D&D 5E Player angry about enemies climbing rope with Rope Trick

[Bill Zebub]

Agree with many of the other posters:

1. It totally makes sense for the monsters to chase the ranger up the rope. Or, rather, it could totally make sense. Was it really the smartest tactical move? Or were you 'punishing' the player? Which leads to...

2. Yeah, your language 'the woodshed' suggests you were actually the one metagaming: you were maybe making decisions based on a desire to punish the player.

3. I don't know how experienced the players (or you) are, but maybe when the player declared this particular action you could have paused play and asked what they were thinking, and then clarified that enemies can climb the rope, and then give the player a chance to retcon the action declaration.

 

[Mistwell]

Been playing it since the playtest. Until I used a mound of house rules everything in the default game was an utter cakewalk.

House rules. Lots and lots of ’em.

I've been playing since the early playtest as well (and before that, every edition except 2nd edition), continually, multiple games with multiple DMs and groups. And my experience is different than yours. We don't use any houserules, and the game is challenging. In fact we routinely use published adventures, and the game is challenging.

We just nearly had a TPK in Tomb of Annihilation by the way. Same in Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I've been playing since the early playtest as well (and before that, every edition except 2nd edition), continually, multiple games with multiple DMs and groups. And my experience is different than yours. We don't use any houserules, and the game is challenging. In fact we routinely use published adventures, and the game is challenging.

We just nearly had a TPK in Tomb of Annihilation by the way. Same in Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

In one of my regular groups we take turns DMing, although between the two most frequent DMs one is always a cakewalk, and one is always challenging (including some near-TPKs), even though both run WotC adventure paths.

So, yeah, it's not the game, it's how you run it.

 

[overgeeked]

I've been playing since the early playtest as well (and before that, every edition except 2nd edition), continually, multiple games with multiple DMs and groups.

Sorry. I was just referring to 5E. I've been playing D&D almost monthly since 1984. 5E is easy mode compared to Basic, AD&D, and 2E. And it's about on par with 4E, though it's about 3x harder to die in 5E than 4E. In 4E your death saves didn't reset until after a short rest. So if you dropped three times in one combat, you were dead. I mean, infinite over-night healing vs healing 1 hp per full day of rest. Dying at zero hit points instead of zero and then failing three 55% or better checks. Come on.

And my experience is different than yours.

Sure.

We don't use any houserules, and the game is challenging. In fact we routinely use published adventures, and the game is challenging.

We must be defining challenging differently then.

We just nearly had a TPK in Tomb of Annihilation by the way. Same in Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

How many characters actually died for real? Like dead, dead. Not just dropped to zero then were fine the next day or easily resurrected or raised.

 

[Flamestrike]

Sorry. I was just referring to 5E. I've been playing D&D almost monthly since 1984. 5E is easy mode compared to Basic, AD&D, and 2E.

No, it's not.

 

[overgeeked]

In one of my regular groups we take turns DMing, although between the two most frequent DMs one is always a cakewalk, and one is always challenging (including some near-TPKs), even though both run WotC adventure paths.

So, yeah, it's not the game, it's how you run it.

Or it's the modules. Which ones are they running? Breaking it down by cakewalk vs challenging DMs would be helpful.

 

[Fenris-77]

No, it's not.

Well, it doesn't have to be anyway.

 

[TheSword]

God I hate Rope Trick and Leomunds Tiny Hut. Taking either of those spells is suicide if I’m DM.

It’s a single action spell isn’t it though, so was fair play to cast?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Sorry. I was just referring to 5E. I've been playing D&D almost monthly since 1984. 5E is easy mode compared to Basic, AD&D, and 2E. And it's about on par with 4E, though it's about 3x harder to die in 5E than 4E. In 4E your death saves didn't reset until after a short rest. So if you dropped three times in one combat, you were dead. I mean, infinite over-night healing vs healing 1 hp per full day of rest. Dying at zero hit points instead of zero and then failing three 55% or better checks. Come on.

Sure.

We must be defining challenging differently then.

How many characters actually died for real? Like dead, dead. Not just dropped to zero then were fine the next day or easily resurrected or raised.

How many different threads am I going to have to see you literally having this exact same discussion?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, even dashing, it should take a little less than two full rounds to reach the top of a 50 foot rope (which is what comes standard in most adventuring kits), so the character should have had plenty of time to see that the monsters were following him up the rope and maybe realize this was a bad idea.

It doesn't say the rope can extend through a ceiling though, so if you cast it in a 10 foot high room you only need to climb 10 feet to reach the dimensional pocket, which most PCs and orcs could do in a single move.