Here's the edited and hopefully improved version of my climbing rules! I've simplified or changed a few things and added a couple more, but generally it's pretty much the same as the original. I was also planning to do a pretty significant section on mountaineering, but as I thought about it more I realized that mountaineering is a really huge and complicated subject that's really hard to gamify. I still intend to make some rules for it at some point, but it definitely needs to be its own post to do the subject the justice it deserves.
Gear
There's a lot of climbing gear and jargon so I'm going to make a
list of a lot of it here with definitions. "Slots" refers to the GLOG
inventory slots.
Anchor: An
anchor is what you
fix your ropes to at the top of something. Typically, it's a couple of
pieces of
protection or a solid natural feature such as a
large rock you can loop your rope around, something strong wedged in a
crack, or a solid well-rooted tree. A typical
anchor (not using a solid
natural feature) requires 3 pieces of
protection, and all
anchors require one
anchor (what a surprise), which takes 1/3rd of a slot.
Belay: Belaying is
controlling a rope that someone is climbing on the other end of so that
they can climb without the rope hindering them but have the rope hold
them when they fall. Since top-rope
belaying isn't relevant to RPGs,
being a purely recreational activity, this refers only to
lead belaying and
belaying from above.
Belay Anchor: A
belay anchor is what the
belayer (the person
belaying the climber) anchors them self to so that they don't go flying
off somewhere if their climber falls and yanks them, or if a rock hits
them in the head (wear your goddamn helmet), or any other unforeseen
occurrence would move you from where you need to be to belay. Constructed
the same as a regular
anchor.
Belay/Rappel Device: A
belay device is the equipment you use to
regulate the rope while
belaying so that you can actually take the force
of a fall, rather than the rope ripping itself from your hands. You can
belay without equipment using a
hip belay, but it isn't recommended. A
belay device can be just a simple
carabiner (using the Münter hitch),
but there are a variety. All
belay devices can also be used for
single-rope
rappelling, and most can be used for double-rope
rappelling. For our purposes, all
belay devices are 1/3rd of a slot and
can be used for
belaying, single-rope
rappelling, and double-rope
rappelling.
Bolt: A
bolt is a solid and permanent piece of
protection drilled into the rock. It doesn't require any natural features to
use, but to place one you must have a
drill (1/3rd slot, needs to be recharged). 1
bolt takes up
1/10th of a slot.
Carabiner: A
carabiner is a loop of steel with a gate. Many have
locking gates. They are unspeakably important for anchors and many other
climbing applications. If you are equipped for climbing, assume you
have infinite
carabiners because fuck keeping track of anchor
construction in detail.
Climbing Shoes: Climbing
shoes are specialized shoes with high-friction rubber on the bottom. If
you're equipped for climbing, you have a pair, and you
need them to climb difficult routes. If you're carrying them, a pair of
climbing shoes is 1 slot.
Crampons: Crampons are spikes that you attach to your boots in
order to ice climb or walk ice of more than moderate steepness (in
combination with an
ice axe to cut steps). If you're carrying them, a
pair of
crampons is 1/3rd of a slot.
Harness: A
harness is both what you wear to keep yourself attached to your
rope,
belay device,
anchors, etc, and where you attach all your climbing gear.
For our purposes, all harnesses include a personal anchor system (how
you attach yourself to an
anchor so you can do stuff with the
rope
you're tied to without falling), and do not take up any slots. In fact,
they count as a belt for quick-access slots.
Ice Axe: An
ice axe is a shaft with a point on one end and a head
consisting of a pick and an adze (or hammer) on the other end. Longer
ice axes are mostly used as walking sticks on ice and for keeping
yourself from sliding precipitously down an ice slope. The adze is
mostly used for cutting steps in ice. An
ice axe is also a
medium melee
weapon, although it requires two hands to use in combat, and takes a full slot.
Ice Tool: An
ice tool is a small
ice axe required for ice
climbing (typically, 2 are used for ice climbing). They generally have a
hammer rather than an adze. An
ice tool is a
light melee weapon, although it cannot be thrown, and takes 1/3rd of a slot.
Ice Screw: An
ice screw is a piece of
protection that
can be screwed into solid pieces of ice. They are reusable,
and 1
ice screw is 1/10th of a slot.
Mechanical Ascender: A
mechanical ascender is a small device that
allows you to ascend
fixed ropes. It grips the rope solidly unless
"opened" in order to move it along the
rope or take it off the
rope. A
mechanical ascender does not take up any slots, and you need at least
two to climb a
rope.
Pitch: A
pitch is a section
of a long climb that must be split up into portions (for
rope length or
many other reasons). A
pitch must have an appropriate spot for
anchoring and
belaying on either end.
