Potentially losing Use Rope as a skill makes me sad.
Take 20? Not if there was a bugbear chasin' them over a side of a cliff, or they had to climb a wall during a seige or you needed a good opposed roll for an escape attempt.
Use rope gets used ALL THE TIME in my games. You never know when a knot might slip through a shoddy use rope skill.
I see no need for Use Rope.
Trying to attach a grappling hook or lasso a point the other side of a pit? Make an attack roll vs. AC 10 or 5.
Tying someone up? Make a grapple (pin) check (or CMB in Pathfinder) with a bonus based on what you are tying them up with (rope +5, manacles/chains +10). They oppose with Escape Artist as normal.
Tying knots in a rope or securing a rope to cross a chasm or somesuch? Why even bother making a check? If you want to show off your sailor knotting, use Profession (Sailor).
Now, Craft Knot I like. I like that alot.
Craft- Knots.
I think Rope Use is too specific too. Making it part of climbing and/or survival seems best to me.
Yeah. I don't see many people take it.
With respects to all, especially for joining this thread, and making your suggestions:
Selk: While use of professions is a good -- no, make then an excellent and often underused -- way to emulate skills, I think there are fewer sailors and farmers in my dungeons than you suppose. I presume the average thief was neither farmer nor sailor (though a fighter could easily be profession soldier with that in their skill set).
As for climb and survival, the rules -- as written -- don't support your application of use rope. Ascending slopes (a very physical/athletic endeavor) and making your way in the wilderness don't automatically presume the skill of rope handling.
Stephen: Those are all good gamist alternatives to get around rope handling, but ultimately they are work-arounds for a much more elegant game mechanic, a simple d20 skill check. (Nor does being a grappler simulate good rope skills, I think.)
Using rope is a basic dungeoneering skill, necessary for exploring caves, caverns and deep tombs. I use it, and I think retaining it for both utility and flavor is important to the game.
But I think each of you for your suggestions. It's great to see different ways people game.
I have been consolidating skills, stuff that isn't used that often (and I rarely if ever see being taken) put together with other stuff.
With things like search disappearing, Use Rope had no chance at all. But it got a good home: It got combined into Sleight of Hand - after all, you need deft hands to tie a knot.
As for climb and survival, ........ making your way in the wilderness don't automatically presume the skill of rope handling.
Awhile ago I removed Use Rope from my games and merged the ability to tie knots into the Profession skill and Survival. My reason for adding Survival was the comments from my players that where either girl scouts or boy scouts. Both noted how they learned to tie knots.
My final reason was watching just one episode of Man vs Wild and watch how many times he ties a knot or ties vines together to form a rope. After watching that it certainly seemed like a logical use of Survival.
See now that is odd. In my experience the people who do NOT take it are rare. Most everyone I know consider it handy. If it stays yanked then appropriate rules need to be made what to replace it with.
See now that is odd. In my experience the people who do NOT take it are rare. Most everyone I know consider it handy. If it stays yanked then appropriate rules need to be made what to replace it with.
I don't know if I've ever seen anybody take it. I think it's below Decipher Script and Forgery, and just above Craft (Basketweaving), in the overall popularity and usefulness of skills.
The Rules Compendium had an excellent sidebar on Use Rope:
Use Rope checks are really annoying to fail. Failing a Use Rope check means falling (maybe to your death) or having an enemy escape (also maybe to your death). Yet they come up rarely enough that it's hard to justify buying ranks.
My house rules for Use Rope work as follows. Don't. Yes, you secured the grappling hook, and it holds your weight. Yes, you tie up your enemy, and the bonds are secure.
As an additional point, ropes are not a terribly difficult thing to do. Speaking in my capacity as a former Boy Scout, tying a knot is quite a bit easier to learn how to do than, say, appraising a gem or disarming a trap. The DCs for Use Rope are rather inflated, if you ask me; I can tie a bowline around myself one-handed in my sleep, and I can't even set up a tent properly.
Ahhhh, finally a kindred spirit in Swirler.
