Judas said:
Read the Duelist PrC from the 3.5 DMG, or Swashbuckler from Complete Warrior. Class ability: Acrobatic Charge. Basically it allows you to charge up/down/over obstacles in your path to complete your charge, making the appropriate skills checks as needed with no additional penalties.
Actually, reading it from the DMG p 186.
"Acrobatic Charge (ex): At 6th level, a duelist gainst he ability to charge in situations where others can not. She may charge over difficult terrain that normally slows movement. This enables her to run down steep stairs, leap down from a balcony, or to tumble over tables to get to her charge target. Depending on the circumstances, she may still need to make appropriate checks (Jump or Tumble checks in particular) to successfully move over the terrain."
First things first. Just because a feat or prestige class gives something as an "ability" does not mean that others can't do it. In 3.0, the feat Eagle Claw Attack let characters sunder items with unarmed strikes even though bludgeoning weapons normally couldn't sunder. Except they could (according to the erratta). I didn't read the Eagle Claw Attack feat and figure that the erratta must be wrong because here's feat that lets you do it so you obviously can't do it without the feat. The rules were quite clear that you could do it, so it just made the feat a lame feat (a fact that was mercilessly mocked by Hypersmurf on numerous occasions).
The DMG quite explicitly lists balance DCs to move or charge over certain kinds of difficult terrain. This very strongly implies that it is normally possible.
Second, the acrobatic charge ability expands the possibilities of charging beyond what they normally are--even under my interpretation of the rules. So the "what's the point of this ability if everyone can do it?" argument doesn't wash.
The acrobatic charge ability seems a whole lot more generous than what we're discussing. Take, for instance, the question of jumping during a charge. My view is that a character could normally (without the ability) charge an enemy behind a table (in a bar fight for instance) as long as he made the jump check to jump onto the table at the end of the charge. If the table were not next to the target, the character would need to clear both the vertical and horizontal distance of the table with the jump check in order to charge.
Acrobatic charge, OTOH, mentions tumbling over tables as a part of a charge. That should be easier than jumping over them (though it's not clear what the DC would be) and is probably not possible without the ability since tumble does not ordinarily allow a character to avoid difficult terrain.
In another example, acrobatic charge lets the duelist charge down steep stairs. Ordinarily, this requires a DC 10 balance check to avoid stumbling. (DMG 63). I think it's possible to read the duellist's acrobatic charge ability as no longer requiring this check since the check is not necessary to get by the terrain at all (as a jump check is for getting over a wall) but merely to get by it at speed without falling.
Similarly, jumping down from a balcony is not the same thing as jumping over small obstacles in a straight line path to the target. It falls under the "ordinarily not possible as a part of a charge" (unless the foe is next to the spot you land) category but is made possible by acrobatic charge even if you have to keep running 15 feet after landing in order to reach your charge target.
