Question on Balance/Climb?

[werk]

This should be a common situation...the party is in a mountain pass and are faced with a 30' across, 40' deep gorge with a missing bridge. One party member was able to jump down, cross the rapids, climb the far side, and secure a rope to the old bridge anchor points.

What skill and DC should be used to cross the gorge via the rope? I can understand that it would be balance if they were trying to walk across, but what about a hanging hand-over-hand technique? Figure it would be a climb check, but at what DC? 25+ seems a bit difficult for a hazard found on school playgrounds.

Any input is appreciated,
Thanks,

 

[Warehouse23]

Gotta go with the SRD:

25 An overhang or ceiling with handholds but no footholds.

Climbing hand-over-hand on a metal bar designed to be scooted along for 10-15 feet over mulch is much less physically demanding than climbing down and then up (ropes sag) a hempen string over a deep gorge. Mind you, a clever rope-user would make a simple rope bridge (two lines, like on high ropes courses at summer camps) which will dramatically lower the DC.

 

[Jdvn1]

Right, and the rope is easy enough to get across with an arrow. Scooting across, though, with the help of other people for getting up might be easier than climbing, at least.

I'm not sure if I could justify anything other than a Str check DC 15, or a Climb check DC 25 otherwise.

 

[werk]

They set up the second rope, and I lowered the DC, probably more than appropriate.

I just wanted to see if that was correct or close to it...I guess I was oK.

 

[Inigo Carmine]

Right, and the rope is easy enough to get across with an arrow.

uhm...getting it across might be possible with an arrow (difficult, it might take a try or two, but possible), but the rope isn't going to tie itself around something (unless you're using magic of some sort.

Gotta go with the SRD:

25 An overhang or ceiling with handholds but no footholds.

Ah...but there are footholds...of a sort. The rope is not a ceiling; you can wrap your legs around it, and pull yourself across. I'd lower the DC to 20, and probably widen the range of failure so that you don't fall unless you hit DC 10 or less (with 11-19 meaning you just don't make any progress).

The double rope idea is probably the best though.

 

[Stalker0]

Whoa whoa, the 25 is to climb on the ceiling with no footholds. That's going spiderman

I'd go with this "pulling yourself up when dangling by your hands." That's similar to pulling yourself forward when dangling by your hands. That's a DC 15, which makes good sense. That means a decently strong guy (str 13) with a little bit of climbing training (4 ranks) can perform that easily with a take 10.

 

[Nim]

With two or three ropes (one for feet, one or two for hands) this becomes a fairly trivial Balance challenge for anyone who's not totally clumsy. Even someone in armor should be able to do this over a short span, slowly but without real danger, unless there are complicating factors (high wind, for instance).

Over 30', it's more tricky. The longer the ropes, the more they'll sway...and the more slack they have to move in opposite directions. Past a certain point, the person setting up the bridge needs to use cross-ties to connect the two ropes to each other at intervals, so they'll stay about 3 feet apart and not swing off away from each other when you lean on them.

One approach would be to make the person setting up the bridge make a Rope Use check (because that skill doesn't get used nearly enough), and subtract the result from some appropriate number to get the DC for the Balance check.

(My experience was that 15' feet, in armor, with somewhat slack ropes and no cross-bracing, was slow but not difficult. Folks shorter than me, though, had some trouble. Definitely consider a size penalty.)

 

[Legildur]

It's a pretty standard exercise for infantry soldiers carrying about 30-40lbs of gear.

I can't remember the name of the technique (regain, I think, to get from the position hanging beneath the rope), but you can even lie on the rope and pull yourself across so that you don't even need much strength, just take it easy and maintain the balance.

I would allow anyone with ranks in the Climb skill to 'regain' on top of the rope. However, that being said, people did still occasionally fall due to poor technique, so probably needs a DC15 climb check, and certainly no 'take 10'.

And it would be a simple thing to tie a short length of rope around yourself and the main rope so that it was less likely that you would fall if you lost your balance or grip.

The DC 25 climb check is way over the top for this exercise, that's for a situation where you can't get a log or arm over the obstacle/rope.

 

[werk]

You guys are detailing my thought process pretty well.

Trick is, they only have like 100' of rope. So either one 'bridge' and one 'safety harness' or two 'bridges' and no safety. No room to get fancy and make a proper rope bridge, and very little use rope skills or anything that would be particularly useful.

They chose safety, so fell probably more often, but with less effect.

I also said everyone was able to aid them, so the climb DC was pretty low.

It just seemed that it should be common enough that I must have been over-looking something...but I guess not.

Thanks again all!