Acrobatic Stunts, the Best of the Best - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 jacksmithiv May 10, 2009 1:47:26	Acrobatics is a pretty open-ended skill when you consider the "Acrobatic Stunt" usage. It's the ultimate exercise in skill creativity, allowing players to do whatever they can imagine, putting it to the DM to set a difficulty, and hoping your dice are up to the challenge. I've seen some pretty killer things, and I've had some creative players, and I'm wondering what you guys have seen in terms of usage of acrobatic stunt, either as players or DMs. So this is a "Cool Stories" thread, for the sake of sharing ideas and thoughts. And for good faith, I'll kick it off. I like putting them in quote boxes, and encourage others to do the same, so that they can be easily picked out while skimming. As a player, I was a halfing ranger in a one-off game with a friend of mine (Liz) DMing her first game. We were in the inn in the first combat encounter of Scales of War, and I jump up on a table to cover more distance easily, making a solid athletics check, leaping up while my bear pet engages another goblin across the room. That's when a goblin runs up beside me to attack. He misses, and on my turn, I tell my Liz I'm gonna attempt a flip from my current high ground to the opposite side of the goblin as a move action (like a shift). She allows it, and I crit! Liz grant me combat advantage for my next attack, so I end up flipping from the table, over the goblin, and Twin Striking him from behind, killing him!
#2 sigil_beguiler May 10, 2009 2:01:21	Parkour: This was a combo Acrobatic Stunt and Skill Challenge. The PC a Rogue was chasing a agile monster (aberration) through the streets, when it climbed onto the buildings. Well the PC wouldn't let this stand. So while also performing normal Skill Challenge stuff to catch up, the PC was also performing Acrobatic Stunts to get bonuses or to catch up during, essentially "set pieces". Having a PC running across rooftops and doing normal jumps, slides, etc. But then at these scenes with both I the DM and the Player's narrative juices flowing describing crazy scenes of wall running, riding a falling fire escape staircase down, leaping through windows, etc. It felt like a action scene from a movie. Finally did catch the beast with the final success being described as the PC rogue shooting the aberration out of the air and it landing with a thunk at the bottom of a abandoned building. Surprise: A deal had gone bad so to surprise the quickly growing angry clients the PC decided to do a Acrobatic Stunt in the form of backflipping out of the seat sending the table crashing into the clients while the PC landed on top of the table behind him.
#3 Kurama_Youko May 10, 2009 10:54:04	while these are good examples, my group generally doesn't do this at all... mostly because Acrobatics is only capable by a small hand few intially, and again the number of classes that get both acrobatics and and marginally high need for dex seem to be few and far between... to top it off some many of my groups situations seem to be doable without anyone ever having to restort to acrobatics, the one time it was even done, was when I myself used a high dex archer cleric to tumble over a statue.. the thing is, half the time acrobatics steps on the toes of athletetics such was in the case of what i just described, luckily i made both checks still, and i was trained in neither skill, so obviously the dice were with me that day.. I didn't describe why i had to this but trust me its not nearly as important than the fact that it seems acrobatics and atheletics conflict with each other sometimes in terms what you want to do vs what you can do, that is unless you trained in both with adequet str and dex.
#4 kieferz May 10, 2009 12:21:21	My groups haven't seen much use of the Acrobatic stunts, since only one character has it trained, but I've expanded the system to use Arcana, Athletics, and a couple of other skills in the same way. A Str-Cleric in one campaign used an Athletic stunt to kick over a barrel of ale, which broke open and flooded a small area, making it difficult terrain. The wizard in another campaign is fond of using Arcane stunts to throw heavy objects around with Thunderwave. On one occasion, he pushed a door open, knocking over a couple of skeletons standing behind it.
#5 surbrus May 10, 2009 12:23:54	Our group doesn't do much acrobatics either, mostly due to the fact that our main characters are Warlord, Warpriest and Warlock (every now and then we have a rouge or ranger, but they would usually follow the lead of the less dexterous characters). However I can think of a couple occations acrobatics was used to benefit us (not nearly exciting as OP's). One time was simply a halfling rogue running across tables in a meal hall full of zombies, other one is better: Our level four party of a warlord, cleric and rogue was making its way through a zombie infested dwarven tools factory (Dwarf Co.) my rogue stealthily peaked into a room and saw two zombie hulks! As soon as I saw that, I made sure they didn't notice me and got the hell out of there! All this time we feel this intense heat in the air. We turn around the next corner and see where this heat is coming from: the floor breaks away to reveal that the giant furnace on the lower floor is very exposed, creating essentially a huge pit of fire where a grand hallway should have been! Now, we don't like leaving random zombies around epically when we are lost in this zombie infested underground factory. If we could kill those two zombie hulks we would feel much better, and this pit of fire may be just what we are looking for! The cleric and warlord hide in amongst the rubble, while the rogue sneaks back to the zombie hulks. Rogue yells something akin to "Hey zombies, I got some yummy brains for you!" and runs around the corner, then leads the zombies to the pit of fire. The zombie hulks follow that bite sized halfling towards the pit. The halfling makes some acrobatics checks to move along what is left of the floor by the pit, while the zombies attempt to follow. At that moment the cleric jumps out from behind a some rubble and uses Split the Sky pushing one of the zombies into the pit of fire as the other zombie fails his acrobatics on the crumbling floor and likewise falls into the pit of fire (big surprise :P). My halfling rogue then is able to very carefully make his way back onto solid ground with the rest of the party. By the way, OP's wyven story was amazing. After reading it I had to grab my roommate's MM and DMG to add an airship section to my next campaign I DM.
#6 azrealjg May 10, 2009 12:30:38	We suprised a group of Goblin Guards playing cards at a table outside the entrance to their barracks. Our Rogue and Paladin got the drop on and dispatched two of the three guards, but the third Guard was simply out of reach (owing to being on the other side of the table). There was a bell on the table, which we surmised one of them would ring to bring the other goblins running, my Warlord used Knights Move to give our Two Weapon Ranger a free move action, and he moved into position and executed an acrobatics stunt to slide across the table and grab the bell, in conjunction with a very high DC Stealth Check to keep the bell from making any noise when he grabbed it. He pulled both of them off, sliding across the table and grabbing the bell without making a sound loud enough to alert the rest of the goblins. The rogue was able to dispatch the final goblin before he had a chance to act and raise the alarm. The goblins often got into fights while playing cards, so a few blows and cried were not enough of a commotion to alert the rest of the barracks complex that anything was amiss.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

