Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Shedeo 07-12-07, 07:42 PM	Now, this may come as a silly question, but what would you all say the DCs for Juggling would be? The reason I ask is because one of the villains in my up-coming campaign, well, needs to be able to juggle. ... If anyone is interested in why, I will explain. Anyway, I was thinking about using Sleight of Hand, but that seems too... Useful. I figure it would be Perform (Juggling) or maybe even Profession (Juggler) but neither of those use Dex, which represents the level of coordination you need to be able to juggle. Any takers?
Werral 07-12-07, 07:52 PM	Not a D&D book, but from a juggling book, "On a scale of difficulty from 1-10: juggling three balls would be 2, juggling four would be 5 and juggling five would be much more - say 34." Juggling 3 balls is easy, I'd say make it an untrained Dex check - pretty much anyone can do if they practice for a couple of hours. Remember that the Chr in Perform is the ability to impress, inspire and get people to part with their money. A high Perform juggler might not be technically better than a low perform juggler. You could make anything beyond 4 balls a skill trick with a dex requirement. Anything really funky should be a feat (like juggling daggers and eing able to catch people flat footed with them).
Irving 07-12-07, 07:54 PM	Sleight of Hand wouldn't be out of line for a skill to handle juggling, either.
Paladin_Hiroshi 07-12-07, 07:55 PM	I think it would be sleight of hand, because it really suits it, if you don't want to use perform....
equilibrium17 07-12-07, 07:57 PM	You're in luck. I am a retired circus performer; my main specialty was juggling. Balls, Clubs, Fire, you name it; I juggled it. Juggling skill in general is not related to Slight of Hand; it's a perform skill in its own right. Though you might house rule a synergy bonus, since certain specific tricks to have a Slight of Hand aspect to them. I agree that having Perform(Juggling) CHA-based, rather than DEX based is a bit funky, but not altogether unusual. My experience is that most people have the Raw Dexterity necessary to juggle, and even learn advanced tricks, but becoming a good performing juggler involves (a) perserverance and practice (i.e., Skill Ranks), and (b) showmanship (i.e., Charisma). I suppose you could house rule some kind of Circumstance bonus to the Perform Check for having a high DEX, er sumfink. Anway, the most basic form of juggling, just keeping 3 balls going, is not difficult. I would rule keeping a 3-ball pattern going in the air a DC 10 check per round. So a completely untrained person with average dex has a 50% chance of keeping 3 balls going for 6 seconds. Since they can't Take 10, they'll drop before long. Someone with 1 rank in perform(Juggling) and average dex could keep 3 balls going basically indefinitely (a Take 10), so long as they weren't distracted. From there, it all depends on how hard the specific juggling skill or trick you're talking about is. . . This is all right off the top of my head, so I reserve the right to revise but here are a few quick stabs: Juggling 3 clubs - DC 12. Juggling 4 balls - DC 13 Juggling 5 balls - DC 15 Juggling 5 clubs - DC 20 That's probably a good place to start. I'll think about it more, and post if I come up with more.
Shedeo 07-12-07, 08:02 PM	Thank you everyone for the rapid responses and excellent input! A special thanks to the expertise of Equilibrium17. The reason I ask is, as I said, for a foe in the campaign, he'd probably be juggling about 5 "balls." In short, I was playing Super Mario RPG and thought about a juggling villian, ala Grate Guy. Then I remembered Bloodstorm Blade from ToB, and I thought I might be able to use that for something, like using Orc Shotputs for example. I've got a while before we get to this particular villain, but the idea was all I wanted, just to see if it was plausible.
equilibrium17 07-12-07, 08:12 PM	Glad to be of assistance; feel free to post specific questions. I would also keep in mind that D&D a Fantasy Game, so I wouldn't be afraid to deviate from what even an extremely good "real world" juggler could realistically do. It depends a bit on the specific skill, but real world skill performance tops out at maybe 10 ranks in D&D. Beyond that, you're talking about the fantastical. As far as juggling Orc Shot Puts, in my prime I did perform juggling with 3 bowling balls. I used lighter bowling balls, maybe 8 or 9 pounders. That's about as close to Orc shot puts as I ever came. I'd rate juggling 3 bowling balls about a DC 15 in terms of juggling skill. But the real challenge there is your strength vs. the weight; either you're strong enough to throw something heavy like that into the air quickly, or you're not. So for a fantastically strong fantasy being, juggling orc shot puts might be no more difficult than juggling beanbags.
