D&D 5E Rope Tricked!

[Guest 6801328]

I see what you're saying. I think mystery is a byproduct and not so much a goal. Sometimes you set the stage for it and it happens and other times it doesn't. Sometimes you don't plan for a mystery and the things fall into place to make it so. I don't think it's worth worrying about, and when DMs do worry about it, they run the risk of becoming inconsistent in their adjudication as they push for particular outcomes.

Totally agree. But what I don't want (to link to the other thread) is for a player to say, "Can I roll Insight?" and spoil the fun with a die roll. That's not solving puzzles; that's rolling dice.

 

[Seramus]

The modular nature of this is great. Going to flop it down in my own dungeon, substitute the Roper for something to suit the level of my party, and see who gets hung. Keep them coming! We are the endless hungry hordes.

 

[iserith]

The modular nature of this is great. Going to flop it down in my own dungeon, substitute the Roper for something to suit the level of my party, and see who gets hung. Keep them coming! We are the endless hungry hordes.

Awesome! Please let us know how it goes!

 

[Seramus]

Awesome! Please let us know how it goes!

Three years later!

I never did report on what happened. The party immediately suspected the voice of lying since this was a former temple of the Yuan-ti, paragon of truth that they are, but still had to deal with the roper.

They frantically scrutinized the rope for traps, climbed up it, and met the spirit. I played the long con despite them knowing he was lying and didn't have him attempt anything.

The party used the rope to dangle themselves and snipe at the roper, taking some hits but using hit and run tactics up and down the rope until they drove it off.

The party talked to the ghost a while, not trusting him in the slightest, but he hadn't done anything yet. Perhaps they assumed he couldn't, so I telegraphed him kicking a rock like the movie Ghost. They decided to take a long rest up there, I kid you not.

During first watch, the ghost possessed the party rogue and hung himself. The AC on the rope was too high for the other person on watch to reliably hit it, and despite yelling at the others to wake up the rogue ended up dead.

The ghost thanked them for his freedom with a malevolent chuckle and faded away. I let the rogue play his own ghost for the rest of the night, and any hard feelings about the death were hopefully mitigated by his glee at ghost scouting the dungeon for the party.

I did take a little pity and had the roper die of its wounds and hunger. It was single digit HP anyway.

I ruled that his ghost couldn't leave the dungeon, so by next week he had a new character rolled up, said a ghostly farewell to the party when they left the dungeon, and met up with his new character on the journey back.

They planned to give the rogue a proper burial / exorcism later, but scheduling issues are the most dangerous BBEG of all.