I have never played dnd or watch a dnd related video, I clicked this thinking it was about real life rope tricks, but I for some reason watched the whole thing regardless.
Came for this one, corn was originally any grain with the seed still in it. That use is not entirely archaic either, e.g. barleycorn, especially in other Germanic languages.
Some spells have very weird or very specific items so can’t really blame him for assuming it’s talking about corn from a modern perspective since that’s what 99% of 5e is based on and thusly makes your assumption equal to his since most items are based on modern wording not medieval wording so you can expect corn to specifically refer to maize corn.
The misconception of pulling the rope up preventing people from outside from entering is a result of that being how the spell worked in previous editions.
Fun game story: When we played Curse of Strahd, we had our halfling rogue get Charmed by Mister Fangy and she kept failing her damn Wisdom check. My Artificer, in desperate need to figure SOMETHING out came up with the bright idea of casting Rope Trick and then Athletics Checking her INTO the pocket dimension, thereby violating one of the requirements of the charm, freeing her. Once un-charmed, she jumped out to get back in the fight. And was immediately RE-charmed by the pale douchebag after which she proceeded to stab me with the Sunblade and down me. Peak absurdity, I loved it. (We did end up winning the fight. It was even the Rogue with the killing blow, getting double Nat 20s on an attack and driving the Sunblade through Strahd's heart.) Another sheningan I've used Rope Trick for was creating 3 (since it does not require concentration) in a hall where we were to meet some nefarious assholes. One was empty and everyone in the party was well acquainted with it's exact location. The other two were loaded with barrels of blackpowder and a couple smaller impact explosives. Once everyone was in the meeting and knew there wasn't going to be any truce, we all jumped in the empty rope hole and ended the other two, emptying their contents from about 20 feet up into the room, absolutely obliterating everyone inside.
OH! And my preferred explanation of how the space works is that it effectively sends you to Flatland. Basically, the entire space exists only in two dimensions, but also because everything IN it is IN two dimensions, works out fine. This is also why there's so many constraints on how and why things can enter or not: you are effectively working on an entirely separate form of physics, even the physics that operates behind magic. Lacking a third dimension just makes all the spells and attacks glitch out like a Bethesda game.
The subject matter and deep dive therein *was* confusing, I admit. The kind of thing you'd expect a story behind. That ending though. Not only is there a story, I'm wincing realizing what kind of story it must have been. Aside, I had a scenario where there was incoming artillery fire, and I left it to the players to figure out how to not die. My Ranger PC realized they could all scramble up into this thing and be safe. I was so proud.
I rule that the rope must be on the ground while casting the spell, so it always knows where the perpendicular direction is. That also means I don't allow it to be cast in the air or in space.
An easier size interpretation is that the inside is 15' by 15' (3x3 grid). The middle square is taken up by the hole where the rope is, leaving 8 squares for people to stand.
As a fellow pedant, I very much appreciate the gradual approach to nearly every word of the description. My sympathies in having to negotiate all of these details at the table.
You don't need to shoot a fireball into the extradimentional space, or even get some dragon fire... you just light a camp fire directly under it and laugh as everyone inside quickly asphyxiates on the smoke. (Also, protip, load the fire up with green and/or wet wood for maximum smoke production once its gotten started).
"the wizard climbs a rope and seems to disappear into the air" "I rip open my bag of poisoned caltrops and spread them under where the rope was. Have a nice fall, wizard."
While I think it can be fun analysing the implications of RAW, I personally tend to reinterpret what’s written in a way that makes sense to me, or feels like RAI. I’d rule that the rope hangs vertically (with respect to gravity), rather than perpendicular to the ground, and that the end continues to rise vertically until either the rope hangs freely, a solid obstacle is reached, or it has risen a maximum of 60ft. If stopped by an obstacle, the entrance to the extradimensional space simply forms at that height, leaving some of the rope to trail on the ground. This prevents the issue of only working in air, the perpendicular to the ground problem, and prevents an infinitely rising rope. Without a source of gravity to determine the ‘vertical’ direction, the spell simply fails. I agree with all of the points regarding the extradimensional plane, although I never realised just how strange the rectangular window is. What a wonderfully pedantic video!
Some planes in D&D 5e also have subjective gravity, according to Forgotten Realms 3.5 lore, and some content in the DMG and other books. So that has a funny effect on Rope Trick as well.
@@jurekmc According to science, yes. But according to D&D planar mechanics, subjective gravity literally means "the conscious creatures decides which way is down, and then they fall that direction"
I like the idea that the extradinensional pocket is like a unblown balloon, and that whenever someone enters the pocket it stretches just enough to accomodate them. As more people fit in, the pocket stretches, the walls thinning. So entering a rope trick pocket is less like climbing up into a tree house with sturdy defined walls and floors, but more like a rubbery sack.We handwave the need to breathe. It can explain the variable size of the dimension, the limit of 8 creatures (at least for medium creatures) as a weight limit. Maybe the space can only accomodate a limited weight before the walls pop like an overfilled balloon. Maybe there is a magical ethereal "counter" on the entrance that counts/limits the number of enteties entering the pocket as an engineered "fail safe" by the in-game spell designers to prevent some dummy hurting themself (think of all the warning labels on everything IRL). The designer, probably a demi-human themself, probably expected other demi-humans to use the trick, and rather than magically engineer the spell to measure and weigh each creature coming in (on the off chance a tiny creature uses it) just just engineered a much simpler "counter" for the entrance. I mean, who says extra dimensional spaces have to be like boring rectangular sturdy rooms? A more amorphous, flexible, rubbery space feels more primordial, more like magic than science. More uncomfortable and alien to us creatures of order. Barely contained chaos.
This is SO useful! My Gloom Stalker uses Rope Trick quite a bit, so having a well-thought-out argument for various aspects of its confusing use is a great tool. Even if my DM makes a different ruling, at least now we have a common frame we can have the discussion from.
Objects can be made invisible RAW. Any object on a character's person who casts invisibility is made invisible. I assumed Rope Trick's size would be 15x15x5ft, so 9 5x5x5ft cubes. Central space has the hole, the surrounding 8 can each fit one person in them each who has to crouch or otherwise takes up the whole space such that no one else can squeeze into it.
9:20 there is, it's the sequester spell. Sequester makes it invisible and undetectable from other means. But if you had see invisibility you could see the object sequestered.
Interesting note; there are ways to make objects invisible in 5e. 1. Invisibility. It applies to both the creature, and anything the creature is wearing or carrying. 2. Minor Illusion. You can use it to create a illusory box with has each of its sides look like the background behind it, causing those inside the box to be effectively invisible through camouflage. There are other examples, but rope trick technically makes the entrance to an extradimensional space invisible, which could maybe be an object?
the box would be visible from any angle where the images didnt perfectly line up so not invisible, but you could use a very busy, or very uniform, background where its harder to notice it
@@Aedi Ah, you're right. I was maybe thinking silent image? But yes, my point was that sufficiently effective camouflage is effectively invisibility, as we describe it.
Haa, but in 5e invisible does not mean undetectable. Invisible condition makes the target heavily obscured for the purposes of hiding, so the target can always take the Hide action. However, inanimate objects cannot take actions, so an invisible rope's presence can always be detected (through senses other than sight).
@@tuomasronnberg5244 They actually cannot always be detected; there is a DC to notice things like hidden traps, as well as objects that are simply too small to notice, etc... And having heavy obscurement means that the creature making the DC check to perceive has disadvantage, and using its passive perception would provide a -5 due to said disadvantage. As such, a rope is not always detected, and an invisible rope is noticed less often than a visible rope(and always has a chance of not being noticed at all).
This video is too long for me. If this is just about the hyper RAW thing about traveling to the moon, it's just a joke making fun of how badly written it is. You shouldn't take it seriously even if your players bring it up.
Oh, that's completely fair. It is a stupidly long video. I do address the moon thing, but it's just one small way where the spell description just makes everything unnecessarily confusing. If there's one thing I imagine we agree on, it's that the wording of this spell is maddening. All the best -Tom.
I'm telling you, if I am ever at a table that requires that much lawyering about anything at all, I am leaving. I might say goodbye but that's not guarateed
Funnily enough I came for the one case that wasn’t covered 😂 What happens is Rope Trick is cast (possibly more than once) within another Rope Trick and the first one ends (with the secondary Rope Tricks’ ropes pulled in)
Rope trick is not concentration, so it does not end when cast again. Rope trick doesnt expend any of its materials when casting. Theoretically, for so long as you have lvl 2 or higher spell slots, you can keep portal hopping into invisible dimensions. I can envision a spiderverse level of shenanigans.
