Why is great leap not so great? Options

[sunnyside]

I'm putting this in this board because I think great leap has shown up somewhere in every edition, but unless my memory has faded it's never been great.

An adept can run up walls, balance on a spider web, and watch the mage fly all over the place. But great leap just provides a minor incremental increase in jumping distance.

For example if you buy the highest level in SR4 (1.5 power points) you only generally add 4 meters to your max jump distance. I want to say that other editions are similar in effect. That's something I suppose. But it isn't that impressive.

So I'm wondering in a game system where some of the characters can just fly, why aren't adepts allowed to actually leap great distances? At least going a couple times further than before they got the skill.

[Lilt]

I'd have to agree, I've never seen anyone take great leap. If they do take it, they're somewhat screwed. I'd be more tempted to allow it to multiply jumping distance somehow, as well as add a few dice to represent their greater skill (when you're facing big skill penalties).

As long as you don't allow them to move any further in a turn than they normally could, you're fine. Otherwise you might find adepts 'going naruto' and jumping everywhere. Heck, even allow it to increase their maximum move speed when jumping if you want. Adepts are pretty-much animé characters anyway IMHO.

[pbangarth]

Well, sunnyside, here's a few things off the top of my head:

Flying can be counterspelled, leaping cannot.

Flying causes drain, leaping does not.

Leaping happens essentially instantaneously, flying has a rate of travel.

Leaping is probably less likely affected by mana warps than the spell is.

Leaping will probably be combined with other Adept powers that make landing and staying on the precarious places one leaps to easier.


Yeah, it's specific, but it has it's strengths.

[hyzmarca]

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...ic=9765&hl=Leap

[Wounded Ronin]

Great Leap is part of wuxia and ninja pop culture lore. It's in there because it has to be.

[Critias]

It -- along with Improved Athletics, Wall Running, Catfall (Freefall? Whatever) -- can be made useful, and can make for a very fun character... if you invest about 3/4 of your starting Adept abilities and skill points into it. And then you've got a guy that's really cool and fun to run around and do crazy parkour shit with, but who sucks monkey balls once he actually gets to the fight (unless you really min/max and twink out to the best of your ability).

It makes me sad in my tummy.

[Trigger]

I am running a parkour ork adept right now that does precisely that, and although he hasn't been in combat yet I don't see him really being too gimped there. Just recently I did have him go 8 meters straight up, wallrunning part of it and then jumping the rest. That is about how high he can go up, but he can jump 15 meters max right now doing a running jump, 10 standing. That is 45 and 30 feet respectively...which is quite impressive I must say.

[Critias]

They're great fun to just run around and do wacky stuff with -- mine just casually high-jumped a barbed wire fence not too long ago, regularly hops off buildings without any concern for the fall, etc, etc -- but the simple fact is you're low on Adept points to play with once you get to whereever you were going. Anyone that makes a "regular" Adept and sinks all 6 points into combat stuff will clean your clock.

It's like a Street Sam that spends a lot of Essence on Kid Stealth legs tricked out with super-fast skates and hydraulic jacks and stuff like that. Sure, sure, he can skip around real fast or ride his built-in lollercoaster to Wheeeeetown...but someone that spent that same nuyen and Essence on Wired Reflexes and a Smartlink instead is probably going to whoop up on him, y'know?

But if your GM is a little forgiving, and your other group members are willing to either (1) pick up your slack a little or (2) play along, you can have a blast. MFB and I are doing a few jobs with just our "Mobility Adepts" (as I call them), and it's been a lot of fun just running everywhere, leaping from building to building, wall-running into (or out of) ambushes, etc, etc. Neat visuals, even if it's not the most practical/efficient build in the game.

[Ryu]

1.) We made it count as auto-success on the jump test. Now it´s great. It´s not to much because jumping places is rarely necessary.

2.) Movement powers are ideal for sniper chars. Talk about fast deployment...

[Moon-Hawk]

[mfb]

great leap is actually pretty cool, in SR4, even as-is. wackily enough, it's because of the fixed TN system. because of it, every extra die on a test has a large impact on your ability to succeed at the test, so the fact that you can get a bunch of extra dice on great leap for not much cost is pretty cool. in SR3, those extra dice give almost no benefit at all--a nine-meter leap is still TN 9; in order to make such a leap a sure thing, you have to stack on huge, huge amounts of great leap.

but, yeah, i don't see it breaking the game if you give great leap a boost. autosuccesses are a particularly good idea, given the fixed TN.

[sunnyside]

I kind of like autosuccesses becuase it means the adept can casually make a number of jumps in addition to just getting further most of the time.

Still though does anyone know why they make it weak? Almost any source material for physical adepts has jumpers. And they're all better than phys ads, even in fourth. I mean modern day athletes do 9 meters on the longjump. So if an adept does 14 that isn't a big difference. You might not even notice a 50% increase in jumping ability in a show/book or even the more practical 2x difference.

They could have, as mentioned earlier, had it so that a truely great leap replaces regular running/walking instead of being in addition to it.

They could have even just made great leap cost 1 and either add 4 die to a jump test or allow you to jump your movement rate instead of running. That would have been fun.

[Serial_Peacemake...]

Now I may be wrong, but does a jump happen on an initiative pass? As opposed to running where it gets divided up between your initiative passes? So, sure you only are jumping so far, but if you have more than one initiative pass you can do it again, and again. Though that does give you very wuxia style fighting with adepts bouncing around like jackrabbits on speed.

[DrPeteCastle]

I read in the shadowrun 4th rulebook about adepts running on walls, shattering hard objects with a single unarmed blow, and other crazy feats but they are not listed in the adept powers (apart from great leap). How can an adept run on walls if their is no power for it? or shatter hard objects ,use mundane objects as deadly thrown projectiles? i cant find out how to do it :?

[Ophis]

Street Magic my friend it's all in there...

[Kagetenshi]

A really good Athletics roll.

~J

[mfb]

very, very carefully.

[DrPeteCastle]

okay lol, thats like saying "because they just can", does anyone know the answer or are all those moves just to sound cool in the description, because a mundane character with no enhancements or majic could roll good on athletics and state their character's action as doing the same feats.

[Critias]

[Kagetenshi]

[Critias]