Even if you go by lengthwise (as in longest side) then while a town wall might be wider than it is tall, a tower wall will be taller than it is wide, so lengthwise can be either horizontally or vertically,
Well no, a wall ten feet long and a hundred feet high is still only ten feet long. You can't make a wall longer by increasing its height, that doesn't make a lick of sense.
The length of something is determined by the longest side; if something is taller than it is wide (or deep) then its length is its height. For example, if you have a four foot length of wood and lay it out horizontally, it's four feet long, if you stand it vertically upright, it's still four feet long.
In three dimensional geometry we use width (left to right), depth (front to back) and height (bottom to top) rather than length because length has no orientation. Even those get confusing because you need to specify some kind of direction for them to make absolute sense.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Even if you go by lengthwise (as in longest side) then while a town wall might be wider than it is tall, a tower wall will be taller than it is wide, so lengthwise can be either horizontally or vertically,
Well no, a wall ten feet long and a hundred feet high is still only ten feet long. You can't make a wall longer by increasing its height, that doesn't make a lick of sense.
The length of something is determined by the longest side; if something is taller than it is wide (or deep) then its length is its height. For example, if you have a four foot length of wood and lay it out horizontally, it's four feet long, if you stand it vertically upright, it's still four feet long.
In three dimensional geometry we use width (left to right), depth (front to back) and height (bottom to top) rather than length because length has no orientation. Even those get confusing because you need to specify some kind of direction for them to make absolute sense.
Hilariously wrong (correct for a piece of wood, or a rope, that don't have a fixed orientation, sure... though once you fix a piece of wood in place vertically and it becomes a pillar, a maypole, flagpole, telegraph pole or a mast, we generally refer to its "height" rather than its "length"). Allow me to demonstrate - just answer this question for me:
A house has a hallway with a horizontal floor and ceiling, and vertical walls, all nicely flat and square to each other, like most normal hallways. Two opposite walls have ordinary doorways in them at floor level, and are twenty feet apart. The other walls have no openings, and are five feet apart. The ceiling is thirty feet above the floor. How long is the hallway?
The end of a river is not strictly horrizontal in any means. The end of a river in common parlance is the point where the river meets some other body of water such as a lake or the sea. That has various levels of verticality to it because Most rivers are actually not strictly traveling horizontally but they actually travel in a somewhat downward angle that ranges from slight to practically straight down throughout it's journey.
Yes, rivers flow because of gravity, wow that really destroys the definition 🙄. On the other hand anyone can point to the ends of a river on a 2d map which doesn't show elevation, and literally no-one (except you, perhaps?) will be the least bit confused by that, even if they don't know which way it's flowing.
the common Parlance of "off the end of a cliff" which is the closest to it being used pretty much universally means off of some point at it's upper most side with the entent that you would end up somewhere near the bottom.
Quite right - if the "cliff" in that phrase referred to the vertical surface, it would have two ends. "The end of a cliff" (as opposed to "the top end of a cliff") tells us that in this context "a cliff" refers to the horizontal (ok, seeing as you seem hung up on this point, maybe not *perfectly* horizontal) surface "above" the drop, which has one "end", if we're using a reference direction that takes you from being on the cliff to off the cliff. If you were standing still, a little distance from the drop, we'd say you were standing "on a cliff", then if you were feeling adventurous and approached the drop, you'd be standing "on the edge of a cliff". The "edge" becomes the "end" only if you're moving rapidly towards it - it's not very clear in that context where the cliff "begins" exactly, but it's reasonably obvious where it ends.
Interesting example though, as you can walk along a cliff without falling off it until you reach the end (walking parallel to the length of the cliff), but you run "off the end" you're moving parallel to the surface of the cliff (referring to the definition of "cliff" in which you can stand on a cliff) but perpendicular to the cliff edge, which is what you'd be moving parallel to when walking "along" a cliff. A nice ambiguity in the language that would probably make for a good riddle.
This discussion of the definition of the word "end" is silly because (a) the word "end" can mean the terminating edge in any direction and (b) the word "end" does not appear in the RAW of the monk feature being discussed. We've gone way off the deep end.
The end of a river is not strictly horrizontal in any means. The end of a river in common parlance is the point where the river meets some other body of water such as a lake or the sea. That has various levels of verticality to it because Most rivers are actually not strictly traveling horizontally but they actually travel in a somewhat downward angle that ranges from slight to practically straight down throughout it's journey.
Yes, rivers flow because of gravity, wow that really destroys the definition 🙄. On the other hand anyone can point to the ends of a river on a 2d map which doesn't show elevation, and literally no-one (except you, perhaps?) will be the least bit confused by that, even if they don't know which way it's flowing.
the common Parlance of "off the end of a cliff" which is the closest to it being used pretty much universally means off of some point at it's upper most side with the entent that you would end up somewhere near the bottom.
Quite right - if the "cliff" in that phrase referred to the vertical surface, it would have two ends. "The end of a cliff" (as opposed to "the top end of a cliff") tells us that in this context "a cliff" refers to the horizontal (ok, seeing as you seem hung up on this point, maybe not *perfectly* horizontal) surface "above" the drop, which has one "end", if we're using a reference direction that takes you from being on the cliff to off the cliff. If you were standing still, a little distance from the drop, we'd say you were standing "on a cliff", then if you were feeling adventurous and approached the drop, you'd be standing "on the edge of a cliff". The "edge" becomes the "end" only if you're moving rapidly towards it - it's not very clear in that context where the cliff "begins" exactly, but it's reasonably obvious where it ends.
Interesting example though, as you can walk along a cliff without falling off it until you reach the end (walking parallel to the length of the cliff), but you run "off the end" you're moving parallel to the surface of the cliff (referring to the definition of "cliff" in which you can stand on a cliff) but perpendicular to the cliff edge, which is what you'd be moving parallel to when walking "along" a cliff. A nice ambiguity in the language that would probably make for a good riddle.
Again a complete failure. Other than to say the cliff would have 4 ends I'm not going to bother with more of this. Your attempting a long diatribe here that does not in any way speak against what I said. Along a cliff also does not necessarily mean along it's edge. That is a restriction your imposing upon it. A path can run along a cliff and be neither at the edge or the bottom. Both of which would be ends. As would each side be. Your not creating any riddle here by using the word along because the word along simply does not have the required information your trying to give it. Neither does end. Neither one gives enough defining information to mean anything.
Even if you go by lengthwise (as in longest side) then while a town wall might be wider than it is tall, a tower wall will be taller than it is wide, so lengthwise can be either horizontally or vertically,
Well no, a wall ten feet long and a hundred feet high is still only ten feet long. You can't make a wall longer by increasing its height, that doesn't make a lick of sense.