Piton: A
piton is a piece of
protection. It is a small metal spike or
shim which can be hammered into cracks in the rock. 1
piton takes
1/10th of a slot, and using
pitons requires a
hammer or an
ice tool
(1/3rd of a slot). Unlike
ice screws and
sustainable protection (see
below),
pitons can only be successfully removed from the rock 50% of the
time.
Protection: Protection is the term for things you put into the
rock or ice and then attach to the
rope so that if you fall, your fall
will be arrested by the protection, or are used in order to create an
anchor.
Protection pieces also need slings of webbing and
carabiners
to attach them to the ropes, but we're assuming that those are included
with the pieces of
protection so you don't have to keep track of them.
Prusik Knot: A
Prusik knot (or one of the many, many variations
on it) is a knot used to tie a piece of cord or webbing around a
rope so
that the
rope can be ascended, or as a "third hand" while
rappelling
(don't worry about this; it's assumed you have one). A
Prusik knot does
not take any slots, and you need at least two to ascend a rope.
Rappel: Rappelling is the process of descending a face by
ropes
hanging from an
anchor on the top of the face. It can be done with a
single
rope or a doubled-up
rope, and there's a lot more detail in the
section on
rappelling in
Types of Climbing below.
Rope (Dynamic): Dynamic
ropes are
ropes which stretch under high forces in order to lessen the
force of a fall. They are mostly used for
free climbing (see
Types of
Climbing below). They can be used to
rappel, but this can cause bouncing
and put undue stress on the
anchor. Modern
dynamic ropes can get up to
80 meters long, but we'll assume that all
dynamic ropes are 200 feet
long and take 1 slot. Climbing with a
rope tied to you (such as
lead
climbing) takes 1/3rd of a slot.
Rope (Static): Static ropes are
ropes which do not stretch under
high forces. They are lighter than
dynamic ropes and are better for
rappelling, but should not be used for
free climbing unless there is no other option. A
static rope is 250
feet long and takes 1 slot. Climbing with a
rope tied to you takes 1/3rd
of a slot.
Sustainable Protection: Sustainable
protection refers to a number of various types of pieces of
protection
which, unlike
pitons, can be easily removed from the rock (usually) and
don't cause damage to the rock (although that's unlikely to be something
you're concerned about). The most common types are cams and nuts. 1
piece of
sustainable protection takes 1/3rd of a slot.
Types of Climbing
I'm going to restrict these rules to five types of getting
where you're going, with both ice and rock climbing included. The types
are aid climbing, free climbing, free soloing, rappelling, and climbing
along fixed lines. Rappelling isn't strictly a type of climbing, but
it's incredibly important, so we'll talk about it too. There's a couple
of things I'm leaving out that
could be relevant, like simulclimbing, but fuck it.
Aid Climbing
Aid climbing is using equipment to help you get
up/down the face. Vital gear is pitons or bolts, to secure your stuff
and yourself to the cliff. You have stuff like etrier (rope ladders),
fixed lines, belay/rappel devices, pulleys, and Prusik knots or
mechanical ascenders to help you and your stuff get up and down. Aid
climbing is slow but safe and, given a willingness to drill many holes,
pretty much infallible. It can be done solo or in teams of two to three. If you have an extra rope and someone at the base of the climb with extra gear, you don't need to worry about the encumbrance penalty (detailed in
How Do I Climb That Thing? below), because you can pull gear up to you as you need it.
Free Climbing
Free climbing is climbing with at least one partner
(we'll say no more than two partners for our purposes) and using
protection in the rock to keep yourself safe but not relying on that
protection to climb. You climb on the rock, but have a rope fixed to the
rock so if you fall it will hopefully not kill you. It's much faster
than aid climbing but carries significantly more risk.
Free Solo
Free solo climbing is climbing by yourself with nothing
but you and the rock. It's the fastest way to climb, but if you slip
that is it and you are dead. Not too much more to say about it; it's
very simple and very dangerous.
Rappelling
Rappelling is the main descent tool in a climber's
toolkit. You fix ropes at the top, then descend those ropes. As long as
your anchor at the top is solid, it's pretty much infallible. The
problem arises when you're on an overhang and your rope isn't long
enough to get to the bottom (if there is a bottom), because you go
straight down and the wall goes away from you. Your solutions are either
to downclimb (which is hard and awful) or, if the overhang isn't too
steep, to rappel a short distance, swing in to the wall, and hope
there's something to catch hold of so you don't swing away again. If you
can't swing in, you'll have to climb back up your anchor with Prusik
knots or mechanical ascenders. There are two types of rappelling -
single-rope and double-rope. Single-rope rappelling means fixing one end
of your rope at the top of the wall, meaning that you can use the full
length of the rope but the rope is stuck there unless someone is still
at the top to untie it. Double-rope rappelling means that your rope
length is halved, but that you can pull the rope through the anchor once
you're at the bottom. You can tie ropes together, but you can only tie
two ropes together for double-rope rappels because you can't pull the
knot through the anchor.
