Can you take 10 on climb?


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
Quintain wrote:
You guys are ignoring a lot of rules when you start talking your probabilities and quips about "auto failure".
So you hate take 10 but are fine with auto-succeed bonuses.

Wondered about that myself.


Saldiven wrote:

@Quintain:

Even if a character only falls on a roll of 1, once you get to the point that 14 checks have to be made, the character has greater than a 50% chance of falling on at least one of those checks. If a character has to make 20 checks, he has only a 35.85% chance of making every single one, and that's if they only fall on a 1.

If a character could normally succeed on a 10 (thereby making taking 10 just barely possible) and taking a fall on a five or less, the numbers are much tougher. Every required check after the second means the character is more than 50% likely to fall. If only 10 checks are required, there is only a 5.6% chance that all ten will be passed.

http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/binomial.aspx

Again, skill checks do not auto-fail on a 1.

In order to fall, you have to miss your check by > 5.

So, on a DC 20, with a spider harness, that's a modified DC 15. That would allow a level 0 character to climb that cliff at will with no effort and no climb skill, and no strength modifier with Take 10.

Because he would never fall...he would just have to take more time than someone who didn't miss his check.

Level 0, no climb skill, no strength. Your prototypical non-athlete commoner.


Quintain wrote:
thejeff wrote:

Climbing the cliff:

Fall!
12d6
Did you survive? Try again?

You forgot a few things:

1) Rolling a 1 isn't automatic failure.
2) You can get gear modifiers: See Spider harness
3) You get a saving throw to catch yourself in the case of a fall.

You guys are ignoring a lot of rules when you start talking your probabilities and quips about "auto failure".

So, you are saying that the only way a player should be able to climb this cliff without having to deal with obscure gear and rules is by getting their climb bonus so high that they won't even fail on a 1? You're basically just forcing the players to take 1 instead of take 10.


ITT:

1. Math is hard!!!

2. Being contrary for the sole purpose of being contrary is amusing for some people.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Quintain wrote:
So, on a DC 20, with a spider harness, that's a modified DC 15. That would allow a level 0 character to climb that cliff at will with no effort and no climb skill, and no strength modifier with Take 10.

That character would never succeed, as the DC is 15 and his check will never be more than a 10. Which earns him no progress.

Quintain wrote:
Because he would never fall...he would just have to take more time than someone who didn't miss his check.
Climb skill wrote:
A Climb check that fails by 4 or less means that you make no progress, and one that fails by 5 or more means that you fall from whatever height you have already attained.

A character who uses take 10 and gets a 10 against a DC 15 Climb check falls. One that uses take 10 and gets an 11 will never make any progress.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Quintain wrote:
You guys are ignoring a lot of rules when you start talking your probabilities and quips about "auto failure".
So you hate take 10 but are fine with auto-succeed bonuses.

This is no different results-wise than having a climb speed...which basically means that climbing is as natural as walking to you.

So, no, I don't have a problem with it.


Quintain wrote:
thejeff wrote:

Climbing the cliff:

Fall!
12d6
Did you survive? Try again?

You forgot a few things:

1) Rolling a 1 isn't automatic failure.
2) You can get gear modifiers: See Spider harness
3) You get a saving throw to catch yourself in the case of a fall.

You guys are ignoring a lot of rules when you start talking your probabilities and quips about "auto failure".

I'm sorry that I haven't been spelling out all the conditions in every case:

This represents the best case scenario in which I have to bother to roll. If my climb skill is such that I don't fall even on a roll of 1, I'm going to auto succeed. If I fall on a roll of one, if I have to roll enough times, I will almost certainly fall.
That climb skill includes gear modifiers - though I don't know what a spider harness is.
(In theory, if time is a sufficiently constraining factor then you might need to roll anyway to see how many times you don't make progress, but that doesn't add to the risk you keep talking about.)

