Is it just me or is the spell Rope Trick kind of absurd?

MaximusArael020 said:

The big question is... Can you rope trick underwater: does the extra-dimensional space fill with water or is it kept dry?

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It depends. What's the DC for water to climb a rope in D&D 3e?

iserith said:

It depends. What's the DC for water to climb a rope in D&D 3e?

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I dunno about 3e, but 5e I think maybe... 10?

Wiseblood said:

It is absurd. It’s based on “The Indian Rope Trick”. Like many of the earliest D&D stuff it was just grabbed and put in like a madman’s stew.

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Hell the bible played an influence as well. Walk on water, create food and water, resurrection, sticks to snakes etc.

iserith said:

I don't find arguments like this persuasive when we have the rules of the game explaining how to handle this situation quite clearly.

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if you continued the quote you would see I tried to look up the DC of climbing a rope and could not find any.

Gladius Legis said:

1) We're talking about D&D and the rules of D&D. Not "real life." So your personal rope-climbing anecdotes are irrelevant.

2) Even if you wanted to base a mystical DC on "real life," this is a magic spell. Which, shocker, doesn't exist in real life. Assuming the rope is magically easy for anyone of any strength to climb isn't any more of a stretch than using the same level of spell slot to teleport 30 feet.

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you CAN rule that, or not, that is the power the DM. I can't belive we are argueing over adding an effect to an already powerful spell though.

1. If you're going to read the 5th edition rules that carefully, you really have to embrace the vagueness. One hour never means exactly one hour. It's actually code for 'lasts long enough to take a short rest in it'. Have you ever noticed that there aren't ANY spell durations of 30 minutes, or 45 minutes, or 90 minutes, or 2 hours, or 3 hours, or 4 hours? To the designer's perspective there is no difference between any of those. One hour is just code for 'lasts quite awhile, but not past a short rest'. The spell will wear off sometime between encounters, whenever is convenient for the DM's storytelling. (Similarly, 1 minute is code for 'cast after initiative', 10 minutes is code for 'can be cast before initiative', and so on) Embrace the vagueness!

2. I believe this was left vague on purpose. So that some DMs can make the players roll climbing checks and other DMs can make it a magical rope that prevents you from falling. Just like grappling, hiding, and other such stuff, they leave it open so each DM can decide the method.

2b. I also suspect the designers could have provided more detail, but selfishly relished the idea of vicariously chuckling at message board threads debating whether climbing checks were necessary and how long the rope must be and how much falling damage would be taken and whether you can still short rest if you spend ten minutes climbing into the thing.

2c. I also suspect the designers intended that DMs would be inconsistent, requiring climbing checks whenever the characters were doing too well and letting them in quickly and easily when they might die without it. But this falls at a very different place on the 'good vs evil' scale of design than the type of vagueness in part 1, so I'm a bit more hesitant of this claim.

GMforPowergamers said:

if you continued the quote you would see I tried to look up the DC of climbing a rope and could not find any.

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Likely because there's no need for one except in very specific circumstances. Climbing is otherwise a factor of speed.

Saelorn said:

A 30' rope is constrained by what it means to be a 30' rope, though.

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A 30' rope that becomes part of the spell, so no, it is not constrained.

But the climb doesn't even call for an ability check anyway, so ...

iserith said:

I haven't read that thread, but while a DM is entitled to rule that something is "strenuous," that sounds like a very weak argument to me. It's not even clear to me what goal is achieved by holding such a viewpoint.

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As far as I can tell? The goal of winning an argument on the internet about whether or not wizards can heal.

Charlaquin said:

As far as I can tell? The goal of winning an argument on the internet about whether or not wizards can heal.

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And for your entertainment! Thank you very much

Charlaquin said:

As far as I can tell? The goal of winning an argument on the internet about whether or not wizards can heal.

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The really fun part of it is that Wizards literally have a healing spell: Life Transference.