During our last play session my group and I came upon a rules argument that we couldn't resolve with the base rules or faq :

1. When jumping over an obstacle (pit, mud, ice), do you have to jump in a straight line, or can you still move your figure according to normal movement rules?

c = ice, x = empty square, H = hero, O = empty space where the hero intends to ''land''

c c O

c C c

x H x

Does anything prevent H from jumping over C to land on O?

There's nothing in the rules either way, as you've probably already determined:

"If a hero or monster is aware of a pit, it may jump across the pit for three movement points for each space crossed. Simply place the figure on the other side of the pit after spending the movement points."

I believe my group tends to allow jumps where you have line-of-sight to the destination, which lets you jump at weird angles (as in your example) but doesn't let you make a right-angle turn in midair to get around corners.

I concur with Antistone. As long as LoS can be drawn to the destination square, call it a straight line jump that doesn't quite conform to grid lines. I would allow the jump as put forth in the OP's post.

Thus far we haven't really come across a quest where the question of actually making a turn in midair has been raised, thankfully. I'd prefer not to have to address the question of whether that would be legal or not.

Now that you mention it there may have been a corner involved, I'm not 100% sure anymore. I do understand the logic of the line-of-sight argument though, but the rules only state that your figure is placed on the other side of the pit, as Antistone pointed out, which is relatively vague. I guess this will require another house-rule. Thanks for the input.

_Loki_ said:

Note also that jumping is actually only permitted for pits (and only pits the hero is aware of) not other obstacles.

Corbon said:

Lava, mud, and ice all explicitly use exactly the same jumping rules as pits--they just didn't exist when the JitD rulebook was written. That presumably means that you can jump over a multi-space combination of jumpable obstacles as if it were a single pit, but I suppose that could be argued if you want to be strict.

Water and rubble cannot be jumped. And I don't think there's any advantage to jumping fog or corrupted terrain, except possibly to exploit the Grapple loophole that may or may not exist if FFG ever makes a ruling on it.

Antistone said:

I stand corrected.

With all the other "You broke my suspension of disbelief!" moments in Descent already, what's wrong with a 90 degree turn in midair?

ProtoPersona said:

Nothing in particular, but there's no reason NOT to support suspension of disbelief in this case, that I can see. They flat-out forgot to tell us what the requirements of a jump are, there doesn't seem to be any particular balance or complexity advantage to any ruling we might make, so why not?

Antistone said:

I'm not saying either way is right. From my perspective, this being a mostly tactical game, there are big advantages to jumping over a pit and around a corner in the same move. The situation would probably come up once in a blue moon, but I'd allow the move. Theme / realism / logic be damned!

By RAW, the jump intended by the OP costs 6 MP for two ice spaces crossed.

I am still undecided whether to enforce this MP cost or to leave it at 3. Thoughts?

Parathion said:

But the OP jump only crosses 1 ice space...?

If you draw Line of Sight (or better Line of Jump) between starting and landing space, the line crosses two spaces.

If you move the figure one space up, then one space diagonally up, then of course you did only cross one ice space.

That´s why I am undecided on the MP costs involved.

I say 3 MP. Charging more to jump to space O than to the (unpictured) space to the right of it (which is physically farther away) can't possibly be intended; it's a loophole in the wording. It's not even that unless you assume that jumps must be traced in a straight line like LOS, which isn't stated anywhere, so I recommend you simply don't make that assumption. Count jump distance like movement distance.

That's more or less how I see it : a jump is a move (action), so I assume it follows the basic rules for movement with the addition that it costs 3 movement points per square to land on the other side. I could move from H to O through C normally (although I will have to roll to see if my turn ends). The only thing that could prevent me from doing so with a jump is this part of the rules : ''Simply place the figure on the other side of the pit after spending the movement points.'' So it falls on your interpretation of ''other side''.

Then again, maybe I'm trying to twist the rules to my own marginal benefit by being obtuse and not interpreting ''on the other side'' as straight across in a direct, unbroken line, but that's as much an interpretation of the rules as mine.