Movement and jumping

[dragonhunterq]

Just having another listen to the glass cannon guys and I was just wondering what the general view was on jumping being a separate action to movement rather than being a part of movement?

I'll set out my stall early that feels awkward. jumping should be a part of movement. you should be able to leap over a log half way through your 30' movement rather than move 10', leap the log and then take your 3rd action to complete the movement.

[Bardarok]

For the record I agree. Special Movements climb, jump, swim, should be able to be combined with ground movement in a similar way to how difficult terrain works.

[Tarondor]

Agreed. It sounded very awkward and stood out as counter-logical.

[Snorter]

One of the constant itches, re D&D3/PF was when it came to chases, and artificially slicing up movement, to go around corners.

If two people have the same movement rate, and begin x feet apart, they should remain the same x feet apart, throughout, unless one is acted upon by a genuine obstacle or hazard.

What happened is play, is that each one would travel in a straight line, then be forced to stop partway through their move, then begin a new turn from that same spot.

If you want to force runners to take care when traversing corners, have the squares cost double when jogging double speed, treble when running triple speed, and quadruple or more when all out sprinting.

[The Complex Games Apologist]

I think the idea here is that tracking the separate speeds of amount of move used, the possibilities that jumps may 'hang' between rounds, is awkward and bookeepy.

As it is now you transition from climb, swim, walk, jump, etc, they are all covered in different ways. There's much more simplicity and clarity here.

Further, it's much easier to 'give' a take 10 result now that it comes with an opportunity cost. Swashbuckling moves and the like are dumb and bad because there's not enough advantage for what they provide, and they always come with the potential for falling flat on your face.

Now, a 'leap' up on to a tree trunk can be meaningful, but above all, it can come without a die roll. And without bookeeping, or the dreaded 'hang time' jump that comes near the end of a movement.

RE: Chase scenes I think this actually helps clarify the choice matrix and make it more like an action scene. In a real chase, as you go over rough terrain or have to make traverses, the distance between parties DOES change as the guy behind you is still on the good terrain and making good time, while you are FROZEN climbing over a log. If you fall, He WILL catch up. the calculus of 'go around' over climb over is crystal clear and the risk/reward of chancing it with a dicey move is too.

It is in line with the 'give you choices' design philosophy.

I like it.

[Fuzzypaws]

Fully agreed. Jumping etc should only use part of movement, corners at speed should only be "difficult terrain," don't break up movement artificially.

[Tallow]

agreed. I will not use the broken up movement in games I run in PF2 assuming I like the system enough.

What needs to happen is rules showing how the different movement rates integrate with one another, especially if you can walk at 30, but only climb at 20, what does that mean if you move 15' walking? Can you only climb 5' in that same movement? Or perhaps if you want to combine movements types, you take the lower rate of the two.

[KingOfAnything]

I'd have the Climb and Jump actions including up to 10 or 15 feet of ground movement before or after the special movement. Maintain the distinction between actions, but allow some flexibility for positioning.

[Snorter]

The Complex Games Apologist wrote:

RE: Chase scenes I think this actually helps clarify the choice matrix and make it more like an action scene. In a real chase, as you go over rough terrain or have to make traverses, the distance between parties DOES change as the guy behind you is still on the good terrain and making good time, while you are FROZEN climbing over a log. If you fall, He WILL catch up. the calculus of 'go around' over climb over is crystal clear and the risk/reward of chancing it with a dicey move is too.

No-one's saying that climbing, swimming, crawling, etc shouldn't cost you movement.

Obviously, if you're navigating difficult terrain, the gap should close.
But once the lead runner is over the difficult terrain, the gap should widen again, as the chaser is slowed down by the obstacle, and this should even out over time.

What happens now, is that two people in a race are forced to stop dead, as soon as they reach the obstacle, and forfeit ALL their remaining movement, despite one only having run twenty feet, and the other fifty.
They are then neck and neck, for the remainder of the chase, because the lead was arbitarily, and artificially, forced to sit twiddling his thumbs and wait for the other.

