How to make an encounter with falling great distances interesting and dangerous, but not deadly?

[Quickleaf]

This Sunday, my party is going to be ascending a cliffside with stone ramps and degraded wooden walkways leading up to an aarakocra monastery built some 550 feet up (Kir Sabal). Along the way there are gaps in the walkways that can be climbed around, oddly spaced support beams which can be balanced upon, and rotted planking which can be spotted. I'd like to make this more interesting than the adventure (Tomb of Annihilation) presents (which is make 3 checks, on a failure take 3d6 damage or 1 level of exhaustion). And in particular I'd like to make falling at great height more meaningful...without being a game over.

[SBLOCK=Original Text from Tomb of Annihilation (and my commentary in red)]To reach the monastery from the ground, a character must make three ability checks. Each time a check fails, the character must choose between either taking 10 (3d6) bludgeoning damage from a fall or gaining 1 level of exhaustion (which means disadvantage on further ability checks). For my party, this would be a non-choice – take the damage, get healed by druid, enjoy the long rest at top, no way would anyone choose exhaustion. The three ability checks are as follows:
• A DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to climb around gaps in the walkway.
• A DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to cross wide gaps in the wooden walkways by jumping along oddly spaced support beams.
• A DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check to spot rotted planking that won't support weight.

The climb takes 1 hour, plus 10 minutes for every failed ability check. Unless characters make the climb invisibly, at night, or during a rainstorm, it's impossible to reach the monastery without the aarakocra knowing they're coming.[/SBLOCK]

The general situation is that there is no imminent risk of combat, and no other traps/hazards. The aarakocra aren't going to help people up, as they view the ascent as a test of one's character, but they are happy to offer food, drink, and shelter to respectful guests (i.e. long resting is easy). So the only challenge is getting up there.

What if in this situation, a falling character could take a special reaction chosen from a few meaningfully differentiated options? How could I make that work?

For example: Grab a ledge/control your rope-anchored fall (take a guaranteed moderate amount of damage), Fall into a cliffside dwelling (take variable damage and roll on a random table), Land on a lower walkway (take very little damage, but make a Dex save or continue falling), etc.

EDIT: Part of my dilemma is figuring out what's at stake.

 

[Coroc]

One advice: Do not try to cover everything in advance, meaning guessing every possible misshap your group might or might not make.

Because: What happens if you all laid it out perfectly and your players decide to kill some bird man to craft themselves emergency parachutes?

Just use the standard falling rules for distance, give saving throws (dex) if the landing spot is soft then with advantage, especially since you seem to provide unlimited rests.

 

[Dioltach]

How about the time lost from falling and having to climb all over again? Perhaps a storm is brewing, or enemies are coming from below?

 

[Sadras]

Part of my dilemma is figuring out what's at stake.

Level of Exhaustion, Equipment/Clothing damage or loss, Lingering Injury, Time (Daylight loss), Time (Environmental Factors - powerful wind strikes the cliff side every hour, making checks harder), Time (Sunburn), Inspiration Loss, Hit Dice.

 

[clearstream]

This Sunday, my party is going to be ascending a cliffside with stone ramps and degraded wooden walkways leading up to an aarakocra monastery built some 550 feet up (Kir Sabal). Along the way there are gaps in the walkways that can be climbed around, oddly spaced support beams which can be balanced upon, and rotted planking which can be spotted. I'd like to make this more interesting than the adventure (Tomb of Annihilation) presents (which is make 3 checks, on a failure take 3d6 damage or 1 level of exhaustion). And in particular I'd like to make falling at great height more meaningful...without being a game over.

The general situation is that there is no imminent risk of combat, and no other traps/hazards. The aarakocra aren't going to help people up, as they view the ascent as a test of one's character, but they are happy to offer food, drink, and shelter to respectful guests (i.e. long resting is easy). So the only challenge is getting up there.

What if in this situation, a falling character could take a special reaction chosen from a few meaningfully differentiated options? How could I make that work?

For example: Grab a ledge/control your rope-anchored fall (take a guaranteed moderate amount of damage), Fall into a cliffside dwelling (take variable damage and roll on a random table), Land on a lower walkway (take very little damage, but make a Dex save or continue falling), etc.

EDIT: Part of my dilemma is figuring out what's at stake.

Unless there is time pressure, this is hard to make interesting. Some tension factors -

• Each success moves the characters higher up, making failure successively more catastrophic... though I guess anything above about 120' could be deadly.
• 550'/30 = 18 so potentially there are 18 checks here... no one is going to make (1-DC)^18 checks successfully...
• You've hinted there are checks characters can make to help their chances. Each such check should take a turn to make. Such as a turn taken to place a stay or anchor.

Okay, suppose characters sensibly rope themselves together and/or use anchor points to limit their maximum fall. The wall takes 18 climbs and there are three numbers to consider.

