Do you allow Acrobatics and Athletics to be used interchangeably?

[pming]

Hiya!

I wouldn't consider an adventure path definitive. The Basic Rules say: "While climbing or swimming, each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain), unless a creature has a climbing or swimming speed. At the DM’s option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength (Athletics) check."

I believe you are referring to the "natural chimney" in Area 3 of the Cragmaw Hideout. This would be the case of being the DM's option (the DM here being the writer of that module communicating to others his or her intent), but it says nothing in the module about why a check is necessary here, omitting any mention of being slippery, having few handholds, or the like. I guess we're just left wondering why that is. It's also possible this was written before the rules for climbing were finalized.

I think it was more the writers/designers just being DM's and thinking "This would be a cool way to show how one COULD USE the Athletics skill, but tweaked a bit for effect..."

To me it shows that the underlying structure of 5e is "Here are the rules. Use 'em, change 'em, modify 'em. Whatever wold be more fun...do that"...as opposed to ..."Here are the rules. We are deliberately breaking them in order to annoy people who really REALLY like RAW".

What I'm curious about is how many people are treating it like, say, D&D 3.Xe or 4e where the DM is hearing "I want to climb this..." and going straight to asking for a Strength (Athletics) check instead of considering whether one is necessary and using the rules I quoted above. What I'm reading in a lot of the responses above seems to be "Climb = Athletics check" when I think it's really "Climb = 1/2 Speed and maybe sometimes an Athletics check if there's a complication."

As I said in my post a page or two back, I pretty much read the Skill as "if there is something unusual or particularly dangerous/stressful about it...make a roll if the Player can't figure out a way to deal with it" (pretty much a 3/4 Old Skool, 1/4 New Skool DM'ing style). Also, as I stated, the default "ability stat" used is just a default. If a Player can tell me how he's going to use the skill and it makes more sense to use some other stat, I'll let him roll with that stat's modifier (e.g., using Int for an Athletics check to climb something).

In my mind, a skill is more than just "how good you are at it". A skill is more than just physical prowess or mental mnemonics. "Athletics", for example, is also how much the character "knows" about how his body works and how physics affects his body when he does X, Y, or Z, as well as good ol' book lernin'. If a Fighter and a Wizard start talking about cliff climbing, both will be making Athletics checks...and both will be using Int. Chances are the Fighter will be getting his Proficiency bonus and the Wizard will not. Both will be able to teach each other something about Climbing...even if the Wizard's Int bonus is +4 and the Fighters is a flat +0.

There's another 2¢ from me I guess!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Tallifer]

What I'm curious about is how many people are treating it like, say, D&D 3.Xe or 4e where the DM is hearing "I want to climb this..." and going straight to asking for a Strength (Athletics) check instead of considering whether one is necessary and using the rules I quoted above. What I'm reading in a lot of the responses above seems to be "Climb = Athletics check" when I think it's really "Climb = 1/2 Speed and maybe sometimes an Athletics check if there's a complication."

I think climbing 1/2 speed is for steep stairs and hillsides or ladders, similar to difficult terrain; a cliff or a wall or shimmying up a rope requires Strength or Athletics: people die every year falling off of mountains, and most unfit people cannot climb up a wall or shimmy up a smooth tree.

 

[iserith]

I think climbing 1/2 speed is for steep stairs and hillsides or ladders, similar to difficult terrain; a cliff or a wall or shimmying up a rope requires Strength or Athletics

My read on it is that the character can climb the cliff, wall, or rope with no ability check and at half speed unless there is a complication e.g. the stone of the cliff is soft and crumbly, the wall has few handholds, or the rope is slick with blood.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

What I'm curious about is how many people are treating it like, say, D&D 3.Xe or 4e where the DM is hearing "I want to climb this..." and going straight to asking for a Strength (Athletics) check instead of considering whether one is necessary and using the rules I quoted above. What I'm reading in a lot of the responses above seems to be "Climb = Athletics check" when I think it's really "Climb = 1/2 Speed and maybe sometimes an Athletics check if there's a complication."