The length of something is determined by the longest side; if something is taller than it is wide (or deep) then its length is its height. For example, if you have a four foot length of wood and lay it out horizontally, it's four feet long, if you stand it vertically upright, it's still four feet long.
In three dimensional geometry we use width (left to right), depth (front to back) and height (bottom to top) rather than length because length has no orientation. Even those get confusing because you need to specify some kind of direction for them to make absolute sense.
Hilariously wrong (correct for a piece of wood, or a rope, that don't have a fixed orientation, sure... though once you fix a piece of wood in place vertically and it becomes a pillar, a maypole, flagpole, telegraph pole or a mast, we generally refer to its "height" rather than its "length"). Allow me to demonstrate - just answer this question for me:
A house has a hallway with a horizontal floor and ceiling, and vertical walls, all nicely flat and square to each other, like most normal hallways. Two opposite walls have ordinary doorways in them at floor level, and are twenty feet apart. The other walls have no openings, and are five feet apart. The ceiling is thirty feet above the floor. How long is the hallway?
He is not wrong. And everything you said actually proves his point why length and even along does not actually innately imply a horizontal direction.
One of the reasons is because that flag poles length is based upon it's longest dimension so even whether you have it planted in the ground or laying horizontally it's length is going to be the same. it does not magically change it's length simply because it is now fixed in place. Geometry and even architecture do not use the term length to actually describe anything because it does not hold inherent directional information. Nor is end necessarily horizontal. Again the Flag Pole is a fine example of this because it's End's are either up in the sky or planted against the ground. It's ends are not located horizontally upon it. This is even more true because the Flag Pole is circular and technically does not even have multiple sides. it has one continuous side that moves in the shape of a loop. So if you wanted to move along or to the end of the pole you would have to move vertically because by common parlance we wuold not use end to describe the point in which it is affixed in the ground. We would simply use "to" As in "Go to the flag pole." Your Attempts to shove length in the equation are actually outright examples about how Length does not apply when describing it three dimensionally because length does not actually give a directional of orientation whether attached or unattached to the ground.
If you move a flag along a flagpole. Such as through the rope pully system that is an inherent piece of all flag poles. You do not move it horizontally. You actually move it vertically because when planted in the ground as your trying to claim that proves along is horizontal that is the direction things would move. And it's length even affixed to the ground and standing upright would still be it's vertical measurement from base to tip. How ever the car that you can park next to it would have it's length be on it's longest side from front bumper to back. Both use Length. You can actually describe along for both of them. But neither actually indicates the same direction of measurement or movement.
Even if you go by lengthwise (as in longest side) then while a town wall might be wider than it is tall, a tower wall will be taller than it is wide, so lengthwise can be either horizontally or vertically,
Well no, a wall ten feet long and a hundred feet high is still only ten feet long. You can't make a wall longer by increasing its height, that doesn't make a lick of sense.
The length of something is determined by the longest side; if something is taller than it is wide (or deep) then its length is its height. For example, if you have a four foot length of wood and lay it out horizontally, it's four feet long, if you stand it vertically upright, it's still four feet long.
In three dimensional geometry we use width (left to right), depth (front to back) and height (bottom to top) rather than length because length has no orientation. Even those get confusing because you need to specify some kind of direction for them to make absolute sense.
Hilariously wrong (correct for a piece of wood, or a rope, that don't have a fixed orientation, sure... though once you fix a piece of wood in place vertically and it becomes a pillar, a maypole, flagpole, telegraph pole or a mast, we generally refer to its "height" rather than its "length"). Allow me to demonstrate - just answer this question for me:
A house has a hallway with a horizontal floor and ceiling, and vertical walls, all nicely flat and square to each other, like most normal hallways. Two opposite walls have ordinary doorways in them at floor level, and are twenty feet apart. The other walls have no openings, and are five feet apart. The ceiling is thirty feet above the floor. How long is the hallway?
He is not wrong. And everything you said actually proves his point why length and even along does not actually innately imply a horizontal direction.
One of the reasons is because that flag poles length is based upon it's longest dimension so even whether you have it planted in the ground or laying horizontally it's length is going to be the same. it does not magically change it's length simply because it is now fixed in place. Geometry and even architecture do not use the term length to actually describe anything because it does not hold inherent directional information. Nor is end necessarily horizontal. Again the Flag Pole is a fine example of this because it's End's are either up in the sky or planted against the ground. It's ends are not located horizontally upon it. This is even more true because the Flag Pole is circular and technically does not even have multiple sides. it has one continuous side that moves in the shape of a loop. So if you wanted to move along or to the end of the pole you would have to move vertically because by common parlance we wuold not use end to describe the point in which it is affixed in the ground. We would simply use "to" As in "Go to the flag pole." Your Attempts to shove length in the equation are actually outright examples about how Length does not apply when describing it three dimensionally because length does not actually give a directional of orientation whether attached or unattached to the ground.
If you move a flag along a flagpole. Such as through the rope pully system that is an inherent piece of all flag poles. You do not move it horizontally. You actually move it vertically because when planted in the ground as your trying to claim that proves along is horizontal that is the direction things would move. And it's length even affixed to the ground and standing upright would still be it's vertical measurement from base to tip. How ever the car that you can park next to it would have it's length be on it's longest side from front bumper to back. Both use Length. You can actually describe along for both of them. But neither actually indicates the same direction of measurement or movement.
Sure, you could say "run a flag along a flagpole" and people would probably understand, because being a pole it has an inherent vertical direction (which introduces enough ambiguity in that specific case to make "along" comprehensible if rather awkward), but most people would use the much more natural "run a flag up a flag pole". The phrase "run a flag along a flagpole" actually gets zero hits on Google, indicating that it's probably not particularly common usage.
Just for reference by the way, I'm quite satisfied from the usage in the 3.5e Dungeonscape supplement, that monks running up walls is indeed intended by the authors.
Allow me to demonstrate - just answer this question for me: A house has a hallway with a horizontal floor and ceiling, and vertical walls, all nicely flat and square to each other, like most normal hallways. Two opposite walls have ordinary doorways in them at floor level, and are twenty feet apart. The other walls have no openings, and are five feet apart. The ceiling is thirty feet above the floor. How long is the hallway?
I don't recall the thread being whether Monks can run along halls 😝
What you're describing though is a corridor, which is an empty space between walls within a building, and it's length isn't as clear as you seem to make out; in your example the length would be twenty feet, as the height of the ceiling is irrelevant (a corridor doesn't really require a ceiling), so what you're describing is really being viewed in two dimensions not three, as on a floor-plan. However, if you flip the distances, and put the doors only five feet apart, and the distance between the empty walls to twenty feet then the length would still arguably be twenty feet, even though the useful distance (door to door) is only 5 feet.