You don't get a saving throw to catch yourself. You get an impossible Climb check

Quote:
It’s practically impossible to catch yourself on a wall while falling. Make a Climb check (DC = wall’s DC + 20) to do so.

Since you just failed that base DC by 6 points, you can't make that DC+20 even if you roll a 20.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Quintain wrote:
So, no, I don't have a problem with it.

I'm afraid I don't follow that.

On a side note, you are aware that creatures with climb speeds still have to make the check right? For the longest time, I didn't.


Quintain wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:
Quintain wrote:

As a BBEG, the perfect place to hide my mcguffin is in a small cave half way up a 300' cliff.

You guys would never find it...because it is "too tedious" to get to if you actually had to roll dice.

No he wouldn't - just like EVERYONE ELSE, he FAILED at least one of his 20 climb checks and fell to his death trying to hide it - your mcguffin is lying on the ground at the base of the cliff, along with the corpse of your BBEG.
Nope, he used gear to prevent himself from falling.

And in so doing he removed all risk for falling... How is that different from removing the risk for falling by taking 10? And how come the players can't "use gear to prevent themselves from falling"?


Nobody is ignoring that 1 isn't an auto-fail on skill checks. The problem was set up such that rolling a 1 is the only number on which a person can fail.

It's to demonstrate that even the most skilled climber who still has one possible chance at failure is virtually guaranteed to fail if the climber cannot take 10, even if not distracted.

Nobody is arguing about autofailure. If you think that, you're completely missing the point.


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I also cannot find a "Spider Harness" anywhere in any Paizo publication. Could we get a source?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I believe I have crystallized Quintain's complaint with Take 10.

He does not like that a character with no investment can climb a DC 10 wall. The disconnect is he thinks this is a DC 10 wall, while the rest of us are imagining this.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.


Wait catch me up here so T10 is some evil abomination because no risk on walls of skill modifier +10 or lower. But jacking my stats up till I can't fail at all is cool? But what about the risk and the excitement I mean how could someone be so good they don't ever risk falling.

Shadow Lodge

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TriOmegaZero wrote:

I believe I have crystallized Quintain's complaint with Take 10.

He does not like that a character with no investment can climb a DC 10 wall. The disconnect is he thinks this is a DC 10 wall, while the rest of us are imagining this.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Yeah, it's not like every grade school I ever saw growing up didn't have a climbing rope in the gym. That's what DC 15?


Quintain wrote:

Again, skill checks do not auto-fail on a 1.

In order to fall, you have to miss your check by > 5.

So, on a DC 20, with a spider harness, that's a modified DC 15. That would allow a level 0 character to climb that cliff at will with no effort and no climb skill, and no strength modifier with Take 10.

Because he would never fall...he would just have to take more time than someone who didn't miss his check.

Level 0, no climb skill, no strength. Your prototypical non-athlete commoner.

Spider harness doesn't exist.

You can have a climber's kit, but that only gives +2 to climb checks.

Even with your spider harness, you wouldn't be able to climb your DC 15 wall taking 10 (1d20+0 DC 15, means you need 15 to succeed, not 10).

So, you have 30% chance of going up 5ft by check.
You have 20% chance of not making progress.
You have 50% chance of falling, losing any progress made and taking some damage.

Congratulations, you would die a thousand time before climbing a 300ft wall.

You're thinking making a check is interesting, and that falling to do something you're supposed to be good at something interesting.

Guess what ? It isn't.

Sovereign Court

Boots of the Cat


Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Boots of the Cat

In that case, why not just take Slippers of spider climbing ?

Grand Lodge

Conman the Bardbarian wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:

I believe I have crystallized Quintain's complaint with Take 10.

He does not like that a character with no investment can climb a DC 10 wall. The disconnect is he thinks this is a DC 10 wall, while the rest of us are imagining this.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Yeah, it's not like every grade school I ever saw growing up didn't have a climbing rope in the gym. That's what DC 15?

I think the Gym room rope is a great example!

DC 12, or DC 10 seems more fitting.


