Battle Jump + Pounce + Dimension Slide/Hop

[lessthanjake]

So I have read that Shadow Blink/Jaunt/Stride can be combined with Battle Jump and Pounce to get three full attacks in one round. The idea, of course, is that you can use a teleport with your swift, move, and standard actions to place yourself above a foe. You fall as a free action and, with Battle Jump, falling from above someone is a charge. With pounce, that charge is a full attack.

But the Shadow Blink/Jaunt/Stride combo is a little weakened by the nature of maneuver recovery. Swordsages with Adaptive Style can really only use Shadow Blink/Jaunt/Stride a total of three times every two rounds. And the same would be true of a Warblade who somehow got access to those maneuvers, since they cannot use maneuvers in the round they recover. For Crusaders, it would be a little more complicated, but they would certainly not be able to consistently use the combo each round.

But what about using Dimension Slide and Dimension Hop? Dimension Slide allows you to use 5 power points to teleport as a standard action or 9 power points to teleport as a move action. Dimension Hop allows you to use a swift action to teleport at a base cost of 1 power point for 10 feet (and 1 point more for each additional 5 feet). And neither power includes a clause saying you must transport yourself onto solid ground. Together, these allow one to make three teleports every round for like 15-20 power points a round (depending on how much you need to augment Dimension Hop). You can easily add Battle Jump and a level of Lion Totem Barbarian, and suddenly you can do 3 full attacks every round.

Of course, most psionic classes cannot natively get Dimension Slide and Dimension Hop. Dimension Slide is a Psychic Warrior power and in the Conflict mantle, while Dimension Hop is only found in the Freedom mantle. But Expanded Knowledge allows any class to get these. A Psionic Warrior could use one of its bonus feats on Dimension Hop. A Psion could use two of its bonus feats on Dimension Slide and Dimension Hop. And, of course, an Ardent could simply get the Conflict and Freedom mantles and have both powers.

I think the Ardent's combination of 3/4 BAB and full power point progression probably makes it the best option for this strategy (unless you are going gestalt, in which case, Psion is probably best). Take Lion Totem Barbarian for one level. Grab the Natural World mantle for Metamorphosis, and then the rest of the mantles are up to you. And get Power Attack, Battle Jump, Improved Sunder, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, and Combat Brute with your feats. Depending on whether you're a human and/or are using flaws, you will still have between one and four feat slots left for whatever else you want. Use some sort of two-handed weapon with the valorous special ability in order to get the most out of Power Attack and Battle Jump. Overall, you still have a lot of flexibility left in your feats, mantles, and weapon choice despite having given yourself this devastating three-full-attacks-a-round option.

The result is that you can turn into a War Troll for a huge strength score and proceed to use three pounce charges every round. And by using teleports to trigger Battle Jump, you avoid having to put super heavy feat/skill investments into maximizing Jump. And the charging is more consistently possible. You can get yourself above the huge/gargantuan/colossal enemies much more easily than a jumper could, since you can teleport pretty far. The terrain/objects between you and the enemy does not stop your charge. And really, I think you can even charge flying creatures by teleporting above them. Of course, if your DM does not allow you to land on them when you do that, then you'd have to be prepared to take a lot of falling damage, but it is at least an option.

The damage from this could be huge. Let's say you have a level 20 character with a +5 Valorous Speed Greatsword. You also have a +6 strength belt and have transformed into a 15 HD War Troll. The greatsword's 3d6 damage while Large (from War Troll) averages out to 10.5. Your strength will be 38 (31 base for War Troll, but it is 32 because of being 15 HD, and you have a +6 item).

So here is the damage the greatsword will do per hit (after the first round so as to include Combat Brute):

(10.5[base damage]+5[enchantment bonus]+14*1.5[strength bonus]+20*4[2x from two-handed Power Attack and 3x from Combat Brute))*3[x2 from Valorous and x2 from Battle Jump] = 349.5

With the Speed enchantment, you get 4 attacks with the greatsword, so your sword will do 1398 damage per pounce.

You also get the natural bite attack each pounce. That attack does the following damage:

(3.5[base damage]+14*0.5[strength bonus]+20*1.5[1.5x from Combat Brute])*2[from Battle Jump] = 81

So in total, each pounce does 1479 damage. With three pounces a round, you are doing 4437 damage a round. Of course, your BAB is not the highest, so you may miss some. But you have pumped up your strength and could use powers to boost your AB further. And there are other powers that could boost your damage even further (for instance, getting Expansion with a feat could add a few hundred damage on).