But unless you're going to try and argue that the height of a wall in general isn't important (especially when you're trying to get up or over it) then this isn't helpful, as a wall is a discrete object not an empty space within a building.
I'll also point out that I only raised length because someone else raised the etymology of the word along, which results in other possible meanings as lengthwise or onwards; my point was literally that going down that route wasn't helpful as lengthwise is no more useful in its meaning than the word along on its own, as neither enforces a horizontal direction.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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However, if you flip the distances, and put the doors only five feet apart, and the distance between the empty walls to twenty feet then the length would still arguably be twenty feet, even though the useful distance (door to door) is only 5 feet.
Well sure, but if you decided to call that the length, then going between doors would be going "across" the corridor, not along it, which is kind of my point there.
And yes, the height of a wall isn't important when you're moving along it, because if you're moving along it then by definition you're not trying to get over it (or you're not having much luck, at least).
With reference to walls in particular though, consider what it would look like to draw a series of faces along the surface of a wall, or place a number of chairs along a wall, or paint a line along the surface of a wall. By your logic we should think of these things going vertically just as easily as horizontally (or perhaps more easily, if the wall was very tall). This stretches credulity well beyond the breaking point for me though - I bet if you gave 10 people an illustration of a wall and (without first calling definitions into question or similar) asked them to add those various items "along" the wall, you'd get all 30 images with the things laid out horizontally.
And yes, length isn't always horizontal - there are many objects where "length" is used of an object with no fixed orientation. It just happens to be that so far as I can tell, in every case where the "length" is fixed in a vertical direction (except perhaps a dangling rope, though a rope isn't really fixed per se) we typically refer to it as "height" instead. My contention is that this is not actually a coincidence, but an important feature of the way we use the group of words that includes, "length", "long" and "along".
Bringing up meanings of "along" that function in other contexts is amusing but irrelevant. We may as well start asking if "running up a wall" means the monk is dripping, pouring or starting to melt up the wall, or mechanically functioning up the wall, or seeking elected office up a wall. Hilarious imagery though.
Even if you go by lengthwise (as in longest side) then while a town wall might be wider than it is tall, a tower wall will be taller than it is wide, so lengthwise can be either horizontally or vertically,
Well no, a wall ten feet long and a hundred feet high is still only ten feet long. You can't make a wall longer by increasing its height, that doesn't make a lick of sense.
The length of something is determined by the longest side; if something is taller than it is wide (or deep) then its length is its height. For example, if you have a four foot length of wood and lay it out horizontally, it's four feet long, if you stand it vertically upright, it's still four feet long.
In three dimensional geometry we use width (left to right), depth (front to back) and height (bottom to top) rather than length because length has no orientation. Even those get confusing because you need to specify some kind of direction for them to make absolute sense.
Hilariously wrong (correct for a piece of wood, or a rope, that don't have a fixed orientation, sure... though once you fix a piece of wood in place vertically and it becomes a pillar, a maypole, flagpole, telegraph pole or a mast, we generally refer to its "height" rather than its "length"). Allow me to demonstrate - just answer this question for me:
A house has a hallway with a horizontal floor and ceiling, and vertical walls, all nicely flat and square to each other, like most normal hallways. Two opposite walls have ordinary doorways in them at floor level, and are twenty feet apart. The other walls have no openings, and are five feet apart. The ceiling is thirty feet above the floor. How long is the hallway?
He is not wrong. And everything you said actually proves his point why length and even along does not actually innately imply a horizontal direction.
One of the reasons is because that flag poles length is based upon it's longest dimension so even whether you have it planted in the ground or laying horizontally it's length is going to be the same. it does not magically change it's length simply because it is now fixed in place. Geometry and even architecture do not use the term length to actually describe anything because it does not hold inherent directional information. Nor is end necessarily horizontal. Again the Flag Pole is a fine example of this because it's End's are either up in the sky or planted against the ground. It's ends are not located horizontally upon it. This is even more true because the Flag Pole is circular and technically does not even have multiple sides. it has one continuous side that moves in the shape of a loop. So if you wanted to move along or to the end of the pole you would have to move vertically because by common parlance we wuold not use end to describe the point in which it is affixed in the ground. We would simply use "to" As in "Go to the flag pole." Your Attempts to shove length in the equation are actually outright examples about how Length does not apply when describing it three dimensionally because length does not actually give a directional of orientation whether attached or unattached to the ground.
If you move a flag along a flagpole. Such as through the rope pully system that is an inherent piece of all flag poles. You do not move it horizontally. You actually move it vertically because when planted in the ground as your trying to claim that proves along is horizontal that is the direction things would move. And it's length even affixed to the ground and standing upright would still be it's vertical measurement from base to tip. How ever the car that you can park next to it would have it's length be on it's longest side from front bumper to back. Both use Length. You can actually describe along for both of them. But neither actually indicates the same direction of measurement or movement.
Sure, you could say "run a flag along a flagpole" and people would probably understand, because being a pole it has an inherent vertical direction (which introduces enough ambiguity in that specific case to make "along" comprehensible if rather awkward), but most people would use the much more natural "run a flag up a flag pole". The phrase "run a flag along a flagpole" actually gets zero hits on Google, indicating that it's probably not particularly common usage.
Just for reference by the way, I'm quite satisfied from the usage in the 3.5e Dungeonscape supplement, that monks running up walls is indeed intended by the authors.
Google doesn't get you a lot of things. Most of all simply googling if something is said does not actually tell you if it's proper in it's function or definition. On top of people often using words incorrectly. There are plenty of situations where they do not actually use the correct one either in favor of somthing else. Your attempts to validate or invalidate the functionality of words based upon a simple google search of what google thinks people say is faulty.
Sure, you could say "run a flag along a flagpole" and people would probably understand, because being a pole it has an inherent vertical direction (which introduces enough ambiguity in that specific case to make "along" comprehensible if rather awkward), but most people would use the much more natural "run a flag up a flag pole". The phrase "run a flag along a flagpole" actually gets zero hits on Google, indicating that it's probably not particularly common usage.
Just for reference by the way, I'm quite satisfied from the usage in the 3.5e Dungeonscape supplement, that monks running up walls is indeed intended by the authors.
Google doesn't get you a lot of things. Most of all simply googling if something is said does not actually tell you if it's proper in it's function or definition. On top of people often using words incorrectly. There are plenty of situations where they do not actually use the correct one either in favor of somthing else. Your attempts to validate or invalidate the functionality of words based upon a simple google search of what google thinks people say is faulty.
