Jump record?

[Hiro Quester]

What's the record for a jump check? after the last Iron Chef challenge featuring Blade Dancer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?613031-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-CII) as the main ingredient, it seems like Blade Dancer is certainly smashing what others claim as record jump checks.

The Jumplomancer (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?444052-The-Jumplomancer-are-you-serious), a supremely silly but apparently legal build, awes people into fanatic support through amazing jump skills. Claims +370 might be a jump record.

Surely a Blade Dancer could eat the jumplomancer's lunch in a jump check. Blade dancer 10 triples your base speed (e.g. from 40 to 120ft/rnd), and so much jump comes form speed (+4 for every 10 ft speed above 30). Blade Dancer also gives +30 competence bonus to Jump checks.

E.g. a Monk3/Druidic Avenger7/Blade Dancer10 with Cheetah's speed feat and Extra Wildshape feat. Take the Run feat for 5x your speed run and +4 to jump.
Let's take Acrobatic +2 and skill focus (jump) +3 too. It's a bit of a one-trick pony, but that's how you break records

Monk 3 gives +10 enhancement to speed. So does Druidic Avenger 1 (untyped bonus). Be in Cheetah Wildshape all day when you gain BD10, to get a base speed of 70 (50+10+10), which Blade Dancer triples for 210 base speed.

Assume that the enhancements you get from class abilities persist through activating Cheetah's Speed, particularly if you stay in cheetah wildshape, and your base speed is still 210. Now cast a few buff spells: Jump for +30 to jump checks, Bull's Strength, Longstrider for another +10 speed.

Your base speed is now 220 (3*70+10). You can run at 5 times that, so 1100 ft/rnd. When you sprint, you sprint at 2200ft/rnd.

Your jump check bonus is +1019
+948 from speed synergy (+4 for every 10 feet of speed over 30: 237*4=948)
+30 enhancement from Jump spell
+30 competence from Blade Dancer's Acrobatics
+4 untyped from Run feat
+2 from Acrobatic
+3 from Skill focus
+2 from Tumble synergy (you must have more than 5 ranks to take BD)

Edit: also you would have 23 ranks in jump for another +23

Blade dancer can take 10, so let's always do that for a skill check result of 1029. 1052

Since we always round down to the nearest 5 feet, it would be nice to take a potion of heroism for a +2 morale bonus, but let's stay self-sufficient.

I'm sure there are a few tweaks we could make to edge this up a bit more, but that has to be close to a record, right?


FYI, a jump check of 1029 1052 means you can jump the last 1025 1050 feet of a 2200 ft charge, and be 1/4 of that in height at the midpoint, so 255 260 feet high.

Even with a DC60 tumble check ignoring 40 feet of falling damage, and another 10 feet being nonlethal damage, you would still take the maximum of 20d6 falling damage (unless you use air walk that Blade dancer gives as an SLA or a ring of feather fall).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The Omniscificer (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/12/omniscificer-rational-solution-to-pun.html): Infinite Jump checks are tight.

They're also super-easy, barely an inconvenience!

[Hiro Quester]

OKay, then. What's the highest playable-character jump check, that doesn't involve shenanigans like that, which are entirely TO and would never be allowed at a gaming table of even the most open-minded generous but sane DM?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

OKay, then. What's the highest playable-character jump check, that doesn't involve shenanigans like that, which are entirely TO and would never be allowed at a gaming table of even the most open-minded generous but sane DM?Every single one of your objections is entirely subjective to each DM.

For many, anything even approaching triple-digits would be unacceptable.

Basically, your questions have no answers.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The bonus on Jump checks is based on your speed, not the distance you can cover when running. The Run feat, for example, says "you move five times your normal speed". Sprint has the same wording: "a cheetah can move ten times its normal speed". So your Jump bonus from speed would be +72. Still a respectable amount, but not close to the ~900 you're thinking of.