Boots of the Cat will minimize your damage, but you'll still have a lot of trouble making to the top. You'll spend a lot of real-time making rolls and still burn through some healing.

The slippers work.

There are any number of ways to avoid having to make the climb checks. The wizard can levitate someone up with a long rope. With any positive modifier, you can't fall then. You can haul anyone else.

Rolling lots of checks with even a slight chance of catastrophic failure isn't one of the options.

Edit: An item or such that gave you a chance to recover from that roll of one would help a lot. Items that just boost your Climb only move it from "Not climbing because I'll fall" to "Don't have to roll".


blackbloodtroll wrote:
Conman the Bardbarian wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:

I believe I have crystallized Quintain's complaint with Take 10.

He does not like that a character with no investment can climb a DC 10 wall. The disconnect is he thinks this is a DC 10 wall, while the rest of us are imagining this.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Yeah, it's not like every grade school I ever saw growing up didn't have a climbing rope in the gym. That's what DC 15?

I think the Gym room rope is a great example!

DC 12, or DC 10 seems more fitting.

Quote:
DC 5: A rope with a wall to brace against, or a knotted rope, or a rope affected by the rope trick spell.

Which means I sucked back in grade school. I could never get up that thing.

Shadow Lodge

Your rope was knotted?!

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

Let's see if I can restate this (and get all the numbers right).

I think we all agree that if there is a climber in the party who (if using all the gear, feats, etc.) doesn't fail the check by 5 or more even if he rolls a one, he'll automatically succeed at the climb.

What we're looking at here is a climber who is not quite that good; a roll of a 1 (but only a 1) fails the check by 5, resulting in a fall. Rolls of 2, 3, 4 or 5 result in no progress, and rolls of 6 or higher succeed at the climb check.

After re-rolling until a definite result is obtained, this works out to a probability of 1/16 that the climber will fall, and 15/16 that the climber will advance one step.

For a goal half-way up a 300' wall, a typical character will advance by 7.5' with a single move action. That means he will have to string together 20 successful advances. His chance of doing this is only 27.5% ((15/16)^20).

That is for a climber who can only fail on a 1. If the climber isn't quite that good, but instead fails on either a 1 or a 2, the probabilities for a single step work out to 2/16 chances of a fall, and 14/16 chances of advancement, for a less than 7% chance of reaching the goal.

With a climb speed of 30' (necessitating 5 advances), things look a little better; the climber who only falls on a 1 has a 72.4% chance of making it up to the cave without falling. The climber who falls on a roll of 1 or 2, though, still has only about an even chance (51.3%) of succeeding.

Edit: this doesn't depend on an even distribution - it only assumes fair dice. In fact even distributions are extremely unlikely; if you're rolling more than five d20s, there's a greater than 50% chance that two or more of the dice will show the same value.


TOZ wrote:
Your rope was knotted?!

I think so? Maybe not? It was a long time ago.

Let's say it wasn't. Makes me feel better. DC 15: "Unknotted Rope"

Grand Lodge

So, what is the DC of this rope?


Unknotted Rope? DC 15

Mind you, a thinner rope is harder. Potentially much harder.

They're also keeping the kids from climbing too high.


That rope CLEARLY has knots at the bottom. DC is 5.


Komoda wrote:
That rope CLEARLY has knots at the bottom. DC is 5.

That is a knotted rope.


The first roll is DC 5. The second, once you're past standing on the knot is DC 15.

Grand Lodge

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Heroes... sometimes defeated by gym class.

Epic!

Shadow Lodge

Yes, the gym's climbing rope is thicker, but it also fits the description of the DC 15 adequate handholds and footholds, and a tree is also listed as an example.

DC 15 tree to probably DC 17-20 rope from climber that can't put ranks in climb.


Avh wrote:


Spider harness doesn't exist.

You can have a climber's kit, but that only gives +2 to climb checks.

Even with your spider harness, you wouldn't be able to climb your DC 15 wall taking 10 (1d20+0 DC 15, means you need 15 to succeed, not 10).