That amount of damage per round is obviously astounding. I cannot even figure out a way to get a Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker's damage higher. It seems to me that one with 48 strength (18 base + 5 tome + 5 ability increases + 10 frenzy + 4 rage + 6 item) and a +5 Valorous Speed Greatsword would only do 3007.5 damage a round. Of course, the Frenzied Berserker will hit more due to high BAB and higher strength, so its actual damage could be higher, but I am still astounded. The Teleporting Ardent will be able to get that insane damage more since charging will be a more common option (as explained above), will not have to deal with the downsides of frenzying, and will also have a bunch of other psionic powers to make it useful in other situations.

So, unless I am missing something, the Teleporting Ardent can do ridiculous melee damage, while still having access to level 9 spell casting (albeit a pretty limited number of powers). And if you go gestalt, the Psion//Factotum with a Lion Totem Barbarian level there somewhere and a few Font of Inspiration feats (which you have room for) can Cunning Surge for even MORE damage and get all the extra flexibility of a Factotum.


EDIT: I should also mention that a Lion Totem Barbarian (1)/Psion (10)/Slayer (9) is actually probably a little better in the end than an Ardent. The BAB is ultimately the same, but this option will get access to many more powers (and not in the form of mantles, which can be restrictive). While it will also get an extra feat, since it will have 3 Psion bonus feats and use only 2 of them on Dimension Slide and Dimension Hop, that extra feat is essentially used on the Track prerequisite. Anyways, having your main attribute be Intelligence is probably better than Wisdom, since you will get tons of skill points. And the Slayer class gets a few okay goodies. There are two downsides to this option. First, before you've gotten a bit into Slayer, your BAB will lag behind. I believe it only catches up at level 14. Second, you have one fewer manifester level due to Slayer, so your power points, the strength of your powers, and your access to new power levels will lag slightly behind. In the end, though, I think it is definitely better due to the Psion's greater power flexibility.

[Stegyre]

I may be a lonely minority, but I do not see how this flies, by RAW.

Charging is a special full-round action. While Battle Jump allows you to "charge" in a new way (by falling onto your target), nothing in the feat negates the action cost: that "charge" still requires a full-round action, so if you don't have a full-round action to spend, your fall cannot be used for a battle jump, regardless of whether or not "falling" in itself is considered a free action.

[lessthanjake]

I may be a lonely minority, but I do not see how this flies, by RAW.

Charging is a special full-round action. While Battle Jump allows you to "charge" in a new way (by falling onto your target), nothing in the feat negates the action cost: that "charge" still requires a full-round action, so if you don't have a full-round action to spend, your fall cannot be used for a battle jump, regardless of whether or not "falling" in itself is considered a free action.

Balance-wise, I think that that is right. Obviously, this is an incredibly powerful strategy that most DMs probably would not want to allow. And your reading of charge as having to be a full-round action is a totally valid reading that most DMs would probably use to disallow the strategy.

With that said, I know that there are plenty of people who think that multi-pounce using Battle Jump is allowed (otherwise I would not have made the thread). I think the reasoning is this. The Battle Jump feat says: "You can execute a charge by simply dropping from a height of at least 5 feet above your opponent." Your way of reading that is that it gives the option of using your full-round charge action in that particular situation. However, another reading of it is that it creates an entirely new criteria for how a charge could be executed. That is, in addition to the normal full-round charge action, you can also get a charge attack simply from falling from above an opponent.

At first glance, I think your reading sounds less far-fetched. HOWEVER, one thing confuses me about your reading. Battle Jump seems designed to allow people who are on ledges above people to go off that ledge and charge. But I think your reading essentially precludes someone from even doing that. If I am standing near the edge of a ledge, I need to take a move action to actually go off the ledge. Falling is a free action, but stepping from the edge of a ledge to off the ledge is not. And charges cannot be taken in the same round as 5 foot steps. So if you are near a ledge, you have to use your move action to go off the ledge. Once you have used your move action, you no longer can use a full-round action on a charge. And your reading is that if a full-round action is not available, you cannot charge. Thus, your reading makes the most basic/intended purpose of Battle Jump impossible (without something like Hustle to get an extra move action, of course).

The above paragraph makes me lean towards the argument that Battle Jump created a whole new criteria for how a charge could be executed, that no longer requires a full-round action. But, I totally grant that your reading of it is a legitimate and reasonable one.

[Darrin]

It's difficult to tell RAW or RAI with Battle Jump because the text is written so poorly. But if we assume that you still need a full-round action to use Battle Jump, then it's almost impossible to use as intended. You would have to hang on a completely vertical surface and then hope your opponent is dumb enough to walk directly beneath you. Now the Taer may actually be that dumb, but I don't believe that's how it was intended to work. Even if we assume the Taer is dropping off a horizontal ledge immediately next to a vertical drop, this violates the charge rules because it's not in a straight line and you can't charge around a corner.

