I have a feeling the player in question will see this, so yes, I am trying to find other ways of breaking your game-breaking tactic.
Anyway... We have a wizard that casted Rope Trick on a 10' length of rope. The party of 6 climbed up and pulled up the rope to hide from the enemy. When they were lured out, the bard/warlock stayed in and used a strategy of hanging partway out, casting spells, and ducking back in. This makes him untouchable by normal means as attacks and spells can't cross the 3x5 window and he has a Broom of Flying which allows him to zip down, cast, and zip back. I haven't had any prolonged discussion regarding the tactic yet as I see many loopholes and gray/unknown areas to be exploited here. Therefore, I've come up with the following countermeasures:
1.) The fodder-enemies are lizardmen with shaman. The shaman use a Readied Thorn Whip to pull him out as he casts the spell. This worked very well in the beginning, but the chaos of a mass-melee has thinned/spread out the horde of enemies to make this less feasible now.
2.) The lizardmen are being led by an Adult Black Dragon. Unfortunately, the dragon is a CR14 which is too low to allow casting Dispel Magic (need CR15). As a remedy, I readied its 3 attacks (2 claws and a bite) to Shove him out of the hole. This would have worked as the dragon's turn came after the Bard's, but crap rolls contested against the +8 Acrobatics skill failed the first time around.
Does anyone else have a way to combat this spell aside from simply waiting out the 1 hour duration?
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
The natural counter to this sort of thing is a siege. There's no reason for the lizardmen or dragon to fight on their terms. If the party wants to hole themselves up in this way, they should be prepared for what happens when they give the enemy 1 hour to cut off all escape routes and call dozens of reinforcements.
That was my plan to begin with. They were spotted by a scouting party, hid in the spell, then the scout leader called them out. The bard leaned out and the shaman caught with Thorn Whip.
When the initial fight finished, the leader sounded a horn for more reinforcements. The party hid again and a few minutes later, and army came (80+, mix of gnolls, lizardfolk, ogres, and trolls) with the dragon. They didn't know where the rope trick was, but saw the bodies and had a small clue. As bait, they brought out prisoners, circled around the area, and started a little evil-monster-typical blood frenzy. This caused an immediate party reaction where everyone (except the bard) flooded out to fight. With the army focused on the party, they weren't in a good position to catch the bard.
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
Post a flying guard next to the entrance to intefere with sniping and opportunity attack on retreat back into the hole? Or better yet, send a flying enemy into the space. The entrance is invisible, but if you just saw a bard pop in there then you can follow it easily enough. Would the bard be keen to hang around in a small space with a Black Dragon Wyrmling, a cockatrice, or even just half the 8 pteranodons the shaman could summon with Conjure Animals? Then if you win control of the hole, an intelligent creature can replicate their tactics - let the party come up with a solution for your disappearing reappearing dragon...
On a basic level (excluding the obvious AOE duration based magic), you could just block the the exit without damage, and there are a few low lvl spells which do that. 2 casts of basic Mold Earth to create a 10' high pillar of earth, for example.
Or create a fire (a dragon should have no problems with that), just below the exit, that obcures it with smoke (so the one peeking out has disadvantage on ranged attacks due to not being able to see) and deals fire damage.
Readied actions will counter that tactic. So will area of effect spells that have durations and aren’t instant like Fog Cloud. Plus, without the rope to show where the portal is the character who is ducking back into the portal to hide will need to make a roll to successfully hit the portal. I’d make it a DC 10 Perception check which they'll make most of the time, but they’ll miss it once over the course of a normal combat and once is all it takes for a bunch of archers to turn them into a pincushion.
Definitely like the solutions proposed. As combat went on a bit further, I used the dragon's lair action to drop a 15' cloud of Darkness around the portal. If the bard comes out, it's a 30' minimum movement just to make the attack.
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
As I understand Rope Trick, the entrance is only open when the rope is hanging down and I would say it is an action to pull the rope up to close the entrance.