Google can get you a lot of incorrect examples, it's true - people use words and phrases "incorrectly" all the time and google doesn't care, it just fetches what matches. On the other hand, if Google can find hundreds of usages of one phrase and zero usages of an "alternative" version, that would seem to be a really good indication that the one with lots of hits is the one people actually use in practice. What's so faulty about that?
Unless you're a language prescriptivist who holds that the definition of words precedes and overrides what people actually use them to mean. Which is a surprisingly common point of view, often held by people in very "literal" professions like computer programming (I see it quite a bit where I work, it's a worry...). Personally though, if 99% of people of people use a particular meaning and 1% use a subtly different meaning or use it in a context the majority would use a different word for, I'd hold the 1% to be in error (or more precisely, not communicating clearly) even if the dictionary definition can "technically" fit. Dictionary definitions are by their nature brief, and seldom capture all the implications and nuances of a word, or the exact contexts where it is or isn't used - you absolutely have to look for examples to be sure whether your interpretation of a dictionary definition actually matches how people really use the word (or not, in this case).
With reference to walls in particular though, consider what it would look like to draw a series of faces along the surface of a wall, or place a number of chairs along a wall, or paint a line along the surface of a wall.
The problem with these examples is they're limited by other factors:
Faces: If you mean human faces, what is the purpose of them? If you want maximum impact in an outdoor setting you'd absolutely draw them as large and far up the wall as possible, whereas in a corridor you probably want them around head height so the only way to fit more in is horizontally.
Chairs: Again, with what goal? If you want people to sit on them then they need to be on the floor, so you couldn't stack them vertically even if you wanted to, i.e- it's the chairs that make the action horizontal, rather than the wall.
A Line: Again, for what purpose? If it's for someone to follow then the wall is irrelevant, the line could just as easily be on the floor, what matters is where it is coming from and where it is going to, and whether the people it's supposed to lead can see it.
None of these is equivalent to moving upon the facing surface of a wall.
And yes, length isn't always horizontal - there are many objects where "length" is used of an object with no fixed orientation. It just happens to be that so far as I can tell, in every case where the "length" is fixed in a vertical direction (except perhaps a dangling rope, though a rope isn't really fixed per se) we typically refer to it as "height" instead.
I think you're looking at that the wrong way around; the issue in question is whether along in the context of running along a wall must mean horizontally, which is what really needs to be established as either definitely the case, or vague, as all the rule mentions is "along". It doesn't mention either height or width so the absence of either is no help.
I'd argue that the rule very much falls into the "is vague" category, which means it's up to the DM; by the time your party's Monk can (potentially) run up walls, it should be clear whether your campaign leans more towards gritty realism or fantasy cool factor, at which point the rule should become unambiguous from that context, even though on its own it's not.
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And yes, length isn't always horizontal - there are many objects where "length" is used of an object with no fixed orientation. It just happens to be that so far as I can tell, in every case where the "length" is fixed in a vertical direction (except perhaps a dangling rope, though a rope isn't really fixed per se) we typically refer to it as "height" instead.
I think you're looking at that the wrong way around; the issue in question is whether along in the context of running along a wall must mean horizontally, which is what really needs to be established as either definitely the case, or vague, as all the rule mentions is "along". It doesn't mention either height or width so the absence of either is no help.
I'd argue that the rule very much falls into the "is vague" category, which means it's up to the DM; by the time your party's Monk can (potentially) run up walls, it should be clear whether your campaign leans more towards gritty realism or fantasy cool factor, at which point the rule should become unambiguous from that context, even though on its own it's not.
Well for the purposes of the rule, official D&D material has previously used that exact wording / phrasing specifically to describe monks running up and down walls. I believe the choice of the word "along" in the rulebook is incorrect / misleading / contrary to common usage, but for the purposes of D&D we have a clear and unambiguous precedent (which is as good as we're likely to get short of an official errata for 5e) showing that when WotC writes "move along a vertical surface", they do mean to include up and down. As such I'd say it isn't vague, it's just poorly worded.
With reference to walls in particular though, consider what it would look like to draw a series of faces along the surface of a wall, or place a number of chairs along a wall, or paint a line along the surface of a wall.
The problem with these examples is they're limited by other factors:
Faces: If you mean human faces, what is the purpose of them? If you want maximum impact in an outdoor setting you'd absolutely draw them as large and far up the wall as possible, whereas in a corridor you probably want them around head height so the only way to fit more in is horizontally.
Chairs: Again, with what goal? If you want people to sit on them then they need to be on the floor, so you couldn't stack them vertically even if you wanted to, i.e- it's the chairs that make the action horizontal, rather than the wall.
A Line: Again, for what purpose? If it's for someone to follow then the wall is irrelevant, the line could just as easily be on the floor, what matters is where it is coming from and where it is going to, and whether the people it's supposed to lead can see it.
None of these is equivalent to moving upon the facing surface of a wall.
The goal is irrelevant to the instruction... - Faces: You could certainly have a series of faces painted one above eachother up a wall, but the word "along" wouldn't be used to describe that, and no-one would do that if told to "paint a series of faces along the wall". - Chairs: I suppose you could contrive to say "well they're only laid out that way because we're making an assumption that people are going to sit in them"... so to eliminate that distraction let's say boxes instead. "Put the boxes along the wall" and "stack the boxes in a tower against the wall" are not the same thing, and failing to understand the difference is going to be awkward if you're ever helping someone move. "Stack the boxes along the wall" implies a bit of both directions, of course... - Line: I'm not presuming the person giving the instruction is debating the purpose of the line with the person holding the paint brush. I'm just saying that the instruction "paint a line along the wall" is going to get you a horizontal line 100% of the time, and the questions they might reasonably be expected to ask might include "how wide?", "how far off the ground?" and "what colour?", but never "do you mean horizontal, vertical, or diagonal?", on account of the simple fact that you've just told them.
It isn't when your comparison is supposed to be to movement; when moving along a wall your goal is absolutely 100% relevant 100% of the time.
It's also worth reminding that the rule isn't specifically about walls, it's "along vertical surfaces", it doesn't say they have to be wider than they are tall, it doesn't tell you where you need to be going, it just says you can move along them (and only temporarily), so even comparisons to walls and what may or may not be logical for them aren't all that conclusive.
As such I'd say it isn't vague, it's just poorly worded.
And yet it's never been corrected; WotC cannot have missed the fact that people are interpreting it to include vertical movement, as this has been common for years now, so should be a prime candidate for errata if that's not what they wanted.
So it's either unintentionally vague, or intentionally so, either way people can play it however they want.
