Jumping over Opponents

[James McMurray]

But somersaulting over a peasant should be the same difficulty at level 1 as at level 30.

Why is the DM making the player roll to flip over a peasant? Rolling is for when something is a challenge. Jumping a peasant with an epic acrobat is a simple matter of narration unless there's some sort of epic opposition involved.

Acrobatic Stunt, page 180: "[...]If the stunt fails, you fall prone in the square where you began the stunt (the DM might change where you land, depending on the specific stunt and situation).[...]

Cool. Thanks.

 

[CapnZapp]

Why is the DM making the player roll to flip over a peasant? Rolling is for when something is a challenge. Jumping a peasant with an epic acrobat is a simple matter of narration unless there's some sort of epic opposition involved.

You're misunderstanding.

What "having the same DC for jumping over the same guy" means is exactly this: it becomes a simple matter of narration once the DC is trivial.

The point isn't to force DMs to make trivial rolls. The point is that one and the same task doesn't scale in difficulty with your abilities. Making one and the same task easier for high-level characters than it is for low-level characters is only natural.

In D&D, it's easy enough to find challenges. You don't need to keep everything as a challenge.

The argument* "don't set low DCs, because it's stupid to force trivial rolls" doesn't fly with me. And I especially don't buy the backwards-thinking argument of "because trivial rolls are bad, all DCs should be challenging, all the time".

*) Not saying you're really arguing any of this.

Cheers,
Zapp

 

[gtoasnt3]

I regularly get jump checks of 20 or 25, which provides me a jump action of 4-5 squares, clearing 1 square in height.

The DM's usually read this as that I can clear 1 square through the whole jump, since 4e ignores trigonometry everywhere else.

1 square in height is 5'. So any creature/NPC taller than 5' wouldn't be cleared in our game.

 

[James McMurray]

Do you count creatures who are 5' 2" as occupying the square above their heads, and let them be attacked there? If not, they probably shouldn't hinder movement either. If so, remind me to always play short creatures so fliers can't attack me without entering my reach.

 

[deleteme123456]

Do you count creatures who are 5' 2" as occupying the square above their heads, and let them be attacked there? If not, they probably shouldn't hinder movement either. If so, remind me to always play short creatures so fliers can't attack me without entering my reach.

Agreed. Probably easiest to abstract that occupy a number of vertical squares = min # of squares in any one X-Y direction (in case you get a nonsquare creature).

 

[underfoot007]

I have one player that really enjoys leaping over rows of minions or soldiers to get at the squishy bad guys behind them. I don't want to prevent the character from doing so since the player clearly enjoys it, but i want to make sure it's being done properly and won't become overpowering.

Are there any more specific rules about this beyond the one's for Vertical Jump in the skill chapter?

Does Jumping provoke an opportunity attack?

Does landing?

Does any one have any encounter building advice for encouraging or discouraging this kind of jumping behavior?

I'm not sure just because a player enjoy it justifies allowing it blindly. But lets look at the rules anyway. longjump pg 182, let change the example of a 5' wall to a 6' minion.

Example:​

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Marc attempts a long jump to clear a
6-foot-tall minion and the 10-foot-wide pit
beyond it. His check result is 24. With a running start,
he easily jumps the distance (24 ÷ 6 = 4 squares or
20 feet) and clears the wall (24 ÷ 4 = 6 feet). If Marc
jumps from a standing position, he can’t quite make
it across the pit (24 ÷ 10 = 2.4 squares or 12 feet) and
doesn’t clear the wall (12 ÷ 4 = 3 feet). He hits the wall​

of thorns and falls prone before reaching the pit.

So it is doable but will require a good "Athletics roll.

game on,

jjm




Jon

 

[WampusCat43]

I always thought that "Base 15" referred to the Moderate/1st level intersection in the page 42 table. That's the baseline.

My rogue player's PC wanted to attempt to not only jump over an opponent, but land around a corner (the baddie was in the corner of an 'L'). This was the first time I used '42' in the game. Just looked up the 'Hard' value for his level, added 5, and made that the Acrobatics DC.

He made it spectacularly, and got an ***-whuppin' for his trouble when the baddie's friend showed up.