It has climb as a class skill because a camel is an animal. A fighter who lost a hand has still climb as a class skill but he cannot climb by RAW. Fly is also a class skill but please dont ask for a flying camel.
RAW is clear and realistic regarding who can climb and who not. You have two hands or a climb speed ..
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/climb
"You need both hands free to climb, "
"Size Any creature of Tiny or smaller size should use its Dex modifier instead of its Str modifier for Climb and Swim checks."
So many creatures can have the climb skill, although many lack hands. Per RAW what are their climb checks?
Practical example, party with human cavalier and a gnome sorcerer want to enter a fort, have to scale wooden walls. Sorcerer dumbed str and has 1 rank in climb for -2 value, camel has 2 ranks, its class skill and it has str 20 (from human eye for talent) for +11.
Climb DC per table is 21. Per RAW, this looks at first glance as if the camel takes 10 and climbs up with easy, while the gnome has just a 1 in 10 chance to succeed and a 65% to take fall damage. So the camel is no problem for the party to get across the wall, but for the sorcerer they need rope or someother method.
From realism, that might cause some discussions at some tables, because usually camels are not known for climbing up trees (which the camel can do with even less problems). And the camel does not meet the criteria "both hands free" ever, so on the other hand can never climg per this RAW part. Yet it has climb as class skill.
I think you're conflating a lot of things here.
First of all, you needing both hands free to climb isn't a statement that everything needs both hands free to climb. The designers have acknowledged that the rules assume humanoids as the base case. If you were playing a monkey, for example, you should have no problem climbing through trees using only your feet and prehensile tail. A slug wouldn't need any of that.
I'd disallow the camel taking the climb skill in the first place, for the same reason I'd disallow it taking the fly skill, because camels, as you point out, can't climb. The rules explicitly state that a animal needs to be able to physically to use the skills/feats/whatnot -- if you insisted on saying "but a camel can walk up sand dunes, and I want to put ranks in climb to represent his being sure-footed," I might let this go, but this still wouldn't let a camel climb over a wall or shinny up a rope.
Similarly, flying squirrels can glide, which you could represent with the fly skill, but they still can't fly, and no amount of skill points will change that.
But it's impractical for the designers to put a list of every skill that an animal can or can't take based on its form. There's a reason the GM is there.
This shouldn't, by the way, be controversial. If my character has a +25 perception but is deaf, then he still can't make Perception checks to hear noises. No amount of Craft (weapons) skill will let me forge a longsword with neither a forge nor raw material. Survival won't let me track a flying creature by its footprints. You can't forge a document if you have no idea what it looks like, and one could easily rule that you can't forge a document in a language where you don't even know what the alphabet looks like.
RAW says creature with climb speeds must also make climb checks. RAW does not say that they can climb without free hands. So snakes, spiders and leopards have a climb speed, but cannot climb due to lack of hands.
Not does it say that they can't climb without hands. It says that YOU cannot climb without free hands.
News flash: you're not a spider.
The issue is design. If camels can climb, the cavalier is a lot more powerful than if camels cannot climb. I do not care either, but i know that such an important balance decision cannot solely rest upon applying realism.
Shrug. The game world is as realistic as you want it to be, until magic makes it unrealistic.
If you say camels cannot use climb skills because of realism, all cavaliers are damned to be beast riders and pick tigers, because they can climb and a non-climbing mount sucks horribly.
I do say so. Good thing wands of Spider Climb are cheap, huh?
The flip side of that is that you can ride your camel into town without attracting much attention; a mount that will get you killed instantly by every town guard also sucks horribly. Good thing illusion spells are cheap, huh?
No matter which mount your cavalier picks, I can make sure it causes problems.
Therefore i would truly want to know,if there is any RAI or maybe that design ignored the important problem for a cavalier to drag his mount along.
I'm fairly sure that RAI is that humans need hands free to climb. I'm fairly sure that RAI is that animals are supposed to behave as animals do, and therefore camels neither climb, nor fly, nor burrow, nor swim at depth, nor eat meat, nor shoot laser beams out of their eyes. If as the DM you want arboreal carnivorous bathypelagic camels, wave your hand and make it so. And as a player, you can ask your dungeon master.