Action-wise, swift action movement could still be used to get directly above your target, but personally I'm in the "any action used that results in a fall counts as a charge" camp.

Roof-Jumper (Cityscape) might work better, as it doesn't mention a ledge, but the text isn't any clearer on the action type required. Mantis Leap (Sword & Fist) has much clearer RAW, although defining what counts as a normal Jump check could be a little dicey.

[Wings of Peace]

I may be a lonely minority, but I do not see how this flies, by RAW.

Charging is a special full-round action. While Battle Jump allows you to "charge" in a new way (by falling onto your target), nothing in the feat negates the action cost: that "charge" still requires a full-round action, so if you don't have a full-round action to spend, your fall cannot be used for a battle jump, regardless of whether or not "falling" in itself is considered a free action.

I think you need to work on your reading skills if you actually don't understand why battle jump is such a grey area and aren't just being colloquial.


You can execute a charge by simply dropping from a height of at least 5 feet above your opponent.

That is the very first sentence of Battle Jump and basically the only non-example part of the text as far as initiating the charge is concerned. It is grammatically open enough that it's not wrong to read it as "You now can Charge as normal but under an expanded set of circumstances" or "You can now execute a charge in this manner IN ADDITION to the normal way you are allowed to execute a charge." Because feats in 3.x often modify core rules there is little within the rules outside the grammar of the feat itself to guide the reader's interpretation. The reason most people go with the more powerful reading is because it's not a stretch at all to interpret things that way going by the text of the feat and there is nothing in the examples that can be used to indicate the spirit of the feat in regard to the application of multiple instances of falling (likely because the authors hadn't given it much thought themselves). If anything, the open ended wording, while not decisive, is more tolerant of the more powerful interpretation due to its use of the term "execute" in conjunction with the line "by simply" implying that this is simpler than how charges are normally initiated.

[Darrin]

Here's some builds that use a similar idea:

4500 lbs of Stupid (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1224546) (doesn't use Battle Jump, but Sinfire Titan's original "falling object" idea got the ball rolling)

Thumpback (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16756072&postcount=44) (my anthropomorphic baleen whale version)

Zahnik Buhm: Roof-Jumper Version (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18076139&postcount=300) (the playgrounders helped me figure out what to do with a 9000' charge... break mach 1.48 and do 449d6 damage)

[SangoProduction]

Do note that normal charges include the movement in them, so requiring the "full round action" wouldn't prevent people from jumping off a ledge and onto a person, as there's more to the action than actually the full attack. Thus, if it only changes your prerequisite to qualify for a charge (5 ft above, as opposed to ...10ft or 15ft horizontal I believe?), then it is still possible to move while using it. That said, Wizards really needs to better word such feats....in fact, most all feats. Kinda a good thing they basically removed feats in 5e since they are so bad at making them.
As a personal ruling, I would say you could only get off one full attack, regardless of how many "actions" you use, because of the simple logic that your attacks don't suddenly not take any amount of time just because you fell, and you only have 4 to 6 seconds to work with.

[lessthanjake]

Do note that normal charges include the movement in them, so requiring the "full round action" wouldn't prevent people from jumping off a ledge and onto a person, as there's more to the action than actually the full attack. Thus, if it only changes your prerequisite to qualify for a charge (5 ft above, as opposed to ...10ft or 15ft horizontal I believe?), then it is still possible to move while using it. That said, Wizards really needs to better word such feats....in fact, most all feats. Kinda a good thing they basically removed feats in 5e since they are so bad at making them.
As a personal ruling, I would say you could only get off one full attack, regardless of how many "actions" you use, because of the simple logic that your attacks don't suddenly not take any amount of time just because you fell, and you only have 4 to 6 seconds to work with.

Normal charges include movement in them as part of the charge action. But stepping off the ledge would be prior to the charge action, since the charge action from Battle Jump only occurs when you are actually dropping. The initial movement to get off the ledge is not actually part of the drop. Of course, it would be sensible to just reinterpret the feat to allow some amount of prior movement to get off the ledge as part of the charge action. And certainly, if one interprets it to still require a full round action, you would need to make that interpretation in order to allow the feat to work.

BUT the feat does not state that. It says nothing about the initial movement to get off the ledge counting as part of the charge. In fact, the interpretation that it must be a full-round action is based on the assumption that all the normal rules about charges still exist. And the normal rules about charging state that charges MUST happen in a straight line. Obviously stepping horizontally and then falling vertically is not at all in a straight line. And nothing in the feat description expressly changes that. So your view requires believing that all the normal prerequisites MUST apply for one issue and must NOT apply for another issue.

