The Campaign Builder's Guild

How far can a man climb in five seconds? How high can he jump? How hard is it to do things in general?

I'm writing my skill system, and I need to know... where do you find this stuff out?

Google for record high jump. Other stuff might be more difficult to find, depending on whether it's commonly tested.

I'm sure climbing depends a lot on the surface. A person can probably climb something with good handholds much more quickly.

It depends on the person and the situation very heavily. A good rule of thumb is that the average human can jump up to as tall as they are (depending on the jump, a jump without getting any momentum would make for less height). As for climbing I am not really sure, you might watch some videos of rock climbers. I know it's pretty slow, about a foot a second or so if you have good handholds.

Have you seen people doing Parkour?  It's pretty amazing what people can do.  

Quote from: beejazzHow far can a man climb in five seconds? How high can he jump? How hard is it to do things in general?

I'm writing my skill system, and I need to know... where do you find this stuff out?

It really varies depending on the circumstances, like someone has already said.  Somethign akind to climbing is incredibly dependant on myriad variables.  How large are the grips?  How smooth are the grips?  What's the incline?  Are any dynamics required or is it mostly static climbing?  What sort of equipment are you using?  What sort of endurance do you have?  What sort of strength do you have?  What sort of dexterity do you have?  How much experience climbing do you have?

Somehting like running, jumping, and throwing random objects, yo shoudl be able to look up stats for.  Not sure what other things you need information on.

I can talk while inhaling. Wait, that's not what you're talking about, is it?

Seriously, though:

Quote from: Raven BloodmoonIt really varies depending on the circumstances, like someone has already said.  Somethign akind to climbing is incredibly dependant on myriad variables.  How large are the grips?  How smooth are the grips?  What's the incline?  Are any dynamics required or is it mostly static climbing?  What sort of equipment are you using?  What sort of endurance do you have?  What sort of strength do you have?  What sort of dexterity do you have?  How much experience climbing do you have?

I was going to say something more or less along the lines of this. I'm pretty good at climbing trees, for example. I max out at different speeds on different trees, though. I'm not quite as good at indoor rock climbing. Even worse at outdoor rock climbing. Both of those are even harder for me if I don't have any equipment. Don't even get me started on trying to climb an avalanche, because I'm not even going to bother.

With my experience tree-climbing, I'd like to throw in the variables of how sturdy the grips are (weaker branches requires much more care to climb), and how dense the grips are (this can be a problem in two ways: too far apart, and it's harder to reach for the next grip, but too close, and it's harder to squeeze between the grips).

@Phoenix:That's good for a max, but not as much the average, which is more what I need (since in an RPG, if you buy the hell out of it you can go waaaaaaaay over max, but you start around average).

@Nomadic: Yeah... I do want my system to take circumstances into account pretty heavily, though mostly it only has one speed each for success and failure with circumstances changing the odds so slower or faster is more likely (I guess there's also critical failure for falling too). There's other kinda silly bits like how feats can improve the ground you cover on a success... and the same rules apply more or less for all movement skills.

But yeah? About a foot a second? So... in a five second round, five feet?

@Seraphim: I've only spent hours on youtube looking at exactly that... that shit is awesome!

@Raven: My variables so far include incline, slipperiness, and presence/absence of ropes and handholds. At least for the DC. Training and strength do determine your skill.

If only there was some central source of general knowledge about human capabilities...

The translation of human and demihuman ability translated to numerical equivalents is the definition of a 'rule system'.  Damn.

Quote from: Lord VreegThe translation of human and demihuman ability translated to numerical equivalents is the definition of a 'rule system'.  Damn.

I am confused...

Just say running is twenty feet a second, and walking is five feet a second. If a football field in 15 seconds is too fast or slow, then adjust it from there.

Quote from: beejazz@Raven: My variables so far include incline, slipperiness, and presence/absence of ropes and handholds. At least for the DC. Training and strength do determine your skill.

Personally, I'd base climbing far more heavily on agility and balance (however you represent that) than on brute strength.  If anything, strong people often have difficulties because they weigh more and must, then, lift more.  Your grace while climbing limits your speed and ability.  Look up some videos of Chris Sharma on youtube. He's in excellent shape, but he's graceful.  Stregth is needed more for dynamic movment (like jumping for a higher hold or throwing yourself sideways to a ledge).

Quote from: Raven Bloodmoon

Quote from: beejazz@Raven: My variables so far include incline, slipperiness, and presence/absence of ropes and handholds. At least for the DC. Training and strength do determine your skill.

Personally, I'd base climbing far more heavily on agility and balance (however you represent that) than on brute strength.  If anything, strong people often have difficulties because they weigh more and must, then, lift more.  Your grace while climbing limits your speed and ability.  Look up some videos of Chris Sharma on youtube. He's in excellent shape, but he's graceful.  Stregth is needed more for dynamic movment (like jumping for a higher hold or throwing yourself sideways to a ledge).

