When you cast spider climb or gain its benefits through other methods can you stick to any surface, and in that case what counts as a surface, can a small creature stand on a party members shield? If not how do you decide what is or is not a surface for these purposes.
It doesn't turn off gravity, so you could stick to a shield but your body weight would be applied to your friends arm. Just imagine gravity is now pointing towards the wall you want to walk on. As long as its solid you can walk up it fine. If it's a person then you'll just fall into a heap.
Personally, a surface could be a wall, a tree or other fixed vertical object, but not a person and/or creature.
Now, is a furniture like a bookcase a surface? Might be. I'd probably allow it. Or the side of a ship, side of of a cliff or tower. But not a dragon or a horse.
A shield though? I suppose its harmless, although I might rule that the added weight might not make it useable as a shield anymore, due to weight (50 extra pounds plus is a bit too much), and you might find yourself on the ground.
I believe the DMG has optional rules for climbing creatures. Spider Climb should 100% work on a creature (i.e. walking up it), the mechanical issue is how to resolve it objecting to this - Spider Climb doesn't let you do things like automatically succeed at touching a moving target or anything, and the creature might try to remove you. As I recall, the rules work as an extension of the grapple rules.
As a DM, I'd allow spider climb to work on any surface including a creature. However, if the surface is not firmly anchored then there would be balance issues and the whole thing could tip over. For example, a fighter holding a shield on which a 70lb halfling decides to stand horizontally is going to have some problems. The fighter can likely hold the weight but the torque of the weight distribution might require the fighter to lean backward into some awkward stance if they don't want to fall over. Lifting weights through your center, properly distributed is much easier than trying to lift any sort of weight at arms length.
Try picking up a 6 foot piece of lumber at the middle - it is easy, only weighs a few pounds - lifting the same piece of wood from the end is much more challenging.
While the spell doesn't have specific rulings on this and that ultimately leaves it up to the DM.
However, being able to treat any solid surface as one that's suitable for climbing with Spider Climb gives the player using it a lot more creative leeway and doesn't really create many possible scenarios in which that function would be abusable.
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When you cast spider climb or gain its benefits through other methods can you stick to any surface, and in that case what counts as a surface, can a small creature stand on a party members shield? If not how do you decide what is or is not a surface for these purposes.
It doesn't turn off gravity, so you could stick to a shield but your body weight would be applied to your friends arm. Just imagine gravity is now pointing towards the wall you want to walk on. As long as its solid you can walk up it fine. If it's a person then you'll just fall into a heap.
Personally, a surface could be a wall, a tree or other fixed vertical object, but not a person and/or creature.
Now, is a furniture like a bookcase a surface? Might be. I'd probably allow it. Or the side of a ship, side of of a cliff or tower. But not a dragon or a horse.
A shield though? I suppose its harmless, although I might rule that the added weight might not make it useable as a shield anymore, due to weight (50 extra pounds plus is a bit too much), and you might find yourself on the ground.
Ultimately though its what your DM says.
I believe the DMG has optional rules for climbing creatures. Spider Climb should 100% work on a creature (i.e. walking up it), the mechanical issue is how to resolve it objecting to this - Spider Climb doesn't let you do things like automatically succeed at touching a moving target or anything, and the creature might try to remove you. As I recall, the rules work as an extension of the grapple rules.
As a DM, I'd allow spider climb to work on any surface including a creature. However, if the surface is not firmly anchored then there would be balance issues and the whole thing could tip over. For example, a fighter holding a shield on which a 70lb halfling decides to stand horizontally is going to have some problems. The fighter can likely hold the weight but the torque of the weight distribution might require the fighter to lean backward into some awkward stance if they don't want to fall over. Lifting weights through your center, properly distributed is much easier than trying to lift any sort of weight at arms length.
Try picking up a 6 foot piece of lumber at the middle - it is easy, only weighs a few pounds - lifting the same piece of wood from the end is much more challenging.
While the spell doesn't have specific rulings on this and that ultimately leaves it up to the DM.
However, being able to treat any solid surface as one that's suitable for climbing with Spider Climb gives the player using it a lot more creative leeway and doesn't really create many possible scenarios in which that function would be abusable.