HERO 5E Leaping

[Melkor]

Do the rules for acceleration and deceleration apply to the Leaping power?

[Hyper-Man]

When that question was asked before in the rules forum Steve Long ruled that they do but that a GM can overrule if he wants.  I personally just add the appropriate acceleration Advantage when building the power so there is no question.

[Melkor]

Thanks Hyper-Man,

 

The question that came up in our game is if a character leaps 10" in a phase, and then at the start of the next phase, decides to decelerate to zero - would he still be compelled to move 1 hex per 5" of deceleration (2 total hexes to decelerate from 10" to 0") in the direction of his velocity? Assuming no acceleration/deceleration advantage.

[Hyper-Man]

Technically, Combat Leaping is Instant and the character should land with 0 velocity at the end of his combat leap. If they don't land on something or someone then they are falling on their next Phase.

 

Non-Combat Leaping can be a multi-phase affair but the power has specifics on how that functions.

[WistfulD]

You could also consider that the ongoing momentum of the leap. Perhaps if the leaper wants to land after that very fast leap and then not keep moving forward that 1 hex per 5" of deceleration, they would need to have that much run speed to counteract it. That would disrequire acceleration modifiers to ones jumping, but require someone not to sell back their run speed because they jump all the time.

[Hyper-Man]

That would make sense if the character added velocity to the leap via running start but not so much otherwise.

[Steve]

Isn't it a vector issue? If you leap straight up, you come back down without any horizontal motion to consider. But if you leap in an arc, you would come down with some portion of horizontal momentum left over after you touch down.

[Hyper-Man]

Combat Flight allows for the option of maintaining current velocity or reducing it to 0 at the end of each Phase.

 

Combat Leaping automatically reduces the character's velocity to 0 when landing (unless performing a Move Through or Move By on that final Hex).

[Greywind]

...willingly or otherwise, if the hex can't support the character's weight.

[Melkor]

Combat Flight allows for the option of maintaining current velocity or reducing it to 0 at the end of each Phase.

 

Combat Leaping automatically reduces the character's velocity to 0 when landing (unless performing a Move Through or Move By on that final Hex).

 

That's pretty much how we played it.

 

In that case, the Accelerate/Decelerate Advantage would really only apply to long-distance noncombat leaps, correct?

[Hyper-Man]

Actually, I've always looked at it the opposite way.

 

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound: Leaping +72m (4m/76m forward, 2m/38m upward), Combat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1/4) (45 Active Points)

 

This allows the Leaping to be used with a Move Through to escape from an Englobing Force Wall (now built as Barrier in 6e).  Without the Combat Acceleration Advantage the Leaping technically follows the same acceleration rules as Running/Flight/Swimming and therefore could not use the full Leaping movement with a 0 Range Move Through.

 

I would stick with the Non-Combat rules within the Leaping Power description (the number of doublings determines how many Phases the character is in the air I believe).

 

*It's also worth noting that with regard to Move Through and Move By, the distance actually traveled does not put a limit on the Combat Velocity used to calculate bonus damage.  A character can do 2 different Half Moves with different movement abilities (say Running and Leaping) and still get to use the FULL Leaping meters/inches for determining damage with a Move By/Through.