As a former long jumper (and triple jump), I can attest that speed is vastly more important than either Str or Dex. I could make a case for either ability, but the speed mods need to be the key to jumping.
I think this is a relatively good idea, and while I do agree that speed is important in Jumping, I think that speed comes more from Strength and Running than it does from being super agile.
I think we should have an Athletics Skill (Strength Based) which combines Climb, Swim, and Jump, and allows you to maintain long-distance running/hiking, why do we need the Run feat? (I've never seen anyone take that feat, unless it was to make a character who's only good at moving fast, but not actually play it.)
We should also have an Acrobatics Skill (Dex Based) Which combines Balance and Tumble, and allows one to perform several skill feats or other things similar to what was mentioned in Iron Heroes.
Heck, I think that I loved the idea of skills having more to do directly in combat, it'd be nice to see Athletic Fighters and Acrobatic Rogues mixing it up with their skills.
I think that speed comes more from Strength and Running than it does from being super agile.
I'm agile, but fairly weak. One guy who did track with me (a shot putter) could bench press an elephant, but was clumsy. He could jump maybe twelve feet with a running start. I could jump like 17 feet. One guy who could run faster than me (but was still a stringy wimp) could jump 21 feet+. Speed is the most important thing. Then Dex. Str is a distant third (I could leg press more than the fast guy, by the way, but that didn't matter).
Might this have partially been a weight issue? It's really about the ratio of leg strength to body weight, and then add momentum (speed) on top of that.
Hmmm.... that's possible, but it seems unlikely to make as much difference, in retrospect -- remember, I could out leg-press the fast guy, but he could out-jump me (by a wide margin) even though he outweighed me. Speed is far and away the #1 key element; I was probably slightly more agile than he was, but he could seemingly take a step and a half for every one of mine, and each stride was longer. The latter was due to longer legs, but I have no idea why he could do the former -- just one of those weird wiring things, I guess -- like how my brother was seemingly born with an ability to fix stereos. All things being equal, some people are just faster than others.
Dex does factor in because there's a fair amount of coordination involved; when you take off, your opposite knee needs to drive way up in the air: you try and jump in a 45-degree arc to maximize "hang time." You can do a hitch-kick in the air, too, if you jump far enough; that helps you fall forward on landing, rather than back. Less coordinated people tend to jump in too flat an arc, and to fall on their posteriors upon landing.
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Might this have been an issue of body weight compared to leg strength? It seems like it would be a ratio, not a simple matter of how strong you are. Then, on top of that, you'd factor in speed (i.e., momentum).
True. I remember that the best people in my high school gym class . . . OH SO MANY YEARS AGO . . . to do pull ups and push ups were the little wiry dudes. Not track stars nor wrestling champions - but lightweight and not an ounce of body fat.
Dex does factor in because there's a fair amount of coordination involved; when you take off, your opposite knee needs to drive way up in the air: you try and jump in a 45-degree arc to maximize "hang time." You can do a hitch-kick in the air, too, if you jump far enough; that helps you fall forward on landing, rather than back. Less coordinated people tend to jump in too flat an arc, and to fall on their posteriors upon landing.
A perfect example of skill ranks.
The house rule system we have been using for some time now rolled the Dex based skills into Acrobatics and the Str based skills into Athletics. It just seemed to make sense to not combine skills, which up until this time had different ability modifiers into one skill.
A second reason was due to class skill lists. Fighters had Climb, Jump, and Swim but not Tumble. Clearly fighters should be able to jump, though not necessarily do a back flip over a pit.
Slightly off topic, or maybe back on.
In the Acrobatics skill description it says,
“If you are proficient in the Acrobatics skill…”
So proficient means it is a class skill and you have ranks in it?
If it is not a class skill how many would you need to be proficient?
Or could you be?
Sorry to necro, but this is something that was definitely bugging me as I read over the skills section of Pathfinder last night. Rather than start an entirely new thread, I figured finding an existing thread was a better plan.
Add my vote to Athletics (jump, swim, climb) and Acrobatics (balance, tumble). IF for no other reason than that, for some reason, as it stands jump checks have an increased difficulty if you move at greater than half your speed (since Acrobatics lists skill DC modifiers for everything, and there's a +5 if you move faster than half speed...). Also, because Fighters should definitely have jump available to them, but I'm in agreement that balance and tumble are less appropriate. Since few people invest in swim except in fringe cases (campaigning near bodies of water, etc) but jump and climb are somewhat more popular, combining the three also means characters are less likely to drown just because of a water hazard.
