D&D 5E Climbing a tower rules 5e

Xetheral said:

I did want a response! I was trying to discuss why you were saying I was engaging in motivated reasoning and the obfuscation of rules. If that's a topic you're not interested in discussing, fine, but restating your position on the underlying disagreement over what the rules mean didn't make that clear. It seemed like you were ignoring what I'd said altogether.

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I posit that some posters are engaged in motivated reasoning because it's very common in both my personal experience and in many threads like these or watching/listening to actual plays that many DMs smuggle in their approaches and assumptions from other games, often inadvertently. D&D 3.Xe, D&D 4e, Pathfinder, etc. all handle things a bit differently (or in some cases very differently) than D&D 5e because these are different games. That doesn't seem to stop DMs from treating, say, whether or not to call for a check to resolve climbing the same in each game because they don't really give much thought to how the games treat them differently. So when faced with a challenge to a method they've likely used in multiple games that isn't supported in the game in the discussion, it is a likely outcome in my experience that the poster will do what they can to obfuscate the rules so that the method they smuggled in from other games seems like it is the rules as written.

I obviously cannot prove this is the case because I can't read anyone's minds and there is very little incentive for someone to relent on their position. But this very much seems to be on display in my opinion because the specific rules are clear on the sorts of difficult situations that might call for a Strength (Athletics) check. Length of climb doesn't fall into that category. I did, however, show that if the DM wanted to test whether a character could push beyond his or her normal limits because the climb was on par with a forced march, that the DM could call for a Constitution check. This is asking and answering a different question though with a different mechanic applied.

Charlaquin said:

Great height, in my assessment, does not seem to have enough in common with these examples to belong among them.

I acknowledge that some DMs may come to a different conclusion, but I believe such a conclusion would be incorrect (which is almost tautological - obviously if I believe my interpretation to be correct, I must necessarily believe other interpretations to be incorrect).

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And I agree it is perfectly acceptable for you, as a DM, to judge and interpret the rules that way.

Basically, I am saying because of the nature of the game and the latitude given DMs, we are really both correct because either interpretation is perfectly valid, but you (and others) seem to think only your point of view is...

Have we learned nothing from Obi-Wan?

6ENow! said:

And I agree it is perfectly acceptable for you, as a DM, to judge and interpret the rules that way.

Basically, I am saying because of the nature of the game and the latitude given DMs, we are really both correct because either interpretation is perfectly valid, but you (and others) seem to think only your point of view is...

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I don’t think we can both be correct about this. Either the height of a climb is among the factors which necessitate a Strength (Athletics) check to overcome, or it is not. I believe it is not, because it does not share the common qualities of the given examples of such factors. You may disagree with that assessment, but it can’t both be among those factors and not be among them. One of us is interpreting the rules correctly, and the other is not. Obviously I believe I am interpreting them correctly (otherwise I would take the opposite position).

Xetheral said:

Yes, I know that your opinion is that the specific rules preclude a DM from ruling that the length of the climb is a complication.

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Is anyone arguing that though? Obviously climbing a 1 mile high rope is an order of magnitude harder than climbing a 10' rope, if for no other reason than you tire as you climb, and there is no wind protection up there.

I just cant see how an 80' rope climb with a wall to brace on (a wall that contains plenty of adequate handholds) is somehow suddenly difficult enough to warrant a check in the DC's discussed (8-15 have been bandied around), when we can all more or less agree that a 30' rope climb, doesn't warrant a check (or at least it isn't implied to warrant a check).

Leaving aside there is absolutely nothing stopping the PCs from rigging a simple Prusik knot/ friction hitch on the rope and connecting it to themselves before the ascent, making falling impossible anyway short of the rope breaking:

Charlaquin said:

I don’t think we can both be correct about this. Either the height of a climb is among the factors which necessitate a Strength (Athletics) check to overcome, or it is not. I believe it is not, because it does not share the common qualities of the given examples of such factors. You may disagree with that assessment, but it can’t both be among those factors and not be among them. One of us is interpreting the rules correctly, and the other is not. Obviously I believe I am interpreting them correctly (otherwise I would take the opposite position).

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What else is there to say really?

Flamestrike said:

Is anyone arguing that though? Obviously climbing a 1 mile high rope is an order of magnitude harder than climbing a 10' rope.

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I am, where a Strength (Athletics) check is concerned. If we're testing whether a character is exhausted by a 1 mile climb by pushing past their normal limits, we can call for a Constitution check if the outcome is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence for failure.

Charlaquin said:

Ah, that would certainly seem to be a point of miscommunication, then. No, I do not believe there is a “secret rule” of any sort. I agree with you that the rules are necessarily somewhat ambiguous, and require a degree of DM interpretation. It is my belief that, though the list of examples is necessarily incomplete, the examples that are given are intended to express a general category, by way of things they have in common, so that DMs have a point of comparison by which to judge whether a given obstacle falls into that category. Otherwise, there would be no need for a list of examples.

