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

[Yunru]

Only if the Moon succeeds on its attack roll.

#BringBackHalfDamageOnAMiss

 

[Sunseeker]

And If it's a 3rd Edition Moon, It's gonna have something like a -40 size penalty to attack. So it's gonna miss on anything but a natural 20.

To be fair it's probably making a charge attack, so that at least gives it a +2 since it's moving more than 10ft.

 

[mpwylie]

I don't have a problem with the power level of two immovable rods. My problem is, do you really want to hear, every single time it comes around to one players turn "I use my immovable rods"?

Honestly, I could care less. I see it no different than a monk stunning fisting every caster mob he sees, a wizard locking things down every fight. I would let him have his fun and in my encounters I would start mixing in casters with spells like Gaseous form or misty step. Monsters like puddings or oozes, monsters with high STR or dex so they have a good chance of making the rolls I would put in place. I wouldn't put in only those types of monsters, or even a lot of them, but I would throw in some scenarios where he has to come up with other tricks. I would also adjust my encounters adding a monster or 2 figuring that one will likely be restrained and killed. Now you set up a situation where if his trick doesn't work, it's going to be a real tough battle. This is my job as the DM.

 

[Lanliss]

Honestly, I could care less. I see it no different than a monk stunning fisting every caster mob he sees, a wizard locking things down every fight. I would let him have his fun and in my encounters I would start mixing in casters with spells like Gaseous form or misty step. Monsters like puddings or oozes, monsters with high STR or dex so they have a good chance of making the rolls I would put in place. I wouldn't put in only those types of monsters, or even a lot of them, but I would throw in some scenarios where he has to come up with other tricks. I would also adjust my encounters adding a monster or 2 figuring that one will likely be restrained and killed. Now you set up a situation where if his trick doesn't work, it's going to be a real tough battle. This is my job as the DM.

Of course, I'm not saying it is some sort of insurmountable obstacle, just that it would annoy me.

 

[Saeviomagy]

See: misunderstanding the rules. Happens to everyone.

Oh, absolutely My post wasn't supposed to be read in a negative tone of voice.

I suppose it also begs the question: does the Rod secure itsself in a fixed 3-dimensional point in space? Or is it relative to the user? The nearest large gravity well? Does the Rod know when it's inside a larger object? Could you use an Immovable Rod on the Moon to stop its orbit, or would it lock itsself to a fixed point relative to the Moon? Would an Immovable Rod placed 250,000 miles from Earth still rotate with it or would it stay fixed in that point of space? Wouldn't a truly Immovable Rod be immune to the forces of gravity and the moment you lock it in place you would suddenly realize you're hurtling through space at 18mps and spinning on a top at over a thousand mph? Wouldn't it be more accurate now to call it a "Rod of Relativistic Positioning"?

My answer to this is generally that it's magic and doesn't need to be absolutely consistent - every magic item has been forged for a purpose, so the rod does whatever it was supposed to do, with some quirks that weren't part of the intended design.

More specifically my fantasy world doesn't need to spin, orbit, have gravity or any other modern physics concept, so I may never need to answer your questions.

Even if the Rod is in a dragon's stomach, I would think the physical force of the dragon's mass (given it was large enough to swallow an average humanoid whole) moving would overcome a DC30 Str check.

Well... that same argument might be made for why I only get a strength check when I run at a door carrying a lot of equipment. I think perhaps you'd be better off looking at the fact that the rod can only hold 8000 lbs of weight. Elephants weigh in at 6000-15000lbs, so any dragon that can swallow a player can most likely just hang off the rod to deactivate it.

EDIT: based on my thoughts above, I'm going to give out an Immovable Rod in my next game, and before the players activate it I'm going to ask them if they think the Rod locks itsself to a fixed point in 3-dimensional space-time or if it locks itself relative to the nearest most powerful gravity well. I REALLY​ hope they choose the former. *evil laugh*

Just beware of said players doing things like conjuring 10ft lenses to burn through steel with the power of the sun, or deafen people with castings of thaumaturgy. That's why I tend to say magic and science are more or less incompatible, and that the laws science in our world typically don't apply. Then the player says "I use magic to create something with the mass of a black hole!" and I say "Ok. You have a really really heavy rock. What do you do now?"

 

[Sunseeker]

Oh, absolutely My post wasn't supposed to be read in a negative tone of voice.

I didn't take it as one, I was piggybacking to support my point of a lot of rules abuses come out of DMs and players not properly applying the rules.

My answer to this is generally that it's magic and doesn't need to be absolutely consistent - every magic item has been forged for a purpose, so the rod does whatever it was supposed to do, with some quirks that weren't part of the intended design.

