Jumping

[Matthias777]

This is stemming from a discussion on Force Jumping, which led to a desire for a difficulty table for jumping without the aid of the Force.

Basically I figured that you'd have rules for horizontal leaps, rules for vertical jumps, and if you needed to combine the two, simply adding the two together (for an increasing-altitude leap) would give you your difficulty number. There are of course some modifiers that can come into play. On the modifiers, I will say this: in a tabletop game I might just wing it and use my best judgement on the modifiers instead of doing any math, but in a PbP or PBeM setting you don't have to worry about a few seconds of lost time to figuring them up. To each their own.

First, we have rules for horizontal leaps.



Second, there is a character's vertical jump ability. The "vertical jump" denotes one's ability to raise their center of gravity on a vertical plane without taking any steps before the jump.



Modifiers
The modifiers below apply whenever a character decides to land or catch themselves any other way than landing on their feet standing at full height.

Add 125% of the character's height to their jump to find the height at which they can successfully grab onto something without a running start. For example, if a character successfully jumps 35 centimeters vertically, and is 1.8m tall, they would be able to grab onto something with a height of 2.6m (1.8 x 1.25 = 2.25 + 0.35 = 2.6). This does not have to determine whether or not they succeed in hanging on if you (as the GM) don't want it to. For determining difficulty numbers, subtract 125% of the character's height from the height of what they are attempting to grab onto. For example, a character is in an elevator and wants to jump and grab onto the edge of the open access port so that he can climb up onto the roof. The edge of the access port is at a height of 2.4 meters, and the character is 1.8 meters tall. The Gamemaster calculates that 125% of the character's height is 2.25 meters, and subtracts that amount from the height of the access port. He then assigns a difficulty of 4 based on the resulting height of 0.15 meters; 15 centimeters is a Very Easy jump.

Add 145% of the character's height to their jump to find the height at which they can successfully grab onto something with a running start. For example, if a character successfully jumps 35 centimeters vertically, and is 1.8m tall, they would be able to grab onto something with a height of 2.96m (1.8 x 1.45 = 2.61 + 0.35 = 2.96). This does not have to determine whether or not they succeed in hanging on if you (as the GM) don't want it to. For determining difficulty numbers, subtract 145% of the character's height from the height of what they are attempting to grab onto.

Add 85% of the character's height to their jump to find the height at which they can successfully catch themselves by getting their arms and elbows onto a surface without a running start. For example, if a character successfully jumps 35 centimeters vertically, and is 1.8m tall, they would be able to get their arms and elbows onto something with a height of 1.88m (1.8 x 0.85 = 1.53 + 0.35 = 1.88 ). This does not have to determine whether or not they succeed in hanging on if you (as the GM) don't want it to. For determining difficulty numbers, subtract 85% of the character's height from the height of what they are attempting to grab onto.

Add 105% of the character's height to their jump to find the height at which they can successfully catch themselves by getting their arms and elbows onto a surface with a running start. For example, if a character successfully jumps 35 centimeters vertically, and is 1.8m tall, they would be able to get their arms and elbows onto something with a height of 2.24m (1.8 x 0.85 = 1.89 + 0.35 = 2.24). This does not have to determine whether or not they succeed in hanging on if you (as the GM) don't want it to. For determining difficulty numbers, subtract 105% of the character's height from the height of what they are attempting to grab onto.

Add 40% of the character's height to their jump to find the height at which they can successfully jump onto a surface, landing in a crouch on their feet without a running start. For example, if a character successfully jumps 35 centimeters vertically, and is 1.8m tall, they would be able to jump up and onto a platform with a height of 1.07m (1.8 x 0.4 = 0.72 + 0.35 = 1.07). For determining difficulty numbers, subtract 40% of the character's height from the height of that onto which they are attempting to jump.

Add 60% of the character's height to their jump to find the height at which they can successfully jump onto a surface, landing in a crouch on their feet with a running start. For example, if a character successfully jumps 35 centimeters vertically, and is 1.8m tall, they would be able to jump up and onto a platform with a height of 1.43m (1.8 x 0.6 = 1.08 + 0.35 = 1.43). For determining difficulty numbers, subtract 60% of the character's height from the height of that onto which they are attempting to jump.

