The Shepherd's Leap

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Here's a compilation of jumps. They definitely slide down the pole.

Are you sure that's the video you meant to post? It shows a couple of vaults and a couple of slides, none of them close to the heights your first post mentioned.

[Pursuivant]

Maybe I'm complicating it but it seems like a Technique that could be based on any of Acrobatics, Climbing or Jumping and which bears some kinship to Sport (Pole Vaulting). In most cases, it appears to be a trick that reduces penalties or time spent ascending or descending rocky slopes.

For an existing technique, take a look at Pole-Vault Kick from GURPS Martial Arts. Also check out the Parkour rules from GURPS Action or Dungeon Fantasy.

FWIW, those shepherd's poles also look like they'd be pretty effective pikes, spears or staffs in melee combat.

That all suggests a hypothetical martial arts style for Salto del Pastor.

[Varyon]

Sliding down a pole should allow you to descend nearly any distance with no damage, by simply keeping yourself from going fast enough to risk injury (so it may take a while to reach the ground if you're really high up; note if there isn't enough friction to fully counter gravity you'll still accelerate and may suffer injury, just a lower acceleration and lesser energy than simply falling). Of course, that's for a pole that's already set up and is in contact with the ground from the moment you have your hands on it. For a pole you carry with you, this arguably means you should be able to essentially negate whatever of the fall remains after the pole impacts the ground (as at that point you stop accelerating). And of course you can still do the typical breakfall actions (like bending at the knees) when you reach the ground to reduce the fall further.

My inclination would be to have the pole give a bonus to the roll to treat the fall as 5 yards left, as Icelander suggests. Going further, however, I would suggest that if you roll well enough that the bonus didn't matter (that is, you would have succeeded without the pole for support), you reduce the fall further, typically by around the length of the pole minus half your height (the idea being that you hold the end of the pole at around waist-height when hopping off). For a 10 foot pole, and a 2-yard-tall character, that would be around 7 feet, which you'd probably just round down to 2 yards (so it subtracts 7 yards rather than 5). A +2 bonus feels about right.

As for skill, this should be natively covered by Acrobatics (although Familiarity needs to be considered). It may also be available for Jumping. I think there's a rule somewhere (but I'm not finding it with a quick search) that you can make a Jumping roll when you purposefully jump down (rather than falling) to get the same 5-yard reduction as Acrobatics. If so, I'd say using a pole this way is an Average Technique that defaults to Jumping-2 and cannot exceed Jumping. Note that, once you have Familiarity, that makes it a net +0 if you haven't invested in the Technique (+1 or +2 if you have). It works the same way as Acrobatics. If Jumping normally doesn't work, then either Jumping is useless here and the shepherds all had Acrobatics (possibly an Optional Specialization that only covered things like pole-vaulting, sliding on poles, the pole drop technique above, etc), or you can have the pole allow Jumping to work like Acrobatics here, in which case it's probably the same Jumping-2 default but the pole doesn't give a bonus and it can only ever reduce the height of the fall by 5 yards.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Are you sure that's the video you meant to post? It shows a couple of vaults and a couple of slides, none of them close to the heights your first post mentioned.

Well, that guy is old...

But from the wiki article on it; ". These techniques range from pole-vaulting across crevices to the "dead drop" in which the practitioner leaps into space from heights of up to eight metres (26 ft), jamming the garrote into the ground below and then sliding down the pole."

So it sounds like as a sport some have dead dropped from 8m, but that looks like it might be a record?

[Donny Brook]

Hm. Okay, so there's a 26' drop, and he's got a 10' pole. Roughly assessing the hand position demonstrated in the video, there's about 5' of pole available below grade making the distance of fall to impact 21'. If he came to a full stop using just the pole, 7 yard of falling damage would apply to his hands and arms. Assuming the limbs are not cruppled, the drop from the pole to the ground less his height would be trivial. The skill elements are (1) making the pole land correctly and (2) managing the grip and angle of the pole to disburse the impact damage to the hands/arms over a longer time/distance. IDHMBWM so I'll come back another time with the damage calculation for a 7 yard fall.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Hm. Okay, so there's a 26' drop, and he's got a 10' pole.

.

So you fall 16', about 1/2 second of increasingly fast freefall which tops out at less than the full 9.8 m/32 ft/sec.^2 velocity before the pole breaks your fall. Assume terminal velocity is about 20 mph/7 m. With upper body strength and friction by pressing your body against the pole, you spend the next 1-2 seconds decelerating to about 10 mph/3 m/s over a distance of ~6 feet/2 m, which is a reasonable landing speed. (Parachutists land at about 12-15 mph/6-8 m/s, but they also reduce their speed using controlled falls.)

While you really don't want to try that trick if you've got any level of Encumbrance or Fat it is entirely reasonable for someone with sufficient training and raw ST.