While I agree that agility should control strength I have to disagree with climbers being more graceful than ripped. Coming from central Oregon we have a huge focus on the outdoors including quite heavily climbing (primarily of the local cliffs though the mountains get their fair share) I know alot of climbers. Not a one of them that does it regularly isn't quite heavily muscled (primarily in the arms and abdomen). Sure there is grace born of coordination but climbing tends to build alot of upper body strength since you are regularly supporting your entire weight with just your arms.

Quote from: Nomadic

Quote from: Raven Bloodmoon

Quote from: beejazz@Raven: My variables so far include incline, slipperiness, and presence/absence of ropes and handholds. At least for the DC. Training and strength do determine your skill.

Personally, I'd base climbing far more heavily on agility and balance (however you represent that) than on brute strength.  If anything, strong people often have difficulties because they weigh more and must, then, lift more.  Your grace while climbing limits your speed and ability.  Look up some videos of Chris Sharma on youtube. He's in excellent shape, but he's graceful.  Stregth is needed more for dynamic movment (like jumping for a higher hold or throwing yourself sideways to a ledge).

While I agree that agility should control strength I have to disagree with climbers being more graceful than ripped. Coming from central Oregon we have a huge focus on the outdoors including quite heavily climbing (primarily of the local cliffs though the mountains get their fair share) I know alot of climbers. Not a one of them that does it regularly isn't quite heavily muscled (primarily in the arms and abdomen). Sure there is grace born of coordination but climbing tends to build alot of upper body strength since you are regularly supporting your entire weight with just your arms.

This is an interesting debate. Personally, I say it's equally both, but it's a matter of where the focus is. The focus for the upper body is, for the most part, very clearly on strength. Doing the rough equivalent of chin-ups at all sorts of awkward, dynamic angles will do that. The focus for the lower body, however, is definitely more flexibility. When climbing, you frequently run into situations where you need to lift your feet higher and/or further out then you normally would. Easily reachable footholds can be hard to find, at times. Balance and fast-twitch reflexes factor in, and are IMHO just as important, but they're subtle enough that you can gloss over them with a game system.


I think the Chris Sharma videos i saw are prime examples of this. If you pay attention to his upper body, you'll see times when he's just dangling from handholds, lifting his entire body up with just his arms. If you pay attention to his lower body, you'll see there's times when he's almost doing splits reaching for footholds. balance and fast-twitch reflexes are also evident, but again, subtle enough to be waved off in a game system.

You could look it up in GURPS.  In GURPS the turns are broken down into seconds, and there is an emphasis on realism.

Nomadic, having done it, I have to disagree.  While core muscles are important for endurance purposes, the rest is just sort of acquired.  You shouldn't have to use your arms for much of anything other than stabalizing yourself or just hanging (which requries virtually no exertion).  Your legs do almsot all of the heavy lifting unless the route setter was an ass.  And additionally, the more graceful your movements, the less difficult you have to grasp at the rock/tree/ladder/brick/whatever you're climbing.  It is hardly uncommon to support your entire body weight with an open palm just spread across a sloped portion of rock - no amount of strength will keep you there, but body positioning will.

Halfling, go back and look again and you'll see that yes, splits are common, but where the legs are most useful is in propelling the body.  Find places where he looks like he's just doing a chinup and see if he's not using his legs.  I don't think I ever really do chinups unless I screw up and need a fast out because my grip is slipping.  Really, the three keys are grace, precision (put your toe exactly where it needs to be; don't just slide it into position), and not stopping.  The slower you move, the longer you're climbing and the more tired you get.  Use muscles that don't get tired as easily - you're legs.  Arms and back are just to keep you from falling off.  Even when you're upside down.

Porklet, in Gurps, it's based on Dexterity.

Note that I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out that it isn't correct to simply discard strength when dealing with climbing as it makes up a good 50% of the skill.

As to the original question, wouldn't it be easier to just look over other rule systems and compare them to find the best speed/time? They have probably all done a good deal of research on it. Otherwise these questions pop up occasionally on those question/answer pages; i remember finding average land speed there.

Quote from: NomadicNote that I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out that it isn't correct to simply discard strength when dealing with climbing as it makes up a good 50% of the skill.

Ah, misunderstoood that.  Still, I don't think strength really makes up that large of a percentage unless you're novice; I'd rather say endurance makes up about 50% of the skill.  A marathon runner doesn't necessarily have particularly strong legs, but they never need rest.  The same marathon runner will look like he's in really good shape, nonetheless.

