Climbing, Failing, and Falling

[Tattered Rags]

[Belenus]

I'd let them fall the whole way by rolling a one
Or if it isn't important, if they take damage this moment, i'd just make them fall in a really funny way

[Baravakar]

[Tattered Rags]

I've been trying to figure out a simple and elegant solution that doesn't require more rolls. While I don't know if this is elegant, it seems simple to me.

It's simply however much you failed by beyond the safe range, go that many rows up the fall damage chart, capping at the actual max height of the climb.

300 yard sheer surface, DN 20, no gear
Roll 15 (1 more than safe range), fall 3 yards, damage step 5
Roll 10 (6 more than safe range), fall 50 yards, step 25 (3)
Roll 5, fall whole distance, step 35 (5)

[Tattered Rags]

I want to point out that this could represent an "equivalent distance" and not the actual distance fallen. For example, if you climbed a 20 yard tree (DN 6) and rolled a 1, then you would fall for step 5 damage. While you probably fell 15 yards, you could say you managed to catch branches (with your face?) enough that it was like you only fell 3 yards.

Other options are available to the GM to drive a compelling or interesting narrative. One would be that you only climbed 3 yards and fell to the ground. Another is that you climbed a certain distance and then fell 3 yards, catching yourself, but hitting the tree hard.

[Slimcreeper]

Tattered - my thought is that the random element that reveals how far you fell is the damage roll. If you are climbing a 200' cliff but you roll low damage, then you didn't fall from 180'. I'd wing it based on what the dice came up with. Missed the climbing roll by 2 and rolled low damage? You fell part of the way and landed on a ledge. Missed the climbing roll by a significant amount? Take the damage - if you rolled relatively low damage, you crashed through the tree boughs before smashing into a giant fungus. You groan, barely conscious. I wouldn't introduce more dice rolls or other systems for my game.

[Tattered Rags]

Slimcreeper, that makes sense to me now. You'd determine what to roll based on the max height, but you would use the result of the climbing and damage rolls to inform the narrative. Did I get that right?

I guess that would be the simplest implementation requiring no added math.

[Telarus_KSC]

I like that as well. We have 2 situations here. One of which is "Climbing Tests outside of Combat" and Slimcreeper's method is a really good method of letting the dice tell you how the narrative will go. That method helps resolve the ambiguity of Climbing outside the structure of "Combat Rounds", which leads to the other climbing tests - "Climbing in Combat", where you move X yards per combat round depending on the test result. Pretty easy to tell where the character is during the climb/how far they fell for that scenario. But, I would still use Slimcreeper's guidelines in combat for how "bad" the fall was (Climbing roll), and how far you fell (Damage result).