[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:69, topic:2816”]You will have 1, 2, or 3 squares of lead in, leading to you skipping 1, 2, or 3 squares when you jump.
Depending on your strength and weight carried, you may fail a jump and lose one or two squares of distance and fall down at the end (with each square skipped getting making the jump difficult), but an unweighted character with 8 str should have like a 99% chance of making a three square jump. You only really need to worry about failure if you’re carrying a LOT of stuff or getting super weighed down.[/quote]
Reality check.
World-class competitive long-jump results are in the 25 feet range, which corresponds to str/dex 20 or so, zero enumbrance, and perfect condition. Also the runway leading to the jump is somewhere upwards of 150 feet for a long jump of this magnitude. (everything seems to count number of strides without respect to overall distance, so I had to extrapolate between strides and sprinter stride length of ~100") Keep in mind this measurement is also based on sports-like techniques like bringing the feet very far ahead of the center of gravity of the jumper to maximize distance covered at the risk of falling down on the landing, this generally isn’t going to be a tradeoff you’re assumed to make in survival jumping. Finally, the level of skill and practice focused on this one event is astounding, and simple something a survivor isn’t going to be able to replicate.
First thing I notice is that the lead in to distance cleared ratio is 5:1 or so rather than 1:1, distance cleared is more based on speed than jumping strength, and you simply need distance to get up to speed. This ratio may well shift with shorter jumps, the acceleration is very front-loaded. Unfortunately information on such things is hard to come by since people only generally care about the format imposed by the sport, and even then only about the top records. Basically, the maximum lead-in is going to be however many squares it takes for you to reach top sprinting speed, but it should definitely be significantly longer than the jump distance.
I’d expect max achievable distance in a real-world scenario to be 25ft (this is the lower bound of olympic performance, so actually I’d expect it to be far lower, but I don’t want to quibble about it) I’d put this in the ballpark of clearing three tiles, maybe four.
Jumping a single tile should be no big deal for an average (str/dex 8) unencumbered survivor with a moderate run-up (3-4 squares or so), even more so if it’s a “hole” or “gap” or trap of some kind, and not an entire open tile. Fit survivors should be able to manage it while encumbered and with less run-up.
For a fit and unencumbered survivor, clearing two full squares should be achievable with a large run-up (probably around 6-7 squares), so for example rooftop-to-rooftop jumps over alleys should be doable. Similarly very fit survivors should be able to take some gear along for the ride.
Very fit and unencumbered survivors should be able to clear three tiles, yadda yadda, and the absolute most fit survivors would be able to clear 4 tiles unencumbered.
I agree there should be very little variance from one jump to the next, in fact I’d say make it totally deterministic, and additionally give the player reliable feedback on how many tiles they can clear when they jump.