Please reconsider the Athletics & Acrobatics solution.
My houserule is to give the choice of Strength or Dexterity as base attribute for Athletic. Not even with a feat, just a choice.
So rogues and cats can climb easily.
...Add my vote to Athletics (jump, swim, climb) and Acrobatics (balance, tumble).
YES PLEASE! I really don't know how often I pleaed for this right now.
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My solution: make balance and tumble all into acrobatics but then group swim, climb, and jump all into one skill called athletics. make the dc's apart of their own chart so that the swim checks are just harder for those who wear a heavier suit of armor still. it just doesn't seem fair that you'd combine the dex checks into acrobatics but then not do the same for the strength based ones.
How'd this work out in your playtest?
My suggestion :
If you fold three skills into Athletic (climb, jump, swim), do the same for Acrobatics (balance, escape artist, tumble).
I'd be in favor of Athletics (climb, jump, swim), Acrobatics (balance, tumble), and Legerdemain (Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, and Use Rope).
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Add my voice to the group of athletics/acrobatics supporters.
I agree that a distinction between STR and DEX based skills is needed.
This is how I'd do it:
Athletics - Covers Jump and Climb
Acrobatics - Covers Tumble and Balance
I'm inclined to leave Swim separate. I know an awful lot of people who are plenty athletic, but can't swim. It's a different sort of skill and technique.
Climb and Jump seem similar enough in application that they could be rolled together.
Any way you do it, Jump probably ought to be taken out of Acrobatics. The bonus to Jump checks from speed should also be left in.
Yeah sure, in REAL life it wouldn't make much sense to combine ANY skill.
But this is D&D! It's about HEROES!
And how many times have you ever played a character who prefered being a decent swimmer then a good *insert more useful skill here*
Swim is just the "Athletic Use Rope".
The best solution was stated already:
Acrobatics - Balance, Escape Artist (tight spaces/grapples), Tumble
Athletics - Climb, Jump, Swim
Legerdemain - Escape Artist (Bindings), Sleight of Hand, Use Rope
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Acrobatics (Dex) = Balance, Tumble, some Escape Artist (squeezing into tight spaces), some Ride (when the rider is trying to do something)
Athletics (Str) = Run, Jump, Climb
Handle Animal (Cha) = Handle Animal, some Ride (control animal aspects)
Swim (Str)
Thievery (Dex) = Sleight of Hand, pick pockets, some Escape Artist (slipping bonds), hide small objects
The more I think about it, the more I like Athletics and Acrobatics. I'd also brake up Ride and divide it between Acrobatics and Handle Animals. Swim stay separate in my mind because their are just so many people (and even more in a quasi-Medieval setting) that don't swim well, and skills need to apply to everyone, not just heroes. I like the name Thievery for the sleight-of-hand/legerdemain skill.
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if jump is a dex based check that isn't based on the movement of the creature, then monks no longer get the advantage of jumping huge distances (aside from the normal high jump special ability) and halflings (because they get a natural dex bonus) should naturally be better jumpers than half-orcs and humans.
As the rules are written a if you stated out two characters, a halfling rogue and a human barbarian, gave them both a 14 Dex then added racial bonuses and 1 rank in acrobatics. The halfling would have a acrobatics check of +8 (DEX + racial DEX bonus + racial Acro bonus + rogue favored class), the barbarian would have a bonus of +3. This means the halfling could jump either 1' higher or 5' further than the barbarian... The human is taller, faster, and likely stronger, this doesn't make much sense. Barbarians should be good at jumping.
In core the same two characters would be nearly flipped. The halfling would have a -6 to jump due to speed and the human barbarian would have a +6 due to speed. The barbarian also has jump as a class ability which would even things out. All told the core human barbarian would have a jump score 10 HIGHER than the halfling rogue, plus the core barbarian would likely have a higher strength. A huge difference.
I don't really like that jump is blurped in with acrobatics but I also don't care for it being a separate "skill". Compare this to a skill like survival which encompasses a great number of abilities.
As for whether it makes more sense for this to be a STR or DEX based skill, I'm split. The best jumpers are not ripped body builders, they are fast, skinny guys. I'm not so sure it belongs to dexterity either though, really it could go either way.
-- Dennis
I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. Jump should be combined with Swim and Climb into a single Athletics skill. Similarly, I believe that Intimidate, Bluff, Disguise, and Diplomacy could be similarly combined.
What is so common about Diplomacy and Disguise that they should be one skill?
