Jumping for the win?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm curious as to how much a jump check can be optimized. Unfortunately, I'm not too good at optimization- my best guess is a Thri-keen (+30 racial bonus) monk (for the movement speed)/Sorcerer (for Jump and Expeditious Retreat), but I know we can do better than that.

[Master Thrower]

I'm curious as to how much a jump check can be optimized. Unfortunately, I'm not too good at optimization- my best guess is a Thri-keen (+30 racial bonus) monk (for the movement speed)/Sorcerer (for Jump and Expeditious Retreat), but I know we can do better than that.

haste is a +12 off the base speed increase, although I don't know if it stacks with expeditious retreat. Barbarian for fast movement, Exemplar for +4 and skill focus so +3 and the ability to take ten so atleast a 17 off the bat. Add in skill boosting items, and even some levels of ninja (its a bonus to jump which not many classes offer, so more thematic then essential) for acrobatics and the jump check easily is in the 60+ range

[Erik von Nein]

Haste and expeditious retreat are both enhancement bonuses, so no stacking there.

[gorfnab]

The Jumplomancer (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870138/The_Jumplomancer_-_are_you_serious)

[Golden Ladybug]

Jumplomancer gets like +380 to jump. Here are the basics:

Take the Cheetah's Speed feat from...Complete something which lets you spend a wildshape to use the Cheetah's charge ability to grab x10 your speed. Take the Quick trait from UA to get +10 to your speed. Barbarian for another +10 from Fast Movement, Expeditious Retreat for another +30. Finally Use the Shadow Template to get 1.5 your speed.

Since Cheetah's Speed makes your movement 50 from the get go, we add 10 for Quick, 10 for Barbarian, 30 for Expeditious Retreat and then 1/2 that for the Shadow Template

That's a movement rate of 1,500ft on a charge. With +2 from tumble synergy, +2 from whatever feat gives a bonus to jump and whatever (acrobatic, isn't it?), +4 from Skill Focus: Jump, +30 from Thrikeen and +10 from the Jump spell, we're looking at +419 to jump.

At level 6.

Have fun.

EDIT: Swordsaged, kinda. The link is probably more helpful than my ramblings.

[Hirax]

Leaping dragon stance from Tome of Battle is the easy button for jump checks, since it straight up adds 10 feet of height. Add in a race such as dragonborn and you've got enough jumping for just about anything.

[Lord.Sorasen]

The Jumplomancer (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870138/The_Jumplomancer_-_are_you_serious)

While that is a hilarious application of jump, the link with the jump record is gone :[


Also I want to make suggestions to the OP. Definitely won't be the best way to do it, but still. Also with the exception of factotum this is SRD, which is neat.


1. The speed bonus of a monk is an enhancement bonus, and doesn't stack with expeditious retreat. It ends up 30 greater than expeditious retreat, sure, but that's only 12 more points. Which means that we can replace it with factotum, who will net us a point of jump per level, which is untyped and therefor better for a build in general. +19

2. a level of barbarian will give a fast movement, which is not an enhancement bonus. That's an additional +4. It will also give rage, which is an additional +2. +6

3. Note that you don't need any sorcerer, because your factotum level will work fine with arcane dilettante. For the jump spell, you'll need 9 levels. That will bring the spell up to +30. For the expeditious retreat spell, it doesn't matter. Since these spells effect different things (jump and movement, respectively) they stack. These spells will net you a +42 in total.

4. Skill Focus (jump) gives +3. Acrobatic gives +2. Run gives +4. There's a bit more.

Thri-kreen is a great choice for that +30, but one can't forget it has 2 hit dice. So that means we have 18 in total. We'll put 1 in barbarian and shove the rest into factotum. Which means thri-kreen 2/barbarian 1/Factotum 17.

So... Put all the points possible into strength at point buy. Thri-kreen gets +2 strength. So that's 20. Get a belt of giant's strength to pump that strength up to 26. I'd say cast enlarge person, but you're a thri-kreen so you actually can't. Whatever, it would only be a +2 bonus. Either way, this is a total of +38 before Class levels.

