Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Let us use rope: why no video game can ever replace the tabletop.

[rant]I realize that it would probably be a coding nightmare to make rope into an item that can create "climbing vines" wherever the player wants to, but there have been multiple situations, now, and I'm probably only about halfway through Act 2, that being able to have one character fly, misty step, dimension door, somewhere and then drop down a rope for other companions to climb up would have been extremely advantageous. In one situation in particular, I knew the developers had in mind that PCs should get up onto a certain tower, because of the "cat hole" that lead from the bottom to the top. Yet, in that situation I ended up having to upcast fly, use a potion of fly, and a scroll of fly, just to get all my party members up, which is absurd, considering I've got about a dozen ropes sitting in my inventory. The game already has the "arrow of transposition" so there's some sort of mechanic built in to just up and move a character from one position to another. Maybe every rope should just be an "arrow of party transposition?" Or even if a rope was a single use item that let a party member "tag" another party member to bring them to their current position, it would still be way better than just a useless "flavor" item designed to create verisimilitude.

At the tabletop, tying off a rope for other party members to climb is a viable solution for hundreds, if not thousands, of situations. If you're going to give us rope, at least let us use it for what rope is good for. Otherwise, honestly, I'd rather it just disappeared from the game altogether and got turned into, "mundane item you can sell for a gold piece."[/rant]

It really shouldnt be hard to implement, wartales let's players drop ropes off mountains on the worldwide, I can't imagine it's impossible to do inbg as well

The very first "I wonder if I can do this" thought I had was to use the rope to climb in and out of the hole at the temple near the start of Act 1, only to find I could not. So then I thought "Well, I guess that they can't account for everything, but I'll keep some ropes on me because this is the kind of shit that will be invaluable."

It never even occurred to me, or others I have spoken to for that matter, that the rope would just... do nothing. You find them so early on, I thought it was an intentional design choice to help the player experiment by traversing up and down places where a jump wouldn't work.

I can't tell if I expected too much based on the way people wouldn't shut up about the freedom in the game before I got to play it, or if it's really just a massive oversight.
The number of times "Why doesn't rope do anything" has come up in discussions about this game with friends and so on, surely someone during EA thought about this, or someone at Larian has had this discussion at some point during the last x years of development.

Rope could work like featherfall if attached to a post of some kind, or like fly or jump if lassoed to a distant location, like throw them climb. It could also be used to ensnare if passing certain checks, or to immobilize targets who are knocked out.

The best thing to do would be to remove rope as a trash item and replace it with something else that equally has no use, but does not lead to thinking it might. Larian should replace rope with clean underwear.

I spent the whole game carrying rope waiting for the scripted event where dialogue would offer a special solution if I had rope. It never happened. I am heartbroken. PoE2 lets me use rope to avoid strength rolls for climbing stuff in specific interactions. BG3 should have places where rope is used like it has places where shovel is used.

Yes, good point about the shoevel. Even if rope was only good for certain pre-set scenarios, it would still be something! To have rope as a loot item all over the place, like Caffeinated King said, with ZERO payoff for what a rope is actually good for, is frustrating to no end. Obviously I agree with Ikke, either make rope actually useful, or replace it with clean underwear, or shoes, or something. As it sits now, having rope in my inventory, and constantly running into situations where rope would be useful were I playing the tabletop game that this video game is loosely based on, just serves to anger me.

Perhaps as Zerubbabel suggests, some modder could actually recode rope so it works like a feather fall item, or as I suggested, an arrow of transposition. That would still be something akin to what a rope is good for.

I think one had to use rope to decent a well in Blighted Village - I don't know if that's a case in 1.0. I have seen no use for a rope otherwise

That rope didn't come from your inventory though, it was already built into the game, flavored as the rope to which the bucket was attached to pull water up from the well. That "rope" also actually opened a new instance/area of the game.

Hmm.

I've been collecting rope, too. Because it was there, thus it should have a use ... ?

Apparently not.

Agreed with the comment to get rid of it as a junk item, or add flavour text to the effect of "Known to be a legendary item to many adventurers, of no use to you."

Rope has strong connotations in D&D as being extremely useful, I get the wink and nod to it but when the game has a lot of interactions, having an item with the reputation of rope in D&D but never actually useable isn't ideal.

Been thinking about this more lately, and I realized that it should NOT be all that difficult to just code rope to be an item that provides either the effects of the feather fall spell (like when a spellcaster casts it, where it effects everybody), OR an upcast fly spell that effects the entire party. Those mechanics are built into the game, and essentially, mechanically speaking, that's exactly what rope should accomplish in any given situation. Either get you up somewhere you couldn't otherwise get, or help you get down somewhere without taking fall damage. Adding that coding to the mundane item "rope," would make it just as useful in BG3 as it is at the tabletop, and seems like it shouldn't be that hard to implement.

I have been able to find a use for clean underwear. It's the dirty underwear that lacks utility.

We should be able to lower ropes to repair ladders which are destroyed by fire or other types of damage. This would prevent situations where characters can become needlessly trapped.

Imagine the meme videos of people trying to tie 500 ropes together to do something clever hehe. I mean it's gotta have at least as much charm as a bunch of crates lol.

Also, because it's sort of a dream to see magic rope implemented in a satisfying way. Zelda has the hookshot, which has always been fun, but trying to imagine something similar in a party based game offers a lot more options. We should be able to do a couple things here, first thing we should be able to tie our rope around stuff like objects, or use it to bind an opponent when they are knocked out.

How cool would be if instead of killing Minthara or whoever, you could just tie em up?

An NPC bound in this way might go from hostile to a temporarily non-hostile follower, without access to their weapons and equipment. This would allow for a lot of creative problem solving that doesn't involve killing, for characters who want to go that route.

Throwing ropes shouldn't work all that well, unless there's someone to catch the other end of it. If there is somewhere there, this would be a killer place for banter. I mean like really, the perfect place hehe. I'm sure the ladder climbing animations would work for now, but honestly how cool would it be if they did a little ankle move to coil the rope around a leg and even allow us to swing a limited distance?

Specialty rope related items or abilities would be things like grappling hooks which allow you to throw the rope without someone on the receiving end, but only if there are like crags or branches and stuff to catch onto. Rope mastery and knotting as skill, which allows you take regular ropes and do cool stuff with them. Trip lines, lassos, that sort of stuff. Perhaps the party can tie themselves together to prevent someone from falling off a cliff ledge. Maybe if they're too heavy they pull everyone prone and you have to pass a check to keep from all going over the edge lol. I mean there are just a hundred possibilities here, and it probably wouldn't take all that much if they just had a couple animations for it.

It would be extremely helpful when party members don't the jump range to follow the leader. Or just misty step to a ledge and lower the rope down.

Yes, those moments happening frequently is exactly what caused me to want to post something about it.

Yes, like a string , instead of rope.