The Ledge

[Skrum]

I'm a huge Stephan King fan, and in one of his stories, "The Ledge," a man must navigate around the outside of a very tall building on a 6 inch ledge. No handholds, smooth wall, just the ledge.

What would be the best way, thematically and mechanically, to bring this challenge into a game? There's wind, the corners of the building, the soreness of muscles, terror at being 400 ft in the air, and in this particular story, an sadistic pidgin. I would be inclined towards a series of skill checks, but that seems near guaranteed to cause a fall, dice rolls being what they are.

This is probably solved narratively; tell a great story to build the tension of the 4-5 die rolls that have to be made, but I was wondering if anyone had some novel ideas.

[DarknessEternal]

One acrobatics check.

D&D doesn't really have the design space to make this interesting.

[heavyfuel]

In a real world situation, having to navigate the ledge has one major factor: Fear.

6 inches/15 cm is actually a pretty wide space. Pretty much anyone can do it when they aren't hundreds of feets above ground, so I would make the Acrobatics check really easy (DC 8, probably) and I would allow anyone atempting to use their Passive score as long as they weren't trying to move more than half their movement speed per round.

As for fear, well, adventurers are constantly facing extremely dangerous situations without having to save against fear. Why should a ledge force a save when a Balor doesn't? If you are to force a save, make it an easy one (DC 5), and make the penalty for it only be Disadvantage on the Acrobatics check, as opposed to auto falling.

Also, you should fully expect players to be prepared to completely ignore your ledge by using some lateral thinking. Ropes, spells, finding another way, etc, all can solve your encounter without the check (or without penalty for failing the check)

[Skrum]

I wasn't planning any particular encounter, this was just a systems question. Looking for ways to make skill checks more interesting, basically.

[Man_Over_Game]

The reason in-game events aren't as scary isn't just because of the fact that there isn't punishment for failure, but also the fact that it's known.

Real fear and paranoia come from a lack of information. The scariest encounters are the ones where you don't know what can happen.

So follow that trend. Find out ways to eliminate information given to the player.

For example, before the event, have both you and the player roll a 1d10, keeping yours hidden. The number he rolls is the number of successes he needs to succeed, while the number you roll is the number of failures that will lead to certain doom.

It doesn't matter how many time he succeeds, because every failure is possibly his last. As he approaches success, he will also become more paranoid over how few chances he will have left, even if he still had 9 remaining.

Removing information adds fear, adding information adds strategy. It's important to note that these two pillars are fairly mutually exclusive without a lot of work to make them work together (See: Arkham Horror).

Chaos, too, lowers the importance of strategy, but doesn't always leave room for anticipation if the decision-and-consequence happen at the same time, and a big part of fear is that anticipation of an unwanted, but potentially avoidable, event. This doesn't work well with DnD, since almost every die has its effects resolved immediately, so you need to add some kind of delayed effect (HP, timers, Exhaustion, etc) that causes the player to constantly guess whether their earlier mishaps will cause them to fail later on.

That's why we know the d20 is unpredictable, but we aren't ever scared of the results. Dnd has never been good at telegraphing or delayed gratification, so you'll have to make some of it on your own.

(In fact, the scariest moments in DnD are the times when an effect is applied against an unforseen-but-expected counter effect, such as Hiding or Disguise Self)

[Unoriginal]

You could have one STR check per turn to stay on the ledge (with Athletics proficiency), and a DEX check whenever you try to move on the ledge (with Acrobatics proficiency).

If you fail either, you fall.

As long as the DC is significant, (like at least 15), that should be stress-inducing enough.

Keep in mind there is no skill checks in 5e. They're ability checks.

[MaxWilson]

In a real world situation, having to navigate the ledge has one major factor: Fear.

6 inches/15 cm is actually a pretty wide space. Pretty much anyone can do it when they aren't hundreds of feets above ground, so I would make the Acrobatics check really easy (DC 8, probably) and I would allow anyone atempting to use their Passive score as long as they weren't trying to move more than half their movement speed per round.

I disagree that it's a wide space, especially for those of us who are thick enough that our center of mass is likely to be near or even over that 6 inch mark.

Balancing on a six inch wide ledge along a vertical wall is harder than balancing on a six inch wide balance beam, even before you factor in things like lack of visual feedback (not being able to see the ground = harder to balance, unless seeing the wall can compensate) and fear.

[DarknessEternal]

Before you can come up with mechanics for success, you need to decide what the consequences for failure are.

So what happens when they fall off the ledge?

[Skrum]

Before you can come up with mechanics for success, you need to decide what the consequences for failure are.

So what happens when they fall off the ledge?

If I did run an encounter like this, failure would be death.

[Mellack]

If I did run an encounter like this, failure would be death.

Then you would have to design it so that a single roll doesn't mean failure.
Honestly, I don't see much of a way to make it exciting as there are not many options. If it is just a couple of rolls, then it is just random chance, which I don't think of as exciting. If you allow things like ropes or spider climb, there is no danger involved and you might as just rule it auto-succeeds.

[DarknessEternal]

If I did run an encounter like this, failure would be death.

Then you should not run it. You'd either need enough rolls to guarantee statistically average results, in which case you don't need to roll any dice. And if you're willing to kill players on coin flips, you shouldn't be running anything.

[Thunderous Mojo]

And if you're willing to kill players on coin flips, you shouldn't be running anything.
Hmmm....that depends.

A fall that results in needing to make Death Saving Throws, with access to Revivify isn't a permanent Death Sentence. A Barbarian or Genie Warlock might have easy use of resistance to bludgeoning damage. The same also applies to those affected by a Stoneskin spell.

The Feather Fall spell or a Feather Token from Eberron, might negate the entire premise entirely.

In higher Tier Play, PCs essentially can die from coin flips....get hit by a Disintegrate spell at an inconvenient time and the game shows you fear in a handful of dust. (And Disintegrate isn't even the worst effect out there)

[Segev]

The purpose of thus exercise is to explore more engaging skill challenges, right? Okay, then, the best solution I can offer stems from analyzing why combat is as engaging as it is: multiple resolution steps with important choices at each one.

In your precarious balance problem, then, you want to define a number of sub-objectives that need to be achieved to fully succeed. Full success being when he is safely across this ledge.

This is probably best done as a binary tree, with specific challenges at each node and success/failure results for each. Maybe not even binary: each node could have multiple choices on how to reaolve it, with different failure and success results.

Thus starts to look almost like creating a dungeon, with the "rooms" being the challenges and the "halls" that lead from it being ways the player can try to resolve them. To avoid railroading, know the challenge, its cause, and the threats and benefits surrounding it so you can adjudicate anything the player decides to try.

The results of his choices and the ability checks' accociated with them succeeding or failing should change his circumstances more towards the end of the encounter. Successes should reduce his immediate danger or avoid harm, failures should lead to harder checks or fewer good solutions until his position is so bad that most options risk falling if he fails.

Alternatively, you could stat the Ledge as if it were a creature or creature's Lair, giving it actions or Lair Actions that force problems onto the character(s). The reaults of the actions are dependent on the skill checks and actions the PCs do in response.

I think the first approach is more work to plan, but will be more satisfying in creating the "man vs. nature" feel of such encounters.