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Originally Posted by Rasputin
What are the chances of rope breaking while climbing or lifting something?
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Low-Tech actually does have some guidelines for this, although they're more a matter of simply specifying that a rope automatically breaks once it exceeds its listed weight limit (which is halved for dynamic loads such as climbing or arresting a suddenly-dropped weight). See Low-Tech p. 23, "Rope, String, and Thread".
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Originally Posted by Rasputin
I'm looking for a quick ruling that's like, "Exceed the maximum weight of the rope, and it must make an HT roll or snap and break, and any critical failure on a Climbing roll will make the rope break, too." Maybe a little more complex than that—this is pretty sadistic—but the same general idea.
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If you want something more complex than "if the rope exceeds its maximum weight, it breaks", I'd suggest something like you proposed (a HT roll to avoid breakage), but starting a little earlier than max weight - for instance, have the rope roll HT starting at 50% of max weight, but with a +1 bonus for every 10% it's under max weight, and a -1 for every 10% it's over. For example, a silk rope has a max weight of 5000 lbs. under stationary load. Having it lift 2500 lbs. would force it to make an HT roll, but at +5. Subjecting it to a load of 5500 lbs., on the other hand, would force an HT roll at -1. For stationary loads, I'd only have the rope roll once, and if it succeeded, it would hold, at least until environmental conditions caused it to deteriorate. For dynamic loads, I'd have the rope roll once per hour of normal use, and every time it was clearly subject to a sudden shock. So, roll once an hour of climbing, for instance, and every time someone actually fell and a rope might arrest the fall.
I wouldn't have a critical failure of Climbing or similar skills automatically snap a rope, under this system. Instead, I'd suggest that a critical failure of skill would add (1dX10)% more weight to the most heavily-laden rope than planned, potentially requiring a check to see if it breaks.
Having a relevant skill at 15+ could justify a perk to avoid having to roll HT rolls for ropes whose effective HT scores, after modifiers, was 16 or higher, effectively a "No Nuisance Rolls" perk for rope breakage.