B is for Belays: Digging for Gems in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide

Belays and Roping Together
DSG Page 18
The character performing the belay holds the other end of the rope, but does not tie it to himself. Instead, he pays out the rope slowly as the other character moves farther away from him. Characters can attempt to insure greater group security by roping together - tying the characters to a rope with 20 or 30 feet of slack between them. 


What sensible character wouldn't rope themselves together when crossing a chasm. How does the DM know if one member falls? How should the DM decide if the other characters, roped to the falling character, also fall? The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (DSG) gives you the answer to this and other questions!


But first have a good look at the example illustrated above. You'll need it to make sense of the below...


It begins with a Climbing Check.
Thieves use their climb walls percentage, all other characters have a base Climbing Rating of 40%. 
Failure of the climbing check means the character has fallen.
This is modified by Character Race and the Climbing Surface.
Character Race
Dwarf   -5%
Gnome -10%
Halfling  -5%
Half-orc +5%
Climbing Surface
Tree with branches  +40%
Sloping Wall              +25% (not quite a vertical wall, yet too sloped to allow normal walking; if a character   falls while on a sloping wall surface, he can make a saving throw vs petrification; if the save is successful, he takes no damage from the fall. Even if the save is unsuccessful, the fall only inflicts half of the normal damage.)
Pole                           +20%
Rope and Wall        +40% (any situations where a character can climb up a rope and brace his feet against a wall or some other vertical surface as he climbs)
Slightly slippery     Chance of falling is twice normal 
Slippery (eg slime) Chance of slipping is ten times his normal chance (Thus the 3rd level thief cannot even attempt the climb)


Say what? AD&D - what the heck are you talking about? Why give us an explanatory picture by Doug Chaffee with text, a fairly unique combination in the TSR rulebooks, but not talk directly to this example?
What percentage are you saying the Climbing Check should be for the non-thief in the 'Example of a Party Roped Together'? I assume it is 40% + racial modifiers. That's steep.


So using the example as given, and with the rules above and others in the DSG, I'll try and make sense of it all.
Character 1, looks like a halfling in metal armour (non-thief), Climbing Check = 40% -5% = 35%. HE FALLS!
Character 2, looks like an elf, is performing the belay. He must roll a Climbing Check, at 40%, in order to arrest the fall of character 1. If the roll is unsuccessful the rope runs through the hands of the belayer too quickly, and the fall proceeds normally.
[Would this mean the belayer has one or two chances with 100 feet of rope? No idea.]
Let's assume Character 2, the elf, passes his roll, grabs the rope tightly and braces himself to catch the shock of the halfling's weight. Damn that second breakfast! Cue, sigh of relief from the halfling. Except if the elf occupies a dangerous or narrow spot, he must make a second Climbing Check or fall himself. Looks like dangerous and narrow - he rolls, he fails - AND HE FALLS.
Except wait, is he merely holding the rope as as a good belayer should, or is it tied to his waist as well? No idea, let's just say he miraculously keeps hold of the rope anyway. (Please no ability score roll, to see if he keeps hold of the rope, let's just let him succeed - how many rolls do you want to make?) 
Now Character 3 must attempt to halt the fall of two of his comrades. Except for every additional falling comrade after the first 10% must be deducted from the Climbing Check.
Character 3, the human Cleric, see that mace at his side, must roll 30%. Relief he succeeds. EVERYONE LIVES.


But what, as the example gives, it was Character 4, the dwarf who fell (Climbing Roll 35% Base - race adjustment). Now both Character 3, the cleric and Character 5, the thief must roll to see if they arrest the fall. Both must succeed to arrest the fall, since the process is continued until a successful Climbing Check is made to each side of the falling characters, or until the entire party falls! 
Character 3 fails and falls as well. 
Character 5, the thief, looks like he is on the edge of steep wall. Let's make it a slightly slippery wall and make him 5th level. Thief climb walls = 90%, slightly slippery = double the chance of falling (10% times 2). So he needs to roll 80% or less not to fall.
He succeeds but since Character 3 failed now both Character 4 and 3 are falling so Character 5 the thief and Character 2 the elf must roll, but since there is an additional person falling all rolls are at -10%. The thief succeeds, as does Character 2. Except as we said before the character is belaying, not roped to the party, and he is on dangerous and narrow ground and must roll agin. 
He falls. NOW THREE ARE FALLING! [This dangerous and narrow ground is very confusing as it appears to only apply to belays, not parties roped together - oh well; if one fails one's 1st climbing check in a belay the only person to die is the one falling as opposed to failure in roping together when everyone can die]
Character 1 is lifted up out of his hole and he and the thief roll to save the party at -20%. The thief succeeds but the halfling fails! NOW EVERYONE EXCEPT THE THIEF IS FALLING. Certainly emphasises the importance of having a thief in the line.
The thief must now arrest the fall of all the party! That's a roll at -30%. 
HE SUCCEEDS - he braces, but he is belaying and certainly is on dangerous and narrow ground, he must roll again - HE FAILS - THEY ALL FALLLLLLL!


