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

[seebs]

The forum went down the moment I attempted to respond but here's more or less what I wrote.

I took some time to review some of the possible "abuses". All of them rely on the DM either not knowing how the item works, or the DM allowing you to get away with shenanigans with the item. There are a few reasonable uses mentioned, such as blocking up a heavy door or stopping a fast-moving object, which are clearly "intended uses" not abuses. There are others that are clearly abuses, but they rely on an abuse of the rules, not an abuse of the item, such as being swallowed by a dragon and activating the item. When you are swallowed you are considered Restrained, meaning you can take no Actions. It is an Action to activate the rod, therefore you cannot do this. Others rely on heavy abuse of the concept of "Restrained". You may be able to pin a man down with a Rod, but the Rod does nothing to impair his limbs or other body parts, unless you sit there and bat away his hands he can simply turn the Rod off. Infinite ladder? You need 3, not two. One to stand on while you climb up the others, because otherwise it's more like infinite Monkey Bars, and that calls for Endurance checks because you can't hang from your arms for forever. Not to mention half the suggestions require modding the rod, or activating it from range. The first is easy to resolve: it's a magic item, don't allow modifications, that's where the 3.X crafting system was broken. The second is less easy to resolve, since you could potentially activate it with a mage-hand, but otherwise it's not remote-controlled. You have to push a physical button on the Rod itsself.

So quite frankly I'm just not seeing the terror in two immovable rods.

The "being swallowed and then activating" happened in Pathfinder, and you weren't prevented from taking actions while swallowed in Pathfinder.

 

[seebs]

Just because you (and those giving you XP: koga305, AaronOfBarbaria, doctorbadwolf) don't doesn't mean you should trivialize the potential problem. With a creative (but ruthless) player, a pair of immovable rods will become an endless source of headaches for a DM. Trust me on this.

No.

I'm not going to "trust you" when I have used immovable rods in several games, and had players use them in several games, often pretty creatively, and it's never been an "endless source of headaches" any more than any other magic item or spell which has a function other than "deal hit points of damage" does. If you want me to believe that there's a huge and inevitable problem, despite my years of experience to the contrary, you will have to at least give a concrete example of what the problem would be.

 

[akr71]

Seems to me that the OP's problem was addressed pages ago... Make the player succeed a skill check to get the 'hammers' into the proper position (1 action), press one button (1 action) and then press the other button (1 action). 3 actions to successfully lock the target in place - if the target stays still, staring at you for 18 seconds then they deserve what they get. Even if you grant activating the second rod as a bonus action, you are still talking 12 seconds.

Do I think an 'Immovable Hammer' could be abused? Sure. Can it make for an entertaining game? Yes. A creative player could still find ways to restrain an opponent with the hammer, just not every time. Shove the opponent against the wall and then activate the hammer, trapping the opponent against the wall. Knock them down and hold them in place (Thor style).

I tend not to get upset at players 'breaking my game' and encourage them to be creative and do things I never dreamed of - if it starts sucking fun out of things, I've obviously adjudicated wrong and should correct.

 

[CapnZapp]

No.

I'm not going to "trust you" <snip>

Luckily this thread isn't about you.

My advice to the OP and everybody else reading is "lose the rods".

That's really it.


Zapp

 

[Satyrn]

My advice to the OP and everybody else reading is "lose the rods".

Do you know how hard it is to lose something that absolutely stays put right where you last left it?


Oh, hey! My PC's getting a new key ring!

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

My advice to the OP and everybody else reading is "lose the rods".

...but why should we?

"Everybody else reading this thread" could contain quite a number of people that have never happened to have an immovable rod in their campaigns as of yet, or have had some number of immovable rods in some number of their campaigns to date and never experienced anything even resembling a problem with them (myself included in that category), and you seem to be saying "lose the rods" with an assumption that there are some inherent inevitable problems that show up in campaigns that include at least one immovable rod - which means that without you explaining your advice further, it appears you are mistaken.

 

[CapnZapp]

...but why should we?

"Everybody else reading this thread" could contain quite a number of people that have never happened to have an immovable rod in their campaigns as of yet, or have had some number of immovable rods in some number of their campaigns to date and never experienced anything even resembling a problem with them (myself included in that category), and you seem to be saying "lose the rods" with an assumption that there are some inherent inevitable problems that show up in campaigns that include at least one immovable rod

The real problems require two.

- which means that without you explaining your advice further, it appears you are mistaken.

No it does not. It merely means that I'm not inclined to indulge those that try to cast suspicion on me, or state outright they do not trust me.

Have a nice day

 

[Umbran]

That's really it.

So, in effect....

"My advice is, don't allow these items."
"Why not?"
"Because. I say so. That's really it."

You are, of course, allowed to have your opinion. However, "Because I say so," isn't a constructive element in a discussion. You are setting it up at this point not as a discussion of interesting rules, but a discussion about you.

As you just said - the thread isn't about you. It is about an immovable rod.

Unless you intend to emulate one in this discussion, and just hold your position despite having no foundation for it, and thus show by example how a thing that has no support but won't move can be a problem?

I am not sure, "cause frustration to my fellow board-members," really counts as a clever discussion tactic.

 

[Satyrn]

I know the original question was answered, but do immovable rods require attunement? I'm just wondering why the enemies that were trapped didn't just hit the buttons and take the immovable rods for themselves.

No. No attunement.

The description even mentions another creature pressing the button to deactivate it.

 

[robus]

Unless you intend to emulate one in this discussion, and just hold your position despite having no foundation for it, and thus show by example how a thing that has no support but won't move can be a problem?

Zing!