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

[Oofta]

You don’t allow a skill check to climb or swim faster?

I don't remember it ever coming up. Occasionally I'll ask for it if jumping.

But there's a limit, this is a bonus of 25% to what they should be able to climb. It's actually probably more if they need to get to the opening and then continue into the room to do anything worthwhile.

As I stated, an extra 5-10 feet ... okay. They leap up from the ground and don't really start climbing for the first 10 feet sure.

But it's just what I would rule.

 

[Oofta]

Well I can do that as well. And also explain that 20 doesn't equal win necessarily, but the game does teach us that in combat with critical hits so it gets entrenched in their heads. What I'm really trying to curb them from doing (and this would be a separate thread) is to stop rolling dice for whatever skill they want, whenever they want, and then dictate what happens. The DM calls for the skill rolls, not the player.

That is a different thread and I'd put that under preference on style of play. But I also don't want to start up on that because for some reason it's far more controversial than I think is justified. Make a ruling at your table on how you want to handle it, discuss it with your group and move on.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't remember it ever coming up. Occasionally I'll ask for it if jumping.

But there's a limit, this is a bonus of 25% to what they should be able to climb. It's actually probably more if they need to get to the opening and then continue into the room to do anything worthwhile.

As I stated, an extra 5-10 feet ... okay. They leap up from the ground and don't really start climbing for the first 10 feet sure.

But it's just what I would rule.

That’s fair. I generally consider even the characters total speed to be a “normal movement speed” rather than a max, and allow athletics checks to run faster while dashing, so I’d probably allow the climber to get all the way to their normal speed with a high check.
But that’s just a preference. I also don’t care that much about movement speed beyond making sure that characters with different speeds feel like they have different speeds.
When I don’t have any detail-requiring players in my game, I try to avoid precise distances, and tell players if they can reach soemthing, if it would require a dash, if it’s too far to even full sprint there in one round, etc.

 

[Fenris-77]

Ah, here's your problem.

Movement: 40' (halved to 20' for climbing)
Action: Dash another 40' (halved to 20' for climbing)
Bonus Action: Step of the Wind dash - another 40' (halved to 20' for climbing)
So that's 60' climbing in one round.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, though, I would not allow use of a ki point to move at normal speed up a vertical surface, because full-speed movement up vertical surfaces (and across liquids) is very specifically granted as a 9th level monk ability.

I've had my second cup of coffee and everything makes sense again.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For me this falls into "Rule of Cool" territory. As everyone has said, the Monk could have gotten to 60' up without any Ki expenditure or skill check, which means they were 20' short (which would have been covered by one of their three movements going normal speed, rather than half-speed for climbing.) For that extra 20' I probably would have done exactly what happened, which was give them the chance with an Athletics check plus Ki point expenditure. Or truthfully, I might not have even asked for the Ki point because of the "Rule of Cool"-- would it have been cool for the Monk to scale the entire tower in one round? Absolutely! So make the Athletics check and get one of their three movements at normal rather than half speed.

But I also agree that its something you might want to explain at the next session as to what the numbers could have been in a normal scenario (and how the Ki point and Nat 20 made you decide to "boost" the movement the whole way.) This way the players know that its not a standard occurrence what happened... but a special "DM Ruling" they received for playing and spending resources as they did. I think its always useful to distinguish base game rules and DM fiat so that players know what they can reasonably expect in the future (while also knowing just how nice you were to them as a DM for allowing it, and how much they should really thank you by bringing you goodies and nummies for next session.)

 

[Nebulous]

For me this falls into "Rule of Cool" territory. As everyone has said, the Monk could have gotten to 60' up without any Ki expenditure or skill check, which means they were 20' short (which would have been covered by one of their three movements going normal speed, rather than half-speed for climbing.) For that extra 20' I probably would have done exactly what happened, which was give them the chance with an Athletics check plus Ki point expenditure. Or truthfully, I might not have even asked for the Ki point because of the "Rule of Cool"-- would it have been cool for the Monk to scale the entire tower in one round? Absolutely! So make the Athletics check and get one of their three movements at normal rather than half speed.

Actually, I think we said she DID need to spend the ki point. 20 (move)+20 (dash) + 20 (ki) = 60 feet. Some people said it was fine tacking on another 20 feet for as a bonus for rolling the nat 20 that got her to 80 feet. Unless you're saying that the monks full move of 80' would just let her climb the wall with no penalty. Oh, or the wind stride gave her full move of 40' after the climbing, which yeah, would be 80 feet.

But I also agree that its something you might want to explain at the next session as to what the numbers could have been in a normal scenario (and how the Ki point and Nat 20 made you decide to "boost" the movement the whole way.) This way the players know that its not a standard occurrence what happened... but a special "DM Ruling" they received for playing and spending resources as they did. I think its always useful to distinguish base game rules and DM fiat so that players know what they can reasonably expect in the future (while also knowing just how nice you were to them as a DM for allowing it, and how much they should really thank you by bringing you goodies and nummies for next session.)

But yes I need to explain to them the numbers and math and how it worked. If I don't they'll always expect to do things magically without forethought, which they already have a tendency to do. The wizard keeps trying to misty step 60' continually and I have to interject and say no, it's 30'

 

[Nebulous]

(while also knowing just how nice you were to them as a DM for allowing it, and how much they should really thank you by bringing you goodies and nummies for next session.)

I've gotten goat cheese, pizza, beer, rum chocolates and pretzels.

 

[MarkB]

The Athlete feat allows you to climb at full speed, and isn't an uncommon pick for monks - it's a good way to round up an odd-numbered Dex score while gaining a small package of features that mesh well with an agile martial-artist type character.