Sure, his jump+move is 11m, but his regular move is already 9m. So Gale is spending a bonus action to move an additional 2m. Which, hey, might be just what you need to get in range!
It feels like the AI plays around Gale’s move+attack range radius, consistently hanging 70 feet away from him. Hence, jump isn’t just 2 feet of extra movement, it’s the exact right amount of movement to get into spell range.
The worst part of jump, to me, is that it costs movement to create movement, but the game won’t let you plan around the tipping point where PCs don’t have enough movement left to jump.
Here are two sequences:
1. At start of turn, no enemy is within Magic Missile range. Because MM has multiple targets, the auto-pather won’t tell you if there’s any way to get in range (which it would for Eldritch Blast). Moving towards the target, you realize you’re half a foot short. Because you’ve used a bunch of movement, you’ve unwittingly crossed the invisible line beyond which you can no longer jump. Target out of reach for good, turn possibly wasted. Feels
horrendous2. At start of turn, no enemy is within Magic Missile range. You know what’s up so you jump immediately. You know about the wonky pathing so you jump over a weird corner or obstacle around which the auto-pather goes kinda nuts. Jump effectively gives 3 or 4 feet of movement. Enemy in sight, shoot’em dead. Feels fine, but the decisional meat of that turn was all around jumping, just like last turn, just like next turn. Wizards jump around, that’s the way it is in BG3.
