acrobatics to jump ... confusion at my table


Rules Questions

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Grand Lodge

I found an example in the Rise of the Goblin Guild PFS Scenario, in which it notes the DC to jump across a 15ft pit, as being a DC 15 Acrobatics check.

If someone has an example that contradicts this, please let me know.


I think this is another badly written rule where RAW does not match RAI. In real life we can control how far we jump. I see no reason why the characters would not be able to do so. It needs an FAQ.


CRB p88 wrote:
The base DC to make a jump is equal to the distance to be crossed (if horizontal) or...

The "distance to be crossed" = gap = DC.


Moving one square over is a 5ft step.
Jumping one square over is a 5ft jump. DC 5

Moving two squares over is a 10ft step.
Jumping two squares over is a 10ft jump. DC 10

Moving three squares over is a 15ft step.
Jumping three squares over is a 15ft jump. DC15

I could do this all night but you all get the point...

Stop visualing the gap. The gap doesn't actually matter. The gap doesn't exist.

Draw out the layout on a white board or game mat. Place your minis on the grid and measure how far you need to jump. 15ft? Cool.

Now erase just the lines of the gap/hole/crevice.

Is it still 15ft to that square?

DC 15.


The gap is what is being jumped. Total movement is irrelevant to the DC of the jump.


FrozenLaughs wrote:
Draw out the layout on a white board or game mat. Place your minis on the grid and measure how far you need to jump.

Suppose there is an eight feet long pit in a north-west facing corridor. What do I need to roll?


Matthew Downie wrote:
FrozenLaughs wrote:
Draw out the layout on a white board or game mat. Place your minis on the grid and measure how far you need to jump.

Suppose there is an eight feet long pit in a north-west facing corridor. What do I need to roll?

Im having trouble picturing what you're saying but I think you're imply a diagonal hallway? It would still follow the rules for diagonal movement, so the 3 squares required to jump that gap (8 or 10 ft is still 2 squares and then the 3rd to land in).

Yes I see your example, its a 20 ft move over an 8 ft gap but it would still be 3 squares. Jumping diagonally would still follow the movement rules so it would be a DC 20 jump even though it's 3 squares.

Which makes jumping diagonally twice as dangerous for no reason... Hmmmm excellent point!


blackbloodtroll wrote:

I found an example in the Rise of the Goblin Guild PFS Scenario, in which it notes the DC to jump across a 15ft pit, as being a DC 15 Acrobatics check.

If someone has an example that contradicts this, please let me know.

This is a very good example of how the rules may be confusing. Because this contradicts what the rules say elsewhere.

"For a running jump, the result of your Acrobatics check indicates the distance traveled in the jump (and if the check fails, the distance at which you actually land and fall prone). Halve this result for a standing long jump to determine where you land."

So the result of your check says how many feet you travel and where you land. If I roll a 10 then I land 10 feet away from my starting position.

Again if we have ABCD where BC is the pit, then a result of 5 or 10 puts me in the pit. I need a 15+ to clear it and land in D.

As FrozenLaughs pointed out that is how the rules say it works. You move the distance you roll. And yet we have a published adventure that says otherwise. Plus diagonal travel gets even stickier as per the rules of diagonal travel.

So really it doesn't look like it was written very well and there's going to be a bit of table variation over this.

<shrug>

Grand Lodge

Well, other than conflicting opinions on interpretation, do we have other examples?

I still feel both interpretations are valid, but more evidence to support either, should be provided.


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Moving one square over is a 5ft step.
Jumping over one square is a 5ft jump. DC 5. It requires 10ft of movement. 5 for the jump, 5 for moving.

Moving two squares over is a 10ft step.
Jumping over two squares is a 10ft jump. DC 10. It requires 15ft of movement. 10 for the jump, 5 for moving.

Moving three squares over is a 15ft step.
Jumping over three squares is a 15ft jump. DC15. It requires 20ft of movement. 15 for the jump, 5 for moving.

I could do this all day. Visualizing anything other than what you are actually jumping is pointless.

Even if you count Jump as a different form of movement, that is OK. You can use more than one form of movement in a round. The DC has noting to do with how many squares you move after the jump.