Now, put a skill point into jump at every level. We're at +58.

That barbarian rage gives 4 more strength, so +62. Factotum 17 gives 17, so +79.

Now I actually forgot to mention the speed deal. A thri-kreen has a base speed of 40. Add 30 for expeditious retreat. So a base speed of 70. Barbarian gives 10 more, so I meant 80. 80-30=50, 5x4=20, so that's an additional 20, for a total so far of +99.

Add the bonus from the jump spell, for +30, for a total of +129.

What am I missing? Oh, right. Skill Focus + Acrobatic + Run gives 9 more. So +138.

As a final touch, the improved ring of jumping is actually a competence bonus for some reason, rather than an enhancement bonus, so +10 more for +148.

Looking above, there's a trait which gives a bonus to speed too... Quick. So that's 4 more jump so +158.

Does charging actually increase your jump? I don't see any reference to it on the jump page.

Combine it with that feat that lets you get a martial maneuver because I hear those are helpful too.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Jumplomancer (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870138/The_Jumplomancer_-_are_you_serious)

Holy crap that is both hilarious and amazing. Best part is, the most important aspects (Cheetah's Speed and the Jump spell) can be obtained from only 6 levels of druid.

[kulosle]

so as far as the "for the win" is concerned. what can someone truly do with a jump high enough to let you launch yourself into orbit?

[dgnslyr]

Chuck E. Cheese (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861942/Chuck_E._Cheese) can run quite a bit faster, though I believe he was slain by errata. Still a fun read, though. Rather cheesy too, more so than the Jumplomancer.

[Lord.Sorasen]

so as far as the "for the win" is concerned. what can someone truly do with a jump high enough to let you launch yourself into orbit?

There's a druid spell which allows you to burst a singular rock object. Maybe you can jump into orbit and blow up the moon?

I mean, it's hard to really say what ultra jump is worth, because flight is a common thing in D&D.

[Golden Ladybug]

And that is why an ultra high jump skill is worthwhile; because if you're just a mundane (ish) and the wizard floats up 100ft to laugh at you, you damn well want to launch yourself up there and turn his face into mush.

[Lord.Sorasen]

And that is why an ultra high jump skill is worthwhile; because if you're just a mundane (ish) and the wizard floats up 100ft to laugh at you, you damn well want to launch yourself up there and turn his face into mush.

If only. The record for jump is still only 92 feet.

[Morph Bark]

Jumplomancer gets like +380 to jump. Here are the basics:

Take the Cheetah's Speed feat from...Complete something which lets you spend a wildshape to use the Cheetah's charge ability to grab x10 your speed. Take the Quick trait from UA to get +10 to your speed. Barbarian for another +10 from Fast Movement, Expeditious Retreat for another +30. Finally Use the Shadow Template to get 1.5 your speed.

Since Cheetah's Speed makes your movement 50 from the get go, we add 10 for Quick, 10 for Barbarian, 30 for Expeditious Retreat and then 1/2 that for the Shadow Template

That's a movement rate of 1,500ft on a charge. With +2 from tumble synergy, +2 from whatever feat gives a bonus to jump and whatever (acrobatic, isn't it?), +4 from Skill Focus: Jump, +30 from Thrikeen and +10 from the Jump spell, we're looking at +419 to jump.

At level 6.

Have fun.

EDIT: Swordsaged, kinda. The link is probably more helpful than my ramblings.

There is also a graft that gives a pretty huge bonus on Jump, though fluff-wise the DM could rule it replaces the Thri-Kreen bonus due to replacing its legs.

Shadow template is 3.0, so it's iffy in use in 3.5 builds.

EDIT: Wait, which Shadow template specifically, btw? I recall there being several. The 3.0 one gave nonstandard amounts of concealment (30, 60, 90, something like that).

[Golden Ladybug]

The Shadow Template I was refering to comes from Manual of the Planes. I have no idea whether MotP is a 3.0 or a 3.5 book, to be perfectly honest, my knowledge is not that encyclopedic and I don't own it.

