Them Bones of Adventure - XXII: Climbing Revisited

An ongoing exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats and rules, which began here with part one.

Introduction

While musing on the thief class my thoughts came back frequently to climbing as an example of the howling void taking tenure where proper rules should be found governing the many activities that class supposedly excels at.

Modern DnD design, besides shunning any structure outside of combat, aims to explode the paradigm of niche protection by shoving a wedge into probability. A whole party will happily be allowed to suspend themselves from the rafters, no matter their class or physical condition, so long as the players wish it and, at most, the proper roll is effected to the satisfaction of a DMs knee-jerked perception of task difficulty.

This was the topic that launched a thousand (well, twenty or so) posts, driving me to attempt to pour some heated rule tar amid the gaping cracks in the system as wantingly presented. By revisiting this I hold up my hands in admission that my efforts were not a success but, in keeping with the gentle cushioning philosophy the rulebooks kindly profess, I can but believe that I’ve been failing forward somehow. Despite my best wishes for effortless perfection, the passing of time makes plain the need for a reheating of the copper plates where these house rules are etched, that another round of hammering may take place.

I’ve shifted my view around from climbing being a feat of pure strength to linking its main progress roll to dexterity. The previous iteration’s principle of roll maximalism is kept though, with climbing being an epitome of athletic pursuit, steps having been made to engage all of a character’s physical attributes through a single reiterated roll and effort put in to drive down the act’s lethality without defusing its sense of danger. I hope to have not just streamlined but better captured the game feel of this feat this time around.

The Crunchy Bits

Free Climbing

- Vertical surfaces deemed to be climbable will have a DC range, ideally determined through some sort of method. A character needs to possess a Dexterity score equal or exceeding the DC in order to be able to attempt a climb.

- A climb’s DC reflects not just its sparsity of handholds, but also its slope and how taxing it is upon the climber: a character whose Strength does not meet or exceed the DC will have his progress roll capped by the attribute score. The DC will also have implications in how long a climber’s stamina can hold up (see below).

- Climbing Roll: each round, a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check determines the movement in feet managed by the climber. This is a progress roll, not made against any DC per se and thus with no failure conditions, though it can be fumbled (see below).

Stamina and Exhaustion

Climbing being a strenuous activity means that it can only be sustained for a limited time, with a character running a serious risk of falling prey to exhaustion during an ascent lacking natural ledges or outcrops of some sort to afford the possibility of rest.

- A climber’s stamina will hold for a number of rolls equal to the character's Constitution score (for an easy-to-hard climb) or CON modifier (for very hard climbs);

- Once the stamina threshold is exceeded a character has overexerted himself and exhaustion begins to mount: the character’s exhaustion level is increased whenever an unadjusted progress roll exceeds the climber’s Constitution score.

- As the climber alights on a perch and takes a ten minute rest the first level of exhaustion acquired through overexertion will be recovered and the character's stamina regained, allowing further climbing efforts to be attempted.

Interaction with Skills

- Characters trained in either Athletics or Acrobatics add the proficiency modifier to their effective Dexterity for the purpose of determining what surfaces they are able to climb;

- The Acrobatics skill adds its modifier to the climbing roll;

- The Athletics skill increases both stamina and, if applicable, the maximum cap on climbing speed per round.

Falling (or “what the crowd came here to see”)

- An unadjusted “1” result during the climbing roll will mean the climber’s hold has slipped, the character has taken an ill-calculated risk or simply encountered unexpected give in the rock face, needing to test his balance to remain lodged to the surface, becoming endangered:

- While endangered, the character will immediately need to make a Dexterity saving throw, DC as per the climb’s difficulty, with success meaning the character spends the round scrambling to hug the rock face, eventually resecuring himself and allowing progress to be resumed the next round. A character that fails the saving throw must immediately repeat it at a halved DC, rounded down. If this too is a failure the character plummets to the ground.

“Should Heights Care About Level?”

The old school way of thinking would seem to point to “no, not really”. The levelled character has doubtlessly gotten better at remaining attached to vertical surfaces, possibly to the point of his fall being flat-out unlikely but at the end of the day mortality still presents as the relatable benchmark.

I remain deeply dissatisfied with the rules for falling damage included in the present rulebook, tasting like nothing but a holdover that hearkens back to a past of low hit-point totals, presently ensuring that a fall from 20 feet will kill exactly no one that’s made it to second level. Yet, attempts to update the damage curves seem to lead to a design conundrum: either the average damage is low and thus falls remain eminently survivable to levelled characters or the average is high and we shoot straight to the point of death being a foregone certainty not worth rolling for. It has to start off tame but escalate in a fashion that is at once threatening yet not entirely hope crushing.

As such, falling damage follows an apocryphal interpretation of the traditional damage progression and also treats all damage dice as explodable, so as to ensure levelled characters remain healthily wary of heights.

Distance Fallen	Additional damage	Total damage rolled
10 feet	1d6	1d6 (1-6)
20 feet	2d6	3d6 (3-18)
30 feet	3d6	6d6 (6-36)
40 feet	4d6	10d6 (10-60)
50 feet	5d6	15d6 (15-90)
60 feet	6d6	21d6 (21-126)

(the other, rather more ergonomically conservative option that dawned on me being a straightforward save-or-dismemberment, bypassing the hit-point mechanic entirely)

Aided Climbing

For protected climbs, a climber can either rely on pitons and a belayer or rope his fortune to that of his comrades.

A piton arresting a fall will work as intended on a 1-3 in d4 for the first piton, a d6 for the second if the first should fail and so on.

After this, a belayer attempting to arrest a falling comrade must roll a Strength check, DC equal to half the total distance fallen from the slipping point to the catching point below the piton. Each additional belayer decreases the DC by 5.

If two climbers are roped together during a climb and a fall occurs it can be prevented through a DC 15 Strength Saving Throw made by the character immediately above (or below if the pointsman is the one who falls). If the situation involves more than two characters roped together, keep rolling for each consecutively affected companion, increasing the DC by 5 for each subsequent attempt.

Arrested falls still deal damage, though at a scale of flat d4s rather than exploding d6s.

Closing Thoughts - A Mountain of a Problem

Further efforts from my part as regards this topic will probably follow in the key of defining limited climbs as usable setpieces at the table. Despite greater and better efforts than mine own, the wider scope rendition of montaineering remains as yet an unsolved problem at large.