Again, the gap may not take up squares at all. A 3' gap is a DC of 3. It might be in 1 square, or 2. It will never be a DC of 5 or 10. It will always be 3.

A 10' gap with a 3' ledge followed by a 10' gap is two jumps at DC10, DC10. It is not two jumps at DC 15. It is not one jump at DC 23. It is not one jump at DC 28.

The grid has absolutely nothing to do with the Jump DC. You do not Jump spaces. You jump terrain elements that are measured in feet, not by squares. Yet of course, you must have the movement to enter the square on the other side of the jump. That is not a part of the jump rules, that is part of the movement rules that applies after the jump is complete.

If you use acrobatics to tumble through a 5' square, does it cost your character 20' of movement, or 10?

When you jump over a pole set at 5' high, do you make the DC 20 or 40?


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Elbedor wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

I found an example in the Rise of the Goblin Guild PFS Scenario, in which it notes the DC to jump across a 15ft pit, as being a DC 15 Acrobatics check.

If someone has an example that contradicts this, please let me know.

This is a very good example of how the rules may be confusing. Because this contradicts what the rules say elsewhere.

"For a running jump, the result of your Acrobatics check indicates the distance traveled in the jump (and if the check fails, the distance at which you actually land and fall prone). Halve this result for a standing long jump to determine where you land."

So the result of your check says how many feet you travel and where you land. If I roll a 10 then I land 10 feet away from my starting position.

Again if we have ABCD where BC is the pit, then a result of 5 or 10 puts me in the pit. I need a 15+ to clear it and land in D.

As FrozenLaughs pointed out that is how the rules say it works. You move the distance you roll. And yet we have a published adventure that says otherwise. Plus diagonal travel gets even stickier as per the rules of diagonal travel.

So really it doesn't look like it was written very well and there's going to be a bit of table variation over this.

<shrug>

So if you have a 10' pit the DC is 15 but if I roll an 11 I fail the check and fall prone on the other side of the pit, where I was trying to get to anyway?


I can't believe I didn't see that before!


We have to compare apples to apples, and I suspect we might be going off on a tangerine here...

To my eyes the DC being "equal to the distance to be crossed" is clear as can be.

I could start bringing up things like what it really means to cross a street (step onto the curb), or a river (not be in water), or the finishing line (to go from one side to the other). But that is imprecise language and there will be people out there who can/will find ways to pretzel the clear meanings and muddy the waters. So instead I'll go with this:

Matthew Downie beat me to the punch by bringing up diagonal movement. I cannot fathom an assertion that 'when jumping over a circular 5 foot pit, if you're going diagonally the DC goes up by 50%.'

A B C D
E F G H
I J K L
M N O P

Let's assume that we get a running start and that F is a circular five foot wide pit. Therefore
if Joe jumped from E to G the DC would be 10, but
if Joe jumped from A to K the DC would be 15?!

It's the same circular 5' pit, right? Why is it so much harder to leap over the sucker if Joe approaches from the northwest instead of the north or the west?
___________________________________

Now lets talk about reverse compatibility. Obviously the Jump skill from 3.5 has been rolled into Acrobatics, but it is still where most of the jumping information comes from. There it reads,

"Long Jump: A long jump is a horizontal jump, made across a gap like a chasm or stream. At the midpoint of the jump, you attain a vertical height equal to one-quarter of the horizontal distance. The DC for the jump is equal to the distance jumped (in feet). For example, a 10-food-wide pit requires a DC 10 Jump check to cross."

Obviously some things changed, but I think that the gist of this particular point is valid.


Kirk wrote:
I cannot fathom an assertion that 'when jumping over a circular 5 foot pit, if you're going diagonally the DC goes up by 50%.'

There's no such thing as circles, heretic! All pits are composed entirely of five foot squares! That means you're jumping diagonally from corner to corner, which is clearly more difficult.


It appears to me that some people are envisioning the square and only the square. The DC is not based on the square. A 1' gap has a DC of 1. It is not a DC of 5 + 5 more to enter the next square, it is always 1. The movement required could be 10', but that doesn't have to be a 10' jump. It is a 1' jump, with 9' more of movement to get through the square with the gap and enter the next square.

