Tumble too powerful?

[N'raac]

Nice examples of higher skilled use by billd91, as well. If BAB adds to moving past, moving further and moving through become potentially impossible.

 

[Crothian]

The way we decided if Tumble in those 3.5 days was too easy was not by what the PCs could do. It was decided to be too easy when enemies tumbled past the front line of Fighters and attacked and nearly killed the poor Wizard in a round. They thought it was too easy for bad guys to move around and attack weaker party members while ignoring the more powerful combat focused characters.

 

[GrahamWills]

Power-wise, Tumble is a moderately useful but specialized skill. How often do you really want to move past or away from someone in melee anyway?.

I found that when my wizard ended up toe-to-toe with a giant who will absolutely certainly kill me in one round with a full sequence attack, moving away seemed to be a good plan. In general, it's nice to tumble because you then only take one hit, as opposed to three. I pretty much always take Tumble with a wizard, even cross-class. At reasonably high level you can auto-combat-cast in their face then auto-tumble away. I recommend it.

 

[ranger69]

The way we decided if Tumble in those 3.5 days was too easy was not by what the PCs could do. It was decided to be too easy when enemies tumbled past the front line of Fighters and attacked and nearly killed the poor Wizard in a round. They thought it was too easy for bad guys to move around and attack weaker party members while ignoring the more powerful combat focused characters.

This post summarises it for me. Whatever the characters may be able to do the opponents may be able to do also. A lot of creatures especially humanoids have character levels open to them. That weedy looking Kobold could be a twenty level character

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have always found the DC15 too low. In my opinion, the DCS in D&D 2.5 are a bit too low, like the designers never really expected characters to hit the higher levels.

Still the DC should not be too high as a character should be able to auto succeed on tumbling away or at least have a good chance against enemies. One problem this brings up for me is the difference between combat training and just having lots of hit dice/a huge strength in monster design.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I found that when my wizard ended up toe-to-toe with a giant who will absolutely certainly kill me in one round with a full sequence attack, moving away seemed to be a good plan. In general, it's nice to tumble because you then only take one hit, as opposed to three. I pretty much always take Tumble with a wizard, even cross-class. At reasonably high level you can auto-combat-cast in their face then auto-tumble away. I recommend it.

You move half your speed when tumbling (barring the penalty for full speed). Even a successful check is unlikely to get you out of a giant's reach, and it certainly won't prevent said giant from charging and easily tripping or grappling you, preventing you from trying that again and leaving you rather vulnerable. If you're that close to someone who's that dangerous, you generally need more than a Tumble check to get out of it, and as a wizard you have some options.

I'm not saying that Tumble is never useful, but it's not going to radically change the situation most cases.

 

[billd91]

I have always found the DC15 too low. In my opinion, the DCS in D&D 2.5 are a bit too low, like the designers never really expected characters to hit the higher levels.

I doubt that's the case. Rather, I think they wanted relatively routine uses of skills to decline in importance for powerful, skilled adventurers. All you have to do is look at page 31 of the DMG to see that they did think of tasks with their DCs and when characters should be able to accomplish them without much fuss.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I doubt that's the case. Rather, I think they wanted relatively routine uses of skills to decline in importance for powerful, skilled adventurers. All you have to do is look at page 31 of the DMG to see that they did think of tasks with their DCs and when characters should be able to accomplish them without much fuss.

True. Why should a high level character ever fail at things that he could sometimes succeed in at lower levels?

I think the other impetus is that it leaves room for expansion, and Tumble has significant high DC uses published in non-core sources.

 

[GrahamWills]

You move half your speed when tumbling (barring the penalty for full speed). Even a successful check is unlikely to get you out of a giant's reach, and it certainly won't prevent said giant from charging and easily tripping or grappling you,

Actually, what I stated I wanted to avoid was the full sequence attack. I'm sure you've realized when playing 3.5 at mid-high levels that a single melee attack is unlikely to cause instant death, but a full round attack easily can. It's pretty standard tactics to avoid that at all costs, and being able to do it automatically is very often very nice.

Even at low levels, when you might only have a 50-50 chance to avoid being hit, it's a low-cost method to avoid damage a good amount of the time! Wizards have enough skill points that a couple every other level is a good investment.

 

[Chase A.]

I like the idea of adding the opponent's BAB to the base DC of 15. It will work both ways though and the monsters will have to abide by it as well.