@@Cosmic_K13 It is generally ill advised to have an extradimensional space inside another extradimensional space. Most famously Bag Of Holding and Portable Hole, but all such spaces should be handled with caution.
@@Merrsharr True, but to be fair, would you want your players to just have a nuke with a purse and a rope? Plus, I don't even thing dms keep track of bags of holding when dimensional travel is on the menu.
@@Rockswamp28 How so? Due to the wording of the spell, and lack of text that states more than one rope trick can't be casted, the 1 action casting time would indicate that you could theoretically have hundreds of rope tricks before the first one dropped. The only limiting reactant here is spell slots. The artificer can eventually store a 2nd lvl spell in an item with several charges, so it is possible for you to at the very least get to 3 rope tricks. One question I want to know is what happens when a rope trick ends when you are within another rope trick?
These videos are a great help for my worldbuilding even though I'm a writer. Knowing what a spell can and cannot do and the specifics of how it does X but can't do Y really helps in my worldbuilding.
~ 25:00 One thing to note about a Dragon's Breath weapon, is that it would count as an attack and thus be unable to enter the space. At least, but my understanding of the rules in general.
what if you had a rope with a length equal to your throat height, and then walked up to the opening? would it be a physical object? if it doesnt have a thickness, it would slice your head off, so does it have thickness? and if its not a physical object, what happens if you jump? will your body move into the space, leaving your head behind? will your head just go into the space even when walking into the opening from the side? if half of your head is inside the space and the other half isnt while eneerig from the side, would the outer half lose blood? does the opening move if you move the rope? i asume the rope can be moved since it can be pulled into the space... how does this opening work??
I have an area in the campaign I'm running where there is no ground in certain areas. If you jump off, your a goner not matter how many slow fall spells you have prepared. Edit: typo
Quick look between Pathfinder and 5th shows the problem: Pathfinder explains how the rope is fixed to a point outside of normal space, that the rope can't be moved, one person can climb it at a time, and it has a break point. Pathfinder only describes the opening as a window where 5th also uses the word entrance, which brings to mind traditional doors you 'step' through and not something 'climbed' through. Thus, to my understanding anyway, anything that pulls itself up into this space would still be holding onto the rope, just vanished out of sight. Think of the room being vertical instead of horizontal, though it doesn't really have walls. Letting go should drop you through the window, back into real-space. It also makes it so the rope must be visible at all times, so you have to strategically place it. This alone caused it to be a very limited spell, because most people giving chase would notice a rope attached to nothing and... investigate. With magic being well known, two and two will lead them to four and, at the very least, they will get their own mage. Leaving guards to just stand around, readied to deal with you should you reveal yourself in the mean time.... You will fall out eventually. In 5th... well... it reads as a group sniper blind with the placement! Just removing the 'one climber' requirement ensures the whole group is going to be cramming themselves up there the moment it becomes useful. The ability to move the rope raises the conclusion of: 'crane...? yes crane!'
The spell makes an extradimensional cubby hole you can hide in for an hour. All other edge case uses based on nitpicking over the wording and terrain result in the spell creating an extradimensional cubby hole. If you want the spell to do something other than make an extradimensional cubby hole then use a different spell or research an entirely new spell. How big is the cubby hole? It's about the size of a small bar room, lounge, or waiting room. If you want it to look fancy you can make the "skybox" look like anything you want, but the traversable dimensions of the cubby hole are about the size of a small waiting room.
2:35 Corn means grain, and long predates europeans renaming Maize to corn. Or I guess I should say korn as it is an old Norse word. The Norse who where also seem to have been traveling to north America pretty much the entire medieval period, its really hard to say when they where and where not; but it is significantly harder to say where the ever loving heck folks in greenland where getting wood if not north America.
could you please do this video with the flock of familiars spell, specifically in combination with pact of the chain, strixhaven mascot and similar things that alter the find familiar spell?
I'm subscribed to several youtube channels centered entirely around talking about dnd. I'm also an English master's student and a queer microlabel enjoyer. It would be extremely bold of anyone to assume I'm anything other than a slut for pedantic nonsense regarding 5e spell rules. What I'm trying to say is I would be very happy to see more, and I hope I've adequately conveyed how strongly I feel this :D
Also, it only goes to the length o0f the rope. so if you have a 1" rope, it's still 1" after the spell is cast. I'm used to first edition AD&D. It was more than clear enough in first edition
I personally interpreted that the space inside was a 15x15ft square with sufficient height for a medium creature (so 8/9ft, goliaths skew the heights). This means that on a grid map it is a 3x3 space giving you 8 empty tiles to stand on and a central tile with the rope and viewing window/entrance (conveniently 3x5ft rather than 5x5ft to prevent large creatures squeezing inside) .
I haven't looked into it, but in RAW, it seems that bringing a bag of holding or a portable hole should have bad consequences into a rope trick, right?
Here I was getting excited for a long rant video, and it's not even a full 30 minutes T_T. Don't be afraid to make more of these! Also in case you haven't heard about it, I think you'd really enjoy the new MCDM rpg that just launched crowdfunding. Still a ways out from release, but it does a ton of cool and interesting stuff.
Okay, Mr. Grungeon Master, this is too many coincidences for my liking. I think you are stalking my friend and I will lay out my reasons: My D&D group meets every Sunday. 3 weeks ago, on Sunday, November 19th, 2023, during our regular session, my friend announced his character was making a Clay Golem. On November 20th, 2023, you released a video talking about how Clay Golems can be imagined to influence a D&D economy. After watching your video, I went to my next session and obviously, I seized on the opportunity to light heartedly accuse my friend of attempting to exploit the economy, because of course I did. It was funny. (FYI He has not as of yet seen the fruits of subjugated labour, but just give him time.) Yesterday, on Sunday December 10th, 2023, this same friend suggested we use Rope Trick to set up an ambush. This lead to some discussion, because we were setting up the ambush indoors, in a hut. I asked about the space restrictions, how tf were we gonna climb up there? He said "no worries I'll just make the rope 1 foot long". I was puzzled. Much discussion later, we realized that the mechanics of the Rope Trick are played out very much in the theatre of the mind; I was imagining the rope trick like a tree house, with a rope that goes up through a hatch style trap door in the floor. But my friend was imagining rope trick more like the Simpsons tree house, where there is a front facing door in a side wall, and the rope leading up to the front facing opening. We had used Rope Trick before, and in that instance, I argued, we had "dropped down" on our enemy, suggesting that there was precedent for a underneath style hatch nature to the Rope Trick. In the most recent instance, we went with my friends interpretation because it worked better for the situation and our DM figured "fuck it, you can control how you perceive your pocket dimension.". Anyways, all this is to say that today, December 11th, 2023, it is quite beyond the pale that you now drop an episode about exactly this topic. Grungeon Master, I am formally accusing you of living in my friends walls. I am not upset, but I will have to insist that you join us next Sunday. Ginger is my favourite flavour of eye candy. Also it's terribly rude not to introduce yourself.
Braided rope can be back braided to avoid fraying. For fairly common 3/8 or 1/2 inch rope, a solid back braid takes a couple inches on each end. Still going to be difficult to do at an inch long without specifically making a rope for that purpose, but in a high magic setting if this spell is common, decorative miniature ropes are probably for sale in any mid sized city.
Tom, you've brought back memories of the 90s😂. So many of your interpretations & mine are the same. You wouldn't have been a mechanical engineer In another life would you? 😊
A Rope Trick "Void" is exactly 7ftx9ftx7ft. It has a hole in the floor that is 3x5, a ceiling high enough for medium creatures to stand, and then space on each side of the hole for a total of 8 people, or a total of 48 square feet, or 6 square feet per person, which happens to be the recommended requirement for "standing room only events."
Hahaha, my first 5e wizard took rope trick but I never ended up using it because of all the issues you discuss, I knew it would bring the game to a screeching halt, and we already spend enough time debating interpretations of the raw.
Use Rope Trick to hide then as a Scribe Wizard, or Trickery Cleric, or Echo Knight you can manifest outside the extra dimensional space. You can also use Minor Illusion to hide the opening while you can still see out. If you cast spells keep in mind that opponents will still be able to hear you with all but a handful of spells.
Honestly never used this spell before, has seena few videos/discussion on it. The one inch rope thing,you mentioned you would need to cut a rope with a hot knife to seal it, that (fusing) only applies to modern synthetic ropes made of thermo plastics. Traditional fiber rope cant be sealed this way and must be tied off with a special knot (whipping, or back splicing). If using a whip you could certainly make a 1in rope.
the rope being used is still a rope I assume and it is simply functioning as a stiff ladder but the rope itself is not indestructible also you can't use the description to make any argument that the rope would move forever if not on a perfect flat surface or in space your DM would never allow that. From my perspective the rope in question can be used against the player more often than not and simply fail in any stressful situation. The player would logically have to make some kind of performance check to climb the rope in the first place.