Let me look it up...Huh, apparently it is 3.0

So my suggestion may be slightly YMMV. It is also patently wrong, because I forgot how Jump bonuses based on speed work; 1,500ft would give you a jump bonus of +636, not +419. Without the Shadow Template, since its legality is questionable unless it was reprinted for 3.5 somewhere, you'd be getting +436

Still nice...and I think that it breaks the 92ft up record that Lord Sorasen mentioned...No, scratch that, it just plain does break the 92ft up record, reaching 111.5ft high if you take 10. Huh.

[Grod_The_Giant]

so as far as the "for the win" is concerned. what can someone truly do with a jump high enough to let you launch yourself into orbit?

I dunno, it just seemed like fun. Most of the strength of the build comes from 6 druid levels, which is awfully hard to argue with in terms of power...

[Morph Bark]

The Shadow Template I was refering to comes from Manual of the Planes. I have no idea whether MotP is a 3.0 or a 3.5 book, to be perfectly honest, my knowledge is not that encyclopedic and I don't own it.

Let me look it up...Huh, apparently it is 3.0

So my suggestion may be slightly YMMV. It is also patently wrong, because I forgot how Jump bonuses based on speed work; 1,500ft would give you a jump bonus of +636, not +419. Without the Shadow Template, since its legality is questionable unless it was reprinted for 3.5 somewhere, you'd be getting +436

Still nice...and I think that it breaks the 92ft up record that Lord Sorasen mentioned...No, scratch that, it just plain does break the 92ft up record, reaching 111.5ft high if you take 10. Huh.

I checked, and it's been reprinted in Lords of Madness, where it also has the +50% speed increase.

The hilarious part is that it can remain hidden while leaping about. :smalltongue:

[Morithias]

Make a really fat character. An obese half-minotaur orc. Or something of that nature.

Jump into the air, next round. Land and crush your enemy for damage.

I think my build at level 3 got to 30d6 damage.

the reason this works is because RAW the rules for damage via falling objects....don't damage the object that's falling, just whatever it hits.

[Golden Ladybug]

I'm still trying to find a RAW way of summoning a Celestial Baleen Whale 200ft in the air to drop on people. I just need a way of putting it in a dish filled with water that high up and then removing the dish.

I worked it out to do something like 700d6 damage. Or at least in that general area of damage, its been a while since I did the calculations.

...why yes, I am a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, why do you ask?

[Tvtyrant]

There is a skill trick that doubles the amount you jump I believe.

[Endarire]

Hood (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872838/Little_Red_Raiding_Hood_A_Tale_of_38_Guide_to_the_ 35_Dragoon) has a section on math.

[Arcane_Snowman]

I'm still trying to find a RAW way of summoning a Celestial Baleen Whale 200ft in the air to drop on people. I just need a way of putting it in a dish filled with water that high up and then removing the dish.

I worked it out to do something like 700d6 damage. Or at least in that general area of damage, its been a while since I did the calculations.

...why yes, I am a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, why do you ask? Now I have the image stuck in my head where someone just summons the damn whale, wields it like a weapon, jumps into orbit and instant gibs their enemy with it.

[flabort]

Now I have the image stuck in my head where someone just summons the damn whale, wields it like a weapon, jumps into orbit and instant gibs their enemy with it.

Now I'm wondering how the Grappling rules interact with jump checks.
I'm also wondering how they interact with objects (you're holding that greatsword and lugging it about, why isn't that grappling it?).

If it worked the way it SHOULD (As in, the way it should for this to work, but doesn't), you'd need to be able to hit a certain grapple check even if you rolled a 1 to be able to hold and carry that sword, and move around with it. So, IF, and ONLY IF it worked that way, we would reverse engineer the DC needed to grapple the sword so easily, so that we could calculate the DC needed to grapple the whale that way. Then we TO a character to be able to hit that DC on a 1, so that we don't even need to make checks, we can just lug around a whale over out shoulder, and then we add in the TO for the jump check, too, jump up, and swing down.

