Can we lower the dc of climbing? Due to the high dc I feel like I am forced with every character to get high climbing and usually waste my efuss points. I've yet to only enjoy the skill that is fishing more than once due to the requirement of high climbing to survive the dark.
And yes I am aware that you can buy a rope and grappling gun, but they are so heavy!
Not everyone is a super climber.
True, but you have to apply so much to be good when I feel like there should at least be something more natural involved!
For instance my human with the same dexterity and tumble can climb better than my gnome purely because humans get more efuss points.
Whether a character has the ability to climb easily (and perhaps not all characters should be able to!) emphasizes how terrain and the ability to traverse it is a key resource, a strength/weakness factor that should have an impact on your character.
A melee warrior should not have an easy time chasing down a roof running thief. Nor should every character be able to see every nook and cranny of the Underdark by climbing all over the place like a spider. Just as druids and rangers have an advantage in the wilds, some characters concepts should have a disadvantage with climbing/accessing certain environments/overcoming certain obstacles.
The many ways to boost your climbing skills provides a variety of options of how to overcome the obstacle that is a sheer cliff, but overcoming obstacles shouldn't be easy or without sacrifice.
And of course gnomes make for terrible climbers, they're ridiculously short!
You can buy ladders, grapple guns and rope. All three have really low DCs to climb. If it's too heavy perhaps invest in strength. You can't have it all and since you live in the caverns and if you want to leave the city, climbing would be something worth investing in OR tumble. As I said before the DC on those three routes are very low almost anyone can do it. I've never had an issue climbing at all.
We won't be making any grave changes to the DC. We have so many tools that people can use, and if they are too heavy with all the goods that you got, that is your choice to leave them out. Some things just require that sacrifice of someone having to carry the heavy gear to traverse the terrain. Sometimes it means that you got to cut the supply bag down.
Agreed. Climbing up should be hard without equipment. My only ongoing irritation was trying to climb down, receiving falling damage after a fail, and still being stuck at the top of a cliff.
My only irritation with climbing, is that even if you have 3x the DC of whatever the climb is, rolling a 1 still equals a failure.
Yeah, a critical failure message would be ideal. I was utterly confused at first until a DM explained that I could still fail on a 1.
In 3.5, climbing relies on critical failures for falling. If you roll significantly lower than the DC, you will fall and take damage. Rather than any time you simply fail the DC, falling and taking damage, we could have something like this? Or perhaps two climb rolls, if you fail the first one the second one is to see if you manage to save yourself from falling?