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

[The Crimson Binome]

The only reason the rope is free standing in the first place is because of the magic spell. Ropes don't free-stand in real life.

See the earlier example, regarding gym class. Climbing a vertical rope is hard. Most people can't do it. It shouldn't be taken as a given that everyone would automatically succeed.

And it's absolutely absurd to compare ANY climbing of a rope to a cliff, regardless of how hard you think it should be to climb a rope.

Maybe that gets into your definition of "cliff", but a shallow enough surface that's covered in foot-holds would be trivially climbable by most people. A vertical rope with no adjacent surface would be substantially more difficult.

No, you want to nerf the spell for no reason, eliminate the obvious purpose of the spell and add rules that aren't there.

I'm not talking about how long the rope needs to be, or the duration of a short rest. I'm talking about certainty vs uncertainty, DM adjudication in task resolution, and the difficulty of climbing a rope without support.

At your table, your DM may choose to handwave the difficulty of climbing a rope. That doesn't mean any other DM is adjudicating incorrectly by requiring a DC 10 Athletics check to do so.

 

[Yunru]

See the earlier example, regarding gym class. Climbing a vertical rope is hard. Most people can't do it. It shouldn't be taken as a given that everyone would automatically succeed.
Maybe that gets into your definition of "cliff", but a shallow enough surface that's covered in foot-holds would be trivially climbable by most people. A vertical rope with no adjacent surface would be substantially more difficult.
I'm not talking about how long the rope needs to be, or the duration of a short rest. I'm talking about certainty vs uncertainty, DM adjudication in task resolution, and the difficulty of climbing a rope without support.

At your table, your DM may choose to handwave the difficulty of climbing a rope. That doesn't mean any other DM is adjudicating incorrectly by requiring a DC 10 Athletics check to do so.

Yes because climbing an immobile rope ladder is sooo hard.

 

[Mort]

Yes because climbing an immobile rope ladder is sooo hard.

Isn't that moving the goalposts though?

Of course climbing a stationary rope ladder is fairly easy - anyone in any reasonable shape should be able to do it.

Climbing a stationary rope, especially one without knots - totally different story.

 

[Satyrn]

Isn't that moving the goalposts though?

It's not even that. It's simply not responding to what the other person actually said.

- What are you up to today?

- I'm driving up to Whistler for some skiing

- But it's summer in Australia! You can't ski in summer.



(Whistler's in Canada, eh?)

 

[Yunru]

Isn't that moving the goalposts though?

Of course climbing a stationary rope ladder is fairly easy - anyone in any reasonable shape should be able to do it.

Climbing a stationary rope, especially one without knots - totally different story.

It's not even that. It's simply not responding to what the other person actually said.

- What are you up to today?

- I'm driving up to Whistler for some skiing

- But it's summer in Australia! You can't ski in summer.



(Whistler's in Canada, eh?)

Not at all, to both of you.
There are only to restrictions and one limitation on the rope:
It has a maximum length of 60'
It has to be a single piece
It will hang from one end to the other

None of those prevent you from using a rope ladder.

 

[Mort]

Not at all, to both of you.
There are only to restrictions and one limitation on the rope:
It has a maximum length of 60'
It has to be a single piece
It will hang from one end to the other

None of those prevent you from using a rope ladder.

Doesn't change the fact that he was talking about a rope not a rope ladder.

 

[Yunru]

Doesn't change the fact that he was talking about a rope not a rope ladder.

They're the same thing.

 

[Satyrn]

I'm out.

 

[Satyrn]

Actually I'm really tempted to start a thread asking if a rope ladder is a rope spell.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

I haven't included this spell in any of my campaigns going back to the 2e era, primarily for absurdity reasons. The 5e version has not given me any reason to include it. I believe it is, RAI, designed to facilitate short rests yet the ambiguous writing doesn't mention short rests once. Instead we're left with legacy crud about lengths of rope and climbing and extradimensional spaces that aren't particularly illuminating. They could have just replaced it with something like the following and been done with it:

CONJURE SHORT REST
2nd-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 10 feet
Components: V, S, M (a copy of the 5e PH)
Duration: 1 hour

You send yourself and up to seven other willing creatures within 10 feet of you to an extradimensional space wherein you each gain the effects of a short rest. In one hour, you reappear the same location from which you left.