Revised Jumping rules, Let's make it reasonable Options

[mighty]

Well i have played shadowrun for many years and this is the rule I use. Its more fluent than the published crap rule. running jump is quickness times your running multiplier divide by 3 add in great leap and hydraulic jacks and anything that can mod your max distance. this will rule let characters such as dwarves and vampires to jump further and shorter. now you are likely thinking of what about body and strength? This is simple with the following chart

these mods are added to any jump test

str other mods can be added for encumbance rough terrian and small
1-2 +1 ledges, slippery surfaces. etc etc base tn#4 for half max jump and
3-4 0 more than half to max jump base tn# of 6. if people are interested ill
5-6 -1 post the modifiers chart i use and the standing jump rules.
7-8 -2
etc Comments welcome. :twirl:

body
1-2 -1
3-4 0
5-6 +1
7-8 +2
etc

[noneuklid]

Well, let's see. The IAAF site conveniently maintains world records, although they do seem to be a tad unburdened of units. Some cross-referencing makes it look like it's all in centimeters, meters and seconds, so we're gonna go with that.The worlds best can apparently run 10.3 meters/second, jump as high as (bad numbers, those are with twist. Some secondary data I've been browsing) .915 meters, and as far as 8.95 meters.

In SR, an unaugmented human can expect (quickness 6, athletics 8) to run 10 meters per second (difficulty 4 on athletics/run), with a maximum of 14 meters/second (why wasn't Johnson using his karma pool?). They'll make a 6 meter jump most of the time, but will never, ever make a 9 meter running jump. Clearly, the IAAF should begin screening athletes for cyberware and magic. However, a 2 meter vertical jump is a simple matter for a Shadowrun athlete at difficulty 4- even a novice athlete with good natural speed can expect to make it at least half the time.

However, let's say this poor athlete has a horrible accident and a corp buys him and makes him faster, stronger, and capable of brewing coffee with his headware. Let's say quickness +3 and rating 5 hydraulic jacks are the relevant mods.

All of the sudden, he can run between 9 and 22 meters per second, averaging around 16. His horizontal jump distances in theory extend 18 meters- the 9 meters (which, remember, is possible for a 'real' unaugmented human but requires superhuman quickness in SR) x 2 from the jacks. However, instead of simply multiplying jump distances by 2, the jacks make it possible to exceed his normal distances. The 9 meter jump won't be too tough (my prob/stat skills aren't up to this, but I think the chances of rolling a 9 in SR are something like (1/6) * (4/6) or .11- per die (not sure what the per die adds up to)), but jumping the full distance allowed by his spiffy new chrome is going to be a problem at (1/6)^3 or .00463 per die even though he was perfectly capable of his maximum jump distance before.

This is regardless of whether or not he's running at 36 mph (his average).

I'm all in favor of changing the jump rules. When my math coprocessor has recovered, I'll give it a thourough post. I like the original suggestion, but I think even more tweaking is needed (especially to horizontal maximums and vertical averages).

[noneuklid]

Ok.

Characters may jump from standing, without a test, a height of (Quickness + Strength) x 5 centimeters. They may jump a distance of (Quickness + Strength) x 20 centimeters (about 1.2 meters for a Str 3 Qui 3. Not totally realistic, but dramatically plausible; a multiplier of x17 might be a little more believable, but harder on the numbers. x15 is too low).

The character may attempt to jump further than this: each success on an Athletics (4) test adds one to the Quickness + Strength total.

Note that the vertical height is a hand reach- ie, a normal person can hop high enough to reach a foot higher into the air without much of a problem. The 'foot reach' is a little different; if you want to figure if a character can jump over something, add in a third of their height. (Optional rule: characters with *any* specialization dice in Athletics (Jumping) may add as much as two-thirds of their height, but must make a Quickness (8) test to land on their feet. They may forego this test if desired- for instance, if they are planning to land on a soft surface, like an athletic mat).

Running jumps work a little differently.

Characters get a base 'air time' of (I'm going to be hyper-abstract here. Someone with better physics, please audit these numbers) .1 second per point of Strength. The distance they cover in the air is the same as they would cover while running that phase (and thus may be raised by Athletics (running) tests). Characters may intentionally limit the amount of 'air time' they have (but must announce so before making the jump). At the half-way point, they have reached the apex, which is the same as their standing jump. If the jump is made as a Complex Action, two Athletics tests may be made- one for increasing running speed, the other for increasing the maximum height. Optionally (I reccomend), each success on the second test adds .05 to the air time.

I know it looks a little complex, but it's pretty simple. If a character has a strength of 5 and a Quickness of 8, a running jump will put him in the air for half a second and allow him to normally cover 4 meters. With a Strength of 6, it'd be 4.8, and so on. If the character tested their running speed up to 12, it'd be 7.2.

A 'pinnacle of humanity' character- someone with Strength 6, Quickness 6 and Athletics 8- could test up to a 14 meter jump, but would probably average around 8 meters.

If anything, the heavy randomness from the Run tests are what throw this off most. I'll work on those later.

Oh, yeah. Hydraulic Jacks add (rating) to the vertical multiplier, (rating x 4) to the horizontal multiplier, and (rating) to Strength for 'airtime'. They no longer add dice to Athletics (jumping) tests. I don't have info on the Great Leap power yet, but that should likewise be pretty easy to convert.

Characters may end a phase in the air, if they are jumping further than they can run in a single phase. Apply multipliers as if they were running +1 (so +5 to attack, +3 to be hit. Jumping negates the 'difficult ground' penalty for Attacker Running). Characters who make a standing jump and do not move further than they can walk apply walking modifiers +1 (so just +1 if no modifier is listed for walking).

In a lot of ways, I like the gist of the original poster's idea more- it makes things pretty easy to resolve. This is slightly more thorough, but unless it happens to fall into simple factors, most people will want calculators to resolve jumps.