Missing Rules

[5ekyu]

Ok. So what is it that the character does differently to allow them to jump further than they can do with certainty?

"Not holding back for increased accuracy, certainty and safety."

 

[pemerton]

It makes the leaps with extra distance usual, not unusual as the rules say.

How do you know? If there is only one 18' chasm in a 20 level campaign, then jumping that distance is not usual at all. And if a player fails every check made to see if his/her PC can clear a distance larger than that which p 64 permits the PC to jump with certainty, then so far from being usual such jumps turn out never to have occurred!

I also prefer that the players to describe their actions to me like [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION]. I'm trying to get one of my players over the bad habit(personal opinion) of just asking to roll certain skills.

As I've said several times upthread, this is not in issue in the current discussion.

The player I'm imagining says "I jump over the chasm!" That's not asking to roll a skill. That's describing an action, an approach to the goal of getting to the other side of the chasm.

 

[Charlaquin]

It doesn't have to be the source of it. Failure just has to have meaning, even if the source of the meaning is attributed to the failure from elsewhere.

But if the failure wasn't the source of the meaning, then the failure, (wait for it...) by itself didn't have meaning. That doesn't mean the failure can't have meaning. It just means the failure needs something else (read: a cost or consequence) to give it meaning.

And I demonstrated that the cost was identical to the cost of doing nothing.

It is identical to the cost of doing nothing, yes, but it is still a cost of the failure. The fact that you didn't get to the top of the cliff doesn't have meaning by itself. The fact that you might get hit by spear attacks if you don't gives it meaning.

 

[5ekyu]

I don't accept that those are different goals. That's reading the mechanics back into the ficiton in what I regard as a highly artificial way. And in fact I don't accept that these are goals.

The goal is to get from A to B (in this thread's example, to get across the chasm). The approach is to jump. (As opposed to vaulting, or climbing down and back up, or springboarding across, or flying, or whatever other approach might be attempted within the magical and heroic world of D&D.)

The notions of distance that can be jumped with certainty and distance that is unusually long for a jump, and hence not able to be cleared with certainty pertain neither to goal nor approach. They are features of the situation which inform the GM's method of adjudication. (Analogous to whether a person is sleeping, and hence liable to have his/her throat slit with no check required; or what a creature's AC is.)

Actually, to me the two different approaches here are "jump the safe, consistent distance i can do quickly" [game terms - no fail, no action used, resolve automatically as part of movement by default" and "jump farther more recklessly knowing i can risk a lot of potential bad results aka setbacks" [Athletcis check, possible setbacks and other bad results.}

Much like how, i can set a goal of "type this message" and an approach of that includes "keep reviewing until it is typo free" or i can just say "reply quickly." Likely others as well.

The potentially different goals can be "jump a specific distance to a specific spot" (targeted jump at/to something) or just jump as far as i can in this direction" or quite a few others. likely others as well.

 

[Maxperson]

Of course there is, or can be.
A skill check can fail - leading to falling down on landing if the Gm so rules or *any other setback* the Gm sees as appropriate including going too far.
A skill check can (often does) take an action not occur as a default part of movement.
A simple read of the sentence under ability checks which tells you what happens if you do not make a skill check can give you some ideas as to why someone would not take the jump check every time.

If a jump matters, it's generally going to be worth the risk of falling to get across by attempting the roll. If it doesn't matter, they aren't going to be jumping the base distance anyway. There will be very few times that they will choose not to push for the extra distance when confronted by a longer(but possible) jump distance.

You are very correct... just like how the rule on casting curelight wounds says it takes an action... but the spell on sorcery metamagic says it might be castable with a bonus action by using quicken spell on cure light wounds.

Similarly, the athletics skill defined in the mysterious "Ability Checks" says you can jump unusually long distances. just like the jump spell increasing your jump distance.

This is a False Equivalence. Every single PC has athletics. It's not some mysterious ability like metamagic that is highly limited. If what you are arguing is true and athletics does just allow you to try for extra distance left and right, there is quite literally no reason for the jump rules to read like they do. You are arguing that the rules for jumping are, "With all of your effort you can go a maximum distance equal to your strength score, unless you want to go further by using your strength score."

