Simplified Jumping?

Ejidoth · 09-20-2020, 05:37 PM

Does anyone have any house rules for jumping so that characters with high Move and/or Super Jump have a straightforward, easy calculation for 'how far/fast do you go when you jump?' that's less fiddly and down-to-the-inches specific than the rules on B352?

I'm looking at making my own, but if it's already been done I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Ejidoth · 09-20-2020, 05:53 PM

My first-pass attempt is:

Broad Jump has a base range in yards of Move/2, rounded down. This is a pretty serious simplification for high Moves, but it looks like it gives very close to the B352 results for up to Move 10, after which it slowly starts to lag behind. Conveniently, it guarantees that a full-speed running jump (where jump distance gets to be doubled) is exactly a full Move.

High Jump has a base height in yards of Move/6, rounded down. This basically adds ten inches to the 'realistic' high jump, but then rounds it down to yards.

Super Jump and other modifiers alter your effective Move before division and rounding for these calculations.

AlexanderHowl · 09-20-2020, 07:39 PM

Is there a particular reason why it needs to be simplified? It is a calculation that only needs to be done once per character, after all, and you can easily make a reference table to speed that up.

Ejidoth · 09-20-2020, 07:51 PM

It doesn't need it, overall, but something about it trips me up every time I reference it and makes the game come to a screeching halt for a few minutes.

I think it's to do keeping track of the order of operations? It starts with Basic Move (or half Jumping skill, or Move plus running distance, or half Jumping skill plus running distance), followed by a multiplier, followed by a subtraction, followed by a ceiling on the result at this point (running distance can't more than double the result), then followed by any additional multipliers like Super-Jump, and I end up second-guessing whether I've done everything in the right order or missed a step or something.

And it needs to be done multiple times per character, since your Move can vary with encumbrance. At least in the game I've been playing, a lot of characters have 2-3 common encumbrance levels: unencumbered, light encumbrance where they've dropped or stored their pack/camping supplies but still have gear and armor and such, and medium or heavy encumbrance when they're hauling all their stuff.

In comparison, just being able to go 'your broad jump is Move/4; Move/2 if you take a couple seconds to get ready first, or Move if you have a running start', using Jumping/2 in place of Move if necessary, and then multiplying for Super Jump, is a lot easier for me to not get lost in the middle of. The main thing is that's all multiplication/division, plus it's already in the distance unit I'm using for the map (yards) so I don't need to do an extra unit conversion step.

Fred Brackin · 09-20-2020, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

My first-pass attempt is:

High Jump has a base height in yards of Move/6, rounded down. .

At a minimum you need to re-do the part about rounding. Less than one, rounded down to a whole number in yards is zero. No one who didn't start with a Move of at least 6 would have any High Jump ability. All characters between Move 6 and 11 would have the same High Jump and so on.

I don't find any of it simpler. Dividing by 2 is okay but partial yards are an awkward unit. Dividing by 6 is nothing but awkward and would probably have to be done with a calculator and/or involve shifting out of yards to either feet or inches.

As a general note I can already do the RAW calculations in my head and more easily than your proposed substitutions.

There is an awkward palce in using Super Jump where you have to shift from feet to yards to see if you get a speed boost from the "never longer thna 5 Turns" clasue but that never comes into play at the lower levels of Super Jump. I think you need at least level 3 if not higher.

Ejidoth · 09-20-2020, 08:16 PM

Basically, I have two goals:

1. I really want to avoid having a subtraction halfway through the calculations, so I'd like to have jump distances and heights directly proportionate to Move.

2. I don't care about a resolution below yards, horizontally, because I'm using this on a hex grid and I don't want to deal with people ending their jump between hexes or something. Hence the rounding. It's less important for the vertical jump, but even there I'm not sure I care that much about tracking battlefield height changes of less than a yard at a time.

I'm surprised that nobody else finds the jump calculations awkward to use as written.
My proposal probably isn't great, it's just the first thing I thought of.

