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My character is stuck in a tree (as archer) with 20+ Kuo Tao around it. I want to get back to our camp without dying or luring them towards it.

Our DM gave us the option to buy "Rope Arrows" but I had a hard time finding an explanation for it. The only thing I've found was Grappling Hook Trick Arrow.

My question now is how to use it or is there something that is called Rope Arrow?

T.J.L.
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Nostra
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    FYI, dandwiki is not a reliable source for official information. It's a grab bag of randomly posted material by random people. A significant portion of it has no playtesting. The Basic Rules on D&D Beyond are official. – T.J.L. Jan 19 '18 at 13:56
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    apropos of @T.J.L.'s comment: why does dandwiki have a poor reputation? – nitsua60 Jan 19 '18 at 14:22
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    Did you buy the arrows without there being an explanation for them? Or is there a shop in the tree? – Callum Bradbury Jan 19 '18 at 15:00
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    I'm closing this as unclear on the basis we're missing information necessary to answer this properly -- we actually cannot tell you what a rope arrow is or what it does, since it does not exist in official material and we don't know what kind of homebrew rope arrow you have. Once you know anything about the source, we can better answer this -- but if you know the source we might not need to, on account of you'll be able to look up this information yourself. (Mainly though, I'm closing this because I don't want us to gather more "here's one version of a rope arrow..." answers.) – doppelgreener Jan 19 '18 at 15:47

2 Answers2

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A "rope arrow" is not an official item in any published WoTC source I'm aware of.

For homebrew items, you'll have to ask your DM how it works.

T.J.L.
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  • Well what would be the closest "official" item to that? We are all relatively new to RPG so we don't have any homebrew items and are mostly sticking to the official D&D books (which the DM owns not me). Therefor my question. – Nostra Jan 19 '18 at 13:39
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    Your DM gave you access to something that doesn't exist in the published rules. Not being in the published rules is the definition of homebrew, so you in fact do have a homebrew item.

    Check out the tour for more information on how Stack Exchange works. It's a one-question = one-answer kind of place; we don't do extended conversations.

    That said, asking for the closest item will get closed because it is unanswerable. Nobody but your DM knows what he was intending, so nobody can possibly identify the "closest" officially published item.

     – T.J.L. Jan 19 '18 at 13:44
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The way my DM has approached "Rope Arrows" is as follows:
There is a short length of rope attached - with an Action you can tie rope you have to the end of it.
Firing the arrow is an Action - make an attack roll against something (large objects tend to be AC 10, smaller is higher). On a hit, it takes damage as per your weapon and sticks in.
If your target was less distance away than the amount of rope you tied on the end, you catch the end of the rope automatically.

From there you can either tie the other end to your location and climb across using Athletics (DC 15, barring unforeseen circumstances)
Or you can use it as a rope swing (space permitting - no athletics check)

A single rope can hold up to 2 Medium creatures (or 1 Large or 4 Small)

--

Let me reiterate though - this is not official material (because there isn't official material for anything other than a standard grappling hook).
It's merely a tested homebrew solution.

Speedkat
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    This is not necessarily the rope arrow they were given, however. Questions like this one ought not be answered with "here's a rope arrow" since we have no reason to believe that one's actually what the asker is going for -- we don't know how accurate it is, and it may be misleading for them if their version is different. – doppelgreener Jan 19 '18 at 15:45
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    For a simple idea like this, a reasonable suggestion like this answer is a fine answer, and useful. If the question was about a "holy sword" or some such, I'd agree -- that's a complicated thing with lots of options, and there's no telling what the original idea was supposed to be like. But for an arrow with a rope attached, there's a limited scope to the very concept, and a suggestion with a little thought behind it is likely to be helpful. – Phil Boncer Jan 19 '18 at 21:07