Sorry, I used the wrong name, possibly a memory of the name of the same item from 2nd edition: Spider Harness =

http://www.archivesofnethys.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Second-s tory%20harness

My objection to take 10 is basically game philosophy -- it's hand waving of things that are relatively dangerous activities. Defined as relatively dangerous due to the fact that failure leads to the potential for death.

You could easily extend this philosophy to combat and "take 10" and just crunch numbers and say who wins combat.

Question for you probability types: If you take a -5 on your checks (effectively increasing your DC by 5), but you have to only make 50% of the checks in question, do you have a greater probability of succeeding given a starting DC 20 dungeon wall?


Er... You have read the description for the Second Story Harness right? The harness does nothing to keep you from falling while climbing, the +5 circumstance bonus is only active when you are secured in place (by definition not moving) and the bonus is only applied against climb checks to avoid falling when taking damage - ie it'll help you if someone is shooting at you, but not when you roll badly on a normal climb check.

Here's a Harness clicky for convenience.

Assuming the harness worked the way you thought it would though, that's an item that trivializes the risk of climbing a cliff - exactly the thing you seem to object against the Take 10 rule for doing?


Kudaku wrote:

Er... You have read the description for the Second Story Harness right? The harness does nothing to keep you from falling while climbing, the +5 circumstance bonus is only active when you are secured in place (by definition not moving) and the bonus is only applied against climb checks to avoid falling when taking damage - ie it'll help you if someone is shooting at you, but not when you roll badly on a normal climb check.

Here's a Harness clicky for convenience.

Assuming the harness worked the way you thought it would though, that's an item that trivializes the risk of climbing a cliff - exactly the thing you seem to object against the Take 10 rule for doing?

It requires an investment to succeed vs hand-waving. And a dependency on equipment can be exploited by enemies. Hand-waving cannot.


And you realize that your villain now needs to invest in a piece of equipment that doesn't actually exist?


Quintain wrote:
Kudaku wrote:


Assuming the harness worked the way you thought it would though, that's an item that trivializes the risk of climbing a cliff - exactly the thing you seem to object against the Take 10 rule for doing?
It requires an investment to succeed vs hand-waving. And a dependency on equipment can be exploited by enemies. Hand-waving cannot.

The PC investing skills points to make it so a Take 10 passes requires an investment to succeed. Enemies can exploit the fact that you can't Take 10 if combat is happening since combat is distracting.

Plus I don't see how a PC waving their hands around would help anyone, though it would be harder to climb while doing so ;)


Quintain wrote:
Kudaku wrote:

Er... You have read the description for the Second Story Harness right? The harness does nothing to keep you from falling while climbing, the +5 circumstance bonus is only active when you are secured in place (by definition not moving) and the bonus is only applied against climb checks to avoid falling when taking damage - ie it'll help you if someone is shooting at you, but not when you roll badly on a normal climb check.

Here's a Harness clicky for convenience.

Assuming the harness worked the way you thought it would though, that's an item that trivializes the risk of climbing a cliff - exactly the thing you seem to object against the Take 10 rule for doing?

It requires an investment to succeed vs hand-waving. And a dependency on equipment can be exploited by enemies. Hand-waving cannot.

If the enemy is around to exploit a weakness in equipment, isn't he also around to shoot arrows at the climber negating the ability to take 10?


Kudaku wrote:
And you realize that your villain now needs to invest in a piece of equipment that doesn't actually exist?

The equipment as it is described can also be used by securing a rope to it and threading a rope through pitons so that in case of a fall, it stops them prior to actually reaching a significant distance that would cause them damage.

You know...kinda like how it works in actuality.

Which incidentally, will allow someone to climb an obstacle that would actually ensure periodic failures.

Inventive and imaginative gaming vs hand waving.


