D&D 5E Sage Advice Compendium updated

[Hawk Diesel]

It's been in there since the beginning, IIRC.

Clearly I did not pay very good attention. ^_^

 

[Blue]

I wish he would give a straight answer to what happens if you attempt to jump further than your speed allows. Fall or end the turn in midair?

He did give a straight answer - but it doesn't fit into either of those two sets.

Your jump is limited by how far you can move; ...

So it is impossible to jump further then you have move. If your jump would have been 7 leagues, but you only had 10 feet of movement - then your jump is limited to 10 feet. Full stop. NOT the first 10 feet of a 7 league jump.

 

[Yaarel]

I wish he would give a straight answer to what happens if you attempt to jump further than your speed allows. Fall or end the turn in midair?

If I recall correctly, the DMG says the DM can allow the player to make an Athletics check to jump farther than the base jump distance.

In any case, I treat the base jump distance as the reliable jump and landing that a character can repeatedly do. A check to jump can go farther by can also slip and fall when landing.

 

[pukunui]

If I recall correctly, the DMG says the DM can allow the player to make an Athletics check to jump farther than the base jump distance.

I can't think of anything in the DMG off the top of my head, but in the PHB, under Athletics on page 175, one of the examples is "You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull off a stunt midjump." Is that what you were thinking of? I would say that's for when the distance you want to jump is longer than your Strength score but less than or equal to your total movement.

 

[Yaarel]

I can't think of anything in the DMG off the top of my head, but in the PHB, under Athletics on page 175, one of the examples is "You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull off a stunt midjump." Is that what you were thinking of? I would say that's for when the distance you want to jump is longer than your Strength score but less than or equal to your total movement.

That is what I was thinking. Jumping more than your total movement seems to me ‘an *unusually* long distance’.

Assign a DC and require a skill check.

The main point is, this kind of thing is squarely within DM jurisdiction to adjudicate.

 

[jaelis]

He did give a straight answer - but it doesn't fit into either of those two sets.

Well I'd put your answer as "fall" in the sense that if you try to jump over a 10 ft pit when you have 5 ft of movement left, you would say you fall in.

So it is impossible to jump further then you have move. If your jump would have been 7 leagues, but you only had 10 feet of movement - then your jump is limited to 10 feet. Full stop. NOT the first 10 feet of a 7 league jump.

Still sounds ambiguous to me. In the real world I can ask, how far can you jump in 1 sec? I would not say that carries any implication that you have to land one second after leaping. The same could apply to how far you can jump in your turn.

Or to put it another way, suppose we found out that he did intend that a jump could continue over multiple turns. What part of his statement in SA would be incorrect?

 

[Blue]

Well I'd put your answer as "fall" in the sense that if you try to jump over a 10 ft pit when you have 5 ft of movement left, you would say you fall in.

Yes, if you can only jump 5 feet because that's all the move you have, and the far side is 10 feet, you will fall. but not from the jump, from the fact that there's a pit instead of a safe landing. Just like if you walked over the pit. The fall part has nothing to do with the jump that wouldn't happen with any other movement mode.

Still sounds ambiguous to me. In the real world I can ask, how far can you jump in 1 sec? I would not say that carries any implication that you have to land one second after leaping. The same could apply to how far you can jump in your turn.

How far you can jump in 1 second is irrelevant in the abstraction of the game.

You can intend for your jump to continue over many turns, just like you can intend for your movement speed to continue over many turns. However, according to the rules of the game, it's individual jumps just like those are individual move actions.

There's no ambiguity. The condition of "I am going to jump further than my jump distance" is not allowed in the first place. Whether that is due to cap based on your Strength modifier or due to the cap imposed by movement remaining.

It's not ambiguous - both are hard caps. It seems like you are treating one like a hard cap and one like "how what part of a jump can you accomplish this round", that that second part is not supported by the rules.

EDIT: Forgot to break out the below.

Or to put it another way, suppose we found out that he did intend that a jump could continue over multiple turns. What part of his statement in SA would be incorrect?

