DemiBee's page

If memory serves, this will be something like the 2nd or 3rd of these games I've had the pleasure of playing in at previous PaizoCons. Always worth it! I want to say last year my starting character got killed off and I ended up playing as a pirate's monkey familiar. Did I mention, worth it?!

If we're going to get technical, then stepping from the last foot of 0 to the first foot of 4 means 16ft of travel; 5+5+5+1 = 16. You cannot move 16 feet with a result of 15. If you somehow leap from the last foot of 0 and travel 15 feet, that puts you on the last foot of 3...which is open air...meaning you are 1 short of the DC so need to make a Reflex Save to catch yourself or else fall.

But see that's the point. The game doesn't measure by the foot. It measures by squares. If you are in Square 0, then the next square is 5 feet away. The square after that is 10 feet away and so on. So to go from 0 to 4, you MUST move yourself 20 feet.

You cannot jump 20 feet with a result of 15 any which way you care to measure it.

And as cool as anime leaping sounds, you can't jump further than you can move.

Edited to fix my math.

Agreed, the DC should be 16, because you don't really want to clear 15ft, you want to clear 15ft and a little bit. Considering PF's rounding rules, it makes sense that one would reasonably set the DC to clear the pit at 16.

I'm fairly certain that EVERYONE will agree that to move from square 0 to square 4 while jumping over squares 1, 2, and 3 you have to MOVE 20ft. However as has been mentioned numerous times before, the actual distance being JUMPED is the 15ft gap between 0 and 4.
Imagine if you will, I'm in square 0. Assuming I don't completely fill square 0 (because I'm not some hideous 5ft cube-beast), I'm probably standing somewhere around the middle of square 0. If I'm going to cross that pit, I'm going to move about 2.5ft to the edge between squares 0 and 1, jump the 15 (and a little) ft gap from 1-3, land close to the edge between squares 3 and 4 (inside of square 4 because of the little extra) and then move another 2.5ft to the center of square 4. I have just moved a total of 20ft by jumping across a 15ft gap. As a GM, I would err on the side of distance travelled+1 when setting jump DCs because in reality I'd rather jump a distance of 16ft and clear the 15ft pit than have to jump 15ft from cliff edge to cliff edge.

On the matter of over-jumping, to some (albeit small) degree it kind of makes sense. If I run and do an all-out jump, it's probably not going to be all that well controlled. On the other hand, if I make a standing jump, I can put more thought and control into it. If I am a jumper with lots of skill, I probably know how far I can jump. If I know I can easily clear a certain distance, I'm not going to jump from the edge of the cliff, I'm going to start my jump earlier. If I'm jumping a 10ft space, and I know I can jump on average about 20ft. I'm going to start my jump when I'm 5ft away from the pit, because that should land me roughly 5ft on the other side. Real-life jumpers (long-jumpers and high-jumpers) have a general sense of how far/high they can jump but they don't ever know exactly how far they're going to go. This is represented by the randomness presented by rolling a die for the skill check. Sometimes you go a little further, sometimes you come up a little shorter.
In summation, my argument is just that RAW aren't entirely ridiculous. Are they silly, sure. Is it be dangerous to play PF with RAW, you bet it is! As a player, my logic is this:
*if my skill is low, I'm going to have to run and hope I roll high enough to clear
*if my skill is mid-range, I might run and hope I don't go too far or stand and hope I go far enough
*if my skill is high, I can probably make most jumps without running so I'll make standing jumps
*a jump is made as part of a move action, roll your check, see how much distance your jump will clear, subtract the space to be crossed, say that half the remainder of the distance is about where you started your jump and the other half is about where you land
As a GM, I'm with Simon, I use house rules for judging "reasonable" jumps so that players go about the distance they want; sometimes they don't for dramatic effect. I'm all for the house rule of "Making a controlled jump" by imposing a penalty to the check or letting a player "Take 0" for a skill they'll auto-succeed on any roll.
Playing RAW, you jump exactly as many feet as you roll.

Hi Mr. Jacobs, would it be possible to get some knowledge about the adventure before we play on Friday? Principally what I'm wondering is should I make a character, what level should he be, and what restrictions & resources are there for character creation? I am really looking forward to the game and I want to make sure I'm ready.

Might as well join this thread, I'm looking for 2 banquet tickets if anyone has any to offer.