Skills: Balance (DEX)

Armor Penalty
Balance is the skill of maintaining a state of equilibrium or physical steadiness.

Unless otherwise marked as "House Rules," the following material is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a. The text may have been modified slightly from that of the System Reverence Document (v.3.5) or Modern System Reference Document.

Check.
The character can walk on a precarious surface. A successful check lets the character move at half his or her speed along the surface as a move action. A failure indicates that the character spends his or her move action keeping his or her balance and does not move. A failure by 5 or more indicates that the character falls. The difficulty varies with the conditions of the surface.

Being Attacked While Balancing.
While balancing, the character is flat-footed (the character loses his or her Dexterity bonus to Defense, if the character has one), unless the character has 5 or more ranks in Balance. If the character takes damage, he or she must make a Balance check again to remain standing.

Accelerated Movement.
The character can try to cross a precarious surface more quickly than normal. The character can move his or her full speed, but the character takes a –5 penalty on his or her Balance check. (Moving twice the character’s speed in a round requires two checks, one for each move action.)

The character can attempt to charge across a precarious surface. Charging requires one Balance check at a –5 penalty for each multiple of the character’s speed (or fraction thereof) that the character charges.

Special.

• A character can take 10 when making a Balance check, but can’t take 20.
• A character with the Focused or Agile feats get a +2 bonus on all Balance checks.

Synergy.
If you have 5 or more ranks in Tumble, you get a +2 bonus on Balance checks.

Time.
Balancing while moving one-half the character’s speed is a move action.

Accelerated movement, allowing the character to balance while moving his or her full speed, is also a move action.