Of rope, climb, and the mantis scrolling

[SailorMars]

I imagine most people have experienced grabbing some rope in both hands, trying to climb down somewhere, and falling room after room until  *SPLAT* scroll the Mantis. Now, I'm in decent shape -- far from the lean mass of muscle most Zalanthan survivors probably are -- and I can climb down a knotted rope without falling off it. Most PCs on the Mud cannot, and they are for the most part in great shape! The following are some suggestions I'm throwing out on making climbing with a rope more reasonable.

NOTE: I may be repeating some things already coded. Forgive me if that's the case...

1) Awareness of a falling room: If you "look n" and 1 north [Near] is a room with a fall, have the look echo show the fall up to three rooms down, depending on the weather, as per usual. I.e. You're looking over the edge... Example:

To the north is the canyons.
[Very far]
Nothing.
[Far]
Nothing.
[Near]
Nothing.
[Down]
Nothing.
[Down Far]
Nothing.
[Down Very Far]
Nothing.
[Too Far to See]
Nothing.

My point is: In most cases you should be able to tell if you're about to step off into the air, or a potential fall. The [Too Far to See] would imply the fall went beyond three rooms.

2) Have a command to tie-off a rope both 1 room away from an immedate fall, and in the room above a fall if one exists (such as above a well). Something like:

tie rope north
You tie-off a rope, tossing the remaining length north.

l room
A grappling rope is tied off here, dangling north. [or]
A grappling rope is tied off here, dangling down.

3) Assume the average rope is 50' feet long, or how ever many cords that is. Figure out a "height" for each fall room. So, if a fall passes through three rooms, and each "down" is 10 feet, a fifty foot rope would reach all the way down. If each fall room was 20 feet, the rope would not be long enough.

3a) If the rope is not long enough, ropes could be joined, or the PC could simple let go at the bottom, falling the rest of the way down, or climb back up (see below).

3b) Stating the obvious but different ropes would be different lengths, and some will be easier to climb than others.

4) Make a 'guard rope' command. That will attempt to block someone from doing 'untie rope' and sending those climbing down it to their doom. :twisted:

5) Then we make some kind of flag to use the rope. Examples:
north rope [or]
down -rope [Etc.]

You get the idea: The PC is trying to use the rope to climb down.

6) Actual climbing: The average person in a medium load should be able to climb down a knotted rope without falling, most of the time. Factors like wind, terrain, etc. could make it harder, but if we're talking down the aveage cliff with footholds it should be more doable than presently, IMHO.

7) Climbing up/down would tax the vitality (as it already does). After huge, long climbs the average person might tire and fall off, but that would be for very long climbs.

8 ) Releasing the rope while its tied-off above and you're below: For most people the rope is stuck up there unless their magicker companion unties it and flies down. Perhaps certain people like rangers would have a rope-use skill allowing them to make special knots that could be tugged free a certain way from below...

9) Climbing up on a rope set in this way should be easier too, but not as easy as climbing down, again IMHO.

Those are just my opinions, and I hope to hear some comments on them. Ultimately if the code allowed for such things it might ease the imms up from getting special wishes about climbing, etc. It would also prevent those with careful planning from dying so easily from a fall, which is a lame way to go.

p.s. No, my character didn't just fall to their death.

Edit: Oh, I nearly forgot. Some kind of "saving throw" against following the group leader off a cliff or down a well. You almost follow the freefalling adventurer north, but stop as you see them beginning to plummet down.

[Carnage]

After seeing one PC fall to his death even though he was holding a rope and another get knocked unconscious even though he was also holding a rope, I support this one hundred percent.

[gfair]

I think there are a couple of big issues, namely weight and knowledge  of rope climbing/descending.

Most characters in Arm who do a lot of climbing that I have seen are the fighter types.  They carry a lot of gear and armor.  Anyone can climb a rope when they are fit, but add the number of ten-stone in armor that a Zalanthan would wear and you'd have a much harder time.