It is absolutely true that a single hole can have a different DC based on the angle of the jump. A 3' x 6' rectangular hole has a DC of 3 from one angle and a DC of 6 from another. It also has a myriad of other DCs based on the angle of the jump. The lowest possible DC is 3, the highest DC is 7 (6.7082).

But as stated, a circular pit would only have a single DC.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Elbedor wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

I found an example in the Rise of the Goblin Guild PFS Scenario, in which it notes the DC to jump across a 15ft pit, as being a DC 15 Acrobatics check.

If someone has an example that contradicts this, please let me know.

This is a very good example of how the rules may be confusing. Because this contradicts what the rules say elsewhere.

"For a running jump, the result of your Acrobatics check indicates the distance traveled in the jump (and if the check fails, the distance at which you actually land and fall prone). Halve this result for a standing long jump to determine where you land."

So the result of your check says how many feet you travel and where you land. If I roll a 10 then I land 10 feet away from my starting position.

Not exactly.

If you make a standing jump, you roll a 10, then you land 10 feet away from your starting position.

Assuming 30' movement, if you move 5 feet (less than the 10 feet required for a running jump), then jump as above, you can then move another 15 feet. Total movement is 30', total jump is 10'.

The key here is that the jump is done as part of movement and that the Acrobatics result is the amount of that movement that was done jumping.

Quote:
Again if we have ABCD where BC is the pit, then a result of 5 or 10 puts me in the pit. I need a 15+ to clear it and land in D.

Nope, a result of 10 allows you to cross the 10' pit. Total distance moved is 15', which is not the same thing.


BretI wrote:
Elbedor wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

I found an example in the Rise of the Goblin Guild PFS Scenario, in which it notes the DC to jump across a 15ft pit, as being a DC 15 Acrobatics check.

If someone has an example that contradicts this, please let me know.

This is a very good example of how the rules may be confusing. Because this contradicts what the rules say elsewhere.

"For a running jump, the result of your Acrobatics check indicates the distance traveled in the jump (and if the check fails, the distance at which you actually land and fall prone). Halve this result for a standing long jump to determine where you land."

So the result of your check says how many feet you travel and where you land. If I roll a 10 then I land 10 feet away from my starting position.

Not exactly.

If you make a standing jump, you roll a 10, then you land 10 feet away from your starting position.

Assuming 30' movement, if you move 5 feet (less than the 10 feet required for a running jump), then jump as above, you can then move another 15 feet. Total movement is 30', total jump is 10'.

The key here is that the jump is done as part of movement and that the Acrobatics result is the amount of that movement that was done jumping.

Quote:
Again if we have ABCD where BC is the pit, then a result of 5 or 10 puts me in the pit. I need a 15+ to clear it and land in D.

Nope, a result of 10 allows you to cross the 10' pit. Total distance moved is 15', which is not the same thing.

You've got some stuff wrong there. For a standing jump, you land half your roll away from the starting position. So if you make a standing jump and roll a 10, you land 5 feet away from your starting position. So, for a 10' gap to cross, it's a DC 20 if you don't have a running start. Also, no jump can allow you to exceed your max movement for the round. So if your speed is 30 and you are double-moving, your max movement is 60'. If you are running, it's higher based on what actual run multiplier you're using (based on many factors). If you're using a single move action, and it would take more than 30' to move to the other side of the gap, you cannot jump it.

However, you are right in that for ABCD where BC is a pit of 10' jumping distance, you need either an acrobatics roll of 10+ if you have a running start, or a roll of 20+ if you don't have a running start. However, the spot you actually land at is based on the actual result of the roll. If you roll 15, you not only crossed the gap BC, but you landed 15' away from the starting point, right on the far edge of D. Now, if there are no other gaps, that's no problem; you haven't entered square E so you can either end your movement there or continue. If you rolled a 16, you'd be fully in square E. If there is another gap, you might over-shoot your jump and land in a second gap. That's the issue; there's no official way to "short" your roll so if you have some incredible modifier to your acrobatics roll (say, +29, for example), it is impossible for you to long-jump less than 15'. You're so good at jumping, that even with the slightest effort, you sail 15 feet across the ground. What there needs to be is some kind of way to "aim" for a target piece of land with your jump.


