Battle Jump

If it hasn't already been made abundantly clear, you can do some pretty silly things thanks to the Book of Nine Swords. Really it has no shortage of silliness within its very pages, but sometimes you can get a really spiffy effect by combining the new offerings for marshal adepts with an abusable piece of minutae from a previous splatbook.

What we're working with here is the feat Battle Jump, from the (pretty cool) book Unapproachable East. The feat is interesting in that it lets you perform a charge on a foe simply by dropping onto them from above, whereupon you get to deal double damage or deliver a trip attack (for which you count as one size category larger. Momentum is a handy thing.) Now, a "charge" in D&D parlance is a very specific thing, and one might be tempted to claim that the action being described by the feat is only colloquially referred to as a "charge", not the official Charge attack action covered by the rules. The intent is made entirely transparent under the feat's entry for how it differs from normal - it reads "Anybody can try to jump down on an enemy, but it is not considered a charge, and they do not gain double damage or the size bonus for the ensuing attack." The fact that they specifically call it out means that a battle jump is an official, capital-C charge, meaning you get a +2 to your attack roll, -2 to your AC until your next turn, and anything else that charging may trigger for your character.

Anything else, indeed... for anyone who has dipped one level of barbarian before, your imagination might already be whirling with the possibilities. After all, the Spirit Totems alternate class feature from Complete Champion means that a barbarian can align themselves to the lion totem at level one, trading in their Fast Movement class feature for Pounce. Getting Pounce for something so meager as a one-level dip is completely nuts - it's the type of thing a prestige class usually gets as a capstone ability, and even then only with one weapon or whatever - but I'm not one to take Nice Things™ away from melee classes. So a barbarian can perform a full attack at any time by dropping onto their opponent's head.

Now, it won't always be easy to have the high ground on your opponent - and if you do, you won't anymore after you perform a battle jump. But why limit yourself? If you can jump high enough, you could leap into the air and come crashing down on your foe even if you're both standing on the same plane! Being able to leap that high might seem tricky for most characters, but there are a number of ways to get that kind of height with ease. Since you're playing a melee character, it's easy to fit in some martial adept levels in there - and Leaping Dragon Stance, a level 3 Tiger Claw stance, adds +10 feet to your jumps and removes the penalty for standing jumps. That's not a +10 bonus to jump checks, mind you - that's a flat bonus of 10 feet, which for anyone keeping track, is equivalent to a +40 bonus if you're jumping straight up. No matter how poorly you roll, Leaping Dragon Stance guarantees you can battle jump onto a medium-sized foe.

Don't want to wait that long? There are other quick ways to earn some incredible height. Playing as a Thri-kreen, one of my favourite racial choices, gets you a +30 racial bonus to jump checks right off the bat (as well as another +4 from their 40 foot base speed.) Jump is a level 1 spell that gives you a +10 enhancement bonus to jump checks, which increases to +20 at 5th level and +30 at 9th. Since it lasts for a minute per level and isn't a personal spell, a friendly spellcaster could easily give you a precombat buff with a wand of jump, eternal or otherwise.

So... you can charge someone, earning a full attack with Pounce, by jumping on them. But what's the point? Asides from the nice little ability to sidestep difficult terrain or other obstacles, there's no real advantage to doing that rather than performing a regular old charge. But hold on - keep in mind that a charge is normally a full-round action, whereas a jump, like any form of movement, is a move action. So you can jump on a guy's head, getting a full attack from Pounce, then still have a standard action left over. Not bad, right? It's like having a nonmagical haste, but of course it will also stack with haste, since you'll get the bonus attack on the full attack and still have a standard left over. And don't forget, a successful Battle Jump deals double damage with a melee weapon or natural attack, meaning each hit of your full attack will also deal double damage. So you can Pounce someone for twice as much damage in half as many actions!

But is that enough? If you're already running some levels of Warblade for that Leaping Dragon Stance, then you have access to a very handy level 1 maneuver known as Sudden Leap, which lets you perform a jump check as a swift action. Yessir, you can use Sudden Leap to perform a battle jump, getting a full attack from Pounce, and then still have a full-round action with which to perform another full attack! Two full attacks in one turn - sound familiar? That's the same effect as Time Stands Still, which is a level 9 maneuver and often considered the best of the level nines. You can replicate the mightiest level 9 maneuver in the game by expending nothing more than a single level 1 maneuver. But wait, it's even better than Time Stands Still - that first full attack dealt double damage with each hit, meaning you functionally performed three full attacks in one round. And keep in mind that you don't have to perform a second full attack. You can use that full-round action for another maneuver, or for a standard action strike followed by a tumble to safety... or another jump or two. You could Sudden Leap to battle jump someone, then use two move actions to perform two more battle jumps, each one being a full attack with double damage - meting out the equivalent of six full attacks in one round. It's flat-out stronger and more versatile than Time Stands Still, so long as you can make the jump check(s) and have room to perform it. Keep in mind, of course, that if you're already adjacent to your foe when you try to leap on him, you'll take an attack of opportunity. Still, that's a small price to pay for reducing a maneuver's level by 8 levels and improving it further! I'd take an AoO for casting miracle as a level 1 spell, wouldn't you?

So while the imagery isn't quite the type of thing to make one's head hurt, the ability to outstrip the power of a level 9 maneuver through the inclusion of a single (otherwise still very desirable) level dip and a single feat is testament to what you can achieve with a little ingenuity!