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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8087242" data-attributes="member: 20323">For me, it's all about the fiction. That example feels insufficiently imagined because it doesn't hint at interesting changes that can happen when someone fails to escape the pit. If nothing interesting happens when you fail and it's just &quot;you fall 10 feet, take 1d6, and can try again next round&quot;, well... that sort of thing can be OK if the pit is intended to primarily be a threat in a combat / high-octane situation (though even then I'd use it sparingly)... but it's drudgery during slower-paced exploration and IMO not worth inclusion.A more robustly imagined scenario, however, lends itself to more interesting interpretations of a failed Athletics check to climb out.For instance, in my last game the PCs encountered a spiked pit trap, where the DC to climb in/out (off-rope) was 10 (as an action), but with rope it was an automatic success (given ~30 seconds). This particular trap included a vacuum effect created by sand-operated counterweights (part of the pressure plate system), so a PC falling back down could be shunted through one of the narrow slats which sand flowed through, trapping them in another more deadly trap - the sand-filling chamber.This situation was further complicated by the PCs evading mummies using the pit trap to the party's advantage. We did have a PC fall in, but they were dropped unconscious upon hitting the pit's spiked floor. However, if they'd been conscious and attempted to scramble out (without rope), I could have interpreted failure as one of the mummies / mummy corpses collapsing down into the pit and falling on top of them. So that was another twist that I could have used, if the situation warranted.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 8087242, member: 20323"] For me, it's all about the fiction. That example feels insufficiently imagined because it doesn't hint at interesting changes that can happen when someone fails to escape the pit. If nothing interesting happens when you fail and it's just "you fall 10 feet, take 1d6, and can try again next round", well... that sort of thing [I]can[/I] be OK if the pit is intended to primarily be a threat in a combat / high-octane situation (though even then I'd use it sparingly)... but it's drudgery during slower-paced exploration and IMO not worth inclusion. A more robustly imagined scenario, however, lends itself to more interesting interpretations of a failed Athletics check to climb out. For instance, in my last game the PCs encountered a spiked pit trap, where the DC to climb in/out (off-rope) was 10 (as an action), but with rope it was an automatic success (given ~30 seconds). This particular trap included a vacuum effect created by sand-operated counterweights (part of the pressure plate system), so a PC falling back down could be shunted through one of the narrow slats which sand flowed through, trapping them in another more deadly trap - the sand-filling chamber. This situation was further complicated by the PCs evading mummies using the pit trap to the party's advantage. We did have a PC fall in, but they were dropped unconscious upon hitting the pit's spiked floor. However, if they'd been conscious and attempted to scramble out (without rope), I could have interpreted failure as one of the mummies / mummy corpses collapsing down into the pit and falling on top of them. So that was another twist that I could have used, if the situation warranted. [/QUOTE]

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