Force Jump

[Gry Sarth]

I've been playing a Jedi campaign, and my group felt that the existing rules couldn't duplicate the kind of Force Jump seen all around the prequels. The closest you can do is use Enhance Attribute and Enhance Skill on your climbing/jumping, but that is not right, because a human with, say, 7D in jumping will still never be able to jump 20 meters into the air. using Telekinesis to levitate yourself also isn't the right thing, we are talking about jedi jumps here.

Obviously, a new power was needed. Somone in this forum indicated a site with a handful of homebrew force powers, and among them was this:

[Trusty]

[Gry Sarth]

Ditto.

Do you think there is a small amount of self-telekinesis going on in these jumps? An extra push to accelerate the body and an extra resistance to slow down the fall? If so it would be feasible to make this a Control/Alter power and make telekinesis a pre-requisite. And then work out what the control and alter rolls would be (maybe one for the taking-off and one for the landing?)

[Trusty]

To me, an obvious use of telekinesis is part of the equation. But to me, Mace jumped away from Jango in the arena, but he had a longer way down as opposed to a higher jump in the air. So if the jump is controlled than so should the landing be. I'd think landing from a controlled jump at a greater distance is actually easier to manage than an extremely high jump into the air. So there should be modifiers as to how high one jumps, and different ones to how far someone falls. For instance, jumping five meters is harder then landing safely from a 15-25 meter fall (as per the film). But to me, a five meter jump is a moderate to difficult roll at the least (when using either the force or regular climbing/jumping skill). Remember 5 meters is 16.4 feet.
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[Gry Sarth]

I agree with you mostly, but I'm trying to keep in mind that we must make this power as simple as it can possibly be. I'd like to try and deal with the jumping down thing without creating some separate set of rules for it.

I'm really growing fond of the idea of making this a control/alter power. You roll your control to manage the jump and your alter to cushion your landing. The alter difficulty probably shouldn't be modified by the horizontal movement, just vertical. If you're just jumping down, you control is very easy and your alter is much difficult, if you're jumping up to a ledge, it's the other way around. If you're jumping over an obstacle, they are both about the same difficulty. If you fail your control, you fumble the jump, if you fail your alter, you take normal falling damage. This means performing a Force Jump takes two actions, which will help making it a little bit more difficult.

I was thinking that maybe you should add your climbing/jumping to your Force Skill rolls (similar to Lightsaber Combat) but the problem with this is it gives you a lot of dice to roll, so the difficulties would have to be raised to account for that.

[KageRyu]

The quickest, simplest solution that comes to my mind is to use the benchmark difficulties for the enhanced attribute power. The difference for enhanced jumping being twofold:
1) The Die code is added to the jumping skill.
2) The die code bonus is rolled to determine how many extra meters may be jumped.

This, however, could produce wild results, so it might be safer to say, for every Die code of bonus, 5m may be added to jumping distance?

Just a few thoughts. Enhance attribute should definately be a pre-requisite.
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[Gry Sarth]

This is a very quick and simple solution, indeed. But I'm afraid it's a bit too simple, which brings up a bunch of problems. First is the fact that it's not stated anywhere the difficulties for the amount of meters jumped with the normal skill, the rulebook is very vague about it, so what would you add your bonus to? Secondly there wouldn't be any difference between upwards jumps, downwards jumps and horizontal jumps. And finally, in my experience, your avarage jedi will almost never roll high enough to get to the +2D bonus of enhance attribute, making the power too stable and predictable.

[Argamoth]

You could generalize it into a 'Force Move', which includes both jumping and horizontal movements. Control difficulty depends on the direction and percision of the jump, alter depends on the speed and distance.

Dashing down a hallway isn't too hard. Jumping up (and not busting your head) is a bit more difficult.

[Gry Sarth]

Are you talking about mixing Force Jump with Force Speed?

[KageRyu]

[entropy]

I know they're far from canon, but I think the best source for a house rule like this may be the video games. Force jump is integral to all of them, and often seems to be based (roughly) on your character's height, and expect that your character will be able to continue moving at the culmination of the jump.

