Climbing Skill - Todd E. Schreiber

Climbing Skill is an adventure skill like Horsemanship and Stealth. The prime difference is that Characters do not begin at rank 0. They must expend 100 experience points to become rank 0. Other than that, it operates in exactly the same fashion as the thief's climbing skill: ([4 x MD] + [10 x Rank]) - (Distance climbed in feet/10). A check is made for each entire vertical surface. If a failure occurs, roll % dice to determine at which height the character fell. A 100 would indicate that character fell from the top of the climb. Consult falling damage rules if a fall occurs.

Further descriptions not included in the Thief ability, but which should apply equally:

Once a ledge, or similar area, where a character can stand freely and rest is reached, the climb has ended. If he proceeds upward from that point, another success check must be rolled.
GM should account for loss of fatigue as climbing is a strenuous activity, and penalize the climber as he sees fit. Typically a -10 should be applied for any character with 0 Fatigue.
A character can have both thief and climbing skill, in which case the higher rank applies for determining success.
If a character's rank in Thief is higher than his rank in Climbing, he need only expend half the experience to gain rank in the Climbing skill.
A character who has the Ranger Skill, and is has selected mountains (not caverns), as his area of specialty, need only expend half the experience points to gain rank in climbing, up to a rank equal to his rank in Ranger.
Armor effects a character's chance to successfully climb, similar to the way it effects Stealth, only the penalty is doubled, with the exception that Leather receives a -5 penalty, and cloth does not receive any bonus.
Furthermore, the chance of success is increased or reduced by 1 for each point above or below 15 that a character has in Physical Strength and Modified. Agility.
Roll of 00 is an automatic failure, no matter what the percentage chance was, and likewise a roll of 01 is always a success.
 

Climbing Skill Experience Cost Chart

Rank 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Climbing 100 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500 5000

 

The EXP cost is the same as Stealth, but unlike Stealth, your chance of success gets 10% better per rank rather than 5% better. (Just throwing in a dig at the extremely expensive Stealth skill).

 

Theory: An expert mountain climber, would probably have at least a 20 MD, and at rank 10, he'd have a 80% chance to successfully climb a 1,000 foot face, one hell of a climb. Modern day face climbers have a much better chance of success, but they also have much better equipment.

6. Pole vaulting and High Jumping
What are you running a medieval track meet?  Pole vaulting and high jumping skills are 
not going to be discussed, as they do not have any practical applications in the fantasy role 
playing game.  Pole vaulting requires an extremely flexible pole, of which the technology 
in fantasy times does not exist without the aid of magic to make.  You also need to plant 
the pole in a small hole to launch.  OK, maybe you could try and leap over an 8' foot fence 
with a pole, but the average pole will snap into splinters if treated in such a fashion, and 
don't forget, that there is no padded landing pit on the other side for you.  Plus who walks 
around carrying a 10 foot pole?  If it is your pike, then you just left it behind you at the 
fence, as you do have to let go of it to complete the jump.

High jumping is a skill everyone possesses to a degree, but like pole vaulting it has no 
practical game time application.  Of course you may want to jump over something, but 
since you can usually touch whatever it is you are jumping over, you can simply grab the 
top of the 8' fence, and swing your legs over it.  You would look pretty dumb making a 
great effort to clear the same fence, and then crashing on your head on the other side of it, 
while your companions simply grab the top, swing their legs over and continue on there 
way.