Combination Horizontal/Vertical Jumps
For increasing-altitude long jumps (e.g. - jumping across a chasm and onto a taller ledge), simply add the horizontal jump difficulty (after calculating modifiers) to the vertical jump difficulty (after calculating modifiers). For decreasing-altitude long jumps (e.g. jumping across a chasm to a ledge below), add the horizontal and vertical jump difficulties together, then decrease the difficulty by 3 for every meter that the landing surface is below the surface being jumped from. This may not decrease the difficulty by more than 10. Falling damage may apply, but is not covered under this skill/house rule.

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I realize that the "running start" modifiers are absolutes, and don't differentiate between two steps before the leap, or twenty. The difficulty numbers I came up with take this into consideration; if you wanted to add accuracy/realism in the form of a "running start distance/steps taken" modifier, you'd probably want to rework the difficulty numbers themselves. The only real reason behind me choosing do it this way is that I chose not to make it any more complicated than I already had; I know I've probably already crossed the threshold for "complicated" for most people anyway. I also realize that if you tried to apply this to actual real-world professional athletes, it would be pretty inaccurate. Vertical jump records are in the 125-145cm range, but those record-holders don't make boxjump records. Conversely, boxjump record holders are also in the 125-145cm range, but don't make vertical jump records. You would think that a vertical jumper that can jump 140cm off of the floor could just tuck his legs and make a 210cm boxjump easily, but they (apparently) can't. I don't have any ideas for making this system perfect, even if I didn't mind making it insanely complicated. If anyone knows how to come up with more accurate numbers with fairly simple methods, please tell me. Basically what I've tried to do is make the system usable for characters that aren't NBA all-stars or Olympic medalists.

This actually turned out to be a lot more work than I thought it would be, but I think I may have finally gotten it straight. I'm a little cross-eyed from looking at this, though, so feel free to tell me where I may have screwed up.
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Arek | Kage

[Fallon Kell]

I like the rules, but as far as humans go, I think the difficulties of the large vertical jumps may be too low. I can't think of anyone jumping so much as a full meter vertically from a standstill.
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Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System

[Matthias777]

[Fallon Kell]

That looks good, or at least as good as you can get with a system that varies so wildly in results between a lucky roll and an unlucky one with 6 dice or more. (Seeing as a lucky vertical jump and an unlucky one would probably vary by maybe a hand's breadth at maximum...) I wonder if treating those massive vertical jumps like the ones in the videos as prepared actions (+1D) would help, too?
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Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System

[Matthias777]

[Cowboy Hat]

Thanks for that, one of mine and my player main concerns was a lack of comparison to force aided/unaided jumping.

so "like button"
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"The Force will be with you. Sometimes."

[ZzaphodD]

Hmm, too much information

To each their own of course, but when it comes to jumping the SW D6 rule of thumb excel in my games...
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My Biggest Beard Retard award goes to: The Admiral of course..

[Matthias777]

[ZzaphodD]

[Bren]

[cheshire]

[ZzaphodD]

[jmanski]

[vanir]

Totally with zaphod on this one. I'm all for extrapolation of stamina difficulties for various physical and environmental conditions because it helps place various armour and envirosuit modifications and personal equipment into a usable gaming context.

But jumping, it can be as generalised as the RAW and should be, because it so very much relies on circumstantial GM ruling.
A Kalihari bushman gets 1.2m on the go easy without even bending his knees after about 5mins of bouncing away in prep for a hunt, I've watched them do this. A 15yr old yank kid who leapt up from his Wii to try something athletic is gonna be heroic managing 15cm without a trampoline, forget it if he's a burger king junkie like most, feller'll be lucky to survive the excitement.

My sentiment is that if it has a bearing on how technology is used in the game then okay, within reason. But if it's gonna make me stop the action and look up tables in the middle of a firefight over some mundane leaping over tables forget it. Just roll the dodge and if you've gotta leap over a table on the way so long as you're not trying to do anything trick with the manoeuvre, I'm just ruling a basic environmental difficulty to keep the action rolling.