Climbing question...

[Strykr]

Eredel, young wizard of Lucinda, is having an extremely difficult time climbing rocks in various mountains.  My concern here is Eredel receives a -1 modifier to his climb ability.  However, his statistics have no negative modifiers.  I am curious where this modifier comes from.  Eredel only wears a robe, so I can't imagine the penalty comes from that.  Has anyone any idea as to why climbing is so difficult?  With the penalty, I have a DC of 16 for a successful climb that most consider easy.

[Xandor Loriland]

I have been curious about this too.  There are some climbs and such that have bonuses that seem to have level dependence.  Is that part of the equation?

[Leanthar]

The heavier your inventory the more the penalty, that is one of the penalties at least. And no it does not start happening when you are just over your max carried weight.

[Dorganath]

Climbing is dependent on Strength, the armor check penalty and the encumberance penalty. I'm not going to go into details on the formula, but those are the factors it considers.

[Talan Va'lash]

It is level dependant in that it simulates the climb skill (which doesn't exist in NWN) by assuming that you put x% of the skill points that you could put in it, in it.
 
  Climb isn't a class skill for all classes, and I think wizards don't have but I'm not sure, so you may or may not be getting any level dependant bonus.
 
  Also size gives you a modifier, medium creatures have a 0 size modifier small -4 and large +4 or something
 
  The formula it uses isn't a big secret or anything, its just an approximation of the rules in the PHB (as close as can be done in NWN.)

[Strykr]

I will have to give the climbs an attempt with a strength buff and see if it changes things.  Being a crafter I am always pushing the envelope with my inventory.  And being a very weak individual as a wizard, it doesn't take much to push the envelope.  But I will see if Bull's Strength helps me out at all.

[Xandor Loriland]

Bull's strength will definitely help.

[Talan Va'lash]

Talan Va'lash - 7/18/2006  5:31 PM  
  Also size gives you a modifier, medium creatures have a 0 size modifier small -4 and large +4 or something
 
 

 
  Size isn't for climb checks, its for some of the others.

[Dorganath]

There are size modifiers for some of the skills, just not for climb. The dependencies I listed above hold for climb, and there's also a "class skill" bonus as well...which holds true for all of the skills.
  Size modifiers come into play for jumping and tight spaces.
  Some skills have DEX modifiers, tumble modifiers, etc.
  As Talan said, they are approximations of PHB skills which do not exist in NWN.
  For the OP...it's possible/probable that you are carrying enough weight (as a mage with probably low-ish strength, that may be less weight than you think) for this skill system to take a penalty, as it's harder to climb when you're carrying a certain amount of weight, even if you're not technically encumbered.

[Etinfall]

Strykr - 7/18/2006  7:15 PM  I will have to give the climbs an attempt with a strength buff and see if it changes things.  Being a crafter I am always pushing the envelope with my inventory.  And being a very weak individual as a wizard, it doesn't take much to push the envelope.  But I will see if Bull's Strength helps me out at all.

 
  Makes sense though. The heavier your inventory the harder it is to climb a wall. I never knew that. Very nice detail.
 
  Etin