Per the text of the spell. the extradimensional space can only be reached by "climbing to the top of the rope", you can't just fly in. Also, a really stupid note, there is NOTHING restricting what creatures can enter the space (except number and size). If you allow him to just fly in and out. So can anything else. Like something following him. Have the dragon pick up a few smaller friends, reserve to follow the bard back to the 'invisible entrance' (don't adult black dragons have blindsight to pretty far out?). And have the smaller friends follow him in. He is hosed now. Or if he has to leave the rope out.... fly em over and let em climb in. Yeah, it isn't only friendlies or people you pick. any 8 medium or smaller creatures, heck just reserve and stuff 8 goblins in there when he leaves, and he couldn't go back in at all... oops.
Well, the following phrase without any other ways listed to enter the space would make one believe that....
"The extradimensional space can be reached by climbing to the top of the rope."
Since it is magic and all, I would say that is the condition for crossing into the extradimensional space as described by the spell. Someone who can see the invisible entrance couldn't just teleport across the dimensional boundary or fly, or fall, or jump or whatever to get into the extradimensional space. That is how I would rule it. That was one way to stem the OP problem. The person has to leave the rope out to come and go. Thus, someone else could climb in. Pulling the rope in "locks the door and mostly hides where you are" you want to leave, you have to drop the rope and risk being seen or someone trying to climb in.
Note, that I added that if you didn't rule that way, it was even easier that anyone could fly, teleport, jump or be lifted into the space. Heck, a ladder another rope tied or held above it. The OP could then stop him from using the space completely by stuffing 8 goblins in it. Then he couldn't go back inside.
As a DM, I would pose those two scenarios to my players. One you have a secure place to hide and wait things out, nothing can join you inside if you pull up the rope but you also can't use it as a base to attack out of without unlocking to door by dropping the rope out. OR, you can use it as a base to sortie, but anyone else can come in and out at will if they can see the invisible entrance (up to the maximum number). Almost every party I know of will pick a secure place to hide.
In normal English, no it doesn't. But according to their design and writing and rules guides, it absolutely does. When they say you can do a thing it does not imply any ability to do anything other than what is specifically stated. They do not throw in musts or onlys that are extraneous and clutter up the text. There are literally hundreds of examples that would be laughed out of the game if you said, "it only says I can do it this way, but this other way is totally obvious and logical so I can definitely can do it that way too!!!"
The ability to enter the hole by other means is not expressly forbidden, but it is definately not granted by the spell. If the players attempt to abuse the spell it isn't at all necessary to grant them benefits that are not expressly given in the text or homebrew any work around.
You can climb the rope. You can see through the portal. You can not attack or cast spells through the portal. As the DM I'd certainly allow players to leave through the portal. But if they attempt to come back in while the rope is up...
The ability to enter the hole by other means is not expressly forbidden, but it is definately not granted by the spell.
If you want to get really literal, the sentence about the rope doesn't explicitly grant access to the space either. It simply says you can reach it through the rope, and then it says how big the space is. The fact that you can enter the dimensional space by reaching it is left implied.
Spells can not be cast while within the rope trick, so if he is "leaning" out, then he's out for purposes of targeting. Every monster readies an attack action for anyone that pops out...open fire on his ass. He may hit 1 monster, but 12 hit him back. The dragon can ready a breath weapon. He doesn't have cover, he's not "half in", he is either in or out, by RAW.
I had players do this and that's how I dealt with them. All of the mobs took advantage of the players hiding, taking cover behind rocks/trees, spreading out and then nuked the hell out of anyone that poked out. Wizard "popped" out once, lost half of his hit points due to focused fire, and stopped doing that.
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Ancient GM, started in '76, have played almost everything at some point or another.
I run/play Mercer-style games, heavy on the RP and interaction, light on the combat-monster and rule-lawyering. The goal is to tell an epic story with the players and the players are as involved in the world building as the GM is. I run and play a very Brechtian style, am huge into RP theory and love discussing improv and offers.
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I have a feeling the player in question will see this, so yes, I am trying to find other ways of breaking your game-breaking tactic.
