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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6792357" data-attributes="member: 42582">I am going to push  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point a little harder.Clearly, when climbing a mountain while wearing a cold-weather cloak and while carrying a backpack there is a chance that the cloak or pack can get snagged, or that it can come loose and fall. Avoiding such things is part of the skill of being a mountaineer.One way to represent the connection between skill, and such potential consequences, is for the loss of equipment to be "in play" as a possible outcome for a failed Climbing check.But if you don't do it that way - and I believe, from your posts, that neither of you does - then how do you do it? To the best of my knowledge no edition of D&D has ever had a "Chance of equipment snag while mountain climbing" table - and in any event, a purely random table wouldn't factor in the crucial dimension of mountaineering skill.I think that realism is a red herring. There is nothing unrealistic about dropping one's pudding divining rod while climbing. If anything, the classic D&D approach where climbers sometimes fall (failed climbing check) but never lose their gear (there is no systematic mechanic, in classic D&D, for losing gear via drop or break or snag) is quite unrealistic.Nor is there anything unrealistic about the various actual play examples that I have given upthread. There is nothing unrealistic about searching a tower for a lost mace and discovering that it is not there, but rather has been looted by a dark elf adversary, and instead discovering that one's balrog-possessed brother may have been evil all along - as be-tokened by the black arrows in his (formerly) private workroom.The issue is not about realism. It's about the ways in which backstory is authored and brought into play as part of action resolution. At the table, is it primarily an input or an output?</blockquote>

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