VG Meet DnD: The Rope from The Legend of Zelda

The snake-like Rope first appeared in the original The Legend of Zelda for NES, and has been used in all the top view 2D Zelda games. The Rope is a great minion for DMs who use a grid battle map in their games. Its linear attack pattern lends itself to a variety of unique encounters and situations either by themselves, or in a group with other monsters.

Rope

The rope looks like a normal snake but is the size of an average humanoid. When they sense an enemy they swiftly charge their aerodynamic forms in a straight line at the creature. They are generally weak, but their tendency to be found in dungeons in large groups makes them dangerous to the inexperienced adventurer.

Rope Tactics

The rope is able to attack a nearby enemy as soon as it moves into range with its unswerving charge power. However, a group of ropes attempting to ambush a party may delay their attacks until they can surround the group. As per usual, a rope may only charge enemies that are at least 2 squares away, and may only charge enemies in a straight square line (*see diagram below). When it is next to enemies it must rely solely on its bite power.

Rope Lore

A character knows the following with a successful Dungeoneering check

DC15: Ropes are snake-like creatures usually found in groups in large open rooms, waiting for an enemy to cross their line of sight so they can quickly charge their prey.

*In order to best explain the limitations of the unswerving charge power I have provided a sample battle situation

Here an adventuring party enters an open room and we will assume do not spot the enemies. Let the R counters be the ropes. Now, all ropes that are able to use their unswerving charge power will do so, interrupting the characters' movement. The charge being made by the ropes is represented by the black arrows. The ropes that do not qualify to use the move will not act until their initiative.

Now we have the setup after the ropes' immediate interrupts have gone off.

As you can see you could combine ropes with different shaped rooms to achieve certain goals, such as trapping the players in a narrow hallway, or pushing towards a more dangerous foe. You could always take a tip from Zelda and simply fill a room to the brim with them for a higher level encounter. The possibilities are endless so enjoy!

**The Legend of Zelda is property of Nintendo