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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8194518" data-attributes="member: 6779196">To elaborate, chapter 7 says the following about Athletics:[excerpt]Your Strength (Athletics) check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, or swimming. Examples include the following activities:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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.</li> </ul>[/excerpt]And chapter 8 says this:[excerpt]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.[/excerpt]So, the examples we have of the sort of complications that might make a Strength (Athletics) check necessary to climb are: climbing a slippery or vertical surface, climbing a surface with no hand holds, climbing a sheer or slippery cliff, avoiding hazzards by scaling a wall, or clinging to a surface while someone is trying to knock you off. These examples seem to represent a certain category of obstacle: specifically, environmental factors that threaten to cause the climber to lose their grip. The height of a climb seems to be a categorically different factor, which may affect the climb in other ways. For example, a longer climb will take more time to complete, and if the climber falls, they will take more fall damage.If a DM wishes to call for a Strength (Athletics) check in a situation that does not involve environmental factors that might cause the character to lose their grip, I fully support their right to do so. But I believe that doing so would be going outside of what the rules suggest.</blockquote>

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