Ejidoth · 09-20-2020, 08:50 PM

I've convinced myself that Move/2 is a good basic horizontal jump distance on a hex grid, even though starts lagging behind the Basic Set at Moves 9+.

I'm less sure about vertical, but Move/6 yards (or Move/2 feet, I guess) is essentially the same as Basic Set, plus ten inches. I'm waffling over whether that extra ten inches is enough to break verisimilitude, but I guess for Dungeon Fantasy it's probably fine? I could subtract one foot, to get a jump height measured in feet that's within two inches of Basic Set, but that's reintroducing middle-of-the-calculation subtractions.

Fred Brackin · 09-20-2020, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

B

2. I don't care about a resolution below yards, horizontally, because I'm using this on a hex grid and I don't want to deal with people ending their jump between hexes or something. Hence the rounding. It's less important for the vertical jump, but even there I'm not sure I care that much about tracking battlefield height changes of less than a yard at a time.

I'm surprised that nobody else finds the jump calculations awkward to use as written.
My proposal probably isn't great, it's just the first thing I thought of.

Do your characters never go anywhere but battlefields? I'd find the vertical calcs important for things like the bottom of fire escapes and other non-standard ways to ascend urban structures.

Even the horizontal calcs woud be more likely to come in out of combat with things like chasms to leap and so forth.

I've never actually seen jumping in combat in Gurps but I've had martial artist characters where I've figured out ahead of time if they could jump over the head of an opponent in combat. I'd want height in inches for that though and not whole yards rounded down.

I won't guarantee you that no one else finds the RAW calcs easy. I spent the 5 pts on Eidetic Memory. :)

Ejidoth · 09-20-2020, 09:01 PM

Anything below a yard, you can probably step up or over, and anything over a yard I'm probably mentally rounding to yards anyway. I don't have a great head for distance but I can at least hold 'a yard is about a half person-length, or roughly the width of a minecraft block' in my head.

Jumping calculations also almost entirely come up for characters with Super Jump. Normal human jumps mostly fall into the realm of 'does it seem reasonable to imagine a person making that jump? Okay, make a DX or Jumping roll at -2 because it seems a little hard', but I want to know how deep a pit someone with Super Jump 5 can jump out of, whether they can Dodge area effect spells by jumping over them, etc. and that's usually a matter of yards.

AlexanderHowl · 09-20-2020, 09:29 PM

Considering that many of my higher point value 'mundane' characters end up with Basic Move 10 or higher, their base jump is 50" vertical and 17' horizontal (up to 100" vertical and 34' horizontal with a running start), so that is a bit more than a normal person. Heck, it is not even that expensive, it is just DX 14, HT 14, and Basic Move 10 (135 CP), which is not bad for an Olympic level athlete.

09-20-2020, 05:37 PM	#1
Ejidoth Join Date: Jul 2009	Simplified Jumping? Does anyone have any house rules for jumping so that characters with high Move and/or Super Jump have a straightforward, easy calculation for 'how far/fast do you go when you jump?' that's less fiddly and down-to-the-inches specific than the rules on B352? I'm looking at making my own, but if it's already been done I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

09-20-2020, 05:53 PM	#2
Ejidoth Join Date: Jul 2009	Re: Simplified Jumping? My first-pass attempt is: Broad Jump has a base range in yards of Move/2, rounded down. This is a pretty serious simplification for high Moves, but it looks like it gives very close to the B352 results for up to Move 10, after which it slowly starts to lag behind. Conveniently, it guarantees that a full-speed running jump (where jump distance gets to be doubled) is exactly a full Move. High Jump has a base height in yards of Move/6, rounded down. This basically adds ten inches to the 'realistic' high jump, but then rounds it down to yards. Super Jump and other modifiers alter your effective Move before division and rounding for these calculations. Last edited by Ejidoth; 09-20-2020 at 08:46 PM.

09-20-2020, 07:39 PM	#3
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Simplified Jumping? Is there a particular reason why it needs to be simplified? It is a calculation that only needs to be done once per character, after all, and you can easily make a reference table to speed that up.