Great video. I love the pedantic nonsense 😂 great fun. I only have one point of contention, and it arrived at the end. "You don't need to see te ting you are dispelling". See Invisibility would like to know if it is a joke to you? (Which it is). Feel free to make a dissection of dispel and Invisibility.
[BOUNDARY] . My ruling is that the invisible, ethereal, two-dimensional surface that is crossable only by creatures (including constructs & undead) & everything else they may "carry" with them works like an EVENT HORIZON. . [BUFFER]: Just like the titular artifact in the SciFi series "Stargate"; there is an intermediate "quasi-space" (tri-dimensional, but time-less) that "holds" any parts of a creature still crossing through [but not yet completely], that prevents them from "experience" anything inside. . After the whole creature (plus what they carry, like the last part of a 10 foot long pole) is inside, it gets "expelled" on another boundary (the one "inside" the extradimensional space). -> A hand placed through loses all sensations, can not be open/close & bloodflow is stopped like if all arteries were blocked. => A head placed first gets all thoughts "suspended", the rest of the body behaving like in a coma. . If more than a creature or object is "passing through", they are treated like a "single package" (will emerge together on the other side, only after all passthrough). . Both sides can "take" creatures simultaneously (each boundary has its own independent "buffer"); but will only "emerge" on a boundary layer "not in use" [otherwise remaining "stuck" in NO-TIME until the spell ends]. . When the spell ends, all buffers & the extradimensional space are merged in a single contiguous buffer, then inmediatly "emptied" on an "exit only" boundary that forms over the same point (if there is enough un-occupied space below to make the "dump"), or at a higher point, as close as posible [up to outer space]; but also inflicting force damage [like a failed teleportation spell]. Note: Dispelling the spell also triggers all of this "safety protocols", but an antimagic field may cause "portal splat" effects if arrenged precisely.
. The boundary passively rejects non-living matter like air, water or sand carried by a strong wind (also living things with a diminute "aura", like insects & microbes). . Once "pierced" & partially crossed by a living creature, the boundary actively pulls in preventing any slowdown on contiguous matter (other than slicing the bones & meat of an arm, once a hand goes through the rest will also do so, quickly). . It is possible to "delay" the emergence of creatures on both sides by keeping adding things (tie long ropes or chains to a creature going first), until the spell ends. -> The initial rope used to cast the spell is an exception [a temporary copy of it is dynamically created inside by the spell, simulating "pulling" the original real rope].
. The "window" is just an ilusion placed BELOW the boundary inside the extradimensional space [ like a tv screen under a transparent glass ]. -> You can NOT "target" things you see in it [there is no "space" under it either, "spell divides by zero & fails"]. . It is literally impossible to "pull out an arm & shoot" (all of "you" dissapears into non-existence briefly, then reappears as a whole). -> Unless you "go down head first", you will be a dead, still target as your feet & legs emerge first.
. Only once your head comes out you can think & react [usually by grabbing the rope that is part of the spell, to avoid falling]. -> Unless you can "hover", having a flying speed will not allow you to exit back into realspace without potentially falling & landing prone . . You must consume either your "object interaction" [Free, instantaneous], your Reaction [instantaneous], or as part of your Action/Bonus [¿MotherDM_may_I?] when you emerge, added to the consumed climbing speed [or twice walking]. -> You can NOT use the full effect of the 30 feet jumping spell {OneDnD:JUMP} from the inside [you emerge stationary/fall].
I do have one question for you that my players constantly fight me on. The use of Rope Trick when a player had a bag of holding or other like items. I personally rule it that it would have the same effect as if you were to put one bG of holding inside another since the bag of holding specifically states "Placing a bag of holding inside an extradimensional space created by a Heward's handy haversack, portable hole, or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane." I would love to hear your take on this as I plan on giving a party of mine a scroll of rope trick here soon that will come in handy sometime in the future of the game.
The bag of holding specifically states that the destruction and opening of the portal only happens when the extra dimensional space is created by another item. Rope trick is a spell, not an item.
Why overcomplicate things?(except for fun ofc!) If someone tries to cheat the spell, hit them with a proverbial stick! 60ft is 60ft. Up is up. The "ground" is flat, just like the earth.
As far as material components, even if corn hasn't been discovered yet or is unavailable normally, somehow a material component pouch still contains it. You can even imagine the wizard who invented this spell was like "hey guys I finally found a use for this weird unknown powder we're all inexplicably carrying around with us!" Or they could substitute the use of a spellcasting focus for the material component. "I don't know what this 'corn' stuff is but I'm able to ponder my orb instead and I guess that works well enough." Another thing to wonder about: it says it can hold as many as eight creatures. So of course if your party of five climbs in, there's nothing stopping a couple goblins from chasing after you inside. So I guess if you can get exactly eight creatures inside, nobody can follow you in, somehow, even if they can climb the rope. What if more than eight creatures get inside somehow? Do any extra ones just fall out? Or are they prevented from "entering"? Like if you have your five person adventuring party, and the druid tries summoning four wolves, do only three appear? Or does the fourth one fall out? Or does none appear at all? I don't want to imagine what would happen to an expectant mother cat when The Time comes. What if you had some ants crawling on your foot as you tried to enter? Would you bonk your head as you climbed, denied entrance entirely, or would you just get so far and get stuck until you managed to brush the excess ants off?
Pardon my pedantry but you can't make extradimensional spaces in the astral sea because the astral sea is the place in which extradimensional spaces for things like bags of holding, tiny huts, and rope tricks are created in.
Does the bag of holding rule specify that the extra-dimensional space has the be created by an item? Otherwise should not BoH also explode on demiplanes, the mansion etc.?
The more I think on it, the more I get a 'think gravity warping effect' in mind. Again, used to Pathfinder which doesn't have an entrance but just the space itself, but it would be along the lines of crawling past the horizon of a non-Spaghettification black hole. The more you climb towards whatever point the rope is affixed too, the more space itself bends around you. Everything becomes wonky after that, for you try throwing a fireball into the heart of a singularity and see if it is still within 100 feet when it arrives. It also explains the need for a window, to sort of 'lenses' through all that distortion. That the window is a strange rectangle shape, instead of curved, is probably just a quality of the multi-dimensional plane that it is in, intersecting with the material plane it is temporarily overlapping. For all we know, that is meant to be a perfectly round 100 foot window and we just see it as a tiny little thing. For in pathfinder, only one can climb at a time.... You try to squeeze a single creature that takes up all 8 slots, through that 'window.'
Just some "medium" creatures that are all playable races that take up significantly more space than others.... Bugbear, Centaur, Firbolg, Giff, Goliath, Half-Orc, Loxodon, Minotaur and Orc. Im sure their are others though
One other thing is that the space is larger on the inside than its entrance, so what does dropping out mean when Stuff in the inside does not fit through the entrance? Does the inside get comprassed or do you get a larger hole in space (wich would be its own can of worms)?
The Tiny Hut magically designates creatures that can enter and exit the space within. The creature limit seems to be a limit of magical designations or marks, rather than one of space with the magical mark being what allows passage through the magical barrier. Anything without a mark is barred and the spell only has enough power to mark 10 creatures and having more creatures within causes the spell to fail as a safety measure to prevent accidental losses of limb and life. Tiny Hut isn't a combat spell after all. Larger creatures might not be as well protected due to a limb accidentally poking out and becoming unprotected or allowing someone to use it to pull them out of the Hut. Or maybe Leomund didn't think about larger creatures or none were in their party when creating the spell. Anyway, I think a similar thing applies to Rope Trick. It marks up to 8 creatures as they pass through the entrance as a safety measure, so that it can successfully expel them from the space instead of horrible, horrible things happening to them when the extra dimensional space collapses at the end of the spell. Up to 8 creatures are marked upon entry, after which, further creatures are barred entry, because the spell doesn't have the complexity mark them for a proper extraction from the space. It's a low level spell after all. Just like fire ball, it cannot differentiate friend from foe, so it marks until it can no longer do so, then it simply stops accepting further entrance.
