Questions about Dervish Dancing

[cwhs01]

I'm tinkering a little with a swashbuckler build (CW), wanting to play a piratey character in the next campaign (whenever it starts). I was thinking about adding a level or two of Dervish, both for flavour, cruchy syncronicity and fun.

build would be (reace, class and feats):
dex17, int 13
human: combat expertise
swshbckler 1:w.focus-scimitar, w.finesse(class ability?)
swshbcklr2:
swshbcklr3:dodge
ftr1:twf
ftr2:mobility
dervish1:ITWF
dervishx:

at lvl6: 2 attacks at -2 and 2 attacks at -7.

Yes it's a min/max build, though not an uber build by far. But i expect it'll be fun playing it with a lot of possibility for piratey goodness.

I have a few questions regarding dervish abilities though:

The dervish dance requires (and makes it possible) stepping 5' between each attack during a full attack routine. How many AoO does the dervish dance provoke, if say you had four attacks w. two scimitars (ITWF...)at lvl.6 as the build above, circling an oponent during the dervish dance. Three? two? is the first 5' step free?

The dervish movement mastery ability makes it possible to take 10 on tumble checks under stress. Does this include combat? How far can he move if he had 30 base move? 15'/three 5' steps? dc would be dc15 first step, dc17 step two and dc19 step 3?

 

[shilsen]

The dervish dance requires (and makes it possible) stepping 5' between each attack during a full attack routine. How many AoO does the dervish dance provoke, if say you had four attacks w. two scimitars (ITWF...)at lvl.6 as the build above, circling an oponent during the dervish dance. Three? two? is the first 5' step free?

The number of AoOs would depend on how many opponents are present. Remember, you draw only one AoO for movement per opponent, however many squares you pass through. The first 5' would not be free since it's part of regular movement and is not a 5' step.

The dervish movement mastery ability makes it possible to take 10 on tumble checks under stress. Does this include combat? How far can he move if he had 30 base move? 15'/three 5' steps? dc would be dc15 first step, dc17 step two and dc19 step 3?

Yes, it includes combat. The dervish dance description says that she "may tumble normally as part of her move". Since you tumble at half speed, a normal speed of 30 would be cut down to 15 if tumbling throughout. DC depends on the number of opponents you tumble past, not based on how many steps one takes.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Yeah - an important point to restate when it comes to dervish dancing is that the dervish is not taking 5' steps.

He is, rather, moving in 5' increments.

This is an important difference.

As Shilsen said, the ability lets you take 10 on your Tumble checks during combat. Since your Dervish Dance ability is keyed to your movement, you'll want to check out the rules on accelerated Tumbling (take a -10 penalty to your check, move at normal speed). That way, you can get up to your full 30' of movement while full attacking.

 

[Henrix]

The dervish dance requires (and makes it possible) stepping 5' between each attack during a full attack routine. How many AoO does the dervish dance provoke, if say you had four attacks w. two scimitars (ITWF...)at lvl.6 as the build above, circling an oponent during the dervish dance. Three? two? is the first 5' step free?

You provoke one AoO from each opponent you are passing by.
So if you are circling an opponent (and no other enemies threaten you), you provoke one AoO.

The dervish movement mastery ability makes it possible to take 10 on tumble checks under stress. Does this include combat? How far can he move if he had 30 base move? 15'/three 5' steps? dc would be dc15 first step, dc17 step two and dc19 step 3?

Certainly you can take 10 on tumble checks in combat. It wouldn't do much good otherwise.
The DC is 15 +2 for each subsequent opponent you tumble past.
So if you are tumbling around just one opponent, the DC is 15.
If you're tumbling past three opponents, the DC is 15 for the first, 17 for the second and 19 for the third.

Tumbling costs double movement, so if you can move 30' you can tumble 15', move 10' normally (provoking AoOs if the squares are threatened) and tumble 10', or move 20' normally and tumbling 5'.
(And don't forget that doubling a diagonal square makes it 15', not 10', of movement.)

[Edit] I'm a bit slow....

 

[cwhs01]

thanks forgot the "one AoO per move per enemy" rule...