You can keep trying to suggest that the only way to interpret the word "along" is horizontally, or that that's what people understand the word to mean, but clearly neither is true; this thread exists because people have been playing Monks the exact way you say they intuitively should not, and have probably been doing it from the moment the first few D&D 5e Monk players hit level 9, so Wizards of the Coast has to be aware of it by now, yet for some reason they've never decided to issue any kind of correction to suggest that one group or another is playing it wrong. This very strongly suggests they're fine with it the way it is, regardless of whether people interpret to allow running up walls short or long distances, and are happy for each group to find their own balance.
And ultimately it really is a very trivial issue; it's a level 9 feature, and 99% of the time all it's doing is allowing you to climb up to your full movement without going at half speed. While it can potentially be exploited for some extreme height (Step of the Wind triple dash, add Haste for quadruple the height) nothing in the rule prevents a DM from preventing that (being able to run up a wall isn't the same thing as being able to run through any obstructions).
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With reference to walls in particular though, consider what it would look like to draw a series of faces along the surface of a wall, or place a number of chairs along a wall, or paint a line along the surface of a wall.
The problem with these examples is they're limited by other factors:
Faces: If you mean human faces, what is the purpose of them? If you want maximum impact in an outdoor setting you'd absolutely draw them as large and far up the wall as possible, whereas in a corridor you probably want them around head height so the only way to fit more in is horizontally.
Chairs: Again, with what goal? If you want people to sit on them then they need to be on the floor, so you couldn't stack them vertically even if you wanted to, i.e- it's the chairs that make the action horizontal, rather than the wall.
A Line: Again, for what purpose? If it's for someone to follow then the wall is irrelevant, the line could just as easily be on the floor, what matters is where it is coming from and where it is going to, and whether the people it's supposed to lead can see it.
None of these is equivalent to moving upon the facing surface of a wall.
The goal is irrelevant to the instruction... - Faces: You could certainly have a series of faces painted one above eachother up a wall, but the word "along" wouldn't be used to describe that, and no-one would do that if told to "paint a series of faces along the wall". - Chairs: I suppose you could contrive to say "well they're only laid out that way because we're making an assumption that people are going to sit in them"... so to eliminate that distraction let's say boxes instead. "Put the boxes along the wall" and "stack the boxes in a tower against the wall" are not the same thing, and failing to understand the difference is going to be awkward if you're ever helping someone move. "Stack the boxes along the wall" implies a bit of both directions, of course... - Line: I'm not presuming the person giving the instruction is debating the purpose of the line with the person holding the paint brush. I'm just saying that the instruction "paint a line along the wall" is going to get you a horizontal line 100% of the time, and the questions they might reasonably be expected to ask might include "how wide?", "how far off the ground?" and "what colour?", but never "do you mean horizontal, vertical, or diagonal?", on account of the simple fact that you've just told them.
Your boxes argument is even worse than the chairs. Having worked in stuff like shipping/recieving I can tell you thta if you tell people to put things along a wall. Their first inclination is not to stack them side by side unless they only have a very small amount. there is plenty of space, and it's the quickest way. Instead their inclination is actually to stack upwards as high as they can reach and then move to the next point along the wall beside of that first stack. If there are multiple people they will build multiple stacks in vertical directions at once side by side the stacks being created by others. They don't actually follow the horizontal direction of the wall unless specifically instructed to in most instances.
Your claim about the line is also false. I've actually had a number of instances with artistic people. Where you tell them to paint a line and that line can do all kinds of things. Very often it isn't even straight. I've even seen one person actually lay out a mural all through creating the shapes with a single unbroken line. If you don't tell them the actual direction you want the Line to go and details about restrictions on it. It often ends up very different from what you assume that you meant by such a simple phrase. You will not simply get a line that runs horizontally along the wall in many instances.
this thread exists because people have been playing Monks the exact way you say they intuitively should not, and have probably been doing it from the moment the first few D&D 5e Monk players hit level 9, so Wizards of the Coast has to be aware of it by now, yet for some reason they've never decided to issue any kind of correction to suggest that one group or another is playing it wrong. This very strongly suggests they're fine with it the way it is, regardless of whether people interpret to allow running up walls short or long distances, and are happy for each group to find their own balance.
And ultimately it really is a very trivial issue; it's a level 9 feature, and 99% of the time all it's doing is allowing you to climb up to your full movement without going at half speed. While it can potentially be exploited for some extreme height (Step of the Wind triple dash, add Haste for quadruple the height) nothing in the rule prevents a DM from preventing that (being able to run up a wall isn't the same thing as being able to run through any obstructions).
Well, they unambiguously intended for monks to be able to run up walls, monks want to run up walls, and most DMs will allow monks to run up walls (and if they don't for some reason, that's their prerogative), so there's no great problem there. The reason this thread exists is because the wording of the rule doesn't imply that's something you can do - if it did, people wouldn't be confused by it in the first place.
It's definitely a trivial issue game balance wise, by level 9 you have wizards using "Fly" routinely and all sorts of other hijinks going on, a monk running up a wall, cliff or whatever is hardly noteworthy.
MY personal ruling would be that you would have to run 1/4 of the distance horizontal for it to work. My mentality is that the Monk is doing this through momentum and he must maintain a certain momentum to "defy gravity" and ascend. So my Monk, with 45' speed could get 30' up a wall but would require 15' of length to do so. Also, he can NOT stop there, or he will fall.
Each table needs to interpret the rule so it best fist the campaign/situation. I would also make sure this was addressed before the Monk made an attempt, ie: bring it up when they level and gain this ability.
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MY personal ruling would be that you would have to run 1/4 of the distance horizontal for it to work. My mentality is that the Monk is doing this through momentum and he must maintain a certain momentum to "defy gravity" and ascend. So my Monk, with 45' speed could get 30' up a wall but would require 15' of length to do so. Also, he can NOT stop there, or he will fall.
Each table needs to interpret the rule so it best fist the campaign/situation. I would also make sure this was addressed before the Monk made an attempt, ie: bring it up when they level and gain this ability.
Agreed. I do like the flavour of having to get moving first, bear in mind though that if they have the 'mobile' feat and they take 'Dash' plus 'step of the wind' that's 150 ft of movement... even deducting 40ft-run up that's 110ft, which seems quite a long way to get just on momentum if you're going for a 'purely physical' flavour. Falling if you don't end your turn on a horizontal surface is part of the standard rule of course.
Personally though, I'd say if you're going to use house rules or a particular thematic interpretation of an unclear rule to restrict what players can do, you should ideally tell them when they're selecting or creating the character. Imagine spending a few months building up a character to level 9 thinking you'll be able to do some particular cool thing and then being told "actually, no".
