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Jumping around the corner

Discussion in 'Rules' started by Lawson, Sep 5, 2021.

  1. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    I found myself in a situation where I want to use Super Jump to pass over an unconscious enemy trooper that would otherwise be blocking my ability to run around the corner and get into silhouette contact with a different enemy trooper. Is there anything preventing me from tracing a diagonal parabola to jump around the corner (assuming jumping directly over it is impossible)? While it seems physically impossible to jump this way, RAW seems to allow it, since it doesn't specify that the parabola needs to be only along the vertical axis.
     
  2. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Not really anything preventing it, but mathematically the fact that we have to use parabolas means that the cases where this is useful are very rare. After all, the rules doesn't allow you to clip through terrain or units while jumping any more than if you were to be moving normally.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabola

    As a small side-note, for anyone who's not yet reflected on it yet, do take a look at that wiki page and marvel at how by following the rules it's basically impossible to jump on top of or over anything you couldn't also just vault over using less than 8" of movement.
     
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  3. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    I understand the reasoning, but where in the N4 rules does it actually stipulate a parabola as the necessary movement path for every use of the skill?
     
  4. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    "Allows the user to move horizontally (to clear a gap), vertically (to reach a higher or lower surface), diagonally or tracing a parabola, up to his first MOV Attribute value in inches."

    I think the implication is that the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal options are pretty clearly meant to be straight lines, so the parabola is the only allowed movement that could potentially get you around a corner per the OP.

    Personally I would think that the parabolic option is also pretty clearly intended to have to be up-and-down, not side to side, although it's true that it doesn't say so explicitly.

    But @Mahtamori is quite right that we have to fudge it to make pretty much any jump work. Like, a vertical jump wouldn't actually be able to reach a higher or lower surface despite what the rule says. You need to shift sideways as well. And a parabola can't do it unless you're far enough back from the wall you want to jump up. Etc.
     
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  5. wes-o-matic

    wes-o-matic feeelthy casual

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    My point was that a parabola is not in the rules as an obligatory requirement, just an option. The word doesn’t appear at all in the rules for Super-Jump where it repeats the salient bullet from the Jump skill, which is sort of funny but probably immaterial.
     
  6. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    There is a limited set of options. None of them include the typically angular bends (or idspispopd style movement) that will typically be used by players who see a 3" wall and think their Fusilier should totally be able to jump that.

    Arguably, it could be that they didn't mean the mathematical definition of a parabola, but rather more of a Bezier curve. That's not what ended up in writing, though... particularly since the N3 rulebook had an image illustrating a jump that literally had the trooper teleport a base length forward before beginning measurements.

    Otherwise, precisely what QueensGambit wrote. Vertical jumps would only benefit Super-Jump trying to get vision on stuff while diagonals would only be able to jump up or down from ladders (or if you have Climb+, onto other walls)
     
  7. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    Parabola is just used as a synonym for a curve.

    If it was not any curve but only parabola, then measuring the precise arc length of a mathematically exact parabola is hard stuff. I don't think we even learned that in high school. And you can't really use a measuring tape as it doesn't bend nicely into an exact parabola without having a template to make it conform to.
     
  8. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    correct, there is no rule that parabola is on the vertical axis.
     
  9. Lawson

    Lawson Well-Known Member

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    I think the jump wouldn't have even been necessary if the rules allowed me to step over unconscious enemy troops in the same way one can move through friendly figures based on their silhouette (my understanding is you can't currently, but I think, stepping over an unconscious body makes more sense than jumping around a corner). Also TBH I may have sort of biased the idea of how to jump on the equally illogical way that Speculative Attacks work where the 'trajectory' you draw can trace any necessary path to reach the target. To go off topic onto this, I feel like if a jump (which we all agree is totally broken) must measure the distance using a ruler that follows the arc of the jump itself, spec attacks should require the same thing to determine range measurement instead of just 'as the crow flies' distance, so that even if you technically can wing a grenade around a corner and through the back window of an otherwise-closed room, it would be a 16" throw rather than a 3" one.
     
    #9 Lawson, Sep 10, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2021
  10. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    You can get a reasonable approximation with a tape measure as long as you're aware of that a parabola is symmetrical along its axis.

    Besides that, you're doing the exactly the steps I meant for what happens when people cheat the rules, which is looking at the rules and figuring out the rules are awkward and annoying and making up your own rules to replace them. It's reasonable house rule, but it is house rule. Describing why the rules don't work or are difficult is the reason to motivate correcting the rules *nods towards rules for doors*

    This still doesn't really address that people clip through walls when using jump for vertical traversal a lot of the time.
     
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  11. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    Well, this is what happens after the developers get the idea that the players spent the entire previous edition abusing the free falling distance that jump provided (and/or breaking the impetuous model rules, in the process...) :face_with_head_bandage:
     
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