Battle Jump Question

[Doughnut Master]

I've been looking into builds for a barbarian charger, and many of them seem to revolve around Battle Jump, especially combined with Leap Attack. However, it seems all of these misinterpret how the feat actually works. From the way it's written, you're meant to start on high ground and hurl yourself down to gain extra momentum, but most seem to simply assume that by jumping high, you trigger its effects.

If you start on even ground and jump up high over your opponent's head (as awesome as that is) you are still unable to "hurl yourself down" in order to activate the feat.

Am I wrong on this?

[Groverfield]

I came across the same conundrum a few days back, and the best answer I could come up with is that anyone with the feat would be tactically minded enough to always scout the higher and lower ground.

[Erik von Nein]

I would say "no." It's clearly intended to mean that you have to leap from above down to something. It says you can't use levitate or fly to effectively battle jump.

Though, honestly, if you can make those DC 40 jump checks to get 10ft above medium opponents and you're an ubercharger already adding in an extra damage multiplier isn't going to kill things dead any better. You're already murderizing them to the point of paste so what's it going to matter.

[Doughnut Master]

It may not matter, but right is right. I like to be exact in any case.

[Erik von Nein]

Ah, well, there's the trick of D&D: writing clarity. It's clear (author's intent, lol) that whoever wrote it wanted it to work from leaping off of things other than the ground (hard to "jump forcefully" from the arc of a fall), but there's no clear ruling and every time I see it brought up here it ends up going in circles as to what people would allow (that's where I predict this thread will end up).

I'd say take a stance one way or the other and tell whoever it is to get bent. Honestly, that's worked pretty well for me.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

RAW, all you need to do is drop from 5 ft above their head to trigger it, intent be damned.

[Erik von Nein]

Meh. The intent's pretty clear, even with the silly, contradictory writing. But, again, that's why this goes in circles.

Like I said, by the time you're reliably nailing at least DC 40 jump checks with ubercharging who cares for a bit more damage or a free trip. Wee, you're doing X4 instead of X3! Oh, wow, that 100 HP monster soooooo needed that +stupid amounts of damage. So, use it for that purpose. Then cackle manically when you shove them in tight spaces or have huge or bigger monsters running around*.

Anywho, go with your gut and don't look back.

*Not a serious suggestion.

[Thespianus]

I would allow it to be used in a dungeon typ of situation, or where there are walls close by: You jump up next to the wall, really high, and use your feet against the wall to push yourself towards the enemy. The rule of Cool wins every time.

But allowing a player to just use the passive effect of gravity to "push" himself at the target, pushing off against thin air? No.

However, I would naturally allow the trick in exceptional circumstances. The Barbarian that charges, leaps, kicks off against one troll to boost his speed against the second troll? Absolutely. ;)

[Diarmuid]

I'm of the mind that just being able to jump up and gain the benefit is silly.

But...

If you think about what people claim is the "intended" use, that really doesnt make any sense either. If you're on a ledge above someone, you're not going to be able to push off directly at them. To do that, you would need to be hanging upside down from something and be able to stick to the horizontal surface.

Thinking about it realistically, what's the difference between jumping (pushing off the ground up into the air) from a ledge down onto someone and jumping (pushing off the ground) from 30' feet away and getting 10' up into the air to then come crashing down on them? Either way, you are intiating an upward thrust to then create downward force you will direct at an opponent.

Now, as I said...I think the common interpretations of the feat are just silly and I wouldnt allow for it...but saying that having it be from some higher ground just makes more sense is similarly flawed.

[Doughnut Master]

Interesting. I always imagined it as a guy grabbing onto the ledge and then kicking off to tackle/stab the poor fellow below him really really hard. Or as Thespianus described, running up a wall and then launching yourself off of it.

Personally, I think the interpretations of "just jump above him" fall under the absurd line of reasoning of "if it doesn't say I can't do it, then it means I can." It ignores things like the phrase "you must hurl yourself down at your foe" as well as the restriction of being no more than 30 feet above the enemy. If it was just the act of falling, then falling from greater and greater heights would be even more effective. (Although, that would be a cool feat. Picture a guy hurling himself down from the stratosphere like a very very angry meteor.)

[Cerlis]

I dont see the problem. Unless something in the feat says specifically about needing to jump OFF of something, then all it talks about is jumping.(and i'd say in the description of how the feat works

And depsite any notion about whats physically possible, the idea of a person, jumping in the air, raising their weapon high and then bringing it down with extra force is EVERYWHERE in the same fantasies that DnD exists. (i just had to deal with that spell mage bitch in Baldurs gate dark alliance 2 who did exactly this. a DnD Forgotten realms setting)

I'd be of the impression that the writer deliberately wrote it vaguely so that someone who is skilled at adding gravity to the force of his blow could utilize that ability, whether they happen upon gravity (jumping off a ledge) or make it themselves (jumping high enough to get that same force).

In fact the notion of someone using a skill in a different situation (such as the whole Wax on Wax off Karate kid thing) is also extremely apparent in fantasy settings.

[Doughnut Master]

That's what Leap Attack is for. And the text does specifically mention ledges as an example of how it would work. If all you had to do was jump, then why mention it?

There's also the mention of falling damage as a natural consequence of the action, which would be irrelevant if you jumped up from level ground.

[MeeposFire]

That's what Leap Attack is for. And the text does specifically mention ledges as an example of how it would work. If all you had to do was jump, then why mention it?

There's also the mention of falling damage as a natural consequence of the action, which would be irrelevant if you jumped up from level ground.

Because the author probably did not think it was possible to be able to get your jump check high enough to jump 10 feet over your enemies heads. Reality is very different.