D&D: So You Have to Get Across a Chasm – Now What?
When you run into roleplaying roadblocks, it’s hard to move on. But if you have to cross a literal or metaphoric chasm, we’re here to help.
Nothing can bring your adventure grinding to a halt like a deep chasm without an obvious bridge.
Now in D&D, this can be a literal chasm. Or it can be a metaphor. Like a locked door without an obvious key. Or a missing person without a clue.
It’s funny, because for a game of creativity, there’s something about D&D that often limits players to think only about their character’s abilities. But if there’s no obvious skill check, what do you do?
At higher levels, you might just teleport or fly across the chasm. But when you’re a lower level hero? That’s when it’s time to get creative. Here’s how.
Make a Bridge
If you’re going up against a chasm, one of the first things you might think to do is put down a log to see if you can cross it. But what if the chasm is too big? Well, you can always think bigger, and build yourself a bridge.
All you need is proficiency with carpenter’s tools and you ought to be able to at the very least make your checks and get yourself a rudimentary path across.
Rope Trick
If you don’t have that kind of time, rope is cheap and comes pretty standard in 50-foot lengths. Drop a few gold pieces back in town and you should be able to cross any reasonable chasm you come to. All you need is a way of getting the rope across–Long Bows have a long range of 600 feet. But if that doesn’t work, Find Familiar is also a great spell, just summon up a flying familiar, give them one end of the rope and a grappling hook, and have them fly it across.
Not sure if your familiar can do it? Well convince your Druid not to be a bear one time today, and instead get them to wild shape into something small, have them hold the rope while the familiar holds the druid. You’ll have to be 2nd level for that trick to work, though. Either way, make sure your rope stays tied together.
We recommend a double fisherman’s knot. Send one rope, then another, sprinkle in a couple of planks, or just make an easy Acrobatics check and you’ve got a bridge.
Go Around
Just take care not to go *too far* around it
Of course, if you don’t have a longbow or a familiar and your druid refuses to be anything other than a bear, you could always try to take the long way around. Chasms don’t typically bisect the world, and unless you’re playing in some kind of weird video game world where you can’t just go around it… you can just go around it. Tell your DM you’re headed around it – if you have a flying familiar, they ought to be able to scout for you – and yeah, it’ll take some extra time, but that just means more time for things to get tense.
Goin’ Down
Maybe you don’t have the luxury of time. In that case, how deep is this chasm anyway? You’ve got rope (I hope), and even if you can’t cross to the other side on a bridge, you might be able to climb down, cross the chasm at the bottom where there’s ground, then climb up the other side. This is definitely harder to do, because you’ll be rolling climb checks, and unless you’re kitted out for climbing (which you could be if you’re a first-level rogue with expertise in Athletics), you’ll have your work cut out for you. But you can do it – who knows, you might even find some treasure down there.
Buy the DM a Pizza
Finally the age-old solution to any problem in D&D: microtransactions. Stuck at an impassable wall? No bridge across the chasm? Get everyone to chip in five bucks and order a pizza for the table, then watch as your problems melt away like the cheese, stuffed into the crust.
Happy Adventuring!
