Jumping off a 10' building = automatic prone?

[MissPrissy]

First post.

I would let someone climb down as a move action provided they made an acrobatic or athletics check. A weak or clumbsy person could easily mess up that process and fall. If the the player wanted to be the kind of person who could walk up to the edge of a garage roof, crouch, grap the edge, swing around and drop in a short period of time (meaning confidently as a move action) they should have trained. Otherwise they spend time looking down, schooching over while seated and then hesitantly drop down. A standard action at least. There should be a price for willfully choosing to have no training. It is a roleplaying opportunity, especially if they make the untrained check and succeed.

 

[jkohlhepp]

As Klaus points out, you do not halve the damage, you reduce the damage by half your check. Big difference. Depending on how badly the roll went, you could theoretically jump down a long way without getting hurt.

Regarding going prone, as noted again by Klaus the rule in DDI is "Prone: You fall prone when you land, unless you take no damage from the fall."

I think this is the key point that I missed. Thanks for the help. I'm just wondering if I should house rule that you can make the check untrained.

 

[DracoSuave]

I think this is the key point that I missed. Thanks for the help. I'm just wondering if I should house rule that you can make the check untrained.

Nope. There should be an advantage to taking a skill, and doing this would remove that advantage entirely. +5 to the skill check would only mean 2.5 points of fall mitigation, which isn't enough to justify taking the skill.

You should always have some benefit that requires training in a skill, this happens to be the one for Acrobatics.

 

[Ryujin]

Others have already covered the basics of this; trained in Acrobatics and reduce damage to zero. Showy actions like leaping from high places without missing a beat or taking damage is essentially the sole reason why my character has a Safewing Amulet. Catstep boots and Cat Tabi have a similar effect, while not occupying one of the three sacrosanct item slots.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Or 'Climb' down a single foot, then drop down.

An interesting technicality that falls flat (pun intended) because you can't actually move in 1ft increments.

...my character has a Safewing Amulet.

(irrelevant side comment) For some reason, it's hard for me to read this as safe-wing. I say sah-few-ing, which is silly.

 

[keterys]

An interesting technicality that falls flat (pun intended) because you can't actually move in 1ft increments.

Sure you can. You just can't end your turn there. You can also climb down 5' or just lower yourself.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Exactly, climb down 5ft is fine. Though, if you can climb down 5ft you can climb down 10ft with no additional burden (unless you're speed is really low).

 

[Garthanos]

...unless they score high enough on their acrobatics rolls.

And are trained in acrobats... possible for some minions.... making slowly lowering oneself over the side a standard or is that a move action (yup that feels like climbing) which reduces the distance dropped by your height (or so) might resolve the issue.

 

[Obryn]

I've allowed Athletics or Acrobatics checks for this, but I may reconsider...

-O

 

[Klaus]

Exactly, climb down 5ft is fine. Though, if you can climb down 5ft you can climb down 10ft with no additional burden (unless you're speed is really low).

Actually, vertical reach for a 6' human is about 8'. If you allow a move action to hang off the edge by hands, the remaining 2 feet can be handwaived.