jacksmithiv

May 10, 2009 1:47:26

Acrobatics is a pretty open-ended skill when you consider the "Acrobatic Stunt" usage. It's the ultimate exercise in skill creativity, allowing players to do whatever they can imagine, putting it to the DM to set a difficulty, and hoping your dice are up to the challenge.

I've seen some pretty killer things, and I've had some creative players, and I'm wondering what you guys have seen in terms of usage of acrobatic stunt, either as players or DMs. So this is a "Cool Stories" thread, for the sake of sharing ideas and thoughts. And for good faith, I'll kick it off.

I like putting them in quote boxes, and encourage others to do the same, so that they can be easily picked out while skimming.

As a player, I was a halfing ranger in a one-off game with a friend of mine (Liz) DMing her first game. We were in the inn in the first combat encounter of Scales of War, and I jump up on a table to cover more distance easily, making a solid athletics check, leaping up while my bear pet engages another goblin across the room.

That's when a goblin runs up beside me to attack. He misses, and on my turn, I tell my Liz I'm gonna attempt a flip from my current high ground to the opposite side of the goblin as a move action (like a shift). She allows it, and I crit! Liz grant me combat advantage for my next attack, so I end up flipping from the table, over the goblin, and Twin Striking him from behind, killing him!

sigil_beguiler

May 10, 2009 2:01:21

Parkour:

This was a combo Acrobatic Stunt and Skill Challenge. The PC a Rogue was chasing a agile monster (aberration) through the streets, when it climbed onto the buildings. Well the PC wouldn't let this stand. So while also performing normal Skill Challenge stuff to catch up, the PC was also performing Acrobatic Stunts to get bonuses or to catch up during, essentially "set pieces".

Having a PC running across rooftops and doing normal jumps, slides, etc. But then at these scenes with both I the DM and the Player's narrative juices flowing describing crazy scenes of wall running, riding a falling fire escape staircase down, leaping through windows, etc. It felt like a action scene from a movie. Finally did catch the beast with the final success being described as the PC rogue shooting the aberration out of the air and it landing with a thunk at the bottom of a abandoned building.

