D&D 5E Climbing a tower rules 5e

[clearstream]

Not exactly. There's just no check at all, passive or otherwise. A passive check is still an ability check and the call for ability check has certain prerequisites.

You're missing the point here. I'm forensically deconstructing the rules, not making a judgement about how they operate as written.

In deconstruction, there might well be assumed to be a passive check. For some reason, easy climbs don't need a check. What is another way that climbing would not need a check? What are the similarities between passive checks as written, and those ways? The goal is to understand if that leads anywhere interesting.

 

[iserith]

You're missing the point here. I'm forensically deconstructing the rules, not making a judgement about how they operate as written.

In deconstruction, there might well be assumed to be a passive check. For some reason, easy climbs don't need a check. What is another way that climbing would not need a check? What are the similarities between passive checks as written, and those ways? The goal is to understand if that leads anywhere interesting.

I can't quite put my finger on it but I feel like there's some muddling going on here between the rules for ability checks, passive checks, and the "multiple ability checks" rules in the DMG (page 237). Perhaps someone other than me can take a crack at it.

 

[clearstream]

That sounds about right.

I would say yes.

Hmm... I suppose that’s right, in the absence of a more specific rule saying otherwise.

Anyway, coming back to this part of the discussion. (Noting that for the sake of argument I will take your interpretation here as RAW.) We have these category delimiting examples -

• You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface while something is trying to knock you off.
• You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull off a stunt midjump.
• You struggle to swim or stay afloat in treacherous currents, storm-tossed waves, or areas of thick seaweed. Or another creature tries to push or pull you underwater or otherwise interfere with your swimming.

Say I jump while heavily encumbered or into a powerful gale? Seeing as the second bullet point delimits the category but does not include those things, per RAW they cannot result in a call for a Strength (Athletics) check. Or if I swim while heavily encumbered, or in a medium other than water, or with my hands bound: while none of the bullet-pointed factors apply, per RAW that cannot result in a call for a Strength (Athletics) check.

What are your thoughts about those cases?

And then again, what of this from the section on special types of movement - climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength - how does that interact with the bullet-points? What I am getting at is - couldn't characters encounter a high, but not sheer or slippery, wall, with few handholds. The words here seem to expressly provide for a DM to have the option of calling for a Strength (Athletics) check. How is that apparent contradiction resolved?

 

[clearstream]

I can't quite put my finger on it but I feel like there's some muddling going on here between the rules for ability checks, passive checks, and the "multiple ability checks" rules in the DMG (page 237). Perhaps someone other than me can take a crack at it.

Remember the goal here is not to make a judgement about RAW, specifically. It is in a sense to raise a question - could it be modelled another way without disturbing much else? So you start by saying "Suppose the reason for no climb check for a simple climb really is that it is a passive check against DC 5. If that were true, what would the game system then look like?"

 

[Charlaquin]

Say I jump while heavily encumbered or into a powerful gale? Seeing as the second bullet point delimits the category but does not include those things, per RAW they cannot result in a call for a Strength (Athletics) check.

Well, being heavily encumbered already reduces your speed, thereby limiting your possible jump distance. If a Strength check was otherwise necessary, a heavily encumbered character would also have disadvantage on the check. I don’t see a need to penalize the character in their attempt to jump any further than that. Jumping into a gale does seem like something that might merit a roll of some kind, but doesn’t seem by my reading of the RAW to fit under a Strength (Athletics) check. Here I might consider calling for a Strength saving throw - I think that might be particularly appropriate if the gale picked up mid-jump, for example. But if the gale is already blowing and the player describes an action with the goal of jumping some distance through the gale... Depending on the action I might go outside what I would consider to be RAW and call for a Strength check.

Or if I swim while heavily encumbered, or in a medium other than water, or with my hands bound: while none of the bullet-pointed factors apply, per RAW that cannot result in a call for a Strength (Athletics) check.

Again, being heavily encumbered affects your ability to swim by decreasing your speed, and by imposing disadvantage on Strength checks if one needs to be made, but wouldn’t, in my opinion, be cause for a check by itself. Swimming in a medium other than water (presumably a more viscous one, since the implication is that it would increase the difficulty of the swim) would I think best be modeled by treating the medium as difficult terrain. Swimming with one’s hands bound, I think I would impose disadvantage on any check made to swim, if one was necessary, but if you’re swimming in still water, I think it’s reasonable to allow that to be successful without a check, even with one’s hands bound.

