Be GMing

you did right. if a check was impossible you shouldn't ask for it and if you do on accident the only reason to enforce failure is if the results are relatively minor, and you can make them some how interesting. trapped with monsters is rarely minor, and probably wouldn't have been a good version of interesting.

This but with xegrees of success in mind. The 19 should have made him "succeed" in that he slowly makes his way up, narrowly avoiding the danger, possibly having to make second check or a penalty to some ability while he catches his breath.

I would have also accepted success but with a drawback. It's not like missing the climb DC by 1 ever means you fall off. It has to be more severe a failure for that, and "no progress" is just too boring. Maybe he gets attacked, (has to) drops something, or one of the monsters makes it up too.

I'm more curious as to whether there was another way to escape or if you were a bad GM and made an inescapable scenario that would have led to death.

OP here. They slipped on a muddy hill during a rainstorm and slid into a gully. They had checks and saves but a extreme luck of bad rolls meant 3 characters slid into the 30ft deep ditch. A character good with acrobatics (the monk) tied a rope to a tree and went down to help them. One of the 3 rolled max damage on their fall and nearly went to negatives. Then the mini velociraptors that were stuck down there from the storm attacked and they had to deal with that. The monk offered to carry the low hp character up the rope (because another fall could cause a knock out) and the other had alter self to give themselves a climb speed. The last one (a sorcerer) had to climb up without assistance and rolled the 19 nat 20.

New time raise DC by one to make up for this.

I fudge the numbers in favor of storytelling a fair bit. Never enough to ruin tension, but if a player succeeding by the skin of their teeth makes for a more interesting story than heartbreaking failure, I let it ride.

It's not the best, no doubt there. But I'm a sucker for telling a 'better' story that my players are excited to talk about.

>Be frail caster with poor arm strength
>Cornered by monsters at the bottom of a pit
>Group throws a rope to help me up
>Death is the only alternative
>Frantically try to scramble up the rope as the beasts close in
>Natural 20
>DM: "You climb up the rope SO FAST you FLY INTO THE SKY and LAND ON THE MOON XDDD"

It brings up the issue of hidden DCs though. That player had no idea if the DC was 20. For all he knew, it was a DC 15 or 10 climb and was completely doable even with the stat penalty.

The only ways to prohibit such a roll withot fudging numbers would be to:
a) tell them the DC before the roll, thus saving them a roll if they realize it's impossible.
b) let the guy roll and fail
c) keep a record of every character's maximum saves/checks, so that you never throw an impossible check at them.

This isn't exclusive to d20 systems. A GM can accidentally give a player an impossible challenge in practically any system.

But hidden DCs prevent metagaming and allow for more suspense!

Players are going to metagame regardless.
>Hey a 20 hit but a 17 didn't. His AC is either 18 or 19
>It's a fey type creature and our attacks are doing a lot less damage than they should? It probably has DR 5/ cold iron

5e?
DC 20 is too harsh. Lowering it is a good idea.

3.5 etc?
He could have invested in climbing. Having a low climbing when you're an adventurer is stupid.

IIRC, 3ed's DMG suggested that a natural 20 carry a +10 bonus instead of just being an auto-success, and likewise a natural 1 being a -10 penalty.

>Be frail caster with poor arm strength
>Cornered by monsters at the bottom of a pit
>Group throws a rope to help me up
>Death is the only alternative
>Frantically try to scramble up the rope as the beasts close in
>Natural 20
>DM: "You shoot up the rope, carried by adrenaline and sheer terror. If only your gym coach could see you now."

>Desperation bonus of +2
Problem solved.

D&D would be so much better with a degrees of success system.

You did good.

degree system isn't as rewarding as d20 when you really get the favour of the dice gods though

of course but you don't want them to metagame more

Was there another way to get out of that place?

Because if there wasn't one, the whole situation would have been "roll nat20 or you die lol".

It's nice to have something between outright success and dismal failure.

