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Most humanoids stand somewhere between 5 and 6 feet tall. Their arms are probably at least two feet long. That's maybe a one or two foot jump to grab the edge of the pit (DC 10 Acrobatics), and then they can pull themselves up. Bad guy is out a full round action, but no longer.
This isn't quite the case, climbing or jumping out isn't nearly as easy as you think. Remember the edges are sloped so there is no real "edge" for them to grab onto. The rules for such are included right in the spell description.
The pit’s coarse stone walls have a Climb DC of 25.
Most humanoids stand somewhere between 5 and 6 feet tall. Their arms are probably at least two feet long. That's maybe a one or two foot jump to grab the edge of the pit (DC 10 Acrobatics), and then they can pull themselves up. Bad guy is out a full round action, but no longer. This seems to match with the intent of a low-level spell or trap. I usually don't even make them roll unless they're in heavy armor.
TL;DR - I've always ruled that a Medium sized character can just pull themselves out of a pit as a full round action without a roll.
I've had people argue this same point. Then I asked them to simulate this with a 10-foot brick wall. Most of the time they couldn't reach the 10-foot mark, let alone get their fingertips to it and that's even with a jump (most of these people were between 5 and 6 feet tall). Reach is actually overrated, particularly when you are fully extended and trying to grab onto a surface.
Now, I'm not saying that a trained professional (or an adventurer) couldn't do it, but in the middle of battle it should still require a roll for low-level or untrained characters.
This spell was used several times last nights game to GREAT effect. I allowed one player to put up the pit, and the party alchemist to just drop bomb after bomb on top of them with nothing they could do to escape in time. Everyone else picked up a ranged weapon and started mocking the soon dead creatures as they picked them off as they helplessly clawed at the walls.
So how do they get line of effect to things at the bottom of the pit without chancing falling in?
-James
Dragons? Killed them. Gorgons? Killed them. Giants? Killed them.
Leaning over a hole and shooting?
We died.
This spell was used several times last nights game to GREAT effect. I allowed one player to put up the pit, and the party alchemist to just drop bomb after bomb on top of them with nothing they could do to escape in time. Everyone else picked up a ranged weapon and started mocking the soon dead creatures as they picked them off as they helplessly clawed at the walls.
So how do they get line of effect to things at the bottom of the pit without chancing falling in?
-James
Dragons? Killed them. Gorgons? Killed them. Giants? Killed them.
Leaning over a hole and shooting?
We died.
How did that happen?
There seem to be a number of problems with these spells
To what extent were they playtested?