatic movement. I think he was joking there but if thats what tumble through is, acrobatic movement then I would ask for a roll with a simple DC to at least gate it behind skill and stat investment so that players that did invest don't feel like others get to do their thing without investing in it..
Basing it off of Sustain could be cleaner. That may cause some order weirdness with River Carving Mountain but that doesn't seem like a big deal. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the feedback y'all.
But not allowing Tumble Through, either?
I was torn on that but eventually decided that if the developers added Tumble Through to be a move action with style then having Stride as a move action serves the role and Tumble can be safely dropped. Striding while dancing is stylish enough for me, and there is precedence since that's how Uncontrollable Dance works.
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I really don’t see a big issue with free sustains on tumble
through or step, because spells like Earth’s bile already only trigger once a round. The only thing the animist is getting is the ability to get some movement with sustain and maybe get a four action compression with something like elf step, but you already have to have 2 sustain spells going for that to matter much and that is a lot of actions lost in earlier rounds to make it happen.
I think it would be useful for someone to put the most ridiculous scenario they can together, and people can discuss how game breaking it is. River carving mountain doesn’t have the once a round limit, so elf step would give you 2 steps, 2 strides with +10 Spd, and making a Lott of difficult terrain. A commander giving 3 steps as an off turn free action could make for ridiculous movement, but I don’t really see the useful exploit there other than having an animist who runs so far away from the party that they can’t do anything.
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River carving mountain doesn’t have the once a round limit, so elf step would give you 2 steps, 2 strides with +10 Spd, and making a Lott of difficult terrain.
All vessel spells are limited to 1 casting/sustain per round:
"Because vessel spells are a manifestation of a specific apparition, an animist can't cast or Sustain a specific vessel spell in the same round they have already cast or Sustained it (for example, an animist who has cast earth's bile during their turn can't then cast or Sustain another instance of earth's bile during that same turn)."
River carving mountain doesn’t have the once a round limit, so elf step would give you 2 steps, 2 strides with +10 Spd, and making a Lott of difficult terrain.All vessel spells are limited to 1 casting/sustain per round:
"Because vessel spells are a manifestation of a specific apparition, an animist can't cast or Sustain a specific vessel spell in the same round they have already cast or Sustained it (for example, an animist who has cast earth's bile during their turn can't then cast or Sustain another instance of earth's bile during that same turn)."
Thanks! I missed that because it was written in specifically to Earth’s bile but not all vessel spells.
This entire conversation is pretty irrelevant then, and there is no fear of the commander opening up exploits.
IMO, it doesn't seem odd that even a low dex and unskilled person might want to slip past an opponent, especially a low Reflex DC one like a String Slime with a DC of 0. Seems just plain mean to impose the crit success results of a Trip for daring to use the maneuver in a way you don't like.You are moving the goalposts here. If i try to backflip through the room, i am more likely to break my neck then to do anything else. Setting a custom DC for something a player wants to do is pretty standard i think, and as i said, if it does not give any mechanical advantage you can treat it as purely fluff.
I'm not really moving anything: if you force a check or fall prone and take damage with nothing in the room then it would have to be harder when they actually want to bypass a creature. You're enforcing a trip attack because someone wanted to tumble through vs a DC that can be 15 harder than using it on an actual creature. I'll stick with saying that sounds a bit mean and it not making a whole lot of sense.
Your way vs an empty room: DC15 or prone and 1d6 dam
The actual way vs a String Slime: DC of 0 can move through
Yep, seems mean.
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Well if a player wanted to move through the string slimes space they really dont need to be fancy to do it with its dc. If they insist on backfliping over the slime then the 15 sounds reasonable.
Well if a player wanted to move through the string slimes space they really dont need to be fancy to do it with its dc. If they insist on backfliping over the slime then the 15 sounds reasonable.
That's the thing though: it's ALWAYS the same amount of fancy. It's the ability to move through a potentually occupied space, not a competitive gymnastics meet that requires triple backflips. The person I posted to is making it significantly more difficult and punishing than moving through some actual enemies and, IMO, that doesn't sound right.
Now if the character wanted to make like a Performance check, sure [like how a swashbuckler HAS to make a roll for panache]. But in an empty room, they have worse penalties than failing to bypass the monster as you don't trip yourself and injure yourself to boot. Even something as 'slow' as the String Slime HAS to be more difficult to bypass than an empty space, so I'd expect at least the same penalties.