Your boxes argument is even worse than the chairs. Having worked in stuff like shipping/recieving I can tell you thta if you tell people to put things along a wall. Their first inclination is not to stack them side by side unless they only have a very small amount. there is plenty of space, and it's the quickest way. Instead their inclination is actually to stack upwards as high as they can reach and then move to the next point along the wall beside of that first stack. If there are multiple people they will build multiple stacks in vertical directions at once side by side the stacks being created by others. They don't actually follow the horizontal direction of the wall unless specifically instructed to in most instances.
Your claim about the line is also false. I've actually had a number of instances with artistic people. Where you tell them to paint a line and that line can do all kinds of things. Very often it isn't even straight. I've even seen one person actually lay out a mural all through creating the shapes with a single unbroken line. If you don't tell them the actual direction you want the Line to go and details about restrictions on it. It often ends up very different from what you assume that you meant by such a simple phrase. You will not simply get a line that runs horizontally along the wall in many instances.
OK, so we have one instance where people are going to do it the way they've always done it unless you make a big effort to emphasize that you want it done a different way (and there may be some good practical reasons why the way they've always done it is better than the way you told them, anyhow). And another instance where people are going to do it a bit different because they want to express themselves artistically, so they take the instructions with a dash of artistic license. I guess I've been working with engineers too long and have gotten used to "do the thing" not meaning "do a different thing"...
You've got me there then, those instructions absolutely not going to get the same result 100% of the time, it definitely depends who's involved and the context the instructions are given in - so my above assertion was wrong. There's also a third possibility, that the people in question are being deliberately obtuse or contrary, and a fourth possibility is that they really really want it to mean something else so they've convinced themselves that what they want it to mean could technically fit some sense of the word when used in some other context, so "close enough".
We seem to be most likely dealing with the fifth alternative here though, that someone used a "along" slightly imprecisely, but explained specifically what they meant by it (in 3.5e dungeonscape). Then when they (or someone else at WotC) used the word again in the same context (in 5e) some people quite reasonably assumed it included "up and down" because it did last time, some people weren't aware of the previous reference but wanted it to include "up and down", and some people just read the rule and got confused by the first two groups.
Or possibly a sixth one - regional variation. I've actually started doubting my understanding of it on account of the vehemence with which people are claiming that "running up a wall" is an instance of "moving along a vertical surface", so I've asked a bit over half a dozen people in person what it means if something can "move along a vertical surface" (without giving the context of D&D and monks / ninjas from East Asian movies, obviously) and not one has said that non-horizontal motion could possibly be included in that (even when asked "so you're sure that couldn't include vertical or diagonal?" to clarify) ... so it seems the implication of horizontal is the common meaning here at least. It would be interesting to know if this (and the context of the OP and various other people who ask on the internet about this rule) represents a series of linguistic pockets which differ from the wider norm, or vice versa. If it is a common regional variation it would be quite hard to tell which alternative was more common.
The length of something is determined by the longest side; if something is taller than it is wide (or deep) then its length is its height. For example, if you have a four foot length of wood and lay it out horizontally, it's four feet long, if you stand it vertically upright, it's still four feet long.
In three dimensional geometry we use width (left to right), depth (front to back) and height (bottom to top) rather than length because length has no orientation. Even those get confusing because you need to specify some kind of direction for them to make absolute sense.
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Hilariously wrong (correct for a piece of wood, or a rope, that don't have a fixed orientation, sure... though once you fix a piece of wood in place vertically and it becomes a pillar, a maypole, flagpole, telegraph pole or a mast, we generally refer to its "height" rather than its "length"). Allow me to demonstrate - just answer this question for me:
A house has a hallway with a horizontal floor and ceiling, and vertical walls, all nicely flat and square to each other, like most normal hallways. Two opposite walls have ordinary doorways in them at floor level, and are twenty feet apart. The other walls have no openings, and are five feet apart. The ceiling is thirty feet above the floor. How long is the hallway?
Yes, rivers flow because of gravity, wow that really destroys the definition 🙄. On the other hand anyone can point to the ends of a river on a 2d map which doesn't show elevation, and literally no-one (except you, perhaps?) will be the least bit confused by that, even if they don't know which way it's flowing.
Quite right - if the "cliff" in that phrase referred to the vertical surface, it would have two ends. "The end of a cliff" (as opposed to "the top end of a cliff") tells us that in this context "a cliff" refers to the horizontal (ok, seeing as you seem hung up on this point, maybe not *perfectly* horizontal) surface "above" the drop, which has one "end", if we're using a reference direction that takes you from being on the cliff to off the cliff. If you were standing still, a little distance from the drop, we'd say you were standing "on a cliff", then if you were feeling adventurous and approached the drop, you'd be standing "on the edge of a cliff". The "edge" becomes the "end" only if you're moving rapidly towards it - it's not very clear in that context where the cliff "begins" exactly, but it's reasonably obvious where it ends.
Interesting example though, as you can walk along a cliff without falling off it until you reach the end (walking parallel to the length of the cliff), but you run "off the end" you're moving parallel to the surface of the cliff (referring to the definition of "cliff" in which you can stand on a cliff) but perpendicular to the cliff edge, which is what you'd be moving parallel to when walking "along" a cliff. A nice ambiguity in the language that would probably make for a good riddle.
This discussion of the definition of the word "end" is silly because (a) the word "end" can mean the terminating edge in any direction and (b) the word "end" does not appear in the RAW of the monk feature being discussed. We've gone way off the deep end.
Again a complete failure. Other than to say the cliff would have 4 ends I'm not going to bother with more of this. Your attempting a long diatribe here that does not in any way speak against what I said. Along a cliff also does not necessarily mean along it's edge. That is a restriction your imposing upon it. A path can run along a cliff and be neither at the edge or the bottom. Both of which would be ends. As would each side be. Your not creating any riddle here by using the word along because the word along simply does not have the required information your trying to give it. Neither does end. Neither one gives enough defining information to mean anything.
He is not wrong. And everything you said actually proves his point why length and even along does not actually innately imply a horizontal direction.
One of the reasons is because that flag poles length is based upon it's longest dimension so even whether you have it planted in the ground or laying horizontally it's length is going to be the same. it does not magically change it's length simply because it is now fixed in place. Geometry and even architecture do not use the term length to actually describe anything because it does not hold inherent directional information. Nor is end necessarily horizontal. Again the Flag Pole is a fine example of this because it's End's are either up in the sky or planted against the ground. It's ends are not located horizontally upon it. This is even more true because the Flag Pole is circular and technically does not even have multiple sides. it has one continuous side that moves in the shape of a loop. So if you wanted to move along or to the end of the pole you would have to move vertically because by common parlance we wuold not use end to describe the point in which it is affixed in the ground. We would simply use "to" As in "Go to the flag pole." Your Attempts to shove length in the equation are actually outright examples about how Length does not apply when describing it three dimensionally because length does not actually give a directional of orientation whether attached or unattached to the ground.
