D&D 5E Climbing a tower rules 5e

[jgsugden]

Aaand over 30 percent of healthy adult male humans plunge to their deaths when climbing a knotted rope, with a wall to brace on.

That is not reasonable.

If you want them to use the door, just tell them so.

It is very reasonable. If I lowered a knotted rope down an 80 foot height and asked 100 randomly selected adults between the age of 18 and 55 to pick up 50 lbs of equipment and make that climb - MOST would fail. I trained climber can probably do it with little trouble, but it is far beyond a lot of people.

 

[Imaculata]

Please send a video of you making this climb in Renn Faire cosplay. Please buy life insurance first.
It was too easy in prior editions.

Speaking as a Larper, I don't think that would be hard at all. If you can run around doing battle with hundreds of costumed people under the blazing sun, I don't think climbing a simple rope will be much of an issue, even with some of that extra weight. After all, most of that weight rests on the rope.

Wearing a chainmail or platemail may weigh you down a bit, but it should be perfectly doable. Then again, that is why 3.x has an armor check penalty. I can ask a couple of friends who own such armor.

It is very reasonable. If I lowered a knotted rope down an 80 foot height and asked 100 randomly selected adults between the age of 18 and 55 to pick up 50 lbs of equipment and make that climb - MOST would fail. I trained climber can probably do it with little trouble, but it is far beyond a lot of people.

I've noticed that you've added an extra complication to the issue: 55 lb. of equipment. But that is not what is under discussion here is it? Lets not move the goalposts.

 

[iserith]

The thing is, a potentially lethal fall isn’t a complication, it’s a consequence for failure. If we determine that success and failure are both possible, then we know there’s a consequence for failure, so it would be appropriate to call for a check. The approach of climbing an 80-foot knotted rope certainly seems like it could succeed in achieving the goal of reaching an 80-foot window. So that leaves us with the question of if it could fail. And since 5e tells us that climbing is a factor of speed in the absence of additional complicating factors, the answer would be no. Unless of course there’s an additional complicating factor, which the DM could easily establish if they thought it was important that a check be made in this situation.

Exactly right.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I've noticed that you've added an extra complication to the issue: 55 lb. of equipment. But that is not what is under discussion here is it? Lets not move the goalposts.

Assuming the PCs have typical equipment for their class isn't moving the goalposts. It was part of the conversation long ago, so yeah, it IS part of the discussion.

 

[SkidAce]

c

 

[Imaculata]

Assuming the PCs have typical equipment for their class isn't moving the goalposts. It was part of the conversation long ago, so yeah, it IS part of the discussion.

It is not, and here is why. Carrying capacity and weight of equipment do not typically affect the checks of player characters in 5e, like they did in previous editions. There is a variant encumbrance rule, where being heavily encumbered imposes disadvantage on checks (p. 176 of the PhB), but it is a variant rule, not a core rule.

Distance climbed, also does not affect the check. It says so in the core rules, as Iserith already pointed out to you, and you refuse to acknowledge.

So when we question if a typical person in real life can climb a simple rope, it matters not to the discussion how much weight they are carrying, or how high they climb. 5e does not care about any of that. In fact, 5e specifically ignores those things, as part of 5e's core design philosophy to make rulings SIMPLE. Instead, the question is just this: How hard is it for the average person to climb an unknotted rope. And the answer is: Incredibly simple.

A PC with STR 10 and no proficiency in Athletics has the same modifier as a commoner. If you throw in a special thing to "require" the check, they both fail with the same chances, despite the PC being a "hardened hero" as you call them.

Abilities just describe what modifiers apply to checks. When I call the PC's hardened heroes, I'm not just talking about their statistics, I'm talking about their knowledge and experience: Such as knowing how to do a simple footlock on a rope, how to use a wetstone, how to make a fire. Basic adventuring stuff.

 

[Xetheral]

No, I am not arguing that as @Flamestrike points out above. In fact, several of my posts contain examples that I think are of the same kind of category as the complications given in the PHB. The distance climbed is categorically different. As well, a DM ruling that distance is the "difficult situation" that triggers a check to climb has to justify that X is an okay distance to climb without a check and that X+1 inch requires a check. This is silly, before we even get into DCs.

Climbing is just a factor of speed and doesn't require a Strength (Athletics) check unless the DM puts it in the context of a difficult situation. Which is easy enough to do and something I do quite frequently. I don't understand the resistance to doing it.

... Of course, nobody is saying they're wrong to do it however they want, but it's wrong to assert they're doing it the way the rules say to do it.

For reference, I'm with you to the extent that I wouldn't call for a check for climbing an 80' knotted rope. (I would call for a check for, e.g., a 1000' rope, and the implication of a sharp cut-off at some distance X doesn't bother me, since I'm never going to have an X' and an X'+1" rope next to each other in the same game.)

Where I disagree with you is your presentation of the "rules". Since the two complications listed in the book are examples, then if a particular DM considers a potentially lethal fall to be such a complication, then, by my reading, the rules encourage that DM to call for a Strength (Athletics) check.

Sure, you and I might disagree with a DM's call that a potentially lethal 80' fall qualifies as such a complication, but the rules leave the question of what qualifies as a complication up to the DM. So if, for example, @6ENow! rules that the stress of a potentially lethal fall qualifies as such a complication, I think they're following the rules to call for a Strength (Athletics) check. After all, the rules don't say to only call for a check if @iserith or @Xetheral think a particular complication is sufficiently similar to the two printed examples.

To put it plainly: my claim is that any DM who identifies a climbing complication that they consider to be comparable in kind to climbing a slippery vertical surface or a surface with few handholds is following the rules if they call for a Strength (Athletics) check.

 

[embee]

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Former personal injury attorney here.

Several states, most notably New York, have strict liability for project owners and general contractors when a worker is injured in a fall from a ladder. How strict? Heights as low as 3 feet. Why is this important to mention? Because it incentivizes reporting injuries as being ladder or scaffold related.

From experience, any back or leg injury involving a fall from a ladder that occurs either near the end of a project or on a Monday in autumn has a decent probability of being fraudulent. The former tends to not be an accident and the latter tends to have been sustained on the weekend, playing pickup football.

 

[jasper]

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Psst not really. Ladder mimics are a thing but the government don't want you to know about mimics.

 

[Xetheral]

The thing is, a potentially lethal fall isn’t a complication, it’s a consequence for failure. If we determine that success and failure are both possible, then we know there’s a consequence for failure, so it would be appropriate to call for a check. The approach of climbing an 80-foot knotted rope certainly seems like it could succeed in achieving the goal of reaching an 80-foot window. So that leaves us with the question of if it could fail. And since 5e tells us that climbing is a factor of speed in the absence of additional complicating factors, the answer would be no. Unless of course there’s an additional complicating factor, which the DM could easily establish if they thought it was important that a check be made in this situation.

I would consider sufficiently dire consequences (or, more precisely, the pressure caused by sufficiently dire consequences) to be a complication for success in addition to being a consequence of failure. But in any case, what you or I think is a moot point, because the rules leave the identification of complications up to each individual DM.