Why is Jump skill so useless?

[Beleriphon]

I agree with Liquidsabre wholeheartedley on this. Take a look at what Jackie Chan can do and that jump up to the 10ft branch off of the trunk is very feasible. I saw this programme the other day called "Jump Britain" and it was basically this bunch of guys doing some pretty amazing jumps all over the place and using the terrain to help facilitate these seemingly impossible feats.

Yup, its called free running, and is related in spirit to base jumping. Both are immensely dangerous, although free running is pretty cool stuff if you're good at it.

 

[Kilroy]

So you are playing a melee combat character with a base str and dex mod of +0. To me it would seem that your jumping ability should be the least of you troubles.

Haven't missed the Dex, AC 33 without it or any equipment. Low Str is a little irritating, but it's hard to convince the DM to let me reroll a character that has a +7 total stat mod. It hasn't been too bad because the character is mostly crowd control & healing, not damage, and the rest of the group is damage heavy. Even a huge str doesn't help much with Jump.

And instead of maxing out skills it is much more interesting (and in general more usefull) to be decent at a larger number of skills. If playing a monk (or rogue) I would always put 5 ranks in Balance, Jump and Tumble. You get +6 in synergy bonuses by doing that and for a normal monk (with dex and str) would be at around +10 in those skills (and thats before adding speed bonus to jump).

I have more than 5 in Jump and Tumble, and this is the second time in a year anyone has had to roll Balance checks, so I'm not about to waste points in that.

 

[monboesen]

Then its just a matter of gaming style.

Try taking over the dm hat for a while and show how to make a game that includes challenges that needs these skills to do well. It makes for much more exiting games.

And actually no I don't think jumping is to hard. Clearing 10 ft. straight up without a running start should IMO border on the impossible. And by the rules it is.

It equals standing in front of a one story house and in one leap, without prior motion, jump high enough to land standing on the roof.

But hey I like to keep my game a little toned down in comparision with the core.

 

[Klaus]

This would be a nice time to use the Complex Skill Checks from Unearthed Arcana. Say, roll four DC 30 Jump Checks before failing twice and you're 20 ft. up on the tree.

And hey, you can always Take 10. With your +24 Jump, that's a 34 result automatically.

 

[Asmor]

I'm unfamiliar with the double equals-sign. Does it mean something different from 1=2?

Can't speak with 100% certainty for him, but I do the same thing a lot of the time. It's a holdover from programming, something that just sorta gets knocked into your head. == just means that two things are equal (used in conditional statements, for example "if (x==1)" does something if x is equal to 1). A single equals sign in programming is used for setting a variable (i.e. "x=1" sets the variable x to equal 1).

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

.

This hasn't ever come up. If we're trying to get across jumpable hazards, we tend to have to get the whole party across. This means that we cast Fly on the heavy fighter and they ferry everyone else across, or up, or whatever. If we need to get there in a hurry, it's either Dimension Door time or we leave both fighters, the sorceror and the rog behind.

And that's all fine unless there's time pressure. (And you've been bending the DimDoor rules if you're bringing 2 fighters, a rogue, and a monk at your level).

This would work if it was possible to ready a move and an attack, which it isn't. I don't know if it's my DM's house rule or not, but a readied action only works for a move or a standard action, not both. It's un-possible to jump and grapple on a readied action. Any attacking flying creature is going to have reach and/or flyby attack, so it's never going to be 10 feet of the ground to be jumpable at without a readied action.

Your DM is right on the rules about readying. But, you're wrong about jumpability. A flying creature with reach will typically attack at the limit of its reach--so for a 10' reach flyer, F=flyier, P=party member, ####=ground, --= open space

Side view:

-FF
-FF
---
-P-
#####

In order to reach that creature, you really only need a vertical jump of five feet. Once you're in the square above your party member, the flyer F is within your reach. If you can reliably make 10 feet with a running jump, flyers with 15' reach are jumpable.

Flyby attack doesn't always make creatures immune either. Vertical movement is actually pretty limited by manueverability classes other than good or perfect so creatures executing flyby attacks will often only gain ten to fifteen feet of altitude after their attack. That's your opportunity.

