Goodday fellow adventure, 

In my last gaming session, early in the campaign, my tabaxi monk (lvl 2) used his climbing speed to go over a 20 feet wide hole. Now, knowing that I have a climbing speed of 30’, that means I could have crossed that without trouble, right? 

My DM who never played with a Tabaxi told me I only had half movement and had to do an ability check. Was he right to do that? He admitted he was unaware of the actual official rule on this subject, so here I am. 

Anyone have the details on that? I looked about and I don’t think I have to have half movement if climbing speed is defined. But doing an ability check for my race ability? That’s where I need clarification for future scenarios. 

Thanks everyone. 

Climbing characters use 2 feet of their movement for every foot climbed, absent another rule.  You are right that tabaxi have a climbing speed (though I think it's 20 ft?), so this speed is not halved.

I'm a little confused. Did he leap over the hole? Or climb down one side, cross 20', then climb up the other side?

With a 10' run up, your character can jump a distance equal to their strength.

Climbing does require an extra foot of movement for each foot covered, or two extra if it's difficult terrain. The DM could also require a strength (athletic) check if it's particularly difficult, such as a slippery vertical surface. 

if you have a climbing speed, you do not have to halve it.

Any check is still at the DM's discretion.

Ah - somehow totally missed the entire point of this thread about the climbing ability for the Tabaxi. Apologies for any confusion! 

Thanks people!

yeah I created a Tabaxi Monk and when I had to climb on the side walls to ignore a hole, I rolled a 1 and thought it was BS :P Made for a fun outcome tho!

climbing speed doesn't let you just walk up walls and fire your bow, right? or even climb along a ceiling? there's a tabaxi in my group that uses it like spider climb, but i can't find anything that says you need to have handholds or anything. i dont think it's very fair that tabaxi get permanent level 2 buff spell. but obviously he doesn't want to give it up.

A climbing speed doesn't give you the effects of the Spider Climb spell or anything similar. It lets you climb farther than you could using your normal speed. That's all.

Firing a bow requires 2 hands and I would argue you need at least one hand holding the wall. You can't hang from ceilings unless you have a climb speed and a blurb that says you can (tabaxi doesn't) ”Spider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check."

Tabaxi have claws that are intended to work like climbing knives, so the intent is that they make their own handholds unless the surface is incapable of being punctured. You could argue that since they are based on cats it would only work on surfaces that a cat could climb like trees, but not stone, but I don't think that is RAW. A difficult to climb surface can still require a check, so if stone or other surfaces are defined as difficult then it would accomplish much the same thing.

that's how i think it should work too. thanks for at least making me not feel crazy...

Quote from Stormknight >>

 

However .... there's a Sage Advice tweet from Jeremy Crawford that states that creatures with a climb speed don't need to make any form of checks to climb.

That tweet is not official rules though - it represents intent from the game designer (and probably forgetting to add a relevant explanation into the PHB/DMG).

The question was addressed to Jeremy, but the answer was from Mike Mearls. He means well, but he's very often wrong when answering rules questions; probably because he doesn't take care to look up the rules text before answering like Jeremy does. At any rate, only Jeremy can make official rulings.

Here's some official rulings:

"A trait like Spider Climb, not a climbing speed, lets some creatures forgo ability checks when climbing."

"Without a climb speed, you move at half speed when climbing (see PH, 182)."

"Beware of claims that a rule does something mentioned nowhere in that rule or elsewhere in the core books. There aren't secret rules."

The increase in climbing speed on a lvl2 tabaxi monk is from the class feature "unarmored movement" witch ads 10 feet of movement speed 

Infact feline agility can be used to impact that speed as well but you still have to roll if the surface is treacherous enough.

Unarmored Movement

Starting at 2nd Level, your speed increases by 10 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a Shield. This bonus increases when you reach certain monk levels, as shown in the Monk table.

At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on Your Turn without Falling during the move.

The lack of precise definition in the term "climbing" in the rules makes climbing and climbing speed hard for me to fully grasp. Does crawling across the ceiling or along wall can be defined as climbing? As a DM myself I would rule yes you can, but my current DM says tabaxi's climbing speed is only up and down....  I'm curious to know how others rule too.
But since the question concerns a monk, to me it is clear that he/she can wall run with the Unarmored Movement ability, but only after reaching lv9

Quote from Babawze >>

Unarmored Movement

Starting at 2nd Level, your speed increases by 10 feet while you are not wearing armor or wielding a Shield. This bonus increases when you reach certain monk levels, as shown in the Monk table.

