If you have a Climb speed, do you ever need bother with the Balance action?
Why bother tight-rope walking or beam balancing if I can simply climb across it more easily?
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From a purely RAW perspective: because Climb is used for moving up, down or across an incline, which is described as "an area so steep that you need to Climb using the Athletics skill in order to progress upward."
Is a tight rope an incline? Is a narrow beam? No. Therefore, no Climb.
Balance meanwhile is required on Narrow Surfaces and Uneven Ground. If it's one of those, you gotta Balance. No Climbing.
From a non-raw perspective, because it's the GMs call what surfaces require which skills.
Of course there are things that could, theoretically, be done with either. Your beam/rope example would be equivalent to going on a ceiling, which is called out in Climb Speed as probably requiring checks. But a Climb speed is not going to help you move across a slippery icy surface, or a ship being tossed around in a storm (both of which would be Uneven Ground).
You should be able to Balance or Climb across a tightrope or beam, and there are times you might end up doing both. If you crit fail a Balance check, you fall, but you should be able to Grab an Edge. From there, you could Climb back up, but that's difficult without handholds. Alternatively, you could Climb sideways to keep going, but that is much slower than using Balance.
Alternatively, you could Climb sideways to keep going, but that is much slower than using Balance.
Unless your Climb Speed happens to be equal to or faster than your Speed.
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I'd probably require an action to lower oneself into a position to climb a horizontal rope or thin beam positioned at foot level.
Unless they were trying to maintain properly oriented upwards while climbing said rope, but I think that sounds way harder, to the point I'd still require a check, though they'd definitely still get the +4 bonus listed in the climbing speed section of the rules.
Balancing I would not require an extra "positioning" action, assuming the set up described.
But this is all contingent on a tight rope style set up, with the rope at about foot level.
Also also, Balance covers some situations that Climb cannot. You'd have a hell of a time trying to climb across the surface of a frozen lake.
To the point others have made, I can see some scenarios in which you could use climb instead of balance.
Let's imagine we have a ravine. There is a rope tied at foot level across the ravine. Your character is good at climbing, but bad at balancing. So you decide to sit down at the edge of the ravine and grab hold of the rope, and shimmy across. That's valid in my mind. It'll cost you at least 2 extra actions (one to get down and grab the rope, and another to get back up; one might even arguing that it's more than 1 action to get down and/or up). In a non-combat situation that doesn't matter.
But the frozen lake example...climb wont help you here. Although I expect at least some players to lay prone on the ground and argue that they should get to use their climb speed.
But the frozen lake example...climb wont help you here. Although I expect at least some players to lay prone on the ground and argue that they should get to use their climb speed.
I did have a player try and argue for an Athletics check to Climb while prone on ice in one of my games. I allowed it but I was feeling pretty generous since he was the only conscious party member at the time.
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... Although I expect at least some players to lay prone on the ground and argue that they should get to use their climb speed.
That would be a non-starter with the group I play with. There is already a bespoke movement action when prone: Crawl and it moves at the same speed as the base Climb.
Asking if one can Climb instead of Crawl because they have a Climb speed is like asking if they can use Fly instead of Swim in an underwater setting because they have a Fly speed. I mean, swimming is just like flying, but underwater, right? I'm not even going to mention the converse.
[edit] ... and what SuperParkourio says
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For the record, prone prohibits move actions other than Stand and Crawl.
I'm hoping to play a giant awakened spider soon.
I'm imagining crawling along the bottom of the beam to get around enemies while my allies fight atop it. XD