Three months late but... I have not found any DnD group i could join (Yet) Though having heard of the rope trick once in an DnD stream, where the party ended up not using it, i have been facinated by it for the longest of time. with limited information on the matter i imagined it as following: The rope must be used to get in, as the end of the rope would get magically lengthened into the pocket dimension, which would be how one even can climb into it. one would not be truely aware of when the transition happens whilst climbing though, one moment you are climbing the rope, the next you are within the pocket dimension and able to let go. the pocket dimension in turn would take the form of a darkened orb where about five people could sit on a flattened surface. What i find more interesting however, in my own imagining of this concept, would be that adressing the invisebility of the matter, should one find a way to observe this, one way or another, around the magically lengthened end of the rope, one would see an orb, the orb one would see being the platform one could sit on, with reflected on this distorted figures of the ones within, as if sat upon a tiny planet with it's own gravitational pull. Even the most pedantic of topics bring inspiration to those open to new ideas though, three months late, as i am going through all the content, for all the inspiration. should i comment everywhere just with what inspirations/thoughts formed?
Her's a cool and Stupid Idea I had watching this. Tiny Hut does not say it needs to be on the ground. So you can rope trick up cast Tiny Hut and now you're party has a groovy mid air tree house to chill in for the night.
oh no, what happens when you cast tiny hut inside the rope trick The Tiny hut is Imovable. Anything that remains inside the rope trick pops out The tiny hut is Imovable An immovable force meets and unstopable object.
Your ruling on "corn" is dependant on the definition of what that plant is. Before maze got to Europe, corn was a general term for many grains. i would need to check but I think Romans called barley corn, Corn is a modern word for the plant Zia maze.
Pack's videos on Rule Interpretation often present interpretations that seem intentionally misleading. It's unfortunate to spread disingenuous rule understanding, especially when we should all hope for and encourage players to interpret rules honestly, so I appreciate videos like these. For instance, the interpretation that the rope would continuously ascend a slope... It's obvious the spell description refers to a single point on the ground, not the entire surface area equal to the rope's length... Sidenote: Background music can feel a little loud/distracting especially during its ostinato. Really enjoy your videos and the lane you''re making/have made within this space! 🙂
Rope Trick works basically as i thought it dose, and yes of curse Rope Trick can be dispelled, as long as a spell have a longer Duration than Instentanius it can be Dispelled, but spell effects that lasts longer than the Instantainius Duration can not be Dispelled since they are sustained by non magical means. can you do a Video like this about a highly debated spell (especially at my tables) that is True Polymorph. like why can't it turn an Object in to an Object, what happens if i use a Creature Turned in to an Object and craft something with it? (Turned in to a Gold Bar which is melt down to mint coins, or simular siyuation), when the spell becomes permanent dose it mean it is Permanent Permanent as if the Duration would be Instantaneous or Permanat as the Duration Becomes Permanat? do i lose all my abilities if i just use the spell to become myself with some different facial features (like use it to be myself with a smaller nose or different eye colour)? if the spell becomes Permanent as Instantaneous dose it still have the Polymorph effect of reverting back to your full HP if you "die" or is that effect gone? if you rule it all like i do (by what the spell says and knowing term definitions) then the spell is basicly better than Wish because you can turn in to creatures with Wish and you can despell the effect or just "die" if you want to become an other creature whenever (i don't allow Unique Creatures, a Unique creature is something like a Demon Lord or Hellish Duke but you turn in to an avrage member of the Species Race/Class you chose, which is what the stat block is), if you run it like my friend group and our DM then the spell is Worse than Alter Self or even maybe Disguise Self.
The rope trick…ah yes…cleverly used to escape Royal Executioners by a Magic User named “Karadur” in the 1968 novel “The Goblin Tower” by L.Sprague DeCamp. Fantasy writing at its best!
You only need 8 5x5 foot square spaces, 200 square feet, around a center square for the entry portal/window. A 3x3 grid, 225 square feet of total floorspace. A cube with 15 foot walls. You over complicated it, since the rules state the space a medium creature occupies.
Bards and Rangers should get it. I would rule the Snipper nest using valid. And I think the Rangers would benefit from that the most. Bards. I think Bards should have all the utility spells. And it's based on a magic trick, Magic tricks are a pefmemice. Bards Preformed.
If there had been magic during the medieval period there's no reason to believe they couldn't have discovered corn much earlier. And that's even granting medieval Europe, rather than the setting they are in which could have had contemporary corn. The fact that it's a component suggests it's available (not to even mention arcane foci).
Why did you not continue refering to the earlier descriptions of the spell's function? An extradimensional space refers to a space that is in addition to the prime material. An extradimensional space is a plane in its self, regardless of its size. The spell creates a small, malleable plane of limited size by stretching out then nipping off a segment of the material plane, like making a bubble and sticking it to the surface of another bubble. The creature limit comes from the destabilising effect that "living" creatures have on that sort of magic which is why it fits 8 creatures and not a specific volume. This was discussed in previous editions and as WotC have said themself, all previous lore is still cannon untill specifically contradicted.
Okay - dragon's breathe is [in my mind] an "attack". We can argue the point, but me thinks dragon wish to cause physical harm 99% of the time when they use their "breath weapon". I would rule that it would be a fireworks show, exclusively, from inside a rope trick foxhole - 10/10.
I bet it would be neat to artifice a bomb at the top of a rope trick... Then when the rope trick spell ENDS, it drops! Or maybe stow something horrifically hazardous up there. Something *mechanically* akin to, say, the demon core from real life: inert under normal circumstances, but inimical to MATTER ITSELF ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL under specific conditions. It's an enclosed volume of space... I'd try to argue it's an ideal neutron reflector in this case. After we leave the corrupt King's keep, NO ONE WILL EVER BE ABLE TO LIVE THERE AGAIN. Even regular materials will gradually be disintegrated through continuous neutron bombardment once the demon core falls back into real space!
would a cleric with magic initiate (wizard, find familiar) be able to fly their familiar into the space and cast inflict wounds on one of the people inside?
Seriously, if I were running a campaign and someone started Rule Lawyering, I'd consider that to be the equivalent of a summoning spell for some particularly nasty Archduke of Hell. You wanna argue rules? Argue them with Asmodeus
I run a fair few games where this spell has come up, and it's led to confusion every time. I wanted to clarify my own thinking, and try and reach a reasonable baseline we can all understand this spell from
it's wild to me that this sort of video has to be made you'd think that any reasonable dm would rule out inappropriate uses of the spell immediately at most the biggest concern i can see is "should we allow short ropes to be used to create a pocket dimension" and the answer is either "..just make the dimension without the rope then" or "no, it has to be at least X feet long" at the dm's discretion all the questions about the directionality and possibility to cast in the air of the spell are sort of missing the point of it. like it's very clear that this thing wasn't meant to be weaponized, but to create a safe out of combat hideout. any attempts to get crafty with it in an unhealthy way should just be denied or pointed toward more appropriate spells
Oh, it absolutely didn't have to be made. I'll be the first to admit this was a rather silly project. But some of my players love sticking as close to the rules as possible, where reasonable, so it's really just to enable that style of game to be as 'right' as possible.
I have never played dnd or watch a dnd related video, I clicked this thinking it was about real life rope tricks, but I for some reason watched the whole thing regardless.
I would use the medieval definition of 'corn', being the seeds of any grain, not specifically maize.
Came for this one, corn was originally any grain with the seed still in it. That use is not entirely archaic either, e.g. barleycorn, especially in other Germanic languages.
Some spells have very weird or very specific items so can’t really blame him for assuming it’s talking about corn from a modern perspective since that’s what 99% of 5e is based on and thusly makes your assumption equal to his since most items are based on modern wording not medieval wording so you can expect corn to specifically refer to maize corn.
Also, you know, D&D is not actually set in Europe, unless you're using a homebrewed setting.
Dungeons and Dragons has lots of animals from the Americas; for a 5e example, see the Kobold inventor’s Skunk in a Cage.
So you are sayin an acorn is a corn?
The misconception of pulling the rope up preventing people from outside from entering is a result of that being how the spell worked in previous editions.
Fun game story: When we played Curse of Strahd, we had our halfling rogue get Charmed by Mister Fangy and she kept failing her damn Wisdom check. My Artificer, in desperate need to figure SOMETHING out came up with the bright idea of casting Rope Trick and then Athletics Checking her INTO the pocket dimension, thereby violating one of the requirements of the charm, freeing her.
Once un-charmed, she jumped out to get back in the fight. And was immediately RE-charmed by the pale douchebag after which she proceeded to stab me with the Sunblade and down me. Peak absurdity, I loved it. (We did end up winning the fight. It was even the Rogue with the killing blow, getting double Nat 20s on an attack and driving the Sunblade through Strahd's heart.)
Another sheningan I've used Rope Trick for was creating 3 (since it does not require concentration) in a hall where we were to meet some nefarious assholes. One was empty and everyone in the party was well acquainted with it's exact location. The other two were loaded with barrels of blackpowder and a couple smaller impact explosives. Once everyone was in the meeting and knew there wasn't going to be any truce, we all jumped in the empty rope hole and ended the other two, emptying their contents from about 20 feet up into the room, absolutely obliterating everyone inside.