This is what's irritating to me. I've been watching intently for dozens of games now, and I've never had a chance to use jump before this unfortunate incident. I was quite unpleasantly suprised that the first time I found something I thought might finally be jumpable, it wasn't.

I can see how that would be frustrating. How much terrain does your DM use? I found that games I run are MUCH more jump (and balance and tumble, etc) friendly when I use preprinted tiles with lots of details than when I just draw the outlines of a room on a battlemap.

 

[BSF]

I had been hoping to do something like this using Tumble, but the DM said no.

A DC 18 Balance check means I have to roll an 18, so that's not going to happen 3 times in a row. Yay for 3 skill points a level.

It just seemed stupid to me that the only good way a high level party had for dealing with foes 30' up trees was to cut down or blow up the trees, as ended up happening.

Wait a minute, 3 skill points a level as a monk? Wow, you have Int penalties? Monk gets 4 points/level.

In any case, it sounds like your DM needs to put jump opportunities into the game more often. If you have used the skill once in 13 levels, you are not getting much value out of it. That is a situation the DM can fix to emphasize your cool jumping.

 

[Gez]

Can't speak with 100% certainty for him, but I do the same thing a lot of the time. It's a holdover from programming.

Exactly. Writing 1==2 is perfectly legal, because in fact it's a question. "Is 1 equal to 2?". Writing 1=2 results in an error, because you cannot assign a value to a constant. (Even 2=2 is incorrect.) That's mostly a C-ism. IIRC, languages like Pascal and Delphi uses := for assignment and = for comparisons.

Programming languages are also the origin for ! meaning not. As in "X!=Y" meaning "Is X not-equal to Y?"...


To go back on topic, yes, Jump is usually useless. When I make acrobatic characters, they seldom have more than 5 ranks in Jump...

In the ELH, they said to increase synergy bonuses by +2 every 20 more ranks, i.e. 25 ranks give a +4 synergy bonus. I think about making that +1 every 10 more ranks, so a 15 in Jump would give +3 synergy bonus.

Also, for the speed modifier to jump checks, the RAW say this:

Your Jump check is modified by your speed. If your speed is 30 feet then no modifier based on speed applies to the check. If your speed is less than 30 feet, you take a –6 penalty for every 10 feet of speed less than 30 feet. If your speed is greater than 30 feet, you gain a +4 bonus for every 10 feet beyond 30 feet.​

I change bonus and penalty to -5 and +5. It's simpler and more consistant, and it helps getting higher Jump totals, making the skill more attractive.

 

[DarkMaster]

I can see how that would be frustrating. How much terrain does your DM use? I found that games I run are MUCH more jump (and balance and tumble, etc) friendly when I use preprinted tiles with lots of details than when I just draw the outlines of a room on a battlemap.

IMC jump, balance are very useful because of that reason. I draw everything on the battlemap so often the character will have the choice between spending the round climbing the massive tomb lying on the getting AoO from the opponent below or simply jump on it. Then a balance check DC 5 could be done for each action performed on top of it.

IMC during combat jump, balance, climb are used all the time, giving sometimes an edge to barbarian and ranger over straight tank fighter when fighting in difficult env.

The dwarf figther 10 in my campaign has almost maxed rank in jump and climb. It's funny to see the metal can climbing rock walls and jumping on table. I think she as something like 12 ranks in climb -6for armor +5 for strength and something similar in jump -6 for speed. +5 in jump usually allows you to hop on table or desk 55% of the time.

I think that the problem some of you have with jump you only use it to do exceptional leap as I use it for most mundane jump

 

[reanjr]

That's mostly a C-ism. IIRC, languages like Pascal and Delphi uses := for assignment and = for comparisons.

Correct, but in useful RAD languages (BASIC is the first thing to come to mind, but there are many, many others), you use = for both since there is no real use using different operators since a compiler can infer what you mean.

PHP (another C ripoff) actually has three such operators:
= assignment
== equality test
=== test for equality and type (int 1 !=== float 1)