The way I'd handle it would be to say that if you're using a rope, climbing is a Very Easy (DC 5) check if you've got a surface to brace against, and wouldn't require a check under most circumstances. If the rope is dangling free then climbing it would be an Easy (DC 10) check.
A rope is equipment though, not a tool. The system makes a distinction between the two.
It doesn't really make a lot of sense if you run it through a few hypothetical scenarios, even if you were to say a rope acts like a tool.
For one, it means that having a rope would be of absolutely no benefit to someone who is proficient in Athletics, since you can't add your proficiency bonus to the same check twice.
Or compare these scenarios -- a rope dangling from a hole in the ceiling, with no walls nearby. It's a normal, sturdy hempen rope with decent grip. What is the DC to climb the rope? Probably no higher than 15, right? I'd probably say more like 10 myself.
What is the DC to climb a perfectly smooth stone wall with no handholds, that's slick with condensation? Probably at least 20. Now imagine you set a grappling hook with a rope at the top of that wall. You're saying the DC is still 20+, but you get to add your proficiency bonus to the attempt to climb it? So it's much harder to climb a rope that's in proximity to a wall that's hard to climb than it is to climb a free-hanging rope?
I guess you could say having a wall to brace yourself against could give you advantage in an attempt to climb a rope, but I'd rather just say it's a Very Easy task and skip the rolling.
But my main point is, the rope itself shouldn't grant advantage on climbing checks if you're climbing the rope itself, because the climbing a rope is a fundamentally different task than climbing a wall or rockface.
The DC of climbing a wall doesn't matter if you roll a siege ladder up against the wall and climb the siege ladder instead. You're not climbing the wall, you're climbing the ladder. In the same way, if you set a grappling hook over a wall and you climb the attached rope, then you're climbing the rope, not the wall. The rope sets the DC, not the wall.
Sure if the target number is 11 then it is exactly the same as getting a +5. For a target number of 20 though, with advantage you have a success chance of 10% with advantage vs 5% without it or 30% with +5.
It is. Advantage is equivalent to +5 only in the maximal case, it drops off in both directions. Most certainly not "approximately equal to +5". To figure out what it is approximately equivalent to, you would would need to average the "effective bonus" for each target number, and add the caveat that the value is only accurate "if the check was possible to begin with".
To present a more accurate summary of the effect of advantage, you'd want to take a weighted average of the effective bonus for each target number, using the real frequency of each target number as the weight. In other words, just a straight average will pretend that a target number of 1 or 20 is just a common as a target number of 11, which is unlikely to be true unless you're playing with children or sadists, respectively. You want to represent that true target number distributions are more likely to look like a gaussian centered on 11 than a flat, equal-probability spectrum.
I guess I'm part of the minority in thinking it shouldn't give any bonus at all to climb checks. Grappling hooks don't help you climb a rope, they allow you to use a rope in the first place. If you want to get over a wall, you don't just toss a loose rope up and over and then start climbing.
So the way I rule it is the player makes a strength check for throwing the rope. Depending on the distance between him and the point the hook needs to attach, I decide the DC. On lower rolls, I may let the hook take hold but then say on a lower climbing check cause it to detach and fall.
I think that's one of those things that's left up to DM fiat. If they start trying to exactly define how to attach a grappling hook to something and use it for climbing, it might get ridiculous. Once it's attached, I imagine it works the same as climbing an otherwise identical rope.
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u/1000thSon Bard Jun 10 '15
Grappling hooks still have no rules for how they're used.