If a creature is in difficult terrain and makes a standing jump, is there a movement penalty? Running long jumps are clear: the 10ft needed for the jump would be counted as 20ft as the creature needs to run through the difficult terrain first before jumping. Then that creature would have 5-10ft of movement left for the jump itself (depending on its base speed). But what about standing long jumps? No difficult terrain is being traversed, per se, so I'm not sure how to rule it.
For a bit of context, I'm going to DM a fight using grung. Grung have only 25ft of movement, but they also can use all that movement in a standing long jump. If they begin their turn in difficult terrain, how far can it leap with its normal movement? Should their movement be penalized in any way? What about creatures without standing jump abilities?
I suppose it depends on the difficult terrain. Generally, difficult terrain is on the ground surface and jumping is travelling through the air. Unless something is causing the very air itself to become difficult terrain, there should not be any movement penalty for a standing jump.
See, I want to agree. It makes sense that difficult terrain would not affect travel through the air. But I keep coming up with one question: what about PCs? A PC with 10 strength can make a standing jump of 5ft. I don't believe there's a rule against multiple standing jumps per turn so, theoretically, a PC or creature could jump 6 times in difficult terrain and still move 30ft (so long as they make all their acrobatics checks) which doesn't make sense to me, either.
Landing on a jump in difficult terrain requires an Acrobatics check and failing means falling prone and losing half their remaining movement.By rules of averages they will fail once or twice, most likely. It's what people may do in real life, after all: jumping from better spots to be slighter faster than merely stepping through the brushes/ice/murk/whatever. Seems balanced to me and those are the rules anyway.
There is no rule imposng penalty on jumps in difficult terrain. There is a rule about landing in difficult terrain.
I feel it would be totally appropriate to rule that a jump from difficult terrain costs double its entire distance due to complexity of the take-off. After all, if you are struggling your way across an icy bridge, jumping about is unlikely to help matters...
I feel it would be totally appropriate to rule that a jump from difficult terrain costs double its entire distance due to complexity of the take-off. After all, if you are struggling your way across an icy bridge, jumping about is unlikely to help matters...
They're already losing 20 feet instead of 10 before the jump, which leaves less movement for the jump itself. If they jump STR feet, they're saving that many feet of movement compared to walking, but if they fall after landing they're losing half their speed. It's not an improvement over walking unless you have good Strength or Acrobatics, ideally both. And if they're that athletic, just let them have it. They're not in difficult terrain while airborne, so they shouldn't get penalized.
On the other hand, trying to jump through dense webs or foliage isn't going to do any good since you're going to be in difficult terrain even if your feet leave the ground.
Can you even make a "running" jump, given that difficult terrain hampers your speed? Nobody ever heard of a carefully-picking-through-brambles long jump.
I could see some difficult terrain completely impeding the ability to jump. Imagine walking through a swamp. Jumping out of squelching mud and undergrowth with a foot of water over it is going to be near impossible for all but the strongest of characters.
Can't speak to raw, but I'd make judgement call on the specifics. Marbles or caltrops would make takeoff painful/complicated, uneven ground would probably only impact landing.
We should all go try jumping in short grass or pavement and then again in wet sand, bramble brush, or ankle deep swampy water.
For me as a DM, difficult terrain DOES effect jumping movement.
You don't normally spend extra movement to leave rough terrain, you spend extra movement to enter it. I don't see any explicit coverage of this anywhere other than the variant grid rules, but using said grid rules, you are suggesting it costs 10 feet to jump out of mud but 5 feet to walk out of it.
Note that jumping into rough terrain already causes an Acrobatics check to avoid falling Prone.
We should all go try jumping in short grass or pavement and then again in wet sand, bramble brush, or ankle deep swampy water.
For me as a DM, difficult terrain DOES effect jumping movement.
You don't normally spend extra movement to leave rough terrain, you spend extra movement to enter it. I don't see any explicit coverage of this anywhere other than the variant grid rules, other than the variant grid rules, but using said grid rules, you are suggesting it costs 10 feet to jump out of mud but 5 feet to walk out of it.
Note that jumping into rough terrain already causes an Acrobatics check to avoid falling Prone.
