What, exactly, are the factors that contribute to the success of climbing the landslide and to what degree do these factors contribute to success?

Both hands free
Stance Defensive
Climbing...........................	148 48

>climb landslide

Tentatively, you attempt to climb the landslide. After only a few feet, you slip! You catch yourself just barely, scrambling back to where you started.

Roundtime: 4 sec.

>climb landslide

Tentatively, you attempt to climb the landslide. After only a few feet, you slip! You catch yourself just barely, scrambling back to where you started.

Roundtime: 4 sec.

>sigi res

You experience a momentary flash of insight on how to best overcome nature's obstacles.

>climb landslide

Tentatively, you attempt to climb the landslide. After only a few feet, you slip! You catch yourself just barely, scrambling back to where you started.

Roundtime: 3 sec.

>climb landslide

Tentatively, you attempt to climb the landslide. After only a few feet, you slip! You catch yourself just barely, scrambling back to where you started.

Roundtime: 2 sec.

R>'REALLY?

You ask, "REALLY?"

R>

>climb landslide

Confidently, you climb up the landslide, reaching the top without much trouble

>climb landslide

It quickly becomes apparent that you will not finish the climb. You begin to lose your footing and finally let go and fall.

... 5 points of damage!

Blow to your back connects lightly.

You drop to the ground with a thud.

Roundtime: 10 sec.

PR>l

[Upper Krag Slopes]

A steep landslide has tumbled masses of rocks and boulders down the western slope, preventing further passage in that direction. The tip of a boot-clad foot protrudes from beneath the rubble. You also see a lesser minotaur.

Obvious paths: northeast, east

PR>sigh

You sigh.

PR>

Your internal strength fully recovers from your most recent attempt to tap into it.

PR>

You feel fully energetic again.

PR>

A lesser minotaur swings a curved silvery white greataxe at you!

AS: +381 vs DS: +147 with AvD: +32 + d100 roll: +96 = +362

... and hits for 62 points of damage!

Diagonal slash leaves a bloody trail across your torso.

You are stunned for 3 rounds!

Zero Encumbrance.

If a NiR could respond, I would be very grateful.

You're just a klutz. With 33 ranks in climbing I fail maybe one try in 20.

"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"
"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."

Maybe just crazy bad luck? It's possible.

Positive factors I'm sure of:

Empty Hands
Stance Offensive
Zero Encumbrance
Climbing Ranks (30-35 seems reliable)

Factors I think might have some effect:

Physical Fitness
Survival Ranks
Level of Climber

~ GtG

>If I had to guess, it takes survival into account or perhaps the mechanic is way over emphasizing the Armor Action Penalty despite being fully trained for the armor.

Action penalty is what you take when fully trained and its significant in full plate so you'll need extra climbing or PF training to compensate. (Overtrain enough and it goes down, 180 ranks for the first drop on full plate).

Train more climbing, or more PF or both and you'll be fine. Trying to do it on minimal training in defensive stance is asking for trouble.
The three characters I've hunted there haven't had any issues (full plate with 2x PF and 0.75x climbing works for me, as does robes with 2x PF and 0.5x climbing, and chain with 1.2x PF and 1x climbing)

>>Action penalty is what you take when fully trained and its significant in full plate so you'll need extra climbing or PF training to compensate. (Overtrain enough and it goes down, 180 ranks for the first drop on full plate).

I've seen no NiR ever mention PF being a factor for this specific climb or any climb in general. Is there evidence cited from a NiR on the wiki or saved on the playerscorner that I'm missing? I'm also 1.67x trained in PF.