Grab a 10 foot pole and a length of 50-foot rope and we will plumb the depths of the greatest dungeons while eveyone else sees their knots slip, then fall over and into the caverns of doom .....
The Rules Compendium had an excellent sidebar on Use Rope:
Use Rope checks are really annoying to fail. Failing a Use Rope check means falling (maybe to your death) or having an enemy escape (also maybe to your death). Yet they come up rarely enough that it's hard to justify buying ranks.
My house rules for Use Rope work as follows. Don't. Yes, you secured the grappling hook, and it holds your weight. Yes, you tie up your enemy, and the bonds are secure.
I've got Rules Compendium, and I've read the sidebar. Respectfully disagree on the analysis of "excellent."
Logan understands it, he just doesn't "get it." Hand-waving use rope is no more acceptable than hand-waving combat, in my book. Exploring the dungeon is part of the adventure too.
It's more than just killing monsters. It's learning how to survive in the deep, dank places of the earth. And securing things with rope, crafting your own traps, securing a perimeter are all dungeon craft skills. PC need these to survive a dungeon crawl.
Now, I understand, not every playing group's adventures focus on the dungeon. Fair enough. But the heart of D&D is the dungeon crawl (Age of Worms, Savage Tide, White Plume Mountain), and ensuring that the PCs have the tools to meet the challenges of dungeons and caverns and tombs, means knowing how to use mundane equipment.
I say make Use Rope a component of Survival, then deflate the DCs. Mention somewhere how lassoing and attaching grappling hooks are functions of ranged attack rolls. Maybe lassoing is a feat, making your grapple work at range?
While I'm willing to entertain that Survival may encompass rope skills ... the fact is that there are character type for whom Survival doesn't fit thematically. (urban rogues, bards, swashbucklers).
Yet, these guys may need to Use Rope too.
I admit, Craft (knot) has potential. But to me, that's just another way of saying Use Rope, which is more universal in its approach.
Thank you Demiurge, for trying to think out of the box on this one. But, c'mon, the words ranged and grapple for the same task really don't fit together do they? ;)
Use Rope - away with it. I would stick it into a Legedemain skillwhich combines Sleight of Hands and Use Rope. Or: why not make it part of more than one skill. Perhaps stick it into Dungeoneering, Survival and Legerdemain - this would characters with different class skills enable to use rope. And since use rope is not that important (at least in my games) i think it's not that a big change.
Here is my problem with Use Rope--it's not that it's necessarily useless, but that it is too universal. Use Rope is a component of Survival, Theft, Craft(Traps), Climb, and many other skills. Use Rope really should be a part of any skill in which its use is part. Part of my ability as a competitive rock climber is that I can tie the proper knots and operate the rope in the correct manner while climbing. Tying someone up should probably fall under Theft, but making a it a grapple check also works. The BAB part of a grapple check can represent knowledge of how to incapacitate an individual, such as by holding their arms in such a way as to cause immobility and pain. That same knowledge can be used when tying someone's arms together.
hmmm
Survival (urban) maybe?
With skills, less is more. There shouldn't be a Survival (Urban) when Theft or Knowledge (Local) will do.
Here is my problem with Use Rope--it's not that it's necessarily useless, but that it is too universal. Use Rope is a component of Survival, Theft, Craft(Traps), Climb, and many other skills.
This idea that Use Rope is a component of other skills might be conceptually true, but the rules don't say so. As written (in the SRD and by its absence in the Alpha), only Climb even mentions the use of rope, and then only as a tool that provides bonuses or adjustments (since you can attempt Climb without rope).
I appreciate that as a rock climber you have that skill, or that certain professions might attain it too. But is that an aspect of your strength, your capability to haul yourself up the slope or ledge? Or is it another skill, utilizing dexterity (or intelligence, I'll grant you), enabling you to knot ropes/rig lines, etc? And that, in fact, you're doing two things (if not more) to attain the heights?
I was a combat engineer in the Army. One of the things I learn as part of my training was knots and rigging. That said, I really do not feel that this requires a specialized skill.
