Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Jeff Wilder" data-source="post: 2048163" data-attributes="member: 5122">Again, simply standing in the area of the grease spell doesn't force a Balance check.&nbsp; (It forces a Reflex save, but that is a distinctly different mechanic.)&nbsp; Even fighting within the spell's area doesn't force a Balance check.&nbsp; The only action requiring a Balance check, as described in the spell, is movement.&nbsp; As such, only when moving is the character &quot;balancing,&quot; and thus subject to &quot;being attacked while balancing,&quot; and thus without Dex (and forced to make additional checks when taking damage).Again, this is an important enough effect in combat that, if intended, it would have been called out in the spell's description, as other rules of the Balance skill were.BTW, note that if a character never moves within the area of a grease spell, then by the text of the spell itself the character is never required to make a Balance check.&nbsp; How is one to rule that a character is &quot;balancing,&quot; for the purpose of &quot;being attacked while balancing,&quot; when the character in question has never been required to make a Balance check?The only way to do so is to create a &quot;condition&quot; ... something like, &quot;Balancing: If, in moving, a character would be required to make a Balance check, that character is said to be 'balancing.'&quot;&nbsp; If that rule existed, I'd agree wholeheartedly that grease is as powerful as y'all think ... but that rule doesn't exist.&nbsp; In its absence, it's at least reasonable to require &quot;balancing&quot; to include some kind of Balance check having been attempted, isn't it?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jeff Wilder, post: 2048163, member: 5122"] Again, simply standing in the area of the [i]grease[/i] spell doesn't force a Balance check. (It forces a Reflex save, but that is a distinctly different mechanic.) Even [i]fighting[/i] within the spell's area doesn't force a Balance check. The only action requiring a Balance check, as described in the spell, is movement. As such, only when moving is the character "balancing," and thus subject to "being attacked while balancing," and thus without Dex (and forced to make additional checks when taking damage). Again, this is an important enough effect in combat that, if intended, it would have been called out in the spell's description, as other rules of the Balance skill were. BTW, note that if a character [i]never moves[/i] within the area of a [i]grease[/i] spell, then by the text of the spell itself the character is never required to make a Balance check. How is one to rule that a character is "balancing," for the purpose of "being attacked while balancing," when the character in question has never been required to make a Balance check? The only way to do so is to create a "condition" ... something like, "Balancing: If, in moving, a character would be required to make a Balance check, that character is said to be 'balancing.'" If that rule existed, I'd agree wholeheartedly that [i]grease[/i] is as powerful as y'all think ... but that rule doesn't exist. In its absence, it's [i]at least[/i] reasonable to require "balancing" to include some kind of Balance check having been attempted, isn't it? [/QUOTE]

Verification