Are tumble Checks too easy?

[Hypersmurf]

Double-Double Post.

-Hyp.

 

[hong]

Read it again...

"Tumble at one-half speed through an area occupied by an enemy (over, under, or around the opponent) as part of normal movement, provoking no attacks of opportunity while doing so. Failure means you stop before entering the enemy-occupied area and provoke an attack of opportunity from that enemy."

It's a change from 3E.

-Hyp.

Muahahaha!!! Dance, my sock puppets!

Read it again...

"Tumble at one-half speed through an area occupied by an enemy (over, under, or around the opponent) as part of normal movement, provoking no attacks of opportunity while doing so. Failure means you stop before entering the enemy-occupied area and provoke an attack of opportunity from that enemy."

It's a change from 3E.

-Hyp.

Dance!!!

Read it again...

"Tumble at one-half speed through an area occupied by an enemy (over, under, or around the opponent) as part of normal movement, provoking no attacks of opportunity while doing so. Failure means you stop before entering the enemy-occupied area and provoke an attack of opportunity from that enemy."

It's a change from 3E.

-Hyp.

DANCE!!1!

 

[Pax]

Tumble scales to the difficulty of what you are doing: those modifiers I was talking about on the first page of this thread.

Which I showed to be ludicrously unable to prevent a 10th level rogue from being able to tumble THROUGH a single enemy's occupied square(s), under the sowrst possible conditions in the PHB.

How about this. It is a Concentration DC of 16 to cast Magic Missile when you are standing right next to the Inkeeper's son. It is a Concentration DC of 16 to cast Magic Missile when you are standing next to the Huge Hulking Beast.

If the huge hulking beast is comparable to the epic Knight-of-the-realm I mentioned above ... then the wizardisn't casting Magic Missile. He's likely casting a much higher level spell.

So, Pax, tell me how Tumble is so unlike Concentration that it breaks the game.

Concentration lets you stand there and do something. Tumble lets you MOVE ... potentially past the creature(s) the party faces.

Ever try and run a detachment of City Watch trying to CATCH a rogue of 5th or higher level? Ever tried it in an EPIC setting, even? I mean, if even EPIC City Watch characters can't hope to stop the rogue from merrily tumbling on by ... there's a problem.

And allow me to pre-empt you on Spellcasting Harrier; I believe that Feat is not in the Core rulebooks. I am sure if you looked you would find a similar feat that would allow you to make tumble checks harder when opponents try to tumble past you by granting you an AoO.

Actually, I have looked. Believe me. I run an epic ARENA, and looked long and HARD in WOTC products for such a feat. Never found one.

 

[Pax]

See, that was a trick question. As this thread makes obvious, you have no ability to tell when you're wrong.

Trick, my left nut. It was a plain and simple question,a nd was plainly and simply answered.

Currently I am NOT wrong -- and I'm not the ONLY person who disagrees with how Tumble works, either. I simply seem to be the highest-profile target for the likes of you to snipe at.

Funny, too. Before your interjection, I didn't notice you HAD a dog in this fight, metaphorically speaking.

As for your question... I love it when someone whose entire line of "argument" can be summed up as "Because it should. Because I think so." starts talking about "needless"...

See, my question wasn't a trick question ... so I'll ask again: when was the last time you didn't resort to unneccessary personal attacks upon discovering you didn't have a viable argument to present ... ?

 

[Celtavian]

Trick, my left nut. It was a plain and simple question,a nd was plainly and simply answered.

Currently I am NOT wrong -- and I'm not the ONLY person who disagrees with how Tumble works, either. I simply seem to be the highest-profile target for the likes of you to snipe at.

Funny, too. Before your interjection, I didn't notice you HAD a dog in this fight, metaphorically speaking.



See, my question wasn't a trick question ... so I'll ask again: when was the last time you didn't resort to unneccessary personal attacks upon discovering you didn't have a viable argument to present ... ?

Look, Concentration checks become as easy as Tumble checks as you level. A Concentration check for a lvl 9 spell is DC 24. At 17th level, most casters will have a Concentration of 20 plus Con bonus. They are going to miss very rarely.

A Tumble check through a creature is DC 25 plus modifiers. There will almost always (save for incorporeal creatures) be an obstruction modifier for the creature itself when Tumbling by it, which will raise the DC to closer to 30. Your 10th level Rogue with a 13 Tumble skill and probably around a 22 Dex I would estimate would be able to Tumble past it around 50% of the time.

Considering I just ran an encounter where one of our Tumbler's tumbled past a creature yesterday, alot of good it will do you. The Tumbler in my group isolated himself and was then flanked up by the creature he tumbled past and a creature that was moving up behind it.