OH! And my preferred explanation of how the space works is that it effectively sends you to Flatland. Basically, the entire space exists only in two dimensions, but also because everything IN it is IN two dimensions, works out fine. This is also why there's so many constraints on how and why things can enter or not: you are effectively working on an entirely separate form of physics, even the physics that operates behind magic. Lacking a third dimension just makes all the spells and attacks glitch out like a Bethesda game.
Oh that's cooooool. Might need to borrow that for my games
@hartthorn now I'm picturing it being like one of those old videogames that had a sprite limit.
The subject matter and deep dive therein *was* confusing, I admit. The kind of thing you'd expect a story behind.
That ending though. Not only is there a story, I'm wincing realizing what kind of story it must have been.
Aside, I had a scenario where there was incoming artillery fire, and I left it to the players to figure out how to not die.
My Ranger PC realized they could all scramble up into this thing and be safe. I was so proud.
I rule that the rope must be on the ground while casting the spell, so it always knows where the perpendicular direction is. That also means I don't allow it to be cast in the air or in space.
I like this, you create a connection between the rope and the ground first.
That’s pretty cool I like that idea.
Thank you sir.
An easier size interpretation is that the inside is 15' by 15' (3x3 grid). The middle square is taken up by the hole where the rope is, leaving 8 squares for people to stand.
As a fellow pedant, I very much appreciate the gradual approach to nearly every word of the description. My sympathies in having to negotiate all of these details at the table.
You don't need to shoot a fireball into the extradimentional space, or even get some dragon fire... you just light a camp fire directly under it and laugh as everyone inside quickly asphyxiates on the smoke. (Also, protip, load the fire up with green and/or wet wood for maximum smoke production once its gotten started).
"the wizard climbs a rope and seems to disappear into the air"
"I rip open my bag of poisoned caltrops and spread them under where the rope was. Have a nice fall, wizard."
lol lol i would do the same thing
While I think it can be fun analysing the implications of RAW, I personally tend to reinterpret what’s written in a way that makes sense to me, or feels like RAI.
I’d rule that the rope hangs vertically (with respect to gravity), rather than perpendicular to the ground, and that the end continues to rise vertically until either the rope hangs freely, a solid obstacle is reached, or it has risen a maximum of 60ft. If stopped by an obstacle, the entrance to the extradimensional space simply forms at that height, leaving some of the rope to trail on the ground.
This prevents the issue of only working in air, the perpendicular to the ground problem, and prevents an infinitely rising rope.
Without a source of gravity to determine the ‘vertical’ direction, the spell simply fails.
I agree with all of the points regarding the extradimensional plane, although I never realised just how strange the rectangular window is.
What a wonderfully pedantic video!
Some planes in D&D 5e also have subjective gravity, according to Forgotten Realms 3.5 lore, and some content in the DMG and other books.
So that has a funny effect on Rope Trick as well.
in empty space you are the biggest source of gravity so the rope would shoot from you, or perpendicular to you(you are the bigest mass)
@@jurekmc According to science, yes.
But according to D&D planar mechanics, subjective gravity literally means "the conscious creatures decides which way is down, and then they fall that direction"
@@wesleyjudson599 i dont mean in planes with that kind of Gravity, in that case the gravity would be from the way the caster sees it
I like the idea that the extradinensional pocket is like a unblown balloon, and that whenever someone enters the pocket it stretches just enough to accomodate them. As more people fit in, the pocket stretches, the walls thinning. So entering a rope trick pocket is less like climbing up into a tree house with sturdy defined walls and floors, but more like a rubbery sack.We handwave the need to breathe.
It can explain the variable size of the dimension, the limit of 8 creatures (at least for medium creatures) as a weight limit. Maybe the space can only accomodate a limited weight before the walls pop like an overfilled balloon. Maybe there is a magical ethereal "counter" on the entrance that counts/limits the number of enteties entering the pocket as an engineered "fail safe" by the in-game spell designers to prevent some dummy hurting themself (think of all the warning labels on everything IRL). The designer, probably a demi-human themself, probably expected other demi-humans to use the trick, and rather than magically engineer the spell to measure and weigh each creature coming in (on the off chance a tiny creature uses it) just just engineered a much simpler "counter" for the entrance.
I mean, who says extra dimensional spaces have to be like boring rectangular sturdy rooms? A more amorphous, flexible, rubbery space feels more primordial, more like magic than science. More uncomfortable and alien to us creatures of order. Barely contained chaos.
This is SO useful! My Gloom Stalker uses Rope Trick quite a bit, so having a well-thought-out argument for various aspects of its confusing use is a great tool. Even if my DM makes a different ruling, at least now we have a common frame we can have the discussion from.
Objects can be made invisible RAW. Any object on a character's person who casts invisibility is made invisible.
I assumed Rope Trick's size would be 15x15x5ft, so 9 5x5x5ft cubes. Central space has the hole, the surrounding 8 can each fit one person in them each who has to crouch or otherwise takes up the whole space such that no one else can squeeze into it.
"No one can climb the rope it is impossible!" - Seymour Skinner
9:20 there is, it's the sequester spell. Sequester makes it invisible and undetectable from other means. But if you had see invisibility you could see the object sequestered.
Interesting note; there are ways to make objects invisible in 5e.
1. Invisibility. It applies to both the creature, and anything the creature is wearing or carrying.
2. Minor Illusion. You can use it to create a illusory box with has each of its sides look like the background behind it, causing those inside the box to be effectively invisible through camouflage.
There are other examples, but rope trick technically makes the entrance to an extradimensional space invisible, which could maybe be an object?
the box would be visible from any angle where the images didnt perfectly line up
so not invisible, but you could use a very busy, or very uniform, background where its harder to notice it
@@Aedi Ah, you're right. I was maybe thinking silent image? But yes, my point was that sufficiently effective camouflage is effectively invisibility, as we describe it.
Haa, but in 5e invisible does not mean undetectable. Invisible condition makes the target heavily obscured for the purposes of hiding, so the target can always take the Hide action. However, inanimate objects cannot take actions, so an invisible rope's presence can always be detected (through senses other than sight).
@@tuomasronnberg5244 They actually cannot always be detected; there is a DC to notice things like hidden traps, as well as objects that are simply too small to notice, etc...
And having heavy obscurement means that the creature making the DC check to perceive has disadvantage, and using its passive perception would provide a -5 due to said disadvantage.
As such, a rope is not always detected, and an invisible rope is noticed less often than a visible rope(and always has a chance of not being noticed at all).
I love this sort of deep dive into the rules and wording of them in dnd.
This video is too long for me. If this is just about the hyper RAW thing about traveling to the moon, it's just a joke making fun of how badly written it is. You shouldn't take it seriously even if your players bring it up.
Oh, that's completely fair. It is a stupidly long video. I do address the moon thing, but it's just one small way where the spell description just makes everything unnecessarily confusing.
If there's one thing I imagine we agree on, it's that the wording of this spell is maddening.
All the best
-Tom.
But, Kobold! The point is silly pedantry
I'm telling you, if I am ever at a table that requires that much lawyering about anything at all, I am leaving. I might say goodbye but that's not guarateed
Funnily enough I came for the one case that wasn’t covered 😂 What happens is Rope Trick is cast (possibly more than once) within another Rope Trick and the first one ends (with the secondary Rope Tricks’ ropes pulled in)
Rope trick is not concentration, so it does not end when cast again.
Rope trick doesnt expend any of its materials when casting.
Theoretically, for so long as you have lvl 2 or higher spell slots, you can keep portal hopping into invisible dimensions.
I can envision a spiderverse level of shenanigans.
@@Cosmic_K13 It is generally ill advised to have an extradimensional space inside another extradimensional space. Most famously Bag Of Holding and Portable Hole, but all such spaces should be handled with caution.
@@Merrsharr True, but to be fair, would you want your players to just have a nuke with a purse and a rope? Plus, I don't even thing dms keep track of bags of holding when dimensional travel is on the menu.
@@Cosmic_K13 Right, but it does have a 1 hr duration such that any outer Rope Tricks would end before an inner one would
@@Rockswamp28 How so?
Due to the wording of the spell, and lack of text that states more than one rope trick can't be casted, the 1 action casting time would indicate that you could theoretically have hundreds of rope tricks before the first one dropped.
The only limiting reactant here is spell slots. The artificer can eventually store a 2nd lvl spell in an item with several charges, so it is possible for you to at the very least get to 3 rope tricks.
