Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Jump is an underrated little gem in the early tiers, and pretty unusable in the mid to upper tiers. Instead of doing a super deep dive as to why that is, I think it’d be largely beneficial to everyone (myself included) to quickly review how to calculate jump distances, because my god, they really didn’t need to make it this complicated, but they did, so here we go!
There are two kinds of jumps: long jumps, which travel horizontal distances, and high jumps, which travel vertical distances. Before performing either jump, which occurs by spending your movement with no action necessary, you can move at least ten feet.
When long jumping, if you moved at least ten feet prior to the jump, you can cover a distance equal to your Strength score. If you don’t move at least ten feet prior to the jump, you can jump half that distance.
When high jumping, if you moved at least ten feet prior to jumping, you can vertically leap 3 + your Strength modifier feet vertically. If you don’t move prior, you can jump half that distance.
As a quick example, a character with a Strength score of 15 (+2 modifier) can jump 15 feet horizontally with a running long jump, 7 and a half feet horizontally with a standing long jump, 5 feet vertically with a running high jump, and two and a half feet vertically with a standing high jump.
I’ll also add here that characters can reach with their arms half your height further when high jumping, giving you the ability to reach things above you half your height (normally about 3 feet) plus your high jump distance.
All of this comes back to explain why I think Jump is great. With Jump, a character with 15 Strength can clear a 45 foot gap with a running long jump, no skill check required. Additionally, you can high jump vertically up to fifteen feet, roughly a single storied building, plus a bit extra if there’s a ledge you need to grab. Giving somebody 15 foot high jumps and 45 foot long jumps can open up a whole world of exploration otherwise closed off. It doesn’t even require concentration, meaning you can have this applied to multiple creatures at once, which is super neat.
An important rule not about this: because jumping spends movement, you can’t ever jump longer distances than movement you have left. This means with Jump cast on a character with a 30 ft. speed and a 15 Strength, in order travel across the 45 foot gap, you’ll need to spend an action dashing to gain extra movement you can spend during your turn (10 feet moving prior to the jump, 45 feet during the jump, 5 extra feet remaining). Some characters with slower speeds and higher strengths literally won’t have the speed to jump their maximum distance; a character with 20 strength and a 30 ft. speed can’t cover the 60 ft. long jump with a running start, as in total, it takes 70 feet of movement to cover the entire distance and they only have 60 feet to work with even if they take the dash action.
If you want to do the big jumps and get people into fun places quickly, I’d recommend keeping the calculation reference on hand or getting you and your friends to actually record your jump distances somewhere on your sheets. It can be a super fun tool to play with; I’d give it a shot if you’re willing to do the math.
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