I was recently surprised to learn the exact details of Climb checks for PCs that take damage while climbing. RAW states that a PC that takes damage has to make a Climb skill check; the DC of this check is entirely based upon the difficulty of the surface the PC is climbing. The amount of damage has no effect on this DC.
Did I read this right?? Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't compute. It seems like the DC should be increased based upon the amount of damage the PC takes.
Any sage advice here from smart gamers?
If it comes up often enough, houserule it if you're uncomfortable with it.
The fact is, the hitpoint system isnt perfect, and isnt meant to model each wound individually, so won't be realistic in all situations.
Your wizard casts spells just as easily with 1 hp as he did with 23. Similar, you can climb just as well with 10 hp knocked off as 20, provided you survive. It's just the way the system works, and I don't think its worth changing, tbh.
Actually, I won't be able to house-rule it in this instance. This is a detail I needed to iron out for an upcoming convention game I'll be running, and to keep things totally unbiased and fair (and to keep players from going ballistic) I'm gonna have to keep things strictly straight-from-the-book.
Ah well. Guess there just won't be many PCs falling off the central tower.
Pity. ;)
You might be surprised -- don't forget about armor check penalties hitting the roll.