Death from above: leaping, jumping, falling into combat

[meankanin]

I'm designing a group of bad guys that have specialized on attacking others from above. A typical MO would be to use mass fly to get a group of invisible characters info their target's lair, then jumping down on them. Also, they should have leap attacks when on the ground like the barbarian in Diablo.

I'm looking for rules that can help them accomplish this. I think I even saw a PRC that deals with this once. Do anyone have any pointers?

 

[dystmesis]

In Iron Heroes, I believe there's a way to make a jump check against an opponent's AC (instead of an attack roll). If you hit, you leap down onto your opponent, and do a normal attack. Then you deal half of your normal fall damage (rounded up?) to the opponent instead of you

But that's Iron Heroes. As cool as it is, it might not be what you're looking for

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Dude. Tiger Claw discipline in Tome of Battle. One of the maneuvers is even called "Death from Above."

 

[Runestar]

Take the shadow teleport maneuvers from tome of battle. Use them to 'port 50-ft into the air directly over the PC. When he drops down, he will deal massive damage. To increase the damage, improve your size and take the deformity: obese feat to further increase your mass.

 

[Alzrius]

A jumping attack seems fairly easy to resolve, if you break it down into its component parts.

Such an attack is a full-round action; specifically, the characters are taking a move action (the jump) and a standard action (the attack). Of course, this means that they can make only one attack in that round.

Resolve the jumping part with the standard use of the Jump skill. As for the attack, they gain a +1 bonus on the to-hit roll for attacking from higher ground.

I recognize that, by the RAW, this imposes relatively moderate risk (from the failed Jump check) for a minor bonus (the +1 to hit), so you may want to grant another, minor bonus (perhaps to damage).

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Yep, like Stream and Rune said above, there are maneuvers in Bo9S specifically designed for this. Even if you don't adopt the system, you could adopt the effects and/or prerequisites, in some form.