D&D 5E I'm the DM and a player is trying to abuse the Immovable Rod. Advice?

[Lanliss]

You just need a little creativity. Each rod should be attached to your wrist by a rope, and have a wooden plank suspended about 3 feet underneath, like a kid's swing.

1. Affix Rod #1 six feet in the air.
2. Stand on the plank under Rod #1, holding onto the rod for balance. You are now three feet off the ground.
3. Affix Rod #2 at eye level; if you're six feet tall, this is nine feet in the air.
4. Grab hold of Rod #2, and climb onto its plank. You are now six feet off the ground.
5. With your toe, push the button on Rod #1. It falls and is caught by the rope on your wrist.
6. Reel in Rod #1.
7. Continue this process. It's slow but requires neither extraordinary strength nor extraordinary balance. If you do fall, one of the ropes on your wrists will catch you.

What I don't understand is why I should care about the PCs being able to do something that most spellcasters can pull off starting at 5th level or so. I long ago learned that you can't expect vertical terrain to stop a D&D party once they get past the low levels. Sure, you can climb into the sky if you like. What do you plan to do when you get there?

Drop the polymorphed Dragon I am holding in my bag. Or, if you allow the mammoth trick, do that. Or start going sideways, and see what new world I can reach after a while like this.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Climbing very far with any modicum of realism present is not going to work. Trying to climb up on something 2-3 feet long and in inch thick is incredibly hard. Further trying to balance on it while reaching down to deactivate the other rod is going to be even harder. The DM ought to set a DC check to do it for each and every time the PC climbs to a new rod and deactivates the old one. Barring a doorway really isn't a problem or headache.

You're making the process more complicated than it has to be. There's no need to balance on the rod, or even for it to leave your hand. Just keep hold of the rod with your finger on the button, pull yourself up a bit, click the second rod into place higher than the first, unclick the first, and repeat the process. Almost like using the rods as climbing axes in midair. Requires upper-body strength (the guy in the video has footholds, and you don't). But you're a D&D hero; surely you can find that strength somewhere.

With a little tinkering, a clever character could probably rig up a system to attach the rods to boots and lock or unlock them with foot movements. Then you're just walking on air.

 

[Maxperson]

You're making the process more complicated than it has to be. There's no need to balance on the rod, or even for it to leave your hand. Just keep hold of the rod with your finger on the button, pull yourself up a bit, click the second rod into place higher than the first, unclick the first, and repeat the process. Almost like using the rods as climbing axes in midair. Requires upper-body strength (the guy in the video has footholds, and you don't). But you're a D&D hero; surely you can find that strength somewhere.

With a little tinkering, a clever character could probably rig up a system to attach the rods to boots and lock or unlock them with foot movements. Then you're just walking on air.

The tricks with rope work much better. You could climb a distance like you describe, but not into the sky or anything. Depending on the PC, you might not even get 30 feet doing that.

 

[Dausuul]

Drop the polymorphed Dragon I am holding in my bag.

If the dragon is friendly, you have a much faster way to get into the sky than immovable rod shenanigans. If it's not... you probably don't want to let it out while sitting on an immobile perch in the middle of nothing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You just need a little creativity. Each rod should be attached to your wrist by a rope, and have a wooden plank suspended about 3 feet underneath, like a kid's swing.

1. Affix Rod #1 six feet in the air.
2. Stand on the plank under Rod #1, holding onto the rod for balance. You are now three feet off the ground.
3. Affix Rod #2 at eye level; if you're six feet tall, this is nine feet in the air.
4. Grab hold of Rod #2, and climb onto its plank. You are now six feet off the ground.
5. With your toe, push the button on Rod #1. It falls and is caught by the rope on your wrist.
6. Reel in Rod #1.
7. Continue this process. It's slow but requires neither extraordinary strength nor extraordinary balance. If you do fall, one of the ropes on your wrists will catch you.

What I don't understand is why I should care about the PCs being able to do something that most spellcasters can pull off starting at 5th level or so. I long ago learned that you can't expect vertical terrain to stop a D&D party once they get past the low levels. Sure, you can climb into the sky if you like. What do you plan to do when you get there?

dance.

Vigorously.



also, eat the tasty lunch I prepared ahead of time. Maybe get in some mandolin practice.

The real bummer is when it's time to get down.

 

[Lanliss]

dance.

Vigorously.



also, eat the tasty lunch I prepared ahead of time. Maybe get in some mandolin practice.

The real bummer is when it's time to get down.

With the ropes on your wrists it should be even easier than going up was. Just hold the end of the rod with the button, deactivate it and pull it down, as though your were climbing a ladder. Hang from that and repeat with the other rod. Continue until you reach the ground, probably in half the time it took to climb.

 

[Maxperson]

With the ropes on your wrists it should be even easier than going up was. Just hold the end of the rod with the button, deactivate it and pull it down, as though your were climbing a ladder. Hang from that and repeat with the other rod. Continue until you reach the ground, probably in half the time it took to climb.

If you were high up, you'd quickly get tired and be unable to hang on. You might not fall to your death, but I'm not sure how well your arms would recover hanging from the end of a rod for hours.

 

[akr71]

Tie yourself to the rod and hang there while you take a rest. Better yet, invest in climbing gear so you have a harness to hang from. Certainly not comfy, but better than just a rope around your waist.

 

[Yunru]

Get a good number of rods and use them as a foundation for a floating building.

 

[seebs]

Well, 5E is definitely not a "completely fixed rule set" and from that certainly many problems stem. But I have no problem with "if the rules say you can do X, I'm not going to stop you from doing X". Still, I think there's a difference of intent which separates "shenanigans" from "cool things", even if the rules say you totally can do that thing. You can certainly perform the same action with ill intent towards the game as you can in a honest-to-goodness attempt to be cool or have fun.

I mean that's really the only thing that separates the "heroic sacrifice" from the "selfish attention grab".

I do not feel that the player in this situation is simply attempting to be cool or have fun.

Well, keep in mind, that post was a response to your comment about leaving an immovable rod in a swallowing creature. And I was the player, and I absolutely did it because it sounded fun and in-character. The entire group had fun.

But you said:

Still these seem like awfully obvious abuses. The desire to want to use any of them seems founded in nothing more than wanting to cause headaches for your DM.

On what basis do you assert that I was not actually doing it to have fun, but was doing it with intent to create "headaches" for the GM? Why would you think that? What kinds of games have you been in, that this seems like a plausible explanation for anything?