Ok. Thematically it works better for me being harder to jump out, but…
Jumping uses your movement. Entering difficult terrain costs twice the movement.
If you have a strength of 18 and want to standing leap, you can jump a maximum total of half your strength score, for 9’.
That means you can’t jump into a space of difficult terrain right next to you. Unless you have a strength score of 20’, and then it costs 10’ of movement.
We should all go try jumping in short grass or pavement and then again in wet sand, bramble brush, or ankle deep swampy water.
For me as a DM, difficult terrain DOES effect jumping movement.
You don't normally spend extra movement to leave rough terrain, you spend extra movement to enter it. I don't see any explicit coverage of this anywhere other than the variant grid rules, but using said grid rules, you are suggesting it costs 10 feet to jump out of mud but 5 feet to walk out of it.
Note that jumping into rough terrain already causes an Acrobatics check to avoid falling Prone.
You also spend extra movement when moving in difficult terrain: "Every foot of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as difficult terrain." Jumping within difficult terrain might require a bit of discretion as to whether that is moving within that difficult terrain, since different types of difficult terrain may or may not extend in the direction you jump and therefore hinder it.
Moving into 1 foot in difficult terrain costs 2 feet of speed so unless you avoid entering the space/square by going over it you should be impeded. Otherwise it's up to DM depending what the difficult terrain is exactly and if it only apply to the surface ex, mud or ice or if it's more like tall herbs or branches etc
I guess one way to think about it is, if the square is difficult terrain (loose gravel or thick sod) then you can standing-jump out of it without costing extra speed, but if the cube is difficult terrain (bushes, hanging vines, neck-deep water) then it costs extra speed even while jumping through that area, since it's not just air.
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Here's how I would rule it, especially playing on a standard 5x5 grid...
Let's say a Grung is in difficult terrain on the ground. During that first 5 feet of movement they are in the difficult terrain and leaving that first square costs 10 feet of movement total. This represents the difficulty in getting solid footing at the start of the jump. After that point they are in the air, above the difficult terrain... the remainder of their movement is no longer considered difficult terrain, just as flying over difficult terrain doesn't cost extra movement. Having a good standing leap shouldn't mean that you get to freely ignore difficult terrain, but it clearly should have some impact on those details.
Here's how I would rule it, especially playing on a standard 5x5 grid...
Let's say a Grung is in difficult terrain on the ground. During that first 5 feet of movement they are in the difficult terrain and leaving that first square costs 10 feet of movement total. This represents the difficulty in getting solid footing at the start of the jump. After that point they are in the air, above the difficult terrain... the remainder of their movement is no longer considered difficult terrain, just as flying over difficult terrain doesn't cost extra movement. Having a good standing leap shouldn't mean that you get to freely ignore difficult terrain, but it clearly should have some impact on those details.
If a creature is in difficult terrain and makes a standing jump, is there a movement penalty? Running long jumps are clear: the 10ft needed for the jump would be counted as 20ft as the creature needs to run through the difficult terrain first before jumping. Then that creature would have 5-10ft of movement left for the jump itself (depending on its base speed). But what about standing long jumps? No difficult terrain is being traversed, per se, so I'm not sure how to rule it.
For a bit of context, I'm going to DM a fight using grung. Grung have only 25ft of movement, but they also can use all that movement in a standing long jump. If they begin their turn in difficult terrain, how far can it leap with its normal movement? Should their movement be penalized in any way? What about creatures without standing jump abilities?
I suppose it depends on the difficult terrain. Generally, difficult terrain is on the ground surface and jumping is travelling through the air. Unless something is causing the very air itself to become difficult terrain, there should not be any movement penalty for a standing jump.
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See, I want to agree. It makes sense that difficult terrain would not affect travel through the air. But I keep coming up with one question: what about PCs? A PC with 10 strength can make a standing jump of 5ft. I don't believe there's a rule against multiple standing jumps per turn so, theoretically, a PC or creature could jump 6 times in difficult terrain and still move 30ft (so long as they make all their acrobatics checks) which doesn't make sense to me, either.
