New question on "tumble"

[miltonyorkcastle]

I'm not saying a Fighter couldn't be acrobatic, but I doubt many characters clad in full plate are bounding around and rolling past their enemies to avoid blows.

Tumbling in armor is just that: rolling past an opponent, using a "swim move" or spin move to get better positioning. Actually, a perfect example of this is the American football player, who wears the equivalent to "space-age" breastplate armor (and if you think the modern football pads provide more maneuverability than the fitted breastplates of the late middle ages, you'd be wrong). During off season, many programs make their football players, believe it or not, do tumbling drills on a mat. It also helps in learning how to roll with a hit so you aren't tackled as easily. The ability to roll with a hit can sum up to an increase in AC. No, you can't perform acrobatics in armor, but you can learn specific maneuvers from the acrobatic world and apply them to your trade.

However, the point you bring up about the mobility feat and such- you're right. I you have dodge, mobility, and spring attack, you almost don't need tumle anymore, at least not from a mechanics position. The only mechanical benefit you get from tumble if you have those feats is the AC, since spring attack allows you to move around in combat without incurring attacks of opportunity, just like tumble would if te feats didn't suspercede it. The feats do have an advantage, though: you don't have to beat a DC for the feats to work, but with tumble you have to beat a DC 15 +5 per enemy above one that you're trying to move past.

[ycleption]

with tumble you have to beat a DC 15 +5 per enemy above one that you're trying to move past.

Where do you get the +5 for additional enemies part, I thought it was just a flat check against 15?
I can't recall Drexia failing a tumble roll since she got the skill to 15...

[Pibemanden]

I must agree with ycleption here, there doesn't seem to be any 15 +5 per enemy rule about the tumble checks, as soon as you are above 15 "active" ranks in the skill you don't roll tumble in combat anymore

[Gulnyr]

Heh, I didn't write that very well.  

I didn't mean to imply that a Fighter in heavy armor with ranks in Tumble wasn't tumbling, since that must be what he is doing, but that I don't think many players consider that to be what their heavily-armored, tumbling characters are doing.  Tumbling isn't just boxing footwork and shield placement, but considerable activity to remain in motion - flipping, twisting, rolling...  all that good stuff.  Just like a football player breaking tackles and such, yeah.

EDIT:

Just to add something totally irrelevant to NWN, the 3.0 PnP version of the skill explicitly states that "you can dive, roll, somersault, flip, and so on."  Even though Bioware did some weird things when they made NWN, I still think this is the intention behind the skill.  It's not just a skill version of the Dodge or Mobility feats.

Also, it can't be used in PnP if the character's speed has been reduced by encumbrance.  The encumbrance is overly simplified in NWN, but in PnP, a character with a Strength 18 can carry 100 pounds before being slowed (that's the top end of a 'light load' for these brutes).  Plate weighs 50 pounds, and a tower shield is 45 pounds, leaving only 5 pounds for everything else (weapons, backpack, waterskin, rations, clothing, blanket, etc.) before Tumble stops being usable.  Though NWN is different, I still look at Tumble from this angle.

And Tumble doesn't add bonus AC constantly based on ranks in PnP.  Instead, with five or more ranks, a character using the 'fighting defensively' action or 'total defense' action gains a Dodge AC bonus that is slightly better than the standard for those actions (+3 rather than +2, and +6 rather than +4, respectively).  This makes sense to me, as a character concentrating on tumbling isn't focusing on hitting very much; it's defensive maneuvering.