D&D 5E Climbing and falling

[pukunui]

Why does a 20' deep pit with 'rough stone walls' a DC 10 check?

With that DC your average healthy adult human can't climb out 50 percent of the time.

I would think success would be all but automatic. DC 5 if you must give it a DC.

Isn't the point of a pit trap to make it hard to get out of?

 

[Flamestrike]

Isn't the point of a pit trap to make it hard to get out of?

Depends on who built it and why. Humans (being primates) are actually pretty good at climbing.

Rough hewn stone walls with sufficient handholds shoildnt he more than a DC 5 check. If using a rope it should be automatic.

Most healthy adult humans with no climbing experience could climb a 20 feet pit with rough stone walls and hand holds every time they tried.

Maybe DC 5 at worst (meaning a trained and strong climber does it automatically, an untrained average climber might get stuck, and a weak climber with a low strength might even fall on the way up).

 

[GMMichael]

Climbing and falling:
Does the story progress when the DM tells the PC, "you fall and take 5 damage. Roll again?"
If the PC has comrades (usually the case), why not just wait for a rope?
Wasn't the initial fall into the 20-foot pit the real penalty?
When I fail a climbing check, it means I stopped climbing because I can't find a decent handhold, not that I fell.
If goblins were shooting arrows at me while I'm climbing, THEN I might fall.

It might be worthwhile to look at a PC's bonuses. A low-Dex PC with no Athletics might fall, sure. But a proficient one with decent Dex doesn't fall. He just gets stuck.

It just doesn't sit well with me, because it makes the outcome reliant on qualitative things like "your goal" rather than quantitative things like "actual distance involved". It feels cheese-able, by a player who carefully declares their goals in such a way that they further their actual goal by failing at their declared goal, or something like that. And I really don't want to encourage that sort of thinking.

Like trying to fly by throwing yourself at the ground - and failing?

It's a highly-engaged player who not only has a goal in mind, but also has plans for the contingencies. It might be cheesing, but it's better than the player who would rather check her Facebook likes than stay engaged.

Really though, if you have a prescribed outcome for whatever the dice turn up, you're wandering away from the role-playing part of RPG.

 

[Haldrik]

Just curious: when an adventure presents a DC to climb a wall, how do you adjudicate failure?

Let’s say a PC has ended up at the bottom of a 20-foot deep pit with rough stone/earth walls. The DC to climb out is set at 10.

What happens if the PC fails the check? Are they just stuck at the bottom, unable to climb at all? Or do they make it partway up but not all the way? Or do they make it partway up and then fall?

If you rule that a failure equals a fall, how do you determine how far they’ve made it before they fall?

I have my own methods but I’m curious to know how other DMs handle climbing and potentially falling.

A climbing failure equals a fall. But if you are falling, you can roll a balance check to try catch your fall as a reaction.

 

[Seramus]

Why does a 20' deep pit with 'rough stone walls' a DC 10 check?
With that DC your average healthy adult human can't climb out 50 percent of the time.

You're right. It should be DC20. I couldn't climb out of a 20 foot pit except through sheer luck.

 

[pukunui]

A climbing failure equals a fall. But if you are falling, you can roll a balance check to try catch your fall as a reaction.

OK. But how do you determine how far they fall?

 

[DND_Reborn]

I really hate compound checks like this.

LOL good thing you don't have to play with us then, huh?

Before I critique your math (which seems off), what assumptions were you making? +0 total modifier?

 

[Oofta]

I think there are several ways of doing this.

Getting close to a success and then failing means you almost made it as far as you can. On the other hand, that puts the whole "higher is better" on it's head. It makes sense that the guy who's really good at climbing is going to get the highest, but it's also penalizing them for it.

Missing the target DC by a significant amount kind of makes sense from a game standpoint because "missing by a greater amount is worse" is consistent with other rules/rulings. But that means that the wizard with no athletics skill actually made it further up the wall than the guy who's really good at climbing.

So for simplicity I do one check per turn, fall at the halfway point of the total amount ascended that turn. I modify that if the PCs were climbing a very tall cliff, but that's probably going to be a different kind of challenge.

 

[Flamestrike]

LOL good thing you don't have to play with us then, huh?

Before I critique your math (which seems off), what assumptions were you making? +0 total modifier?

Well yes. Assume an average adult in good health with no specialised training (Str 10) with a movement of 30'.

He has a 25 percent chance of falling on a DC 10 every 15' he travels and a 50/50 chance of getting a further 15' up.

To climb 50' he needs to make 4 such checks without failing 1 or he falls. On average it takes him 8 checks to get those 4 successes and he would fall off rhe wall more often than not in getting those 4 successes.

Compound checks are a bad idea and should be avoided where possible.

A rough hewn wall like a climbing wall at a gym shouldn't be more than DC5. With ropes it shouldnt even be a check af all. An adult himan in good health (Str 10) can climb such a wall every time he tries.

 

[jasper]

Varies with tier and who has ticked me off. Generally you fail at half the distance. except @dnd4vr he evil so gets 99% of the way the falls.