Balance

Balance (Dex)

Armor Penalty

You can keep your balance while walking on a tightrope, a narrow beam, a slippery ledge, or an uneven floor.

Check:

You can walk on a precarious surface. A successful check lets you move at half your speed along the surface as a move action. A failure indicates that you spend your move action keeping your balance and do not move. A failure by 5 or more indicates that you fall. The difficulty varies with the conditions of the surface.

Narrow Surface	DC1	Difficult Surface	DC1
7-12 inches wide	10	Uneven or Angled	10
2-6 inches wide	15	Slippery Surface	10
Less than 2 inches wide	20

¹Add +5 to the DC if the narrow surface is slippery or angled. Add +10 if it is both.

Being attacked while balancing

While balancing, you are flat-footed (you lose your Dexterity bonus to defense, if you have one), unless you have 5 or more ranks in Balance. If you take damage, you must make a Balance check again to remain standing.

Accelerated Movement

You can try to cross a precarious surface more quickly than normal. You can move your full speed, but you take a -5 penalty on your Balance check. (Moving twice your speed in a round requires two checks, one for each action.)

You can attempt to charge across a precarious. Charging requires one Balance check at a -5 penalty for every multiple of your speed (or fraction thereof) that you charge.

Special:

You can Take 10 when making a Balance check, but you can’t take 20.

Time:

Balancing while moving one-half your speed is a move action. Accelerated movement, allowing you to balance while moving at your full speed, is also a move action.