Fixed Lines
If there's a particularly difficult pitch you're
going to need to travel over a lot, or any pitch at all you need to get
non-climbers or heavy gear across, you'll want to use fixed lines. You
can anchor ropes along a traverse or up and down a vertical climb.
People can then attach themselves to these ropes using Prusik knots (or
any of the many variants) or mechanical ascenders. Just a simple
carabiner will work for easy traverses. You then climb along the
traverse, do
this along the vertical rope to get up, or rappel down along the vertical rope to get down. You can also set up pulley systems to raise and lower heavy items along fixed lines.
The Rules
Now that I've gotten all the preamble out of the way and
hopefully now that those who don't climb can understand a word I'm
saying, here are the actual rules. They're loosely based around the GLOG
(no specific hack) but they should be usable for any
given system with some adaptation.
The Climb Rolls
The mechanic I'm going to base this off is a
modified d20 roll over a DC. You have two modifiers - your
Climbing
modifier and your
Climbing Skill modifier. The
Climbing modifier is
either your Strength mod or your Dexterity modifier, whichever is
lower*,
plus an additional +5 if you're an
expert climber, or a +3 if
you're merely
proficient. This is used for the actual physical
acts of climbing. Your
Climbing Skill modifier is either your
Intelligence or Wisdom modifier, whichever is
higher, plus an
additional +5 if you're an
expert climber, or a +3 if you're a
proficient climber. This is used for the many technical skills
associated with climbing, such as
anchor construction and
belaying.
*Both Strength and Dexterity, in
D&D terms, are extremely important in climbing, and you will be
limited by whichever you are worse in.
What is This Climb Like?
This section should hopefully help DM's
determine how difficult a climb is. We'll use 2 numbers: D
ifficulty and
Security.
Difficulty is pretty straightforwards. A 1
Difficulty climb is relatively easy, and a 20
Difficulty climb is almost impossible*.
Security refers
to how hard it is to place
protection on a route (higher
Security is less safe because it makes the math easier). Basically, any type of
protection, excepting a
bolt, can only be placed in a crack in the
rock. Some routes, even if they have hand and footholds, don't have
cracks next to where the climber can go and easily protect themselves.
The
Security of a climb can be between 1 and 10, although it can't be higher
than the
Difficulty of a climb.
*If you know about the Yosemite Decimal System, a 1
Difficulty climb
is probably about 5.3 or 5.4, and a 20
Difficulty is probably about a 5.13c/d or
maybe a 5.14a. If you have no idea what that means, don't worry about it.
How Do You Determine Difficulty?
As the DM, how do you determine
the
Difficulty and
Security of a climb?Well, if it's climbable at all, and most cliffs are, you can determine how difficult it should generally be by the slope and, well, how easy or hard you want it to be. An overhang is rarely less than 10
Difficulty, and a steep overhang (over 45 degrees from vertical) is rarely less than 15
Difficulty. At this point, if you don't know how hard you want it to be, you can roll 1d20 for
Difficulty. You can determine the
Security by how safe you want the climb to be or by rolling 1d10, but remember that
Security can't be greater than
Difficulty. Generally, climbs in the same area and on the same rock type have similar
Difficulty and
Security, although there should be a good deal of variation.
How Do I Climb That Thing?
Ok, say your player wants to climb
that cliff over there. First things first, if the character is a
proficient climber, they don't need to roll to climb anything with 5
Difficulty or below, unless there's some circumstance making the
climb harder.
Expert climbers don't need to roll for anything
10
Difficulty or below, unless there's some
circumstance making the
climb harder.
