DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games LMP: Lost Mines of Phandelver OOC thread

Try moving your token now.

And what AJ said. He used a light cantrip - no flame.

Kriv will happily use a firebolt cantrip on the torch to ignite it, he's not going to leave a Dragonborn hanging.

You need to roll to hit.........

Fine, flint and tinder work. Bunch of flaming hot whiners!

Yay! I can move Lumi!
Thanks

Hey now, Kriv is not going to be thinking, 'Gee, my employer's brother is dead. Let's steal his boots!' That Lawful is there for a reason...

Gypsy, why did you owl ask "who" was down there before sneaking in?

Q: Why did the owl ask 'who'?

A: Because it could

<snicker>

MikeD asked:



I had to think about this one. There is no rule. It falls under DM discretion but there are guidelines. You can either follow my logic or just skip to the bottom line.

Logic: Damage starts at 10 feet. Your basic, relatively safe jump is 5 feet. Therefore, anything other than that requires skill and has risk. A failed jump results in you taking falling damage:



Avoiding that by trying to jump needs skill and it's not easy. A bad 10 foot jump can result in broken bones or a sprain. I can see an argument for saying that either athletics or acrobatics skill check applies so I'll allow either. Since the rope would lower the DC one notch, and it's a strength DC 15 check, jumping this distance will be one degree more difficult and will consume all movement as you try and stick your landing.



Bottom line:Make either a DC 20 Athletics or Acrobatics check. Take 2d6 damage and are prone on a fail.

OK ... most of that makes sense, but a couple of things. Is it an 'all or nothing' make or fail ... or are there degrees of failures?

Second - with a DC of 20 to make the jump, a DC of 15 for climbing down on a rope ... unless there is a problem with the rope ... seems excessive.

Finally, is there anything like the old 'take 10' rule? I get that when you are in a hurry it is more difficult, but if you take your time and all that <g> (not that I expect to be able to 'take my time' at this point <wink> )

I must admit, from doing obstacle races I've always felt climbing up a rope is high DC but coming back down it is rather natural. Having said that, last year a team-mate did try braking himself with his hands, without gloves. It was not pretty! (I use a pair of Nomex gloves.)

All valid points. I needed to think through them and since some of us like to debate such things and find them to be part of the fun, we can have at it, here.

The rope is an "aid" to help you get down safely. The jump is easy - the landing not.

If there was a "degree" of failure, it would be applied to the rope use because we might say that you were half way down before you lost grip and the falling distance was less.

As for take-10, no. The reason? There is a class feature that provides that and to give take-10's diminishes the value of the class. BTW, that's Reliable Talent - an 11th level rogue class feature:



The question is not about climbing up, but rather jumping down.

By the way, so you all know, I've fallen 20 feet (it might have been less) and failed my roll. I crushed the head and neck of the radius bone in my right arm. It required surgery and I have permanent loss of function in that arm. I have no radial movement, like what you need to use when using a screwdriver. That happened when I was 12. Falling is not trivial.

Neil, hence the difference between 'in combat' and 'take ten' modes <wink>

Nep: The 'degree of failure' thing was more along of ... if I do the 20' jump and 'miss' by one or two ... that doesn't seem that it should be as painful as the person that missed it by 10 or more.

Also, the 'reliable talent' is different than what I am talking about. Reliable Talent works when take 10 is not available. Take 10 could not be used in a 'stressful' like combat, while trying to escape ... basically whenever we are in 'initiative order'. Does that make sense? (which is a different question than 'will you allow it' <wink>)

I had a similar 'epic fail' when I was close to that age (as well as many more before and after <sigh>). Luckily, when the 'cover' failed, and I fell into the 'grease trap' (check wikipedia if you don't know <g>) I might have drowned, but the square cover 'rotated' and the corner stopped my fall ... by ripping into my abdomen and only stopping when it caught on my rib <shudder> I was =really= lucky and unlucky at the same time <wink>

If you roll a natural 1, should I break a leg? I really don't play critical fails. Also, mitigating damage is another class benefit which we just saw come into play with Chandan. He did not take damage because of

So the ability to reduce damage in any way is a special ability.

What if you dangle off the edge by your hands and then try to drop safely from that reduced height?

