Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-01-2017, 06:26 PM   #1
Ransom
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Default Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

My new DF campaign has a race of mountain elves who possess racial Catfall and Perfect Balance. As such, they like to build their cities into the sides of cliffs and link them with narrow tightropes. This had led to the following question: should such a character automatically succeed on an attempt to drop down from one tightrope to land on another another that crosses 20 feet below? Catfall allows them to treat a fall of that height as no fall at all, and Perfect Balance allows them to treat a well-anchored tightrope as plain level ground. Do the traits thus interact as I have described?
__________________
GURPS Self-Improvement:
Recent gains: Scaling (default+1) [2], Immunity (COVID-19) [1]
Current goal: improve Mandarin from Broken/None [1] to Accented/Broken [3]
Ransom is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 06:44 PM   #2
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ransom View Post
My new DF campaign has a race of mountain elves who possess racial Catfall and Perfect Balance. As such, they like to build their cities into the sides of cliffs and link them with narrow tightropes. This had led to the following question: should such a character automatically succeed on an attempt to drop down from one tightrope to land on another another that crosses 20 feet below? Catfall allows them to treat a fall of that height as no fall at all, and Perfect Balance allows them to treat a well-anchored tightrope as plain level ground. Do the traits thus interact as I have described?
I wouldn't say so. If you hit the rope then it's like jump from one spot of ground to another...but you do have to hit the rope and that does require a jumping roll or an acrobatics roll.
David Johnston2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 07:00 PM   #3
lwcamp
 
lwcamp's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

Yeah, sure. I mean if you are going to err, err on the side of AWESOME!!! And cliff cites strung together with ropes, and elves that can jump between them, is pretty awesome.

Luke
lwcamp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 07:03 PM   #4
Ransom
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
I wouldn't say so. If you hit the rope then it's like jump from one spot of ground to another...but you do have to hit the rope and that does require a jumping roll or an acrobatics roll.
That's more or less the conclusion I had come to, good to see you agree.
__________________
GURPS Self-Improvement:
Recent gains: Scaling (default+1) [2], Immunity (COVID-19) [1]
Current goal: improve Mandarin from Broken/None [1] to Accented/Broken [3]
Ransom is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-01-2017, 09:50 PM   #5
Refplace
 
Refplace's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ransom View Post
That's more or less the conclusion I had come to, good to see you agree.
Yeah I am the same but also agree its awesome :)
I have done something a little less ambitious with tree elves.
Acrobatics or Jumping to go between them.
Catfall wont help here but Think about stringing vertical ropes between levels.
You can then use Climbing to switch between levels. Slower then jumping but safer and it does not have not be that slow, think rappelling down a mountain.

Also those lines can be used for Brachiating.
__________________
My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more!
My GURPS fan contribution and blog:
REFPLace GURPS Landing Page
My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items)
My GURPS Wiki entries
Refplace is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-02-2017, 03:22 AM   #6
dcarson
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

I'd allow the No Nuisance Rolls Perk so that the really skilled don't fail.
dcarson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-02-2017, 06:16 AM   #7
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

My mental picture is suddenly that of lemurs leaping from tree to tree. With Disney Robin Hood hats.
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-02-2017, 07:58 AM   #8
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

Quote:
Originally Posted by lwcamp View Post

Yeah, sure. I mean if you are going to err, err on the side of AWESOME!!! And cliff cites strung together with ropes, and elves that can jump between them, is pretty awesome.
I'd go with this interpretation.



The entire race has a 25-point investment: Catfall [10] + Perfect Balance [15]. That's more than Clinging [20] for a race of wall-climbers, Flight (Controlled Gliding, -45%) [22] for a race of "flying squirrels," or Walk on Air [20] for a race that could move between levels as if there were stairs. Requiring rolls for day-to-day mobility in their native habitat fails the "Roll dice to cross the street and get to the adventure" test (a humorous reference to adversarial GMing back in the day . . .). Just assume they can move this way without error in daily life. Save Acrobatics and Jumping rolls for combat and chases, just as the GM might require a DX-based Running roll to weave between cars on a busy street during a foot chase.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-02-2017, 09:53 AM   #9
evileeyore
Banned
 
evileeyore's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Just assume they can move this way without error in daily life. Save Acrobatics and Jumping rolls for combat and chases, just as the GM might require a DX-based Running roll to weave between cars on a busy street during a foot chase.
Exactly. For these Elves* I'd only have them test if they were engaged in a moving battle across the tightropes.


* For anyone else with the same traits I'd contemplate occasionally roiling. After all they didn't grow up doing this. So crossing the street during heavy traffic might be dangerous.
evileeyore is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-02-2017, 06:09 PM   #10
Ransom
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Default Re: Catfall, Perfect Balance, and jumping from tightrope to tightrope

I took it as a given that this is hapoening during high stakes adventure situations. I'm not going to be making rolls for daily mistep attrition for the elf city or anything like that.
__________________
GURPS Self-Improvement:
Recent gains: Scaling (default+1) [2], Immunity (COVID-19) [1]
Current goal: improve Mandarin from Broken/None [1] to Accented/Broken [3]
Ransom is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 10:23 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.