D&D 5E How far can you climb per action?

[Nebulous]

It's not in the rules, but I would inclined to allow "run up a wall" as a valid use of a ki point. DM's call.

yes, I would say she got an extra 20' up burning the ki point. OR, because she rolled a 20 she just super-climbed the whole way up. So really it worked out fine, and she got up there and punched the bad guy the next round.

 

[RSIxidor]

Well I just want to know how to rule it again in the future, if and when it comes up. I haven't had a person climb a wall so fast in a long, long time. A failure I was thinking could the monk got partway up and couldn't find a handhold, and meanwhile her ally in the tower is getting attacked, and she can't help.

By RAW, she can climb 60 feet using Dash as her action and Dash as her bonus action through Step of the Wind.

If you as DM decide the wall is hard to climb in the fiction, and as such should require a check to climb it, ruling what happens on success or failure is up to you. Could be that they climb half as slow on a failure, or that they fall off the tower on a failure, could be that on a success that they climb a bit faster but on a failure they just move their normal amount.

 

[Harzel]

Your assessment that she could climb 60' per turn RAW seems right to me (if she was level 5 or less - see below). As others have said, checks are up to the DM's judgement. For most towers or other fortifications, I think I'd have required a check with a middling-high DC (14+, depending on the construction).

But you have to watch out for monks:
At 6th level, unarmored movement bonus increases to 15.
At 9th level, they get to "move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on [their] turn without falling during [their] move". Interpret as you will; I'd say this generally removes the check regardless of surface.
At 10th level, unarmored movement bonus increases to 20 (and also increases at 14th and 18th, if you get that far).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Right, the consequence would likely mean no progress for that, um, action. But is my math correct in the example? The monk could not have reached the window 80 feet up even when burning a ki point? She is still climbing crazy fast, 10 feet per second.

Well, she has 120ft of movement with step of the wind, 60 at half speed for climbing.
However, she also can jump twice her normal distance because of SoTW, which I assume would be at least 20ft. That leaves her 100ft, half to 50 for climbing. That’s close enough 70ft) that I would let her make an Athletics check to get her hands to the window (easy), or get in the window (moderate). Rather than pass/fail, IMO this situation benefits from different results depending on what DC they reach with the roll. If they hit hard or roll the maximum, I would give them their entire movement and basically say they were able to really focus their key and basically run up the wall most of the way.

 

[Harzel]

As for the # of checks:
- for the bonus action Step of the Wind, no extra check or anything since it burns a Ki point
- for the action Dash I'd be inclined to increase the DC a bit rather than require an extra check; if the result was between the lesser DC and the increased DC, she just wouldn't make it as far.

As for extra movement for rolling a nat 20 - first I don't treat 1s and 20s as special for ability checks. But in any case, I wouldn't grant the increased movement for a high result unless there were some sort of increased risk for a low result.

I've seen it suggested on occasion that maybe a PC should be able to attempt to go farther than a standard move since, unlike leaping to touch the moon, making an exceptional effort to move faster seems plausible. Your situation seems like a special case of that, but the player would need to make a choice to accept a greater risk of some kind in return for the possibility of more movement on success. And I'd really rather have this as an option worked out in advance that all the players know about so that everyone is clear that that is a possible choice, since RAW make it appear that it is not.

 

[Harzel]

However, she also can jump twice her normal distance because of SoTW, which I assume would be at least 20ft.

To me, this seems more like a high jump than a long jump. High jump distance is 3 + STR mod, so 8 ft at most, or 16 when doubled, but more likely around 4 or 5 = 8 or 10 when doubled. And even that requires that you "move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump". I'd be pretty dubious about considering climbing as meeting that requirement even though "on foot" is a bit ambiguous.

 

[Horwath]

"Climbing, Swimming, and Crawling

Each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain) when you’re climbing, swimming, or crawling. You ignore this extra cost if you have a climbing speed and use it to climb, or a swimming speed and use it to swim. At the DM’s option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength (Athletics) check. Similarly, gaining any distance in rough water might require a successful Strength (Athletics) check."

This is what I miss from 3.5E

Fixed DCs for this kind of things. It would prevent 95% of this kind of questions for many people.

DC 5, climbing a knotted rope
DC 10, climbing a regular rope
DC 10 climbing a wall with many handholds and foothold. poor quality or ruin wall.
DC 20 climbing a standard wall
DC 30 climbing an excelent masonry wall

etc....

 

[Harzel]

This is what I miss from 3.5E

Fixed DCs for this kind of things. It would prevent 95% of this kind of questions for many people.

DC 5, climbing a knotted rope
DC 10, climbing a regular rope
DC 10 climbing a wall with many handholds and foothold. poor quality or ruin wall.
DC 20 climbing a standard wall
DC 30 climbing an excelent masonry wall

etc....

Well, and there's the problem. IMX, climbing a rope, even a knotted rope, is significantly harder than climbing a face with a lot of handholds and footholds. In particular, climbing any rope that you are likely to be lugging around with you is extremely taxing. So if that table were presented as RAW, it would be worse than useless for me.

 

[Coroc]

Yeah, but really only do one check per round at maximum. Tbh I would leave it at one str check and maybe a con check if the distance for climbing or swimming is very long, with the player getting an exhaustion level when failing

Due to not everyone having prof in athletics, the chance for falling gets far to high else.

I experienced this as a player multiple climb and constitution checks for climbing a long rope ladder, luckily it did go well but I spoke to the DM afterwards, multiple checks is like multi disadvantage, and 5e is built upon the assumption that for an action you normally only have advantage or disadvantage, sometimes a +1d4 or -1d4 and only in very rare circumstances some fixed modifier like -5 to hit for GWM or SS.

If you do two checks you could also say this reflects disadvantage. Let us say a DC 13 is sufficient and skillmod shall be 3 in athletics then with 1 check u got 50% to fail, with 2 checks this goes up to 75% and with three checks you are 94% likely to fall, which is not obviously at first, and with people still used to having high bonus in skills like in 3e it sounds like "oh do a climb check every round easy peasy, no bother"
but in reality it is a sure way to get hurt.

Most players confronted with the real number would chose not to climb at all under this circumstances!

It gets even worse when con check causing exhaustion is involved! Make one of these at max unless you want to splat all your players and have a TPK due to falling.

 

[Iry]

As others mentioned, 60' is the actual distance she could go. You decide if a climb check is involved or not. But there's nothing wrong with letting her hit 80' with a natural 20, just for the sake of player fun, since they were spending their entire round and a Ki point on nothing but movement.

I'm more concerned SHE told YOU that she reached the top.