Kirk wrote:
We have to compare apples to apples, and I suspect we might be going off on a tangerine here...

Agreed. If I were a tangerine, I'd have started flagging posts two pages ago!!!


Kazaan wrote:


You've got some stuff wrong there. For a standing jump, you land half your roll away from the starting position. So if you make a standing jump and roll a 10, you land 5 feet away from your starting position. So, for a 10' gap to cross, it's a DC 20 if you don't have a running start. Also, no jump can allow you to exceed your max movement for the round. So if your speed is 30 and you are double-moving, your max movement is 60'. If you are running, it's higher based on what actual run multiplier you're using (based on many factors). If you're using a single move action, and it would take more than 30' to move to the other side of the gap, you cannot jump it.

However, you are right in that for ABCD where BC is a pit of 10' jumping distance, you need either an acrobatics roll of 10+ if you have a running start, or a roll of 20+ if you don't have a running start. However, the spot you actually land at is based on the actual result of the roll. If you roll 15, you not only crossed the gap BC, but you landed 15' away from the starting point, right on the far edge of D. Now, if there are no other gaps, that's no problem; you haven't entered square E so you can either end your movement there or continue. If you rolled a 16, you'd be fully in square E. If there is another gap, you might over-shoot your jump and land in a second gap. That's the issue; there's no official way to "short" your roll so if you have some incredible modifier to your acrobatics roll (say, +29, for example), it is impossible for you to long-jump less than 15'. You're so good at jumping, that even with the slightest effort, you sail 15 feet across the ground. What there needs to be is some kind of way to "aim" for a target piece of land with your jump.

You also have some inaccuracies. The rules do not say you cannot make a jump that has a distance greater then your maximum movement speed. They say:

PRD wrote:


No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round.

Meaning, if you have a movement speed of 20, you cannot doing something with your standard action, then make a 30' jump and land all in the same round.

Or take a double move and make a 50' jump and land that same round.

There is nothing in the jump rules that says your jump must END before your turn is over, or that it cannot continue at the beginning of your next turn. It only says you cannot exceed your movement speed.

As an example, if a creature with haste, and a movement speed of 60' wanted to move 115' feet, then jump a 20' gap, nothing in the rules suggests they must wait till their next turn in order to jump, only that they cannot, by jumping, effectively move 135' instead of their max of 120'.

Now given the turn based nature of combat that makes it look like the character is free hanging like in a cartoon, but from a fluid movement perspective this isn't an issue, it just means their jump was a multi-round action similar to casting a spell with 1 round casting time.

Now most creatures won't have an acrobatics skill high enough for any of that to matter - most simply will not attempt a 60' jump as their chances of failure are probably guaranteed - but for the quintessential monk, it's a possibility.


On the other side where it is stated you must land X' away where X is the number rolled, sure technically that is RAW, it is also an overly strict application of the rules and completely misses the spirit of the rules and the game.


bbangerter wrote:
Now given the turn based nature of combat that makes it look like the character is free hanging like in a cartoon, but from a fluid movement perspective this isn't an issue, it just means their jump was a multi-round action similar to casting a spell with 1 round casting time.

I like the imagery of that character being grappled in between those turns.

Although you could probably do that anyway with a Grab AoO.


You cannot end your turn in mid air without something to keep you aloft. Before you get to go again, you would fall over 500'. You aren't really going to try and say that you would get an AoO on the guy jumping by you while you are in mid air, are you? What about jumping up? Are you going to attack, move 25' then jump 5' in the air (on a DC 50) and therefore ignore the earthquake spell that goes off because you are in the air? It might be an interpretation of RAW, but it is clearly not valid.

A person casting a spell with a 1 round casting time is actually casting a spell the entire time. A person jumping is not. The turn based system absolutely invalidates making one jump as part of two turns.

Also, it is clearly a reading of RAW that you jump as far as your roll, I will give you that. It is also clearly not RAI that you cannot jump less than that when desired. Imagine the monk, as someone pointed out, that could never hop over a 5' gap between a ship and the dock because his jump is in the 40s and he would jump over the entire ship! Should he aim for the mast and take damage doing so?


