The check here isn't framed in a way to see if Valiant can swin (which is what a STR (Athletics) check does), but rather if Valiant has the endurance to swim for that long a distance. You've framed this so that question appears to be a legitimate uncertainty, and there's a consequence (exhaustion levels, maybe drowning), so a CON check seems indicated by your framing. I'd allow a player to use their Athletics proficency on this check.
If I as the DM think that a 5 mile swim under the circumstances in question (gear carried, weariness from battle, etc.) is itself a challenge whose outcome is uncertain, I have no need to invent unusual additional obstacles to decorate it.
I would say the Pathfinder take 20 rule solves most of this. Especially the OP's question.
By adding the skeleton hordes minutes away, you’ve changed the parameters of the scenario. The question is not “given as much time as he needs, will Valiant eventually be able to swim across the lake?” it’s “can Valiant get across the lake before the Skeleton hordes reach him?”
It’s the same reason you run the game by-the-book before adding house rules. By understanding the rules as written, we empower ourselves to deviate from them with intention. You can interpret the rules permissively enough to allow for the way you were going to run the game anyway, but what value is gained from doing so, other than the satisfaction of being able to call your approach right? On the other hand, by taking a narrower view of the rules, trying to understand not just what they allow but what they prescribe, you can form a picture of play as the designers envisioned. You start to see what design purpose is served by rules you may not have liked, and may gain better appreciation for them, or if not, at least be better equipped to create house rules with purpose and intent, and hopefully be able to preserve the design function the removed rules had been serving.I agree with it too, but I can understand why it doesn't seem like I would based on what I've said so far. I want to try to explain my thoughts differently, but I'm tired and sleepy at the moment, so I'll revisit this topic when I'm more awake and more likely to be articulate.
Agreed. Although this is another one of those cases where it's not two mutually exclusive competing theories as to what was intended, but rather a case where one theory is much broader than the other.
Many of the readings of the 5e rules in this thread seem to me to be very narrow and prescriptive, both for the general rules on checks, and for the specific rules on climbing/swimming complications. Sure, the rules can plausibly be read as narrow and prescriptive, but what is the purpose of favoring a narrow reading when a broader one is available? What makes one think that the designers were trying to support only a single approach to ability checks, when the rules can instead be read to support multiple approaches?
Yes, you as DM can do as you like to the limit of your group's table rules, but the debate is over whether the rules say this is the way to do it. I would say it isn't and that it's a simple matter to throw in a complication like the ones described in the rules. It has the added effect of making Sir Valiant's tale even more epic. Where is the downside?
For me, it detracts from verisimilitude and the level of simulation I find appropriate and enjoyable for the game.
I don't think that's quite right. Whether or not he can swim that distance is unknown. Of course, if the skeleton horde weren't closing in, perhaps he could simply walk around the lake.
So, please don’t take this the wrong way, but this makes it sound like you are arguing more from a desire to have the way you run the game validated than from a desire to determine the best way to run the game (for you). When told that the way you run your game doesn’t seem consistent with the rules, but it is fine to house rule, your impression is that you’re being told you’re running the game “wrong” and your instinct is to defend your way of running the game as being “allowed” by the rules. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with running the game in a way that isn’t consistent with the rules. I myself run the game in some ways which are inconsistent with my own understanding of the rules. But I arrived at those house rules by understanding the design purpose of the rules as written, and intentionally making changes to create specific desired outcomes. I’m not concerned with whether the way I run the game is “right” or “wrong” or even supported by the rules. I’m concerned with running the best version of the game I can, and in service of that goal, I want to understand what the rules say, why they were written that way, and what play experience they were designed to create, so that I can either follow that intended experience or deviate from it with intentionality.
It isn’t though. The rules specifically say you can swim by spending 2 feet of movement for every foot swam. We know that, according to the rules, he can eventually make the swim, given enough time. We might wonder if the effort will exhaust him (Constitution check), but the rules pretty clearly tell us that absent some sort of impediment like rough water or similar, he will make it across.
Sure. Point being, the challenge is meaningless without time pressure. By adding time pressure, you’ve created quite a different scenario than the one presented in the opening post, which had no such pressure.
