The jump skill

StGabriel

First Post
I think the jump skill really needs work.

BTW, I'm a former collegiate long jumper and triple jumper.

That said, there are two problems I find with jump. First of all, the minimum jump is way too short (for your average somewhat athletic person). Secondly, it has WAY too much variance (a problem with a lot of skills actually, but more empirically obvious here than anywhere). Oh, I'm talking about the distances attainable when making a running broad jump.

So, let's assume a person (human) is quite athletic, with an 18 strength, but no actually training in jumping. They will jump only 5 feet with 30% of their jumps, yet some of the time, they will jump as far 17 feet. I argue that they should be able to jump much farther at a minimum, and their jumps should tend to vary in length by only a few feet.

An average adult who can run at a decent clip would have a stride of 6-7 feet (i.e. 6-7 feet between running steps). I have seen 12 year olds jump over 12 feet. These are normal, somewhat athletic, but not particularly talented kids. Meanwhile, 17 feet is a decent jump for a high school kid that isn't particularly skilled, and a high school age student that was rather good would jump 21 feet+. Division I college jumpers would need to jump over 25 feet to be competitive. World class jumpers would close in on 30 feet.

So, it should be obvious from that, that somewhat athletic folk should, at a minimum, always be able to jump 10 feet. That is only a 3 foot stretch added to the average man's stride, and is something that an only slightly athletic adolescent could manage just fine. Also there is a lot less variance. A novice high school jumper might jump 17 feet, a very good one 22 feet. If the novice jumped 17 as his best effort, his lessor efforts would all be within a couple of feet, i.e. he would never jump only 12 feet unless he REALLY screwed up (something that would likely happen less than 1 in 100 times, a critical fumble at best). It really should be a lot easier to consistently jump around 15 feet. As the rules stand, that has a DC of 20. Even a rather skilled and athletic jumper (say 18str and 6 jump skill) would fail to jump even that far half the time and would jump 7 feet or less (shorter than or equal to their running step) on 1 in 10 jumps.

To be completely honest, strength plays way too little of a role in the distance a person can jump (according to 3e rules that is). Very good technique will at best add only a couple of feet to the distance one can jump, most of the distance is due to momentum from the run-up and ability to propel oneself upward without losing speed, both of which are mostly strength-dependent. Skill more than anything simply allows one to get inches here and there on the landing, and to consistently take off from the right spot while still running quickly.

This came up because a character of mine was recently put into the position of having to cross a 10 foot river. My first reaction was: that's not much, we can just jump that. Upon looking at the player's handbook though, I saw that I'd only make the jump around 50% of the time (with a +4 bonus to jump I'd need an 11). I thought this was rather ridiculous.

Anyhow, take what wisdom you will out of that, and let me know what you think.

---
StGabriel, the Taoist saint.
 

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All your points are valid in a real-world situation. But since physics, chemistry, biology, geography, economics, et al do not work in the D&D world as they do in ours, it's reasonable to suppose that jumping mechanics wouldn't approximate to reality either. If you want to try for a more balanced, realistic system, more power to you. But I don't think it really adds to the game in any substantial way. YMMV.
 

I agree that the jump skill produces unrealistic numbers. I don't think the designers really looked at any real world data when coming up with some of those difficulty numbers.

If you come up with something better, all the more power to you. Don't forget to figure in the affects of encumberance and armor penalties when trying to rework the skill.

As for track and field, you have to remember that you are at no encumberance when doing that jumping. Most adventurers carry from about 20lbs (mages, monks, rogues) to 90lbs or more (fighters with armor and weaponry) of equipment.

Personally, I find the 'its a magical world, so we don't have to pay attention to reality' arguement weak unless we are talking about very highly skilled people, feats, or magic. Do not try to reality check the Monk's abilities, but it should be OK to reality check a normal human's abilities with ranks in the skill. I also wouldn't recommend reality checking the 10th-12th level rogues abilities.
 

Tell me the results of a real-world running broad jump if you are in a dimly lit stone corridor that is slightly damp, or on a hillside with lots of loose rubble? In my opinion, that is the reason for why it is so variable, because otherwise you would have to track way too many variables to arrive at a reasonable DC. Side argument to that is the spell Jump. If you up the ability of a human to jump non-magically, they will be able to achieve far too much distance with Jump.
 

Without going too much into detail... how far do you think can you jump without being prone? Another reason for more variables.

It's a game and a stress situation (Usually).
 

well . . .

Well, while reality should not be the final arbiter, in my opinon, in order to keep compaigns plausible I do think that one should use reality as a guide as often as possible.

All the things you mention are situational modifiers. All of my discussion assumed no such modifiers.

Regarding stress: my best jumps were ALWAYS when I scared to death. Seriously. Stress yields adrenaline which is never a bad thing.

Regarding armor and encumbrance: skill penalties should be doubled for jumping or should be directly subtracted from the minimum jump, and negative rolls should subtract from the minimum jump. Still, a person in full plate can basically nearly 6 feet and can certainly step it.

So, I guess I should present a system. How about this:

Your minimum jump is 10ft + strength bonus - armor penalty. You gain 1 foot per 3 points on a skill check. Negative rolls subtract from the total distance. The minimum jumping distance for a person wearing heavy armor is 6ft, the minimum jumping distance for someone wearing medium is 8ft, the minimum for light or no armor is 10ft.

So, suppose a person wearing light armor jumps, having a jump bonus of +8 and a strength bonus of +2. Their minimum distance is 12 feet. They roll a d20 and get a 15 for a total of 23. That earns them an extra 7ft for a total jump of 19ft.

Later the same person jumps wearing medium armor (skill penalty -6, is there such an armor? no PHB on me). Their base jump is 6ft. They roll a 1. Adding their new bonus of +4, they only add 1ft to their jump for a jump. But their minimum overall jump with medium armor is 8ft and so they travel that far.

Jumping 25 feet with an 18str and light armor would require a roll of 33, but then that would be a competitive division I jumper. 30ft (world record class), would require a 48, which is a bit excessive perhaps but then .... no adventurer would have time to train like world class athletes, and that would be much more attainable with very high strength scores or movement rates or more than 30'.

---
StGabriel, the Taoist saint.
 

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