One question I want to know is what happens when a rope trick ends when you are within another rope trick?
These videos are a great help for my worldbuilding even though I'm a writer. Knowing what a spell can and cannot do and the specifics of how it does X but can't do Y really helps in my worldbuilding.
pedantic ramblings... My Favourite!
~ 25:00 One thing to note about a Dragon's Breath weapon, is that it would count as an attack and thus be unable to enter the space.
At least, but my understanding of the rules in general.
I think attacks must have an attack roll but dragon breath is a DC save...
what if you had a rope with a length equal to your throat height, and then walked up to the opening?
would it be a physical object? if it doesnt have a thickness, it would slice your head off, so does it have thickness? and if its not a physical object, what happens if you jump? will your body move into the space, leaving your head behind? will your head just go into the space even when walking into the opening from the side? if half of your head is inside the space and the other half isnt while eneerig from the side, would the outer half lose blood? does the opening move if you move the rope? i asume the rope can be moved since it can be pulled into the space... how does this opening work??
I have an area in the campaign I'm running where there is no ground in certain areas. If you jump off, your a goner not matter how many slow fall spells you have prepared.
Edit: typo
Quick look between Pathfinder and 5th shows the problem:
Pathfinder explains how the rope is fixed to a point outside of normal space, that the rope can't be moved, one person can climb it at a time, and it has a break point. Pathfinder only describes the opening as a window where 5th also uses the word entrance, which brings to mind traditional doors you 'step' through and not something 'climbed' through. Thus, to my understanding anyway, anything that pulls itself up into this space would still be holding onto the rope, just vanished out of sight. Think of the room being vertical instead of horizontal, though it doesn't really have walls.
Letting go should drop you through the window, back into real-space.
It also makes it so the rope must be visible at all times, so you have to strategically place it. This alone caused it to be a very limited spell, because most people giving chase would notice a rope attached to nothing and... investigate. With magic being well known, two and two will lead them to four and, at the very least, they will get their own mage. Leaving guards to just stand around, readied to deal with you should you reveal yourself in the mean time....
You will fall out eventually.
In 5th... well... it reads as a group sniper blind with the placement! Just removing the 'one climber' requirement ensures the whole group is going to be cramming themselves up there the moment it becomes useful. The ability to move the rope raises the conclusion of: 'crane...? yes crane!'
The spell makes an extradimensional cubby hole you can hide in for an hour. All other edge case uses based on nitpicking over the wording and terrain result in the spell creating an extradimensional cubby hole.
If you want the spell to do something other than make an extradimensional cubby hole then use a different spell or research an entirely new spell.
How big is the cubby hole? It's about the size of a small bar room, lounge, or waiting room. If you want it to look fancy you can make the "skybox" look like anything you want, but the traversable dimensions of the cubby hole are about the size of a small waiting room.
yes, it should have included this stuff in the wording. The point of the video is that it doesn't.
Next video: why Leomund's Tiny Hut should and must absolutely be a shell, and not a hemisphere.
2:35
Corn means grain, and long predates europeans renaming Maize to corn.
Or I guess I should say korn as it is an old Norse word.
The Norse who where also seem to have been traveling to north America pretty much the entire medieval period, its really hard to say when they where and where not; but it is significantly harder to say where the ever loving heck folks in greenland where getting wood if not north America.
For the dragon breath thing, I would count it as an attack and you can't attack through the opening of rope trick.
please make a video about the distinct architecture of various fantasy races/species
could you please do this video with the flock of familiars spell, specifically in combination with pact of the chain, strixhaven mascot and similar things that alter the find familiar spell?
I'm subscribed to several youtube channels centered entirely around talking about dnd. I'm also an English master's student and a queer microlabel enjoyer. It would be extremely bold of anyone to assume I'm anything other than a slut for pedantic nonsense regarding 5e spell rules.
What I'm trying to say is I would be very happy to see more, and I hope I've adequately conveyed how strongly I feel this :D
Also, it only goes to the length o0f the rope. so if you have a 1" rope, it's still 1" after the spell is cast.
I'm used to first edition AD&D. It was more than clear enough in first edition
I personally interpreted that the space inside was a 15x15ft square with sufficient height for a medium creature (so 8/9ft, goliaths skew the heights). This means that on a grid map it is a 3x3 space giving you 8 empty tiles to stand on and a central tile with the rope and viewing window/entrance (conveniently 3x5ft rather than 5x5ft to prevent large creatures squeezing inside) .
I haven't looked into it, but in RAW, it seems that bringing a bag of holding or a portable hole should have bad consequences into a rope trick, right?
Here I was getting excited for a long rant video, and it's not even a full 30 minutes T_T. Don't be afraid to make more of these!
Also in case you haven't heard about it, I think you'd really enjoy the new MCDM rpg that just launched crowdfunding. Still a ways out from release, but it does a ton of cool and interesting stuff.
Okay, Mr. Grungeon Master, this is too many coincidences for my liking. I think you are stalking my friend and I will lay out my reasons:
My D&D group meets every Sunday. 3 weeks ago, on Sunday, November 19th, 2023, during our regular session, my friend announced his character was making a Clay Golem. On November 20th, 2023, you released a video talking about how Clay Golems can be imagined to influence a D&D economy. After watching your video, I went to my next session and obviously, I seized on the opportunity to light heartedly accuse my friend of attempting to exploit the economy, because of course I did. It was funny. (FYI He has not as of yet seen the fruits of subjugated labour, but just give him time.)
Yesterday, on Sunday December 10th, 2023, this same friend suggested we use Rope Trick to set up an ambush. This lead to some discussion, because we were setting up the ambush indoors, in a hut. I asked about the space restrictions, how tf were we gonna climb up there? He said "no worries I'll just make the rope 1 foot long". I was puzzled. Much discussion later, we realized that the mechanics of the Rope Trick are played out very much in the theatre of the mind; I was imagining the rope trick like a tree house, with a rope that goes up through a hatch style trap door in the floor. But my friend was imagining rope trick more like the Simpsons tree house, where there is a front facing door in a side wall, and the rope leading up to the front facing opening. We had used Rope Trick before, and in that instance, I argued, we had "dropped down" on our enemy, suggesting that there was precedent for a underneath style hatch nature to the Rope Trick. In the most recent instance, we went with my friends interpretation because it worked better for the situation and our DM figured "fuck it, you can control how you perceive your pocket dimension.".
Anyways, all this is to say that today, December 11th, 2023, it is quite beyond the pale that you now drop an episode about exactly this topic.
Grungeon Master, I am formally accusing you of living in my friends walls. I am not upset, but I will have to insist that you join us next Sunday. Ginger is my favourite flavour of eye candy. Also it's terribly rude not to introduce yourself.
Braided rope can be back braided to avoid fraying. For fairly common 3/8 or 1/2 inch rope, a solid back braid takes a couple inches on each end. Still going to be difficult to do at an inch long without specifically making a rope for that purpose, but in a high magic setting if this spell is common, decorative miniature ropes are probably for sale in any mid sized city.
Just do a long whipping, I've made whips on 3/8 dia rope less than 1/4 long that holds the rope together ones cut off ( teaching scouts how to whip)
Tom, you've brought back memories of the 90s😂. So many of your interpretations & mine are the same. You wouldn't have been a mechanical engineer In another life would you? 😊
I hope not! My maths skills would certainly have led to some dangerous faults, and many a lawsuit!
A Rope Trick "Void" is exactly 7ftx9ftx7ft. It has a hole in the floor that is 3x5, a ceiling high enough for medium creatures to stand, and then space on each side of the hole for a total of 8 people, or a total of 48 square feet, or 6 square feet per person, which happens to be the recommended requirement for "standing room only events."
please consider making a video on fantasy races' architecture
Nice work on the video!
I, for one, enjoyed the details covered by the video.
Hahaha, my first 5e wizard took rope trick but I never ended up using it because of all the issues you discuss, I knew it would bring the game to a screeching halt, and we already spend enough time debating interpretations of the raw.
I imagine the space is just a windowless Denny’s with no staff
Wow you know it's gonna be a deep explanation when he asks 'what is rope?'
Use Rope Trick to hide then as a Scribe Wizard, or Trickery Cleric, or Echo Knight you can manifest outside the extra dimensional space. You can also use Minor Illusion to hide the opening while you can still see out. If you cast spells keep in mind that opponents will still be able to hear you with all but a handful of spells.
This makes me want to retreat into 3.5 or earlier, which gives me an idea. Have you considered comparing spells across editions?
