What's up with Spider Climb?

[StalkingBlue]

In my last game, two party members hung on to a Wiz5 opponent who had cast spider climb on himself and was trying to escape across the ceiling.

According to the spell description, to pull a spider climber from the wall you need a STR score of 20 +1 per caster level. Needless to say, no one in the party has a STR score of 25 or higher.

Limiting the "tenacity" of the spell to the maximum encumbrance for the spider climbing wizard seemed wrong because that stat ties in to his own STR score - which obviously isn't intended, otherwise it wouldn't make a shred of sense requiring a STR score higher than 20 to pull the caster off the wall.


Nevertheless, when a third party member leapt up and grabbed hold of the two PCs already dangling from the wizard (all of them in armor!), this was beginning to look absurd. When the last party member got ready to join the fun, I ruled that the wizard let go and they all dropped to the floor.

Not a satisfactory solution, but I just didn't see what else to do.

Why STR score rather than a DC for a STR check? To me this looks completely outside the normal 3e rules system.
No STR check. No aid another action. Is this another overlooked remnant from 2e? Am I misunderstanding the rule?

 

[Crothian]

It really should be a a strength DC. However, in this situation I would say that the extra weight of the PCs effected the Wizards encumbrance. So, he might still be on the wall, but not going anywhere. Then the PCs could do damage through their grabbles.

 

[kreynolds]

Then the PCs could do damage through their grabbles.

There's that "grabble" thing again. What the heck is a "grabble" anyways?

 

[Crothian]

There's that "grabble" thing again. What the heck is a "grabble" anyways?

That's what you call a grapple on a person using Spider Climb. It happens so much in games Wizards actually created a new word for it. I hear Webster is considering adding it to their 2004 printing.

 

[StalkingBlue]

That's what you call a grapple on a person using Spider Climb. It happens so much in games Wizards actually created a new word for it. I hear Webster is considering adding it to their 2004 printing.

LOL.

Thanks, guys.

In our case, most of the PCs weren't doing damage to the opponent with their, uhm, grabbles ( ). Only the first one was even holding on to the guy, the others (not good at jumping) decided to grab the first PC instead.

As the wizard needed all his limbs for climbing along the ceiling, I didn't give him either an AoO or an opposed grapple check. On the other hand, once another (and then yet another) PC was dangling off the first one, in my book she would have had to succeed at a STR check in order to do damage. (Not that she tried, anyway - but I don't see how she could have, not in taht situation.)


I guess I'll just houserule it to require a STR check in future.

 

[Destil]

It's a silly artifact from earlier editions. Just let the caster make an opposed strength roll, where his strength score is 20+1/level.

 

[JChung2003]

The spell description seemed to suggest that spider climb affected the wizard's bare hands and feets, not his whole body, hence the requirement that "the affected creature must have bare hands and feet to climb in this manner."

You could have ruled that the wizard needed to make an Escape Artist check (with a DC of your players' highest grapple check) to escape your players' "grabbles," trying to wriggle free that way, without using his hands or feet, instead of an opposed grapple check (which is essentially a Strength check with special size modifiers).

 

[Destil]

The spell description seemed to suggest that spider climb affected the wizard's bare hands and feets, not his whole body, hence the requirement that "the affected creature must have bare hands and feet to climb in this manner."

You could have ruled that the wizard needed to make an Escape Artist check (with a DC of your players' highest grapple check) to escape your players' "grabbles," trying to wriggle free that way, without using his hands or feet, instead of an opposed grapple check (which is essentially a Strength check with special size modifiers).

Ah, but the nice part about a grapple check is that you can use escape artist to escape a grapple. =)

 

[AuraSeer]

The simplest ruling would be that the spell is actually referring to the DC of a Strength check, rather than a flat required Strength score. That'd make it more consistent with the 3e rules, IMO.

Assuming instead that you kept the spell as written, I'd have given the wizard a choice: either just stick to the ceiling and try to stay put, or attempt to wriggle out of the hold.

Attempting to get loose would require an Escape Artist check, opposed by the attacker's grapple check. If the wizard wins, he gets loose and stays on the ceiling. If he loses, the grapplers maintain their hold. If he loses by more than 10, he has accidentally removed too many limbs from the ceiling, and gets yanked free.

By planting all limbs on the ceiling and trying not to get pulled off, the wizard could force an opposed Strength check. His Str for this purpose would be that 20 +1/level. However, if that effective Strength were not enough to hold all the weight of his grapplers, he would automatically fail. (I.e., at Str 24, the spell could support the wizard plus a maximum of 700 additional pounds. If he got grappled by two or three heavily armored humans, they'd overload the spell and drag him down.)

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with the way you handled it.

 

[StalkingBlue]

...
Assuming instead that you kept the spell as written, I'd have given the wizard a choice: either just stick to the ceiling and try to stay put, or attempt to wriggle out of the hold.

...

Uhm ... yeah, right. Give him a choice. Oddly enough, I like to keep control of my own NPCs in my own game.