Rope Wizard?

[F.H. Zebedee]

I was reading the Wizards article on oft forgotten spells, and one of their suggestions was "Animated Rope Familiar". Now, this just piqued my curiosity. What kind of a wizard would do this? In the end of a short character concept mulling, I came up with an idea.

A wizard who, stressed out from the harsh demands and taxing occurences of his job as another wizard's apprentice, got into a hobby, ropecraft. Now, wizards being what they are, instead of just dabbling in it, he plunged headlong into it. So, presently, he's a wizard trying to design the ultimate knots and restraints using magic, just to see what limit he can push rope, string, and other such things to.

So, now the questions: What bonuses would an animated rope familiar give? What spells should I hunt down with enthusiasm? Is there any way of making ropes less likely to burst?

(Now I'm just getting goofy. I just imagined Energy Substitution: Rope. Would any foe dare assail you after you sent the world's biggest Yarnball after them?)

[Wih]

+3 on Use Rope checks?

[Yechezkiel]

Crazy Wizard concepts always deserve Spell Thematics. Just imagine: Obsurring Ropes, Summon Rope Monster I-IX, Scorching Ropes, Ropeness/Ropeness, and my personal favorite, Power Word Rope.

[Inyssius Tor]

Ooh, ooh! To borrow an idea from the thread directly below this one: write your spellbook in quipu, and animate that!

[F.H. Zebedee]

Heh, I can just see it now, maxxing the unholy heck out of my Use Rope skill.

Rogue: Curse these knots! I can't undo a single one! It's like some arcane power decided to positively MANGLE them.

Wizard: *whistles*

Yeah, +3 on Use Rope sounds good. I was just wondering if it would bonus that, or Escape Artist.

EDIT:
Quipu! YES! A braided familiar/spellbook, or maybe having dozens of concealed ropes in his cloak as a spellbook/last line of defense.

And yeah, I'd need to customize some rope spells. Maybe some sort of Cat's Cradle deal.

Finally, though kind of off subject, there's no way to summon a roper, right?

[The_Snark]

Not that I know of, but you can polymorph into one. If you can find a DM who doesn't mind you dealing out huge amounts of Strength damage to six people at once.

A Colossal animated rope would be cool, though. And really, most adventurers carry a hundred feet of rope. Is carrying four hundred so weird?

Also, Web practically begs to be re-themed. Animate Rope is a really obvious one. Grab a Stone Rope, a Spool of Endless Rope, and a Rod of Rope as soon as you can. If you can somehow get it, the Snare spell sorta uses rope too.

Exotic Weapon Proficiency (whip)?

[F.H. Zebedee]

Nice call on the whip! *jots down*

Heh, and a Collossal Rope construct would be quite the sight. I'm imagining like those giant balloon dancing people, 'cept ropes, rampaging across the countryside.

Thanks for the spell tips, BTW.

[Rad]

also, Black Ropes.

[Human Paragon 3]

...Rope Trick.

[Tyger]

Evard's Black Ropes. Nuff said. :)

[Dragonmuncher]

Rope Growth, Align Rope, Flaming Rope, Floating Rope, Rope Body.

Detect Rope.


Oooh, Awaken Rope.

[Inyssius Tor]

Y'know, rope body would actually be an awesome spell...
Dexterity bonuses? Regeneration? Increase reach by five or ten feet? Grapple bonuses?

[nerulean]

We are of course forgetting the very simple Summon Rope, that most important of cantrips.

[Ryuuk]

Wasn´t there a Rope Golem in either MMII or MMIII? It could be this wizard´s Frankenstein´s monster.

[Illiterate Scribe]

The nine wizard specialisations - abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, transmutation ... and rope.

Yep, got a ring to it!

[AtomicKitKat]

Ooh, ropes instead of chains Kyton. You could model it after a Kyton, or a Roper. Or those Ironmaws(?), the trees that look like oak, but with the blood spots. Fiend Folio, I think.

[Rama_Lei]

Prismatic Rope? Wall of Rope? Rope Killer? Phantasmal Rope? Ghost Rope?

[Telonius]

"Hold Person" - A magical rope lassoes the enemy from behind preventing them from advancing.
"Magic Circle vs." - drawn version requires a rope, rather than a pattern traced on the floor.
"Dimensional Anchor" - ray appears to be ropelike instead of green.
"Arcane Lock" - door/portal/etc. appears to be reinforced with ropes.

Unfortunately "Find the Path" isn't a Wizard spell. If it were, a big ball of rope starts at you, and unwinds ahead of you.

[Illiterate Scribe]

False Rope? Mordekainen's Magnificent Rope? Tasha's Hideous Rope? Detect Rope? Unrope to rope?

[Telonius]

Oooh, just thought of one.