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I see your point. Perhaps, I can see Diguise fitting in a larger Bluff skill.
I had Bluff and Disguise together for a while in a skill called Deception (like in Alpha 1). Then I started thinking about what else a character would do with Deception and the list got pretty long. At this point I'm back to two skills, one - Bluff - is more fast talking, while the other - Deception - is more about faking things. It doesn't do much for consolidation but it seemed like too much stuff to have all together.
Bluff (Cha) = Bluff, Gather Information, haggle, flirt/seduce *
Deception (Cha) = Disguise, Forgery, imitate, hide large object like traps or wagons
* In my mind, Gather Information, haggle, and flirt/seduce could also be attempted through Diplomacy and/or Intimidate, but the results of failure or the effect wearing off are quite different.
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Just reread my previous post and it was long winded and went nowhere.
Yes, Athletics is a great idea, climb, swim, jump all together is better than what they have now, swim as a separate check is kind of silly. This also makes the fighter much better at the stuff he's likely to be good at.
Keep in mind, the rogues "required" skills are already down by a few, this would further reduce it. At some point you need to reduce the number of skill points per level characters are given.
Speed should definitely be in the jump calculation.
-- Dennis
Tack me on for agreeing with Althetics and Acrobatics. Truth be told, my group has been playing it like that in our 3.5 games for many months now, and it has worked great for us. Our skill consolidation currently looks like this:
Athletics (Climb, Jump, Swim) Strength Based
Acrobatics (Balance, Tumble) Dexterity Based
Perception (Listen, Spot) Wisdom Based
Stealth (Hide, Move Silently) Dexterity Based
It works great for us, and allows the fighters and barbarians to be athletic and what-not (seriously, so many skill points for these, and they're all class skills for warriors in 3.5?).
As for Swim, I think athletics works fine for it, and I can attest my tabletop and virtual tabletop (OpenRPG) has had no complaints with this skill consolidation.
I have an idea. Seeing bar jumpers, you know polvolters without the polvault, it really is more of a dex based thing to get their bodies to move like they do, and I can see your point here that it can be purely a strength based thing, why not just make it accessible to both athletics and acrobatics.
We've been experimenting with a combined Athletics skill. So far everyone is very happy with it. Yes, it's not "realistic," but it makes the fighter viable with 2 skill points again.
It also leads to some weird situations on the monsters-end (housecats that swim, fish with climbing skill), but tack on a racial "antipathy to swimming" special quaility and you're OK again (and, for the bigger cats, jaguars swim and climb anyway). Fish have no hands, so they can't climb, and there are fish that jump, so I have no issue there. And it's a natural for snakes, which swim and climb.
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For my last game, I consolidated Balance + Tumble = Acrobatics, but left Climb, Jump and Swim as independent skills.
I did give the Fighter (and everybody else) 4+Int skill points / level (or more, for classes that already had 6 or 8), 'though, so the lack of 'Athletics' consolidation was a non-issue.
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Athletics (Climb, Jump, Swim) Strength Based
Acrobatics (Balance, Tumble) Dexterity Based
Perception (Listen, Spot) Wisdom Based
Stealth (Hide, Move Silently) Dexterity Based
Add to that a CON-based Endurance skill (replaces the feat plus Run and Hlding Breath rules for swimming) and I think it is complete.
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Athletics (Climb, Jump, Swim) Strength Based
Acrobatics (Balance, Tumble) Dexterity Based
Perception (Listen, Spot) Wisdom Based
Stealth (Hide, Move Silently) Dexterity Based
Let me add some:
Deception (Bluff, Disguise, Gamble) Charisma Based.
(Gamble is another godsend from d20 Modern.)
Discipline (Autohypnosis, Concentration, Endurance, Run) Constitution Based.
(Granted, this turns some feats into skill checks, but I'd also like to get rid of all the +2/+2 feats, and honestly, if you wanted to keep Endurance or Run as a feat, they could simply be rewired to be Skill Focus feats, i.e., +3 to the feat.)
Handle Animal (Handle Animal, Ride) Charisma Based.
(It seems that the various issues that are more Dex-based in Ride could go to Acrobatics. Alternatively, I'd like to see Pilot included. Then, that could work for Ride, Drive, and Pilot.)
Investigate (Investigate, Research, Search) Intelligence Based.
(Investigate and Research are courtesy of d20 Modern. Honestly, d20 Modern has a slew of skills that I remain perplexed that we don't see in D&D.)