I typically agree, but I like small doses of science behind my magic. Like magic was simply an alternate route to figuring out the ways of the universe.

More specifically my fantasy world doesn't need to spin, orbit, have gravity or any other modern physics concept, so I may never need to answer your questions.

I tend to set up my fantasy worlds as alt-earths, part of a fantasy galaxy. More of less Mass Effect with less sci than fy.

Well... that same argument might be made for why I only get a strength check when I run at a door carrying a lot of equipment. I think perhaps you'd be better off looking at the fact that the rod can only hold 8000 lbs of weight. Elephants weigh in at 6000-15000lbs, so any dragon that can swallow a player can most likely just hang off the rod to deactivate it.

Yep.

Just beware of said players doing things like conjuring 10ft lenses to burn through steel with the power of the sun, or deafen people with castings of thaumaturgy. That's why I tend to say magic and science are more or less incompatible, and that the laws science in our world typically don't apply. Then the player says "I use magic to create something with the mass of a black hole!" and I say "Ok. You have a really really heavy rock. What do you do now?"

I don't honestly think I'd stop them from doing any of that. There's no distance at which a player could summon a black hole that it wouldn't tear them and their world to shred within "seconds".

 

[Hawk Diesel]

So I've seen a lot of cool ideas to deal with the immovable rods, and even a couple that deal with questioning how the rods even function. But what if the rods lock into place because their magic uses a kind of dimensional anchor magic that pierces reality and drills into the interdimensional ether. Normally doing so carries minimal risk because there's not much out there, but there's a non-zero percent chance that each use of the immovable rod could:

A) Tear a hole in the fabric of reality and cause a lot of problems.

B) The rod's magical anchors pierce the flesh of some creature on another plane. It hurts it bad, and it follows the magical anchor to burst onto the prime material plane where the rod is positioned, mean, hungry, and looking to cause some hurt.

 

[Maxperson]

Honestly, I could care less. I see it no different than a monk stunning fisting every caster mob he sees, a wizard locking things down every fight. I would let him have his fun and in my encounters I would start mixing in casters with spells like Gaseous form or misty step. Monsters like puddings or oozes, monsters with high STR or dex so they have a good chance of making the rolls I would put in place. I wouldn't put in only those types of monsters, or even a lot of them, but I would throw in some scenarios where he has to come up with other tricks. I would also adjust my encounters adding a monster or 2 figuring that one will likely be restrained and killed.

Er, it was a joke question. Re-read it.

Now you set up a situation where if his trick doesn't work, it's going to be a real tough battle.

You mean like using the rules? The rules don't allow his trick to work. He doesn't have enough actions.

 

[BoldItalic]

For people worried about the physics, colliding with planets and so on, I offer this theory: immovable rods work by changing the ratio of their gravitational mass to inertial mass when energised, and back again when de-energised. Instead of them being equal, the gravitational mass becomes vanishingly small and the inertial mass becomes much larger. That explains why

• the rod doesn't fall down if released
• it continues having whatever velocity through space that it had when you switched it on
• it is very hard to impart additional motion to it.

Conservation of energy and conservation of momentum are broken, but that's only a problem for post-Newtonian physicists; in medieval times they didn't have to be conserved.

Think of it like a very large ship floating in a calm sea. It doesn't fall down and if you swim over and try to push it with your hands, you will find it very hard to move. But it still goes up and down with the tide.

Now, back to the original problem: the player is being really dumb. You don't need two immovable hammers to trap a creature by the neck, you just need one rod with a big snap hook on the end. Personally, I would make the rod quite long, like a polearm, with the button on the opposite end to the hook. That way, I can snatch the victim from a short distance away and, once it is caught, its arms aren't long enough to reach the button to release itself.

Of course, it still needs two actions: one to hook the victim and another to activate the rod. It's best used by a fighter with Action Surge; it's definitely not a monk weapon. The player is playing the wrong class.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I'm all for allowing clever tactics, often I when my players want to apply some clever idea on their attack, I allow them to roll at disadvantage and if the attack succeeds anyway, they get additional benefit based on their idea.

Here the idea is simply against the rules. As the others mentioned, it requires an action, so you can't attack and activate the rod at the same time. I'd allow to combine movement + item interaction + action to lock down a creature, though. Probably as STR contest like grappling.

However, even if the player succeeds, the result will depend a lot on the enemy. A dumb monster which is not a jelly might not be able to get free without a STR check. But anyone with INT of say 8 or higher, probably could conclude that just pressing the button frees him. Of course that costs him an action too, but that's not OP. Using your action to prevent the enemy from using his action to attack is just a smart way to tank a single creature. I'd say it's allowed as long as the monk stays in melee range (or risks AoO) and keeps using his action to lock the enemy.