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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4829084" data-attributes="member: 80487">In my personal view, barring any information missing from your description, that particular check is gratuitous. What in-world reason is there for an adventurer to freeze up on the ladder (1/5 chance with no +/- factor) [PHB 182]? What in-game difference does the wasted time make? I'm not big on spending real-world play time on inconsequential dice rolls rather than in presenting players with meaningful choices.A fall from the ladder (occurring on a total of zero or less) is possible only with a penalty to athletics. It's not a big deal in this version of the game, either. A character with only 20 hit points (e.g., a first-level wizard with constitution 10) has a 1% chance of getting knocked to zero [PHB 284]. In that unlikely event, I think it would be fair for you to rule that the character is merely knocked unconscious rather than dying. [PHB 295] The average damage of 11 points costs at most a couple of healing surges [PHB 293] to restore (completely or mostly). Actually running out of surges is in my experience unlikely; the real danger lies in running out of access to them during an encounter.</blockquote>