Based on Quintain's house rules concerning climb and take 10, why do I feel the odds are good he's likely had a TPK dealing with calm water?


bbangerter wrote:


If the enemy is around to exploit a weakness in equipment, isn't he also around to shoot arrows at the climber negating the ability to take 10?

Tell me, when invisible, do you always attack, and thus break invisibility?


Here's the thing. Climb is tied with Swim (and depending on how you look at it, Linguistics) as the weakest skill in Pathfinder. Climb and Swim are primarily relevant at very low levels and are quickly and utterly eclipsed by low level magic spells and cheap magical items that do everything the skill can do, better. While you can have a climb modifier of +5 or +50, it doesn't change the fact that the 3rd level wizard will happily beat you to the top of the wall with a single cast of Spider Climb or Levitate.

Your house rule heavily punishes characters with a decent but not dramatically high climb modifier. "Decent but not dramatically high" skill bonuses are primarily found at low levels, when characters don't have the resources available to really specialize skills and guarantee that, for example, a low climb roll won't see them fall of a cliffside. Because of the extremely numerous rolls a climber needs to make to climb even a moderate cliff, that all but guarantees that he will plummet off it potentially to his death.

Your house rule annihilates the one small niche where the climb skill (and presumably also the swim skill) is potentially useful.


Quintain wrote:
Tell me, when invisible, do you always attack, and thus break invisibility?

Not sure, but the point of this discussion is remaining invisible.


Superman (RIP) was ultimately killed by an accident while jumping on a horse. Can you no longer take 10 for ride checks?


Quintain wrote:
Quote:


Nah. Rolling a bunch of dice with no tactics or decisions isn't fun.

You assume that there is nothing to find while climbing said cliff. It's just an obstacle that exists between you and your BBEG.

As a BBEG, the perfect place to hide my mcguffin is in a small cave half way up a 300' cliff.

You guys would never find it...because it is "too tedious" to get to if you actually had to roll dice.

I don't see any relevance to this.

Scenario 1: PC is allowed to take and climbs straight up the cliff (and does or does not notice a cave while doing so).
Scenario 2: PC invested even more in climb and auto-succeeds because even a 1 isn't a failure. Climbs straight up the cliff (and does or does not notice a cave while doing so).
Scenario 3: PC does not have enough climb skill to either take 10 (or is not allowed to be GM fiat).
3a) Attempts it anyway, and dies trying. May or may not notice a cave in the cliff while doing so.
3b) Attempts it anyway and succeeds. May or may not notice a cave in the cliff while doing so.

If the mcguffin is in a cave in the cliff then either
1) You roll perception for them to notice the cave and they notice it or they don't. This has nothing to do with climbing.
2) As a GM you failed to provide adequate in game clues to the story to suggest they search the cliff area carefully. Again, this has nothing to do with climbing.


Quintain wrote:
bbangerter wrote:


If the enemy is around to exploit a weakness in equipment, isn't he also around to shoot arrows at the climber negating the ability to take 10?

Tell me, when invisible, do you always attack, and thus break invisibility?

Does it matter?

When would be the best time to attack in such a scenario? Probably the half-way point when the PC is in the worst possible position. At which point it doesn't matter if they are using gear to help climb, or taking 10 (and no longer able to once you start attacking). The point at which the invisible BBEG decides to reveal himself doesn't change anything for this.


Kudaku wrote:

Here's the thing. Climb is tied with Swim (and depending on how you look at it, Linguistics) as the weakest skill in Pathfinder. Climb and Swim are primarily relevant at very low levels and are quickly and utterly eclipsed by low level magic spells and cheap magical items that do everything the skill can do, better. While you can have a climb modifier of +5 or +50, it doesn't change the fact that the 3rd level wizard will happily beat you to the top of the wall with a single cast of Spider Climb or Levitate.

Your house rule heavily punishes characters with a decent but not dramatically high climb modifier. "Decent but not dramatically high" skill bonuses are primarily found at low levels, when characters don't have the resources available to really specialize skills and guarantee that, for example, a low climb roll won't see them fall of a cliffside. Because of the extremely numerous rolls a climber needs to make to climb even a moderate cliff, that all but guarantees that he will plummet off it potentially to his death.

