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D&D 5E Bounded accurancy and skills

Jumping's also a good example of something that unexpectedly broke something that's been in the game for years. A standard 10' x 10' wide pit. Now anybody with at least a 10 Strength (or 11, depending on your interpretation) can automatically jump over it. Hidden pits are fine, but an open pit has to be at least 15' to 20' long now.

The first session we ran had a 10' pit and the players asked if they could try to jump over it. That was kind of the point, looking for the typical Indiana Jones moment where somebody fails and they're hanging on the side of the pit. Instead we looked up the rule and it was like, oh, yeah. You just take a running long jump.

Ilbranteloth
The Internet tells me that junior high school age girls can easily clear 15 feet -- that's the low end of the expected range whenever they attempt a running long jump.

So yeah, I see no reason to make anyone roll a jump check for a 10' pit. The fact that people have been rolling it for years is actually kind of insane, now that I think about it.

All of this does have me wondering, however, about how much extra distance you can manage with a check. Easiest would be linear (like 1 extra foot per point greater than 10 on the check). The possible outcomes from high rolls are perhaps a bit overly heroic, but I guess I'm not bothered that much. Not enough to use a more complicated system.
 

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The Internet tells me that junior high school age girls can easily clear 15 feet -- that's the low end of the expected range whenever they attempt a running long jump.

So yeah, I see no reason to make anyone roll a jump check for a 10' pit. The fact that people have been rolling it for years is actually kind of insane, now that I think about it.

I think you're mistaking US record distances (4.97m and 5.52m) for average capabilities.

We can safely assume the record holders are attribute 16... and that a national record requires proficiency and a 20 roll... so 15' should be about DC25.

I found the record data on the livestrong website: http://www.livestrong.com/article/359934-what-is-the-record-for-the-long-jump-in-middle-schools/

Records
The long jump national record for the United States is measured at the Junior Olympics track and field event. For bantam boys, the national long jump record is 4.97 meters, or 16 feet 3.75 inches, and is held by Thomas Johnson. Matthew Green holds the midget boys national long jump record of 5.51 meters, or 18 feet 1 inch. The junior national record for bantam girls is 4.67 meters, or 15 feet 4 inches, held by Margaux Jones. Myra Combs holds the midget girl national long jump record of 5.52 meters, or 18 feet 1.5 inches. Internationally, American Randy Williams holds the world long jump record for junior athletes of 8.34 meters, or 27 feet 4.5 inches. For women, the junior world record is 7.14 meters, a little more than 23 feet 5 inches, which is held by Heike Drechsler of Germany.

You're looking for the bantam and midget records, by the way.
 

You're looking for the bantam and midget records, by the way.
Your data conflicts with usatf.org -- I'm gonna go with the official track and field site.

I disagree with Str 16. These are people still in puberty, probably not fully grown. I doubt many of them can lift 480 pounds. I also disagree with saying they are proficient. They are on their way to proficiency, but at that age, they are probably not quite there yet.

But the point is, there are people that age and only slightly older getting long jumps in the high teens and low 20s. And these are records. There is no mention of averages, or the range of results recorded at track meets. I'm sure the difference between an average jump and a record is a matter two feet or less, which means those kids are routinely jumping well over 10 feet.

I'm pretty sure I could manage a 10-foot running jump with no problem, and I'm neither strong nor athletic.
 

Jumping's also a good example of something that unexpectedly broke something that's been in the game for years. A standard 10' x 10' wide pit. Now anybody with at least a 10 Strength (or 11, depending on your interpretation) can automatically jump over it. Hidden pits are fine, but an open pit has to be at least 15' to 20' long now.

It's not in the rules, but there's no way I'd be letting an encumbered or heavily encumbered (PHB p176) person make that leap without a check. If they want to forego the check, it means unloading, getting the load across, and reloading, which takes time. A nice, easy way to make an encounter more difficult would be to have enemies on both sides of the pit, while half the party is each side.
 

Your data conflicts with usatf.org -- I'm gonna go with the official track and field site.

I disagree with Str 16. These are people still in puberty, probably not fully grown. I doubt many of them can lift 480 pounds. I also disagree with saying they are proficient. They are on their way to proficiency, but at that age, they are probably not quite there yet.

But the point is, there are people that age and only slightly older getting long jumps in the high teens and low 20s. And these are records. There is no mention of averages, or the range of results recorded at track meets. I'm sure the difference between an average jump and a record is a matter two feet or less, which means those kids are routinely jumping well over 10 feet.

I'm pretty sure I could manage a 10-foot running jump with no problem, and I'm neither strong nor athletic.

I'm certain you're dead wrong. The average running long jump I've seen in my 6th graders was about 5'. The ones on the track team were pushing 10'. (I was there for the Physical Fitness tests). Those records are set by the top 0.01%. They've been putting in (typically) 2 years developing the skills. And I'd love to see video of you attempting a 10' running jump with 20 pounds of armor on... let alone the 30-40 pounds of stuff the PC's I've seen are carrying. And I'm fairly certain some of them are easily Str 16.