BOOM! Head-shot!
(And a crater to put on your trophy shelf)

[Golden Ladybug]

Hmm...I may be wrong here, but would it not be possible to summon said whale, and wield it as an improvised weapon? With a sufficient strength modifier and the optimisation to Jump checks sufficient to get up the 200ft needed to get maximum falling damage (20d6, with an additional 1d6 for every 200lbs) while carrying a Whale along with them.

Now, according to what I could find on the interwebz, the average weight of a Baleen Whale in pounds is 142,000lbs, with a record setting weight of 380,000lbs. So, let's assume we summoned an above-average Baleen Whale that weighs in at 200,000lbs. Successfully throwing said whale downwards at a foe would be doing 1020d6 damage, or 3570 damage on average.

Now, lets attempt to make this a reality. I'll be building with 28 Point Buy in mind.

To carry a whale weighing 200,000lbs we need a rather large Strength score. This can be assisted by making our Whale Thrower Large, meaning we'd only need to hit a Strength score of 60 to successfully lift our whale as a heavy load, since that provides a heavy load of 204,800lbs. Since we still need to have Jump successful optimised for the purpose of jumping the requisite 200ft, lets keep Thri-keen as the race.

So, to start off we have LA+2 and 2RHD. Add on the Shadow Template, a level of Barbarian and five levels of Druid and we have ECL 13. Buying off the LA will bring us back to ECL8.

Anyway, with the Quick trait, Expeditious Retreat, Skill Focus: Jump, Acrobatic, Run, the Synergy bonus from Tumble and Cheetah's speed we should be getting +652 to jump checks with a running start. That means we'll be getting only 163.25ft on a 1.

50ft from Cheetah's Speed
+10ft Quick
+10ft Fast Movement
+30ft Expeditious Retreat
+50ft Shadow
x10 Cheetah's Speed

1,500ft on a charge
-30
1,470/10
147x4
=+588 to jump

+4 Run
+3 Skill Focus: Jump
+2 Acrobatic
+2 Tumble Synergy
+30 Thri-Kreen
+23 Ranks

=+652 to Jump

We haven't factored in pure strength yet, and since we need that at 60 to carry the whale up there, we'll factor that in to start off with. We get to add another +25 to our jump result, which brings us up to 678, letting us satisfactorily get 163.75ft on a 1. That just won't cut it, so I'm going to break out the Item Familiar; we need +799 to jump to make it on a 1. To make up the requisite +145 skill points, we'll need to invest a whopping 435 skill points into it! That hurts, especially since Thri-Keen's pack a Int penalty. So, we want to find a way of getting the bonus to jump some other way...

Well, its a good thing we have the Factotum, isn't it? Assuming we grabbed a 17 to Int (reducing one of our other abilities to 7 for the extra point), and it was decreased by 2 for Thri-Kreen, we can get up to 26 Int (possibly more), using a +6 Int boosting item and a +5 Tome. 12 Levels of Factotum along with an Inspiration point lets us put 20 extra onto our jump check. That puts us up to +698 on a 1, and we only need to place 303 Skill points into our Item Familiar. Still costly, so we're going to need to find a better way to get that jump bonus up.

A Ring of Improved Jumping wouldn't go astray, so lets add that on to our total. The Jump spell is also there, giving another +30 with Practised Spellcaster: Druid.

So, now we have +748 on our Jump check, meaning our Item Familiar only needs to have 186 skill points added to it. From our twenty levels we only need to take 23 ranks in Jump and 5 ranks in Tumble, and with Druid, Barbarian, Factotum and RHD we will get at least 142 skill points, before we get that tasty +5 from the Tome. Going by WBL (and ignoring the 1/3 rule for now) we could only afford such a thing at level 14, meaning that only out of our last 6 levels of Factotum, we get an additional 18 skills points. Not enough.

132 Skill points into the Item Familiar will net us +44 to jump. Add that to our total and we have between +782-792 to jump. Hmm...well, we are a Large Creature, so we get a vertical reach of 16ft on top of that.

