Cling to the ceiling?

[Shin Okada]

Hi. An encounter which I will run tomorrow requires a PC to not just climb a stone wall but also cling to the stone ceiling and move along it for 15 feet, if he falls into a kind of pit.

Climbing stone wall could be done with, say, DC 20 climb check I guess. But how hard should it be to cling to a stone ceiling and move along it? Or should it be impossible without some power and such?

If PCs are either lucky or fight carefully, no one may fall. But if it happens, and if that is impossible to return to the battle field, the player will become just frustrated and bored, I guess.

I may let one monster (which can fly) pursue fallen PC(s) and let them fight on the different map, though.

FYI, this is an encounter for five 4th-level PCs.

 

[Jack99]

I go with +10 of what the wall is normally.

 

[Nytmare]

[EDIT] Oh hey look! They redid the DC by Level chart!

Based off my cheat sheet a 4th level encounter's DCs should be 7 for an easy challenge, 12 for moderate, and 17 for hard 10 for an easy challenge, 14 for moderate, and 21 for hard.

My suspicion would be that, if you go with a 20 and 30 DC, climbing the wall will be nearly impossible really tough, and crossing the ceiling (2 checks?) is out of the question. To put it in perspective, a DC 20 check is a moderate challenge for a 16-18 12-13th level character, and a DC 30 is a hard challenge for a 19-24 15th level character.

I'm all for figuring out the mechanical end of things first, and then building the descriptions to fit the numbers. Make the wall a 14 and the ceiling a 21. That feels like a worked, but unfinished rock wall to me and a ceiling covered in ivy, or roots, or marred by something that leaves workable handholds of some kind.

 

[Jack99]

Crossing the ceiling would probably only be 1 check (3squares = ½ movement for most races)

A level 4 trained in athletics should have 2 (level) + 5 (trained) + 4 (stat)= 11 or around there. Only putting it at 21 will give him a decent chance of succeeding. Remember, he only falls down if he misses by 5 or more. A goliath would have very little chance of failure.

Now, if you feel that you should not go beyond hard DC's - no matter the circumstances, by all means, make it a DC21 check and explain it by roots or whatnot. My point was simply that if you set the wall to DC20 (as the OP suggested), then the ceiling should be 10 higher or so. I mean, if slippery adds +5, then surely being horizontal adds something along 10 to the DC. Now obviously, that will make it very hard to scale for most level 4 characters. But in my world, its not supposed to be easy to climb the ceiling of a cave wall, especially not at level 4, without special support.

You can always give some circumstantial bonuses, perhaps moderate DC nature and/or acrobatics checks giving +2 bonus to the check, or the roots as you mentioned. Also suggest that they use climbing gear, which also gives a +2 bonus to the check.

 

[Nytmare]

To do a little cross posting and thread necromancy: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/273348-dc-building.html

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here's the thing, you WANT the players to do these cool and amazing things. If you set the DCs to numbers that are a 50/50 shot for the most skilled possible characters, or at least the most skilled ACTUAL characters in the particular encounter, then they are rather unlikely to attempt them.

Consider, I'm the player of the hypothetical +11 Athletics character. If say the wall is DC14 and the ceiling is a DC21 I have around a 40% chance of climbing the wall and the ceiling, assuming they are each one check. So I'm trading at least a full round of attacks for a 40% chance of success vs a 60% of failure most likely resulting in a 'mission kill' (IE once I'm in the pit it sounds like I'm out of action pretty much, plus it seems like at least a 2d10 damage fall, which is not too bad but not encouraging either).

I don't know what the reward is for getting across or how absolutely necessary it is to cross. I also don't know if this is something ALL the characters are going to need to do or just one. As a rule of thumb though IMO you want to set the DCs for heroic actions to yield around a 75% chance of success, and maybe even 90%-95% if the failure consequences are dire. Statistically players really can't afford to be making very many 95% success or die type attempts very often in the character's adventuring career or it will be a short career. Intelligent players know this. For lesser consequences they should still have something beyond 50% and 75% really is a good rule of thumb.

So assuming one character needs to succeed and the reward is fairly significant and the consequences not too dire then you probably want the wall climb to be practically a gimme and the ceiling climb to be successful on around a 6+. That would yield for the +11 guy a DC of around 17 for the ceiling and realistically about a 12 for the wall. This puts the ceiling into moderate difficulty by what appears to be the new DCs or hard difficulty by the current ones for 4th level.

Now, if ALL the PCs need to climb across, and assuming there's no real way that they can make it easier for the less capable with ropes or some sort of magic then the DCs really need to be even lower. You're bound to have some back ranker with a STR of 10 and no Athletics training sporting a +2 Athletics check modifier. For this character a DC of 10 is problematic. Really though with cases like this there just needs to be a way to either bypass the check or mitigate the consequences somewhat, or a way to string him some ropes needs to be provided, etc.

 

[Shin Okada]

Thank you guys. I think you all have good points.

I should better determine DC appropriate for PC level, rather than to set them as per climbing rule or wall DC table.

Even after playing 4e for 2 years, I still have a tendency to think in 3.5e ways. Say, the module says that the dungeon walls are made of stone. And DMG says climbing masonry wall is DC 20. So that is DC 20.

But yeah, this is 4e. So I would better use appropriate DC for PC level and find some reason why climbing that wall is easier than to climb usual masonry walls.

 

[Squire James]

Well, I'd set the DC pretty high simply because I think climbing along ceilings in more like "doing things a spider can" than a standard solution to a problem. It's not physically impossible for a trained person, but nearly so for an untrained person. That seems to put it in DC 25 to 30 territory. This is a little "beyond hard" for level 4 characters, but I imagine paragon-tier heroes can do this sort of thing with some regularity.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thank you guys. I think you all have good points.

I should better determine DC appropriate for PC level, rather than to set them as per climbing rule or wall DC table.

Even after playing 4e for 2 years, I still have a tendency to think in 3.5e ways. Say, the module says that the dungeon walls are made of stone. And DMG says climbing masonry wall is DC 20. So that is DC 20.

But yeah, this is 4e. So I would better use appropriate DC for PC level and find some reason why climbing that wall is easier than to climb usual masonry walls.

Well, personally I'm of the school that says logically a given task should have a consistent DC. As someone else mentioned above the way to work things is to start with the DC you want to have and work backwards. If the DC should be say 17 then that might mean the wall is slightly easier to climb than normal masonry or that it is some type of stone etc. Basically most situations have enough possible minor variables that you can explain a +/-5 DC without any real trouble. This also gives the players the ability to assess the difficulty for themselves based on a description of the situation.

Admittedly there may be some cases where it is hard to come up with logic for a given DC, but it is likely to be pretty rare. Things can generally be both scaled to the PCs abilities AND logical from an in-game perspective. Usually if things seem "off" then I will reassess exactly what the scenario is and find some way to adjust. It doesn't even always have to be tweaking with DCs. A stunt could be pretty dangerous but do a good bit of damage for instance, which might still make it worth trying.

 

[Greatwyrm]

You could also set the DC easier than you'd normally expect if you just say there's stuff on the ceiling to hang on to. Hooks for hanging stuff, rafters, old tapestry anchors, chandeliers (sp?).