Edit: Consulting some books, I've found a few other problems: Blade Dancer doesn't technically triple your speed--it's a set table with no entry for 50' base speed.
Longstrider doesn't stack with a monk's fast movement. Haste doesn't stack either, but its +30' speed bonus is better than a third-level monk's.

[el minster]

The bonus on Jump checks is based on your speed, not the distance you can cover when running. The Run feat, for example, says "you move five times your normal speed". Sprint has the same wording: "a cheetah can move ten times its normal speed". So your Jump bonus from speed would be +72. Still a respectable amount, but not close to the ~900 you're thinking of.

I **knew** there was something wrong with the Jumplomancer!

[Hiro Quester]

To be precise, though, the jumps skill says that bonus is based on your speed, not your base speed. If you get an enhancement to your speed (like from haste) it does improve your jumps, no?

And the distance you can cover in a round is your speed. That’s the definition of speed.

but it’s probably fair to distinguish your enhanced movement speed from your ability to sprint, and say that the speed at which you can run or sprint is factored into the “running start” the jump skill assumes, but it’s still based on your non-running speed. That’s why the Run feat only adds +4. Okay. That makes some sense. Thanks for clarifying.

So the use of cheetah’s speed to enhance your jump check is nerfed for both the jumplomancer and the blade dancer I described.

A legit non-sprinting speed of a monk2/druid8/blade dancer would still be 70*3=210. That’s +72 speed synergy to jump. Plus 30 from Druid’s jump spell and +30 from blade dancer’s competence bonus, +23 ranks, +3 skill focus, +2 acrobatics, and +4 run feat gives +164 to the check.

Taking 10 for a 170 foot jump, cresting at 40 feet high. That’s still a mighty jump, if not the ridiculous heights implied by sprinting at 2100 feet per round.

edit:


Edit: Consulting some books, I've found a few other problems: Blade Dancer doesn't technically triple your speed--it's a set table with no entry for 50' base speed.
For theBlade Dancer IC competition the chair (DM) ruled that the multiplication would apply to a faster speed if you had it before applying the class benefit. Darrin made a chart (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24532570&postcount=21).

[AvatarVecna]

This is a weird question, and Maxi kinda hits the issue on the head: infinite everything is possible by lvl 1 if you're trying hard enough, so "whats the highest number you can get for [whatever]" is only a question of how hard you're willing to try and what you consider "cheating".

Somebody with "Permanent Emanation: Consumptive Field" (or who has Consumptive Field in a permanent item) gets +2 Str per kill the spell scores, with no cap, and NI Str means NI Jump checks. Similarly, a creature with the Spellwarped template can add to their speed when their SR blocks a spell, and this improvement has no listed duration; NI speed means NI Jump checks. Is a finite bonus that scales infinitely, cheating? Maybe.

A slotless item of Jump +30 (competence) that can only be used by a CN Artificer with 23 ranks in UMD has a market price of 90k. An artificer 20 optimizing for such things could craft such an item for ~30% market price (so ~28000), and thus lvl 20 WBL could afford ~27 such items. There's some method of using infusions to change the bonus type on an item, so just change them to various weird bonus types from all around the game, and now you've got +810 without even touching on Str or ranks or whatever. Is that cheating, since its bounded by WBL/experience? Maybe.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Perhaps a better way to phrase the question is, "What are the myriad ways of getting large (but not infinite) bonuses to Jump checks at level X with these specific restrictions?" Then just dial it back to whatever you consider appropriate for a particular campaign and DM.

[Railak]

Pathfinder ninja 10 (with high jumper trick) / aerokineticist 2 gets double it's acrobatics check in long or high jumps.
I haven't really worked out the "most optimized" build with it, but I've done characters with around a +80-100 jump check.

[InvisibleBison]

And the distance you can cover in a round is your speed. That’s the definition of speed.

No, your speed (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm#speed) is the distance you can cover in one move action.

[Hiro Quester]

No, your speed (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm#speed) is the distance you can cover in one move action.