Your house rule annihilates the one small niche where the climb skill (and presumably also the swim skill) is potentially useful.

My "house rule" (which really isn't -- this is a philosophical discussion) is leveraged to reward intelligent and imaginative game play and not use rules that trivialize the game world's environment.

No everyone that uses the Pathfinder d20 base ruleset plays in the high magic environment that you assume.

Have you ever played a campaign with no arcane or divine magic?


Quote:


Does it matter?

When would be the best time to attack in such a scenario? Probably the half-way point when the PC is in the worst possible position. At which point it doesn't matter if they are using gear to help climb, or taking 10 (and no longer able to once you start attacking). The point at which the invisible BBEG decides to reveal himself doesn't change anything for this.

Yes, it would matter, if your BBEG's minions are worth more than the paper they are written on and actually react to your actions and are pro-active in their own right.

Or do all your BBEGs sit in the room at the top of the tower waiting for you to come kill them?

Why would you not choose to remain invisible and untie the rope from it's secured point without breaking invisibility and revealing your position making you a target for potential counter attack?


Here's an interesting feat I found:

[url=http://www.archivesofnethys.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Sure%20Grasp]Sure Grasp[/url

Quote:

Source Ultimate Combat pg. 1 (Amazon)

Your quick reflexes and skill at climbing keep you from falling to your doom.

Prerequisites: Climb 1 rank.

Benefit: Roll twice while climbing or when making a Reflex save to avoid falling, and take the higher result.

How does this little gem alter our probabilities of making our 300' successful climb?

Shadow Lodge

Quintain wrote:
Quote:


Does it matter?

When would be the best time to attack in such a scenario? Probably the half-way point when the PC is in the worst possible position. At which point it doesn't matter if they are using gear to help climb, or taking 10 (and no longer able to once you start attacking). The point at which the invisible BBEG decides to reveal himself doesn't change anything for this.

Yes, it would matter, if your BBEG's minions are worth more than the paper they are written on and actually react to your actions and are pro-active in their own right.

Or do all your BBEGs sit in the room at the top of the tower waiting for you to come kill them?

Why would you not choose to remain invisible and untie the rope from it's secured point without breaking invisibility and revealing your position making you a target for potential counter attack?

Why not just have the BBEG be a collosal stone giant? Let them get to the top and then break the grapple.

Grandad is waking up! Run for your lives.


Quintain wrote:


My "house rule" (which really isn't -- this is a philosophical discussion)

Well, that's a relief. :)

Quintain wrote:
is leveraged to reward intelligent and imaginative game play and not use rules that trivialize the game world's environment.

That may well be your goal, but it's not the actual result of the rule. You're creating a rules system where players are constantly being punished for performing tasks they should be able to easily solve. Why would I take craft magic item feats if I can fail a basic roll and waste tens of thousands of gold on an item my character should in theory have no problem creating? Why should I try to climb a cliff and almost certainly plummet to my death when I can simply delegate the task to someone who can do the same thing with zero risk?

Quintain wrote:

No everyone that uses the Pathfinder d20 base ruleset plays in the high magic environment that you assume.

Have you ever played a campaign with no arcane or divine magic?

I have done so several times. In 3.5 and Pathfinder I've generally found it to be less than enjoyable since many GMs don't understand that the relatively constant presence of spells and magical items is hardcoded into the system, and it performs extremely poorly without them.

I have absolutely no problem with you wanting to run a campaign with no arcane or divine magic, but I can guarantee you that Pathfinder is not the best system for that game.


Quote:


Why would I take craft magic item feats if I can fail a basic roll and waste tens of thousands of gold on an item my character should in theory have no problem creating?

Why would you try anything where you have any chance of failing...is basically your question. Or are you only willing to risk failure when it's really important to you.

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