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

[Krachek]

The Ranger move is as funny as a road runner vs coyote cartoon.
Runaway into a dead end and leave a clear track!
it’s a Darwin Award for this Ranger!

 

[FrozenNorth]

I could certainly see attempting to cut the rope so no one else can follow the Ranger though. But that's just me, out of context, I don't know if the Orc's actions made sense at the time.

I think this means that you are too smart NOT to be fooled. While I understand your reasoning, I can absolutely see a blood-crazed orc charge after a fleeing ranger without considering the impact of the spell BECAUSE that is what bloodthirsty ravagers do.

 

[Krachek]

One thing that need more details is why the Ranger player decide that it was time to flee at any cost?
Fear induction is not a good tool for DM, it produce gimmick and meta play, or too much careful and conservative play.

 

[R_J_K75]

It might have been a misalignment of expectations. He might have thought it was more limited or invisible. In a perfect world verifying what he thinks the spell does before pulling the trigger is a good idea.

I disagree. As a DM I don't know every spell in the PHB so if a player casts a spell that I'm not 100% sure of I'll quickly look it up if their description of how it works or how they think it works seems off, or contradictory how I think it works. In the end I think the player should know how a spell works, or if they are confused or its ambiguous, ask out of game for clarification before they cast it in game or suffer the consequences. You'd think as a player who is running a spellcaster they'd read their spell descriptions before getting to the table to familiarize themselves beforehand not cry foul after the fact.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Technically not cheating, but I wouldn't want to come back to that game if I was the ranger because that feels like a 100% spite move.

The encounter cancels itself to beat me to death for using a tactic the DM doesn't like instead of them just asking me not to... then tells the internet about it while mocking me? Yeah, not coming back.

 

[Krachek]

The Ranger can possibly stand in the rope trick entrance, block the entrance and fight the orcs from there. Being in a disadvantageous position climbing the rope they would probably avoid this and continue fight the rest of the party.
There are a lot of grey zone in the OP description.

 

[Krachek]

Technically not cheating, but I wouldn't want to come back to that game if I was the ranger because that feels like a 100% spite move.

The encounter cancels itself to beat me to death for using a tactic the DM doesn't like instead of them just asking me not to... then tells the internet about it while mocking me? Yeah, not coming back.

Indeed the OP did not mention any try out for the Ranger to escape the death trap.
Once the bad move done, it seem that the ending was unstoppable.

 

[Mort]

A fight was not going well for the party but they would have won probably without any deaths.

A Ranger cast Rope trick in the middle of combat with the intent of evacuating the party and taking a short rest. It is not the first time he did this. The Ranger cast it and climbed up the Rope (taking an AOO). Two Orogs and 3 Orcs followed the Ranger up the rope. The last Orc pulled up the rope behind him and they attacked the Ranger 5 to 1 inside the extra dimensional space and followed that with a short rest themselves. Meanwhile the rest of the party beat the remaining guys on the ground and beat the Orogs and Orcs when the spell ended.

In the end the Ranger who cast it died.

The Ranger cried foul and claims I cheated, but I think that was RAW. The player tried a metagaming power move and was taken to the woodshed.

Am I wrong?

Nothing wrong on either end. The ranger tried a tactic (nothing metagamey about it) that backfired.

 

[Oofta]

The fact that I agree with what the OP did doesn't mean there aren't other issues at the table.

But let's say there was no spell involved for a moment. The ranger is fighting in a familiar area and knows there's an attic access with one of those pull down ladders. He pulls the cord, climbs up into the attic and doesn't immediately pull the ladder back up.

Would it be bad DMing for the enemy to follow them up into the attic? I think it would be illogical for the enemy to not follow the ranger up into the attic in this scenario.

I don't see any difference just because it's a spell. However, I would warn the player that this would happen, that there's nothing stopping the enemy from following. In addition, if the entire group did manage to do a rope trick in full sight of the enemy, it's highly likely that intelligent enemies would just be given an hour to prepare defenses for the inevitable return. Intelligent opponents will usually use better tactics than video game AI enemies.

 

[Mort]

The game is written in a way that nothing is supposed to actually challenge the characters.

We have VERY different experiences with 5e!

I've found 5e can easily be a challenge, even to experienced players.