Does the Guardian's "Flying Tackle" allow mid-air trips?

[GnatNab]

I had looked through the forums for a possible answer to this, but could not find one. The "Flying Tackle" feat (takeable at level four) seems like it could be read either requiring that you land before making the trip attempt, or that it could happen midair (especially useful if you high jump), so I thought I'd ask around to see if those who understand the rules better might clear things up.

Exact wording follows:

Flying Tackle wrote:

 You barrel forward, gathering enough momentum to take down a threatening foe. Stride and then Leap, or attempt to High Jump or Long Jump. If you end your movement adjacent to a foe, you can attempt to Trip that foe. If you succeed at the Athletics check to Trip, you get a critical success instead. You can use Flying Tackle while Burrowing, Climbing, Flying, or Swimming instead of Striding if you have the corresponding movement type.

[Finoan]

This seems to be a variation of the standard open questions of if you can attack something mid-jump, or if you can jump to a target point in the air rather than a point on the ground.

The Simultaneous Actions rule sets the general expectation that you have to finish one action before starting another.

That does cause problems in some edge cases, so GMs may relax that rule a bit in certain circumstances.

However, GMs probably shouldn't relax the rule too much because doing so devalues other feats that are created to specifically override this and allow the desired behavior, such as Flying Kick.

Personally how I would rule this is that you could target a jump to a point in the air, but you will end your movement there - you can then make the attack if you ended your jump adjacent to an enemy. You will fall at the end of your turn unless you have some means of movement that you use before then. And unlike Flying Kick, you don't have any protection against the fall damage if you jump high enough.

[GnatNab]

Thanks for the response! I had missed the Simultaneous Actions rule, definitely seems to matter here. Good to know that even if some tables might allow it, that it isn't a set thing.

Also have to say, with learning this game, there are A LOT of minutia that don't seem to matter until they suddenly matter very much. The core rules arent that complicated (three actions, d20 + number against DC, crit succeed/fail on difference of 10), but it'll probably be easy for me to forget details in play.

[yellowpete]

I think it works with High Jump the way it's written. Also, the ability is literally called "Flying Tackle", it would be rather strange if the intention here was to prevent it from working while you're midair.

[Finoan]

yellowpete wrote:

the ability is literally called "Flying Tackle", it would be rather strange if...

Hurl at the Horizon says hi.

You shouldn't use a feat's name as having mechanical impact that overrides other rules elements. The name is for narrative guidance and being memorable.

[Errenor]

Finoan wrote:

You shouldn't use a feat's name as having mechanical impact that overrides other rules elements. The name is for narrative guidance and being memorable.

And what is Flying speed in there for? Just for diving? Yes, there's also swimming speed which would work only if you jump out of water on land. But still, High Jump and Flying speed show intention rather obviously.

But they could have written this more clearly and explicitly.

[yellowpete]

Finoan wrote:

Hurl at the Horizon says hi.

You shouldn't use a feat's name as having mechanical impact that overrides other rules elements. The name is for narrative guidance and being memorable.

Sure, however, if you reread my post, you'll notice I didn't do that. I used it to make an educated guess at designer intent.

Would "Hurl at the Horizon" cause me to think that the intention is for the exemplar to literally throw things that far? No, because such a judgement of intention depends on more context than the text alone.

[Errenor]

Ok, with Flying there's a problem that you can't Leap, High Jump or Long Jump while being in the air.

[The Raven Black]

Errenor wrote:

Ok, with Flying there's a problem that you can't Leap, High Jump or Long Jump while being in the air.

I see nothing in the definition of Leap preventing leaping while in the air nor in water.

[Errenor]

The Raven Black wrote:

Errenor wrote:

Ok, with Flying there's a problem that you can't Leap, High Jump or Long Jump while being in the air.

I see nothing in the definition of Leap preventing leaping while in the air nor in water.

Well, it's not even true. Apart from Speed which it is based on being land speed, there're also 'jump' (we do know what 'jump' is, right? this is 'natural language', not formal instruction), 'you land' (where do you 'land' in air or water?) and 'surface' (which may be used for some special custom/feat maneuvers both in air and in water, but not what this is about). High/Long Jumps also use Strides which are land only.

But even ignoring the above, do you think the designers intended for the actions to work there? Or did they simply thought jumping is an obvious thing? I can't even write 'they forgot to explicitly mention land' when they actually did mention it and you can't really forget writing something when it's obvious for you and you didn't intend to do it.
Do you think enabling this would improve your games?