Like I said, if Tumble has become a glaring problem in your campaings for the characters have it, then you are running soft campaigns. In my campaigns, rogues who isolate themselves from the rest of the party, especially the clerics usually end up getting smashed hard. That is my experience.

 

[S'mon]

The analogy to Concentration checks is a good one. The difficulty of Tumbling does not (and should not, IMO) depend on the level or BAB of the target you're tumbling past - it's not an attack on that creature. Difficulty of tumbling should depend on the amount of space available, size of the creature you wish to tumble past or over, etc. So eg I use ca DC 25 to tumble past a Huge creature, DC 20 large, DC 15 medium; +10 to go over or under the target. Tumble is impossible if there's no room to do so, eg through a gelatinous cube that fills the tunnel.

 

[mmu1]

Trick, my left nut. It was a plain and simple question,a nd was plainly and simply answered.

Currently I am NOT wrong -- and I'm not the ONLY person who disagrees with how Tumble works, either. I simply seem to be the highest-profile target for the likes of you to snipe at.

Funny, too. Before your interjection, I didn't notice you HAD a dog in this fight, metaphorically speaking.

See, my question wasn't a trick question ... so I'll ask again: when was the last time you didn't resort to unneccessary personal attacks upon discovering you didn't have a viable argument to present ... ?

Heh... You're so right you've been reduced to arguing that Concentration DCs vary with lavel. (Which, in a way, they do - they get easier, because you gain ranks in Concentration faster than the DC goes up but that wasn't exactly where you were going with this, was it?)

Look around, see anyone else on the 3rd page still arguing with everyone because they're trying to run an Epic game, don't have the rudimentary ability to handle a character with Tumble, and therefore need to prove to the world that the skill is broken?

As for your question - that'd be now, in this thread. Pick a post, any post. Your arguments are about as easy to poke holes in as a wet paper bag, but since your response to all the hopelessly polite people who try to have a "viable argument" with you is to either repeat yourself endlessly, spouting opinion as fact, or to ignore the issues you're unable to even begin to refute and latch on to something new to re-direct attention from how you're getting your metaphorical ass kicked, I'm not about to waste my time pretending there's anything to gain from treating you as someone capable of intelligent discussion.

I await your next attempt at throwing my slightly re-worded post back at me, in lieu of a creative response.

 

[Enkhidu]

After reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that I can't really add anything to it because I disagree not only with the Tumble mechanics, but with the underlying concept behind Tumble (and for that matter, Concentration) - the idea that a skill alone can overcome something as integral as Attacks of Opportunity. But as this is a rules forum, I figure that going down that road is probably a bit of a waste of time.

What I can add, however, is that Tumble, by even low (4-6) levels is better (not sure about statistically) than the second tier feat Mobility. Quite frankly, I don't think I'd have near as much of a problem with Tumble if it required a feat to activate the AoO avoidance, much as Survival requires a feat to activate Tracking. Heck, I'd do the same thing with Concentration.

 

[mmu1]

After reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that I can't really add anything to it because I disagree not only with the Tumble mechanics, but with the underlying concept behind Tumble (and for that matter, Concentration) - the idea that a skill alone can overcome something as integral as Attacks of Opportunity. But as this is a rules forum, I figure that going down that road is probably a bit of a waste of time.

What I can add, however, is that Tumble, by even low (4-6) levels is better (not sure about statistically) than the second tier feat Mobility. Quite frankly, I don't think I'd have near as much of a problem with Tumble if it required a feat to activate the AoO avoidance, much as Survival requires a feat to activate Tracking. Heck, I'd do the same thing with Concentration.

The comparison to Survival and Track breaks down when you consider that Survival a) Lets you do some other (moderately) useful things besides tracking, b) You can, if memory serves, still track with survivial without the feat if the DC is low enough and c) Survival is untrained.

There'd be absolutely no reason to take Tumble if it required a feat to avoid AAO's - unless you combined Balance and Tumble as Acrobatics, or something...

As to whether it's better than Mobility - remember that Mobility doesn't have armor restrictions and doesn't require a check. It lets people who'd never have a prayer of making even a DC 15 Tumble check get better at avoiding AAO's. Even if you changed the Tumble mechanic the way you suggest, it's still not going to make the people using Mobility any better off.

 

[Nail]

If the huge hulking beast is comparable to the epic Knight-of-the-realm I mentioned above ... then the wizardisn't casting Magic Missile. He's likely casting a much higher level spell.

Wow. That's... uhmmmm....not much of an argument in your favor.