Having obstacles act like difficult terrain, of varying severity, counting as double, triple, quadruple squares, and so forth, would better emulate one character being slowed down during that part of the chase, and that part only, without imposing unwanted 'pit stops' and cigarette breaks into their progress.

It also doesn't prevent the GM adding some chase mechanics, whether that be asking for Acrobatics checks, or endurance rolls, and having one racer gain or lose ground.

He game is abstract enough, without adding needless unrealistic abstraction.

[Malk_Content]

I'm guessing chases won't fall under the usual initiative and action systems. Just like chases in Starfinder had their own subsystem to better emulate the drama of that common event. I don't see this as a problem because no single set of rules can cover everything adequately, and trying to do so invariably leads to a sacrifice else where. E.G trying to make chase scenes work under tactical combat rules invariably means making the movement rules less clean and easy.

[Unicore]

jumping and climbing, or running and jumping, sound like the kinds of things that will be made possible with skiil checks and feats. It will probably be pretty easy to just rule that the run up t the jump is a part of the single jump action. Jumping from a standstill probably does and should take its own action for anyone untrained in the skill.

[pjrogers]

We also need more clarity on how spells, etc. which enhance movement (Cheetah Spirit is the worst offender) affect jump distance.

[Snorter]

Unicore wrote:

jumping and climbing, or running and jumping, sound like the kinds of things that will be made possible with skiil checks and feats. It will probably be pretty easy to just rule that the run up t the jump is a part of the single jump action. Jumping from a standstill probably does and should take its own action for anyone untrained in the skill.

I agree with that, and would add that I'd like to see a recognition that movement prior to a jump should be taken into account, whether it took place on the current round or not.

Rounds are a necessary abstraction, as is the decision of where to slice the rounds.

You should be able to perform the run up, as the third action of one round, and leave the floor at the beginning of the next.

[Tallow]

I like that concept.

Interesting to note, that the goblin blog had goblins with a speed of 25. That's kinda a strange speed.

I wonder how the movement rules are changing that an odd speed makes sense.

[Chief Cook and Bottlewasher]

They're at least changing from 2 moves to 3. So max 60ft to max 75ft instead of 90

[Tallow]

Sure, I just hope they adjust the rules so that there aren't anymore, "half" or "double" movement things. At least if you start with an even number (30 or 20) you can divide by 2 right away. But with 25, dividing by 2 is 12-1/2 rounded down to 10, which is clunky.

So perhaps just stating that an action that's movement that moves across difficult terrain requires an extra 10' of movement regardless how far the movement actually ends up being? I hope what I'm hearing about some of the podcast stuff, that any change in terrain or movement type (difficult, jump, climb, turning around a corner, etc.) doesn't stop that action (even if you have more movement left) and make you take another action to continue moving. I really don't like that idea at all.

[Fuzzypaws]

They could just keep the base speed at 30 ft instead of 25. It's easy enough: you say spending two actions to move is jogging and spending three actions to move is running (so you can't do it forever), with 4x sprint being a special full action that makes you flat footed.

That's what I will end up recommending in the surveys if speeds are actually 25 ft as the base.

[rainzax]

Obstacles should get DCs which require skill checks to interact with, at the general rule:

CS: Normal movement speed
S: Difficult terrain (each square "costs" 10)
F: You stop, and lose your remaining Stride movement
CF: You stop, lose your remaining Stride movement, plus an additional action

[Wheldrake]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

That's what I will end up recommending in the surveys if speeds are actually 25 ft as the base.

The 25' speed of characters in the Glass Canon game could be due to armor restrictions. Or it could be standard move speed for humans. We just don't know yet.

[Tallow]

In this case, the goblin blog says a goblin starts at 25. The dwarf/elf blog says a dear starts with 20 and I think elf at 30.

[totoro]

I'd hate to try an Olympic-style triple jump if I was not allowed to run up. :)