And then again, what of this from the section on special types of movement - climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength - how does that interact with the bullet-points? What I am getting at is - couldn't characters encounter a high, but not sheer or slippery, wall, with few handholds. The words here seem to expressly provide for a DM to have the option of calling for a Strength (Athletics) check. How is that apparent contradiction resolved?

Because having few hand holds is given as an example of a condition where a the DM, at their option, might call for a Strength (Athletics) check, I don’t think it would be going outside the rules to do so. Should “a surface with few hand holds” have been included in the bullet points under uses for the Athletics skill? Probably. The 5e rules are notoriously disorganized, but I don’t think that’s a counter-point to my interpretation of what the rules say.

 

[Nebulous]

Swimming with one’s hands bound, I think I would impose disadvantage on any check made to swim, if one was necessary, but if you’re swimming in still water, I think it’s reasonable to allow that to be successful without a check, even with one’s hands bound.

So, to be clear, you think it is reasonable to be thrown into deep, calm water, with your hands bound behind your back, and there is no swim check needed. You then kick/float your way to shore.

 

[Charlaquin]

So, to be clear, you think it is reasonable to be thrown into deep, calm water, with your hands bound behind your back, and there is no swim check needed. You then kick/float your way to shore.

In a game of heroic fantasy? Absolutely. More importantly for the purpose of this discussion, I think that’s what the rules say, and if I didn’t think it was reasonable, I could change the rule at my table.

 

[clearstream]

Well, being heavily encumbered already reduces your speed, thereby limiting your possible jump distance. If a Strength check was otherwise necessary, a heavily encumbered character would also have disadvantage on the check. I don’t see a need to penalize the character in their attempt to jump any further than that. Jumping into a gale does seem like something that might merit a roll of some kind, but doesn’t seem by my reading of the RAW to fit under a Strength (Athletics) check. Here I might consider calling for a Strength saving throw - I think that might be particularly appropriate if the gale picked up mid-jump, for example. But if the gale is already blowing and the player describes an action with the goal of jumping some distance through the gale... Depending on the action I might go outside what I would consider to be RAW and call for a Strength check.

Again, being heavily encumbered affects your ability to swim by decreasing your speed, and by imposing disadvantage on Strength checks if one needs to be made, but wouldn’t, in my opinion, be cause for a check by itself. Swimming in a medium other than water (presumably a more viscous one, since the implication is that it would increase the difficulty of the swim) would I think best be modeled by treating the medium as difficult terrain. Swimming with one’s hands bound, I think I would impose disadvantage on any check made to swim, if one was necessary, but if you’re swimming in still water, I think it’s reasonable to allow that to be successful without a check, even with one’s hands bound.

Because having few hand holds is given as an example of a condition where a the DM, at their option, might call for a Strength (Athletics) check, I don’t think it would be going outside the rules to do so. Should “a surface with few hand holds” have been included in the bullet points under uses for the Athletics skill? Probably. The 5e rules are notoriously disorganized, but I don’t think that’s a counter-point to my interpretation of what the rules say.

I feel like were I in your shoes, I might be willing to consider a more permissive than restrictive reading of intent, given such cases and omissions (or contradictions). We might only have found a few cases that perturb our RAI, and yet - generally speaking - the presence of a few cases will indicate the presence of many more. We just haven't thought of those yet.

My take is that the designers knew that. They knew different groups would run 5th edition different ways, and that ultimately each group would have to judge what does and doesn't fall into these kinds of mechanics at their table. They intended @iserith's mode of play and mine to coexist: to be equally valid. I suspect that the biggest mistake we make, is when we suppose that there is only one true reading of RAW. Instead, we should envision that there can be contradictory readings that are simultaneously true; perhaps because the determinant of truth is internal to those readings.

At the same time, I believe there are principles that make readings of game rules more or less robust, such as coherence and consistency. The reason I think as I do about the climb examples argument is that I can see fault lines in the supposition that there is a category delimited by exactly and only the four examples. It's paradoxical, I guess, that I should think that

 

[jgsugden]

You're all still here?

A strange game.
The only winning move is
not to play.

 

[clearstream]

You're all still here?

A strange game.
The only winning move is
not to play.

Stranger than that: there is no winning move.