See

>Group throws a rope to help me up
>Fractically try to scramble up the rope
>12 intelligence person in the group above just says "Just wrap it around you, all of us are up here we will just pull you up."

wod/sr style diepools for dnd when?

You don't even have to go that far, just use the DC system on a sliding scale.

anyone who enforces this is a fucking shill.

>>Be frail caster with poor arm strength
>>Cornered by monsters at the bottom of a pit
>>Group throws a rope to help me up
>>Death is the only alternative
>>Frantically try to scramble up the rope as the beasts close in
>>Natural 20
>>DM: "You cast an experimental form of teleportation in which your current body is vaporized and then recreated in a nearby location a short distance away. You're certain that this will be a clone and not your current self. After spontaneously exploding in-front of your party members, you reappear a few moments later. The priest has fainted and the fighter is washing your blood out of his mouth in a nearby puddle. Noticing that the effect is only psychological on yourself and your mana reserves haven't been altered, you grab onto the nearest person and cast "teleport"."

>You begin to climb up the rope
>Halfway up, your hands start losing grip
>As you feel yourself on the verge of sliding back down, what do you do?

Telefrags are no laughing matter.

then roll to avoid telefrag :^)

Now you've got me thinking of a dwarf mage who teleports into people as a method of assassination. In a second, a nobleman discussing the fine wines of wine country explodes in a shower of blood and guts, a blood drenched dwarf where the noble was once located roaring a terrifying battlecry and waddling off to the next target

>shill
My 8 years on /v/ tells me you are using that word wrong. Why didn't you just call him a fag, fag?

>caught into anti-magic zone
>proceeds to bull-rush people

They didn't meet the DC means they couldn't climb the rope. If you're not going to use the rule of the game you might as well play freeform.

But there is. Maybe read the book sometime.

You know what you're talking about.

Precise DC calculation is tedious and inhibits the game. It's important for combat because that is a core of the game but something as mundane as a climb check should be on a sliding scale.

If that had been a tactical situation then I'd say success with cost. You get out but you sprain your wrist or lose a piece of equipment.

In most d20 games I count a nat 20 as a free action point. Since there's no formal rules for crit-ing skill use it gives the action a bump but doesn't break the scale. Any more broken than it already is anyway.

Personally, I have been in that situation because our group didn't thought the EL OH EL NAT FUCKIN 20" meme was tiring thanks to an old GM who would go out of his way to fuck people he didn't like with nat 1s and God mode people he liked with nat 20s. Ever watch a sword bend around a pillar and stab someone into negatives because a party member rolled a 1? I have. Same game someone threw a dagger, a normal 1d4 dagger at a fucking stone golem and split it in half because of a 20.

Anyway, we had fun in those gritty scenarios, and we had a DC20 checks come up with negative mods plenty of times. Except instead of

>the fighter leaps with all his might from and bravely falls to his death, but damn the leap was in perfect form!

It's

>The fighter leaps valiantly across the gap. His footing and timing are perfect. However, he still falls short. Give me a dex check to grab the ledge or for someone to catch him

>Nat 20
>Fails DC
If there was no way he could succeed why did you let him climb the rope you mongoloid

Oh wait I just read your spoiler. Yeah that's what I would have done. If you didn't know about his STR penalty you're fine, carry on.

rules are guideline, you aspie, not law

>Low strength character
>penalty is -1

That's not low strength. That's barely below average strength.

What I'm supposed to see there? D&D has a binary pass/fail resolution mechanic. Either you hit the orc or not, there's no degrees of success.

I an meta sense sure, but if they were building a character and not a sheet full of the most optimal choices it would be very reasonable for them to not have climb. Also depending on how the character was built and what their focus was they might not have had the skill points to allocate to climb. It's not like they are very generous with skill points in 3.5 and there are a lot of very useful skills that it would be dumb to be an adventurer and not have and most characters can't buy a tenth of them.