but wait...


Isn't that a spike in the wall near his right hand?
A spike can anchor the character. The spike can catch all the falling characters. However the spike has a 10% chance per supported character of pulling loose. That's 50%. A 52 is rolled.
TPK - damn.


Another interesting tidbit is the rates of climbing Table.

Characters with heavy gear or very heavy gear move at 1/2 the movement rates given.


 What gems can we take?
1. Non thief characters have a base chance of climbing success of 40%, which can be modified by race and climbing surface if desired. A complicated table can be used to give movement rates for climbing (if desired). 
2. If ropes are involved they can be of belaying (not tied) or roped together variety.
3. If a character is falling with a rope held by characters on either side of him or her, BOTH supporting characters must succeed to arrest the fall.
3. For every additional character falling -10% is deducted from the chance of success for a Climbing Check.
4. For belays, failure means the character's fall is not halted, but the belayer is not affected (well not physically, perhaps emotionally...) Success means the fall is arrested, unless the belaying character is on dangerous or narrow ground, in which case a 2nd Climbing Check must be made, failure means the belaying character has fallen as well.
5. For parties roped together, no 2nd Climbing Check is required. Success means the fall is arrested, failure means the character has fallen as well.
6. Climbing checks continue until each character on either side of a falling character succeeds, the entire party falls or if only one end of the rope line/belay has fallen, a single character can arrest the fall.
7. Spikes can arrest the fall of an entire party, but have a chance of pulling loose at 10% per character the spike is trying to support.

A is for Air Supply: Digging for Gems in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide

The A to Z Blogging Challenge

How does the Challenge work?

The premise of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge is to post something on your blog every day in April except for Sundays.  In doing this you will have 26 blog posts--one for each letter of the alphabet.   Each day you will theme your post according to a letter of the alphabet. 

You will only be limited by your own imagination in this challenge.  There is an unlimited universe of possibilities.  You can post essays, short pieces of fiction, poetry, recipes, travel sketches, or anything else you would like to write about.  You don't have to be a writer to do this.  You can post photos, including samples of your own art or craftwork.    Everyone who blogs can post from A to Z.

Okay here goes... The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.
In 1986 TSR published the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (DSG) by veteran TSR author Douglas Niles. Some hold that nothing good was published after 1983. Others are less harsh.

Grognardia in his retrospective has this to say,
"In the final analysis, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was a brilliant failure and emblematic of many of the trends I eventually came to dislike about the direction of AD&D in the later years of TSR. It was -- and is, I'd still contend -- an inspirational book, one whose text often conveys the beauty and wonder and horror of subterranean locales so well. As a rulebook, though, it's less than ideal, simultaneously being too nitpicky and too easily cast aside. And its intention of adding new depths (no pun intended) to both the physical environment of adventures and to adventurers themselves was another nail in the coffin of the Old Ways. It's a pity, because, despite it all, I still have a fondness for this book, even though its publication was another step down a path whose ultimate destination I strongly dislike these days."


Delta's comment to Grognardia's retrospective is,
"These 2 books [DSG + Wilderness Survival Guide] together marked the grave of my AD&D play at the time."

Other negative comments to the retrospective
Evocative but useless. [faustusnotes]
It offered a lot of promise that it never quite got around to delivering on, and at the same time cluttered-up things with a lot of evocative inspirational stuff that was more often than not better handled via narrative than dice-rolling, in my experience. [NetherWerks]
Reams and reams of dry, dry detail on subjects like spelunking, hiking, mountain-climbing, foraging for food, etc. It's like somebody took my old Boy Scout Handbook and randomly-pasted some workmanlike but completely unnecessary RPG rules throughout. So see something so...aggressively mundane...bearing the D&D name always bugged me.  [Will Mistretta]


Not to say it didn't have it's fans and certainly more fans than the Wilderness Survival Guide.