Limited Brachiation
Conjuration
Wizard/Sorcerer 2, Druid 2, Ranger 2
Range: Touch
Duration: Rounds/lvl
Effect: Large ropes appear from nowhere, allowing you to swing on them to propel yourself forward. The subject of a Limited Brachiation spell can swing from these ropes to move at normal land speed, ignoring the effects of difficult terrain. A character must have at least two hands free to swing from the ropes. This spell does not allow the subject to escape from a grapple, entanglement, being glued in place, or other magical or mundane means of restraining a character.

[goat]

They could wear cord armour, without the 5% arcane failure chance.

[F.H. Zebedee]

Actually, I'm also really liking the ideas of making ray attacks look like ropes/cords. That could be interesting, fluffwise, at least.

Right now, the build I'm looking at is: Halfling, Female, Chaotic Neutral
Lvl 1 Wizard, no Specialties, with Int, then Dex as her highest priority stats. First feat is E.W.P. Whip, and I'll be taking weapon finesse to make it so that she can actually hit stuff. After that, all feats go into metamagic, I'm thinking, except maybe a craft feat.
Used my Skill Points towards making her more of a skill monkey than the normal wizard. Not too efficient, but it might come in handy to have her with ranks in Disable Device, Sleight of Hand, and Use Rope (Which I maxxed out for flavor).

I'm looking into spells, but currently I think will start out with Mending (fix the ropes!), Detect Magic (Always handy), and Mage Hand (Distance knot tieing!) For 1st level, Animate Rope (Duh.) and Magic Weapon (Soup up my whip a little.)
At higher levels, I'll look into researching thematic spells above.

I'm thinking that at higher levels, I'll try to get her a dancing whip, and make fighting her into a sort of Snake's Nest experience. (Roll ANOTHER reflex save.)

Thanks for all your help, guys!

[Pestlepup]

Actually, touching on the theme here, a friend of mine has made a rope-mage of sorts. His character is a wizard/travelling rope salesman, that lugs around a pile of ropes, some more exotic than others, and of course tries to peddle them to his fellow adventurers. Otherwise he never really does the wizardly stuff, but when the rest of the party is otherwise occupied in combat, he has a tendency to animate some of his ropes to entangle their foes... And afterwards he tries to sell them as magical ropes for enormous prices. The entrepeneurial spirit is strong with him.

[Callix]

Yarnball could give you carpet burns?
Wall of Rope?
Chain Roping?
Rope of the Banshee? (make it a Reflex save. Anyone hit by the rope is out. Read "dead".)
Spell Thematics (Rope) (or DM fiat) to make everything ropish. Summon spells shoot ropes into the gaping abyss and pull up a fiendish creature?

and of course, Binding.

[F.H. Zebedee]

Heh, gotta love the entrepeneur characters who shatter WBL. Granted, I think my character would be almost horrified of parting with her ropes, and would literally freak out if somebody stole them.

Nice idea on the Summons, dragging them through the planes to arrive. Glad I didn't bar that school.

Also, I could see Wail of the Banshee becoming Lash of the Banshee, where a spiritual cord tears into their soul. That'd be pretty badass.

[bugsysservant]

Wasn't there a spell from 2 ed. FR called Khelben's warding whip?
Would you be willing to take a few levels of bard for sonic whip (lvl. 2, SC)
How about levels of druid for Entangle and Snare?
Also, don't forget to cast hardness on any ropses involved, or they will rapidly become much shorter.

How about Hallucinatory Rope, or Rope Storm? Or the all time favorites, Invisibility to Rope, or Rope Purge?

[Kiroho]

Can you imagine the devastation that a Rope Wizard could create on board a large sailing ship with a huge web of ropes that control practically every aspect of the ship.

[Overlord]

Oooh, this is a goldmine.

Let's see, there are some obvious spells for the re-theming category:

Rope Walk
Rope Messenger
Cure Light Ropes
Horrid Roping
Call Rope Storm
Irresistible Rope
Rope Eye
Rope Lock
Rope Shapes
Finger of Rope
Create Rope and More Rope
Rope Seeing
Limited Rope
Disguise Rope
Inflict Rope Burns
Ropes Feast (there is no apostrophe)
Gust of Ropes
Freedom of Rope
Rope's Cunning
Rope's Splendor
False Rope
Read Rope
Rope of Idiocy
Summon Rope's Ally

And don't forget the anti-rope wizard spells:

Antirope Field
Rope of Invulnerability
Polymorph Any Rope
Resist Rope
Reverse Rope
Zone of Rope

[Ichneumon]

What about a spell that turns a rope into a spear?

[Renx]

Limited Rope
Greater Rope
Rope Missile
Force Rope
Ropecage
Ropecarnation
Resurrope
Ropes of the Aardvark
Control Rope
Ropeball
Otiluke's binding sphere
Ropefall
Legend Rope

And of course, rope trick!

//Edit: forgot rope of insanity, rope of blinding, rope of *. symbol of rope ;) There should be a bard variant, too.