D&D (2024) Survey Launch | Player's Handbook Playtest 5 | Unearthed Arcana | D&D

[Incenjucar]

Why could you not do this now?

Jumping any appreciable distance requires "move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump".

 

[Justice and Rule]

@Incenjucar

Would you want something like what you are talking about to be dependent on a skills check or simply something you can "do" if you hit the prereqs? Like, what would I need to be able to Jackie-Chan off some walls and parkour up them? Is that a skill, a feat, or just a climb speed?

 

[Incenjucar]

@Incenjucar

Would you want something like what you are talking about to be dependent on a skills check or simply something you can "do" if you hit the prereqs? Like, what would I need to be able to Jackie-Chan off some walls and parkour up them? Is that a skill, a feat, or just a climb speed?

It should at least be available to high-level athletic characters, animals that do it IRL (and thus wildshape), and super mobile classes and subclasses, even if it takes a feat in some cases. Rogues and rangers leap-climbing makes a lot of sense, for example, and dolphins can jump 25' into the air - even a 10' leap would make swim speeds a lot more interesting as a feature.

 

[Justice and Rule]

It should at least be available to high-level athletic characters, animals that do it IRL (and thus wildshape), and super mobile classes and subclasses, even if it takes a feat in some cases. Rogues and rangers leap-climbing makes a lot of sense, for example, and dolphins can jump 25' into the air - even a 10' leap would make swim speeds a lot more interesting as a feature.

Having it as a feat would work well with the new leveled Feat System. Maybe give it to certain classes/subclasses automatically (Monks once they can run up walls, Rogues when they get Second Story Work, maybe Rangers when they get Roving), then put it behind a Parkour feat at like 8th level for others. Other classes could do it normally as an Athletics/Acrobatics check, but obviously there is a difference between being able to do it sometimes and just do it whenever you feel.

Edit: It feels like this would basically work as an asterisk to put on some creatures/classes with an intrinsic Climb Speed and/or Swim Speed.

 

[Stalker0]

1. This is attacking the idea that you would have to create a completely new combat system, which is hysterics: we are talking about changing a specific type of movement and adapting creatures that use that type of movement to new rules. Yet you were talking about how we are essentially changing the entire system. That is a completely overblown response.

To be fair, again our main example in dnd of a more "realistic" fly system is 3.5's.....which is horrible. It sucks and is the worst form of rules complexity without much gain. I have run a lot of 3.5 into the high levels, and the fly rules were not only slow as all get out, people inevitably ran them wrong anyway.

Now that is not to say that there isn't something inbetween....but we do have to respect that 5e has been the streamlined edition. Many many many rules have been simplified and streamlined in 5e, often at the loss of some amount of "realism", flying is but a single casualty on that list. The general consensus for 5e has been a resounding success, in general players seem to be fine giving up a lot of those complex rules in favor of dm calls and simplier rules.

So asking for more complexity is a swimming a bit up stream here, and its questionable whether that kind of complexity really serves the edition.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Jumping any appreciable distance requires "move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump".

It’s an acrobatic stunt my dude, not a long jump. Making a long or high jump requires moving first. Jumping back and forth between walls to move upward parkour style is neither of those.

This is the source of a lot of the disconnects wrt D&D skills, though.

The rules books are not intended to tell you everything you can do. They’re a guide, and give examples.

 

[Incenjucar]

It’s an acrobatic stunt my dude, not a long jump. Making a long or high jump requires moving first. Jumping back and forth between walls to move upward parkour style is neither of those.

This is the source of a lot of the disconnects wrt D&D skills, though.

The rules books are not intended to tell you everything you can do. They’re a guide, and give examples.

I am firmly in the "the more the DM has to decide, the more the designers have failed" camp.

 

[Justice and Rule]

To be fair, again our main example in dnd of a more "realistic" fly system is 3.5's.....which is horrible. It sucks and is the worst form of rules complexity without much gain. I have run a lot of 3.5 into the high levels, and the fly rules were not only slow as all get out, people inevitably ran them wrong anyway.

I was more pointing to 3.5E as an example, but I get what you are saying. I think there is still plenty of room to maneuver in here given that 5E basically has almost no rules restrictions on flight as is.

