Missing Rules

[pemerton]

A simple resource a character might use is a jump spell or boots of striding and springing.

This seems to further reduce the significance of the Athletics skill. These are ways of increasing the automatic jump distance, not of making something uncertain and thus warranting a check.

 

[iserith]

And it's not clear to me why the resolution of that second declaration is simply to look up the rules for distance automatically jumped, rather than also the rules (under ability checks) for whether a jump can go beyond that automatic distance.

Page 59 says "Your Strength (Athletics) check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, or swimming. Examples include . . . try[ing] to jump an unusually long distance".

Page 64 says "Your Strength determines how far you can jump. . . . When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score".

These two bits of rules text need to be reconciled. I don't think your approach to reconciliation is the only one, and it seems to reduce the significance of Athletics as a skill choice.

These rules are both nested in the overall rules for how to play. There is no Athletics check without an accompanying goal (jump an unusually long distance) and approach (?) that the DM can judge and determine whether and which mechanics come into play. Where people appear to differ is on what approach is seen as viable.

 

[iserith]

This seems to further reduce the significance of the Athletics skill. These are ways of increasing the automatic jump distance, not of making something uncertain and thus warranting a check.

There are plenty of times when the DM might say a Strength (Athletics) check needs to be made to resolve an action described by the player. It's easily the proficiency that comes up the most in the game in my experience, second only to Wisdom (Perception). I don't see how these spells or items meaningfully "reduce the significance of the Athletics skill." If you can cast a jump spell and avoid the risk associated with rolling a d20, that's a pretty good choice to make if someone's life's on the line and you can afford the spell slot. Not to mention, it's a rare player that will cast jump at all in my experience, leave alone enough to somehow "reduce the significance of the Athletics skill."

 

[pemerton]

It’s not about specific phrasing, it’s about giving the DM enough information to make a judgment call about the results.

<snip>

“I make an Athletics check to jump further than I normally can” actually does give me enough information. Your goal is to cover more ground than you can normally jump, and your method is by jumping. From that description of what your character is doing, it is my job as DM to determine what the results are, and skill checks are a tool to help me make that determination in the case of an uncertain outcome. Personally, I would say that your approach, “jump” does not have a reasonable chance of success at achieving your goal, “cover more ground than I can by jumping,”

I don't really understand this call. Covering more ground than I normally can by jumping is not the ame as covering more ground than I can by jumping. In the player's action declaration, the word "normally" is doing work, but your adjudication seems to pay no regard to it.

I think the reasonableness of the player's action declaration would only be reinforced if s/he had read p 59 of the Basic rules, which talks about the sorts of actions that can be resolved by a STR check, and includes jumping an unusually long distance as one of them.

It says the players describe what their characters do. Making an Athletics check is not something the character does, that’s something the player does to resolve uncertainty in the outcome of something the character does.

I think this is consistent with the general trend in 5e to empower magical over "mundane" solutions to problems.

A player can declare "I cast such-and-such a spell" and that is something the character does, which also triggers certain mechanical consequences set out in the spell description. But when it comes to "mundane" solutions (ie ability/skill checks) the player can only describe an in-fiction behaviour and the determinations about mechanics all fall to the GM.

 

[iserith]

I think the reasonableness of the player's action declaration would only be reinforced if s/he had read p 59 of the Basic rules, which talks about the sorts of actions that can be resolved by a STR check, and includes jumping an unusually long distance as one of them.

But when it comes to "mundane" solutions (ie ability/skill checks)

Ability checks aren't solutions.

 

[AlViking]

I don't have any particular preference for how "in-character" a player is at the table, depending on your definition of that word. I just need a goal and an approach which can be communicated through active or descriptive roleplaying.

I think "I make a perception and listen in on the conversation" tells me plenty. Or "I investigate the symbols" or "I make an athletics check to jump the chasm" are all fine.

But I think this whole conversation has gone on for far too long. Nobody I actually play with has any of these problems.

 

[pemerton]

These rules are both nested in the overall rules for how to play. There is no Athletics check without an accompanying goal (jump an unusually long distance) and approach (?) that the DM can judge and determine whether and which mechanics come into play. Where people appear to differ is on what approach is seen as viable.

I take the main difference to be about what is uncertain.

You (and [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION]) seem to think that it is certain that, everything else being equal, a character can't jump further than what the rules on p 64 state. Hence a declaration (say by the player of a PC with 15 STR) "I jump across the 18' wide chasm" is, in your view, uncertain in its outcome.

But my view is that the presence of p 59 in the rulebook means that the outcome of that action declaration is not certain. It is not certain that the PC makes the jump (because it is further than the distance mentioned on p 64) but nor is it certain that the jump fails (becuse p 59 says that characters can try and jump unusual distances, and that STR is the ability score that is checked to determine the outcome of such attempts).

Being uncetain, the general procedures of play call for a check.

 

[iserith]

Nobody I actually play with has any of these problems.

To which problems are you referring?

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't really understand this call. Covering more ground than I normally can by jumping is not the ame as covering more ground than I can by jumping. In the player's action declaration, the word "normally" is doing work, but your adjudication seems to pay no regard to it.

The word “normally” may be doing work in the goal, but no such work is being done in the approach. Tell me what if is about your jump that makes it abnormal, and I’ll be open to the possibility that it could succeed in the goal of allowing to get farther than you can by jumping normally.

I think the reasonableness of the player's action declaration would only be reinforced if s/he had read p 59 of the Basic rules, which talks about the sorts of actions that can be resolved by a STR check, and includes jumping an unusually long distance as one of them.

Again though, jumping an unusually long distance is a goal that can be achieved with a successful Athletics check, but to make an Athletics check, you need an approach with a reasonable chance of succeeding at that goal. Jumping normally does not, in my assessment, have a reasonable chance of succeeding at jumping an abnormally long distance. You may rule otherwise at your table, and that’s fine.

I think this is consistent with the general trend in 5e to empower magical over "mundane" solutions to problems.

A player can declare "I cast such-and-such a spell" and that is something the character does, which also triggers certain mechanical consequences set out in the spell description. But when it comes to "mundane" solutions (ie ability/skill checks) the player can only describe an in-fiction behaviour and the determinations about mechanics all fall to the GM.

If your argument is that 5e would benefit from more canned actions that aren’t spells, I don’t disagree, but this thread was about whether or not specific DCs should be listed for jump distances.

 

[iserith]

I take the main difference to be about what is uncertain.

You (and @Charlaquin) seem to think that it is certain that, everything else being equal, a character can't jump further than what the rules on p 64 state. Hence a declaration (say by the player of a PC with 15 STR) "I jump across the 18' wide chasm" is, in your view, uncertain in its outcome.

No, that's a certain outcome. The PC fails to clear that distance.

But my view is that the presence of p 59 in the rulebook means that the outcome of that action declaration is not certain. It is not certain that the PC makes the jump (because it is further than the distance mentioned on p 64) but nor is it certain that the jump fails (becuse p 59 says that characters can try and jump unusual distances, and that STR is the ability score that is checked to determine the outcome of such attempts).

Being uncetain, the general procedures of play call for a check.

The referenced action declaration is incomplete. It lacks an approach to the goal. So while the rules say it is possible to jump an unusually long distance, it doesn't say how exactly. That it may be resolved with a Strength (Athletics) check gives us some idea of what that might entail, but there is not enough detail to say what the character is actually doing. The player needs to establish this by describing his or her action fully so the DM can judge whether an ability check is appropriate (because the outcome is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence of failure) and what DC to set. I'd even make clear the stakes here as DM so the player is aware of what's on the line, but there's no overt suggestion to do that in the D&D 5e rules so far as I know.