Now, if you do need to roll for the climb, you determine your DC. The
base DC is 5 +
Difficulty, and there might be some modifiers to that, in the
below table (modifiers are specified for rock climbing, ice climbing, or both). If you roll over or equal to the DC with d20 + your
Climbing
modifier, you succeed. If not, you fail. There are different
consequences to failure with different types of climbing, but success
means you reach the top of the pitch.
| Circumstance |
Modifier |
| Crumbling* (Rock) |
+2 |
| Wet (Rock) |
+2 |
| Icy (Rock) |
+4 |
| Fragile* (Ice) |
+2 |
| Melting* (Ice) |
+2 |
| Rotten* (Ice) |
+3 |
| Carrying more than 3 slots of gear (Both) |
+1 per slot over 3 |
| Exposed (Both) |
+1 |
| Fatigued** (Both) |
+2 |
| Downclimbing (Both) |
+3 |
| You've attempted it before (Both) |
-1 per attempt |
*Climbing crumbling rock or fragile, melting, or rotten ice carries additional risks. Every time a climber fails a check on a pitch with at least one of these modifiers, they must roll 1d6. On a 1 or 2, a large chunk of rock or ice plummets towards their belayer. The belayer must
save, and on a failure must choose between taking 3d6 damage or allowing their climber to fall freely (as
consequences for free soloing). If there's someone other than the belayer the rock could potentially hit, the rock has an equal chance to instead hit them, requiring them to
save vs 3d6 damage.
**If you've climbed more pitches than your Constitution score, you are fatigued. If you rest for 8 hours, you are no longer fatigued.
Consequences for Failure
Aid Climbing
If you fail while
aid climbing, the climber with the
highest
Climbing Skill modifier must roll
Climbing Skill vs DC 6. On a
failure, go to the consequences for
lead climbing (in
free climbing),
but automatically succeed that
Climbing Skill check. You messed up
somehow and someone's fallen. On a success, you haven't made any
progress in however much time it would have taken you to finish the
climb on a success. You've stalled out wherever you started, and haven't
gotten any further.
Free Climbing
The first person to
free climb the route is
lead
climbing, any who follow them up while the first climber is
belaying
from above are
belayed from above. If you fail while
lead climbing, whichever of
you or your
belayer has the higher
Climbing Skill modifier must roll
Climbing Skill vs DC 6. On a failure, you messed something up and
actually fell without the
rope catching you. Go to consequences for
free
soloing. On a success, take
Securityd3 -
Security damage from shock and the rope
catching you. If you're using
static rope instead of
dynamic rope, take
Securityd4 damage because that rope
is not going to be gentle to you. Either
way, you're back at the bottom of the climb, and as much time has passed
as it would have if you'd succeeded the climb.
If you're
belayed from above and fail, go to consequences as
aid climbing.
Free Soloing
If you fail while
free soloing, roll 1d4 to
determine how high you were on the
pitch before you fell. 1 is 25% of
the way, and 4 is on the final move. Take fall damage corresponding to
how far you fell. You're back at the bottom of the climb (or quite
likely, your corpse is), and as much time has passed as if you had
succeeded the climb.
Rappelling and Fixed Lines
You don't generally have to roll for
rappelling or using
fixed lines.
However, if you put unusual stress on the lines (an extremely heavy
load, for example) or the
anchor is sketchy for some reason (placed in insecure rock or melting ice, built around a frail sapling, etc.), the person who
constructed the
anchor must roll
Climbing Skill vs DC 8. On a failure,
anything on the line suffers from consequences as if
free soloing as the
line pulls free from the anchor or snaps.
Rappelling on Overhangs
If you're
rappelling on an overhang of
less than 30 degrees from vertical and you can't reach the bottom
(don't worry, you won't slide off the rope, you tied a knot on the end),
you must roll
Climbing vs DC 15. On a success, you swing yourself to
the wall and grab hold of it. On a failure, you can't get to the wall.
Your options are to get the people above you to lower another
rope down
to you and keep
rappelling or to ascend the rope as a
fixed line.
How Fast Can You Do It?
| Task |
Speed |
| Aid climbing |
10 feet per minute |
| Free climbing |
20 feet per minute |
| Free soloing |
20 feet per minute |
| Rappelling |
100 feet per minute |
| Ascending a fixed line |
10 feet per minute |
| Traversing a fixed line |
30 feet per minute |
| Setting an anchor |
10 minutes |
| Setting a belay anchor |
10 minutes |
How Much Gear Does It Take?
| Task |
Gear |
| Aid climbing |
1 protection per 5 feet* |
| Free climbing |
1/Security protection per 5 feet |
| Free soloing |
- |
| Rappelling |
Anchor at the top |
| Vertical fixed line |
Anchor at the top |
| Horizontal fixed line |
Anchor at either end, 1 protection per 10 feet* |
| Setting an anchor |
3 protection or a solid natural feature |
| Setting a belay anchor |
3 protection or a solid natural anchor |
*Aid climbing can only use 1/
Security pitons or
sustainable protection per 5 feet; all other protection must be
bolts,
which require a
drill to use. Horizontal fixed lines are the same, but
per 10 feet.
In Conclusion
These rules haven't been playtested;
take them with a grain of salt, or maybe several shakers worth of salt.
Any feedback is appreciated and I'd love to hear if anybody uses them.