Now that is not to say that there isn't something inbetween....but we do have to respect that 5e has been the streamlined edition. Many many many rules have been simplified and streamlined in 5e, often at the loss of some amount of "realism", flying is but a single casualty on that list. The general consensus for 5e has been a resounding success, in general players seem to be fine giving up a lot of those complex rules in favor of dm calls and simplier rules.

So asking for more complexity is a swimming a bit up stream here, and its questionable whether that kind of complexity really serves the edition.

I feel like there are a lot of people who find the overall resolution system to be fun, but actually do want more complexity. I mean, how many topics are about creating more defined usages for things. Heck, just look at some of the topics in this sub-forum! I remember almost immediately after launch people wanted more out of the skill system, and I know I went out of my way to do that myself.

I think this is doubly so with monsters and how they work. 5E isn't terrible with its monsters (CR aside), but there are plenty of things about them (especially ones without lair actions or legendary actions) that could be improved. If there is anything that could honestly go through a full change without actually changing as much as you'd think (especially from a player-facing perspective), it'd be creatures.

 

[Chaosmancer]

1. This is attacking the idea that you would have to create a completely new combat system, which is hysterics: we are talking about changing a specific type of movement and adapting creatures that use that type of movement to new rules. Yet you were talking about how we are essentially changing the entire system. That is a completely overblown response.

And was nested in my misunderstanding of what you wanted when you declared you wanted the dragon to have to line up their attacks. Look, I'm sorry you proposed things in a way that made me think you were making a different proposal, but I tried very hard to keep that "you are making a different combat system" contained to that idea of wind-up attacks that take an entire turn to use. It had nothing to do with the movement rules.

Also, again, saying that someone is being hysterical IS a personal attack.

1. But that is attacking your argumentation. You're not actually engaging with what I'm saying, you're creating whole strawmen about how this would change the entire system. That to me is "crying" and that's not a personal attack as much as a commentary on your argument.

I'm not creating strawmen. At worst, I misunderstood a single part of the argument, which I've already acknowledged and sought clarity on.

Also, again, a commentary of "you are crying/whining" is STILL a personal attack.

1. It's to your question, which is inane. That is not attacking you, it's attacking your line of attack, which is bad. The whole "Do elephants and horses move in the same manner?" is inane because it has no bearing on the actual discussion at hand, but is meant to draw the entire thing off into a tangential argument about debating making a change in the first place. That debate was already settled when some of us chose to engage with the idea of changing flight in the first place.

You keep saying how you aren't making slippery slope arguments, but that entire question and focus on "Why not other ones?" is very much a slippery slope, even if you want to deny. We are focusing on flying because that's what we are focusing on. I don't need a meta-discussion on why this instead of other things because that is a different topic and if you want to engage on it, feel free to make it.

However, given how you've wanted to draw this entire argument not into a discussion of how but into why despite me explaining very clearly my reasoning for why, I'm done with whatever discussion was here.

A slippery slope argument is one that takes the presented argument, and extrapolates it out to absurdity. Like "Requiring students to wear uniforms will cause an economic depression, because then they won't buy clothing, and clothing stores will close, which will put people out of work.." and on and on.

At worst, my points could be a whataboutism, but my entire point STOPS after one step. There is no slope. It stops with the question "why change only flight?" And sure, you can say that the reason to stop with flight is because you want to change flight, but when asked why you want to change flight the answers you gave revealed goals that, to me, don't actually require changing flight.

And all your indignation at me questioning you and pointing out things like that different types of movement between land-based creatures aren't modeled comes across to me as "sit down, shut up, and accept my rule changes are unambiguously good and have no flaws". I've offered alternatives even, to demonstrate how some of what you want could be achieved with only monster design. Because I do agree with your end goal, as I understand it. I just think your method is flawed and causes more burden on the GM than is necessary or desirable.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I am firmly in the "the more the DM has to decide, the more the designers have failed" camp.

Yeah, I will say, one of my most frustrating gripes is that there has never been any guidance on how to use athletics to increase jumping distance or to increase lifting capacity. I really hope that is something that they fix in OD&D, because even if they guidance sucks it will at least give me a baseline to start from.