I understand Action Penalty and how AP is reduced per 50 ranks over the RT breakpoint. I get that. My complaint can be boiled down thusly: I've never had issues getting to the Rift, OTF or Nelemar with 40 ranks of swimming or climbing, where applicable; why is this climb so dramatically different? The wiki for OTF says 25-30 swimming ranks for unencumbered characters (and my personal experience corroborates said statement). It also mentions PF and Strength but lacks citation, which, as an aside, infuriates the hell out of me. Both the OTF and Rift swim are entirely free of attacks when coming out of the water. Let us not forget the mechanics for those two swims were built when there was no level cap and players had longer to attain the sufficient ranks; I assume the mechanics for OTF and the Rift remained static. Nelemar has the chance of creatures waiting at the two entrances, but the player can at least PEER into those entrances to decide the best route; players cannot peer past the landslide. To make matters even worse, I'm taking 10 seconds of RT, in offensive, prone, sometimes injured, sometimes stunned, in an area populated by minotaurs with 375AS Greataxe attacks, sometimes over 400 AS, and can MStrike for 3 attacks or be attacked by nearly 400AS Pounds (i.e., 275 DF vs Plate) from Dwellers. Even if the landslide climb isn't bugged, it certainly has a far more difficult threshold of success than other capped hunting grounds.
.
.
.
Don't worry y'all, I bugged it in game.

You experience a momentary flash of insight on how to best overcome nature's obstacles.

>

You have nothing in your right hand.

You sling a nicked illthorn greatshield over your shoulder.

>

You are now in an offensive stance.

>

It quickly becomes apparent that you will not finish the climb. You begin to lose your footing and finally let go and fall.

... 5 points of damage!

Strike glances off your chest.

You drop to the ground with a thud.

Roundtime: 10 sec.

>

P>stand

You stand back up.

>

It quickly becomes apparent that you will not finish the climb. You begin to lose your footing and finally let go and fall.

... 2 points of damage!

Blow nicks your neck.

You drop to the ground with a thud.

Roundtime: 10 sec.

>

P>stand

You stand back up.

>

Tentatively, you attempt to climb the landslide. After only a few feet, you lose your grip and fall...

... 10 points of damage!

Strike to your head breaks your cheekbone.

You are stunned for 1 round!

You drop to the ground with a thud.

Roundtime: 10 sec.

>I've seen no NiR ever mention PF being a factor for this specific climb or any climb in general. Is there evidence cited from a NiR on the wiki or saved on the playerscorner that I'm missing? I'm also 1.67x trained in PF.

"Physical Fitness also helps with HP recovery, stamina pool and stamina recovery, some swimming, some climbing, some maneuvers, as well as resisting disease and poison." ~ http://www.play.net/gs4/info/skills.asp#physicaltraining

There are definitely checks on heavy armor for climbing and swimming as well. Probably you need to up your armor use or take off your plate and climb that way. Don't worry, like I said in my previous post, I was also in offensive, hands empty, and practically speaking no armor on. (Problem is, your encumbrance may go up without your armor on...)

I don't think this is necessarily a bug...though I'm sure it can be frustrating.

I still like my solution of setting a gold ring, though.

---

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>PRO TIP: Set a gold ring at the top of the Landslide

PRO PRO TIP: Set two gold rings. If you really, really don't want to do climb, have an insurance against navving.

PRO PRO PRO Tip: Set three gold rings. Once you get into hunting warriors you'll want separate rings for inward and outward travel.

PRO PRO PRO PRO Tip: three is enough, it doesn't matter if your inbound ring gets navved because you get back to town anyway.

This uses a pretty generalized climbing skill check that is configured separately for each place that it's used, but may factor in any of these upcoming values.

Bonuses for you: your enhanced climbing skill, your AGI bonus, your CON bonus, your stance (offensive is best, defensive is worst), a bonus for having Mobility (618) on, one or two empty hands, and a lucky roll.

Penalties for you: climb difficulty, injuries, encumbrance, armor action penalty, and an armor undertraining penalty (this is separate from the action penalty - I highly recommend only wearing armor that you're trained for!)

These could go either way: Your race, and your profession.

As was mentioned, the action penalty for full plate is significant (-35), even when fully trained. I suspect that that plus some bad luck is what's happening. You might want to try having a rogue put Armored Evasion on you until you can increase your climbing and/or armor ranks.

Ixix

Whoops - good catch. I misspoke on that part - armored evasion won't help with these general climbing checks.

And that's how rumors start!

