Second-Guessing Myself: Allow Teleporting While Falling?

[Nullzone]

Er, I'm not sure where what I said is at odds with you; of course you can't end in midair. Unless you mean that if your jump clears 4 squares but the gap is 6, then you can "arc down" using the remaining squares of your move action?

 

[delericho]

Er, I'm not sure where what I said is at odds with you; of course you can't end in midair. Unless you mean that if your jump clears 4 squares but the gap is 6, then you can "arc down" using the remaining squares of your move action?

Not quite what I was getting at. Suppose you have a single Move action free, a movement rate of 6, and you want to jump 7 squares.

Well, you can't do it - even if your Athletics modifier is absurdly high. Because the character runs out of movement before reaching the other side, he falls - regardless of the Athletics check.

But, as I said, just a nitpick to your statement that "your speed is totally irrelevant".

 

[Nullzone]

Not quite what I was getting at. Suppose you have a single Move action free, a movement rate of 6, and you want to jump 7 squares.

Well, you can't do it - even if your Athletics modifier is absurdly high. Because the character runs out of movement before reaching the other side, he falls - regardless of the Athletics check.

But, as I said, just a nitpick to your statement that "your speed is totally irrelevant".

Oh, right. I was generally waving off speed due to the fact that even a natural 20 on a jump check with a running start isn't likely to give you more jump squares than your natural movement. Sorry for being unclear.

 

[Mengu]

I was of the impression that 4e didn't actually have any concept of a "double move" - it was just "one move after another".

You were under the wrong impression then. There are specific rules for a double move, you can search for it in the compendium, don't want to paste the entire text here wholesale.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they allow this by RAW. I'm pretty sure (but not 100%, and don't have my PHB to hand), that there is no Jump action, but rather that jumping is something you do as part of other movement.

This means that you can include a jump as part of a Charge action. And that in turn means that you can Move (including jump) followed by Charge (including jump), to perform that "long charge" you just described, including the attack at the end.

Yes jumping is part of a move action. Say you are speed 5, your enemy is 10 squares away. There is a chasm that starts at 3 squares and ends at 7 squares. You want to charge the enemy. By RAW, you can't. First you have to take a move action, then you have to charge. The move action of 5 squares (part of which is a jump) puts you in mid-air, and you fall. If you were speed 7, you would be able to land at the end of the jump, so you don't end in mid-air. And you would then be able to use your standard action to charge the target now 3 squares away.

You cannot combine a move and a charge into the same action. They are always two separate actions.

In fact, it would even be possible, by RAW, to Charge (including jump) followed by Move (including jump), in order to use a melee attack against an opponent flying in the middle of that chasm.

It's not covered because there's no need. You just Move and then Charge (or Charge and then Move).

Yes you can charge something in midair (I did mention in an earlier post I allow this). But for one, when you end your charge action in midair, you fall. And secondly, a charge action ends your turn, so you cannot take further actions.

You can end a move action in midair and not fall if you can fly.

The only question is whether Jump is a separate action, or if jumping is merely something you do as part of other movement.

Jumping is part of a move action. The distance you jump cannot be split into two move actions, *unless* the are the same move action in which case they can be combined into the same double move action. Move and a charge are two different actions, and cannot be combined.

A charge is a standard action, if your speed is 5 and you move before charging you can absolutely end up 10 squares from where you started which you describe as a "double move attackish thing".

Yes, you can do this during your turn. But this is not a single action. It is two actions. At the end of each action, you must be standnig on solid ground.

As for using this method to jump a canyon, your speed is totally irrelevant since your Athletics check determines how many squares you clear. And yes, I would totally allow someone to make an Athletics check to clear a gap in the middle of a charge if it made sense.

You may allow it. It is not the rules. See my example to delericho above.

To simply say "Ok, you jump and miss. You fall." as though the PC is paralyzed as he falls and is unable to do anything else until he hits the ground, especially when he has the magical physics-defying ability to instantly move from point A to point B without crossing the space in between is so terribly bizarre.

If he could use that ability as a free action (such as with Feyleaf Sandals), then sure he could save himself from falling. But it is a standard action, so no.

If there were 5 dire bats in midair over a chasm, and the first level eladrin monk wanted to jump up in the air over the chasm, then use Masterful Spiral to attack all of the dire bats, then action point and feystep onto solid ground, would you allow that? I mean sure, it sounds awesome, but if you could do this, what would be the point of flying?

You cannot take a standard action in midair, unless you're flying, or some other power allows you to do so.

Just because it isn't explicitly written in the rules doesn't mean it can't be done.

In matters not covered by the rules, sure. The rules are a framework for conflict resolution. If I can find an answer to a conflict in that framework, I will use it. If not, then I'll come up with another solution. I realize my opinion differs from many others here, but being awesome is not a license to ignore the rules.

