The World of Layonara
The Layonara Community => Ask A Gamemaster => Topic started by: jan on December 08, 2007, 10:10:05 AM
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To continue questioning about tumble :
i found that my 18 points in the skill disappear when i apply my armor and shield ( armor gives - 8 and shield - 10 )
does this mean i lose the +3 i should get to armor for 3x 5 points in tumble as well ?
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No you don't loose AC from that, It is only ranks in the skill, not ranks in the skill + modifiers from other things like dex and items
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It seems that you should lose the AC from Tumble for that, since the Armor Check Penalty represents the restrictiveness of the armor and shield and the Tumble skill's bonus to AC represents being more difficult to hit because of fancy acrobatics. You can't really be a solid bastion behind a tower shield and a nimble, flipping acrobat at the same time.
Who knows what Bioware did, though...
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I agree, conceptually it seems you should lose the AC bonus... however, bonus skill points in tumble don't increase your AC if you get to the next multiple of 5, so I would guess that it doesn't decrease from armor check penalty, since in either case your base skill is unaffected.
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It seems that you should lose the AC from Tumble for that, since the Armor Check Penalty represents the restrictiveness of the armor and shield and the Tumble skill's bonus to AC represents being more difficult to hit because of fancy acrobatics. You can't really be a solid bastion behind a tower shield and a nimble, flipping acrobat at the same time.
Who knows what Bioware did, though...
Thinking about that , you are right .
But if it works like that , i would have liked to read that in the description somewhere .
Because if you would lose them , i would have thrown away 18 points for absolutely nothing .
The only advantage for the points spend in it ( and the skillfocuss ) would be the +3 armor since the points disappear when putting on armor and therefor are negated in battle for my char .
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Skill focus wont help you I believe, it is simply pure base ranks, no bonus of any kind is added to them when they calculate the armor bonus
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Only base tumble ranks count towards the AC bonus.
Item bonii, be they negative or positive, only count on tumble checks, not AC calculation.
For sure.
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Skill focus wont help you I believe, it is simply pure base ranks, no bonus of any kind is added to them when they calculate the armor bonus
I noticed that ...although far too late ...so i threw away a skill anyway .
I think it should be mentioned in the description so that others do as i did .*shrugs*
There are lots off other skills you could take that are far better instead of foccusing in tumble when your a fullplate wearer .
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From LORE:
For every 5 ranks in this skill (base ranks only, not including feat-, dxterity- or item-bonuses) the character’s Armor Class is also improved by +1.
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From LORE:
For every 5 ranks in this skill (base ranks only, not including feat-, dxterity- or item-bonuses) the character
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From LORE:
For every 5 ranks in this skill (base ranks only, not including feat-, dxterity- or item-bonuses) the character
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From LORE:
For every 5 ranks in this skill (base ranks only, not including feat-, dxterity- or item-bonuses) the character
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From LORE:
For every 5 ranks in this skill (base ranks only, not including feat-, dxterity- or item-bonuses) the character
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@ Ycleption
If i recall correctly , when i took the skill-focus Lore was not up or outdated due to the huge amount off work the team was doing at the time .
Or i simply missed it while i was reading it .
Guess i should have waited with taking it *shrugs*
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That's because skill focus feats do not specify tumble's specialty. The sentence that ycleption quoted was from the description of tumble as a skill.
So I guess it's just one of those details a NWN player eventually learns.
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Well ..i don't think it will be approved if i asked for a rebuild due to not knowing what "skill-focus : Tumble " is all about ;)
I just hope it can be in the description on Lore so others don't fall for it :D
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The info is given in the description of the skill itself on your character sheet. I don't know it word for word, but there's a clear difference in the description from spellcraft where the effect isn't limited to base rank skills.
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If you think about it...this is not a core skill for a warrior. So if you as a warrior practice hard to improve your flexibility and movement while wearing armour and shields the bonus to AC is suitable to be applied.
For a warrior to get +3 to AC from Tumble requires a lot of hard work and skill allocation representing a lot of hours spent training while wearing armour and carrying shields and weapons.
So at high levels you have two warriors facing off against each other, one has spent his life smashing anything that comes in his way, the other has spent his life perfecting working his skills in line with his defensive capabilities, working out how he can move and use his shield to best aid his body protection, how to move his feet or shift his hips to deflect the angle of a blow or to help make a blow more effective or his parry better..
I can see how tumble bonus to ac is appropriate..even if checks such as climbing etc that require tumble may be failed..he trained how to fight in armour not climb, jump, etc.
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Don't despair Jan! It wasn't a feat wasted.
My character has a stack of ranks in tumble and I use it all the time - every time he gets on a horse, boards a ship, climbs a mountain path, etc out comes the tumble check. He refuses to do the most simple task ... simply. Come adventure with Ark sometime and he can give Barion some lessons in showing off.
:)
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So at high levels you have two warriors facing off against each other, one has spent his life smashing anything that comes in his way, the other has spent his life perfecting working his skills in line with his defensive capabilities, working out how he can move and use his shield to best aid his body protection, how to move his feet or shift his hips to deflect the angle of a blow or to help make a blow more effective or his parry better..
Maybe. If it were a PnP arena and I were in the position to make the call, I might accept that assessment. Still, it could be argued that feats like Expertise and Mobility cover what you're talking about.
Also, Hit Points cover that aspect as well. Hit Points aren't only a measure of how many cuts it takes to kill your character, but are an abstraction of toughness and training. High-level Fighters aren't really that much tougher than low-level Fighters, or even buff and burly commoners; a slit throat is a slit throat, and an arrow through the brain is an arrow through the brain. It's just that a high-level Fighter has had more training in learning how to place himself to absorb or deflect the blows of his enemies. A hit that would devastate a commoner is shrugged off by a high-level Fighter, not because the Fighter is somehow superhuman, but because he knows how to brace or duck or dodge or step aside or whatever it takes to lessen the impact of that particular blow. This is true of all the classes, and is part of why a Wizard has a smaller hit die than a Fighter - less training in how not to get clobbered.
Tumble, then, is meant to be acrobatics and not just the fancy footwork that comes with being a Fighter and having a healthy hit die. Your character gains a bonus to AC because of constant, unusual movement beyond the typical shuffling and bobbing and weaving. Your character gains a chance to avoid Attacks of Opportunity because of an unexpected and unusual maneuver, like a somersault, and not just from a swish of a hip on the way by.
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.
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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.
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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...
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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
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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.