Anyway... We have a wizard that casted Rope Trick on a 10' length of rope. The party of 6 climbed up and pulled up the rope to hide from the enemy. When they were lured out, the bard/warlock stayed in and used a strategy of hanging partway out, casting spells, and ducking back in. This makes him untouchable by normal means as attacks and spells can't cross the 3x5 window and he has a Broom of Flying which allows him to zip down, cast, and zip back. I haven't had any prolonged discussion regarding the tactic yet as I see many loopholes and gray/unknown areas to be exploited here. Therefore, I've come up with the following countermeasures:
1.) The fodder-enemies are lizardmen with shaman. The shaman use a Readied Thorn Whip to pull him out as he casts the spell. This worked very well in the beginning, but the chaos of a mass-melee has thinned/spread out the horde of enemies to make this less feasible now.
2.) The lizardmen are being led by an Adult Black Dragon. Unfortunately, the dragon is a CR14 which is too low to allow casting Dispel Magic (need CR15). As a remedy, I readied its 3 attacks (2 claws and a bite) to Shove him out of the hole. This would have worked as the dragon's turn came after the Bard's, but crap rolls contested against the +8 Acrobatics skill failed the first time around.
Does anyone else have a way to combat this spell aside from simply waiting out the 1 hour duration?
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
The natural counter to this sort of thing is a siege. There's no reason for the lizardmen or dragon to fight on their terms. If the party wants to hole themselves up in this way, they should be prepared for what happens when they give the enemy 1 hour to cut off all escape routes and call dozens of reinforcements.
That was my plan to begin with. They were spotted by a scouting party, hid in the spell, then the scout leader called them out. The bard leaned out and the shaman caught with Thorn Whip.
When the initial fight finished, the leader sounded a horn for more reinforcements. The party hid again and a few minutes later, and army came (80+, mix of gnolls, lizardfolk, ogres, and trolls) with the dragon. They didn't know where the rope trick was, but saw the bodies and had a small clue. As bait, they brought out prisoners, circled around the area, and started a little evil-monster-typical blood frenzy. This caused an immediate party reaction where everyone (except the bard) flooded out to fight. With the army focused on the party, they weren't in a good position to catch the bard.
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
Post a flying guard next to the entrance to intefere with sniping and opportunity attack on retreat back into the hole? Or better yet, send a flying enemy into the space. The entrance is invisible, but if you just saw a bard pop in there then you can follow it easily enough. Would the bard be keen to hang around in a small space with a Black Dragon Wyrmling, a cockatrice, or even just half the 8 pteranodons the shaman could summon with Conjure Animals? Then if you win control of the hole, an intelligent creature can replicate their tactics - let the party come up with a solution for your disappearing reappearing dragon...
On a basic level (excluding the obvious AOE duration based magic), you could just block the the exit without damage, and there are a few low lvl spells which do that. 2 casts of basic Mold Earth to create a 10' high pillar of earth, for example.
Or create a fire (a dragon should have no problems with that), just below the exit, that obcures it with smoke (so the one peeking out has disadvantage on ranged attacks due to not being able to see) and deals fire damage.
Readied actions will counter that tactic. So will area of effect spells that have durations and aren’t instant like Fog Cloud. Plus, without the rope to show where the portal is the character who is ducking back into the portal to hide will need to make a roll to successfully hit the portal. I’d make it a DC 10 Perception check which they'll make most of the time, but they’ll miss it once over the course of a normal combat and once is all it takes for a bunch of archers to turn them into a pincushion.
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Definitely like the solutions proposed. As combat went on a bit further, I used the dragon's lair action to drop a 15' cloud of Darkness around the portal. If the bard comes out, it's a 30' minimum movement just to make the attack.
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
As I understand Rope Trick, the entrance is only open when the rope is hanging down and I would say it is an action to pull the rope up to close the entrance.
Perpetually annoyed that Eldritch Knights can't use Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Smite, and Eldritch Sight.
Consider our experience. The broom should require a free hand, and attempting to use a two handed weapon will require a successful acrobatics check.
Of course, Archy was proficient in Acrobatics and had very high dexterity. In your case he may fall off his broom a lot.