Yes, if the rules were different and contained a case that can not come up in the current rules, then his Sage Advice do not address it and would be incomplete. However, within the rules that exist they are not ambiguous.

 

[jaelis]

Yes, if you can only jump 5 feet because that's all the move you have, and the far side is 10 feet, you will fall. but not from the jump, from the fact that there's a pit instead of a safe landing. Just like if you walked over the pit. The fall part has nothing to do with the jump that wouldn't happen with any other movement mode.

Yes I agree. That was the intention of my original comment; I left out the situation of jumping over a pit.

How far you can jump in 1 second is irrelevant in the abstraction of the game.

The physical result is irrelevant, but the way we use the language is the same. If it makes good English sense to talk about distance in a given time, then we can talk about that in the game too.

You can intend for your jump to continue over many turns, just like you can intend for your movement speed to continue over many turns. However, according to the rules of the game, it's individual jumps just like those are individual move actions.

There's no ambiguity. The condition of "I am going to jump further than my jump distance" is not allowed in the first place. Whether that is due to cap based on your Strength modifier or due to the cap imposed by movement remaining.

It's not ambiguous - both are hard caps. It seems like you are treating one like a hard cap and one like "how what part of a jump can you accomplish this round", that that second part is not supported by the rules.

That's all just restating your interpretation of the rule, not providing justification for it

Yes, if the rules were different and contained a case that can not come up in the current rules, then his Sage Advice do not address it and would be incomplete. However, within the rules that exist they are not ambiguous.

I know it is tricky, but I'm asking you to consider a hypothetical, that tomorrow JC answered on twitter that you can end your turn in the air. My question is, what specifically in the rules or his SA answer would that contradict? All he ever says is that you can't jump further than your speed during your turn. That would remain true.

 

[Blue]

That's all just restating your interpretation of the rule, not providing justification for it

I am not trying to provide justification for the rule. I am not signaling and agreement or disagrement, like or dislike. I am simply stating the rule.

"Your jump is limited by how far you can move" - that's very straightforward, and does not contain any ambiguity.

I know it is tricky, but I'm asking you to consider a hypothetical, that tomorrow JC answered on twitter that you can end your turn in the air. My question is, what specifically in the rules or his SA answer would that contradict? All he ever says is that you can't jump further than your speed during your turn. That would remain true.

It's not tricky - I already answered that if you changed the rule to contain cases that it doesn't now, then the current sage advice would be incomplete.

I'm not sure what the point is - the clarification not covering a case that the rules don't allow seems to be an acceptable choice. As a matter of fact, clarification that addressed situations the rules didn't allow would just be causing confusion.

 

[Yaarel]

"Your jump is limited by how far you can move" - that's very straightforward, and does not contain any ambiguity.

‘Limited’ is the opposite of infinite. If you can only move 30 feet, you probably cant jump 300 feet, but you might be able to jump 40 feet. Especially in a case of a running long jump, an athlete might run 30 feet, then jump 30 feet, covering a total distance of 60 feet, for example. It is upto the DM to decide how plausible it sounds.

Incidently, reallife world records for the running long jump are about 30 feet.

So a character with 20 Strength should normally jump 20 feet reliably, then with a very difficult skill check reach 30 feet. As a rule. But with a ‘nearly impossible’ difficulty surpass even this. It is precisely this situation the rules have in mind.

Players Handbook, Special Movement, High Jump: ‘Each foot you clear on the [high] jump costs a foot of movement. In some circumstances, your DM might allow you to make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump higher than you normally can.’

Or a Strength (Athletics) check to jump farther than normal. (PH, Using Each Ability, Strength.)

The skill check allows a character to go beyond ‘normal’ reliable limits.

It is also worth pointing out, Jump is a move, not an action. You can then use the action to do a stunt mid-jump.

So. If you use your action to make a Dash, then your effective ‘speed’ is 60 (!), thus allowing a larger-than-life jump toward 60 feet, with a skill check.



And again, all of this is explicitly DM discretion. Of course, the DM can do whatever. But in the case of Jump, the rules explicitly ask the DM to adjudicate all of the special factors that might be going on during the narrative for a specific jump.