Armor Penalty
Use this skill to scale a cliff, slope or wall, or to move using hand-holds in zero-G.
Check: With each successful Climb check, you can advance up, down, or across a slope, wall, cliff, or other inclined surface.
A slope is considered to be any incline of less than 60 degrees. A wall is 60 degrees or steeper.
A failed climb check indicates that you make no progress, and a check failed by 5 or more indicates that you have fallen.
The DC of the check depends on the conditions of the climb. If the climb is less than 10 feet, the DC is reduced by 5.
Since you can’t move to avoid attacks while climbing, your are considered flat-footed while climbing (and lose your Dexterity bonus to Defense).
Any time you take damage while climbing, you must make a Climb check at thenormal DC for the surface or fall.
| Example Wall, Slope, Or Task | DC |
| A slope too steep to walk up | 0 |
| A knotted rope with a wall to brace against | 5 |
| A rope with a wall to brace against. A knotted rope. A surface with sizable ledges to hold on to and stand on. | 10 |
| Any surface with adequate handholds and footholds, such as a rough natural rock surface, a tree, or a chain-link fence. An unknotted rope. Pulling yourself up while dangling by your hands. | 5 |
| An uneven surface with just a few narrow handholds and footholds | 20 |
| An uneven surface with no real hand-holds or footholds, such as a brick wall. | 25 |
| An overhang or ceiling with hand-holds but no footholds | 25 |
A perfectly smooth, flat, vertical surface cannot be climbed
| Climbing inside an air duct or other location where one can brace against two opposite walls | -10* |
| Climbing a corner where you can brace against perpendicular walls | -5* |
| Surface is slippery | +5* |
*These conditions modify the base climb DC of the surface and are cumulative.
Accelerated Climbing Movement: You can try to move at your full speed while climbing by taking a –5 penalty on your Climb check.
Making Handholds and Footholds: You can make your own handholds and foot-holds by pounding pitons into a wall. Doing so takes 1 minute per piton, and one piton is needed per 3 feet. As with any surface with handholds and footholds, a wall with pitons in it has a DC of 15. In a similar fashion, a climber with an ice ax or another proper implement can cut handholds or footholds in an ice wall. Naturally, the GM may rule that certain surfaces are to hard or too yielding to take pitons.
Catching Yourself While Falling: It’s practically impossible to catch yourself on a a wall once you’ve started to fall. Make a Climb check (DC equal to the wall’s normal DC +20) to do so. A slope is relatively easier to catch yourself on (DC equal to the slope’s DC +10).
Grab My Arm!: You can catch someone who is falling past you. If you can make a melee touch attack against someone falling within your reach, you may attempt a Climb check (DC = wall’s DC +10) to prevent that person’s fall. (The DC for catching someone falling on a slope is the slope’s DC +5.) If you fail the Climb check, you fail to stop the person’s fall. If you fail by 5 or more, you fall as well. The person’s total weight (including equipment) cannot exceed your heavy load, or you automatically fall.
Zero-G Movement: A character in zero gravity in an enclosed or semi-enclosed location can make a Climb Check as a free action before she begins her movement each round. A successful check means the character can move at her normal speed for the round. The DC for the check depends on the conditions, as shown below:
| Conditions | Climb Check DC |
| Rough or asymmetric walls, alcoves | 0 |
| Symmetrical design, rough surface, abundant footholds | 5 |
| Symmetrical design, normal surface, some footholds or alcoves | 15 |
| Symmetrical design, smooth surface, few footholds | 20 |
| Symmetrical design, slick surface, no footholds | 25 |
Special: Someone using a rope can haul a character upward (or lower the character) by means of sheer strength. Use two times a character’s maximum load to determine how much weight he or she can lift.
A character can take 10 while climbing, but can’t take 20.
A character without climbing gear takes a –4 penalty on Climb checks. At the GM’s discretion, certain kinds of climbing attempts might require only a rope or some other implement, or even just one’s hands and feet, rather than a full set of climbing gear to avoid the penalty.
A character with the Athletic feat gets a +2 bonus on all Climb checks.
Time: Climbing at one-half your speed is a full-round action. Moving half that far (one-fourth the character’s speed) is a move action.
Accelerated climbing, allowing the character to climb at his or her full speed, is a full-round action. A character can move half that far (one-half his or her speed) as a move action.