09-20-2020, 07:51 PM	#4
Ejidoth Join Date: Jul 2009	Re: Simplified Jumping? It doesn't need it, overall, but something about it trips me up every time I reference it and makes the game come to a screeching halt for a few minutes. I think it's to do keeping track of the order of operations? It starts with Basic Move (or half Jumping skill, or Move plus running distance, or half Jumping skill plus running distance), followed by a multiplier, followed by a subtraction, followed by a ceiling on the result at this point (running distance can't more than double the result), then followed by any additional multipliers like Super-Jump, and I end up second-guessing whether I've done everything in the right order or missed a step or something. And it needs to be done multiple times per character, since your Move can vary with encumbrance. At least in the game I've been playing, a lot of characters have 2-3 common encumbrance levels: unencumbered, light encumbrance where they've dropped or stored their pack/camping supplies but still have gear and armor and such, and medium or heavy encumbrance when they're hauling all their stuff. In comparison, just being able to go 'your broad jump is Move/4; Move/2 if you take a couple seconds to get ready first, or Move if you have a running start', using Jumping/2 in place of Move if necessary, and then multiplying for Super Jump, is a lot easier for me to not get lost in the middle of. The main thing is that's all multiplication/division, plus it's already in the distance unit I'm using for the map (yards) so I don't need to do an extra unit conversion step.

09-20-2020, 08:16 PM	#6
Ejidoth Join Date: Jul 2009	Re: Simplified Jumping? Basically, I have two goals: 1. I really want to avoid having a subtraction halfway through the calculations, so I'd like to have jump distances and heights directly proportionate to Move. 2. I don't care about a resolution below yards, horizontally, because I'm using this on a hex grid and I don't want to deal with people ending their jump between hexes or something. Hence the rounding. It's less important for the vertical jump, but even there I'm not sure I care that much about tracking battlefield height changes of less than a yard at a time. I'm surprised that nobody else finds the jump calculations awkward to use as written. My proposal probably isn't great, it's just the first thing I thought of. Last edited by Ejidoth; 09-20-2020 at 08:20 PM.

09-20-2020, 08:50 PM	#7
Ejidoth Join Date: Jul 2009	Re: Simplified Jumping? I've convinced myself that Move/2 is a good basic horizontal jump distance on a hex grid, even though starts lagging behind the Basic Set at Moves 9+. I'm less sure about vertical, but Move/6 yards (or Move/2 feet, I guess) is essentially the same as Basic Set, plus ten inches. I'm waffling over whether that extra ten inches is enough to break verisimilitude, but I guess for Dungeon Fantasy it's probably fine? I could subtract one foot, to get a jump height measured in feet that's within two inches of Basic Set, but that's reintroducing middle-of-the-calculation subtractions.

09-20-2020, 09:01 PM	#9
Ejidoth Join Date: Jul 2009	Re: Simplified Jumping? Anything below a yard, you can probably step up or over, and anything over a yard I'm probably mentally rounding to yards anyway. I don't have a great head for distance but I can at least hold 'a yard is about a half person-length, or roughly the width of a minecraft block' in my head. Jumping calculations also almost entirely come up for characters with Super Jump. Normal human jumps mostly fall into the realm of 'does it seem reasonable to imagine a person making that jump? Okay, make a DX or Jumping roll at -2 because it seems a little hard', but I want to know how deep a pit someone with Super Jump 5 can jump out of, whether they can Dodge area effect spells by jumping over them, etc. and that's usually a matter of yards.

09-20-2020, 09:29 PM	#10
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Simplified Jumping? Considering that many of my higher point value 'mundane' characters end up with Basic Move 10 or higher, their base jump is 50" vertical and 17' horizontal (up to 100" vertical and 34' horizontal with a running start), so that is a bit more than a normal person. Heck, it is not even that expensive, it is just DX 14, HT 14, and Basic Move 10 (135 CP), which is not bad for an Olympic level athlete.