Jumping off a 10' building = automatic prone?

[Garthanos]

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!

Anecdotally as a fairly athletic youth who played sports ie baseball and football I hung down from a window 15 or so feet off the ground and let go (it was in the middle of a rather vigorous game of tag) .. my knees slammed into my chest and my air was knocked out of me and I was quite dazed and on my knees ... ie prone. etc... its basically what I'd call being bloodied. Since I use bloodiable minion rules it gives me my personal answer on how to handle minions.. trying to jump down (on to stone anyway - yeah I dropped on to a cement slab) if its 10 foot tall they sit down and drop a very tolerable distance without issue and if its 15 foot they hang down and fall bloody themselves or at least 1 half do and 1/4 manage it without ill fortune and 1 in 4 crack there head open fully unconscious all together realistic... but that is how I handle minions, they get fairly realistic no heroic buffer zone.

I use more minions than a lot of people and need them a little more interesting

And if they are goblins I give them trained acrobatics and a move called pyramid of flesh and dont bother rolling the just clamber down on each others backs like there was no obstacle cause it sounds cool

 

[fuzzlewump]

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.

Yeah, I agree completely. I think to allow acrobatics to be used untrained would fix this.

Also, that same level-30 demigod fighter, with about 204 HP (15 con, no toughness feat) can't possibly die from a 200ft drop. He's likely to survive from a 300 feet drop. Man, imagine a dwarf dropping down 200 feet, rolling a save to avoid falling prone, and just landing on his feet after 200 feet and just like charging Orcus or something awesome.

 

[Flipguarder]

as a joke I had my characters fight an army of 50 minions on top of a crystal platform 50 ft over the floor. They hit the floor and all the minions died. They took something like an average of 16 damage.

 

[Dr_Sage]

Yeah, I agree completely. I think to allow acrobatics to be used untrained would fix this.

Also, that same level-30 demigod fighter, with about 204 HP (15 con, no toughness feat) can't possibly die from a 200ft drop. He's likely to survive from a 300 feet drop. Man, imagine a dwarf dropping down 200 feet, rolling a save to avoid falling prone, and just landing on his feet after 200 feet and just like charging Orcus or something awesome.

Spend 1 of his many feats along the way to either multiclass or get Acrobatics.

If you dont want your godly fighter to go splat, its an option, but at a cost.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't understand why no one else sees this...

You've got a demigod athlete you can leap 30', clear a 15' wall on the way, and land on his feet, but if he stands on that 15' wall and just hops down from it, he's automatically prone. It's a major disconnect.

The distinction that makes sense for me is jumping down vs an unexpected fall. I can see how the lightning reactions of the trained accrobat could help him when the floor disapears from under his feat, and how the trained athlete's superbly toned muscle (it's STR based, right) might not. What I can't accept is that the athlete who can jump /up/ onto or over something can't simpy jump /down/ from it with a similar roll (and action).

If you jump down and don't make a good enough roll, sure, it should be counted as falling, and I'm fine with untrained accrobatics being no use and falling prone upon taking damage. It's a failed roll doing something dangerous, it makes sense. (Also, unlike a failed leap up or over something, you still get where you're going - so there needs to be some other consequence of failure.)

 

[keterys]

I don't understand why no one else sees this...

You've got a demigod athlete you can leap 30', clear a 15' wall on the way, and land on his feet, but if he stands on that 15' wall and just hops down from it, he's automatically prone. It's a major disconnect.

Except he didn't clear a 15' wall. He slammed into it. Ow. In fact, he can't even clear a 10 ft wall, which is the distance before which he'd start taking falling damage.

So, no disconnect. He's not mystically avoiding taking falling damaging when leaping sideways instead of downwards.

Also, I'd suggest not thinking of it as 'bam, falls flat on his face' but having to roll then stand back up after a jump or fall that deals damage.

Edit: For clarity, the rules for vertical jump distance are a quarter of the distance jumped horizontally. So the 30' example would only net you 7.5 feet, and by the rules you'd hit the obstacle, drop prone, and lose the rest of your move action. Yes, it is possible to clear a 10' wall for a 30th level demigod. Amusingly it's easier to jump vertically when you jump horizontally than it is when you jump vertically, by 25%. DC 40 instead of 50 for a 10' wall. Still 60 or 75 for a 15' wall. Unless they errata-ed that to 1/5, which would fix things.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm sorry, am I mis-remembering a rule? Was it 1/4 not 1/2 the distance? I do remember two oddities of the jumping rules. One was that there were absolutely no rules for jumping /down/ - all you could ever do was fall. The other was that it was surprisingly easy to do a long jump over an obstacle compared to just jumping over one.

Long jumping seemed quite prodigious - especially if you could enhance your movement - while high jumping seemed positively gimped. Of course, it's not that far out of line with RL. (Not that D&D, where a 1st-level character can run 30' and draw & throw 9 daggers in less than six seconds and blind everyone he hits, generally tries to model real life.) The olympic record high jump is about 8' the long jump just under 30. Both use a running start. Jumping 30', IIRC, is a DC 30 (1/5th the roll, in squares), and a running character can move 40' in one action, so with a DC 40, could go the full 8 squares you run, I assume, shattering the Olympic record. There are at least some powers or feats or items that increase your move or free your long jump of the limit of your move, too. Jumping 8' is DC 40. Jumping down from a ledge is impossible, all you can do is fall. It seems odd that the game models long-jumping in a way that's a little generous, compared to RL, high jumping in rather more tightly, and refused to model jumping down, at all.


So, anyway, it's 1/4, not 1/2? fine, the demigod /runs/ and jumps 40', clearing a 10' wall, but can't jump down from said 10' wall. Better?


Edit: Thanks for the clarification, I don't have the PH handy. I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed it's easier to long jump over something than just jump over it. Maybe that represents vaulting?

 

[keterys]

I don't see any rule to suggest that you don't take damage from leaping over a 10 ft wall - as far as I can tell, you take falling damage same as if you'd jumped down from it.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Even if you didn't take damage, you can argue the major disconnect in either direction. Maybe he SHOULD take damage, thus the disconnect is in Athletics not Acrobatics.

I mean, last I knew Olympic long jumpers jumped into a huge pile o' sand, not gravel. High jumpers landed on a massive padded mat, not a stone floor.

 

[keterys]

Yeah - I mean if the rule is that jumping down deals damage, then I don't see why any jump that makes you fall 10+ feet wouldn't deal damage.

And it's decently realistic, and an encouragement to take Acrobatics. I'm a fan of taking skills making a real difference.

I'm not sure I need things to be terribly realistic in my paragon/epic jumping, but eh.