Missing Rules

[Maxperson]

I guess I just don't see how 5e is fundamentally different that any previous edition in this regard. It is a traditional roleplaying game with a traditional player-GM relationship and a traditional set of resolution mechanics. It happens to expect a lot of work on the GM's part and tries to mitigate that by leaving a lot of thing up to the GM's gut and preferences, but the game does not come with a bunch of tools for shared world building, dramatic editing or other "new age" sorts of things we see in modern, less traditional games.

Roll to hit.

Roll Athletics.

See? No difference.

There is a difference. There are no rules for combat where you automatically hit by trying to. There are rules for jumping an automatic difference with ""I try to clear the 10-foot pit (goal) by jumping over it (approach)." The jumping rules kick in and you go your strength in distance. In order to go further, something further needs to be said that would overcome the use of the normal jump rules AND also engage the athletics rule that it be unusual for the extra distance to be allowed.

 

[Charlaquin]

The issue isn't your clarity. It's my puzzlement. I'm puzzled as to what you can think of that might be an example of a character using his/her musculature to jump further than the distance permitted by p 64, where the result is uncertain and hence a STR (Athletics) check is called for.

If you don't want to conjecture an answer because it's all contextual, that's fine - I understand the relevance of context - but that doesn't dispel my puzzlement! When I think myself into your approach to the interpretation of pp 59 and 64, I find myself unable to think of something which gives the text on p 59 work to do.

It's not really my job to think of examples of when that might be the case. It's the player's job to describe what their character's job is doing, and mine to apply the rules and my own judgment to determine the results, and then narrate them. But a few examples have popped up throughout the thread. Vaulting, parkour, springboards, adrenaline, whatever. Some of those might have a chance of success, chance of failure, and consequence for failure, in the right situation.

But that's not in issue. I've suggested an approach, namely, "I jump". Or, if one wants to be more colourful, "I jump, giving it all I've got!"

If your approach to clearing a gap that is wider than the distance you can jump as per page 64 is "I jump, giving it all I've got," my response is going to be, "The gap is wider than you can jump, so that's not going to work. Would you like to try a different approach?"

What's in issue is that you regard the rules on p 64 as making it certain that such an approach will fail to allow the character to clear any distance greater than that mentioned on p 64. Whereas I don't regard that as the most natural reading of p 64, particularly once p 59 is considered.

That is where our interpretations diverge, yes.

P 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".

I read that - in light of p 59, and in light also of the statement on pp 4 and 58 that a check is made when the outcome is uncertain - as saying that A character's STR determines how far s/he can jump with certainty, namely, a number of feet equal to his/her STR score. In other words, I read it not as stating a maximum but as stating a distance that can be covered with certainty.

I don't disagree. You can jump further than the distance you can jump with certainty. But to do so, you need to succeed at a Strength (Athletics) check, and to do that, you need an approach with a reasonable chance of success, reasonable chance of failure, and consequences for failure, and in my opinion, "I try as hard as I can" does not have those things.

 

[Maxperson]

I think one of the things going on here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the jump rules. They are not how far you can jump easily. There may be no roll, but the very first thing that is said in the jump section is, "Your strength determines how far you can jump." Not how far you can easily jump. Not how far you can jump with no effort. Just how far you can jump, period. If you have an 18 strength, all of your effort will garner you 18 feet. If you want to go an unusually far distance, you need to use athletics to presumably, do something athletic like jump off of a rock, or jump and pull yourself further along by grabbing a stalactite.

 

[pemerton]

Ok. So what is it that the character does differently to allow them to jump further than they can do with certainty?

Nothing. They don't have to.

In the real world it is certain that I can maintain a running pace of about 12 kph for about an hour. I know this because from time-to-time I do it. It is also possible, in the real world, that I might maintain that pace for an hour-and-a-half, but it's not certain. (I know this also, because between 10 and 20 km is my comfortable distance for a run - after that I get tired and old joint injuries start to play up.)

What do I do differently to have a chance of maintaining my pace for that extra half-hour? Nothing, other than think hard about my hips and thighs, concentrate on my breathing, and try not to get distacted (which disrupts those other things and causes me to slow my pace). Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn't. That's the nature of uncertain things.

I don't jump as much as I run, and mostly it's high-jumping (eg to scale fences and gates if keys have been locked in the house). Sometimes I can jump higher than others, depending on what seems to me like luck (given that I don't have a coach or the training on my own part to monitor and correct my technique) but is presumably a function of anything from placement of feet at launch, to whether I'm breathing in or out at a crucial moment, to what sort of movement I make with my ams, and probably all sort of other stuff that (for the reason just given) I can't identify or even think to speculate about.

So it's certain that with a single jump I can grab the top of, and reasonably quickly scale, a 6' fence, but a 7' fence (approximate figures only, but they'll do) is possible but not certain.

Given that, in the real world, physical performance sometimes exceeds what can be done with certainty, but doesn't always (that's what makes it an exceeding of the certain), I don't see why the gameworld should be any different.

People in this world can make double-digit foot long jumps with 100% certainty. Realism has never entered the equation.

