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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8494835" data-attributes="member: 82106">I haven't looked at Holmes. Greyhawk doesn't really say, though its language is clearly a precursor to the 1e text in that it does use the term 'nearly sheer'. The 1e DMG also has more elaborate climbing rules, under which a thief is perfectly capable of climbing a 'smooth or nearly smooth' surface! In fact if you take it at face value they can climb said surface even if it is overhanging slightly, though their chance of falling will double. In either case their movement rate is reduced, and Gygax admonishes the DM to roll a new check every melee round! So, there is a class of climbs that are manifestly impossible in the real world (sheer surface at more than 90 degrees without equipment) which a 1e thief CAN manage. As I said before, the main question all this raised was how the heck to adjudicate ANYONE ELSE climbing anything at all. Pre Greyhawk the assumption would have been that characters were generally competent in anything the player could describe, and thus could, perhaps with various limitations, perform any 'possible' climb. The interpretation of players at the time of the release of Greyhawk was thus, IME, that it was an ADDITIONAL ability granted to thieves, above and beyond the standard "yeah, with the right gear and/or taking enough time and care, you can make most any feasible climb." I mean, why would a thief need an ability to do something that already existed as a known capability of any random character? So, yes, it is VERY TRUE that, probably abetted by EGG to a degree, most people entering into the game in the 1e period would have interpreted thief abilities as the problematic "this is the subsystem for doing X, Y, and Z, nobody else can even attempt these things." which you find is quite common, but IMHO wrong.Also, if we think about 5e and climbing walls, we now have a system for everyone to do it, and thieves simply have a privileged access to better bonuses, probably a good DEX, and thus are likely to be some of the best climbers. OTOH 5e liberally sprinkles in stuff that kind of breaks niches. For example my 5e Tabaxi Battlemaster, due to racial traits, make a mockery of any thief when it comes to climbing. Our group didn't actually HAVE a rogue in it in that campaign, so it was not an issue, but I can see how a player who spent resources on his thief being a really good climber might find that a bit annoying!</blockquote>

Verification