1. Wall DC (say 10 for the first 6 climbs, 15 for the second 6, and 20 for the last 6). This is the chance of no progress for a character. It gets harder as higher for, you know, tension.
2. Wall DC -5 (5, 10, 15). This is the chance of a fall using the DMG guideline for a catastrophe.
3. If there is a fall, you need to know how hard it is to stop, and what can stop it. One option is stays or anchors. Those might be made with Intelligence (Sleight of Hand) as recommended in Xanathar's for Tying Knots. It's up the characters how many stays they set. Another is they might rope themselves together, in which case it would be something like a Strength (Athletics) to stop a fall with a catastrophe being to also fall. Or both. Perhaps it is simply 5/10' fallen + 5 per extra character falling? So if a character has a stay or a character they are roped to 20' below them, they are saved on a DC 10. The stay breaks or the other character falls on a DC 5. I think for simplicity I would not use the -5 guide here, but just a succeed or fail... with fail meaning plunging to death. Or you do, meaning a simple fail is their fall continues but is effectively restarted at the height of the stay, while only a fail by 5 means they plunge to death?

Anyway... this doesn't really come to life unless there is a time and/or resource pressure so that they can't just set a million anchors. How much rope do they have? How many turns do they have? Imagine they had 60 turns, then they could fix a stay every 30' (18 turns) allowing them to make no progress on 24 separate turns of climbing (two characters making no progress on the same turn is the same as one).

I think something like this - generous chances to not fall and backstops to be caught if falling - while keeping the danger absolute: if there is a cascade of calamities you are dead. Could work. It's a lot of checks to make, but should be quick if you just get everyone to roll for each turn simultaneously, and get them to declare stays, but not roll for them unless they are needed. You'll need a way to keep track of progress. If they come up with something clever then that can be incorporated as a reduced DC or extra save.

 

[darkbard]

Why not implement this as a 4E style Skill Challenge? Predetermine the number of successful skill checks before three failures, but don't predetermine which skills can be implemented; let that be determined by the players' declared actions. Consequences for individual failures, i.e., before failing the SC entirely, could be some predetermined range of falling damage for the individual PC, burning a hit die, stepping up the next skill check to a higher DC, etc. Failing the SC entirely could be stumbling into a combat encounter unprepared at some point of progress along the way, height determined by how many successful checks they have made towards completing the challenge. Then, climbing the rest of the way is cut off to them, but (failing forward) they have the opportunity to ascend through other means (perhaps through some item or route revealed after defeating the combat), or descend without risk of injury, or ... you get the idea.

 

[Krachek]

Ourselves we can barely do anything without being belted, helm and strapped.
Can my character just die?

 

[SkidAce]

I use "sliding" damage where appropriate instead of falling. Unless its a catastrophe, like falling into space, then failing to catch edge, sliding damage slowly atrits their hp.

In your scenario, I would have long rests either give exhaustion or not recover all hp, only HD spent.

Edit: sliding damage is half what falling would be, its like tumbling down the hill a ways.

 

[Quartz]

Why are you doing this in the first place? Unless it adds to the fun of the gaming session, cut it. You want them to get to the top so they get to the top. Have them each make an appropriate skill check to determine whether or not they encountered a set-back, and let the player narrate the setback and the cost at which they overcame it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Another idea would be to treat the ascent kind of like a combat. Only rather than hit points, you use some other measurements that the PCs take "damage" from as they make checks or checks are made against them.

For instance (and I'm just spitballing)... maybe have each PC have Strength "hit points", Dexterity "hit points", and Constitution "hit points" equal to their individual stats in each of those abilities. As they ascend, they "attack" each individual obstacle, making STR, DEX, or CON checks against set DCs (the "hit points" of that obstacle) and which ability you check depending on what the obstacles are. So balancing obstacles you'd make DEX checks, climbing or jumping might use STR, hanging/swinging obstacles over distance use CON.

An obstacle has the "hit points" equal to its DC. If you make the check on your first go, you get across safely. If you miss the DC, you take off the number of "hit points" your check got to, and the obstacle then gets to "damage" you-- maybe a loss of like 1d4+1 "hit points" worth of the ability score used. You then make another "attack" against the obstacle, trying to take off the rest of its "hit points". If you make it, you get across; if you still don't make it, you receive another set of "damage" to the stat.

Note that this "damage" to a stat's "hit points" is not actually dropping the stat in question-- that's a downward spiral you don't want to deal with. Instead, we can think of these "hit points" as the "energy" you might have in that stat... and as soon as one of those stats reaches 0... you fall. And if you fall... you are going to take the actual hit point damage when you land.

The trick for you then is to design your... "course"... that the players have to ascend. Quite frankly, I'd probably just go onto YouTube and watch a whole bunch of American Ninja Warrior videos to get ideas of the kind of obstacles you might put in this ascent and which you narrate to the players (deciding which obstacles are STR ones, which are DEX ones, and which are CON ones.) Maybe even having several to choose from at any one point in the course so that the PCs can see what is ahead of them and find the path they wish to take up the mountain (especially if any one obstacle doesn't lead to every other one and instead there are different "paths" to choose from.) That way if they have taken several hits to DEX they can figure out "Okay, that obstacle looks like it requires climbing, that's probably going to use STR, and I still have STR points remaining. Let me tackle that one!"

Obviously this would require a bit of work... but it might be cool to allow yourself to narrate things to your players like the series of teeter-totter mushrooms you have to hip hop across or the "hanging underneath a staircase and climbing up the stairs using your arms" obstacle. But if you draw out a map of the various ones and the paths that lead to them, plus also figuring out how to narrate them as natural objects to overcome... it might make for an interesting "encounter".