Also, how do you climb a rope?  It isn't that easy, the standard way I saw to climb one was to have it twist around one leg so the other could press against it and provide support from your lower limbs so your arms didn't have to bear all the brunt.  You could also get more elaborate with winding various loops around the waist very akin to climbing gear, but I doubt most Zalanthans would figure this out.  And I've never seen expert rope climbers do lessons in Arm, though I'm sure it happens rarely.

It isn't a simple issue, and I'm sure it's done for a reason.  Does this come up often enough to merit changing?  I don't think so.

[JollyGreenGiant]

I've never been in any branch of the Armed Forces, but don't they make those guys climb ropes and such wearing 50 lb. rucksacks?  So it's feasible to climb ropes with a fair amount of encumbrance.

[Anarchy]

Heh, sure, you can think that way,
but have you ever seen, or are you able to climb a cliff face
without good climbing gear dressed head to toe in plate-mail?

Pretty much what people are trying to do in Arm, have
there buff warriors climb the shield wall dressed in chitin
from what i understain chitin is heavy, thick and restritive...
Its not going to happen, not going up at least...

Compare that to a man in light clothing with a harness, rope,
climbing gloves mountain clips, etc with a 50 pound pack over
both shoulders, easy.

[Dan]

Easy, comparatively speaking of course. Fifty pounds is still a good bit of weight to have on your back when there is on average 50-70 mile per hour winds blasting at the western side of the shield wall.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Hmm.  Ok.  How about mountaineers, who not only wear 50 lb. of gear, but also wear very thick, heavy clothing which is reasonably restrictive?  Also, chitin is a good bit lighter than platemail.  It's not nearly as dense.  The winds on some of those peaks get pretty intense.

I'm not saying it's easy.  Just that it's doable.

[Delirium]

The only change I'd like to see, if it isn't already implimented, is for how much weight your character is carrying to affect climbing ability.

Possibility of climing up in chitin aside, imagine two people with equal climbing ability. Dress one in loose sandcloth and the other in head-to-toe armor, and see which one has the easier time. ;)

[Angela Christine]

Yeah, your clothes can go way over 50 pounds without you even noticing.  I've found that the item descriptions aren't that helpful, you really have to weigh the item . . . well, if you happen to be in the part of the world that has scales, otherwise you have to rely on the value skill. :roll:

For example: I was looking at 4 pairs of leather or hide pants, all of which were classed as armor, and that all looked like they should weigh around the same amount.  No bone or chitin plates, no studs or anything attatched that would increase the weight.  They weighed 2, 8, 10, and 11 stone, a huge difference in weight!  A stone is roughly a kilogram, which is roughly 2.2 pounds.  So in pounds those leather pants were approximately 5, 17, 22 and 25 pounds.  I was astounded and baffled.  I honestly think the 10+ stone leather pants were a mistake and the person that set their attributes was thinking in pounds, not stones, because a 10 pound pair of leather pants is reasonable.  Since then I've gotten paranoid and weigh nearly everything when I can afford it.  

You might think I'm letting stats influence my character's decicisions and that they should just wear the clothes that -look- appropriate, but I figure my character is smart enough to notice that one pair of pants weighs 5x as much, despite the fact that it doesn't appear to offer any better protection, and pick the lighter and more comfortable pair.  Twinkery in or IC common sense?  I'm not really sure.  In order to weigh items I have to buy them, pay to weigh, and then sell back the items I don't want.  So in one sense I've "wasted" hundreds of sid  trying to find information that should be obvious just from handling the item in the shop.  My character may not be able to tell that an item weighs exactly 8 stone, but she should be able to tell that one item is much heavier than another.  In effect I'm paying IC money to get information OOCly that I should already have ICly.

But back to the topic at hand.    You can easily be carrying a couple hundred pounds without even realizing it.  Most packs hold at least 40 stone (about 100 pounds), so a full pack plus unexpectedly heavy armor can really add up.  Add in your body weight and that is a lot of weight to haul up and down a rope.

