Water Sprint skill feat vs. the basic Leap Action

[wheatleymr]

The Water Sprint skill feat is here:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=6515

"Experience and training have taught you that water has just enough surface tension for a master sprinter to traverse the surface. When you Stride in a straight line, if you move at least half your Speed over ground, you can move any amount of the remaining distance across a level body of water. If you don't end your Stride on solid ground, you fall into the water.
If you're legendary in Athletics, as long as you start on solid ground, any part of your Stride can cross the water's surface, even if you aren't moving a straight line, though you still fall into the water if you don't end your movement on solid ground."

Leap is this:
"Leap
The Leap basic action is used for High Jump and Long Jump. A horizontal Leap lets you jump up to 10 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 15 feet, or up to 15 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 30 feet. You land in the space where your Leap ends (meaning you can typically clear a 5-foot gap if your Speed is between 15 feet and 30 feet, or a 10-foot gap if your Speed is 30 feet or more)."

***

The Water Sprint skill feat refers to "Stride" which is a game term, and means a single action to move up to your (land) speed.

So for a move speed of X, then Water Sprint (before legendary) requires:
X=20': 10' over ground, 5' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.
X=25': 15' over ground, 5' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.
X=30': 15' over ground, 10' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.

The way it is phrased, the rules apply to each Stride Action, so you can't "Stride 3 times" to cover a wider body of water. Each individual Stride has to start with "at least half over ground" and "end on solid ground".

Compared to the basic Leap action that covers that gap, no feat needed.

Or someone of level 7 and Master in Athletics doing a 2-action Long Jump, who will cover 13+1d20 feet, with at least 10' of a Stride action beforehand.
I can see occasional situations where Water Sprint saves an action, if the destination is exactly 1 Stride away, with a water barrier of no more than 10', immediately before the destination.
Or if your land speed has been significantly boosted.

...Is it just me, or is this *really* niche?

Or perhaps I have I miss-understood how these rules apply, and it works better than this??

(Or is it a gag, they are just doing a long jump and deluding themselves?)

[Mathmuse]

Suppose a character with speed 25 is 15 feet away from a very deep 5-foot-wide creek. The character spends a Stride action to reach the creek and a separate Leap action to jump across the creek. If the character had Water Sprint, then they could reach and cross the creek in a single action.

But very deep creeks are rare. A 10-foot-wide creek that can be waded but counts as difficult terrain would be typical. A Stride from 15 feet away would manage to get into the first square of the creek. The Water Sprint would get to the second square of the creek and their next Stride would be on land rather than the difficult terrain of the creek bed. That would let the Water Sprinter cover an additional 10 feet of distance.

If a character wanted to swim across a river and lacked a Swim Speed, then getting a running start to race atop the first 10 feet of the river would be faster than swimming by a successful Athletics check to swim, but a Leap action could also cover that same 10 feet. And a Long Jump could do better.

I sometimes put small streams on my outdoor maps, but only on about one map out of five. And water seldom comes up in indoor maps, though a map called Flooded Mansion is one of those uncommon examples. Thus, I agree that this is a niche feat. It will sometimes save 5 feet of movement but saving an action will be rare.

wheatleymr wrote:

The Water Sprint skill feat refers to "Stride" which is a game term, and means a single action to move up to your (land) speed.

So for a move speed of X, then Water Sprint (before legendary) requires:
X=20': 10' over ground, 5' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.
X=25': 15' over ground, 5' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.
X=30': 15' over ground, 10' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.

The way it is phrased, the rules apply to each Stride Action, so you can't "Stride 3 times" to cover a wider body of water. Each individual Stride has to start with "at least half over ground" and "end on solid ground".

So a slow character with Speed 20 feet needs a shorter running start on land to build up speed than a faster character with Speed 25 feet. That is counterintuitive.

I think that Water Sprint is poorly written. It is a 7th-level feat that requires master Athletics, so it ought to be more impressive. For example, in a homebrew variant I would reduce the half-your-Speed part to 5 feet and let "standing on ground" include standing waist-deep in water with feet on the riverbed.

[Dragonchess Player]

Note that even half of a character's land speed can often exceed the distance that the character can jump. Also, a character may need to cross more than a 5 ft wide creek.

For example a 7th level elf (30 ft speed from ancestry, Nimble Elf for +5 ft, and Fleet for +5 ft; total 40 ft before magic*) with Water Sprint may want to cross 20 ft (or more with bonuses to speed) of water. Water Sprint also doesn't require an Athletics check with the possibility of falling short on a failure ("A horizontal Leap lets you jump up to 10 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 15 feet, or up to 15 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 30 feet.").

- fleet step (+30 ft status bonus for one minute) and tailwind (+10 ft status bonus for one hour) are both 1st rank spells, BTW