Huh, I apparently have a +28 tumble

[Ridley's Cohort]

I recently had a related argument at the gaming table. While "realistically" there are lots of things that a half decent acrobat can do easily, for game balance reasons they are made very difficult.

Game balancewise Tumble is already a very powerful skill. It is undesirable to make the skill substantially better for realism's sake. And we also don't want every PC rolling their Tumble every action to squeeze out some minor tactical advantage.

If you want funky maneuvers in D&D, you should spend a feat.

 

[Pielorinho]

If you want funky maneuvers in D&D, you should spend a feat.

I 100% disagree, but it's a personal preference.

I want combat to involve as many funky maneuvers as possible. I want people to do flying leaps off tables, kicking the table back into their pursuers and tackling the wizard in front of them. I want people to do a backflip as they get up from a prone position, kicking their attacker in the chin and ending up 5' away. I want people to disarm their opponent, drop their own sword, and catch their opponent's sword as it falls. I want people to do all sorts of cool, cinematic, impromptu stuff in combat that surprises me and surprises all the other players and even surprises themselves. I want combat to have a flair.

If you need a feat to accomplish a funky maneuver in combat, then you'll do one of two things:
1) Never do a funky maneuver, or
2) Do the same funky maneuver over and over and over and over again until it's long past funky.

Feats can make the spectacular maneuvers easier or more effective, sure. But I don't ever want to require a feat in order to try something in combat. That discourages exactly the thing I want to encourage in fight scenes.

Daniel

 

[Lord Pendragon]

If you need a feat to accomplish a funky maneuver in combat, then you'll do one of two things:
1) Never do a funky maneuver, or
2) Do the same funky maneuver over and over and over and over again until it's long past funky.

Feats can make the spectacular maneuvers easier or more effective, sure. But I don't ever want to require a feat in order to try something in combat. That discourages exactly the thing I want to encourage in fight scenes.

Daniel

So a player at your table wants to jump off the balcony, catch the chandelier, swing across the ballroom, let go of the chandelier, flip in the air, and kick the BBEG in the head. How would you adjudicate this?

 

[Pielorinho]

So a player at your table wants to jump off the balcony, catch the chandelier, swing across the ballroom, let go of the chandelier, flip in the air, and kick the BBEG in the head. How would you adjudicate this?

Player: Okay, I'm going to jump off the balcony, catch the chandelier, swing across the ballroom, let go of the chandelier, flip in the air, and kick the BBEG in the head.
Me: Gaah! Damn you! Naw, just kidding, that's pretty cool. Okay, gimme a second (thinks hard). It's about 10' to the chandelier, and this maneuver is a little bit tricky. Give me a jump check to reach the chandelier, and then a tumble check to grab it and manage the flip. DC 15 on the jump check, 20 on the tumble check. Make 'em both, and I'll count it as a charge at the bad guy, count it as both damage and a trip attack, and since I'm so swell, I'll say he loses his dex bonus against your totally unexpected attack.
Player: Sweet! (rolls dice) Excellent, made my jump check! (rolls dice) Crap! Rolled a one on my tumble check!
Me: D'oh! Beautiful jump, and you grab hold of the chandelier, but only on one of the hanging crystals. It comes off in your hand, and you fall 20' to the ground. Let's see if you take damage from the fall....

At least, that's how I'd like to handle it. Make one (or possibly two) checks to resolve the funkiness, and give a significant advantage for doing something so awesome.

Daniel

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Pielorinho,

I agree with your sentiment. I really do.

It is just as a practical matter we do not want to encourage the player to roll a die three or four times before every attack resolution. Combat will grind to a halt.

The purpose of feats is give a coarse description of the prince flashy specialties or a character. In we lean on skills for adding flair, I am not sure why we would bother with feats in the first place. Secondly, the D&D 3.0 skill system isn't really up to the task IMHO.

Feats seem to be the way to go. Although I do concede it would be more interesting if I saw more Prone Attack, Treetoper, etc. in play. I love it as a player when one needs to be creative with abilities to adapt to a weird tactical situation.

 

[Pielorinho]

Pielorinho,

I agree with your sentiment. I really do.

It is just as a practical matter we do not want to encourage the player to roll a die three or four times before every attack resolution. Combat will grind to a halt.

The purpose of feats is give a coarse description of the prince flashy specialties or a character. In we lean on skills for adding flair, I am not sure why we would bother with feats in the first place. Secondly, the D&D 3.0 skill system isn't really up to the task IMHO.

Feats seem to be the way to go. Although I do concede it would be more interesting if I saw more Prone Attack, Treetoper, etc. in play. I love it as a player when one needs to be creative with abilities to adapt to a weird tactical situation.

Again, I disagree. I don't think folks will want to do this stuff all the time; if I can get it to happen an average of twice per battle, I'd be ecstatic.

Skills are definitely up to it. In my example above, you could make do with only one check -- a jump check -- to resolve the maneuver (you could make it tumble, but currently jump is an underpowered skill and tumble is overpowered, so I'd rather make it the former).

Wanna run across a room, slide under a table, and trip the bad guy on the other side of the table, using the tabletop for cover? Make it a balance check and give the attacker a +2 charge bonus and rule that the table provides 3/4 cover from anyone who is adjacent to the table and isn't prone.

Wanna run up to a lamp-post, swing around it, and kick the guy chasing you in the chest? Make it a climb check (since it relies on holding tight with your hands to prevent falling off the lamp-post), and if it succeeds, you both inflict damage on and get a free bull-rush attempt against your chaser.

If you want to add some feats to make it easier, that's great; I'll generally figure that a feat will give a +2 bonus to some funky maneuver or will eliminate an Attack of Opportunity. But I want everyone to be able to attempt cool stuff without feats, and I feel pretty sure that skill checks (or sometimes straight ability checks) are the best mechanic for resolving these.

