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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 8196399" data-attributes="member: 1465">Twenty pages to discuss a simple task gives me once again evidence that trying to set fixed universal rule to simulate reality is a recipe for failure. The 3e/4e designers didn't get that, and tried to give DCs for everything, but it did not lead to a "reliable" simulation game at all, it only lead to endless house rules to supposedly improve things, but really going around in circles. The 5e designers have been wiser to keep it generic. The beginning of the relevant section in the DMG starts with the words "it's your job", but the job isn't to design a system, the job is to handle each case separately.What I would do, is first of all know if my current players are interested in detailed descriptions and problem-solving or not.1) If they are NOT interested, resolving the climbing should take a minute or so:Ask yourself the question: "do I want the PCs to succeed"?"Yes" -> spend a sentence or two describing how they manage to succeed"No" -> spend a sentence or two describing how they try and fail"I don't know/want to decide" -> eyeball the probability you want and make them roll (bonus: if they like random deaths or penalties, also set a second threshold for critical failure)2) If they ARE interested in more details on this type of situations, SPLIT the whole scene in smaller parts, and offer multiple choices every few steps. Then treat each part separately as in point 1). Your players will likely want to think how to deal with each part without having you call for a check at all i.e. doing something clever.---So the only right answer to "what the DC should be" is "whatever". And I don't think [USER=31465]@Nebulous[/USER] needed to do anything to handle it better, it was just fine. The fact that the players discussed a strategy and ended up NOT doing that but something else, was not a failure at all!</blockquote>

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