How to stop Tumblers?

[frankthedm]

As house rules go, I prefer tumbling still draws AoOs. Your tumble check becomes your AC against that attack{If betther than your normal AC]. Add dodge and mobility modifiers to this check. Thus it works much like mounted combat.

Attacker uses up his precious AoO,
Competent foes harder to tumble past
Prevents +15 to tumble making mobility a waste of a feat.
characters have a darn good reason to focus or Master in tumble.

If this seems to make tumbling by huge melee critters too hard, give the rogue a bonus to the tumble roll = to double the creatures size penalty, Large +2, huge +4, gargantuan +8, colossal +16.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

elusive target must be all the rage in your compain.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It's important to note that DC 15 and 25 are not the only relevant checks for Tumble. Tumbling at full speed (DC 25 and 35 respectively) to avoid AoOs is also quite important in the game. (For that matter, the 17/19/21 and 27/29/31 for the second, third and fourth opponent tumbled past in one round are pretty important too). I found that my 12th level rogue cohort ended up using those options quite a bit because limiting her to half movement would often prevent her from getting where she wanted to arrive and attacking in the same round.

So, it's not really true that at high levels tumble is a joke. At higher levels, you start wanting to go by multiple enemies at full speed. The increased DC and the fact that you need to succeed at multiple rolls tend to make that a challenge for any PC who isn't a dervish (or some other class with skill mastery: tumble).

Tumble is anotehr example of WOTC's original assumption that people would not play high level characters. Tumble 15/25 is a worry up until about 8th level, when it becomes a joke to go by someone, and at about level 12 to go through a square.

And many other skills are the same like diplomacy. Hard and well balanced for a character under 8th level or so, but totaly broken at aboutlevel 12-15 (And I am assuming not optimized, if optimized any skill can be broken before 5th level.)

I think the solution is to make a lot more skills opposed ones, or at least a sliding scale based on opponent power.

 

[Legildur]

Even the designers admit they made a mistake by not having the DC set by an opposed roll or the opponent's skill in some way.

I'd love to see a quote on this?

In the live games I play in we use a house rule that doesn't change the DCs, but a successful Tumble check does not remove the AOO, but does allows you to add your ranks in Tumble to your AC as a Dodge bonus. This seems to work well enough, and the Rogue often won't tumble around creatures with a significant attack bonus because of the risk of taking a big hit on the AOO and then being left exposed to a full-attack.

We also use a similar mechanic for Concentration checks to cast on the defensive.

 

[blargney the second]

There's a crusader stance in Bo9S that makes any movement provoke AoOs. (Thicket of Blades?)
-blarg

 

[satori01]

Tumble is anotehr example of WOTC's original assumption that people would not play high level characters.

I rather think that the Tumble DC 15 was also set low to ensure that rogues can use Sneak Attack. The game designers were painfully aware that the old backstab rules punished the players of Thieves.

You might say they went too far...Monte Cooks alt Tumble rules in AE would imply that at least....but I think they chose to error on the side of the player.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

There's either a feat or trick in Complete Scoundrel that, IMO, has the potential to be totally broken. Basically, it allows you to treat an opponent as flat-footed if you tumble through their space. So once you get your Tumble score up high enough, it's sneak attack every round!

 

[hong]

There's either a feat or trick in Complete Scoundrel that, IMO, has the potential to be totally broken. Basically, it allows you to treat an opponent as flat-footed if you tumble through their space. So once you get your Tumble score up high enough, it's sneak attack every round!

Yes... once. Sneak attacking once per round isn't really that bad, IME. It's when you combine it with TWF+ITWF+GTWF+full attack that it becomes wacko.

 

[Mistwell]

There's either a feat or trick in Complete Scoundrel that, IMO, has the potential to be totally broken. Basically, it allows you to treat an opponent as flat-footed if you tumble through their space. So once you get your Tumble score up high enough, it's sneak attack every round!

But given that the main purpose of tumble was to get into a flanking position to begin with, that's not a whole lot different. Both allow one sneak attack a round, and that is rarely unbalanced.

 

[Adolfo_Mondschein]

Tripping up Tumblers

Enviroment plays a big part when tumbling. It's much harder if not impossible to tumble in deep sand, a shallow/deep bog, shallow water, etc. Tumbling up a flight of stairs or up a slope is also difficult. Even in your stereotypical dungeon, debri makes tumbling more difficult. I believe the DC goes up for every opponent you go by when tumbling so throwing some little low level npc warriors to help catch them offgaurd is also a good idea that doesn't raise the challenge rating by much. All and all, extreme tumbling is NOT that broken. I've seen a 12th level PC that could take 10 on diplomacy, Fast Talk, and had about a +30 modifier to do it. When you can talk your way out of just about ANY fight in the first round and get the XP without lifting a finger... That's beyond broken.