I don't have any personal knowledge of jumping tecniques, but I would guess the high point of the jump would occur midway through the jump, and that you can jump about half as high as you can jump across (from standing). Based on what I've seen in movies and games, I would expect that a padawan would often be better off using his normal jump skill, and a difficult jump would be about 8x that. This gives us the following chart for a character about 2 meters tall:

Control
Difficulty..........Height..........Distance
Very Easy..........1m.................2m
Easy..................2m.................4m
Moderate............4m.................8m
Difficult...............8m...............16m
Very Difficult......16m..............32m
Heroic................24m..............48m

Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.

These difficulties would allow you to be standing and continue acting at the end of the jump. If the character misses by a point or two, I would let him make the jump, but make him prone and end his turn when he landed. I think I would also require a Moderate Alter roll as part of this power, to reflect the telekinetic aspect of it.

I came up with this on the spot, I have never playtested it, but it seems logical, and maintains the exponential style of TK, although carrying that past heroic would be ridiculous, as you'd have powerful jedis spending a force point to enter low orbit (but if that's the style of your campaign, keep doubling past Very Difficult)

I would make falling a different power altogether.

[Gry Sarth]

I like your difficulties, entropy, they sound similar to what I had in mind. Now let me give it a try:

Control difficulty...Height jumped
Very Easy............1m
Easy....................2m
Moderate.............4m
Difficult................8m
Very Difficult........16m
Heroic..................24m
Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.

Modifier......Distance jumped
+1.............2m
+5.............4m
+10...........8m
+15...........16m
+20...........24m
+25...........32m
Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.


Alter Difficulty....Height jumped
Very Easy..........4m
Easy..................8m
Moderate...........16m
Difficult..............24m
Very Difficult......32m
Heroic................40m
Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.

If you fail the Control roll, you fail the jump. If you fail the Alter roll, you take normal falling damage upon landing. Remember these are two action that must be rolled in the same round, therefore suffering multiple action penalties.

I just wish I could find a good way to insert the climbing/jumping skill into the mix.

[Gry Sarth]

Ok, I'd really appreciate your opinion on this. I've further developed this power, and here its is. Please tell me what you think.

Force Jump

Control difficulty ... Height jumped
Very Easy ............. 1m
Easy ..................... 2m
Moderate ............... 4m
Difficult ................. 8m
Very Difficult ......... 16m
Heroic .................. 24m
Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.

Modifier ... Distance jumped
+1 ............ 2m
+5 ............ 4m
+10 .......... 8m
+15 ......... 16m
+20 ......... 24m
+25 ......... 32m
Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.


Alter Difficulty ... Height jumped
Very Easy ............. 4m
Easy ..................... 8m
Moderate .............. 16m
Difficult ................. 24m
Very Difficult ......... 32m
Heroic ................... 40m
Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.

Modifier ... Distance jumped
+1 ........... 8m
+5 ........... 16m
+10 ......... 24m
+15 ......... 32m
+20 ......... 40m
+25 ......... 48m
Add 5 to the difficulty for every additional 8 meters.

Required Powers: Enhance attribute, telekinesis

Time to Use: One round

Effect: This power allows the Jedi to jump over great distances in any direction. Both Force Skill rolls must be made in the same round, therefore incurring normal multiple action penalties. The Control roll is made at the beginning of the jump, with the difficulty depending on the jump trajectory (jumping downwards has a base Height difficulty of zero, modified by distance). Failing this roll means the Jedi doesn’t achieve the desired height and/or distance intended. At the end of the jump, the Alter roll is made to control the landing, the difficulty is dependant on the jump trajectory (jumping upwards has a base Height difficulty of zero, modified by distance). Failing this roll means the Jedi suffers normal falling damage and/or loses balance and skids or tumbles away from the landing spot.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Boomer]

Just to clarify. You roll two difficulties for the same jump. The difficulties on each table being diffrent, but both must be made.

Control is how much you will jump if you make it.
Alter being if you make it.

I roll control, get 16, a 4 meter jump. I than have tomake a very easy alter roll to really make that jump.

Do I have it right?
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And I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt,
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[Ejacobs]

I am very interested in this. It sounds like you got it right Boomer.

Now, if I understand this as well; if I jump up 8 meters I need to make a Difficult Control roll and a Easy Alter roll to make sure I don't trip on landing, taking no damage if I fail the Alter roll. Now, if I was going to jump down 8 meters the difficulties would be the same but i would take normal falling damage if I failed my Alter roll. Is that correct?

Now what are the modifier charts for? Additional distances added to the existing difficulty levels? What about long jumps with no height involved (Anakin jumping from floating droid to floating droid over lava)?

E