10-14-2017, 06:41 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Rope snapping while climbing or lifting
What are the chances of rope breaking while climbing or lifting something? I'm a little surprised not to find something for this in GURPS Low-Tech, but 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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10-14-2017, 07:20 PM | #2 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: Rope snapping while climbing or lifting
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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. |
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10-14-2017, 11:39 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Rope snapping while climbing or lifting
Realistically, the maximum listed weight for a rope includes a safety margin, so giving it a HT check for things like fraying isn't the worst option in the world.
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10-15-2017, 02:31 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Rope snapping while climbing or lifting
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I agree with Anthony that rolling a HT check if the players do something which is just above the capacity of a rope is another good choice. There is a pyramid v2 article on ropes with a slightly more detailed version of the rules from GURPS 4e Low Tech.
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10-15-2017, 05:12 PM | #5 | ||||
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Minneapolis, MN, USA
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Re: Rope snapping while climbing or lifting
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I like that one. |
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10-15-2017, 05:27 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
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Re: Rope snapping while climbing or lifting
As Anthony said, all ropes have a safety margin built into their rated load capacity (100% isn't uncommon). If a rope is rated for 100 lbs then there is no need to roll if the load is less than this. For any load exceeding the weight limit, simply roll percentile (e.g. if the max load is exceeded by 20% then the rope breaks on a roll of 20 or less). If the max load is exceeded by 100% (200 lbs in the above example) then you get automatic breakage. A successful Climbing or DX roll might stop the character from falling but the rope still breaks.
As Low-Tech says, you need to halve the weight limit for dynamic loads (e.g. towing or climbing). If the rope is older and has deteriorated then you reduce the rated capacity of the rope but you still use the same mechanics to determine breakage. There was a good article in the old online Pyramid magazine that covered all this. It had a lot of detail about making rope and cordage too. If anyone has the archive, it was called "Pulling your Weight".
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climbing, gurps, lifting, rope, rope low tech |
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