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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8086347" data-attributes="member: 6779196">The rules for climbing state:[excerpt]While climbing or swimming, each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain), unless a creature has a climbing or swimming speed. At the GM’s option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful <a href="https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Ability%20Scores#h-Strength" target="_blank">Strength</a>(Athletics) check.”[/excerpt]So, when a module says that climbing a surface requires a DC X Strength (Athletics) check, I assume that it is meant to be slippery or to have few handholds, and that I am meant to use the option to require a successful check.I think the most natural interpretation of a vertical surface requiring a check to climb is that no progress is made on a failure, but this carries no intrinsic cost or consequence for failure. If there is time pressure, one could always rule that each attempt costs a certain amount of time, or use progress with a setback. On a success, you complete the climb in the amount of time it would take to cover the distance spending two feet of movement per foot of the climb; on a failure, you still complete the climb but it takes significantly more time for you to do so. But what to do if there is no time pressure or other cost or consequence extrinsic to the climb itself?One option is to rule that on a failure the character climbs some distance, falls, and takes damage, but how do you decide how far the character gets before falling? You could break the climb up into multiple rolls. For example, success might mean you climb the distance you could travel in one turn (spending 2 feet of movement per foot climbed in the turn), while failure means falling from whatever height you were at when you made the check. But that will generally only work for climbs greater than 15 feet. You could judge how far the character climbs based on the result of the roll, with a higher result equating to more distance climbed. But this has the effect of making high rolls undesirable unless they are high enough to beat the DC, since a natural 1 would mean a very short distance climbed before falling while 1 below the DC would mean nearly making it to the top before falling.My preferred method when there is no time pressure is to have something happen during the climb that the player can respond to. For example, “you’re half way up the cliff when suddenly, a powerful gust of wind blows past. What do you do?” This better conforms to the basic pattern of play, and gives the player clear stakes and an opportunity to describe an action that plays to their character’s strengths.</blockquote>

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