Acrobatics, Breakfall and Defensive Maneuvre replace the Balance and Tumble skills in their entirety.
You can't use this skill if your speed has been reduced by armour, excess equipment, carrying too much loot, etc.
You can walk on a precarious surface as a move-equivalent action. A successful check lets you move at half your speed along the surface for 1 round. A failure means that you can't move for 1 round. Five consecutive failures means you can make no further progress until you can improve your chance of success, circumstantially or by gaining more DEX or skill ranks. A failure by 20 or more means that you fall.
The difficulty of balancing varies with the width, angle, slipperiness and stability of the surface:
| Surface | DC |
|---|---|
| 7–12 inches wide | 10 |
| 2–6 inches wide | 15 |
| Less than 2 inches wide | 20 |
| Uneven Floor | 10 |
| Surface Angled | +5* |
| Surface Slippery | +5* |
| Surface Unstable (ocean swell, loose gravel) | +5† |
| Surface Highly Unstable (marbles, rushing water) | +10† |
|
* Cumulative; if both apply, use both.
† Not cumulative; use whichever modifier is highest | |
Being attacked while balancing: Attacks against you are made as if you were off balance: They gain a +2 attack bonus, and you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC, if any. If you have 5 or more ranks in Acrobatics, then you can retain your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) in the face of attacks. If you take damage, you must make a check again to stay balanced.
Accelerated Movement: You try to can walk a precarious surface more quickly than normal. If you accept a –5 penalty, you can move your full speed as a move-equivalent action. (Moving twice your speed in a round requires two checks.)
Special: 5 or more ranks in Acrobatics grants you a +2 synergy bonus to Breakfall and Defensive Maneuvre rolls.
Check: You can land softly when you fall. If you fall, you can stand up again as a free action.
Retry: No
| Task | DC |
|---|---|
| Treat a fall as if it were 10 feet shorter when determining damage | 15 |
| Treat a fall as if it were 20 feet shorter when determining damage | 25 |
| Treat a fall as if it were 30 feet shorter when determining damage | 35 |
Special: If you have 5 or more ranks in Jump, or 5 or more ranks in Acrobatics, you get a +2 synergy bonus on Breakfall checks. (Synergy bonuses are cumulative).
Check: You can move up to half your normal speed in combat as a Move Equivalent action without drawing Attacks of Opportunity.
| Situation | DC |
|---|---|
| Moving around enemy-occupied spaces | 15 |
| Moving through enemy-occupied spaces | 25 |
Circumstantial Modifiers | |
| Circumstance | DC Modifier |
| Bad lighting (torches or similar light sources) | +2 |
| Dusty or uneven floor | +2 |
| Light debris, (occasional pebbles or trash) | +2 |
| Wet floor | +4 |
| Crumbling floor | +4 |
| Moderate debris (strewn across floor) | +4 |
| Move begins or ends in darkness | +4 |
| Move passes through spaces where you are flanked | +5 |
| Unworked stone/natural cavern | +6 |
| Standing, water/deep puddles | +6 |
| Heavy debris (trash pit, for example) | +6 |
| Pitch black | +6 |
Circumstantial modifiers stack as long as they represent different circumstances, so add any applicable entries from the above list together. For example, if an uneven forest floor (+2) also has branches and stones scattered across it (+4), apply a +6 circumstance modifier to the DC for the Defensive Maneuvre check.
Retry: You can attempt to Maneuvre Defensively once per round.
Special: A character with 5 or more ranks in Defensive Maneuvre gains a +3 dodge AC bonus when executing the fight defensively standard or full-round action instead of a +2 dodge AC bonus.
A character with 5 or more ranks in Defensive Maneuvre gains a +6 dodge AC bonus when executing the total defense standard action instead of a +4 dodge AC bonus.
A character with 5 or more ranks in Acrobatics gains a +2 synergy bonus to Defensive Maneuvre