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I am building a College of Satire Bard from the Unearthed Arcana: Kits of Old mentioned here. I found the PDF on wizards.com.

The two rules elements are quoted below. There are three similar questions, but they don't seem to address my specific question:

The Question:

What is your climbing speed and what restrictions do you have with Equine Build and Tumbling Fool?
Or more precisely, does the ability of "climbing speed equal to your current speed" also work the same as "no longer costs you extra" effects?

The Rules text:

The updated Centaur on page 9 of Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse has an ability called Equine Build:

You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push or drag.
In addition, any climb that requires hands and feet is especially difficult for you because of your equine legs. When you make such a climb, each foot of movement costs you 4 extra feet instead of the normal 1 extra foot.

The 3rd level ability Tumbling Fool has these rules:

At 3rd level, you master a variety of acrobatic techniques that allow you to evade danger. As a bonus action, you can tumble. When you tumble, you gain the following benefits for the rest of your turn:
• You gain the benefits of taking the Dash and Disengage actions.
• You gain a climbing speed equal to your current speed.
• You take half damage from falling.

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1 Answer 1

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Rules as written, Tumbling Fool completely undoes the effects of Equine Build, so you climb at the same speed you travel by foot (or hoof I guess). Equine Build is modifying a general rule for how you use your normal (non-climbing) speed to climb when you don't have a climbing speed; Tumbling Fool gives you a climbing speed, so the rules for climbing without a climbing speed no longer apply, and therefore neither does Equine Build.

It would be entirely reasonable for a DM to say "Nope, that's complete nonsense" and house rule things (e.g. they might split the difference and have you effectively have a climbing speed of half or a third or a quarter of your speed, any of which would still be better than one fifth of your speed), but it's a very clear interaction as written; when they don't have a climbing speed, centaurs are bad at climbing, but if they gain a climbing speed by any means, they're as good as anyone else with that climbing speed.

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    \$\begingroup\$ If a DM objects, show them mountain goat pictures and tell him your centaur managed to learn that. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rad80
    Commented Jan 2, 2023 at 11:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Rad80 for advantage on the persuasion check, make sure to have the centaur grow a goatee first \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 1:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Rad80 Mountain-goat centaur would be such a hilarious race for a bard-type. It's like a satyr but with double the goat. \$\endgroup\$
    – T. Sar
    Commented Jan 12, 2023 at 19:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ @T.Sar: Not sure you're aware, but the Bariaur race has existed in D&D for quite a while (it was a playable race back in 2E Planescape, haven't paid close attention since). Clearly a Centaur Tumbling Fool has been blessed by the gods and transformed into a Bariaur (heck, it makes more sense for them to be Medium than it does for PC Centaurs, and only PC Centaurs, to be Medium while the rest of the race is Large). \$\endgroup\$ Commented Jan 12, 2023 at 20:53

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