Acrobatics: Difference between revisions
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| width="250" style="font-weight:bold" | Ability Score Used: || Dexterity | |||
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| width="250" style="font-weight:bold" | Usable Untrained? || Yes | |||
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| width="250" style="font-weight:bold" | Armor Check Penalty Applies? || Yes | |||
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You can keep your balance while traversing narrow or treacherous surfaces. You can also dive, flip, jump, and roll, avoiding attacks and confusing your opponents. At very high levels of skill, you can attempt such incredible feats as walking on a spiderweb, or fighting in the top of a windblown bamboo grove. | You can keep your balance while traversing narrow or treacherous surfaces. You can also dive, flip, jump, and roll, avoiding attacks and confusing your opponents. At very high levels of skill, you can attempt such incredible feats as walking on a spiderweb, or fighting in the top of a windblown bamboo grove. | ||
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Acrobatics checks are sometimes affected by circumstance bonuses or penalties, depending on the terrain, weather, or other circumstances. Examples include: | Acrobatics checks are sometimes affected by circumstance bonuses or penalties, depending on the terrain, weather, or other circumstances. Examples include: | ||
*Lightly obstructed, sloped or slippery terrain can inflict a -2 penalty, while heavily obstructed, icy or steeply sloped terrain can inflict a -5 penalty. These penalties can also be cumulative, if multiple hazards are present (a steep icy slope would be -10). | * Lightly obstructed, sloped or slippery terrain can inflict a -2 penalty, while heavily obstructed, icy or steeply sloped terrain can inflict a -5 penalty. These penalties can also be cumulative, if multiple hazards are present (a steep icy slope would be -10). | ||
*Unsteady surfaces, like a small boat, a moving cart, or fighting during an earthquake can also carry circumstance penalties, between -2 and -10. Leaping and fighting on the tips of posts set firmly in the ground (such as the remnants of a burned pier) would be -20 or more, while walking on the tips of precariously balanced logs or rubble (the aftermath of a logjam, avalanche, cave-in, or siege, for example) could be -20 to -30. Far more difficult checks, such as walking only on the tips of a forest of spears balanced on their butt ends, carry a circumstance bonus of -40 or more. Walking | * Unsteady surfaces, like a small boat, a moving cart, or fighting during an earthquake can also carry circumstance penalties, between -2 and -10. Leaping and fighting on the tips of posts set firmly in the ground (such as the remnants of a burned pier) would be -20 or more, while walking on the tips of precariously balanced logs or rubble (the aftermath of a logjam, avalanche, cave-in, or siege, for example) could be -20 to -30. Far more difficult checks, such as walking only on the tips of a forest of spears balanced on their butt ends, carry a circumstance bonus of -40 or more. Walking across a surface a quicksilver or similar frictionless circumstances, such as riding an Astral String or riding a wave of ether, would be a -50 to the check. | ||
*At the uppermost limits, acrobatics can allow you to do such incredible things as dance on the surface of a dense layer of fog, walk down the surface of a waterfall without getting wet, dodge raindrops in a storm, run across falling stones in midair, and similarly invincible cinematic feats. At the upper end of Acrobatics, referees are encouraged to allow creative and fun interpretations of Acrobatics, as long as such things don't break your story line, of course. | * At the uppermost limits, acrobatics can allow you to do such incredible things as dance on the surface of a dense layer of fog, walk down the surface of a waterfall without getting wet, dodge raindrops in a storm, run across falling stones in midair, and similarly invincible cinematic feats. At the upper end of Acrobatics, referees are encouraged to allow creative and fun interpretations of Acrobatics, as long as such things don't break your story line, of course. | ||
*Note to | * Note to GM's: These modifiers, both the ones above and below, can be used as examples for the inevitable craziness your players will get into. How do you judge the DC of a Long Jump made from one flying ship down to the deck of another flying ship a hundred feet below? What if the ship you are jumping from is on fire and spinning in a death dive to the ground at the time? In an Ether Storm? During an attack by Red Dragons? You can work up a set of modifiers based upon these suggestions, or, far more simply, you can simply set the Difficulty of such crazy things by GM fiat to be an appropriate check for the campaign DC. (Choose between Average, Challenging, or Hard, for most cases. Easy checks are pretty simple, and Impossible checks are..pretty hard.) Both methods work fine, and both will generally get you to a reasonable number. We recommend the simple way, because it's faster and you're going to get more cases of players pulling off crazy-cool stuff. And that's just fun! | ||