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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DND_Reborn" data-source="post: 8087540" data-attributes="member: 6987520">You missed the point. WHY is it a hazard? Because people can fall in, injuring themselves, and possibly become trapped. THAT is the purpose of a pit. Whether you are using it as part of an encounter, a challenge on its own, or just for flavor/narrative, the point is it is there to slow people down, make them react to it, etc. You can hand-wave it if you want, your choice, but it is still there for the flavor because it represents a difficulty.I saw no need to quote it. If my players reach a river, and there is no bridge and the current is strong enough or some other issue, then YES I am going to make them play it out. Why? Because that is part of exploration IMO and keeps the game grounded so when they do do heroic things, they are actually exciting and cool instead of boring and mundane. Basically I run it: if there is a meaningful consequence to failure, then it has to be played out. If it is a relatively easy obstacle, I might only make a single group check. The more people that make it, the faster they did it. Time is also a major factor in our games in exploration due to other factors such as food and water, getting lost (when they have no road or path), foraging, etc. If they need to be somewhere as quick as possible or something, it matters in my games.Nor should the average PC if they are either unskilled at the task (not proficient), lack natural talent or some bit of off-hand training (unexceptional STR), or have some means (magical or otherwise) of helping their chances of success and not falling to their deaths.Yeah...  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" />  I have seen many climbing walls and a lot of people do make it up to the top. But they can do that because they have the safety lines, mats on the floor/ground, etc. It is reasonably safe. But a lot of people also struggle as well because (shocker!) they don't know how to climb (no proficiency) or lack the physical fitness for it (STR).FWIW those walls would be a DC 5 in my game, so even without a modifier you would have a good chance to make it up without falling. Sure, climbing walls have ratings sometimes for the difficulty so people who actually want a challenge can have one, but even the harder walls would only warrant a DC 10 (maybe 15...) IME doing it.Finally... "But I would never make an "adventurer" roll to see if they succeeded at such a climb. Not heoric!"That is the key difference in our game styles. To me, an adventurer is heroic because they succeed against the challenge, not because I hand-wave it away and say, "Dude, you are so heroic your PC just does it, man!" and the challenge doesn't exist for them (even though it would for a commoner).</blockquote>

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