The same section about jumping by strength defines your movement using jump as a part of your move... no fail, no check, nothing else at play there... but there are a lot of rules in the game that alter that baseline - one of them is the athletics skill examples.

Athletics specifies that it is unusual for it to happen, which precludes it happening in virtually every jump that's a bit longer than the jump rules allow.

Almost exclusively (above even a moderate point tho that point grows obviously as the physique and training improve) more power costs precision, more power produces more exhaustion and more power produces greater risk. Anyone proficient with athletics (speaking character) knows this.as they have seen it in play. the key to athletics and exertion is to spend the energy one needs to the task and no more - and jumping is one case where that is actually reflected in the rules with a defined "safe, no fail (except for terrain induced) and as part of movement action economy defined limits" and also a athletics skill check to jump "unusually long" - unusually not referring to the frequency of them making the jump obviously, but the length.

Unless failure = death/serious injury like when jumping, then you try as hard as you freaking can. Only a fool with a death wish is going to use only what they need and no more. It's easy to misread exactly how much you need and fall to your death.

 

[Maxperson]

The player I'm imagining says "I jump over the chasm!" That's not asking to roll a skill. That's describing an action, an approach to the goal of getting to the other side of the chasm.

And the jump rules dictate how many feet you can go. Saying "I jump over the chasm!" doesn't tell me that the PC is doing anything other than a normal jump.

 

[Charlaquin]

"Not holding back for increased accuracy, certainty and safety."

"I already assume you are not holding back. Tell me what you're doing, not what you aren't doing."

 

[5ekyu]

It makes the leaps with extra distance usual, not unusual as the rules say. Do I think it's unrealistic to go variable distances with effort? No. Does it break the game? No. That isn't the rules, though, and this is a rules discussion. I also prefer that the players to describe their actions to me like [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION]. I'm trying to get one of my players over the bad habit(personal opinion) of just asking to roll certain skills. All my asking of "How?" is starting to sink in, and he's catching himself more and more often.

if one is to want to focus on the rules in the rules discussions or seem to perhaps one should look at the rule:

"You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull off a stunt midjump."

the "unusual" applies to the distance not the frequency of the jumps.

 

[Maxperson]

But if the failure wasn't the source of the meaning, then the failure, (wait for it...) by itself didn't have meaning. That doesn't mean the failure can't have meaning. It just means the failure needs something else (read: a cost or consequence) to give it meaning.

It doesn't have to have meaning by itself. It just has to have meaning. That's the ONLY requirement with regard to meaning.

It is identical to the cost of doing nothing, yes, but it is still a cost of the failure.

The fact that you didn't get to the top of the cliff doesn't have meaning by itself. The fact that you might get hit by spear attacks if you don't gives it meaning.

Which is all that I've been saying since the beginning. The cost of the failure is in the failure itself. There is no additional cost of getting hit by spears. You get hit by the spears due only to the failed roll, just the same as if you did nothing. As opposed to trying to jump over a trapped area where if you do nothing, no spears hit you, but if you fail to go far enough, you land on a spear trap ADDING the spear damage to the cost of failure.

Anyway, maybe we should just drop it at this point. It seems like we agree almost entirely on jumping and these rules, but are perhaps squinting at this from slightly different positions.

 

[5ekyu]

"I already assume you are not holding back. Tell me what you're doing, not what you aren't doing."

So, its you deciding for my character that every other time i am always going full out? Wasn't part of this not assuming for the players what and how they were doing things?

You do know that "not holding back" or "going all out" every move is pretty much one of the first thing coaches try to teach out of athletes in many sports except those that involve a mostly complete lack of precision or control? Everything is not a sprint. Sometimes control matters.

Especially in almost anything around combat.

But, thats OK, if your players buy that, thats cool. Some players have higher tolerances for Gm assumptions of how they (EDIT their characters) do things.