3.5 just gave more information 🤗
so i guess in this case just taking 3.5 and cutting the duration 1/8th is the way to go
Honestly never used this spell before, has seena few videos/discussion on it. The one inch rope thing,you mentioned you would need to cut a rope with a hot knife to seal it, that (fusing) only applies to modern synthetic ropes made of thermo plastics. Traditional fiber rope cant be sealed this way and must be tied off with a special knot (whipping, or back splicing). If using a whip you could certainly make a 1in rope.
the rope being used is still a rope I assume and it is simply functioning as a stiff ladder but the rope itself is not indestructible also you can't use the description to make any argument that the rope would move forever if not on a perfect flat surface or in space your DM would never allow that. From my perspective the rope in question can be used against the player more often than not and simply fail in any stressful situation. The player would logically have to make some kind of performance check to climb the rope in the first place.
Great video. I love the pedantic nonsense 😂 great fun. I only have one point of contention, and it arrived at the end. "You don't need to see te ting you are dispelling". See Invisibility would like to know if it is a joke to you? (Which it is). Feel free to make a dissection of dispel and Invisibility.
[BOUNDARY]
. My ruling is that the invisible, ethereal, two-dimensional surface that is crossable only by creatures (including constructs & undead) & everything else they may "carry" with them works like an EVENT HORIZON.
. [BUFFER]: Just like the titular artifact in the SciFi series "Stargate"; there is an intermediate "quasi-space" (tri-dimensional, but time-less) that "holds" any parts of a creature still crossing through [but not yet completely], that prevents them from "experience" anything inside.
. After the whole creature (plus what they carry, like the last part of a 10 foot long pole) is inside, it gets "expelled" on another boundary (the one "inside" the extradimensional space).
-> A hand placed through loses all sensations, can not be open/close & bloodflow is stopped like if all arteries were blocked.
=> A head placed first gets all thoughts "suspended", the rest of the body behaving like in a coma.
. If more than a creature or object is "passing through", they are treated like a "single package" (will emerge together on the other side, only after all passthrough).
. Both sides can "take" creatures simultaneously (each boundary has its own independent "buffer"); but will only "emerge" on a boundary layer "not in use" [otherwise remaining "stuck" in NO-TIME until the spell ends].
. When the spell ends, all buffers & the extradimensional space are merged in a single contiguous buffer, then inmediatly "emptied" on an "exit only" boundary that forms over the same point (if there is enough un-occupied space below to make the "dump"), or at a higher point, as close as posible [up to outer space]; but also inflicting force damage [like a failed teleportation spell].
Note: Dispelling the spell also triggers all of this "safety protocols", but an antimagic field may cause "portal splat" effects if arrenged precisely.
. The boundary passively rejects non-living matter like air, water or sand carried by a strong wind (also living things with a diminute "aura", like insects & microbes).
. Once "pierced" & partially crossed by a living creature, the boundary actively pulls in preventing any slowdown on contiguous matter (other than slicing the bones & meat of an arm, once a hand goes through the rest will also do so, quickly).
. It is possible to "delay" the emergence of creatures on both sides by keeping adding things (tie long ropes or chains to a creature going first), until the spell ends.
-> The initial rope used to cast the spell is an exception [a temporary copy of it is dynamically created inside by the spell, simulating "pulling" the original real rope].
. The "window" is just an ilusion placed BELOW the boundary inside the extradimensional space [ like a tv screen under a transparent glass ].
-> You can NOT "target" things you see in it [there is no "space" under it either, "spell divides by zero & fails"].
. It is literally impossible to "pull out an arm & shoot" (all of "you" dissapears into non-existence briefly, then reappears as a whole).
-> Unless you "go down head first", you will be a dead, still target as your feet & legs emerge first.
. Only once your head comes out you can think & react [usually by grabbing the rope that is part of the spell, to avoid falling].
-> Unless you can "hover", having a flying speed will not allow you to exit back into realspace without potentially falling & landing prone .
. You must consume either your "object interaction" [Free, instantaneous], your Reaction [instantaneous], or as part of your Action/Bonus [¿MotherDM_may_I?] when you emerge, added to the consumed climbing speed [or twice walking].
-> You can NOT use the full effect of the 30 feet jumping spell {OneDnD:JUMP} from the inside [you emerge stationary/fall].
I do have one question for you that my players constantly fight me on. The use of Rope Trick when a player had a bag of holding or other like items. I personally rule it that it would have the same effect as if you were to put one bG of holding inside another since the bag of holding specifically states "Placing a bag of holding inside an extradimensional space created by a Heward's handy haversack, portable hole, or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane." I would love to hear your take on this as I plan on giving a party of mine a scroll of rope trick here soon that will come in handy sometime in the future of the game.
The bag of holding specifically states that the destruction and opening of the portal only happens when the extra dimensional space is created by another item. Rope trick is a spell, not an item.
Simple extend past the "window" cast fireball, Bob's your uncle.
More! Give us more spell breakdowns!
And so it is done.. 😅
Awesome video mate :)
Why overcomplicate things?(except for fun ofc!)
If someone tries to cheat the spell, hit them with a proverbial stick!
60ft is 60ft. Up is up. The "ground" is flat, just like the earth.
As far as material components, even if corn hasn't been discovered yet or is unavailable normally, somehow a material component pouch still contains it. You can even imagine the wizard who invented this spell was like "hey guys I finally found a use for this weird unknown powder we're all inexplicably carrying around with us!" Or they could substitute the use of a spellcasting focus for the material component. "I don't know what this 'corn' stuff is but I'm able to ponder my orb instead and I guess that works well enough."
Another thing to wonder about: it says it can hold as many as eight creatures. So of course if your party of five climbs in, there's nothing stopping a couple goblins from chasing after you inside. So I guess if you can get exactly eight creatures inside, nobody can follow you in, somehow, even if they can climb the rope.
What if more than eight creatures get inside somehow? Do any extra ones just fall out? Or are they prevented from "entering"? Like if you have your five person adventuring party, and the druid tries summoning four wolves, do only three appear? Or does the fourth one fall out? Or does none appear at all? I don't want to imagine what would happen to an expectant mother cat when The Time comes.
What if you had some ants crawling on your foot as you tried to enter? Would you bonk your head as you climbed, denied entrance entirely, or would you just get so far and get stuck until you managed to brush the excess ants off?
Pardon my pedantry but you can't make extradimensional spaces in the astral sea because the astral sea is the place in which extradimensional spaces for things like bags of holding, tiny huts, and rope tricks are created in.
Gotta bookmark this for future reference... 😼
'perpendicular to gravity' is the normal reading. But they should have worded it that way.
Does the bag of holding rule specify that the extra-dimensional space has the be created by an item? Otherwise should not BoH also explode on demiplanes, the mansion etc.?
The more I think on it, the more I get a 'think gravity warping effect' in mind.
Again, used to Pathfinder which doesn't have an entrance but just the space itself, but it would be along the lines of crawling past the horizon of a non-Spaghettification black hole. The more you climb towards whatever point the rope is affixed too, the more space itself bends around you. Everything becomes wonky after that, for you try throwing a fireball into the heart of a singularity and see if it is still within 100 feet when it arrives.
It also explains the need for a window, to sort of 'lenses' through all that distortion. That the window is a strange rectangle shape, instead of curved, is probably just a quality of the multi-dimensional plane that it is in, intersecting with the material plane it is temporarily overlapping. For all we know, that is meant to be a perfectly round 100 foot window and we just see it as a tiny little thing.
For in pathfinder, only one can climb at a time....
You try to squeeze a single creature that takes up all 8 slots, through that 'window.'
Fwiw Pack Tactics's shorts are usually not meant to be taken seriously, and is trying to interpret things in an uncharitable way
I'd say chromatic and metallic dragons breath are objects while gem dragons breath depends on the damage type
Tom. Anything inside the rope drops out when the spell ends. But where do they drop out, Tom?
I figured most of this was obvious, but I guess not.
Don’t feel bad about getting into the details, it’s fun!
Just some "medium" creatures that are all playable races that take up significantly more space than others....
Bugbear, Centaur, Firbolg, Giff, Goliath, Half-Orc, Loxodon, Minotaur and Orc.
Im sure their are others though
One other thing is that the space is larger on the inside than its entrance, so what does dropping out mean when Stuff in the inside does not fit through the entrance? Does the inside get comprassed or do you get a larger hole in space (wich would be its own can of worms)?