Ixix

>On the advice of others, I added more ranks of climbing, despite each rank only adding 1 skill. It's working out really well.

I missed the part in the log of annoyance where you got nav'ved and only had one ring set, thus requiring you to die climbing.

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>>I'm advocating for change.

Thank you for making this clear.

Doug

This conversation seems to have gotten somewhat combative and that is my fault. Let me take the time to apologize; I am sorry for being hostile. I believe I have a compelling case and I'm frustrated with climb failures leading to death. Couple that with the fact that I'm being told the climb isn't an issue given less training than my character possesses. My data below clearly and distinctly is at odds with the assertions of other players made in this thread.

Just so we (i.e., Myself, Doug, Rathboner, and Daid) are all on the same page, below are my inputs and outputs.

Inputs:

No Wounds

No Encumbrance

Stance Offensive

148 Climbing Skill

150 Armor Use Ranks

21 Agility Bonus

25 Constitution Bonus

Empty Hands (necessity for landslide climb)

Human

Paladin

Outputs:

Description String	Frequency	Outcome
You skillfully climb (direction) the landslide, barely breaking a sweat before you reach the (direction).	57	Success
Gracefully, you scamper (direction) the landslide, reaching the (direction) in no time at all.	58	Success
Confidently, you climb (direction) the landslide, reaching the (direction) without much trouble.	48	Success
Tentatively, you attempt to climb the landslide. After only a few feet, you slip! You catch yourself just barely, scrambling back to where you started.	53	Failure: 3 RT
Tentatively, you attempt to climb the landslide. After only a few feet, you lose your grip and fall...	16	Failure: 10 RT + Injury
Climbing well, you adeptly move up the landslide. As your confidence rises, your concentration lapses and then you miss a foothold. You call out in surprise and fall to the ground below.	3	Failure: 10 RT + Injury

What follows is more of a speculative string of questions to spur dialogue instead of an argument:
(1) Assume that the climb skill check is additive such that an equal 1:1 ratio exists between all inputs (e.g., Agility Bonus of 40 == 40 Climbing Skill; -35 Action Penalty + 35 Climb Skill == 0).
(2) Given (1), do we agree having more training than is recommended in the thread should lead to ~30% failure rate?
(3) Given (2), do we agree having more training than is recommended in this thread should lead to ~8% catastrophic failure rate?
(4) Given (1), do we agree training roughly 30 more climbing ranks (i.e., 80 ranks; 180 skill) would remove the chance of failure, barring unavoidable failure (i.e., d100 = 1)?
(5) Training past 40 ranks results in a skill to rank ratio of 1:1
(6) Given (1), (4) and (5), do we agree Paladins and Warriors must have roughly 25 to 35 more climbing ranks than their pure and hybrid counterparts (excluding rogues and rangers) to achieve the same frequency of outcomes when climbing the landslide?
(7) Given (6), is there a lack of parity between the aforementioned professions in (6)? I mean this sincerity, is it reasonable to ask Paladins and Warriors to nearly double the climb ranks necessary to achieve equal landslide climb outcomes as their counterparts?

As an aside, until such a time this climb gets altered, I've set a ring to just after the climb and will society-port back. I feel as though this is treating the symptom and not the problem.

>Not sure if you have ever been rock climbing or not but you can accomplish some pretty amazing climbs with modern equipment.

Yes. Accurate. My grip strength is really poor. I should stop using straps with deadlifts. I accept your claim of how ridiculously hard it would be to climb in plate. I have a hard enough time traversing uneven ground when backpacking.

>I don't think everything in game has to be 'realistic' but I think the climbing results you listed are pretty good given a realistic perspective.

I just simply do not know how you can make this type of evaluative statement. What real-world analog exists for the landslide climb? Which did you use? Or was it constructed entirely conceptually? How did you navigate that process? How much does 148 Climbing Skill equate to real-life climbing skill? Is the climbing skill of in-game heroes measured the same way as oog humans? And so on.

>Now, moving into the game world, the climb checks are there to give some reason to take the skill of climbing.