I'll point you to some actual competition records...
http://www.asdk12.org/schools/romig/pages/track/be4-178b.html
http://www.asdk12.org/schools/romig/pages/track/be4-178g.html

These are from 2009, but they show the distances amongst the best capable from 2 middle schools.
the 5th place girl in that match didn't even break 8'.

http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?DivID=49859&Gender=M&Event=17
http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?DivID=49859&Gender=F&Event=17

Statewide Alaska Track and Field stats from 2014 show high school results mostly between 10' and 15', but some as low as 1'3"... (obviously, he missed the end of the run-up. This would be a failed Strength (athletics) roll...)

Even so, that's still the best from each school. If you ignore the obvious failed-to-make-the-roll cases, you can see a best performance from each student...

Given that the local high schools in Anchorage are about 14,000 students, and only about 1/4 the total competitors, so, maybe 50ish (I'm too lazy to count the totals) are competing in the long jump. My alma mater runs 2100 students, about 55% male, so about 945 girls, and 7 competed in long jump. Less than 1%. Not even half their team, either. So, the girls probably representing most of the top 1% (as some who would excel fail to meet academic requirements). Lots of 8's and 9's at the high school level for women, and those are the most competitive in the sport. The top 1%.

Let's assume, for sake of argument, that they're getting advantage for prep and relatively perfect conditions.
That means roughly 39/400 results are 20's. If we assume only level 1, and rolled attributes (age 15 is a viable starting PC age, per the rules), it's possible to have a +6 on the roll, so we look for peak performance. Hell, the track team alone is mostly going to be mostly 16's to 18's...

That several aren't even making it to 10'... misplaced footing, or a bad day, or whatnot, but it shows there's a range of performance. (Also - the school competitions are best of three tries for long jump.)
 

And I'd love to see video of you attempting a 10' running jump with 20 pounds of armor on... let alone the 30-40 pounds of stuff the PC's I've seen are carrying.
We encountered something like this during the playtest (using the same jumping rules).

There was a 10-foot gap, which needed to be crossed. Everyone could do this, repeatedly, at no cost and with no chance of failure. The one exception was the Wizard who had Strength 8, and could never succeed. Once we figured out the rules, the solution was for the Paladin to bodily carry the wizard across, as even adding 100lbs to his encumbrance did not incur any chance of failure.
 

It's funny, I was just pointing out that the new rules codified something in a way that eliminated or complicated a previously common scenario. And there are plenty of examples of open 10' pits with something nasty in the bottom in older published adventures. And yes, a simple pit is boring, and you can make it more difficult in a variety of ways.

Instead it's started a whole new discussion and made me think through how I'd handle jumping over things while encumbered etc.

In the 3rd edition, the DC was equal to the distance jumped, with a -6 per 10 ft of speed less than 30 or +4 per 10 ft of speed greater than 30. So if you were encumbered to the point that your speed was reduced it would impact the DC.

So simply requiring a roll when attempting to jump an obstacle greater than 1/2 your strength provides some chance of failure. I'd add that it's with disadvantage when encumbered or wearing any armor that limits your Dexterity bonus.

Ilbranteloth
 

[MENTION=6779310]aramis erak[/MENTION]: I feel like you miss the point of why I chose middle school girls. I did it not because I think they represent average adventurers, but because I think the average adventurer (who is supposed to be heroic and better and everything than the average person) should be able to perform at least as well as the best middle-schooler on a consistent basis. (If you think middle schoolers have a strength of 16 -- only 2 points lower than the pinnacle of natural, non-heroic human strength -- I think you might want to re-examine the scale of ability scores and what those numbers mean statistically.)

In the results you point to, I see more than enough jumps greater than 10' to back up my position. The question isn't whether all humans everywhere are capable of a thing. The question is whether the numbers are reasonable enough for heroic characters. I think they are. I guess you don't.

Again, this is a game, not a simulation. If we were playing a simulation, we'd have to give penalties and bonuses for character height, adjust for wind conditions and encumbrance (as you pointed out), etc. No one wants to do that in D&D. In fact, this whole discussion boils down to streamlining, and why it's kind of boring to make the players roll for every little action. If there are extenuating circumstances that warrant a check, I will absolutely make my player roll to jump 10 feet. But for the simple open pit that we've all seen and crossed a million times before, no.
 

[MENTION=6779310]aramis erak[/MENTION]: I feel like you miss the point of why I chose middle school girls.

And you obviously missed mine, as well: Those are the top ≤1% They're the peak performance, the "Rolled two 19's on the jump and only got 12'..." crowd.

You've looked at the data and drawn exactly the wrong set of conclusions, because you refuse to accept that they're exceptional.
 

So simply requiring a roll when attempting to jump an obstacle greater than 1/2 your strength provides some chance of failure. I'd add that it's with disadvantage when encumbered or wearing any armor that limits your Dexterity bonus.
That's pretty good. I was going to suggest extending the armor's Stealth penalty to cover Athletics and Acrobatics checks made to move (so it doesn't cover grappling, for example), since this is a balance factor in some armors.

I'd make the DC equal to the distance, double for a standing jump. If you fail by 5 or less you can grab the ledge.

Actually, they should have made long jump distance equal to your passive Athletics. That would match distance = DC and be conceptually simple. +5/-5 for advantage/disadvantage as usual.
 

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