Surprise:

A deal had gone bad so to surprise the quickly growing angry clients the PC decided to do a Acrobatic Stunt in the form of backflipping out of the seat sending the table crashing into the clients while the PC landed on top of the table behind him.

Kurama_Youko

May 10, 2009 10:54:04

while these are good examples, my group generally doesn't do this at all... mostly because Acrobatics is only capable by a small hand few intially, and again the number of classes that get both acrobatics and and marginally high need for dex seem to be few and far between... to top it off some many of my groups situations seem to be doable without anyone ever having to restort to acrobatics, the one time it was even done, was when I myself used a high dex archer cleric to tumble over a statue.. the thing is, half the time acrobatics steps on the toes of athletetics such was in the case of what i just described, luckily i made both checks still, and i was trained in neither skill, so obviously the dice were with me that day..

I didn't describe why i had to this but trust me its not nearly as important than the fact that it seems acrobatics and atheletics conflict with each other sometimes in terms what you want to do vs what you can do, that is unless you trained in both with adequet str and dex.

kieferz

May 10, 2009 12:21:21

My groups haven't seen much use of the Acrobatic stunts, since only one character has it trained, but I've expanded the system to use Arcana, Athletics, and a couple of other skills in the same way.

A Str-Cleric in one campaign used an Athletic stunt to kick over a barrel of ale, which broke open and flooded a small area, making it difficult terrain.

The wizard in another campaign is fond of using Arcane stunts to throw heavy objects around with Thunderwave. On one occasion, he pushed a door open, knocking over a couple of skeletons standing behind it.

surbrus

May 10, 2009 12:23:54

Our group doesn't do much acrobatics either, mostly due to the fact that our main characters are Warlord, Warpriest and Warlock (every now and then we have a rouge or ranger, but they would usually follow the lead of the less dexterous characters).

However I can think of a couple occations acrobatics was used to benefit us (not nearly exciting as OP's). One time was simply a halfling rogue running across tables in a meal hall full of zombies, other one is better:

Our level four party of a warlord, cleric and rogue was making its way through a zombie infested dwarven tools factory (Dwarf Co.) my rogue stealthily peaked into a room and saw two zombie hulks! As soon as I saw that, I made sure they didn't notice me and got the hell out of there!

All this time we feel this intense heat in the air. We turn around the next corner and see where this heat is coming from: the floor breaks away to reveal that the giant furnace on the lower floor is very exposed, creating essentially a huge pit of fire where a grand hallway should have been!

Now, we don't like leaving random zombies around epically when we are lost in this zombie infested underground factory. If we could kill those two zombie hulks we would feel much better, and this pit of fire may be just what we are looking for! The cleric and warlord hide in amongst the rubble, while the rogue sneaks back to the zombie hulks. Rogue yells something akin to "Hey zombies, I got some yummy brains for you!" and runs around the corner, then leads the zombies to the pit of fire.

The zombie hulks follow that bite sized halfling towards the pit. The halfling makes some acrobatics checks to move along what is left of the floor by the pit, while the zombies attempt to follow. At that moment the cleric jumps out from behind a some rubble and uses Split the Sky pushing one of the zombies into the pit of fire as the other zombie fails his acrobatics on the crumbling floor and likewise falls into the pit of fire (big surprise :P). My halfling rogue then is able to very carefully make his way back onto solid ground with the rest of the party.

By the way, OP's wyven story was amazing. After reading it I had to grab my roommate's MM and DMG to add an airship section to my next campaign I DM.

azrealjg

May 10, 2009 12:30:38

We suprised a group of Goblin Guards playing cards at a table outside the entrance to their barracks.
Our Rogue and Paladin got the drop on and dispatched two of the three guards, but the third Guard was simply out of reach (owing to being on the other side of the table).
There was a bell on the table, which we surmised one of them would ring to bring the other goblins running, my Warlord used Knights Move to give our Two Weapon Ranger a free move action, and he moved into position and executed an acrobatics stunt to slide across the table and grab the bell, in conjunction with a very high DC Stealth Check to keep the bell from making any noise when he grabbed it.

He pulled both of them off, sliding across the table and grabbing the bell without making a sound loud enough to alert the rest of the goblins. The rogue was able to dispatch the final goblin before he had a chance to act and raise the alarm.

The goblins often got into fights while playing cards, so a few blows and cried were not enough of a commotion to alert the rest of the barracks complex that anything was amiss.