Rope Use, as it is written, can easily be moved to other skills.
For example:
Secure a grappling hook - ranged touch attack against a set DC.
Repelling - Climb skill
Tie a firm knot/Tie a special knot/Tie a rope around yourself one-handed/Splice two ropes together - Generic rope use can be put under Survival (for lashing, splicing ropes, and rigging up campsites). Specific case could be part of Profession, such as Profession (sailor) or Profession (engineer).
Bind a character - Can be made part of the Survival skill, though I would like a better way to do this.
I've got Rules Compendium, and I've read the sidebar. Respectfully disagree on the analysis of "excellent."Logan understands it, he just doesn't "get it." Hand-waving use rope is no more acceptable than hand-waving combat, in my book. Exploring the dungeon is part of the adventure too.
It's more than just killing monsters. It's learning how to survive in the deep, dank places of the earth. And securing things with rope, crafting your own traps, securing a perimeter are all dungeon craft skills. PC need these to survive a dungeon crawl.
Now, I understand, not every playing group's adventures focus on the dungeon. Fair enough. But the heart of D&D is the dungeon crawl (Age of Worms, Savage Tide, White Plume Mountain), and ensuring that the PCs have the tools to meet the challenges of dungeons and caverns and tombs, means knowing how to use mundane equipment.
I agree with the sidebar. All of my run-ins with the Use Rope skill have been nothing but disappointments. The latest of which was, while DMing EtCR and the group ran a rope across the chasm between the castle and the watchtowers (the drawbridge had somehow gotten destroyed, I forget how). The party successfully secured the end to the watchtower, but on attaching the other side, the attempt was botched. Luckily, the party slid the fighter's +2 plate armor across first - about halfway across, the rope slipped and the party watched the plate take a 1000' plunge. It was a stupid loss of equipment, and almost a PC. I'd have rather that no such Use Rope need be made in the first place. And I've had plenty of other similar instances that I will not miss the skill one bit.
Stephen:
What a wonderful roleplaying opportunity.
You only lost equipment. The player is OK, and now has to improvise. I mean, bad things happen in dungeons ... and true enough, it sounds like your team did everything they could to ensure the rope was secure, but it still went south.
How often have you watched a movie and seen something like that happen?
I mean, when Willie Scott tosses Indy gun out the window of the moving car, he has to go the entire movie without a firearm. But Indy persevered!
I wouldn't call it it stupid loss. I'd call it an adventure.
I was a combat engineer in the Army. One of the things I learn as part of my training was knots and rigging. That said, I really do not feel that this requires a specialized skill.
Isn't Army training the epitome of the kind of specialized training that skill ranks in Use Rope could represent?
But I'll take you at your word that it isn't a specialized skill, though it certainly sounds that way.
And thank you for your service and sacrifice to the nation.
Thank you Demiurge, for trying to think out of the box on this one. But, c'mon, the words ranged and grapple for the same task really don't fit together do they? ;)
I dunno--the held condition from the Alpha seems to reflect such a state fairly well. You've got a rope around them, they're not pinned in place, but they have less maneuverability so long as the rope stays on.
And thinking outside the box is what I'm good at. Hang the box.
I yield to the majority of respondents on this one. Clearly, the days of Use Rope as a skill are numbered.
Still, I would like to address the issue of backward compatibility, and which of the (many excellent) suggestions on skill consolidation made here make the most sense from that standpoint.
To review, here are the suggestions on where to place “use rope” in the PF rpg skill list. What is your preference, and why?
STR: Climb
DEX: Escape artist
DEX: Newly configured Theft
DEX: Create Legedemain (incorporating Sleight of Hand and Use Rope)
INT: Craft (knots)
INT: Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
WIS: Survival
WIS: Survival (urban)
WIS: Profession (sailor, farmer, soldier, engineer)
There also was the suggestion to take a feat approach:
FEAT: Knots and Rigging (General)
These alternatives also were mentioned
Logan Bonner Rule: Hand-wave all Use Rope checks
Grappling hook: Ranged attacks against static DCs
Binding: Use Alpha grappling rules
Let’s discuss which option seems best to meet the backward compatibility goal mention in the Alpha document.
