Acrobatics vs. Athletics

[kristov]

Ok, I have read a few guides made by other people who always say that Atheltics is a far better skill than Acrobatics is and will be used far more often.

My character will have a 10 STR and a 20 DEX so and I can either take Athletics or Acrobatics at this point (not both because I took other useful skills).

So do you think it is worth me taking Athletics (w/ a 10 str) or can I take Acrobatics (w/ a 20 dex) and make it work.

Lets say for example the dm says climbing out of a pit will be a DC 20 athletics check. Could I then say instead of doing just an athletic climb, im going to use the corner of the pit and do some crazy fancy ninja "parkour" running up the wall and flipping over the edge to get out. This of course would be using my acrobatics skill. Do you think I could pull this kind of stuff often enough to make it worth while?

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Lets say for example the dm says climbing out of a pit will be a DC 20 athletics check. Could I then say instead of doing just an athletic climb, im going to use the corner of the pit and do some crazy fancy ninja "parkour" running up the wall and flipping over the edge to get out.

Well, that really depend on the DM.

That being said, what you suggest is basically climbing and jumping super fast...

Athletic is for climbing and jumping. I wouldn't allow someone to use a skill not specifically designed for climbing in order to do it better than the guy who has the right skill!

Parkour is still athletic IMO, but with a penalty to climb faster. Parkour runners are not normally beefy fellow but I'd point out they never have skinny arms either. It takes a lot of upper body strenght to do what they do.

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Acrobatic is still very useful for a would be Parkour PC. Jumping down from great height without taking damage comes to mind. It turned out to be very useful in a campaign I run.

All in all, athetic and acrobatic do not interesect except for the possibility to escape grab. Even then, the difference in some monsters between Fortitude and reflex is so extreme that a a PC trained in one but not the other might direly regret it if he is ever grabbed.

 

[Smeelbo]

I tend to be somewhat forgiving on creative use of abilities, but even so, the question is, what can you do with a stunt? The PHB lists "somersaulting over an enemies head" as an example of a typical stunt, but gives almost no guidelines for stunts. I think someone trained in Athletics would be justifiably miffed if Acrobatics was a near-substitute for Athletics.

So I'd rule that if the terrain or situation favored a stunt, then it would be possible. So for example, curtains on the wall, the heads of nearby enemies to dance upon, a little help from your friends (alley OOP!). But I'd also make it more dangerous than a straightforward use of Athletics, and simply disallow it when there was no material at hand to support the stunt.

Because stunt resolution is so DM-dependent, Athletics is far and away the safer bet.

My conclusion for my own ranger is that at first level, I trained Athletics, but I plan on training (or retraining for) Acrobatics at a higher level, for the Epic Feat Flanking Manuever if nothing else.

Smeelbo

 

[nittanytbone]

I would advise taking hte training in Acrobatics.

I like having one skill I can use very reliably rather than two that are both marginal. With your maxed Acrobatics, you can disregard most level-appropriate falls, pull off some acrobatic stunts. Just avoid Athletics checks as much as possible (easy to do with gear -- carry a Floating Shield, level 1 item, for swim checks; carry a rope and grappling hook for climb checks).

 

[tbk409]

A little off-topic, but always house ruled rogues (and only rogues) could use acrobatics to climb. (In 3e we let them use DEX to climb checks.) This is just to preserve the old school "rogues are good at climbing" thing.

 

[paradox23]

As a general rule of thumb I like to remember that this is a game and you are presumably playing it to have fun. The rules keep things consistent to better facilitate having fun because you know what to expect and what you can and presumably can't do as well. That being said let's take a common sense look at how we can use the basic framework of these rules to make it possible for players to use the skills they have to achieve their desired goals.

Jumping and Climbing are Athletic feats. They usually require Strength to pull off successfully. However, you don't have to be brawny to be a good jumper or climber. If you are quite nimble or maybe you don't have a lot of muscle, but know how to use what you've got quite well (ie. Dexterity), that can make up for it. I usually allow a character trained in Acrobatics to do many of the same feats that normally require Athletics but at a altered DC.

A 6' tall, strong, and athletic human fighter needs to make it over a wall. He might be able to make a vertical jump to grab a ledge 10' up and pull himself over it. He'd need to jump up 4' to grab it. With a running start, this would be a DC 20 Athletics check. DC 18 if there was a rope or vines to help him climb.