At 9th level, you gain the ability to move along vertical surfaces and across liquids on Your Turn without Falling during the move.

 

The lack of precise definition in the term "climbing" in the rules makes climbing and climbing speed hard for me to fully grasp. Does crawling across the ceiling or along wall can be defined as climbing? As a DM myself I would rule yes you can, but my current DM says tabaxi's climbing speed is only up and down....  I'm curious to know how others rule too.
But since the question concerns a monk, to me it is clear that he/she can wall run with the Unarmored Movement ability, but only after reaching lv9

 This feature only applies to movement done during your turn. I.e., so long as you end your turn on a stable surface, you can run along a wall without falling.

Having a Climbing Speed only means that movement from climbing does not consume twice as much speed as it would for a creature without a Climbing Speed. A Tabaxi moves across vertical surfaces with impunity. Crawling across a ceiling is not explicitly allowed for Tabaxi, but it is not explicitly disallowed either. It's completely up to your DM to decide if it is feasible in a specific circumstance, and if it would require an ability check. The only thing that you can know for sure is that, if your DM allows the movement at all, it would be a 1:1 cost against your Climbing Speed. The only thing Unarmored Movement provides a Tabaxi Monk is the ability to walk across liquid surfaces (so long as you don't end your turn on a liquid surface).

My view is that, unless the DM says the surface is made of a material with special properties (like Adamantine), having a Climbing Speed should allow for 1:1 movement on any solid surface. This is on the assumption that, without regard to anything else, they are entirely devoted (all available limbs/appendages being used as anchors) to the climb while on such a surface. Nothing allows a creature to make attacks while climbing except abilities/features/spells (such as Spider Climb) which explicitly say it is allowed.

You cannot climb (vertically or horizontally) "with impunity," you just can climb the same things that other people can climb, but twice as quickly. A climb speed does not make you a better climber, or permit you to climb in new ways, it just makes you a faster climber. 

I think that in 3.5 or 4e, having a climbing speed meant that you essentially had Spider Climb and could climb any/every wall without making climb checks. In 5E, all a climb speed does is overwrite the normal condition that climbing costs 2 feet of movement per 1 foot climbed, not the requirement that (A) the surface be climbable or (B) that you pass whatever Athletics DC is set for said climbing. 

Note that this is very different from Swim speeds, which in addition to making you a faster swimmer, also eliminates many of the disabilities that underwater environments ordinarily impose on non-swimming creatures. A Swim speed isn't just faster swimming, its basically a different kind of swimming. Not so for Climb speed. 

Note that the way monsters are statted up is consistent with the designers thinking that the 3.5e rules still applied (which weren't quite spider climb, but still plenty for any normal walls); for example, a cat has a climb speed of 30', but with a Strength of 3, no Athletics proficiency, and no other traits that help it climb, it's objectively bad at climbing (-4 to checks).

Something I've never really been able to get my head around is when going half-and-half of one movement speed and changing to another mid-turn. Like having 30 ft walk but also 60 ft flying. If you use 20 ft of walking - how much flying do you have left?

I ask because I once saw someone with a Tabaxi try climbing and mentioned their 20 ft climbing speed. So they climb 20 ft and then say they have 30 ft walk speed which means they still have 10 ft of movement left over which they'll use to climb an extra 5 ft at half-speed. Seemed completely wrong to me.

Quote from Emmber >>

Something I've never really been able to get my head around is when going half-and-half of one movement speed and changing to another mid-turn. Like having 30 ft walk but also 60 ft flying. If you use 20 ft of walking - how much flying do you have left?

I ask because I once saw someone with a Tabaxi try climbing and mentioned their 20 ft climbing speed. So they climb 20 ft and then say they have 30 ft walk speed which means they still have 10 ft of movement left over which they'll use to climb an extra 5 ft at half-speed. Seemed completely wrong to me.

That player was correct. The PHB explains:

If you have more than one speed, such as your walking speed and a flying speed, you can switch back and forth between your speeds during your move. Whenever you switch, subtract the distance you've already moved from the new speed. The result determines how much farther you can move. If the result is 0 or less, you can't use the new speed during the current move.

For example, if you have a speed of 30 and a flying speed of 60 because a wizard cast the fly spell on you, you could fly 20 feet, then walk 10 feet, and then leap into the air to fly 30 feet more.