Jumping off a 10' building = automatic prone?

[Garthanos]

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.

Non climbers have problems going past there arm pits so lets require an athletics check.. ;-)

I have crotchety old wizard types that would like a levitation cantrip to get out of bed with (low dex and strength), its actually fun to show off the difference between battle field capability and simple everyday mobility.

 

[Mengu]

I have a tendency to hand wave what monsters can do. If an encounter has a ledge where I need some goblins jumping down safely, I write in their stat block: "Familiar home terrain: As a move action the goblin guardian can lower himself safely from the 10' ledge, and does not need to make athletics checks to jump across goblin traps."

I wouldn't do this for every monster, only if the encounter design warrants it, and probably only for a handful of creature types in the encounter.

For PC's I also try to be more accommodating when they need to do fancy navigation. Say they all need to slide down a slope to get to their destination. Normally you would need to be trained in acrobatics to reduce the falling damage, but in the case of a sloped wall, I might allow an untrained acrobatics check, and make it DC 12 to not take any damage, and DC 17 to also remain standing at the end of the slide.

When I make terrain, I tend to make the rules to go with it based on the abilities of the characters. I'm not likely to put a DC 30 climb for a slippery Ice Wall, when no one in the party is trained in athletics.

 

[Stalker0]

I actually let my party rolls acrobatics, trained or not.

I found its one of the skills were the half level bonus has really paid off. Even party members who are untrained can now jump down a decent way with their +6 level bump to acrobatics.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What I can't understand is why Athletics doesn't come into it. You have enough Athletics, you can jump /up/ 10' (OK, maybe not, even with a running start, that'd be a 50), but you can't turn around and jump back down?

Anyone see a problem with allowing choice of Athletics or Acrobatics (still trained-only)?

 

[fuzzlewump]

What I can't understand is why Athletics doesn't come into it. You have enough Athletics, you can jump /up/ 10' (OK, maybe not, even with a running start, that'd be a 50), but you can't turn around and jump back down?

Anyone see a problem with allowing choice of Athletics or Acrobatics (still trained-only)?

Sorta kinda. Athletics is how much/how far, acrobatics is how/in what way? To directly answer your pondering, at the top of the theoretical 10' foot jump, the creature won't have any speed in the downward direction when he lands on the cliff-face, say, and thus won't be harmed by it. If he jumps down the 10' cliff, he'll have 10' worth of gravity to pay for when he reaches the bottom, so how high up he can jump has nothing to do with making the fall any less speedy/dangerous. Based on the example you gave, I see no reason for allowing Athletics or Acrobatics.

However, to take a different route, you can assume that someone with skill at jumping and climbing will have skill in falling, as sometimes you fall while climbing, and you usually fall after jumping. But, on the other other hand, basketball players are injured at least fairly often simply falling from their jumps or from hanging from the goal etc, so maybe athleticism (athletic skill) alone isn't enough?

Say a spiderman type maneuver was required for some reason, like jumping across a pit that had spinning blades that you had to jump through, or to easier to visualize, flaming hoops. You roll athletics to see if you had the strength/power enough to jump far enough to get across the pit. You roll acrobatics to see if you could deftly (dexterously?) fly though the hoop avoiding damage.

As for falling prone, maybe part of the problem is the visualization. Prone (er, despite the term) doesn't necessarily mean the creature in question falls flat on his face. I imagine more of a kneel with at least one hand and one knee on the ground. Acrobatics just means you can roll with it and stand up instantly.

I don't see why you can't use acrobatics untrained to reduce damage though, so Stalker0's solution sounds good to me.

 

[lukelightning]

I've made a house rule that you can use athletics in the same way as acrobatics to lessen the effects of a purposeful jump down; it won't help you if you get pushed off a roof or fall down a pit trap, but if you decide to jump out of a tree you it will.

I find it ridiculous that you can potentially jump 10' up in the air and land on your feet no problem, but if you jump 10' down all of a sudden you're in trouble.

 

[keterys]

Not many characters _can_ jump 10' up, actually... and it's quite realistic to have problems jumping down 10'. Whether you like that level of realism or not, that's a totally separate issue.

But I'm okay with Acrobatics having increased usefulness in combat, and having a good reason to be trained. It's the reason I have it trained on two of my characters - so they can do stupid stunts, along with their Athletics.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sorta kinda. Athletics is how much/how far, acrobatics is how/in what way? To directly answer your pondering, at the top of the theoretical 10' foot jump, the creature won't have any speed in the downward direction when he lands on the cliff-face, say, and thus won't be harmed by it. If he jumps down the 10' cliff, he'll have 10' worth of gravity to pay for when he reaches the bottom, so how high up he can jump has nothing to do with making the fall any less speedy/dangerous.

What about a character vaulting over a 10' barrier? For that matter, what about a character long-jumping a great distance - you can 'clear' quite a bit of vertical distance doing that - probably clear 10' more easily than with a vertical leap? He has to come down, too.

(as an asside, virtical leaps seem a little wussy to me, for an heroic genre)

As for falling prone, maybe part of the problem is the visualization. Prone (er, despite the term) doesn't necessarily mean the creature in question falls flat on his face. I imagine more of a kneel with at least one hand and one knee on the ground. Acrobatics just means you can roll with it and stand up instantly.

I have no problem with that. If you're hurt in a fall, it makes sense it'd take a moment to recover, and leave you vulnerable. I just don't like the idea of even the strongest, highest level demigod fighter having that much trouble hopping down 10' - it should be nothing, by then he'll probably be able to leap 30' wide chasms (limmited only by his move, really) or vault over a castle wall.

 

[Regicide]

I am sure glad these rules are pc... targetted... them soldier minions go splat splat splat.

Yeah, pretty funny when the minion is a level 20 huge and dies from going down 10 feet. Now we know why trenches and moats were so popular!

 

[~Coxy]

A player of mine has Endurance, but there is little in the game that it can actually be used for. One thing I also allowed is using Endurance to endure the falling shock without taking as much damage. To Endure falling I use check result / 4, rounded down to reduce the damage.

He can also use Endurance to fatch falling allies; I say that the ally takes no falling damage but he takes (total falling damage - check result / 2) instead.