Question on tumbling movement

[Piratecat]

When tumbling past foes, you move at half speed. What exactly is at half speed?

1. Your entire move for the round
2. Only the portions involving threatened squares

Also, can you tumble for part of your move and move normally for the other part?

I suspect my ruling last night was wrong, so I wanted to double-check.

 

[Henrix]

I'd say 2, only the squares you actually tumble through halves movement.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

its not clear, in my opinion, but most people i have talked to see it as 2

 

[0-hr]

My call would be that for each move action, you state whether you are tumbling or not. Then the half speed applies to the whole thing. It's not much of a restriction otherwise (and the ability is no-brainer powerful already).

As a rules basis, I would start with noting how the text with Tumble compares to the text for something like Slow but differs from the text for someting link Difficult Terrain.

Tumble at one-half speed as part of normal movement, provoking no attacks of opportunity while doing so. Failure means you provoke attacks of opportunity

Difficult terrain hampers movement. Each square of difficult terrain counts as 2 squares of movement. (Each diagonal move into a difficult terrain square counts as 3 squares.)

A slowed creature moves at half its normal speed (round down to the next 5-foot increment),

Is there anywhere that the term "half speed" is applied to square-by-square movement? I think that the designers use "half speed" term when it applies to a move action, and use wordage like with Difficult Terrain when talking about individual squares. That's my opinion on it anyway.

 

[cmanos]

we've always done it as 1/2 move through the threatened squares. In grid terms...each square of tumbling through a threatened square counts as 2 squares.

 

[Jarrod]

The second.

Tumble at one-half speed as part of normal movement, provoking no attacks of opportunity while doing so. Failure means you provoke attacks of opportunity.

So you're going along with your normal movement. Then you start tumbling, and this is done at half speed. When you're done tumbling, you go back to normal movement. The key is the "as part of normal movement", instead of (say) "instead of normal movement".

 

[Dracorat]

Yeah, just the squares you tumble through. Basically, just count them as double movement cost.

 

[werk]

Yeah, just the squares you tumble through. Basically, just count them as double movement cost.

Ditto. Squares tumbled through cost double or are -10 to their check.

Breaking up movement between tumbling and normal (IMC) has done nothing other than make life easier/more fun for players.

 

[Vegepygmy]

As (almost) everyone else has said: you can divide up the tumbling and normal movement as you like, and only the squares you tumble through cost x2 movement.

 

[moritheil]

For simplification, I have run it as "Your entire move is halved" in the past. That is, either one tumbled or moved normally. This is not RAW, just something I did when adjucating over 10 players at a time. RAW does not forbid a reading like Jarrod's, and in fact seems to encourage it.