Komoda wrote:
You aren't really going to try and say that you would get an AoO on the guy jumping by you while you are in mid air, are you?

If that was directed at me, no I'm not. I was saying a guy standing on the ground could AoO someone jumping by(using a normal one round or less jump) and use the grab rule to grapple him.


Komoda wrote:
You cannot end your turn in mid air without something to keep you aloft. Before you get to go again, you would fall over 500'. You aren't really going to try and say that you would get an AoO on the guy jumping by you while you are in mid air, are you? What about jumping up? Are you going to attack, move 25' then jump 5' in the air (on a DC 50) and therefore ignore the earthquake spell that goes off because you are in the air? It might be an interpretation of RAW, but it is clearly not valid.

If a PC steps off a 1000' cliff on their turn, when do they fall? They fall the first 500' during the turn they stepped off. The remainder of the distance does not occur between their turns, but on their next turn.

Likewise, if a PC is bull rushed off a cliff, when does the falling occur? The first 500' immediately on the bull rushing characters turn. When do they fall the rest of the distance? The most logical application is on the same initiative count they were pushed off in the following round.

Komoda wrote:


A person casting a spell with a 1 round casting time is actually casting a spell the entire time. A person jumping is not. The turn based system absolutely invalidates making one jump as part of two turns.

Nothing says the actual in air flight of the jump is the duration of the round. The monk with a double move speed of 60' jumping a 55' gap certainly isn't airborne for the full 6 seconds of their turn by real world physics. A jump, as defined in the rules, does not have any specific measurement of time associated with it. The first 2 seconds of that single move action standing long jump could very well be (is likely) getting to the edge of the thing you are jumping over, swinging your arms back, then leaping forward with your arms to help you with momentum, and actual air time is a second or less.

The game system itself certainly allows for multi-round actions without explicitly calling them all out. So it isn't out of line by any stretch.


And as falling 500' is faster than any movement speed, the only relevance is the character's relation to the ground. No one can move fast enough to affect the character.

Jumping a horizontal distance is completely different. Holding the jump in mid air, Matrix style, is really asking a lot.


That's only because you're thinking of combat as start and stop instead of being fluid.


Komoda wrote:


Jumping a horizontal distance is completely different. Holding the jump in mid air, Matrix style, is really asking a lot.

I would not allow that in a vertical jump. That gets adjudicated a bit differently.


I think of combat as fluid. I think of combat resolution as start and stop. Your turn ends, my turn begins. You are stuck in mid air, I throw a net around you and you fall to your death.

Paralyze, Daze, Hold Person, Entangle, Web, etc. all make for some very hard to adjudicate issues only because you are floating in mid air, mid turn. Do you still have momentum to finish the jump? Can you now land safely? Does the extra weight make you fall short of your original jump?

Do you threaten even though you have no control over your ability to twist and have no leverage to perform any kind of attack?


Komoda wrote:

I think of combat as fluid. I think of combat resolution as start and stop. Your turn ends, my turn begins. You are stuck in mid air, I throw a net around you and you fall to your death.

Paralyze, Daze, Hold Person, Entangle, Web, etc. all make for some very hard to adjudicate issues only because you are floating in mid air, mid turn. Do you still have momentum to finish the jump? Can you now land safely? Does the extra weight make you fall short of your original jump?

Do you threaten even though you have no control over your ability to twist and have no leverage to perform any kind of attack?

Replace mid jump because of the end of a turn with mid jump because of a readied action. How would you handle it then?


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

so if i have a +20 to acrobatics i can never jump less than 21 feet. XD wonderful.

Grand Lodge

Bandw2 wrote:
so if i have a +20 to acrobatics i can never jump less than 21 feet. XD wonderful.

Nah, you could jump 10ft - 15 if you took a 10 - by doing it from standing. Add 16 to the DC for jumping 4 feet up, and you're down to 7 feet, or one square, by taking 10.