That puts us up to +800 on a 1. Guaranteed success to jump up 200ft...except that we have a -6 penalty for having a heavy load. Rats, now who do we fix that? Oh, of course, Exemplar from CAdv! As a 1 level dip we get the ability to take 10 on Jump, and as a 3 level dip we can get Acrobatic for three. Its also got 8+int Skills, so we can afford to shift 6 skill points from our Item familiar to put into Diplomacy. It covers the loss of 3 levels of Factotum nicely.

Now, taking stock, we have

+23 Ranks
+588 from Movement Speed
+4 Run
+3 Skill Focus: Jump
+2 Acrobatic
+2 Tumble
+30 Thri-Kreen
+10 Ring of Improved Jumping
+8 Brains over Brawn
+9 Factotum levels
+44 from Item Familiar
+30 From Jump spell
+25 From Str mod
+16ft Reach
=794

And by taking 10 with Exemplar, we get 804.

To counter the ACP from carrying a heavy load, we'll need to increase our strength score by 4. No biggy.

Now its time to work out how we get that Strength Score of 64, so we can carry our whale up there.

To start with, we have a base Str of 20 from Point Buy, +5 from level up, +5 from a Tome and an additional +6 from a Stat increasing item, and +4 from Rage.

40 Strength from the get go.

Anyway, what we really want to have cast on us for this is Giant Size, the Wu Jen spell. Unfortunately, its a personal spell. Now, Pun-Pun got around this by using his familiar, but we don't have that luxury, unfortunately. So, we'll have to make do without (unless someone knows a way to get it; Giant Size from a Level 16th+ Wu Jen cohort would take us straight to our target).

Now, for some actually legitimate ways of doing this; Enlarge Person first of all gives us another +2 to our strength, and large size. I'm almost completely certain I'm wrong, but it may be possible to just cast that 3 times and go to Colossal size (getting +6 strength and a vertical reach of 128 ft in the process; that would make this ridiculously easy, which Is why I'm certain it can't work like that).

Now, anyway, we're at +42 and we need to grab 22 more strength. First, we'll get a Cohort to cast Girallon's Blessing on us eight times, giving us eight extra arms. Then, we get them to cast Fuse Arms on us so that we end up with one ridiculously buff arm and a untyped bonus to strength of +24

Steps 1-8: Girallon's Blessing cast 8 times gives us 8 extra arms
5-8. Using Pearls of Power or multiple low level cohorts, we can get this done easy.
Steps 9-16: Fuse Arms lets us combine two arms to get +4. Turning all 12 of our arms into 1 Arm gives us +24

Now, with our final strength score of 66, large size and +797 to Jump, we get our Cohort(s) to cast Summon Monster VII to bring out the Celestial Baleen Whale.

Then we pick it up, jump and throw it upon our enemies.

Final Build:

Ability Scores: Str 36 (+2 Racial, +5 Level up, +5 Tome, +6 Item) Dex 12 (+4 Racial) Con 8 Int 26 (-2 Racial, +5 Tome, +6 Item) Wis 10 (+2 Racial) Cha 4 (-4 Racial)

1) Monstrous Humanoid - Skill Focus: Jump
2) Monstrous Humanoid
3) Factotum 1 - Item Familiar
4) Factotum 2
5) Factotum 3
6) Factotum 4 - Run
7) Druid 1
8) Druid 2
9) Druid 3 - Leadership
10) Druid 4
11) Exemplar 1
12) Druid 5 - Cheetah's Speed
13) Barbarian 1
14) Exemplar 2
15) Exemplar 3 - Acrobatics, Blank
16) Factotum 5
17) Factotum 6
18) Factotum 7 - Blank
19) Factotum 8
20) Factotum 9

Skills: Jump +797
Tumble 5
Diplomacy 6
Everything else goes into the Item Familiar.

Cohort: Wizardy McWizard
Level 12+
Spell List: Enlarge Person, Fuse Arms, Girallon's Blessing
Equipment: Lots of Pearls of Power.

He needs to be able to cast 8 Level 3 spells, 8 Level 2 Spells and 1 Level 1 spell and 1 level 7 Spell. That's all he's there for.