If you move a flag along a flagpole. Such as through the rope pully system that is an inherent piece of all flag poles. You do not move it horizontally. You actually move it vertically because when planted in the ground as your trying to claim that proves along is horizontal that is the direction things would move. And it's length even affixed to the ground and standing upright would still be it's vertical measurement from base to tip. How ever the car that you can park next to it would have it's length be on it's longest side from front bumper to back. Both use Length. You can actually describe along for both of them. But neither actually indicates the same direction of measurement or movement.
Sure, you could say "run a flag along a flagpole" and people would probably understand, because being a pole it has an inherent vertical direction (which introduces enough ambiguity in that specific case to make "along" comprehensible if rather awkward), but most people would use the much more natural "run a flag up a flag pole". The phrase "run a flag along a flagpole" actually gets zero hits on Google, indicating that it's probably not particularly common usage.
Just for reference by the way, I'm quite satisfied from the usage in the 3.5e Dungeonscape supplement, that monks running up walls is indeed intended by the authors.
I don't recall the thread being whether Monks can run along halls 😝
What you're describing though is a corridor, which is an empty space between walls within a building, and it's length isn't as clear as you seem to make out; in your example the length would be twenty feet, as the height of the ceiling is irrelevant (a corridor doesn't really require a ceiling), so what you're describing is really being viewed in two dimensions not three, as on a floor-plan. However, if you flip the distances, and put the doors only five feet apart, and the distance between the empty walls to twenty feet then the length would still arguably be twenty feet, even though the useful distance (door to door) is only 5 feet.
But unless you're going to try and argue that the height of a wall in general isn't important (especially when you're trying to get up or over it) then this isn't helpful, as a wall is a discrete object not an empty space within a building.
I'll also point out that I only raised length because someone else raised the etymology of the word along, which results in other possible meanings as lengthwise or onwards; my point was literally that going down that route wasn't helpful as lengthwise is no more useful in its meaning than the word along on its own, as neither enforces a horizontal direction.
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Well sure, but if you decided to call that the length, then going between doors would be going "across" the corridor, not along it, which is kind of my point there.
And yes, the height of a wall isn't important when you're moving along it, because if you're moving along it then by definition you're not trying to get over it (or you're not having much luck, at least).
With reference to walls in particular though, consider what it would look like to draw a series of faces along the surface of a wall, or place a number of chairs along a wall, or paint a line along the surface of a wall. By your logic we should think of these things going vertically just as easily as horizontally (or perhaps more easily, if the wall was very tall). This stretches credulity well beyond the breaking point for me though - I bet if you gave 10 people an illustration of a wall and (without first calling definitions into question or similar) asked them to add those various items "along" the wall, you'd get all 30 images with the things laid out horizontally.
And yes, length isn't always horizontal - there are many objects where "length" is used of an object with no fixed orientation. It just happens to be that so far as I can tell, in every case where the "length" is fixed in a vertical direction (except perhaps a dangling rope, though a rope isn't really fixed per se) we typically refer to it as "height" instead. My contention is that this is not actually a coincidence, but an important feature of the way we use the group of words that includes, "length", "long" and "along".
Bringing up meanings of "along" that function in other contexts is amusing but irrelevant. We may as well start asking if "running up a wall" means the monk is dripping, pouring or starting to melt up the wall, or mechanically functioning up the wall, or seeking elected office up a wall. Hilarious imagery though.
Google doesn't get you a lot of things. Most of all simply googling if something is said does not actually tell you if it's proper in it's function or definition. On top of people often using words incorrectly. There are plenty of situations where they do not actually use the correct one either in favor of somthing else. Your attempts to validate or invalidate the functionality of words based upon a simple google search of what google thinks people say is faulty.
Google can get you a lot of incorrect examples, it's true - people use words and phrases "incorrectly" all the time and google doesn't care, it just fetches what matches. On the other hand, if Google can find hundreds of usages of one phrase and zero usages of an "alternative" version, that would seem to be a really good indication that the one with lots of hits is the one people actually use in practice. What's so faulty about that?
Unless you're a language prescriptivist who holds that the definition of words precedes and overrides what people actually use them to mean. Which is a surprisingly common point of view, often held by people in very "literal" professions like computer programming (I see it quite a bit where I work, it's a worry...). Personally though, if 99% of people of people use a particular meaning and 1% use a subtly different meaning or use it in a context the majority would use a different word for, I'd hold the 1% to be in error (or more precisely, not communicating clearly) even if the dictionary definition can "technically" fit. Dictionary definitions are by their nature brief, and seldom capture all the implications and nuances of a word, or the exact contexts where it is or isn't used - you absolutely have to look for examples to be sure whether your interpretation of a dictionary definition actually matches how people really use the word (or not, in this case).
The problem with these examples is they're limited by other factors:
None of these is equivalent to moving upon the facing surface of a wall.
I think you're looking at that the wrong way around; the issue in question is whether along in the context of running along a wall must mean horizontally, which is what really needs to be established as either definitely the case, or vague, as all the rule mentions is "along". It doesn't mention either height or width so the absence of either is no help.
I'd argue that the rule very much falls into the "is vague" category, which means it's up to the DM; by the time your party's Monk can (potentially) run up walls, it should be clear whether your campaign leans more towards gritty realism or fantasy cool factor, at which point the rule should become unambiguous from that context, even though on its own it's not.
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Well for the purposes of the rule, official D&D material has previously used that exact wording / phrasing specifically to describe monks running up and down walls. I believe the choice of the word "along" in the rulebook is incorrect / misleading / contrary to common usage, but for the purposes of D&D we have a clear and unambiguous precedent (which is as good as we're likely to get short of an official errata for 5e) showing that when WotC writes "move along a vertical surface", they do mean to include up and down. As such I'd say it isn't vague, it's just poorly worded.
The goal is irrelevant to the instruction...
- Faces: You could certainly have a series of faces painted one above eachother up a wall, but the word "along" wouldn't be used to describe that, and no-one would do that if told to "paint a series of faces along the wall".
- Chairs: I suppose you could contrive to say "well they're only laid out that way because we're making an assumption that people are going to sit in them"... so to eliminate that distraction let's say boxes instead. "Put the boxes along the wall" and "stack the boxes in a tower against the wall" are not the same thing, and failing to understand the difference is going to be awkward if you're ever helping someone move. "Stack the boxes along the wall" implies a bit of both directions, of course...