Landing on a jump in difficult terrain requires an Acrobatics check and failing means falling prone and losing half their remaining movement.By rules of averages they will fail once or twice, most likely. It's what people may do in real life, after all: jumping from better spots to be slighter faster than merely stepping through the brushes/ice/murk/whatever. Seems balanced to me and those are the rules anyway.
There is no rule imposng penalty on jumps in difficult terrain. There is a rule about landing in difficult terrain.
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I feel it would be totally appropriate to rule that a jump from difficult terrain costs double its entire distance due to complexity of the take-off. After all, if you are struggling your way across an icy bridge, jumping about is unlikely to help matters...
They're already losing 20 feet instead of 10 before the jump, which leaves less movement for the jump itself. If they jump STR feet, they're saving that many feet of movement compared to walking, but if they fall after landing they're losing half their speed. It's not an improvement over walking unless you have good Strength or Acrobatics, ideally both. And if they're that athletic, just let them have it. They're not in difficult terrain while airborne, so they shouldn't get penalized.
On the other hand, trying to jump through dense webs or foliage isn't going to do any good since you're going to be in difficult terrain even if your feet leave the ground.
Can you even make a "running" jump, given that difficult terrain hampers your speed? Nobody ever heard of a carefully-picking-through-brambles long jump.
I could see some difficult terrain completely impeding the ability to jump. Imagine walking through a swamp. Jumping out of squelching mud and undergrowth with a foot of water over it is going to be near impossible for all but the strongest of characters.
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Can't speak to raw, but I'd make judgement call on the specifics. Marbles or caltrops would make takeoff painful/complicated, uneven ground would probably only impact landing.
We should all go try jumping in short grass or pavement and then again in wet sand, bramble brush, or ankle deep swampy water.
For me as a DM, difficult terrain DOES effect jumping movement.
You don't normally spend extra movement to leave rough terrain, you spend extra movement to enter it. I don't see any explicit coverage of this anywhere other than the variant grid rules, but using said grid rules, you are suggesting it costs 10 feet to jump out of mud but 5 feet to walk out of it.
Note that jumping into rough terrain already causes an Acrobatics check to avoid falling Prone.
Ok. Thematically it works better for me being harder to jump out, but…
Jumping uses your movement. Entering difficult terrain costs twice the movement.
If you have a strength of 18 and want to standing leap, you can jump a maximum total of half your strength score, for 9’.
That means you can’t jump into a space of difficult terrain right next to you. Unless you have a strength score of 20’, and then it costs 10’ of movement.
You also spend extra movement when moving in difficult terrain: "Every foot of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as difficult terrain." Jumping within difficult terrain might require a bit of discretion as to whether that is moving within that difficult terrain, since different types of difficult terrain may or may not extend in the direction you jump and therefore hinder it.
Moving into 1 foot in difficult terrain costs 2 feet of speed so unless you avoid entering the space/square by going over it you should be impeded. Otherwise it's up to DM depending what the difficult terrain is exactly and if it only apply to the surface ex, mud or ice or if it's more like tall herbs or branches etc
I guess one way to think about it is, if the square is difficult terrain (loose gravel or thick sod) then you can standing-jump out of it without costing extra speed, but if the cube is difficult terrain (bushes, hanging vines, neck-deep water) then it costs extra speed even while jumping through that area, since it's not just air.
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Narratively I like the jumping out of mud or bramble better, but mechanically it's the moving into. Potato. Potato.
Here's how I would rule it, especially playing on a standard 5x5 grid...
Let's say a Grung is in difficult terrain on the ground. During that first 5 feet of movement they are in the difficult terrain and leaving that first square costs 10 feet of movement total. This represents the difficulty in getting solid footing at the start of the jump. After that point they are in the air, above the difficult terrain... the remainder of their movement is no longer considered difficult terrain, just as flying over difficult terrain doesn't cost extra movement. Having a good standing leap shouldn't mean that you get to freely ignore difficult terrain, but it clearly should have some impact on those details.
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If a square costs extra movement, as a square of difficult terrain does, you must have enough movement left to pay for entering it. For example, you must have at least 2 squares of movement left to enter a square of difficult terrain.