Thanks
A rope should be like any other piece of equipment. It should provide a +2 bonus when used in a situation in which it is helpful. Binding should be covered using the grapple rules with the caveat that you don't have to maintain the grapple actively (that's what binding does) and that you get a +5 bonus on the check if the opponent is helpless.
The thing with Use Rope is that you use it differently depending on what you're using it FOR. Using a rope with pitons while mountain climbing has NOTHING to do with tying someone to a chair. They're totally separate skills, realistically. So Use Rope should be separated into what you're using it to do:
1. Use rope while mountaineering -> Climb
2. Use rope for ship's rigging -> Profession (sailor)
3. Use rope to tie someone up -> Escape Artist
4. Use rope to set a snare -> Survival or Craft (trapmaking).
With Use Rope as a separate skill, we should by similar logic also have "Use Legs" as a separate skill that would supercede the Jump skill, base land speed, and the Run feat. And "Use Arms" for just about everything.
....
1. Use rope while mountaineering -> Climb
2. Use rope for ship's rigging -> Profession (sailor)
3. Use rope to tie someone up -> Escape Artist
4. Use rope to set a snare -> Survival or Craft (trapmaking).
While not a simple solution this makes the most sense to me and what I plan to use for my group.
While not a simple solution this makes the most sense to me and what I plan to use for my group.
Thanks. It's what I'm already doing in 3.5, and it works out quite well (and also gives some extra incentive to take Escape Artist).
1. Use rope while mountaineering -> Climb
2. Use rope for ship's rigging -> Profession (sailor)
3. Use rope to tie someone up -> Escape Artist
4. Use rope to set a snare -> Survival or Craft (trapmaking).
So, from a rules standpoint, as I understand it, the simplest thing would simply to add these lines to the existing skill descriptions in the Alpha, then.
So, from a rules standpoint, as I understand it, the simplest thing would simply to add these lines to the existing skill descriptions in the Alpha, then.1. Use rope while mountaineering -> Climb
2. Use rope for ship's rigging -> Profession (sailor)
3. Use rope to tie someone up -> Escape Artist
4. Use rope to set a snare -> Survival or Craft (trapmaking).
Yep; that's what I'd do, if I were Jason. For example, under the Escape Artist description, I'd put a note that says, "If you use your knowledge of this skill to tie someone up, roll an Escape Artist check. Your results are the escape DC from those bonds."
Climbing using a rope is already a component of the Climb skill in 3.5, so no change needed for that. And using ropes on a ship is sort of subsumed by most people as part of what sailors do, I suppose (at least, offhand I don't know of any specialized rules of rope use on a ship).
A rope should be like any other piece of equipment. It should provide a +2 bonus when used in a situation in which it is helpful. Binding should be covered using the grapple rules with the caveat that you don't have to maintain the grapple actively (that's what binding does) and that you get a +5 bonus on the check if the opponent is helpless.
This is what I agree with for tying someone up. As for the others:
Making decorate knots - Craft (Knots) skill
Making useful knots - Profession (Mountaineer, Soldier, Sailor, Farmer, Executioner [for nooses], etc.) skill
Using a grappling hook/lasso/bola/rope net - Ranged touch attack vs. AC for moving/living targets or DC for objects
Climbing with rope - Climb skill
Making snare, tripwire or the like - Craft (Trapmaking) or Survival
I would like Craft (knots) be considered on par with the Professions usage, though, because they are linked to different ability scores (Int and Wis), I can see the logic of making a distinction.
Perhaps someone RL experience could explain whether there is a real difference between decorative and utility knots.
Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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In one of our games, my character spent the downtime practicing his "use rope" skill...and that became a euphemism for...well, um....you know.
I think it's best consolidated in another skill...Survivalism makes sense. The only place I learned knots and stuff was in Boy Scouts. Synergy with Profession: Sailor or (wink) Craft: Ropesmith, would be sensible.