D&D...Adventures in the Underworld

[Abused Student]

First, everyone gets 30 XP for making it through the night without getting robbed blind.

Ok.

The morning goes uneventfully. The party picks up the path again and follow it right to the base of the hill. There is a 20 foot sheer cliff that is the start of the hill. Then it seems to be a steep but not impassable trip up. The cliff is 20 feet at its shortest but goes on as far as the party is able to see around the side of the hill. The track leads right to the stone and newly fallen rock is at the base so it appears somehow the creatures went up the hill.

[Gandalf]

Are we sure that the cat creatures went straight up? Any possibility of an entrance into a cave or something, or is the cliff face clearly solid and immovable?

Does the cliff look scalable? After tying on ropes, what checks would we need?

[4sigma]

Climbing is an athletics check.

[4sigma]

V's thoughts: Perhaps we should climb up the cliff at a slightly different location than the cat people went up. If their lair is near the top of the cliff, we might prefer not to be mid climbing when they pounce on us. So perhaps we could head 100 yards or so around the hill in one direction or the other, climb up, and then head back over (atop the cliff)?

[Abused Student]

Originally Posted by Gandalf

Are we sure that the cat creatures went straight up? Any possibility of an entrance into a cave or something, or is the cliff face clearly solid and immovable?

Does the cliff look scalable? After tying on ropes, what checks would we need?

Originally Posted by 4sigma

Climbing is an athletics check.

With ropes you should be able to climb it. With mountaneering, you might be able to try it without ropes.

[Gandalf]

Originally Posted by 4sigma

V's thoughts: Perhaps we should climb up the cliff at a slightly different location than the cat people went up. If their lair is near the top of the cliff, we might prefer not to be mid climbing when they pounce on us. So perhaps we could head 100 yards or so around the hill in one direction or the other, climb up, and then head back over (atop the cliff)?

but let's find another spot that the climb is not significantly more than the 20 feet it is here (and where we think we could return back to the trail, above the cliff).

[Abused Student]

There is a drop in the leveling out down near the 25 foot level about a mile north from what you can see where you are. The top right here has maybe thirty or forty feet before the trees start. To the north at the 25 foot level, the trees start right at the edge. To the south a couple miles you can see a spot that gets down to maybe 10 or 15 feet but it looks like it opens into a giant meadow with a good quarter mile before you get to the trees.

[4sigma]

North, then?

[Gandalf]

; let's make sure we scale the cliff before nightfall.

Do we need athletics checks from everyone now? Is it important to specify who (or if not her, which person instead) will be the first to attempt the climb? It seems to me that the climb would be easier for the followers if someone was already at the top with a rope lowered.

Gimli has a +11 athletics modifier, including 5 for training, if we want me to be the first to attempt it (waiting for a decision on that before rolling).

[J.T.]

Originally Posted by Abused Student

It did come from flying pigs

Don't you mean ?

And yeah, I agree with siggy.