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

[AnotherGuy]

Knowing that there is magic and knowing the details of how a specific spell works are not the same thing. Do better.

That Do Better is unnecessary.

 

[dave2008]

Been playing it [5E] 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.

We have a few houserules (less than a page) and actually had to dial one back pretty quickly because the game became too deadly for us. However, I have also run the game RAW and been able to challenge some groups. 5e is very variable group to group and player to player. What seems like a cakewalk to you and your group can be a TPK in the hands of another group. IME, it is less how the game is written and more how the game is played that matters.

 

[Seramus]

Enemy tactics and terrain count for way more than the CR of a monster. Tucker's Kobolds are a classic example, but I like comparing how different groups run the Strahd fight.

I've seen groups make Strahd stand and fight, then die like a chump and wonder what the big deal is. I've seen other groups run him as an almost unbeatable hit and run monster.

How (and where) you make them fight is like night and day when it comes to lethality in any edition, but 5E is no exception.

 

[Fifth Element]

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

Can you realy not grasp that it might be how you run 5E? You're looking for all these reasons why someone might say they have a different experience with the game, but one of the possibilities is how you run it, which is of course based on how you perceive the game to function, since you're human and have the usual human cognitive biases.

When I ran a 4E campaign, one of the players kept grumbling that it was all about combat, even though there wasn't any more combat than in the 3E campaign we had just finished. But they came in thinking 4E = combat simulator so that's how they saw it. Then we did an entire session without a single fight. And it was a really fun session. And at the end of the night that player complained that there weren't enough fights.

 

[dave2008]

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.

That is the thing though. I've played since 1e/BECMI and I never had a player die in 1e/BECMI. I have in 4e and 5e though. With our initial 5e houserules we died way too often!

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

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.

Most smart players that use Rope trick have a 5 foot length of rope to use to cast the spell. The spell descriptions says it can be cast on a length of rope UP to 60 feet.

 

[Fifth Element]

That Do Better is unnecessary.

If you say so. Personally I don't like it when someone misrepresents what you're saying.

 

[dave2008]

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.

I see a reoccurring theme in your post were death = challenge. I don't think that is true for a lot of people.

Of course it is really easy to add that type of challenge back to 5e, 0 HP = death. There are also a lot of different ways to handle rest and recovery (some of them RAW optional rules) that can make death easier too, all without loads of house rules. Or,...

You can just be a more deadly DM without changing anything. It is completely possible to run 5e out of the box without any houserules and challenge a group with death and other types of challenges. You just have to want to do it as a DM. For me personally, it more important to have fun then constantly threaten the players with death.

 

[dave2008]

If you say so. Personally I don't like it when someone misrepresents what you're saying.

Sure, but your response assumed negative intent and was snarky. One could say that you should or could "do better."

 

[Tonguez]

Knowing that there is magic and knowing the details of how a specific spell works are not the same thing. Do better.

the Orcs know magic happens and can see that their opponent has just climbed a rope - theres nothing to stop them climbing the same rope and assuming their target will be there at the top