D&D 5E Hang Time - What if you jump farther than your speed?

[Ovinomancer]

It is a good thing that my post spent two paragraphs dealing with the common situation we actually experience all the time.

Any PC that has a good strength and uses jump will likely encounter stiuations where a DM needs to deal with the problem. And if you have that type of PC in your group, it will happen many times, most likely.

You've missed a better argument: any PC can find your complaint by merely jumping at the end of their movement. If that's your point, you don't even need to search for it with high STR or jump multipliers.

And, again, I've already posted on that issue above, with a few approaches. Do you maybe want to talk about those or is it important that high STR builds have a trouble?

 

[Li Shenron]

1) You can't go farther than your movement. If you have no movement remaining when you're in mid jump, you fall. Example: If you can jump 40 feet and you can move 30 feet, then you can really only jump 30 feet.

2) You have to make a Strength (Athletics) check to cover the remaining distance, failure means falling when you've expended all your movement for the round.

3) The jump continues from one round to the next, with the character effectively hanging in the air until her next turn, whereupon the remainder of the jump uses up some or all of your movement.

Compared with the ridiculously complicated jumping rules of 3rd edition, 5th edition went for maximum simplicity (thank God!) and we get more or less realistic values: a human can have maximum Str20 and this means being able to jump 8ft/2.4m high (a bit optimistic, that is basically the same as the world record for high jump, which requires to land prone on a soft surface, and in 5e you even have a chance to extend that maximum), and 20ft/6m long (which is instead a bit pessimistic, the world record for long jump is around 3ft/9m, although for achieving that they definitely need a lot more running than 10ft!). There is also an interesting caveat, that if you have Strength score 5 or less, you cannot jump high any distance.

So it comes as no surprise that also Sage Advice stays simple and goes for ruling 1).

I don't see much problem with option 3), especially when using the Jump spell in combat. It's already a spell of limited usefulness, and I would not want to make it even less useful. You already need to use Dash in order to benefit from the triple jump distance. It makes sense to me to narrate Jump as a lesser version of Fly.

 

[jasper]

Hmm at 5.8 seconds you look down.
At 5.85 your feet start dancing for solid ground.
At 5.9 your body below the neck starts falling and your neck elongates.
At 5.94 you look to your best buds and hold a sign saying "this is going to hurt"
At 5.96 You look back down and your neck and head start to fall.
At 6 seconds you hit the ground.
At 6.1 seconds a puff of smoke rises from around your body and surrounds location you started fall at.

 

[Oofta]

Hmm at 5.8 seconds you look down.
At 5.85 your feet start dancing for solid ground.
At 5.9 your body below the neck starts falling and your neck elongates.
At 5.94 you look to your best buds and hold a sign saying "this is going to hurt"
At 5.96 You look back down and your neck and head start to fall.
At 6 seconds you hit the ground.
At 6.1 seconds a puff of smoke rises from around your body and surrounds location you started fall at.

Whereas my characters ignore the law of gravity completely. After all, they never studied law.

Or maybe they just don't look down?

 

[Pauper]

Any PC that has a good strength and uses jump will likely encounter stiuations where a DM needs to deal with the problem. And if you have that type of PC in your group, it will happen many times, most likely.

Doesn't even have to be the Jump spell -- Adventurer's League has given out a Ring of Jumping as a magic item in a couple of Tier 1 adventures, and any DM that does the same in her own campaign will find high STR characters with the Jump effect without needing to be a spellcaster.

With that said, I stick by my earlier assertion that, although the rules don't say so explicitly, the jump distance you can achieve, either with or without the Jump spell, is meant to be a maximum distance, not an assumed or expected distance. Jumping with 0 feet of movement remaining results in a jump of 0 feet, no matter what your STR score or magical buffs.

--
Pauper

 

[jgsugden]

... Jumping with 0 feet of movement remaining results in a jump of 0 feet, no matter what your STR score or magical buffs.

You recognize that this results in nonsensical situations, right? A PC in a chase being limited to either waiting a round or only being able to jump 5' (which is not enough to clear a crevice) while his ally that is weaker but happened to start 20 feet closer to the gap can cover the entire 20 feet.

Allowing an administrative constraint to limit the otherwise sensible actions of a PC reduces the RPG to board game.

 

[Pauper]

You recognize that this results in nonsensical situations, right?

I find your way to be significantly more nonsensical, as allowing the PC to make a full jump after expending all movement creates an exception in the movement rules that can be horribly exploited. ("Hey, I was able to jump 30 feet after moving to clear that chasm. Why can't I do it here to get in my attacks on the big bad?")

Besides, I don't find it that nonsensical that a character who starts 20 feet closer to a chasm will take less time to clear that chasm than one who starts farther away. YMMV, I guess.

--
Pauper

 

[Oofta]

You recognize that this results in nonsensical situations, right? A PC in a chase being limited to either waiting a round or only being able to jump 5' (which is not enough to clear a crevice) while his ally that is weaker but happened to start 20 feet closer to the gap can cover the entire 20 feet.

Allowing an administrative constraint to limit the otherwise sensible actions of a PC reduces the RPG to board game.

My thoughts on the topic exactly. D&D is not very "granular". The only reason we have turns is because we have to simplify the fiction of the universe to a point that we can resolve actions systematically.

Turns are a necessary but completely artificial concept that should not impact actions taken. It does allow others to possibly "interrupt" the jump being taken when some other creatures turn happens while the jumper is in mid-air, but I think that's part of the fun.

 

[FarBeyondC]

You recognize that this results in nonsensical situations, right? A PC in a chase being limited to either waiting a round or only being able to jump 5' (which is not enough to clear a crevice) while his ally that is weaker but happened to start 20 feet closer to the gap can cover the entire 20 feet.

Allowing an administrative constraint to limit the otherwise sensible actions of a PC reduces the RPG to board game.

Why are you applying the rigid combat framework to a chase scene?

 

[Oofta]

Why are you applying the rigid combat framework to a chase scene?

Why are you assuming chases can't occur during combat?