You'll notice, however, that older/less skilled users just use the pole as a breakfall device for distances of 1-3 yards removing the risk and leg strain from of having to jump down. That means that, for most purposes, the pole just gives a bonus to offset penalties to Hiking skill for traveling in Bad Terrain.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

.So you fall 16', about 1/2 second of increasingly fast freefall which tops out at less than the full 9.8 m/32 ft/sec.^2 velocity before the pole breaks your fall. Assume terminal velocity is about 20 mph/7 m. With upper body strength and friction by pressing your body against the pole, you spend the next 1-2 seconds decelerating to about 10 mph/3 m/s over a distance of ~6 feet/2 m, which is a reasonable landing speed. (Parachutists land at about 12-15 mph/6-8 m/s, but they also reduce their speed using controlled falls.)

This assumes you're holding it at the tip with your feet, which is not a very stable grip and also invites essentially stabbing yourself in the groin (while it's blunt-side-up, that's still going to be problematic). Even if you're falling spread-eagle (rather than feet-first), such that the top of the pole is indeed in line with your body but you can hold it in your hands, as soon as you hit you're going to pivot down (and the swing will probably knock the pole loose, preventing you from slowing further). This is why I suggested using the length of the pole minus half your height, which would represent holding it in the hands at waist level.

While actually decelerating is certainly possible, I honestly don't think you'd be able to cause enough in such a short distance to make a difference, particularly next to the 5-yard reduction. I mentioned before that countering gravity (so no acceleration in either direction) is probably a given, at least at 1G, when sliding down a pole. I'd probably allow double the deceleration (2G - in Earth gravity, this is a net deceleration of 1G, as you're looking at 1G-2G=-1G) without much difficulty, but going any higher probably penalizes the roll, perhaps to the tune of -2 per additional 1G. Realistically this should be easier (more than 2G safely, more than 1G per additional -2) for characters who are stronger and lighter, harder for those who are weaker and heavier. Assuming the above is for the generic GURPS Everyman - ST 10 and 150 lb - you can determine the character's safe threshold (2G for the example character) by dividing BL by weight (for further realism, use current weight, including anything worn/carried) and multiplying the result by 30 to get the value in Gs. Every -2 is good to add up to half this value (optionally, -1 per 1/4 the safe threshold). Of course, 7 feet doesn't give you a lot of space to decelerate! Longer poles could be possible, if cumbersome (unless you can get something like Son Goku's Nyoibou, a magically extending staff that can get quite long), but the longer it is the harder it would be to actually stay upright the whole time you're sliding down. I'm not sure what would be an appropriate penalty here, however.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Hm. Okay, so there's a 26' drop, and he's got a 10' pole. Roughly assessing the hand position demonstrated in the video, there's about 5' of pole available below grade making the distance of fall to impact 21'. If he came to a full stop using just the pole, 7 yard of falling damage would apply to his hands and arms. Assuming the limbs are not cruppled, the drop from the pole to the ground less his height would be trivial. The skill elements are (1) making the pole land correctly and (2) managing the grip and angle of the pole to disburse the impact damage to the hands/arms over a longer time/distance. IDHMBWM so I'll come back another time with the damage calculation for a 7 yard fall.

So I now have my books and note the calculation for falling damage is:

(Yards Fallen x HP x 2 for hard surface)/100 = dice damage.

Assuming:

-an average person with HP 10,
-that the arms and hands serve to avoid the hard surface penalty,

and using my earlier calculation of 7 yards before the stick impacts, we get

(7 x 10)/100 = 0.7D damage to the arms and hands from a full stop.

If the character has Iron Hands from a lifetime of this practice there is practically no chance of damage. If we spread the damage across both limbs (i.e. 0.35D to each), again there is practically no chance of damage.

Finally, if we further assume that rather than a full stop the grip is able to convert it to a controlled slide, this makes it even more readily doable.

I thought from the original description this would have to be a cinematic technique of Acrobatics, but now I think it's realistic.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Varyon

This assumes you're holding it at the tip with your feet, which is not a very stable grip and also invites essentially stabbing yourself in the groin

My assumption is that you initially grasp the pole near the top while diving out into space and aiming the pole-planting point as you begin your fall. Once the pole is planted, you pull yourself towards it while letting your body swing to impact the side of the pole. That bleeds off energy and helps you get into a position where you can press your legs and torso against the pole as well as your hands. That greatly increases the friction area giving greater speed control.

Alternately, you might free-fall for just a fraction of a second before "spread-eagling" your body so that your feet are jammed against a nearby rock face and your hands and forearms provide the required friction on the other end. That method allows you to slowly "walk down" a rock face before swinging your legs down for a landing at the end of the descent.

Both seem like very risky techniques, however.

[The Colonel]

Anyone else wondering how they get the sheep down the rocks?