Shedeo 07-12-07, 08:17 PM	The only problem is that, at this point in time, I don't have my Arms and Equipment on me, and I don't know how much an Orc Shotput weighs. :confused: An alternative idea I had, but likely wouldn't work, would be juggling reflavored Orb spells from the Spell Compendium. :P
dknight100 07-12-07, 08:34 PM	i like the idea of the juggling stuff presented so far - equilibriums posts were quite interesting especially, but just a few thoughts on its application in this case... he's a villian, it would be kind of lame if he failed a juggle, so maybe you don't actually want to have a skill check applied to him. If a player asked about it, then i'd present them those rules for Perform: Juggle. For attacking off a juggle, you could give him an Opposed Sleight of Hand VS (sense motive or spot or something) to count them as flat footed vs that particular attack? If he's not juggling to get some sort of combat quirk (such as the flat footed thing above) then i would just describe it as he fights and not actually roll anything at all, because otherwise it would be 1 completely unnessecary roll per round of combat, which you really dont want to bog down if you can avoiud it. On a side note, i like quirks, you could put this in as a really cool skill trick for your players - check up Complete Scoundrel, i would buy that book even if they just said "we have an idea called skill tricks"
Shedeo 07-12-07, 08:48 PM	The only combat quirk he's getting from this is, with Bloodstorm Blade, the ability to attack with weapons that aren't enhanced to do so, but are treated as throwing and returning. Now, since he's only going to have one level in Bloodstorm Blade, any weapon he wields gets those two things. However, I still wanted him to be able to attack multiple times. Doing that, though, with TWF, its still only twice, really, because his weapons are going to return and he's not going to have enough hands to carry them all. So I decided that he should juggle, and then I remembered fighting Grate Guy not too long ago. So really, the only benefit he gets is he's able to field all of his weapons at the same time, because when they come back, he catches them and starts juggling them. I mainly wanted to see how it would work so that I could see if it was actually feesable. I really don't intend on making him roll for the checks, I just wanted to know what skills I should give him. Still, its interesting, and if a player wanted to persue the idea, I'd let them, and if anyone else did as well that's great! S'half the reason this thread is here, is so that everyone can see it.
NeueRegel 07-12-07, 09:04 PM	You know, back in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, in the old original Unearthed Arcana, they detailed the class, "Thief-Acrobat". I am fairly sure that they in fact had a specific "juggling" skill, along with various other abilities that we would now call "tumbling" and whatnot. I don't have the books any longer, and the only thing I remember was a quirk (which I now suddenly think may have been another character class called the "Jester" from a Dragon Magazine) where the character could make a juggling check to actually catch and RETURN a hurled weapon such as a dagger or axe at the original thrower at the same "to hit" chance. I like your villian idea, and I'm also in agreement with the previous posters suggesting that you don't even roll checks for this bad guy. Just "do it". I have a feeling that your players will remember encounters with this villian fondly for years to come. Good luck, Neue
equilibrium17 07-12-07, 09:12 PM	Interesting idea! What you're talking about would be very similar to a Passing Juggling routine, where two or more jugglers share 6 more more objects, passing them between each other. Difference here, is that one participant in the "performance" would be getting hit by the returning weapons, not catching them and throwing them back. :D Ya, I'd just set it as a skill trick -- you use your Perform(Juggling) skill ranks to juggle thrown weapons as you attack with them, eliminating the need for the Quick Draw feat to make iterative attacks, so long as you already have the weapons "in the air" (probably a Move Action to get the juggling pattern started). Add returning weapons, TWF feat and lots of Perform(Juggling) skill ranks and you've got a very nasty ranged attacker!:eek: Not sure what the DC should be. . . I'd probably set this based more on game balance, than any actual evaluation of how difficult such a thing would actually be to do.
Shedeo 07-12-07, 09:13 PM	Thank you on the compliment about the villain, even if its not entirely original, and I'm definitely not even rolling for this guy, he's just going to do it, as suggested. He's going to be one of either two or three royal court-based villains in the campaign, and the general lowbies they're going to use are going to basically be human-sized marrionettes. But enough about those guys, though suggestions are always welcome. I'm thinking a skill trick could be in order that allows you to do it without really needing the check, though it'd likely have some heft requirements. Which this guy will meet, of course. :D Also, Master Thrower might make its way into his build if he escapes from the heroes.
Traverse 07-12-07, 09:18 PM	Not to advert my creation or anything ( :D ), but I made a juggling PrC a couple of weeks back, check Meteor Thrower in my sig.
Shedeo 07-12-07, 09:36 PM	That could be a skill trick as well. Tossing a thrown weapon back, I mean, requiring Snatch Arrows. And Traverse, not to be caught in the trap of you not adverting your creation or anything ( :D ), but I'll definitely take a look at it.
wizarddog 07-13-07, 06:25 AM	I don't have the books any longer, and the only thing I remember was a quirk (which I now suddenly think may have been another character class called the "Jester" from a Dragon Magazine) where the character could make a juggling check to actually catch and RETURN a hurled weapon such as a dagger or axe at the original thrower at the same "to hit" chance. Neue I think it was Dragon Magazine because I remember that article as well. Are we that old? :eek:
Meikle_641 07-16-07, 06:45 PM	Well, the entry in the SRD for Sleight of Hand actually does say you can use it for juggling, for what it's worth. "You can also use Sleight of Hand to entertain an audience as though you were using the Perform skill. In such a case, your “act” encompasses elements of legerdemain, juggling , and the like. Y'all mostly have solved it all, but that's my two cents.