There are two elements to the realism issue - (i) the distances, and (ii) the possibility of sometimes doing better than one can do with certainty.

Are the distances that can be jumped with certainty realistic? Frankly I think they're not too bad - really strong PCs (ie STR 18+) can jump with certainty distances that are, in historical terms and especially allowing for load and less than optimatl conditions, Olympic level. Ordinary people (ie STR 10 or thereabouts) can jump with certainty distances that I think are within cooee of the sorts of distances I and my non-athlete friends can jump with certainty.

Is it realistic that a person, by trying, can jump this distance with certainy, but with equal certainty can jump no further. That doesn't seem that realistic to me, and once we factor in the heroic nature of the genre it seems even less fitting for the game.

EDIT: I just saw this, which puts the issue front-and-centre in a pithy way:

To try just jumping like normal, when you're aware your best long jump wouldn't clear the distance?

You are taking p 64 to state a character's best jump, which s/he can also make with certainty. To me that doesn't fit with either experience or genre. The distance a character can clear with certainty may be a typical jump but is not his/her best. Whether, on any given jump, a person can jump his/her best is uncertain. (Even for professional athletes in the real world.) Hence the use of a STR (Athletics) check to get an answer.

FURTHER EDIT: I also saw this, which Charlaquin XPed and so presumably agrees with:

If you give a DC every time they say "Hey, I just want to roll athletics to go farther," they will do so every single time they hit a jump that is longer than their base distance. That means that going farther isn't going to be unusual, it's going to be the norm. There's no reason not to try to jump further at every single distance that's longer than automatic.

What's the objection to a player having his/her PC trying to jump further than normal every time s/he wants to? Does that seem unrealistic? No. Does it break the game, or even put it under strain? Almost certainly not. Does it mean (as you assert) that those longer jumps are not going to be unusual? Well, how often they are attempted will depend on how often those larger distances become salient in the ficiton, so in advance of actual play who can tell? But even if the attempts are quite frequent, who knows - in advance of setting a DC and making some rolls - what the frequency of success will be?

 

[iserith]

But that's not in issue. I've suggested an approach, namely, "I jump". Or, if one wants to be more colourful, "I jump, giving it all I've got!"

What's in issue is that you regard the rules on p 64 as making it certain that such an approach will fail to allow the character to clear any distance greater than that mentioned on p 64. Whereas I don't regard that as the most natural reading of p 64, particularly once p 59 is considered.

P 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".

I read that - in light of p 59, and in light also of the statement on pp 4 and 58 that a check is made when the outcome is uncertain - as saying that A character's STR determines how far s/he can jump with certainty, namely, a number of feet equal to his/her STR score. In other words, I read it not as stating a maximum but as stating a distance that can be covered with certainty.

Given that the human long jump record is over 29 feet for men, and over 24 feet for women, and that the winning jump at the 1896 Olympics was over 22 feet, I don't think that the outcome of an attempt by a muscled and athletically trained human in the D&D world to jump an 18' chasm is certain failure. Obviously, given the rule on p 64 and assuming less than 18 STR, it is not certainly successful either.

Hence it would be determined by a STR (Athletics) check made against an appropriate difficulty.

My reason for spelling this out is simply to demonstrate the point that what is at issue in this thread, at least as far as the current discussion is concerned, is not the proper way to adjudicate 5e, nor the closely related issue of whose job it is to call for checks, nor the issue of whether or not "I clear the chasm by jumping over it" states an approach to the goal of getting across the chasm - it manifestly does.

What is at issue is what the rule on p 64 makes certain and leaves uncertain. On this issue of jumping the chasm, that's the sole point of difference between me and @robus and I think @SkidAce, @5ekyu and @Reynard, on the one hand, and you and @Charlaquin on the other.

I still think this comes down to approach. There are two goals here, you might say: Jumping Normally and Jumping An Unusually Long Distance. You can certainly achieve the second goal, in some circumstances, given a viable approach. This might mean interacting with the terrain in some fashion that is unusual, getting the assistance of an ally, or using a resource that reasonably helps. The resolution of that outcome may or may not involve a Strength (Athletics) check. What is a viable approach requires context and, even if we're all looking at the same context, we may rule differently as to its viability. Some might say it works, others that it doesn't - no roll. Some might say it's uncertain and call for a check. Among those latter folk, the DCs may vary.

Do I think a character can jump an unusually long distance? Yes. The rules say it's possible. What matters is the approach they offer to achieve that goal.

 

[Maxperson]

If the meaning was not added by the failure, then the failure was not the source of meaning. That's what the formula demonstrates.

It doesn't have to be the source of it. Failure just has to have meaning, even if the source of the meaning is attributed to the failure from elsewhere.

The only example you gave was the spear throwing ogre one, and I demonstrated how the failure has a cost in that example.

And I demonstrated that the cost was identical to the cost of doing nothing.