I never owned a copy in my D&D prime. I actually always wanted to own the Wilderness Survival Guide, all those weather systems seemed exciting. I now own both, acquired about two years back in mad collecting eBay completionist frenzy. I have read neither. 


So my theme for the April 2011 A to Z Blogging Challenge, is Digging for Gems in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. Is there any gems (good advice, nuggets of wisdom, something cool, something easily house ruled) that is worth salvaging from the wreckage that was late 80's D&D publishing. That's my task... let us begin.


A is for Air Supply
From DSG Page 36
"Assuming no ventilation whatsoever, a human-sized creature at complete rest depletes the oxygen in 10 cubic feet of air within 24 hours. A character who is working strenuously uses oxygen four times faster than a resting character, and a moderately exercising character uses the oxygen up twice as fast as a character at rest."

"A character does not instantly die when his air supply has been used up, but serious problems arise. Each turn following the exhaustion of the oxygen, the character must make a Constitution Check. Every time the check fails, each of his ability scores and his hit point total are reduced by one. Each additional Constitution Check is made against the reduced Constitution score. Thus, a character grows more and more feeble as he gulps the last remnants of the oxygen supply. When all of a character’s ability scores have dropped to 0, he is unconscious. When a character’s hit point total reaches -10, he is dead. Even for a character with a large number of hit points, this fate becomes automatic once the Constitution score reaches 0, since all further Constitution Checks automatically fail. This system is used only for characters in an area with air; it cannot be used for characters who are holding their breath."
"A small fire (one foot or less in diameter) consumes all of the oxygen in a ten-foot cubic space in two hours (1 2 turns). A flaming torch consumes all of the oxygen in the same space in eight hours. A flask of burning oil does not burn for very long, but uses up a lot of oxygen while it burns. In general, oil in a flask or similar small container burns for three rounds. For purposes of oxygen consumption, however, treat the burning oil as a small fire (as explained above) and treat each round of burning as a full turn. Thus, an oil fire that lasts three rounds uses up as much oxygen as a small wood fire burning for three turns."


Thoughts:
Oxygen Consumption
Most standard maps are 10' squares, ceilings perhaps 10' tall, therefore 1000 cubic feet. Every square provides 100 days worth of air! Seems too much. This link suggests 388 cubic feet oxygen consumption in one day. But CO2 (carbon dioxide) production is a real killer. This link has some formulas but supports the fantasy answer: "A 10 X 10 X 10 foot space, or 1,000 cubic feet, will be filled with a lethal concentration of CO₂ by one resting human sized individual in just 24 hours. (The CO₂ level reaches about 1% in that time). Moderate activity will cut this time to 12 hours, and strenuous activity to 6 hours." 
So I think in the end, this is sort of what Douglas Niles meant to say - a 10x10x10 foot space, provides enough air for one man size person's 24 hours survival.


Breath Holding
I understand why slow oxygen starvation is not the same physical effect as breath holding, but really, can't we use a similar fantasy game mechanic. DSG page 12 says, "If a character has a chance to take a large breath of air, and does not perform strenuous exercise while holding his breath, he can hold his breath for a number of rounds equal to 1/3 his Constitution Score, rounded up." Trouble is, is one round one minute AD&D, or B/X 10 seconds. Makes a big difference here. 
AD&D 1st edition DMG or PH, has no rules that I can find (please let me know if you can). 
AD&D 2nd edition says for breath holding as many rounds as 1/3 constitution. 
Cyclopedia = 1/2 one's constitution score in rounds. (seems very short to me)

I plan to house rule for B/X as your constitution score in rounds + level. Once constitution exceeded, Save vs paralysis every subsequent round, else drown/die. 
I leave this one for you and your DM.

What gem can we take:

1. Every 10x10x10 foot space provides enough air for one man size person's 24 hours survival.

2. Any small fire consumes 24 hours of oxygen in 2 hours, and every round of flaming oil is 1 turn (10 minutes).
3. Breath Holding Rule (see above)