That is, of course, not exactly a consistent view. It is a little more consistent just to think of Battle Jump as creating a whole new method of achieving a charge attack, not subject to the normal prerequisites. And once you think of it that way, there is no real reason to believe it cannot allow multi-pouncing, beyond maybe this idea that all these attacks couldn't happen in 6 seconds. But, of course, D&D involves tons of things happening in a round that could not realistically happen in 6 seconds, so I do not think that's a super strong argument.

[Curmudgeon]

Normal charges include movement in them as part of the charge action. But stepping off the ledge would be prior to the charge action, since the charge action from Battle Jump only occurs when you are actually dropping. The initial movement to get off the ledge is not actually part of the drop.
I'm with you 100% so far.
Of course, it would be sensible to just reinterpret the feat to allow some amount of prior movement to get off the ledge as part of the charge action. And certainly, if one interprets it to still require a full round action, you would need to make that interpretation in order to allow the feat to work.
That's not the only way to interpret the Battle Jump alterations to Charge. The feat replaces all of the Charge movement requirements, so you simply take a 5' step off the ledge.

While it's explicitly disallowed as part of the movement requirements for a normal Charge, a 5' step is not an action, and (excepting the Charge language) it's otherwise OK.
You can move 5 feet in any round when you don’t perform any other kind of movement. With Battle Jump, after the 5' step you're not performing any kind of movement; gravity is. You fall at gravity's rate, which does not have anything to do with your speed. The Battle Jump-modified Charge remains a special full-round action.

[lessthanjake]

I'm with you 100% so far.
That's not the only way to interpret the Battle Jump alterations to Charge. The feat replaces all of the Charge movement requirements, so you simply take a 5' step off the ledge.

While it's explicitly disallowed as part of the movement requirements for a normal Charge, a 5' step is not an action, and (excepting the Charge language) it's otherwise OK. With Battle Jump, after the 5' step you're not performing any kind of movement; gravity is. You fall at gravity's rate, which does not have anything to do with your speed. The Battle Jump-modified Charge remains a special full-round action.

I get your point, but, as you mentioned, 5 foot steps are not normally allowed in the same round as a charge. So, to allow this, you have to define Battle Jump as creating a whole new set of requirements/rules regarding how a charge is initiated. You acknowledge this. But once one concedes that Battle Jump creates a whole new set of requirements/rules, there is also no longer anything saying the charge has to take up a full-round action.

I do not necessarily think it is clearly wrong to say that it still is a full-round action, but, at the very least the wording is ambiguous. The default rule is obviously that it it WOULD be a full round action, but the use of the words "by simply dropping" certainly seem to imply that it is not as action-intensive as a normal charge.

Obviously this issue is far from clear. My point is merely that it is defensible to allow multiple charges with Battle Jump. And if you DO allow it, Dimension Slide and Dimension Hop would probably maximize the output by allowing you three charges each round.

[Curmudgeon]

I get your point, but, as you mentioned, 5 foot steps are not normally allowed in the same round as a charge. So, to allow this, you have to define Battle Jump as creating a whole new set of requirements/rules regarding how a charge is initiated. You acknowledge this.
No, not quite. Battle Jump creates a new set of requirements for the movement part of a Charge; the rest of that special full-round action is unchanged.

[lessthanjake]

No, not quite. Battle Jump creates a new set of requirements for the movement part of a Charge; the rest of that special full-round action is unchanged.

It certainly is not manifestly clear that Battle Jump is only creating a new set of requirements for the "movement part of a Charge." Nothing in the feat explicitly says that, though I grant that it is not an unreasonable assumption. You could quite easily say that the "by simply dropping" part of the feat actually creates a new rule for how much action is required for the entire charge. Instead of a full-round action, the entire charge now simply requires dropping (which is a free action). After all, that part of the feat does not say "You can execute the movement requirement of a charge by simply dropping . . ." It says "You can execute a charge by simply dropping . . ."

Ultimately, Battle Jump is tremendously vague, and I think either interpretation is reasonable. If I were the DM, I would probably not allow Battle Jump to create multiple pounces, for balance reasons. But I do not think that allowing it is clearly against the feat. And if it is allowed (and regardless of what you or I think, it is undoubtedly fact that many DMs WILL allow it), the strategy outlined in my original post is probably the best way to utilize it.

[Stegyre]

Ultimately, Battle Jump is tremendously vague, and I think either interpretation is reasonable.
I think you are straining.

Your interpretation depends upon inferring a very powerful change (no full-round action required for a charge) from silence.

Further contrary to such an interpretation, the "Normal" entry on the feat, which is expressly intended to show how the feat changes the basic rules, says only, "Anybody can try to jump down on an enemy, but it is not considered a charge, and they do not gain double damage or the size bonus for the ensuing attack."

Nothing about negating the action cost.

Thus, I respectfully disagree with your conclusion: your alternative interpretation is not reasonable.