We were discussing this exact topic awhile ago on the Rat Bastard DM Boards. You may want to check it out for more thoughts on how to handle such things.

Daniel

 

[Celebrim]

"...to jump off the balcony, catch the chandelier, swing across the ballroom, let go of the chandelier, flip in the air, and kick the BBEG in the head. How would you adjudicate this?"

Oh, that's easy.

I consult my map and notes, do a few quick looks at the SRD/PH in order to get the DC's right and then say:

DM: OK, you first need to make a jump check to reach the chandler. That's actually two checks, because there is a railing around the balcony, remember? There is no room to make a good running start, but first you need to make a standing jump up on to the rail. That's pretty easy, because you only really need to clear 2' because of your height - so roll a DC 20 jump check.

PC: 20? Yikes. *dice hits the table*

DM: Yeah, and you thought this was the easy part. Not getting a running jump bites. (FTR, We are using the modern D20 jump resolution system.)

PC: 11 + 13 is 24.

DM: You made it, you are now propelling yourself over the rail. The floor looks alot farther away than it did just a second ago. The chandleer is a good ways a way - DC 30 jump. Hope you make it, you are committed now.

PC (starting to sweat): Ok, shesh. *rolls dice* Come on baby, don't let me down! YES!! 19 + 13 = 32. Oh yeah, that's why I love this dice.

DM: Great, now you have to catch the chandeler - that's a strength check at DC 10 + plus your encumbrance level.

PC: (checks his sheet) I need to roll a 9. Man, this is harder than it looks in the movies. *rolls* Whew, a 9. Barely.

DM: You are now hanging from the chandleer swinging foward across the room. You don't have to let go, you can just hang around if you don't trust your luck any further, but you don't have that good of a grip.

PC: I got this far...

DM: OK, you need to perform a DC 20 tumble to execute a proper flying charge attack.

PC: Ahh, but this is were I shine. Three or better and I'm good. *rolls dice* 8+17=25

DM: Impressive. Most impressive.

PC: Time for a good swift kick to the back of old horny heads skull.

DM: Alrighty, roll to hit.

PC: *D20 clatters* Lets see, 15+13+2 for the charge is 30. That should do it.

DM: Yep, you just landed your foot dead center of his back.

Other PC's: Alright! Take that Lord Gherkin.

DM: (smiling) Too bad its only subdual damage, but just to be fun I'll let you execute a bullrush to see if Lord Ghertron stumbles a bit when your puny form slams into him (more dice rolling). Lord Ghertron roars with surprise and staggers foward 5'.

Other PC: Do I draw an attack of oppurtunity...

(more dice rolling while aoo are resolved)

DM: ...Now, you need to execute a DC 15 tumble check to soft fall, I believe that's auto for you, but you need another DC 15 jump check to avoid 1d6 damage since the balancony was more than 10' above the floor...

PC: (thinking to himself) Maybe I'll just pull out a bow next time.

Seriously, I hate when feats replace combat manuevers. Imagine if 'jump', 'dodge', 'fight defensively', 'full attack', 'disarm', 'trip', 'sunder', and everything else you could choose to do was restricted to those people who had taken the appropriate feats. Sounds like a lot less fun (not to mention potentially alot less tactical) to me. As the above example indicates, really flashy things are unlikely to come up often because they are just so hard to pull off at below epic levels considering the effect gained and the risk taken. I don't think the above PC is going to try that move again any time soon but he's definately going to remember pulling it off. OTOH, I can't think of a reason to play at epic levels if you aren't going to be doing this flashy cinematic stuff every chance you get.

 

[Pielorinho]

[B As the above example indicates, really flashy things are unlikely to come up often because they are just so hard to pull off at below epic levels considering the effect gained and the risk taken. I don't think the above PC is going to try that move again any time soon but he's definately going to remember pulling it off. OTOH, I can't think of a reason to play at epic levels if you aren't going to be doing this flashy cinematic stuff every chance you get. [/B]

I guess I don't want to wait until epic levels to pull this stuff off: I want it to be attemptable at first level, and I want folks to just get better and better at it. That's why my example contained two (or one) extra rolls and set low DCs for them and gave bonuses for succeeding: I want to encourage folks to try this stuff, to do outlandish maneuvers instead of just saying, "I fire at him three times with my bow, hitting AC 25, 23, and 27; do I hit?"

That said, I'm totally talking house rules here; I agree that your way of handling it is a lot more faithful to the rules as written.

Daniel

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Pielorinho,

If you want vivid descriptions of clever maneuvers I guess you can just set very soft DCs of 10 or 15 for a +2 circumstance bonus to hit almost all the time.

The downside is you are significantly enhancing Rogues, Monks, and Rangers over Fighters, Barbarians, and Paladins. IMHO, that is the real problem with the skill system when used in the manner you suggest. Game balance assumes that skills are secondary factors with respect to combat prowess. If you want an impressive combat effect with a skill, you should have bought a feat like Quicker Than The Eye or somesuch.

What you suggest could work in some d20 variant, but it is a lousy fit for D&D IMO. That is just fallout from the Fighter class being skill-less combat machines.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Pielorinho,

I skimmed that thread. There are some interesting ideas there but my basic concern stands: a D&D Rogue gains too much advantage relative to a D&D Fighter if you give generous bonuses for cinematic play through skills.

It could work well in some other d20 system.

It might also work if you allow the characters to default to BAB in most cases. That is a bit of a kludge because you have to arbitrarily differentiate between classed-based BAB and monster BABs, or you will see Collosal Scorpions doing triple twist backflips off the ceiling.