No, it is not. As stated earlier, I do not believe the list of examples to be exhaustive, but rather, indicative of the sort of obstacle for which it is appropriate to call for a Strength (Athletics) check to overcome. The examples given are “[when] climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds” and “[when] You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface while something is trying to knock you off.” The common factors in these examples seem to be that they are environmental, and make it more difficult for the climber to maintain their grip. Great height, in my assessment, does not seem to have enough in common with these examples to belong among them.

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For my part, I feel like we might have a reasonable and shared understanding. I believe you would stop short of inferring a secret rule from the examples. I moot that short of such a rule, we're left with ambiguity. Based on that, I go on to argue that we can only rely on the express rule: a group needs to narrate some difficulty although what exactly that would be is - perforce - up to them.

The rules continue to do some useful lifting. They make it clear that a climb can be done without any check at all: you don't always need to make a check to climb. As I think @iserith pointed out, some rule systems differ on that: in those systems you do always need to make a check to climb.

Flamestrike said:

Leaving aside there is absolutely nothing stopping the PCs from rigging a simple Prusik knot/ friction hitch on the rope and connecting it to themselves before the ascent, making falling impossible anyway short of the rope breaking:

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A climber's kit may also be of use in some situations as it limits the fall to no more than 25 feet from the anchor point.

clearstream said:

For my part, I feel like we might have a reasonable and shared understanding. I believe you would stop short of inferring a secret rule from the examples. I moot that short of such a rule, we're left with ambiguity.

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Certainly. But there are degrees of ambiguity. Is it ambiguous whether any given factor would necessitate a Strength (Athletics) check to overcome? Yes. But it’s much more ambiguous whether the height of the climb would be such a factor than whether the price of tea in Kara-Tur would be. I believe the examples given provide enough clarity to be confident that neither are.

clearstream said:

Based on that, I go on to argue that we can only rely on the express rule: a group needs to narrate some difficulty although what exactly that would be is - perforce - up to them.

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I agree, but again, I think the examples give us sufficient clarity to confidently rule out certain factors. I believe the height of the climb to be such a factor.

clearstream said:

The rules continue to do some useful lifting. They make it clear that a climb can be done without any check at all: you don't always need to make a check to climb. As I think @iserith pointed out, some rule systems differ on that: in those systems you do always need to make a check to climb.

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I don’t think what other systems do is relevant here.

iserith said:

I posit that some posters are engaged in motivated reasoning because it's very common in both my personal experience and in many threads like these or watching/listening to actual plays that many DMs smuggle in their approaches and assumptions from other games, often inadvertently. D&D 3.Xe, D&D 4e, Pathfinder, etc. all handle things a bit differently (or in some cases very differently) than D&D 5e because these are different games. That doesn't seem to stop DMs from treating, say, whether or not to call for a check to resolve climbing the same in each game because they don't really give much thought to how the games treat them differently. So when faced with a challenge to a method they've likely used in multiple games that isn't supported in the game in the discussion, it is a likely outcome in my experience that the poster will do what they can to obfuscate the rules so that the method they smuggled in from other games seems like it is the rules as written.

I obviously cannot prove this is the case because I can't read anyone's minds and there is very little incentive for someone to relent on their position. But this very much seems to be on display in my opinion because the specific rules are clear on the sorts of difficult situations that might call for a Strength (Athletics) check. Length of climb doesn't fall into that category. I did, however, show that if the DM wanted to test whether a character could push beyond his or her normal limits because the climb was on par with a forced march, that the DM could call for a Constitution check. This is asking and answering a different question though with a different mechanic applied.

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(Emphasis added.) Thanks for responding! I understand that you feel many posters fail to treat different versions of D&D as entirely separate games. As that is an important part of your philosophy towards multi-edition games, I can understand why that would be frustrating.

From the bolded section, it sounds like you are concluding that because you think the rules are clear, posters who disagree with you about what the rules say are likely engaging in motivated reasoning. That's not a definition of motivated reasoning that I can support--it privileges your opinion of what the rules mean over those who disagree with you. Indeed, it sounds like you're saying that because lots of people in the past have engaged in motivated reasoning, you're willing to assume that anyone who disagrees with your reading of a clear rule is likely engaging in motivated reasoning.

Obviously I disagree with your reading of the rule. If the mere fact if my disagreement is truly enough for you to dismiss my opinion as due to motivated reasoning, there's not much I can say to try to convince you otherwise. If it helps, I like that 5e calls for fewer climb checks than other editions, so I really don't think I have any ulterior motive when I nevertheless read the specific climbing rule as leaving identification of climbing complications up to the DM.