 

[delericho]

You were under the wrong impression then. There are specific rules for a double move, you can search for it in the compendium,

No I can't - not a DDI subscriber. I'll check my PHB when I get home.

Yes jumping is part of a move action. Say you are speed 5, your enemy is 10 squares away. There is a chasm that starts at 3 squares and ends at 7 squares. You want to charge the enemy. By RAW, you can't. First you have to take a move action, then you have to charge. The move action of 5 squares (part of which is a jump) puts you in mid-air, and you fall. If you were speed 7, you would be able to land at the end of the jump, so you don't end in mid-air. And you would then be able to use your standard action to charge the target now 3 squares away.

If this is an accurate reading of the rules, then the rules are, quite simply, idiotic.

Yes you can charge something in midair (I did mention in an earlier post I allow this). But for one, when you end your charge action in midair, you fall. And secondly, a charge action ends your turn, so you cannot take further actions.

I had overlooked that a charge ended your turn. My mistake.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Neonchameleon: the teleport power was an Effect before the attack roll of the encounter attack power.

chitzk0i: the pit was 6 squares across and the enemy was 1 square in (7 distance) - the teleport was only 5 squares.

delericho: just to clarify, he did a move (the jump) and a standard (encounter attack power).

Nullzone: reminders like that make me want to get the new DM screen so I can have the charts at hand easier

UngeheuerLich: I feel like I have to re-read the PHB at least now - I missed all of those cases you mention


I was a little nervous about setting a cheesy precedent, but it seems that everyone so far is saying it'd be allowed in some fashion or another.

Thank you, everyone, for showing me that 1) I'm not crazy and 2) there is ample reason to let the action happen w/o additional hindrance.

Actually rereading may not be the optimal choice... it is totally possible that the PHB states that you fall, when you end a move action midair...

on the other hand, i see no problem using a standard action midair that allows a teleport to finish the move... and end the fall. It may depend how you interpret the act of falling:

is it
move --> end move mid air ---> start falling ----> use another action ----> land (take damage)
or is it
move --> end move mid air ---> start falling ----> land (take damage)----> use another action

my gut feeling says, as long as you have enough time to fall before landing, everything is fine. So the ruling with the saving throw if the time is short seems appropriate... (especially if you jumped and notice that you are too short while beeing at the highest point of the jump and thevertical velocity is low)

In 3.x i may have ruled to make a concentration check for vigorous motion/heavy wind... An arcana check or a dexterity check may also be an alternative.

 

[Nullzone]

A saving throw like the OP did really isn't a bad way to go with it, either. It's conceptually "are you quick enough to teleport before you get blown back by the wind", which fits just fine if you want to keep some difficulty curve. I'd have accepted that if I was the one wanting to teleport, no problem; just that if I were DMing I'd have probably just allowed them to teleport since it's limited function and doesn't really cheese the mechanic that much (and I have other ways of reinstating it, like I said above).

 

[eamon]

Jumping is part of a move action. The distance you jump cannot be split into two move actions, *unless* the are the same move action in which case they can be combined into the same double move action. Move and a charge are two different actions, and cannot be combined.

This has been erratad - jumping is is now "usually" part of a move action, but could be part of any action involving movement. The blurb saying you can split a jump with a double move is also still there.

I still think it's entirely reasonable to allow splitting a jump across other action types too - the double move simply happens to be the only one explicitly allowed.

Again, the rules don't cover everything because they (explicitly) rely on the DM to handle corner cases - that's not because they're "idiotic", it's because they're necessarily limited in scope. The player should have asked the DM whether he could teleport mid-air before attempting the maneuver, but it's not an unreasonable request.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

A D&D character can't jump and throw a ball mid-jump - by RAW anyhow, assuming throwing is a standard action.

There's a good reason the rules don't cover it - doing something mid-jump is complex and rare, and it's not worth the bother nor the risk of imbalanced abuses.

Basketball says, "Hi."

 

[Nullzone]

If there were 5 dire bats in midair over a chasm, and the first level eladrin monk wanted to jump up in the air over the chasm, then use Masterful Spiral to attack all of the dire bats, then action point and feystep onto solid ground, would you allow that? I mean sure, it sounds awesome, but if you could do this, what would be the point of flying?

I might allow it. He can't do it every round, and he burns a lot of resources to make it happen. But I might not, because attacking something in mid air is complicated, and if you can't fly you probably don't have enough control over your own momentum to do it effectively.*

* Before anyone starts wondering how this is different from the OP: you understand that the monster(s) in the OP's case were on the opposite ledge, right? And that the power he used teleported him before the attack, leaving him on solid ground while attacking?