People are arguing and fussing over this, but honestly, it's no big thing. If the monk with the +30 wants to jump over a 10ft chasm onto the 5ft ledge on the other side, he takes 10 and jumps from standing. If he wants to jump over the 5ft chasm to the 5ft ledge, he takes 10, jumps from standing, and jumps 4ft in the air. 40 rolled: 16 to go up leaves 24 to go across. the 24 gives you 12 feet. No sweat.

Or, instead of all that crap, the GM says, "There's a mechanical way to make that work, but he's skilled enough at jumping to do all that, so we'll just say he has the skill, he'll be successful."

Oh, and by the way, I think it's reasonable to say that the DC penalty for standing and the description of the length of the jump do not stack. They're two different ways to describe the same thing.


A readied action happens before the action that triggers it. Are you really saying that the triggering action is "reaching half way across the chasm" and if you are, that would be a specific, planned interaction or interruption, not a time where all other combatants are looking at the jumper going, "how'd he do that?"

And with that readied action, you would only be able to do a limited amount of things. Suspending an action for such a short amount of time where a combatant plans for it is completely different then defying gravity.

Tchrman,

It doesn't work that way. You are going up OR out, not choosing partway up and part way out.

Grand Lodge

Komoda wrote:

Tchrman,

It doesn't work that way. You are going up OR out, not choosing partway up and part way out.

In that world, it's impossible to jump over a 6" high curb! Don't be silly.

Grand Lodge

Look, here's the gist, and the way I run my PFS tables.

RAW is useful. RAW is good. In as much as I can, I apply RAW to situations. But RAW does not cover every conceivable situation. They try to write the rules to describe the world, but honestly, they can't really do it. So sometimes the rules break down. EVERY metaphor breaks down.

That's why there's a GM. A Judge. A maker of decisions. EVEN in PFS, the GM has final say.

PFS Guide to Organized Play wrote:
As a Pathfinder Society GM, you have the right and responsibility to make whatever judgements, within the rules, that you feel are necessary at your table to ensure everyone has a fair and fun experience. This does not mean you can contradict rules or restrictions outlined in this document, a published Pathfinder Roleplaying Game source, errata document, or official FAQ on paizo.com. What it does mean is that only you can judge what is right for your table during cases not covered in these sources

So judgment calls can be made. And in the case of jump rules, they should be made. I don't see the problem.


It is easy to jump over a 6" curb. A DC 1 gets you 1' over and 6" up. That is based on the line from 3.5 that stated the jump height is 1/2 length at the center.

I don't know why too that out, but I am pretty sure they don't think you can jump 5' straight up and then 20' out based on a 40 DC, which is basically what you proposed.

Any long jump should be a pretty smooth and symmetrical arc. A high start or end is what would be silly.

Grand Lodge

OH!

Heh, no, I don't mean that you would fly straight up, then fly across. Rather, I mean you're managing the top of your arc. That's all.

Liberty's Edge

anonymous wrote:

Ever heard of a parabola?

Let's see, you are jumping 12' over, with an arc that moves you up 4' vertically at the apex.

Basically, you are setting a final distance of C, so you square it, then, using the horizontal distance as A, which also gets squared, you can use Pythagora's theorum to determine what the vertical component (B) needs to be to set the DC of the jump to X.

A*A + B*B = C*C

Example: long jump, needs to land 12' away, that is A. (144)
Standing jump, taking 10, Acrobatics skill of 22, so C is 32. (1024)
B becomes the square root of (1024-144), (880, intermediate), so the final number is 30, when rounded, which then gets divided by 4 for vertical distance, so just under 7' vertical component for this hypothetical jump.

Ever heard of calculus?

The distance that the character jumps along the parabola (the length the arc of the parabola) is not determined by the distance formula. That's for measuring the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle.

The formula for the length of the arc of a parabola is much more elaborate. Feel free to google it.

Maybe you were just posting this as a joke?

Grand Lodge

Nah, me just being simple-minded.

Grand Lodge

baradakas wrote:
anonymous wrote:

Ever heard of a parabola?

Let's see, you are jumping 12' over, with an arc that moves you up 4' vertically at the apex.