True. I stand corrected.

[ExLibrisMortis]

To be precise, though, the jumps skill says that bonus is based on your speed, not your base speed. If you get an enhancement to your speed (like from haste) it does improve your jumps, no?
Yep, it should include everything that is a bonus to speed, and nothing phrased as "move your speed", "move twice your speed", and so on. The Shadow template will increase your speed by 50%, for example, and the Dark template will give you +10'.


For the Blade Dancer IC competition the chair (DM) ruled that the multiplication would apply to a faster speed if you had it before applying the class benefit. Darrin made a chart (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24532570&postcount=21).
And that's absolutely what I would support in a real game*. When aiming for a world record, however, it's a good idea to identify potential criticism.


With the "triple speed" interpretation of Blade Dancer, you can go pretty fast. At the very least, you can polymorph into a shadow dragon (80' base speed) and increase that speed with the Dread Carapace soulmeld (+140' enhancement for one round with 8 essentia, once per minute), the Sapphire Sprint feat (+30' insight with 6 essentia), the Freedom mantle (+10' untyped while focused), the Astral Vambraces soulmeld (+10' untyped), and a collar of umbral metamorphosis (+10 untyped) before tripling your speed. That's 840' for that round, good for +324 to Jump checks.

Your build would look like this:
LN azurin fighter 1/incarnate 3/azurin cleric 1/ardent 1/totemist 4/blade dancer 10 (fractional base attack)
Ability scores: 13 Dexterity (to qualify for Midnight Dodge), 15 Constitution (to qualify for sundry incarnum feats), 15 Intelligence (to use a scroll of polymorph), 12 Charisma (for Channel Incarnum)
Domains: Incarnum, Magic
Mantle: Freedom
Soulmelds:
Dread Carapace bound to the feet chakra (capacity 8 = 4 + 1 incarnate + 1 incarnum boots + 1 Expanded Soulmeld Capacity + 1 Divine Soultouch)
Astral Vambraces bound to the arms chakra (Celerity from astral construct menu A, no essentia investment)
Sapphire Sprint (capacity 4 + 1 Improved Essentia Capacity + 1 Divine Soultouch)
Total essentia 14 (1 azurin + 3 incarnate + 3 totemist + 4 four feats + 1 Channel Incarnum + 1 Divine Soultouch +1 essentia jewel)
Feats: Martial Study (Sudden Leap)1, Midnight Dodgeazurin, Mobilityfighter 1, Sapphire Sprint3, Spring Attack6, Incarnum Spellshapingcleric 1, Expanded Soulmeld Capacity9, Improved Essentia Capacity12, Open Lesser Chakra15, Divine Soultouch18
Skills: Fighter and totemist have Ride, which can be traded for Tumble. Jump becomes a class skill for all classes with Martial Study.
Equipment: incarnum boots (25 000 gp), bead of karma (20 000 gp), belt of giant strength +6 (36 000 gp), gloves of dexterity +4 (16 000 gp), collar of umbral metamorphosis (10 800 gp), scroll of draconic polymorph (DC 10 CL check, 1125 gp), scroll of jump at CL 9 (DC 10 CL check, 225 gp), an essentia jewel (400 gp)

Activate your bead of karma. Your caster level is now 5 for the next 10 minutes.
Activate your scroll of jump and scroll of draconic polymorph. This requires two DC 10 CL checks, and you have a +5 bonus.
(If a +5 bonus on a DC 10 check is not reliable enough, you can add a flaw or use mobility armour to get another feat, and pick up Practiced Spellcaster (cleric), or the Desert template and Arcane Mastery. Either guarantees success.)
Draconic polymorph lets you take the shape of a very young shadow dragon with +8 Strength (7 HD, 80' speed, 21 Strength) for 9 minutes.
Jump gives you a +30 enhancement bonus on Jump checks for 9 minutes.
Put on your belt, gloves, and collar. You now have 27 Strength. Activate the collar for another +10' speed. This lasts 10 minutes.
(The gloves are there because you need 13 Dexterity to qualify for some of your feats, and shadow dragons have 10 Dexterity.)

