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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ackron" data-source="post: 1850837" data-attributes="member: 17127">First of all, my apologies if this has been covered before if so could someone please post a link?Under what circumstances are you considered to be balancing, and possibly flat-footed? Here is the relevant text from the SRD:"You can walk on a precarious surface. A successful check lets you move at half your speed along the surface for 1 round. A failure by 4 or less means you can’t move for 1 round. A failure by 5 or more means you fall. The difficulty varies with the surface, as follows:Being Attacked while BalancingYou are considered flat-footed while balancing, since you can’t move to avoid a blow, and thus you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any). If you have 5 or more ranks in Balance, you aren’t considered flat-footed while balancing. If you take damage while balancing, you must make another Balance check against the same DC to remain standing. "ActionNone. A Balance check doesn’t require an action; it is made as part of another action or as a reaction to a situation."It seems to me that there are four possibilites in reading these rules:1. You are considered balancing only when you are in the middle of a move action that requires a balance check.2. You are considered balancing if you made a balance check as part of your movement the last time you moved, and the situation that percipatated the balance check remains (IE the grease spell did not expire).3. You are considered balancing if any movement you make would requre a balance check (ie, standing on a narrow ledge, or on a greased square).4. You are considred balancing if any run or charge action you make would require a balance check (ie, on an uneven floor, or in a rough cave).Personally, I am inclined to read it as option 3, allowing me to use grease to make someone flat-footed, assuming they don't have 5 ranks in balance, however the rules seem to be fairly ambigious, and my DM disagrees. How do you rule balance and what is your reasoning behind it? And is there another way to read the rules that I am missing?Thanks in advance for any insight you have to share.</blockquote>

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