Basically, you are setting a final distance of C, so you square it, then, using the horizontal distance as A, which also gets squared, you can use Pythagora's theorum to determine what the vertical component (B) needs to be to set the DC of the jump to X.

A*A + B*B = C*C

Example: long jump, needs to land 12' away, that is A. (144)
Standing jump, taking 10, Acrobatics skill of 22, so C is 32. (1024)
B becomes the square root of (1024-144), (880, intermediate), so the final number is 30, when rounded, which then gets divided by 4 for vertical distance, so just under 7' vertical component for this hypothetical jump.

Ever heard of calculus?

The distance that the character jumps along the parabola (the length the arc of the parabola) is not determined by the distance formula. That's for measuring the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle.

The formula for the length of the arc of a parabola is much more elaborate. Feel free to google it.

Maybe you were just posting this as a joke?

Interesting that I never saw the initial post you're quoting, though it certainly seems to be aimed at my post.

The math is pretty weird in places, but I think whoever it was (Kinevon?) was trying to demonstrate the force applied along the angular vector, for which they are absolutely correct that the Pythagorean theorem would apply. The jumper has to provide horizontal acceleration and vertical acceleration in order to achieve a jump over height and distance. The acceleration along the vector of travel would be equal to the sum of the square roots of the horizontal and vertical accelerations.

To jump up 1.3m (as close an estimate to 4ft as I'm going to get right now), the jumper would have to leave the ground going at 5.1m/s vertically. He would be in the air for about a second. So to fly 12' (we'll call that 4m because lol), he would have to be moving at 4m/s horizontally

That means that the actual speed would be

sqrt( (5.1)^2 + (4)^2 ), or about 6.5m/s.

The character has to put that much force into the ground at the moment of the jump. Let's call it 1/4s. Which means he has to accelerate by 26m/s^2 in that quarter second. That's just over 85ft/s^2 in acceleration needed to push off, jumping 12 feet and clearing 4' at the apex.

But factoring that into game mechanics...hmm...

How about we just say, "He has at least enough skill. He makes it."

Grand Lodge

Are we now discussing theoretical mathematics?

Don't make me summon the spirit of Lewis Carroll to smite you!

Grand Lodge

tchrman35 wrote:
How about we just say, "He has at least enough skill. He makes it."

But where's the fun in that?

So how do the game mechanics work? For each constant x, you gain another 6" of travel. (We'll use the standing math - for now.) We'll assume an individual with base speed 30, average dexterity, and no training in acrobatics. (Or, as it were, a spherical chicken in a vacuum.)

Someone mentioned that in a previous iteration the assumption was you'd move 1/2 as far up as you do across. That's reasonable, I suppose.

So for a long jump, here's the math. Also, we're going to use 30ft/s^2 for the gravitational constant, because otherwise there's just way too much converting to meters, and 32 makes the back-of-the-napkin math too complicated.

Taking a 10 (a decent place to start) will allow you to jump 5 feet. This means you move up 2.5ft and over 5.

Up 2.5 ft means that it will take you t seconds to get to the apex of your jump:

d=0.5*g*t^2
2d = g * t^2
2*(2.5ft) = 30ft/s^2 * t^2
(5ft*s^2)/(30ft) = t^2
(1/6)s^2 = t^2
0.4s=t

That means you need to leave the ground going

30ft/s^2 * 0.4s = 12ft/s vertically.

Now, for the horizontal. Because it takes 0.4s to move 2.5ft accelerating due to gravity from a standstill, you'll be in the air about 0.8s. So to move over 5ft, you have to move at

5ft / 0.8s = 6.25ft/s horizontally.

So, your velocity along your vector of travel will be:

sqrt ( 12^2 + 6.25^2 ) = 13.5 ft/s

If you apply that to the ground in (1/4)s, you have to accelerate at

(13.5 * 4)ft/s^2 = 54ft/s^2

A 10 gets you an acceleration of 54ft/s^2.

If you roll a 20, you get 10ft of horizontal and 5ft of vertical. Skipping all the math, you end up with:

18ft/s vertical initial velocity
8.3ft/s horizontal initial velocity

19.8ft/s velocity along vector of travel

79.2ft/s^2 initial acceleration.