Well, I say climbing a vertical surface is not trivial. I personally can't do it. It's at least Easy difficulty, which results in DC 10. That's how I handle it. If someone reaches the top and lets a rope ladder down, then it would become trivial and didn't require a check anymore, just double movement. Also if I see my players have the means to decrease the chance to fall to 0%, then I also don't let my players roll.

 

[billd91]

The separation between Strength athletics and Dexterity acrobatics implies that people who learn how to jump well never learn how to land well. Or people who climb well never learn how to balance well or fall well.

Not if they're picking up proficiency in both skills, it doesn't.

 

[billd91]

I generally don't allow Athletics and Acrobatics to sub for each other. Players make trade-offs in character design. Investing in one set of abilities means they aren't investing in another. I'm not keen on relaxing that too much. One of the worst things I thought D&D introduced was too many ways to shift skills or class abilities onto a single, overloaded stat. MAD is good for the game.

 

[iserith]

Well, I say climbing a vertical surface is not trivial. I personally can't do it. It's at least Easy difficulty, which results in DC 10. That's how I handle it. If someone reaches the top and lets a rope ladder down, then it would become trivial and didn't require a check anymore, just double movement. Also if I see my players have the means to decrease the chance to fall to 0%, then I also don't let my players roll.

The rules seem to suggest that it's not the vertical surface that is the problem in and of itself, but one that is "slippery" or "with few handholds" which is when a check might come into play at the DM's option. There is a cost, not a risk, to climb just a vertical surface with no other complicating factors, that cost being a hit to speed and thus time.

I surmise that the LMoP writer probably looked at the natural chimney as needing a challenge with a risk of damage to offset the benefit of the shortcut it provides (you skip straight to the boss fight, avoiding other goblins and the water trap), but failed to describe in the text what about the natural chimney makes the climb uncertain. The map itself has something like scree drawn in the area west of the chimney which suggests that the rocks are loose and crumbly. It's just not in the text.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

[MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]
If you want another example, in PotA: "The wall is rough fieldstone, so it can be climbed with successful DC 10 Strength (Athletics) checks."

In any case, you quoted it yourself "with few handholds". This applies to pretty much all vertical surfaces, except maybe if they had intentionally be designed to make climbing easy. Or they are rendered that way (e.g. by using pitons).

 

[iserith]

[MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]
If you want another example, in PotA: "The wall is rough fieldstone, so it can be climbed with successful DC 10 Strength (Athletics) checks."

Seems like just another module writer not being specific as to why the outcome of the climb is uncertain. We're left to imagine that the fieldstone (which is finished construction) must either lack handholds or is slippery (or something else).

In any case, you quoted it yourself "with few handholds". This applies to pretty much all vertical surfaces, except maybe if they had intentionally be designed to make climbing easy. Or they are rendered that way (e.g. by using pitons).

In truth, it applies only to those vertical surfaces the DM says has few handholds.

 

[Hjorimir]

Yes, I allow Acrobatics and Athletics to be used interchangeably in many situations (but not all).

In fact I generally prefer a certain amount of overlap between skills because,

• Success moves the game forward more easily than failure
• It lets players stick to their character's "idiom" without sacrificing capability
• It's more likely that the player who comes up with an idea gets to have their character be the one to try it
• I guess when it comes right down to it, IDGAF about niche protection, as long as all the PCs are roughly balanced against each other

For Acrobatics vs. Athletics specifically:
- Acrobatics can be used to balance, tumble, and land safely. Athletics can be used to land safely but ONLY IF you jumped intentionally, not if you just fell by accident. Athletics can't be used to tumble, but it can be used to barrel past people and hazardous situations, and achieve similar results -- possibly with a greater downside for failure, such as damage.
- Athletics can be used to jump, climb, and swim. Acrobatics can be used to jump or climb but ONLY IF you get a running start. (Thus if you climb multiple rounds in a row, you can usually only use Acrobatics on that first round.)

A lot if interesting nuanced rulings here. More to manage at the table, but I like it.

When it comes to "acrobatics" in the real world, I tend to think of gymnasts. It turns out, gymnasts are incredibly strong people. I think if you dump your Strength score, you should feel that pinch when it comes to these things. That said, I like 77IM's ideas above as a potential circumstantial offset to throw High DEX/Low STR character's a proverbial bone.