A 4' halfling rogue with a high dex and acrobatic training might be able to find a much different way of traversing that wall. Maybe there is a pole arm laying around and she uses it to vault over with a simple base DC 15 acrobatic feat + 10 to avoid falling damage on the way back down for a DC 25 check. Perhaps she can Jackie Chan it and just run up the wall at a DC 15 + 1/foot vertically traversed for a DC 25 check to run up the wall utilizing speed and balance in place of strength.
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The mechanics of 4e are made to keep things as simplified as possible but that doesn't mean there isn't room for interpretation or creativity.

 

[Smeelbo]

I think there are intentionally a lot of hard choices to be made when creating 4E characters, and Acrobatics or Athletics or both is just one of them. Rogues get a lot of skills, they can take both if they want to be good at physical things, at the cost perhaps of a not training social skill. Multi-classing Ranger will get you either skill, and Hunter's Prey once per encounter to boot.

I wouldn't allow acrobatic stunts to substitute for Athletics unless there was terrain or other considerations that supported a stunt.

Smeelbo

 

[Alan Shutko]

Take Athletics. As the majority of the responses here have indicated, Acrobatics is almost always going to be considered by DMs to be more risky and less useful than athletics, because it doesn't spell out anything in the PHB and they don't like the overlap with Athletics. I've had a hard enough time getting my DM to let me do the EXAMPLES in the PHB, and right now, I've given up using it for anything more than fall checks and balance.

Unless you have a kind DM, you're going to see much higher DCs on anything involving acrobatics, and that'll negate the bonus you get from your stat.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

One of the problems that I have with the idea of substituting Acrobatics checks for actions that fall under Athletics is that you never see the reverse. When 20 STR Fighter with Athletics wants to make a leap from a 20' ledge he shouldn't get to say "Well, because I'm so strong my legs can obviously take the brunt of the force of the fall, and so I should be able to make an Athletics check to avoid damage". I would think that most of the Rogue players would have a problem with that. So why should it be excepted to do the reverse?

In the case of the 20' ledge thing, both Acrobatics and Athletics can get you out of it. A Rogue will merely step off the ledge and land rolling, stand up, dust himself off and take no damage. The brawny Fighter is going to say "Yeah, forget that" and instead just free climb down the sheer rock face using nothing but brute strength to grip the tiny handholds.

This is why they're two different abilities, is to allow for multiple solutions for different situations. If the Fighter and the Rogue are stuck in a pit, for example, then the Fighter will have to take the lead here. He can climb out, drop a rope and hoist the Rogue up if need be. When it comes time thread through a gauntlet while avoiding guillotines and fire traps, that would be the dextrous Rogue's job. He'll be able to thread through it with twirls and somersaults in order to get to the end and hit the switch that turns the gauntlet off.

Constantly watering down Athletics by allowing Acrobatics checks just makes the Rogue the star of the show while taking away from one of the few non-combat the Defenders can do to contribute. Rogues and Rangers tend to be the skill monkeys anyway, so they really get to shine during skill challenges and non-combat situations. Athletics is one of the ways that a good DM can get the Defenders involved by allowing them the chance to contribute occasionally. Throw in something something like a 30 foot pit that needs to be jumped over, and that's all about the Fighter. Or a big wall to climb so that he can throw down a ladder rope for the rest of the party. If you're just gonna going to make it so that the Rogue can do these things, then what's the point of the Fighter even paying attention during the non-combat portions of the game? (And there have actually been several times in my game where I've just gone out and had a smoke during some of the non-combat stuff for exactly that reason, because there's nothing for me to do because everyone else is better at the required skills than I am.)

 

[Obryn]

I know, I'm a heathen, but I allow them to be used almost interchangably, if I can imagine how it'd work.

I might set different DCs depending on the circumstances, but skills are vague as it is, and I don't mind a little more vagueness. I just think of Athletics as "Moving around with Strength" and Acrobatics as "Moving around with Dexterity." There aren't many good ways to swim nimbly, or to break a fall with strength, but I can certainly imagine acrobatic jumps and the like.

With that said, it is very DM-dependent. If your DM isn't flexible, Acrobatics will be far less useful.

-O