Basically, I can't see any excuse where this sounds ok to me, either from a 'makes sense' point of view or a fairness one.
Well if a player wanted to move through the string slimes space they really dont need to be fancy to do it with its dc. If they insist on backfliping over the slime then the 15 sounds reasonable.That's the thing though: it's ALWAYS the same amount of fancy. It's the ability to move through a potentually occupied space, not a competitive gymnastics meet that requires triple backflips. The person I posted to is making it significantly more difficult and punishing than moving through some actual enemies and, IMO, that doesn't sound right.
Now if the character wanted to make like a Performance check, sure [like how a swashbuckler HAS to make a roll for panache]. But in an empty room, they have worse penalties than failing to bypass the monster as you don't trip yourself and injure yourself to boot. Even something as 'slow' as the String Slime HAS to be more difficult to bypass than an empty space, so I'd expect at least the same penalties.
Basically, I can't see any excuse where this sounds ok to me, either from a 'makes sense' point of view or a fairness one.
Well hear me out.
The reason why I see it as sensible is backflipping down a hall or over a slime is harder than striding down a hall or walking through the slimes space as it just fails to react to you with its low easy to overcome DC.Fairness comes into play in the way I originally asked the question comparing a character with no dex or acrobatics training getting to backflip as adeptly as the character fully invested because tumble through doesnt call for the roll on its own. Its not fair to the players who built toward the concept.
To be fair though, Tumble through isn't really something that should provoke images of a gymnast cartwheeling and flipping their way through enemies. Rather its an american football player trying to avoid collision as they sprint.
Provided an untrained vs a legendary character moves at the same speed they are going to remain as such where no obstacles exists. Similarly where such objects exists, character who invests in it will more readily make their way through harder challenges or even critically succeed on challenges the untrained one doesnt.
While this discussion about swashbuckler isn't really well suited inside a discussion about Tumble Through... Swashbucklers do have incentive to go out of their way to perform stylish and daring feats such as "I backflip down the hallway" or "I leap and swing myself into position with the chandelier" or "I jump down the crows nest and uses my sword to slow my descent as it cuts trough the sail". Simply because thats an alternative way Swashbucklers can gain panache RAW without interacting with the actions that do give them.
Ad-hoccing things like these for roleplay flair isn't a bad thing, even though as said.. its not really well suited within a discussion about Tumble.
I guess I just imagined it would have been a good action to place rolling under a beam or parkoring around obstacles that would otherwise slow you down in addition to tumbling through an enemy space or backfliping over an ooze. Its just not that.
Well hear me out.
The reason why I see it as sensible is backflipping down a hall or over a slime is harder than striding down a hall or walking through the slimes space as it just fails to react to you with its low easy to overcome DC.
Fairness comes into play in the way I originally asked the question comparing a character with no dex or acrobatics training getting to backflip as adeptly as the character fully invested because tumble through doesnt call for the roll on its own. Its not fair to the players who built toward the concept.
Well, as pointed out by NorrKnekten it's not backflips and such. A merfolk/Sacred Nagaji/wheelchair users with no legs has NO penalty to Tumble Through because it doesn't require backflips or any kind of tumbling. The fairness works both ways and such characters shouldn't be penalized for lack of legs anymore than a low dex character should have extra penalties piled on as they already are less likely to bypass actual foes.
Secondly, a 'no dex' of 10 is average. I think the average adventurer could do a cartwheel as I can do one and I'm not particularly athletic so making a check every move just because you're ready to dodge around any potential foes seems off to me.
I guess I just imagined it would have been a good action to place rolling under a beam or parkoring around obstacles that would otherwise slow you down in addition to tumbling through an enemy space or backfliping over an ooze. Its just not that.
If it was actual tumbling, I'd agree. However, that's more like negating difficult terrain abilities
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Well hear me out.
The reason why I see it as sensible is backflipping down a hall or over a slime is harder than striding down a hall or walking through the slimes space as it just fails to react to you with its low easy to overcome DC.