@Crow, That's the easy solution.  Without many details on this game system, it's hard to give too much specific help.  Heck, Nomadic and I could be debating a moot point because strength could include endurance for all we know.  As for human norms, that information can be found at a library if not online; he'll just have to decide how his system will represent thsoe norms (if norms are what he's after).

Strength does include endurance in my system, linked in my sig.

And... would you say that the primary factor is dexterity or is it more skill and experience? Because those are different things (being trained in a skill as opposed to the skill being dexterity based).

Quote from: Raven Bloodmoon

Quote from: NomadicNote that I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out that it isn't correct to simply discard strength when dealing with climbing as it makes up a good 50% of the skill.

Ah, misunderstoood that.  Still, I don't think strength really makes up that large of a percentage unless you're novice; I'd rather say endurance makes up about 50% of the skill.  A marathon runner doesn't necessarily have particularly strong legs, but they never need rest.  The same marathon runner will look like he's in really good shape, nonetheless.

Muscular Endurance is actually a type of strength. Properly you would have power and endurance subskills for strength, but that's only acceptable in a skill based system that can have alot of simulation. Fort of course functions in a way to catch that but it is a catch all and thus inadequate (plus it has more to do with the mind than the actual capability of the muscles). Anyhow that's my 2 copper pieces.

Quote from: Raven BloodmoonHalfling, go back and look again and you'll see that yes, splits are common, but where the legs are most useful is in propelling the body.  Find places where he looks like he's just doing a chinup and see if he's not using his legs.  I don't think I ever really do chinups unless I screw up and need a fast out because my grip is slipping.  Really, the three keys are grace, precision (put your toe exactly where it needs to be; don't just slide it into position), and not stopping.  The slower you move, the longer you're climbing and the more tired you get.  Use muscles that don't get tired as easily - you're legs.  Arms and back are just to keep you from falling off.  Even when you're upside down.

First, I'd like to point out that we have experience climbing two completely different types of terrain. As I said earlier, I'm more of a tree-climber, and your comments suggest that you're more of a rock climber. In a game system, they're close enough to count as the same thing, but realistically, there's a lot of little differences.

Anyway. I made the chin-up comment as a very rough equivalent. I know you almost never use your upper body exclusively. The motions and efforts in climbing are, as far as I can tell, unique to the activity. Chin-ups were the closest equivalent I could think of for the upper body motion of lifting your body.

Alternatively, you could have climbing involve a set of tasks. Maybe create the mountain as a "creature" which had different "attacks" like crumpling foothold, distant handhold, perpendicular wall and scorpion nest. The ability required would depend on what "attack" was used.
Other than that, there are systems where skills are not affected by attributes. If you want the abilities to have some effect, you could make it so they reduced the cost of the skill.
I reckon that these ideas won't be of that much use since you are too far in the creative procedure, but might be some inspiration.

Halfling, fair enough.  Climbing is a tricky one to figure out.  I suppose it's really the only movement type that would be difficult to work out for a system, since it covers so many situations and types of movement.  As much as I'd hate to say it (as I'm not a fan of spitballing lots of variables at once), a mess of modifiers might be the best solution to tailor the skill to the action.  Alternatively, leaving it very general and just letting the DM guestimate (with some sort of general guide) might be a better solution.  I suppose it is mostly up to the style of system that beejazz likes.

To start with jumping...

I'm thinking that a long jump would be DC4 (or DC 3 with a running jump) where failure indicates two squares (each 3-4 feet) and success indicates two.

High jumps would also be DC4 and 3 with a running jump, where failure indicates a 3 foot jump and success indicates a 6 foot jump.

And as with all my movement skills, someone with skill focus could take a feat to move +1 square on a success.

Reasonable?

(oh, and the DC is the number of dice you roll, trying to roll at or under your skill... which will be between 5 and 20 for a starting character)

Quote from: beejazzI'm thinking that a long jump would be DC4 (or DC 3 with a running jump) where failure indicates two squares (each 3-4 feet) and success indicates two.

You mean failure is 1 and success is 2, right?

D'oh...

Long jump is 2 on a failure, 3 on success.
High jump is 1 on a failure, 2 on success.

Remember.. these are 3-4 foot squares, as opposed to the 5 foot squares of D&D.

Quote from: Raven BloodmoonPorklet, in Gurps, it's based on Dexterity.

The Base Speed in GURPS (which is converted to find climbing speed, swimming, etc.) is based on Dexterity and Health (overall fitness and/or constitution).  It does not use Strength as a factor due to higher Strengths also raising the character's average Weight.

The system is pretty convoluted, but it excels in realism.  A character can also buy enhanced movement (running, swimming jumping, etc.), but an average human is accurately reflected in the rules.  There are issues with long term movement (hiking, marathons), but broken down into small intervals it's quite believable.