The Tiny Hut magically designates creatures that can enter and exit the space within. The creature limit seems to be a limit of magical designations or marks, rather than one of space with the magical mark being what allows passage through the magical barrier. Anything without a mark is barred and the spell only has enough power to mark 10 creatures and having more creatures within causes the spell to fail as a safety measure to prevent accidental losses of limb and life. Tiny Hut isn't a combat spell after all. Larger creatures might not be as well protected due to a limb accidentally poking out and becoming unprotected or allowing someone to use it to pull them out of the Hut. Or maybe Leomund didn't think about larger creatures or none were in their party when creating the spell. Anyway, I think a similar thing applies to Rope Trick. It marks up to 8 creatures as they pass through the entrance as a safety measure, so that it can successfully expel them from the space instead of horrible, horrible things happening to them when the extra dimensional space collapses at the end of the spell. Up to 8 creatures are marked upon entry, after which, further creatures are barred entry, because the spell doesn't have the complexity mark them for a proper extraction from the space. It's a low level spell after all. Just like fire ball, it cannot differentiate friend from foe, so it marks until it can no longer do so, then it simply stops accepting further entrance.
damn, mold earth gonna hve fun withte portal, mild a buncha dirt up and aroudn the window so they cant get out
Three months late but... I have not found any DnD group i could join (Yet) Though having heard of the rope trick once in an DnD stream, where the party ended up not using it, i have been facinated by it for the longest of time. with limited information on the matter i imagined it as following: The rope must be used to get in, as the end of the rope would get magically lengthened into the pocket dimension, which would be how one even can climb into it. one would not be truely aware of when the transition happens whilst climbing though, one moment you are climbing the rope, the next you are within the pocket dimension and able to let go. the pocket dimension in turn would take the form of a darkened orb where about five people could sit on a flattened surface. What i find more interesting however, in my own imagining of this concept, would be that adressing the invisebility of the matter, should one find a way to observe this, one way or another, around the magically lengthened end of the rope, one would see an orb, the orb one would see being the platform one could sit on, with reflected on this distorted figures of the ones within, as if sat upon a tiny planet with it's own gravitational pull.
Even the most pedantic of topics bring inspiration to those open to new ideas though, three months late, as i am going through all the content, for all the inspiration. should i comment everywhere just with what inspirations/thoughts formed?
The banned Kobold (Pack tactics). Savage. I hope he sees it. 😂
Her's a cool and Stupid Idea I had watching this.
Tiny Hut does not say it needs to be on the ground. So you can rope trick up cast Tiny Hut and now you're party has a groovy mid air tree house to chill in for the night.
oh no, what happens when you cast tiny hut inside the rope trick
The Tiny hut is Imovable.
Anything that remains inside the rope trick pops out
The tiny hut is Imovable
An immovable force meets and unstopable object.
@@pontusedberg
Reality explodes.
It say attack not just magic but all attacks. So a dragon breath is an attack
Your ruling on "corn" is dependant on the definition of what that plant is. Before maze got to Europe, corn was a general term for many grains. i would need to check but I think Romans called barley corn, Corn is a modern word for the plant Zia maze.
Pack's videos on Rule Interpretation often present interpretations that seem intentionally misleading. It's unfortunate to spread disingenuous rule understanding, especially when we should all hope for and encourage players to interpret rules honestly, so I appreciate videos like these.
For instance, the interpretation that the rope would continuously ascend a slope... It's obvious the spell description refers to a single point on the ground, not the entire surface area equal to the rope's length...
Sidenote: Background music can feel a little loud/distracting especially during its ostinato. Really enjoy your videos and the lane you''re making/have made within this space! 🙂
Rope Trick works basically as i thought it dose, and yes of curse Rope Trick can be dispelled, as long as a spell have a longer Duration than Instentanius it can be Dispelled, but spell effects that lasts longer than the Instantainius Duration can not be Dispelled since they are sustained by non magical means.
can you do a Video like this about a highly debated spell (especially at my tables) that is True Polymorph. like why can't it turn an Object in to an Object, what happens if i use a Creature Turned in to an Object and craft something with it? (Turned in to a Gold Bar which is melt down to mint coins, or simular siyuation), when the spell becomes permanent dose it mean it is Permanent Permanent as if the Duration would be Instantaneous or Permanat as the Duration Becomes Permanat? do i lose all my abilities if i just use the spell to become myself with some different facial features (like use it to be myself with a smaller nose or different eye colour)? if the spell becomes Permanent as Instantaneous dose it still have the Polymorph effect of reverting back to your full HP if you "die" or is that effect gone?
if you rule it all like i do (by what the spell says and knowing term definitions) then the spell is basicly better than Wish because you can turn in to creatures with Wish and you can despell the effect or just "die" if you want to become an other creature whenever (i don't allow Unique Creatures, a Unique creature is something like a Demon Lord or Hellish Duke but you turn in to an avrage member of the Species Race/Class you chose, which is what the stat block is), if you run it like my friend group and our DM then the spell is Worse than Alter Self or even maybe Disguise Self.
The rope trick…ah yes…cleverly used to escape Royal Executioners by a Magic User named “Karadur” in the 1968 novel “The Goblin Tower” by L.Sprague DeCamp. Fantasy writing at its best!
This madness is why I live
You only need 8 5x5 foot square spaces, 200 square feet, around a center square for the entry portal/window. A 3x3 grid, 225 square feet of total floorspace. A cube with 15 foot walls.
You over complicated it, since the rules state the space a medium creature occupies.
My biggest question is how you get out once you've pulled the rope up, like what is it attached to up there lol?
Bards and Rangers should get it.
I would rule the Snipper nest using valid. And I think the Rangers would benefit from that the most.
Bards. I think Bards should have all the utility spells. And it's based on a magic trick, Magic tricks are a pefmemice. Bards Preformed.
If there had been magic during the medieval period there's no reason to believe they couldn't have discovered corn much earlier.
And that's even granting medieval Europe, rather than the setting they are in which could have had contemporary corn. The fact that it's a component suggests it's available (not to even mention arcane foci).
So much of this is answered in older editions.
Why did you not continue refering to the earlier descriptions of the spell's function? An extradimensional space refers to a space that is in addition to the prime material. An extradimensional space is a plane in its self, regardless of its size. The spell creates a small, malleable plane of limited size by stretching out then nipping off a segment of the material plane, like making a bubble and sticking it to the surface of another bubble. The creature limit comes from the destabilising effect that "living" creatures have on that sort of magic which is why it fits 8 creatures and not a specific volume. This was discussed in previous editions and as WotC have said themself, all previous lore is still cannon untill specifically contradicted.
Okay - dragon's breathe is [in my mind] an "attack". We can argue the point, but me thinks dragon wish to cause physical harm 99% of the time when they use their "breath weapon". I would rule that it would be a fireworks show, exclusively, from inside a rope trick foxhole - 10/10.
Never get off of the weeds again
I bet it would be neat to artifice a bomb at the top of a rope trick... Then when the rope trick spell ENDS, it drops! Or maybe stow something horrifically hazardous up there. Something *mechanically* akin to, say, the demon core from real life: inert under normal circumstances, but inimical to MATTER ITSELF ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL under specific conditions. It's an enclosed volume of space... I'd try to argue it's an ideal neutron reflector in this case.
After we leave the corrupt King's keep, NO ONE WILL EVER BE ABLE TO LIVE THERE AGAIN. Even regular materials will gradually be disintegrated through continuous neutron bombardment once the demon core falls back into real space!
A nice surprise
Give the people Rope Trick Part 2
would a cleric with magic initiate (wizard, find familiar) be able to fly their familiar into the space and cast inflict wounds on one of the people inside?
More pedantry.
Seriously, if I were running a campaign and someone started Rule Lawyering, I'd consider that to be the equivalent of a summoning spell for some particularly nasty Archduke of Hell. You wanna argue rules? Argue them with Asmodeus
Gotta know the story behind this deep dive. Why?
I run a fair few games where this spell has come up, and it's led to confusion every time. I wanted to clarify my own thinking, and try and reach a reasonable baseline we can all understand this spell from
Works for me 8 is a holy number in my setting anyways
A one feet rope isn't unfeasible, i use them in the gym !
it's wild to me that this sort of video has to be made
you'd think that any reasonable dm would rule out inappropriate uses of the spell immediately
at most the biggest concern i can see is "should we allow short ropes to be used to create a pocket dimension" and the answer is either "..just make the dimension without the rope then" or "no, it has to be at least X feet long" at the dm's discretion
all the questions about the directionality and possibility to cast in the air of the spell are sort of missing the point of it. like it's very clear that this thing wasn't meant to be weaponized, but to create a safe out of combat hideout. any attempts to get crafty with it in an unhealthy way should just be denied or pointed toward more appropriate spells
Oh, it absolutely didn't have to be made. I'll be the first to admit this was a rather silly project. But some of my players love sticking as close to the rules as possible, where reasonable, so it's really just to enable that style of game to be as 'right' as possible.