Fairness comes into play in the way I originally asked the question comparing a character with no dex or acrobatics training getting to backflip as adeptly as the character fully invested because tumble through doesnt call for the roll on its own. Its not fair to the players who built toward the concept.Well, as pointed out by NorrKnekten it's not backflips and such. A merfolk/Sacred Nagaji/wheelchair users with no legs has NO penalty to Tumble Through because it doesn't require backflips or any kind of tumbling. The fairness works both ways and such characters shouldn't be penalized for lack of legs anymore than a low dex character should have extra penalties piled on as they already are less likely to bypass actual foes.
Secondly, a 'no dex' of 10 is average. I think the average adventurer could do a cartwheel as I can do one and I'm not particularly athletic so making a check every move just because you're ready to dodge around any potential foes seems off to me.
I guess I just imagined it would have been a good action to place rolling under a beam or parkoring around obstacles that would otherwise slow you down in addition to tumbling through an enemy space or backfliping over an ooze. Its just not that.If it was actual tumbling, I'd agree. However, that's more like negating difficult terrain abilities
Tumble Through is a skill action to move past an enemy's space. Doesn't matter if you dive, do a roll, jump, or flounder past.
What it is not...or rather should not be...is a replacement for a stride requiring no check and usable in all ways as a Stride except for the extra haste action.
This odd and unnecessary interpretation of Tumble Through that has never been the case prior suddenly turned it into a Stride replacement except for the haste action just for the benefit of the animist. One class while providing all types of odd interpretations for everyone else in the world.
You can basically always be Tumbling Through as long as you're not hasted. Stride has no meaning any more except when you're hasted. Just Tumble Through all the time, auto-success skill action, that requires no opposition even though I'd bet money that the original intent of Tumble Through was not as a Stride replacement, but a specific skill action intended for a specific purpose.
I guess people want to run it that way and that's on them. I certainly dislike the implications. As Bluefrog said, people can do it as they want until Paizo makes a clear official ruling one way or the other.
This was already identified for Quick Spring before any Animist mechanics were ever known.
This odd and unnecessary interpretation of Tumble Through that has never been the case prior suddenly turned it into a Stride replacement except for the haste action just for the benefit of the animist. One class while providing all types of odd interpretations for everyone else in the world.
Maybe the wording used to be different, but as I read it now it says:
If you succeed at an Acrobatics check to Tumble Through an enemy's space, you can Stride again as a free action after you complete your current movement.
It's pretty clear you have to actually tumble through an space, which means if you don't go through an enemy or fail the check you don't get the benefit. Totally reasonable and clear how it works.
It's not the first time we have actions that act as stride replacements either, Just looking at Wall Run,Running Reload and Swift Sneak.
Even Barreling Charge got an errata that you don't have to move through targets. Yes at that point it is still just a 2-action stride+strike but still.The liturgist sustain feature was a single action level 2 feat. And is now a level 9 passive feature for the liturgist specifically. Nothing has changed about Tumble since the early playtests with the exception that occasionally an ability has popped up that gave benefits to it that seemed to miss that the skillcheck is optional.
This includes the Advanced Players Guide Playtests too, But instead of changing the Tumble Through they changed the wording of swashbuckler to only recieve panache with a successful skillcheck with Tumble instead of simply performing the Tumble Through action.
Wall Run you could view as a stride replacement, but it's a single action on its own (meaning bonus actions granted by haste can't be used with it) and it's main benefit it simply allowing you to traverse surfaces you wouldn't normally be able to.
Running reload is similar, you could view it as a stride replacement, but you can't use it with haste. And it's an action compression ability.
These are all fine.
I think at this point I agree with the poster who mentioned that they plan to change the ability to be a 1 action ability that allows you to "tumble through, step, or leap and then sustain". That's probably the cleanest way to stop it from benefitting from haste while generally accomplishing the goal of giving action compression.
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So to me this seems like a case of we learned this lesson once, but forgot this lesson and I would say the ability is poorly written and probably needs a reword to something like "on a successful tumble through check, leap, or step".
I'm still firmly in the camp the camp that I don't think the ability is balanced if you can just "tumble through nothing" and effectively stride to get the effect.
I also disagree with the stance that tumbling through is tumbling through if you don't go through an enemy, but agree that obviously updates have been made to decrease the ambiguity.
And I stand by the idea that making this ability it's own 1 action ability that allows you to do multiple movement types and sustain is probably the best way to enable things.