Hanging from the hole may require Athletics for climbing. While casting while upside-down may impose disadvantage.
Extended Signature
Per the text of the spell. the extradimensional space can only be reached by "climbing to the top of the rope", you can't just fly in.
Also, a really stupid note, there is NOTHING restricting what creatures can enter the space (except number and size). If you allow him to just fly in and out. So can anything else. Like something following him. Have the dragon pick up a few smaller friends, reserve to follow the bard back to the 'invisible entrance' (don't adult black dragons have blindsight to pretty far out?). And have the smaller friends follow him in. He is hosed now. Or if he has to leave the rope out.... fly em over and let em climb in. Yeah, it isn't only friendlies or people you pick. any 8 medium or smaller creatures, heck just reserve and stuff 8 goblins in there when he leaves, and he couldn't go back in at all... oops.
The spell doesn't say that's the only way to reach the entrance.
Well, the following phrase without any other ways listed to enter the space would make one believe that....
"The extradimensional space can be reached by climbing to the top of the rope."
Since it is magic and all, I would say that is the condition for crossing into the extradimensional space as described by the spell. Someone who can see the invisible entrance couldn't just teleport across the dimensional boundary or fly, or fall, or jump or whatever to get into the extradimensional space. That is how I would rule it.
That was one way to stem the OP problem. The person has to leave the rope out to come and go. Thus, someone else could climb in. Pulling the rope in "locks the door and mostly hides where you are" you want to leave, you have to drop the rope and risk being seen or someone trying to climb in.
Note, that I added that if you didn't rule that way, it was even easier that anyone could fly, teleport, jump or be lifted into the space. Heck, a ladder another rope tied or held above it. The OP could then stop him from using the space completely by stuffing 8 goblins in it. Then he couldn't go back inside.
As a DM, I would pose those two scenarios to my players. One you have a secure place to hide and wait things out, nothing can join you inside if you pull up the rope but you also can't use it as a base to attack out of without unlocking to door by dropping the rope out. OR, you can use it as a base to sortie, but anyone else can come in and out at will if they can see the invisible entrance (up to the maximum number). Almost every party I know of will pick a secure place to hide.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
In normal English, no it doesn't. But according to their design and writing and rules guides, it absolutely does. When they say you can do a thing it does not imply any ability to do anything other than what is specifically stated. They do not throw in musts or onlys that are extraneous and clutter up the text. There are literally hundreds of examples that would be laughed out of the game if you said, "it only says I can do it this way, but this other way is totally obvious and logical so I can definitely can do it that way too!!!"
The ability to enter the hole by other means is not expressly forbidden, but it is definately not granted by the spell. If the players attempt to abuse the spell it isn't at all necessary to grant them benefits that are not expressly given in the text or homebrew any work around.
You can climb the rope. You can see through the portal. You can not attack or cast spells through the portal. As the DM I'd certainly allow players to leave through the portal. But if they attempt to come back in while the rope is up...
Extended Signature
If you want to get really literal, the sentence about the rope doesn't explicitly grant access to the space either. It simply says you can reach it through the rope, and then it says how big the space is. The fact that you can enter the dimensional space by reaching it is left implied.
Spells can not be cast while within the rope trick, so if he is "leaning" out, then he's out for purposes of targeting. Every monster readies an attack action for anyone that pops out...open fire on his ass. He may hit 1 monster, but 12 hit him back. The dragon can ready a breath weapon. He doesn't have cover, he's not "half in", he is either in or out, by RAW.
I had players do this and that's how I dealt with them. All of the mobs took advantage of the players hiding, taking cover behind rocks/trees, spreading out and then nuked the hell out of anyone that poked out. Wizard "popped" out once, lost half of his hit points due to focused fire, and stopped doing that.
Ancient GM, started in '76, have played almost everything at some point or another.
I run/play Mercer-style games, heavy on the RP and interaction, light on the combat-monster and rule-lawyering. The goal is to tell an epic story with the players and the players are as involved in the world building as the GM is. I run and play a very Brechtian style, am huge into RP theory and love discussing improv and offers.