Every thorp has a 1st level druid, because all first level druid spells are available for hire in any thorp, so people are used to crazy animal companions. What city guards do you have, that are brave enough to attack a knight with lance riding a tiger?a mount that will get you killed instantly by every town guard also sucks horribly.
Poisoned crossbows and cover. Which are ALSO available in any thorp.
Ok, if you as GM want to make companions suck, you obviously can do so. But is it PF intention for horse companions to suck and tiger companions to be ok, since the latter can climb?
Nope. I believe it's PF's intentions for different companions to be different. The judgment about whether or not they "suck" is yours, and reflects more about what kind of campaign you are involved in than it does their design intentions.
I don't think I've ever found myself in a situation where I needed my cavalier's mount to climb. I recognize that your gaming style is obviously rather different from mine in that regard. However, even in the published AP paths that I've seen, "climb" is a very marginal and situational skill --- are you seriously going to try to take your tiger up the rigging of your ship in Skull and Shackles?
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Carn, here is a rule you may have missed:
The Most Important Rule
The rules presented are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
Camels cannot climb in real life, so don't let them. Snakes can climb some surfaces in real life, so let them. If you continually try to qualify the actions that characters/creatures can take based on general rules logic, you are going to get some crazy results. You will also get some frustrated players. Loosen up and use some common sense, dude.
When the rules say "you" they are speaking to someone playing a medium or small humanoid creature because that is what most PC will use.
There is no rule for everything so you should use realistic rules until magic or special abilities come into play.
Could a camel climb a 35 degree incline? Most likely, but the game does not normally make you use a climb skill for that.
Could a camel climb a vertical wall? No.
But the point is, normally for something basic like "can that companion guy who is with me from level 1 to 20 climb or not" the answer should not be "look into a book about biology".
But the answer isn't "look in a book about biology." The answer is "(have the game master) use common sense." I don't need to look at a book to know that elephants can't fly, that vultures can't swim, and that spiders can climb even without having hands.
When the rules say "you" they are speaking to someone playing a medium or small humanoid creature because that is what most PC will use.
No:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/valiant-steed
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/narrow-frame
There is no rule for everything so you should use realistic rules until magic or special abilities come into play.
Those rules are for animals. I should not have even have to go out of my way to explain rules like that were not what I meant. Please tell me you were arguing semantics.
Why should one use realistic rules for climbing level 1 - 5, when the weapon damage rules and fall damage rules are not realistic 1 to 5?
To answer the rest of your questions:
There is going to be some level of suspension of belief just like in movies, but if taken too far people will be turned off. I am sure when you watch a movie you can understand someone taking a sword and surviving, but if camels stalk climbing walls like spiders you would be saying "WTF"...
PS:Hit points are an abstraction, and dont just represent your life force. That is how you can march all day with 1 HP left.
If you want something to represent your lifeforce a game using the wound system would be better for you.
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When the rules say "you" they are speaking to someone playing a medium or small humanoid creature because that is what most PC will use.
No:
Yes. Word of God (or at least the designer) on the matter:
The system is built assuming the PCs are normal PC-race humanoids, not freaks. Deviating from that is going to deviate from the game's default assumptions. That's what happens when you have a living game system that continues to publish options that potentially bend or break all of the core rules... especially when you combine them together.
Makes more sense to use rules that fit to the rest of the rules and that fit to the intended result.
... and I see no reason whatsoever that the intended result was that camels should be able to fly.
You forgot to infect the in-game 1st level fighter with Filth Fever for bleeding out on a dirty battlefield.
I understand what you are asking, but you won't get it down to that level of detail in the rules.
An animal might statistically be able to climb the wall, if you only look at the climb bonus, but that does not mean it is possible<--There are probably other examples besides climb that you could use.
I just said you can't go by numbers alone. You can have a +4000 UMD, but if you can manupilate the item the number means nothing.