Understood. I'm trained more than is recommended by the posters in this thread.

>They don't need to be realistic but if you didn't need to train in climbing to overcome some of the hurdles in the game then what would be the point of the skill?

I'm sympathetic to the lack of climbing skill application in the game. At least during GSIII it was applied to Redux (I think?), but alas no longer to the GSIV analog, Damage Reduction. However, that's an entirely different question than what I tried to articulate in my previous post. That is to say, I'm concerned with the inter-profession application of Climbing skill.

Maybe an ATHLETICS system could be made that concentrated on Climbing and Swimming. Although, it would make little sense to exclude the other obviously physical skills.
ATHLETICS:

Ignore Pain
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Benefit: Each rank allows the character to ignore the effects of wounds ranks * 2 wound levels, this applies only to rank 1 wounds. The highest wound is ignored first. At rank 3, the character is able to ignore rank 2 wounds (e.g., three rank 1 wounds == 3, one rank 2 wound == 2, one rank 2 wound and one rank 1 == 3).

Adrenal Surge
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Stamina: 15
Benefit: The next action taken within 15 seconds of activation that imposes RT on the player is reduced by ranks * 2 seconds. After activating Adrenal Surge, the skill goes on cooldown for 30 seconds. Use during cooldown increases the stamina to 30 and additionally causes a rank 1 nervous system wound on the player.

Power Lifter
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Benefit: Permanently increase the Strength Bonus of the character by ranks * 1.

Speed Bag (I AM NOT A CREATIVE PERSON)
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Benefit: Permanently increase the Dexterity Bonus of the character by ranks * 1.

Marathoner (lol)
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Benefit: Permanently increase the Constitution Bonus of the character by ranks * 1.

SomethingSomethingAgility (lol)
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Benefit: Permanently increase the Agility Bonus of the character by ranks * 1.

Flexibility
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Benefit: The player gains +1% dodge.

Hand Eye Coordination
Ranks: 1,2,3
Cost: 6,12,18
Stamina: 5
Benefit: The next aimed physical attack made within 15 seconds has increased chance to hit the location aimed by ranks * 3% (I have no idea how aiming works?).

>I'm not looking for advice however wonderfully sarcastic; I'm advocating for change. I recommend the Action Penalty from armor be reduced by 1/2 for all climbs because it brutally, and unfairly, penalizes professions designed to be wearing full plate.

There has to be more to it than this. My warrior in full plate, level 71, has no problem making that climb. I can't swear that he has never failed it, but I honestly do not remember a failure, so it must be rare, and he has been hunting up there for about two levels now.

--David

"At a moment like this, I can't help but wonder, 'What would Jimmy Buffett do?'"

>This conversation seems to have gotten somewhat combative and that is my fault. Let me take the time to apologize; I am sorry for being hostile.

I personally haven't felt any problems here.

>>I missed the part in the log of annoyance where you got nav'ved and only had one ring set, thus requiring you to die climbing.

>All snark aside I just want to be clear; you're advocating a method circumventing the mechanics of the climb altogether instead of addressing the underlying issue. This particular climb is quite simply bad game design. Gating an area with a skill requirement is fine, but a skill requirement that puts the character into a position where zero counter-play is possible is, by definition, bad game design.

You seem to get that I was a little snarky or sarcastic, which hopefully is all in good fun. As a player, mainly I can advise on different methods to work around existing game design. The fact that I was in robes and didn't ever die making that climb and still teleported in just says to my mind that it's a good way to go. Then again I'm a big teleportation buff. I'm sure some areas of my rune book would amuse you...

I do think you have a reasonably good case here. But keep in mind, for some kinds of swimming checks, you are required to take your heavy armor off. I sort of have the feeling the design in the case of this climb is similar for heavy armor, perhaps.

Whether it's good design or bad design I have no strong opinion on. I wouldn't mind if it was changed, but there are all kinds of hazards in Elanthia. Heck, when you rescue kids from the Laby, you're literally taking a swan dive off a cliff (as I alluded to before).

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