...Did I seriously just figure that out? Wow.

[Morph Bark]

I'm still trying to find a RAW way of summoning a Celestial Baleen Whale 200ft in the air to drop on people. I just need a way of putting it in a dish filled with water that high up and then removing the dish.

I worked it out to do something like 700d6 damage. Or at least in that general area of damage, its been a while since I did the calculations.

...why yes, I am a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, why do you ask?

Got Spell Compendium? In there is greater floating disk, an upgrade of Tenser's invention. Dunno, it might be capable of holding it and floating far enough off the ground.

Also:


Invest Skill Ranks
Whenever a character with an item familiar gains skill points, he may choose to put some or all of those skill points into his item familiar. He assigns the skill points normally, but notes that they now reside in the item familiar. For every 3 ranks he assigns to the item familiar, he gains a +1 bonus that he can apply to any single skill. This bonus can be applied to a skill in which he already has maximum ranks. He can apply multiple bonuses to the same skill, but he may not have more points of bonus in a skill than he has ranks.

If the character loses the item familiar, is separated from it f

[Golden Ladybug]

Well. Then I guess I shall instead keep going with the Girallon's Blessing and Fuse Arms shenanigans rather than using an Item Familiar. No biggy. When you have arbritarily high Strength (or, at least until your Cleric/Wizard cohort's Caster Level runs out of 10 minutes per level) you can afford it.

Shame I didn't know that before I got all preoccupied with using it.

[ranagrande]

Surely we can do better than that for the Jump skill.

I'll stick with the original Jumplomancer's 15 levels; you can improve on it more by going to 20 of course.

Anyway, I suggest an elf or half-elf with the Shadow template and the Quick trait, and a couple of flaws to get more feats... anything but Slow will be fine.

Now let's go for something like

Ranger 1/Barbarian 1/Cloistered Cleric of Ehlonna 1/Psychic Warrior 2/Wildrunner 1/Abolisher 1/Fist of the Forest 1/Forest Reeve 1/Fighter 1/Exemplar 5.

The speed breakdown goes something like this:
50 ft base speed, from Cheetah's Speed
+10 from the Quick trait
+10 from Barbarian's Fast Movement
+10 from the Celerity Domain granted power
+10 from Speed of Thought
+10 from Wildrunner's Fast Movement
+10 from Fist of the Forest's Fast Movement
+10 from Forest Reeve's Fast Movement
+30 from casting Expeditious Retreat
+20 from the Cheetah's Sprint ability of the Animal Devotion feat
= 170 ft.
x1.5 from the Shadow template
= 255 ft.
x10 when charging, thanks to Cheetah's Speed
= a total speed of 2550 ft.

Now to figure out the Jump:
starting with 2550 ft on a charge
-30
2520 / 10
252 x 4
= + 1008 to Jump

+3 from Skill Focus
+4 from Exemplar's Skill Artistry
+10 from Mental Leap
+10 from manifesting Mighty Spring
+18 ranks
= a Jump check of 1d20+1053+whatever your strength modifier happens to be

[flabort]

:smalleek: Wow... +1053?! How high is that? How far?

I know it's sort of cheating, but:
How much higher can you pump that in gestalt? :smallamused:

@ Item Familiar: So you can only get +23/3=7.66 bonus ranks to jump from investing all your points in jump into the Item Familiar. But you can invest 23 skill points each into two more skills, and end up with +23 to jump from that, still. Too bad that's the maximum :smallfrown:, but... we're taking 1 level dips and feats for +10 movement, or +4 to jump, or even worse some times. It's still a very worthwhile investment.

[Diefje]

Someone asked above, you can Grapple with only part of your body at a -20 penalty to the check (shouldn't be too hard with a ridiculous str), so you can Jump them up in the air.

Can't find the source if there's prereqs for it.

[Chronos]

Lord.Sorasen, if you're going with Factotum, don't forget that you also add your Int bonus to the check.

And it's not unusual that the Ring of Jumping gives a competence bonus; that's what most big bonuses to skills are. What is unusual is that the Jump spell gives enhancement.