D&D 3E/3.5 Please Confirm 3.5e Tumble

[iwatt]

DrSpunj:

If trying to tumble through 4 opponents, which ones do you get through and where do you stop on a failed check? Do you again base it on the check result vs the DCs?

I'll expain with an example. The rogue rolls a 7 in his tumble check. He adds his +11 modifier to tumble, for a total of 18.
That means that he tumbles past the two first opponents, the tird one get's an AoO. If he keeps tumbling he will provoke an AoO from the fourth opponent. This is assuming tumbling past, and not through a square.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

If you fail to tumble through an opponent's square, you stop in the square you started from.

Bullrush mentions that if you can't be moved backward by the bull rush, you fall prone in that space.

The only place I've seen the random location mentioned is in some of the transportation spells

 

[DrSpunj]

DrSpunj:
I'll expain with an example. The rogue rolls a 7 in his tumble check. He adds his +11 modifier to tumble, for a total of 18.
That means that he tumbles past the two first opponents, the tird one get's an AoO. If he keeps tumbling he will provoke an AoO from the fourth opponent. This is assuming tumbling past, and not through a square.

Right, I think that makes the most sense if you were going to go with a single roll vs multiple opponents.

Now, since the 3.5e Tumble skill specifically says to "Check separately for each opponent you move past", are you going to make separate checks or house rule it to a single check with ruling quoted above?

DrSpunj

 

[Tellerve]

I'm fine with the new tumble rules, like 'em a lot in fact. I do have a question pertaining to being prone in someone's square. Obviously on their turn they will pummel you, and I'm assuming they attack as if you were prone in a square next to them. But when it gets to your turn, how do you judge what they do for getting up? Do they have to crawl to a hopefully empty square 5' away and get up? What if they are in the middle of a huge gang of people. Do they crawl until they finally find a clear space? If you say that can get up in the same space, what bonus/penaties whatever are imposed by doing so?

Tellerve

 

[DrSpunj]

I'm fine with the new tumble rules, like 'em a lot in fact. I do have a question pertaining to being prone in someone's square. Obviously on their turn they will pummel you, and I'm assuming they attack as if you were prone in a square next to them. But when it gets to your turn, how do you judge what they do for getting up? Do they have to crawl to a hopefully empty square 5' away and get up? What if they are in the middle of a huge gang of people. Do they crawl until they finally find a clear space? If you say that can get up in the same space, what bonus/penaties whatever are imposed by doing so?

That's my concern with what Silver Griffon posted. In 3.0 whenever this has come up, I've always allowed the prone creature to stand up in an adjacent 5' as a MEA that doesn't induce AoOs. A bit of a bonus, I guess, to whoever is unlucky enough to find themselves in such a position.

If you were surrounded by enemies in such a situation (again, in 3.0) I'd probably rule that you have to use a Move action to get to an open square, then use a MEA to stand up. The Move action would induce AoOs as appropriate (but Mobility would, of course, kick in if you had it). Heck, I'd even allow someone to start Tumbling from prone in that situation, if they wanted to, but any AoOs they induce get the +4 attack bonus for them being prone throughout the Tumble maneuver.

Once I get my books and can look for myself, my opinion may change, but with the information I have I don't know that I'll be ruling much differently in 3.5e.

DrSpunj

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

DS -- the 5' crawl plus MEA to stand is still a good call under 3.5 (though per the AoO chart, standing up from prone now provokes an AoO).

Note that in 3.5 though you don't end up prone in your opponent's square when tumbling. If you fail your tumble check, you stop movement before entering his square, and he gets to take an AoO.

If fact, the only situations addressed in the rules that could result in a character prone in an opponent's space occur on failed Bull Rush or Overrun attempts where the square the attacker is coming from is occupied -- and the only time I see that happening is if you attempt to overrun two opponents standing one behind the other, the first one dodges out of the wa, and the second defeats the overrung attempt -- a fairly unlikely circumstance.

 

[Tessarael]

One other comment on requiring multiple rolls for tumbling, Skill Mastery makes a huge difference.

For example, let's take the skill 17 guy who has 80% of tumbling by 4 opponents. If he has SKill Mastery, he can always take 10, and automatically makes any roll up to DC 27. So the skill 17 with skill mastery guy can roll past 7 people automatically!

Now if only one roll was required, a skill 17 person would have a 50% chance of making that DC 27. Otherwise they have a 15% chance (0.5*0.6*0.7*0.8*0.9=0.15). That makes Skill Mastery far too good.

 

[iwatt]

DrSpunj

Now, since the 3.5e Tumble skill specifically says to "Check separately for each opponent you move past", are you going to make separate checks or house rule it to a single check with ruling quoted above?

Right now I'm Gming a Modern Campaign with a lot of d20 newbies. Haven't had this come up as an issue.

I'm also playing ina 3.0 DnD campaign. My GM there is pretty strict (any WOTC books, and some Dragon Material only), and I don't think we're getting the new books for at least some months. There are only a couple of house rules we use.

So in all honesty, for me this is a mental excercise, as well as a future balance issue (My Barb/Fig/Rog has already a tumble check of +11 at third level). We haven't seen tumble abused as much in other games since I'm the powergamer, and I've been playing a low dex cleric for the last 2 years. My GM does not approve of OOC chatting, and likes us to develop our character's free of anyone elses input (no metagaming).

Tessarel:

About skill-mastery, I agree it's quite powerful. In D20 modern ist's a 5th level abilty in the infiltrator advanced class, so you would receive it at about 8th level at best. What are it's requirements in 3.5?

 

[Tessarael]

AFAIK, Skill Mastery requires you to be a 10th level Rogue to pick it as a special ability (in both 3E or 3.5E). There's a few prestige classes that mimic this ability in one or two skills.

Skill Mastery is most useful where you want to eliminate your chance of failure with opposed die rolls vs grunts (you only need to be 11 better than them), or when many rolls are required. [It's dumb to take 10 when your opponent is better than you, you fail.]

You get to take 10 in 3+INT modifier number of skills.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Not sure I like what they did, but at least they fixed my biggest problme which was a successful traveling through an occupied square even on a failure.

I'm definetly going with one roll to rule it all, because quite frankly I've seen way to many tumble monkies and I want less rolling in a game not more.