Talk:Tome of Prowess (3.5e Sourcebook)/Athletics

This is crazy overpowered.

It combines swimming, climbing, some tumble and jump abilities into 1 skill. Plus it adds in the brachiation feat for free. Then it adds in the ability to do epic level skill checks (climb any surface no matter how difficult) at rank 10. A glass wall would be about a rank 90 skill check normally. Plus you gain freedom of movement, the ability to swim with weapons, climb/swim 1 handed, even use a two handed weapon in 1 hand while swimming with no penalties. And thats just skimming this cheesy thing.


 * All those skills suck and should rightfully be combined. That a glass wall is normally a DC 90 isn't particularly important, because it has effectively DC 0 by merely swallowing a potion of levitate. That's why those abilities were given out at rank 10 -- because the skill checks could be straight-up bypassed by that point. Surgo (talk) 04:13, 7 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll disagree that this is overpowered. Overpowered compared to what? It's a system replacement, there's no inferior option in use at the same time for it to overshadow. An option can only be over or under powered when compared to other available options. Swordsages are overpowered compared to monks because they're substantially stronger and they are both available options - but you couldn't call swordsages overpowered in a game of only swordsages.


 * That doesn't mean that this replacement isn't too strong for your tastes and games though. I know a bunch of people who don't want to consolidate and advance like this, because it changes the sorts of stories that get told. And I have a lot of respect for that position, because if a rule doesn't support the sorts of stories you want to tell you shouldn't be using it.


 * Which is why these are so much stronger than the default skills, because those support more gear dependent stories. Yeah, in default skills you have to get a whole crap load of bonuses and ranks and be epic to be able to climb glass or walls of force. And that mostly meant that no one ever did it with the skill, because they all had flight items or slippers of spider climbing for a dozen plus levels and didn't know or care that they could try (and potentially fail) a climb check to get over the wall. The swimming thing is similar, in that I want people who are that good at swimming to be able to do amazing things without depending on items or being well into epic levels. So in default most of the climbing and swimming story bits are about what people do with their magic items, and less about how crazy good those people are at the things they're trained in.


 * So I don't know why you think this is too strong, but that's most of why I wrote it as strong as it is - to support stories with a greatly reduced item dependence and provide magic levels of utility for non-casters. If that's not a thing you want in a game or if you think it's too fast, you're probably going to hate the rest of the revised skills here too.


 * The 2HF in 1 hand while swimming thing looks like a misreading though. At least I think it's a misreading, because it's only supposed to be a movement benefit when you keep 1 hand free for swimming. I can make that more clear though. - Tarkisflux Talk 04:49, 7 June 2014 (UTC)