Pulling up a rope... with a PC attached

[Jhaelen]

There is also the chance that the rope would become frayed, ten feet isn't much, but you could mention that the rope is now damaged from the attempt.

I guess, the next thing you're going to tell me is that weapons and armor get damaged in combat...

Seriously, 4e doesn't care about this kind of stuff! I'd probably just handwave it, unless time was of the essence. Hanging on to a rope obviously doesn't require a check. Reasoning: _I_ can do that!

Pulling a pc up a rope _might_ require a STR check, but it should be an easy one if its within the carrying capacity of the character.

 

[jbear]

Most people don't have 4-5' arms!

Hehehe, too true! We'd look a bit strange with 4 ft long arms wouldn't we! I exagerated quite a bit. Let's say 7/8 ft could be farily easily reached on tip toes by most humans and the majority would be able to jump a foot or two more without much difficulty?

I was kind of calculating the relative difficulty of the task for non-adventuring types and what I wanted to express was the opinion that most of us could probably get up a ten foot wall if we had to. Which would mean Easy DC.

20 ft is more challenging, but with help and rope, I don't think it would be much of an obstacle unless in the heat of battle and there was no chance to coordinate with the team.

I'll also take this chance to say that when I said i'd be hurling abuse at the cleric if I had to haul him up a wall, well I meant my character. And it would be in fun.

 

[Ryujin]

Pulling someone up by a rope is not easy, it is about technique as much as raw strength, even if you could normally lift that persons weight. I'd require strength/endurance checks or that cleric would fall on his chubby ass. The ability to lift the weight would be the requirement to even attempt this action.

There is also the chance that the rope would become frayed, ten feet isn't much, but you could mention that the rope is now damaged from the attempt.

DC Level based on size of creature: small 1, medium 3-5, large 8-10, huge ...

Easy DC: 1d6+5 rounds
Mod DC: 1d4+2
Hard DC: 1d4

Technique is covered by the Athletics skill. I see nothing wrong with the concept. No one expects the 90 year old arcanist/historian to be able to do cartwheels or climb a sheer cliff. Each character is an expert in his own areas and the rest of the party should be able to depend on their allies, to be able to make use of that expertise.

No one complains when the Rogue helps the rest of the party "climb" the trap in the floor or the Wizard surmounts the need to search for magic with a wave of his hand, and power of his mind. Why not let the Fighter shine, once in a while?

 

[Hawkeye]

I adapted Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh to 4e and one of the characters went down into the well, where he was attacked by rats. (You have to love old school module design. A snake in a cold well? ) Anyway, the PC in question, who was also a dwarf, was covered by a rat swarm and couldn't climb back up. She already had a rope on her and half the PCs in the party were up top, while the rest were scouting the perimeter of the house. The PCs holding the rope wanted to pull the dwarf up quickly, so I made it an athletics check medium DC, with their movement rate set by the weight of the character, her equipment and the rats. It took them a combat round to do it.

Hawkeye

 

[interwyrm]

Standard action to tie the rope. This is a moderate thievery check which gives a +2 bonus to the subsequent athletics check. There is no penalty for failure. (This represents a better harness being made which allows the person in the pit to help by walking up the sides)

Standard actions to pull. Easy athletics check to lift 1 square. Each 5 over the DC means another square of pulling.

I've actually had to do something like this in real life (although it was lowering rather than lifting). It's not a task that has any real chance of failure for a short distance. Depending on how strong you are, it can go slower or faster.

To add a bit of spice into the encounter, I think it's a good idea to add combat to it. If the person holding the rope gets hit, have them make a difficult athletics check or the person on the rope drops a square.

 

[jbear]

For that matter, if it was outside a combat encounter and there was no real danger or hurry, why not just let the cleric climb the rope with a wink and a nod in the first place?

Sorry, I wanted to reply to your comment earlier but the internet was on the blink ... so, yes.

I think what I was doing was thinking out loud, imagining that the OP had the initiative and turns going because an ambush or monsters were lurking. But there was no real danger right at that moment. It was merely a calculation of how much time I would rule it would take inside a turn count with initiatives but no danger making the job more difficult.

But I agree (I think I even say that right after the fairly superfluous and irrelevant inital sentence), in a situation without any real danger, the hand should be waving and the eyes awinking.

I think the squinting was from the interior thought process going on and the baring of teeth a bad mix of marsmellows and coke