7.18 Poise (Dex)
The Poise skill represents your ability to maintain stability and control over your movements in difficult circumstances. This includes wet or unsteady terrain, riding a mount, or precisely positioning your body to avoid triggering traps.
Unless an ability says otherwise, you can only use this skill to ride allies that are exactly one size category larger than you.
7.18.1 Common Poise Tasks
Creature Balance: As part of movement, you can make a Poise vs. Reflex attack against a creature you touch. The target must be two or more size categories larger than you. On a hit, you can balance on the target’s body, allowing you to walk on or jump from its body. You must repeat this attack at the end of each of your subsequent turns to stay balancing on the creature. For each consecutive turn that you balance on a non-ally in this way, you take a cumulative -2 penalty to this attack.
Guide Mount: When riding on a creature, you can make a Poise check to direct your mount’s movement. While travelling, this check is only necessary when giving the mount directions. In battle, this check must be repeated at the start of your turn. If the mount is trained for battle, the difficulty value of this check is 0. Otherwise, the DV is 5. Success means the mount understands your direction, and will obey if it is willing and able. Failure means the mount does not understand your direction, and acts of its own volition.
If you can communicate with your mount in other ways, such as by speaking with it, this check may be unnecessary.
Maintain Balance: If you take damage while on an unsteady surface, you must make a Poise reactive check based on the surface. Failure means that you fall prone (half speed, -2 Armor and Ref). You only need to make this check once between your turns, even if you take damage from more than one source.
Maintain Ride: Whenever you take damage or your mount makes a sudden motion, you must make a DV 5 Poise check to continue riding the creature. Sudden motions include jumping, attacking, and moving at more than half speed. Failure means you fall off of your mount.
Rapid Stand: You make a difficulty value 15 Poise check as a move action to stand up from a prone position. Success means that you stand up so quickly that you can immediately take another move action. Failure simply means that you stand up.
Take Cover: You can make a DV 15 Poise check as a move action to drop low and take cover behind your mount. This requires the use of a free hand. Failure means you can’t get low enough and gain no benefit from the action.
Walk While Balancing: When you move using your walk speed on an unsteady surface, you must make a Poise check based on the surface. If you choose to move at half speed, you gain a +5 bonus to the check. Success means you move along the surface. Failure means you stop moving and the rest of your movement is wasted.
7.18.2 Common Poise Modifiers
The base difficulty value to balance on normal terrain is 0. Four common circumstances make balancing checks more difficult: slippery, mobile, narrow, and uneven surfaces. Slightly impaired surfaces increase the difficulty value by 2. Significantly impaired surfaces increase the DV by 5 or more. If a surface is impaired for multiple reasons, add all relevant modifiers. Some specific terrain examples are listed below.
| Ice | DV |
| Rough, hardpacked ice, like a frozen lake | +2 |
| Typical ice | +5 |
| Recently frozen or ultra-smooth ice | +10 |
| Liquid | DV |
| Water-covered ground, such as from rain | +2 |
| Ankle-deep moving stream | +5 |
| Knee-deep static water | +5 |
| Oil-coated ground | +5 |
| Knee-deep moving stream | +10 |
| Narrow Surface | DV |
| About two feet wide | +2 |
| About one foot wide | +5 |
| About six inches wide | +10 |
| About two inches wide | +15 |
| Less than than two inches wide | +20 |
| Sand | DV |
| Water-logged beach sand | +2 |
| Hard-packed desert sand | +2 |
| Typical beach or desert sand | +5 |
| Quicksand | +10 |
| Unusually smooth, wind-tossed desert sand | +10 |
| Uneven Ground | DV |
| Infrequent ankle-high bumps and dips | +2 |
| Constant ankle-high bumps and dips | +5 |
| Infrequent knee-high bumps and dips | +5 |
| Constant knee-high bumps and dips | +10 |
When riding a mount, the following circumstances modify Poise checks:
- If a creature is not trained as a mount, the DV to ride it increases by 5.
- If it lacks a saddle and other riding gear, the DV to ride it increases by 5.
- If it takes a standard action other than movement, such as attacking, the DV to ride it that turn increases by 5.
- If it uses a movement mode other than a walk speed, the DV to ride it that turn increases by 10.