- Line: I'm not presuming the person giving the instruction is debating the purpose of the line with the person holding the paint brush. I'm just saying that the instruction "paint a line along the wall" is going to get you a horizontal line 100% of the time, and the questions they might reasonably be expected to ask might include "how wide?", "how far off the ground?" and "what colour?", but never "do you mean horizontal, vertical, or diagonal?", on account of the simple fact that you've just told them.
It isn't when your comparison is supposed to be to movement; when moving along a wall your goal is absolutely 100% relevant 100% of the time.
It's also worth reminding that the rule isn't specifically about walls, it's "along vertical surfaces", it doesn't say they have to be wider than they are tall, it doesn't tell you where you need to be going, it just says you can move along them (and only temporarily), so even comparisons to walls and what may or may not be logical for them aren't all that conclusive.
And yet it's never been corrected; WotC cannot have missed the fact that people are interpreting it to include vertical movement, as this has been common for years now, so should be a prime candidate for errata if that's not what they wanted.
So it's either unintentionally vague, or intentionally so, either way people can play it however they want.
You can keep trying to suggest that the only way to interpret the word "along" is horizontally, or that that's what people understand the word to mean, but clearly neither is true; this thread exists because people have been playing Monks the exact way you say they intuitively should not, and have probably been doing it from the moment the first few D&D 5e Monk players hit level 9, so Wizards of the Coast has to be aware of it by now, yet for some reason they've never decided to issue any kind of correction to suggest that one group or another is playing it wrong. This very strongly suggests they're fine with it the way it is, regardless of whether people interpret to allow running up walls short or long distances, and are happy for each group to find their own balance.
And ultimately it really is a very trivial issue; it's a level 9 feature, and 99% of the time all it's doing is allowing you to climb up to your full movement without going at half speed. While it can potentially be exploited for some extreme height (Step of the Wind triple dash, add Haste for quadruple the height) nothing in the rule prevents a DM from preventing that (being able to run up a wall isn't the same thing as being able to run through any obstructions).
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Your boxes argument is even worse than the chairs. Having worked in stuff like shipping/recieving I can tell you thta if you tell people to put things along a wall. Their first inclination is not to stack them side by side unless they only have a very small amount. there is plenty of space, and it's the quickest way. Instead their inclination is actually to stack upwards as high as they can reach and then move to the next point along the wall beside of that first stack. If there are multiple people they will build multiple stacks in vertical directions at once side by side the stacks being created by others. They don't actually follow the horizontal direction of the wall unless specifically instructed to in most instances.
Your claim about the line is also false. I've actually had a number of instances with artistic people. Where you tell them to paint a line and that line can do all kinds of things. Very often it isn't even straight. I've even seen one person actually lay out a mural all through creating the shapes with a single unbroken line. If you don't tell them the actual direction you want the Line to go and details about restrictions on it. It often ends up very different from what you assume that you meant by such a simple phrase. You will not simply get a line that runs horizontally along the wall in many instances.
Well, they unambiguously intended for monks to be able to run up walls, monks want to run up walls, and most DMs will allow monks to run up walls (and if they don't for some reason, that's their prerogative), so there's no great problem there. The reason this thread exists is because the wording of the rule doesn't imply that's something you can do - if it did, people wouldn't be confused by it in the first place.
It's definitely a trivial issue game balance wise, by level 9 you have wizards using "Fly" routinely and all sorts of other hijinks going on, a monk running up a wall, cliff or whatever is hardly noteworthy.
MY personal ruling would be that you would have to run 1/4 of the distance horizontal for it to work. My mentality is that the Monk is doing this through momentum and he must maintain a certain momentum to "defy gravity" and ascend. So my Monk, with 45' speed could get 30' up a wall but would require 15' of length to do so. Also, he can NOT stop there, or he will fall.
Each table needs to interpret the rule so it best fist the campaign/situation. I would also make sure this was addressed before the Monk made an attempt, ie: bring it up when they level and gain this ability.
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Agreed. I do like the flavour of having to get moving first, bear in mind though that if they have the 'mobile' feat and they take 'Dash' plus 'step of the wind' that's 150 ft of movement... even deducting 40ft-run up that's 110ft, which seems quite a long way to get just on momentum if you're going for a 'purely physical' flavour. Falling if you don't end your turn on a horizontal surface is part of the standard rule of course.
Personally though, I'd say if you're going to use house rules or a particular thematic interpretation of an unclear rule to restrict what players can do, you should ideally tell them when they're selecting or creating the character. Imagine spending a few months building up a character to level 9 thinking you'll be able to do some particular cool thing and then being told "actually, no".
OK, so we have one instance where people are going to do it the way they've always done it unless you make a big effort to emphasize that you want it done a different way (and there may be some good practical reasons why the way they've always done it is better than the way you told them, anyhow). And another instance where people are going to do it a bit different because they want to express themselves artistically, so they take the instructions with a dash of artistic license. I guess I've been working with engineers too long and have gotten used to "do the thing" not meaning "do a different thing"...
You've got me there then, those instructions absolutely not going to get the same result 100% of the time, it definitely depends who's involved and the context the instructions are given in - so my above assertion was wrong. There's also a third possibility, that the people in question are being deliberately obtuse or contrary, and a fourth possibility is that they really really want it to mean something else so they've convinced themselves that what they want it to mean could technically fit some sense of the word when used in some other context, so "close enough".
We seem to be most likely dealing with the fifth alternative here though, that someone used a "along" slightly imprecisely, but explained specifically what they meant by it (in 3.5e dungeonscape). Then when they (or someone else at WotC) used the word again in the same context (in 5e) some people quite reasonably assumed it included "up and down" because it did last time, some people weren't aware of the previous reference but wanted it to include "up and down", and some people just read the rule and got confused by the first two groups.
Or possibly a sixth one - regional variation. I've actually started doubting my understanding of it on account of the vehemence with which people are claiming that "running up a wall" is an instance of "moving along a vertical surface", so I've asked a bit over half a dozen people in person what it means if something can "move along a vertical surface" (without giving the context of D&D and monks / ninjas from East Asian movies, obviously) and not one has said that non-horizontal motion could possibly be included in that (even when asked "so you're sure that couldn't include vertical or diagonal?" to clarify) ... so it seems the implication of horizontal is the common meaning here at least. It would be interesting to know if this (and the context of the OP and various other people who ask on the internet about this rule) represents a series of linguistic pockets which differ from the wider norm, or vice versa. If it is a common regional variation it would be quite hard to tell which alternative was more common.