 

[pemerton]

You can jump further than the distance you can jump with certainty. But to do so, you need to succeed at a Strength (Athletics) check, and to do that, you need an approach with a reasonable chance of success, reasonable chance of failure, and consequences for failure

What if the DC set is Medium (as I suggested uphread for making an 18' jump with a STR 15), and the character is not trained in Athletics and so has a +2 bonus on the check. The chance of success there is not reasonable - it's 40%. (And there is an obvious consequence for failure, namely, falling down the chasm!)

I don't understand why you think that people can never do better, in physical endeavours, than what they are capable of achieving with certainty in those endeavours. (I disregard the references to parkour, vaulting and springboards because (i) these seem to overlap somewhat with DEX (Acrobatics) checks and so muddy the waters, and (ii) they are different endeavours from trying to jump far.)

 

[5ekyu]

If you give a DC every time they say "Hey, I just want to roll athletics to go farther," they will do so every single time they hit a jump that is longer than their base distance. That means that going farther isn't going to be unusual, it's going to be the norm. There's no reason not to try to jump further at every single distance that's longer than automatic.

Of course there is, or can be.
A skill check can fail - leading to falling down on landing if the Gm so rules or *any other setback* the Gm sees as appropriate including going too far.
A skill check can (often does) take an action not occur as a default part of movement.
A simple read of the sentence under ability checks which tells you what happens if you do not make a skill check can give you some ideas as to why someone would not take the jump check every time.

I think one of the things going on here is a fundamental misunderstanding of the jump rules. They are not how far you can jump easily. There may be no roll, but the very first thing that is said in the jump section is, "Your strength determines how far you can jump." Not how far you can easily jump. Not how far you can jump with no effort. Just how far you can jump, period. If you have an 18 strength, all of your effort will garner you 18 feet. If you want to go an unusually far distance, you need to use athletics to presumably, do something athletic like jump off of a rock, or jump and pull yourself further along by grabbing a stalactite.

You are very correct... just like how the rule on casting curelight wounds says it takes an action... but the spell on sorcery metamagic says it might be castable with a bonus action by using quicken spell on cure light wounds.

Similarly, the athletics skill defined in the mysterious "Ability Checks" says you can jump unusually long distances. just like the jump spell increasing your jump distance.

The same section about jumping by strength defines your movement using jump as a part of your move... no fail, no check, nothing else at play there... but there are a lot of rules in the game that alter that baseline - one of them is the athletics skill examples.



The rules for jumping in movement are the safest.

I realize it wasn't you but someone said it was a judgement at their table that everyone always tries as hard as they can...

Anyone with any experience in even athletics to the extent of casual bowling, golf, baseball, tennis or dozens of dozens of others knows this is one of the first thing someone is told by a coach.

Almost exclusively (above even a moderate point tho that point grows obviously as the physique and training improve) more power costs precision, more power produces more exhaustion and more power produces greater risk. Anyone proficient with athletics (speaking character) knows this.as they have seen it in play. the key to athletics and exertion is to spend the energy one needs to the task and no more - and jumping is one case where that is actually reflected in the rules with a defined "safe, no fail (except for terrain induced) and as part of movement action economy defined limits" and also a athletics skill check to jump "unusually long" - unusually not referring to the frequency of them making the jump obviously, but the length.


But Gms are free to interpret whatever rules however they want and decide which they use and which they dont and which ones to "still claim Raw" and yet assign DC40s to.

So, no biggie as long as their players buy that.

All is good.

 

[Maxperson]

What's the objection to a player having his/her PC trying to jump further than normal every time s/he wants to? Does that seem unrealistic? No. Does it break the game, or even put it under strain? Almost certainly not. Does it mean (as you assert) that those longer jumps are not going to be unusual? Well, how often they are attempted will depend on how often those larger distances become salient in the ficiton, so in advance of actual play who can tell? But even if the attempts are quite frequent, who knows - in advance of setting a DC and making some rolls - what the frequency of success will be?

It makes the leaps with extra distance usual, not unusual as the rules say. Do I think it's unrealistic to go variable distances with effort? No. Does it break the game? No. That isn't the rules, though, and this is a rules discussion. I also prefer that the players to describe their actions to me like [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION]. I'm trying to get one of my players over the bad habit(personal opinion) of just asking to roll certain skills. All my asking of "How?" is starting to sink in, and he's catching himself more and more often.

 

[pemerton]

I still think this comes down to approach. There are two goals here, you might say: Jumping Normally and Jumping An Unusually Long Distance.

I don't accept that those are different goals. That's reading the mechanics back into the ficiton in what I regard as a highly artificial way. And in fact I don't accept that these are goals.

The goal is to get from A to B (in this thread's example, to get across the chasm). The approach is to jump. (As opposed to vaulting, or climbing down and back up, or springboarding across, or flying, or whatever other approach might be attempted within the magical and heroic world of D&D.)

The notions of distance that can be jumped with certainty and distance that is unusually long for a jump, and hence not able to be cleared with certainty pertain neither to goal nor approach. They are features of the situation which inform the GM's method of adjudication. (Analogous to whether a person is sleeping, and hence liable to have his/her throat slit with no check required; or what a creature's AC is.)