Would this feat be broken?

[the Jester]

Would this be broken? Essentially it lets you trade a standard action for a move with no attacks of opportunity as long as you don't move any further in the round.

CAREFUL MOVE (General)

You can move carefully through an enemy’s threatened area.

Prerequisites: Dex 13

Benefit: As a standard action, you can make a careful move. This allows you to move up to your normal speed without taking attacks of opportunities for leaving threatened squares. You may not use a careful move if you move any further during your turn (with your move action). You may not combine a careful move with tumbling, jumping or any other type of special movement or with other movement-affecting abilities other than those that alter your speed.

Normal: You take attacks of opportunity for leaving a threatened square. You may withdraw as a full-round action, which allows you to treat your starting square as non-threatened for this purpose.

 

[Abisashi]

Nothing abusive comes to mind. I think it would probably be fine.

 

[Ilium]

I think it is, in fact, broken as written. Nobody will bother to buy tumble ranks, which sends up a red flag to me.

I would make it a full-round action AND only allow the normal move. That is, a regular human could Careful Move up to 30 feet and it would be a full-round action.

That STILL makes it better than tumbling since you don't have to roll dice, but it's a bit less of a must-have.

 

[the Jester]

I think the relative comparison is to Mobility, which gives you +4 to AC vs. attacks of opportunity from movement, regardless of circumstances, and has higher prereqs.

Your point about tumbling is duly noted, but bear in mind that you can tumble and attack. A careful move requires that you give up a round's worth of attacks.

 

[Abisashi]

I think it is, in fact, broken as written. Nobody will bother to buy tumble ranks, which sends up a red flag to me.

I would make it a full-round action AND only allow the normal move. That is, a regular human could Careful Move up to 30 feet and it would be a full-round action.

That STILL makes it better than tumbling since you don't have to roll dice, but it's a bit less of a must-have.

How does it make tumble useless? With tumble you can move and attack; with this you can't. You also can't get by a guy blocking the hallway with this, though that's much less of a problem.

 

[Land Outcast]

Yet, if you want to move your full speed with tumble, you need two move actions (or take a nice -10)

 

[Crothian]

It seems fine. I imagine most peopel will perfer tumble since skill pioints are easier to come by then feats.

 

[BRP2]

I think it shouldn't be a first-tier feat. Should probably build off another one, like Mobility.

 

[FireLance]

If anything, I consider it a bit weak. You can get +4 to AC and move your speed just by using the total defence action, or +6 to AC if you have 5 ranks in Tumble.

Most other "ignore AOO" feats have a prerequisite (e.g. Improved Disarm, Improved Sunder), but you get to do something in the same round. Given all the other things you can potentially do with a standard action, moving your speed without attracting an AOO is pretty low on the power scale and likely to be useful only in a very limited set of circumstances.

A character that focuses on giving other characters a flanking bonus might find this useful, as might someone whose role is to get through massed ranks of mooks and reach whoever they are protecting, but these are hardly game-breaking concepts.

I think it would be fine (and simpler) if it just gave the character the option to move his speed as a standard action, and let him decide if he wants to continue (or start) moving with his move action, provoking AOOs normally.

 

[Li Shenron]

Looks fine to me.

Withdrawing doesn't require a feat, allows a double move, but only saves you from AoO in the first square.

This feat basically allows you the withdraw protection on you full movement, but you give up half of the total movement (and costs a feat).

I could then imagine a second-tier feat that allows the same benefit but also a double move.

Tumble is useful both to run away from danger and to get into a better position (especially for a sneak attack).

This feat is good to run away too, but it restricts you to half total distance. It's not good for positioning, since you cannot attack in the same round, and you may easily lose the good position before the next round.

Hence, I think Tumble does not become useless with this feat!