It’s a core feature of any action movie… the moment(s) when the hero has to jump across the river, rooftop, lava, chasm, pile of bad guys they just sent flying, viper pit, vat of acid, or whatever other obstacle stands in between them and their goal.
Often the consequence of failing these jumps would be death, making these scenes about as dramatic as they get.
– Jason Bourne passing his Athletics check… or was it automatic?
Sadly, the drama of these scenes is not something that Dungeons & Dragons replicates well.
If we check p.182 of the Player’s Handbook it simply states: “When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump.”
Makes sense, but very unsexy. In fact you could say it’s rather weird, because such rigidly defined boundaries of success and failure are the exact opposite of what I have come to expect from 5th edition, where fun tends to take precedence over gritty realism.
Anyway, I am currently writing an adventure (which I will publish on the DMs Guild soon! Stay tuned…), which includes a jumping challenge, and I needed a mechanic that involved chance for the scene to work… otherwise it would boil down to players and NPCs comparing Strength scores to see who could jump furthest! 🤦
An Athletics check was of course the obvious solution, and is also mentioned in the Player’s Handbook under the High Jump rules (but not the Long Jump ones, for some reason): “In some circumstances, your DM might allow you to make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump higher than you normally can.”
Since the idea was, in my adventure, to jump as far as possible I took my cue from the above, and I decreed that anyone who wanted to attempt to jump further than the rules usually allowed could make a Strength (Athletics) check. If their total roll took them above their Strength score, they succeeded and that roll was how far they managed to jump in feet. If they rolled below their Strength, then they made their usual long jump instead.
As I wanted the challenge to rely less on luck, and for the odds to favour the PCs and NPCs with the best Athletics skills, I also offered anyone advantage on the check if they took a 30 feet run up (and were unencumbered). This boon also added some realism to jumping, where a big run up is key to making a big jump.
During the playtesting of my new adventure this “add on” to the existing rules slotted seamlessly into game play. It allowed more athletic PCs to make jumps of 15 to 25 feet (the exact length was important… that’s why I couldn’t just run a contest!), which fit nicely into the bounds of realism (Mike Powell’s 8.95m world record would be over 29 feet… a character with +10 Athletics could break it!), or at the very least ‘heroic realism’.
– When you have Athletics +9, and you roll a 20…
A couple of things to note. While this rules add on works well for athletic characters, it maybe stretches reality for weedy ones. A character with 8 Strength might end up clearing up to 19 feet, if they roll a 20, while in general the less Strength you have the more likely you are to be able to make an above average jump (by your own standards). You could probably set a top limit of double someone’s strength for a long jump, and I might consider doubling negative Strength modifiers when trying to jump beyond your usual limits. Then again how many times have we seen a barbarian ace an Arcana check? Maybe we can just leave it…
Rules in Action: Setting A Jump’s DC
So there we go… to reiterate those rules in a way you might want to include in your game, let’s give an example.
As your players flee a blood thirsty tribe of troglodytes, they turn the corner in the tunnel to be greeted by a yawning chasm some 50 feet in front of them. The chasm is 16 feet across. Anyone with Strength 16 or above is able to make the jump without rolling, as per the rules laid out on p.182 of the PH. Everyone else will have to make a DC 16 Strength (Athletics) check to safely clear the jump. Provided they have packed light (i.e. are unencumbered) they will get advantage as they have a decent run up (over 30 feet) on the leap.
This of course is a tough – potentially deadly – challenge for many PCs, and those that fail by 5 or less could be judged to have got close enough to the other side to make a saving throw to cling on to the edge, or be dragged to safety by a companion. Otherwise strategic use of bardic inspiration, guidance, and non-bardic inspiration might be required to get the whole party across!
– When you miss by 5 or less…
If you’re not playing encumbrance you could consider cancelling out the advantage of the run up with disadvantage for those in heavy armour. I would probably be very cruel and give small creatures some kind of penalty too… those short-legged gnomes and halflings are not natural chasm-crossers! A minus 2 seems fair, without causing too many tears.
And what happens if you do fail your leap and plunge into the abyss? Maybe check my thoughts on falling damage before you decide just how deep the chasm is!
DrDebits
I would love to see a homebrew on musical instruments.
Where tools can be used for travel/downtime homebrew/UA (I would love to show you my solutions), instruments are still pure fluff.
I looked into the pathfinder rules for inspiration but as always, they are a bit over complicated.
I had a few basic ideas on where to start.
– Instruments should offer a special bonus for bards. Since the bard can play it with two hands and still cast spells, that shouldnt be a problem.
– the different instruments should clearly not all have the same mechanic, as the bard gets multiple proficiencies.
– separate instruments into Wood Wind, String and Special (Drums/Horn); This would minimize the needed homebrew for each. Or it would make the number of instruments in the first two types equal the number of schools of magic.
– So each instrument could benefit one school of magic? while drums and horn are used for martial advantages?!
– Each instrument could provide a cantrip?
– If each instrument gets their own bonuses, one would have to research their mythology and typical type of music. Lyres are connected to depictions of angels. A drum offers the player to be armed with two clubs, the dulcimer one to be prone.
So far I got absolutely no one to care for this. But I think it would be a wonderful addition to the game mechanics and character builds. As more people would pick them.
duncan
Not sure how you arrived on this topic from jumping! 🤣
If I remember correctly there’s something in the DMG or Xanathar’s Guide stating that you using the correct tool can give you advantage on a skills check… so having using a musical instrument you’re proficient in, RAW, would give you advantage on a Performance check.
The idea that certain instruments are connected to certain schools of magic is a nice one, although might be hard to draw a solid connection between them. It seems like something that might work in a high magic setting such as Theros…
Also have you tried the DM’s Guild? I seem to remember seeing a lot of music-themed homebrew there if you’re looking for more ideas.
Mario Marin
After extensive arguing I have come to the conclusion That strength athletics is not a suitable roll for Jump or Climb. Reason being is that Strength can mean a very different thing to some characters over others. are you a gigantic humanoid? Large animals tend be very poor at jumping. Are you lean an agile? They tend to jump and climb better but maybe not if your skinny and weak. So if I were to make a comparison. Andre The Giant? 18 strength, 8 dexterity. Conan The barbarian? can stand on his hands and walk on them, and bench like 400lbs, 18 strength, 12 Dexterity with Athletics Proficiency. That Olympic Gold medalist that is super muscular and does crazy flips, but can squat 800 and pick up a log off the floor alone? 18/18 (a total freak of nature). On the Dex side you have the opposite. You have that skinny Elf who can hold his balance perfect on a tightrope and do a flip but He couldn’t lift a Great Sword to save his life 18 dex 8 str. But this person is super light so he should be able to climb fairly well, just not for very long, and his jumps are mediocre. Your Bruce lee Body type. Then you have that extremely Talented Toad style fighter. Your Van Damme Body type. Really muscular but can be very agile. 18 dex, 12 strength, and then of course your max out physical specimen, 18/18. So what I decided to do was customize a separate Jump and climb Skill, which is the average of your Str and Dex with your Dex bonus counting only. You get no Proficiency bonus unless you have both Acrobatics and Athletics. That allows for characters with more reasonable traits to shine. I don’t want to hear that your barbarian Orc with an 8 Dex is climbing a wall with no gear because you’ve seen it in a Warcraft video. You big and Clumsy. Sorry. And I don’t think it’s reasonable for an 18 dex rogue to have a harder time climbing a wall then some big clumsy Orc because that just doesn’t make sense. That will create some interesting combinations in your campaign I think with your Jump contest.