Like I said, special ability. I would call it a climb attempt and have you make a strength roll.

So basically ... it is all about 'die rolls' and smart, thoughtful playing no longer has a part to play <sigh> That feels like a step backwards to me <shrug> Oh well. It is what it is.

That's quite a leap (pun intended). I don't consider jumping into the pit to be a "clever" solution to this problem. There's a lots of room for clever play.

Aye, I think how intelligent solutions would play out in 5e is applying advantage, reducing distance or eliminating the roll, as appropriate.

So frex, if the PCs knotted the rope, they might roll with advantage. (Unless there are special rules for knotted rope.)

If they lowered themselves onto a ledge, and then onto the rope, less distance.

Or if they used a belay, possibly eliminate the roll, and it just equates to more time spent climbing down.

That's how I interpret it.

Myself, I probably wouldn't require a roll for descending a rope normally though. I would imagine there was a ladder sat right next to the rope. If I wouldn't require a roll for descending the ladder under the circumstances, nor would I for the rope.

(Descending a rope is a lot easier than descending a ladder imo. Vice versa when ascending.)

Neptune, you're lucky to be alive, falling 20 feet uncontrolled!

Don, my main 'complaint'/'frustration' is that 'jumping' 20' is just one step 'harder' than climbing with a rope. IRL, the jump would be =WAY= more risky than a careful climb down the same distance using a rope. And maybe I =am= being too 'realistic' <shrug>

I learned, a long time ago, that realism has NO place in D&D

The rope climb is handled as it was written in the module and, in many ways, this module was designed to demonstrate various rules as it was the first module published. I agree that knots in the rope might gain advantage. If the rope was slick for some reason, it would be reasonable to have the roll with disadvantage. But, there's no way I could climb down a rope as well as a ladder.

Possibly a smarter way down is for the weakest to have the rope looped, hooked under their armpits and lowered down by the strongest/heaviest in the party. Play the odds better using the strongest/heaviest people in the party. The rope would need to be shortened (cut or clever knotting?) so the length is about five feet short from the bottom in case the person(s) doing the lowering do fail the STR check. This way the person being lowered won't go splat on the ground, but merely have some sore ribs/bruises when the rope stops their fall. Once the person is lowered all the way they just need to slip out of the loop and safely drop the few feet.

Eventually that would obviously leave the strongest person at the top for last. He/she would continue to use the rope looped under their arm pits, and rappel down.

Mind you it is a moot point as speed will now be an issue with upcoming combat, but we might want to keep this in mind if we need to go down more ropes.

Aye, you'd probably tie a second rope to the climber, then hook it over an anchor (probably the same anchor used by the first rope in this case) and finally to the belayer, who'd secure it as Dugan described.

When the last man was ready, he'd leave most of rope 2 hooked over the anchor, tie himself to the short end and throw down the long end. The guys on the ground could then belay him as he climbed down rope 1.

Having the anchor between the climber and the belayer would absorb most of the shock from a fall, to avoid dragging the belayer into the crisis.

Neptune. A good point about skill, and an interesting one from a D&D perspective.

How to descend a ladder is self-explanatory, so it seems easier to the untrained, but to the trained, a rope descent is easier.

So I guess the question becomes, how much training do you need to descend a rope easily? From experience, I'd say hardly any, 10 minutes maybe, but that assumes you're physically able to.

My assumption would be that the PCs live more active lives than us, so are physically able-bodied, and have much more experience in things like climbing/ropework, animal husbandry, sewing, fieldcraft, etc.

So for a lot of that mundane stuff, I wouldn't require a roll unless it was dramatically appropriate.

I think it's as you say, the module writers are demonstrating the new rules to us, and in that respect it's very well placed. Coming to it, most groups will iron out how they want to handle the rule in the future.

In any case, back to the game. Chandan is up.

Going down is easy. It is the sudden stop that makes things more challenging. I have met people who have fallen from great heights and survived with little more than bruising. So it is completely a luck of the draw element. I know a guy who fell 60 feet off a cliff and broke both ankles. He had to walk out because there was no one around to help him. Again...

None of that matters, as I don't want to try it.

Just had to comment that this is one of the very, very few times I have ever seen the Wind Wall spell actually be useful. Nice.