20 gets you 79.2ft/s^2 initial acceleration.

tchrman wrote:
To heck with the back-of-the-napkin. Let's create a spreadsheet.

I was surprised how it simplified down. It would seem that the formula for a standing long jump is:

Angular velocity at jump = sqrt(d20*20)

For a vertical jump:

Veritcal velocity at jump = sqrt(d20*16)

Running Start:

A character with a move speed of 30 has a flat out run speed of 120ft/6s, or 20ft/s. Nevermind that with a roll of 1, that person is going to run 20ft/s then jump and go 1ft. How they do not end up prone is beyond me.

Let's assume they're not adding ANY forward momentum, which would be a reasonable assumption. So their forward speed will always be 20ft/s. That means their height/distance ratio will be off, but since that's not Pathfinder RAW, that's fine!

Vertical velocity at jump = d20*0.8ft/s

I can't find a particularly unifying description of how a skill check translates into horizontal and vertical movement, but it's been fun nonetheless.

Regardless, I've already stated my position, which is that the rules do a remarkable job describing the world, but they aren't perfect, so the GM needs to make reasonable decisions when the character wants to do something that the rules don't precisely describe. If a person has 32 jump and wants to jump a 10ft gap, I have ZERO problem saying they make it in spades.

Grand Lodge

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Are we now discussing theoretical mathematics?

Don't make me summon the spirit of Lewis Carroll to smite you!

Not theoretical, BBT - the real deal. ACTUAL mathematics!


tchrman35 wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

Are we now discussing theoretical mathematics?

Don't make me summon the spirit of Lewis Carroll to smite you!

Not theoretical, BBT - the real deal. ACTUAL mathematics!

Prove it.

Grand Lodge

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:
tchrman35 wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:

Are we now discussing theoretical mathematics?

Don't make me summon the spirit of Lewis Carroll to smite you!

Not theoretical, BBT - the real deal. ACTUAL mathematics!
Prove it.

LOL fair enough. Theoretical it is!

Dark Archive

Bit of a Necro here, but it's probably worth noting for anyone new coming along and reading this thread in confusion as to what the rules actually mean, this has been answered in the FAQ now.

FAQ wrote:

"The DC is still 10 to jump over a 10-foot pit. You do move a total of 15 feet when you make that jump, but some of that is not required to be part of the jump. One way to visualize it is to think of it as walking/running the 2–1/2 feet from the center of your original square to the edge of the pit, jumping the pit right to the other edge, and then walking the 2–1/2 feet to the center of the new square."

posted June 2015

FAQ

The Exchange

Elbedor wrote:

Ok, maybe I'm missing something on the math, but taking the OP above, if I'm leaping from 4 while trying to cross 5, 6, 7 in order to reach 8, shouldn't the DC be 20? I'm trying to move myself 4 squares. If the distance moved is equal to my result and I roll a 15, that puts me at 7...which has nothing beneath me, meaning I fall. I need to roll a 20 in order to move 20 so that I'm landing on something solid.

What am I missing?

Pathfinder doesn't force you to travel from the middle of the square you are leaving to the middle of the square you are landing in, for you to make a successful jump. Rather it runs on the same logic as a Track & Field Long jump.

The character can get a running start and leaps off as their toe reaches the end of the square they are jumping from. Then when they land the distance traveled is measured to the heel of their rear most foot upon landing. So from the toe(edge of the chasm in this instance) to your landing heel (far end of the chasm if you clear the jump with exactly the DC required) is 15', therefore you need a DC 15 to clear the 15' chasm.

The Exchange

For those trying to determine where you land when trying to jump across a 15' chasm and rolling a 19+16, that depends on how you jumped. If you are merely 'trying to clear the chasm' you successfully jump and easily land in the first square on the other side of the chasm. If you are trying to Jump as far as you can, then you land 20' past the chasm. Depending on your GM you may even be able to say you're trying to cross the chasm and your GM will allow you to land anywhere within the 35' distance that you are able to jump.

Under no circumstances should a character be trying to jump a 10' chasm roll high and 'accidentally' jump 25 feet landing in a second chasm and fall to their death.


You're arguing with people from two years ago.

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