New Tumbling Rule, Is it Fair???

[Nikroecyst]

In my group I have found that the Rouge always makes his tumble checks. This would be fine with me if I thought the system was fair enough. I have noticed that the DC for a tumble check to avoid A of O's is a set number. By the time the group gets to 8th to 9th level (which is where they are now) the DC is way to low and makes it pointless for the Rouge to continue adding ranks to tumble. I have come up with an alternate house rule I think is fair and I would like to use it, however I have not the time to playtest or the insight for mechanics that I find most have.

So my questions are these. Is this mechanic fair in your opinion? Is there a better mechanic? Am I wrong to change the exsisting mechanic? Any suggestion, comments, questions, or concerns?

New Tumbling House Rule
Tumble checks will be made vs. Attacks of Opportunity instead of a set DC. Using this system the DC changes according to how skilled the attacker or attackers are. So basically you get to use a skill check vs. an opponent’s attack of opportunity. If your check fails they make their AofOs on you normally. If your check fails by 5 or more and you take damage your movement is ended for that round in the square you provoke the A of O from.
Successive AofOs increase the tumble checks by +2 for each AofO taken.
For example: Garrick wants to tumble past 4 trolls. Each troll who decides to take his A of O makes an attack. Garrick then makes an amount of tumble checks equal to the number of attacks made against him. Trolls 1, 2, and 4 decide to take their attacks, troll 3 opts to hold out for the loud mouthed arcane monk he suspects will be charging for him sometime during the next few turns. Troll 1 rolled a total of 10 on his attack. Garrick makes his tumble check and gets a 27. He succeeds on the first tumble check therefore he negates troll 1’s A of O. Troll 2 attacked with a total of 25. Garrick makes his second check for a total of 21. Since this is the second A of O in the round the DC is increased by +2 for a total of 27 (troll 1’s attack of 25 and +2). So Garrick fails his second tumble. Troll 2 makes his attack and gets a 17 and fails to hit Garrick. If Garrick had taken damage from that A of O his movement would have been stopped in the square he provoked the second A of O from, for this turn. Now troll 4 makes his attack for a total of 27. Garrick rolls and gets a total of 33. The DC is increased by +4 so the total DC is 31. Garrick makes his last tumble check and continues to tear the trolls a new one with Tsawasiga Blade.

 

[Stalker0]

Ah the classic tumble change. My premise is the original tumble ability is fine as is, and I'll explain why in great detail.

For mechanical purpose, tumble does one main thing, it avoids AOOs. That's all it does, all of those precious skill points are going towards this one single goal. Now, in your rule, you are opposing tumble with an attack roll. Here's the thing, attack rolls are useful for many things. You can kill things with them, disarm things, etc. There are lots of useful uses for attack rolls.

So why should a +1 to attack rolls be just as good as 1 whole rank in tumble? I am sacrificing a resource (a skill point) for this specific purpose, and your +1 to attack rolls completely negates that, plus gets to do all of those other nifty things like killing people!!

Tumble is a powerful skill, but its also a very specific skill. It should not be undermined by a general ability, which is what your rule causes to happen.

Further, you created the rule because you felt tumble was too easy, and the rogue character had no incentive to put more ranks in it. I'll handle the first part...first

Tumble is too easy? Once a rogue can make DC 15's consistently he can tumble around one guy all day long, no matter how skilled. This may seem outrageous to you, but think of it another way. As levels increase, a few things happen. Monsters tend to hit more often (bigger attack bonuses) and they tend to do more raw damage. If your 2nd level rogue misses a tumble check, the AOO will have a decent chance of hitting him, and probably do a decent amount of damage. At high levels, that AOOs will almost certainly hit him, and do a huge amount of damage.

Something also happens as levels get higher, the rogue starts to fall farther behind the fighter in defenses. The rogue only has a d6 hitdice, and normally doesn't have the big AC that the fighter does. So what if the fighter has to take an AOO when moving in, he's big and beefy and can take it. The rogue (with his d6 hitdice and low AC) is consciously deciding to place himself IN MELEE with the big bad monster, meaning he may be exposing himself to a full round attack on the monster's next action. That's a big risk, big enough that the rogue doesn't need to worry about an AOO as well...as a player of a few rogues let me tell you, its already risky enough.

So in conclusion, yes tumble becomes automatic at a certain point, but that's okay. The rogue (and the monk) have plenty of other things to worry about. They don't get the defenses of barbs and fighters, so don't begrudge them the one level of defense they do have.

Now to the second part, the issue of the rogue no longer having to place ranks in tumble. Guess what, tumble is hardly the only skill that does this. Climb, Balance, Survival are easy other examples. All skills that aren't opposed checks eventually hit the point where you have enough in the skill to stop putting points into them. And that's OKAY!!! God forbid your rogue wants to branch out into other skills

Further, remember that a DC 15 is not the end all be all of tumble checks. If you want to tumble quickly, that's a +10 to the DC, a DC 25 (nothing to sneeze at). And if you want to tumble past multiple creatures, the DC increases by 2 per creature. So if you need to tumble past 3 creatures, that's a DC 21. If I have a +14 in tumble, that's certainly not automatic.

So if your rogue wants to have a +14 in tumble, let him get some other skills and enjoy the benefits of his choice. Once in a while he might need to tumble quickly, or get past several creatures....and he might be worried about that check. And if decides to put more points in it, let him enjoy the benefits of that every so often.

In conclusion, the tumble skill really is just fine.

 

[Nikroecyst]

Im convinced. Thanks for the insight.

 

[eamon]

I agree that the DC needn't be much higher than as is. However, it's not true that a +1 tumble skill is as valuable as a +1 BAB. skills tend to have far lower impact in battle than bab, and essentially, full-bab progression of the fighter as opposed to the 3/4 bab progression of the rogue is probably worth about the entire skill point difference and then some (judging by the UA variant which allows a fighter to give up his feats in return for sneak attack, I'm not alone in this). That would mean that 1 bab every four levels is worth 6 skill points per level ;-) Quite something eh?

The above is of course taken completely out of context and not meant to be taken entirely seriously; however 1 rank in tumble _should_ be much worse than 1 bab. More annoyingly, I think that tumble should reflect the type of opponent. Tumbling past a stationary ooze should be easier than past a lighting fast... something ;-). In my games I've used a tumble DC of based on the reflex save bonus of the opponent you're tumbling past instead of a fixed 15. Although this scales, it scales slowly, and mostly, it means you can easily tumble past slow fighters and not past other fast rogues.

Currently I don't use the rule because I think it adds pointless complexity.

Finally, it's not true that there's no incentive for the rogue to continue putting ranks into tumble by the way; you have only tumble at half speed through threatened spaces at a DC of 15. Tumbling through an opponents square is DC 25, and going full speed is worth a +10 on the DC. And if you move through multiple squares it rises even further.... So your rogue has a bunch of room for character development. Finally, in my campaign I allow a feat (specifically for rogues and monks) that add's a +1 dodge bonus to your AC (while not flatfooted) up to your armor's max dex for each 5 ranks you have in tumble. This aids characters not usually very interesting otherwise, namely monks and rogues. I've still never seen a powerful rogue or monk, let alone an annoyingly powerful monk who is powerful because of this feat, so I'm pretty sure it's OK.