At the start of your turn, activate Divine Soultouch, Channel Incarnum, and an essentia jewel (free actions), assign your essentia (swift action), activate your Dread Carapace (no activation listed, default to standard), and then move and jump (move action).

Your speed is 80 + 10 template + 10 soulmeld + 140 enhancement + 30 insight + 10 typeless for a total of 280', tripled by Blade Dancer to 840'.
With 23 ranks in Jump and 5 ranks in Tumble, you have a Jump bonus of 23 ranks + 2 synergy + 324 speed + 8 Strength + 30 competence + 30 enhancement = +417.

Note that this build doesn't have Exemplar in it, so this Jump bonus is only good for jumping.


I'd like to incorporate a shadow dark shadow dragon wyrmling (135' base speed), but the +6 LA makes it pretty hard to hit the base attack bonus requirement for Blade Dancer, and you have less space for soulmelds. Still, you'd be able to double your speed just by taking one level in Blade Dancer, and you can benefit from barbarian and druid speed boosts. Or you could just be a shadow shadow shadow shadow shadow shadow dark shadow dragon (4 RHD, +16 LA) with a speed of 1010', enough for a nice +392 bonus to Jump.

Edit: a shadow shadow shadow dark human is more efficient than a dark shadow dragon. The former has a speed of 135', the latter has 90'. That means the human could have a speed of 1515' (plus 10' if it's a barbarian), enough for +592 Jump.

Clearly, stacking Shadow Creature is very good for high speed/Jump bonuses, but your chances of squeezing Exemplar into a build that's almost entirely LA are very slim indeed :smalltongue:.


*Iron Chef is a "real game". Entrants' rule interpretations are evaluated by a "real" judge, rather than a nebulous and generic "permissive DM".

[Hiro Quester]

Nice.

I don’t think blade Dancer works like that, though. It triples your base speed, and possibly enhancements you have from class levels, or ones you have permanently from items, or at least active for the whole day when you gain a class level (eg being in wildshape all day).

It would not triple bonuses you get from temporary effects, like it seems Dread Carapace gives, though.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Nice.

I don’t think blade Dancer works like that, though. It triples your base speed, and possibly enhancements you have from class levels, or ones you have permanently from items, or at least active for the whole day when you gain a class level (eg being in wildshape all day).

It would not triple bonuses you get from temporary effects, like it seems Dread Carapace gives, though.
It doesn't by default, but the "speed multiplier" reading does. The Viscount (sensibly) ruled otherwise for that Iron Chef round, but that was on grounds of balance, not RAW.

In general, order of operations is left up to the player, and Blade Dancer doesn't override that. It doesn't need to, because there's a set table with entries going up to 40' base speed, so there is a natural limit to how much speed gets multiplied. Once you hit 40' base speed, you're better off adding further speed bonuses after Fast Movement. Changing the ability removes that natural limit, which opens the ability up to further optimization.

In the "speed multiplier" reading, Fast Movement grants a series of multipliers (×2, ×2⅓, ×2⅔, ×3), which--like Spirited Charge for damage, or Run for distance travelled--are applied after all bonuses.


When working out order of operations in D&D math, the order you acquire bonuses and multipliers in is often irrelevant. Likewise, the order in which they might apply in-universe is often irrelevant. Some abilities specify the order in which they are applied, but by default, it's left to the player.

Individual bonuses and multipliers are like a pile of LEGO bricks. There is no order; you simply have the bricks in the pile (abilities on your character sheet), and you don't have the ones in the box (everything else). With that pile, you can make anything you want. In this case, I'm choosing to apply my "×3 multiplier" brick last, because that'll give me the highest overall speed. I could do otherwise, because there's nothing in the rules that forces me to order my bricks in any particular way.