Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9233399" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Well, if I had to guess, I think it comes down to the fact that, unless you're dealing with a raging river or a severe undertow, most people can swim enough to stay afloat for a short time.And if aquatic movement is on the table, I don't think most DM's intend for their party to helplessly drown.But climbing?  Well, for a lot of people, the first time you try rock climbing, you instantly realize "holy heck, this is hard".  You have to rely a lot on your upper body strength, gravity is fighting you and you don't have a naturally buoyant medium to work with.  You can't just pick a direction and flounder or wade towards it, you have to carefully identify and reach for handholds.And in D&D, the failure points are different as well.  One has you start drowning, a process that can take some time.  The other has you fall and take damage, usually in the same turn.So I think some people have a tendency to think of one of these circumstances being more extreme than the other, even if the rules don't necessarily reflect that.  I remember for many years, the rule was if you don't have Swimming as a proficiency or skill, you just couldn't do it.And I watched many DM's reject that, because it was unrealistic to expect all characters to be trained swimmers.But climbing?  The game has a long legacy of people just not being able to do it without special training!That's just my experience, I could be way off base.</blockquote>

Verification