On the other hand, climbing -down- with a rope is an unnecessary hazard.  When you are climbing up failure usually means you just lose stamina without moving, critical failures that cause you to slip down to a lower level or fall on your neck are fairly rare even without the climb skill.  On the other hand, when climbing down -any- failure will send you plummeting all the way down to the bottem with little chance to save yourself.  In fact, most of the time it's better not to try to save yourself, because every time you try to stop the fall and fail you take more dammage.  So you are better to just "go limp" because trying to catch yourself is more likely to kill you.  When you are climbing _down_ with a rope you should have been able to securely tie the rope at the top and rappel down the slope without killing yourself.

I don't know how many times I've had a character climb up a bluff, mountain or spire, enjoy the view, and then think "Oh shit, how am I going to get down from here?!"  :shock:  Maybe that is realistic, I know as a kid I was much better at climbing up my grandparents cherry tree than I was at climbing back down.  Ok, I never slipped and fell to my death, but I was far more nervous about climbing down than climbing up.  So . . . I just don't know.

AC

[John]

A stone is roughly a kilogram

People want to haul around 50 kilograms of stuff up and down a cliff and find it easy :shock:

I would actually like this suggestion if there were changes to the code, such as you need to actually successfully toss some rope up onto the cliff ledge. This would make climbing a LOT more realistic, but also harder so it would balance it out if it was made easier.

Just my 2 'sid *plink plink*

[astilwel]

Edit: Oh, I nearly forgot. Some kind of "saving throw" against following the group leader off a cliff or down a well.  You almost follow the freefalling adventurer north, but stop as you see them beginning to plummet down.

I think that this is reasonable. If you think about it, realistically speaking, you would not just walk over the edge following your leader down the cliff, especially if there was a lot of people following them in a group. Maybe the first person in line might fall, but definately people to the back of the group would see people falling and try to stop themselves, and may actually succeed. That should be incorporated if possible IMHO. Shrug, just a thought. :?

[Rindan]

I always explained kanks following each other off cliffs to be that they are very stupid herd animals.  They follow each blindly, and so if one jumps off a cliff they all do.

[Anarchy]

Its the wide world of wonderful lemmings!

[Angela Christine]

I always explained kanks following each other off cliffs to be that they are very stupid herd animals.  They follow each blindly, and so if one jumps off a cliff they all do.

Yeah, but kanks are balky as hell, there ought to be some chance they will balk when the rider tells them to do something stupid.  I was also once involved in a situation where more than 20 people on foot followed someone on a long, long fall.  That was fun.


However, there is already an easy solution coded.  Don't use the follow command you lazy bums, just follow manually.  The leader goes east, and everybody that wants to follow him types "east".  If you think your leader is about to walk off the shieldwall, you wait a moment and look east before going east, if everthing looks alright you go ahead and go east.  This increases the chance that the group will get seperated, and that the scout or leader will get attacked by a group of baddies before the rest of the group enters the area, but at least you won't all jump off the shieldwall together.

AC

[Stroker]

Once I was doing exactly what you describe with a char of mine, AC, but the person I was following made this comment - OOC: Please 'follow' me using the command. Not exactly in those words, because I can't remember it too clearly .... but that's how it went.

[Flaming Ocotillo]

In regard to the arguments being presented about climbing in heavy armor, I'd like to point out that the original poster's complaints about climbing issues would still be applicable whether or not the PC was wearing heavy armor or completely naked. If a PC attempts to climb down a cliff with 10 rooms of empty space beneath them, having only taken a "few" climbing lessons ICly, the chances are still good that they will drop to their death, whether they are wearing heavy armor or regular clothing. I think this is the original reason why SailorMars suggested some ways to make climbing while _secured_ a more secure way of climbing.

[SailorMars]

I think this is the original reason why SailorMars suggested some ways to make climbing while _secured_ a more secure way of climbing.

Bingo.

[growingall]

A man from a  medival society nearby has tried to climb a sheer drop, up and down with full chain-mail, metal helmet and a backpack.

He got down quite easily, after doing some gliding, having secured the rope to his belt. (I do not know how)

He never succeded in getting up however. But he wasn't an -elite- anything and rather heavy-set.

This being a story told by a friend, I rely on it and claims that you have to be darn unlucky (or clumsy) to hurt yourself after taking time to secure the rope and carefully going down using it. Up is another matter.