Or you hit the orc but he blocks your blow with his own weapon, or his armour blocks the blow, or it's just a flesh wound.
Of course all of these are fails but they didn't just miss

It just seems many people on Veeky Forums are unaware of this...

Also shill is paid advertiser pretending to be non-paid user

>Of course all of these are fails but they didn't just miss
Well the point is as far as mechanics are concerned they did 'just miss' as they did nothing. The point of a degrees of success and failure system is that something like a glancing blow or flesh would would still do some damage (not full damage but still some) instead of none at all and effectively missing.

...

What are you on about. Natural 20 is critical success. No penalties or bonuses apply you succeed. Do you also let people not fail when they roll 1's?

lol

That's your damage roll isn't it?
From a storytelling perspective you can say that a 1d8 damage roll of 1 just cut off a piece of the ork's armour or made a dent somewhere, while a roll of 7 or 8 could be seen as a big but not lethal cut made in his arm or leg or something (provided the ork has more than 8hp)

Is Rule 0 a rule?

I think your ruling in the situation was absolutely right, but I also think clambering up a muddy slope / steep incline, with a rope for assistance, should be considerably less than a DC20

>trying to wrap rope around yourself while monsters are shredding yor from every angle
>int 12

if you violate them too often, they become meaningless tho. might as well go freeform

Not in all systems retard.

lol

If you have autism.

Is this comment really necessary?

Is this thread?

No, I posted it before scrolling down. Sorry about that

Just let him climb the fucking rope. Skill challenges like these are lame anyway.

Hitting orcs is covered, but for climbing ropes: To make an ability check, roll a d20 and add the relevant ability modifier. As with other d20 rolls, apply bonuses and penalties, and compare the total to the DC. If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success—the creature overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it’s a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the GM.

And the DMG has more advice about that.

>game mechanics that limit player agency
>"muh objective truth of abiding by game mechanics"

It's a tabletop RPG you underage cretins, not a videogame.

How is knowing fey have Dr metagaming?

It is very common for people with below average strength not to be able to climb even a normal rope, let alone a slippery one. This is a situation where he should have tied it around himself and had a str character pull him up.

This is a failure on everyones part.

same way knowing trolls don't regenerate from fire and acid is.

Which is to say "the PCs spent their lives before the game started sealed in plastic bubbles isolated away from the rest of the world and never would have heard stories of common monsters unless they are a trained scholar or otherwise have Knowlege (whatever) ranks."

aren't fey usually VULNERABLE to cold iron?

Wait. Mini-velociraptors? Velociraptors are only about the size of a turkey, how small were these?

Although skill checks cannot crit, I believe they should be able to. I think you did the right thing, OP.

This. Sometimes people perform feats they seemed incapable of due to a mixture of luck, adrenaline and the will of fate. As long as nat 20s don't lead to stupid shit like in or allow the impossible, they can work.

I think OP has the idea that a velociraptor is about 7ft tall like in the Jurassic World movie..

Nothing stops you from adding one.

Tying a bowline is 3-5 seconds so half action or a action basically 1 quick hand motion.

Never ever use a bowline to wrap rope around yourself. That's literally the first thing you learn when learning to tie climbing ropes, and is in any manual about ropecraft. 'This is a bowline, do not use this to wrap role around yourself', or words to that effect.

Interesting as exactly opposite is a first lesson in sailing to a point where in may native language it is called "rescue knot"
If you fall out and manage to get a rope use a bowline as it is super quick.

Different environment I'd guess.
Still in OP's situation it may be better to get a fast knot than none.

In OP's situation I doubt that the sorcerer has the ranks in Profession(Sailing) to know that knot.

Woulnt be OOC for some kind of powerful fey creature to change his weakness just for fucking with people.

I believe the rescue knot is the alpine loop. Also pretty quick and easy to tie. I think Irecall that a bowline requires you to have the end of a piece of rope to tie it; the alpine loop doesn't. Freaking love that looooooop