Rope

A simple, lightweight mod that adds a craftable climbable rope block. Hang it from any solid surface above you and traverse vertically with ease.

Install on both the client and the server for multiplayer. Works in singleplayer — just drop it into your mods folder.

Dependencies: Fabric & NeoForge require Architectury API. Forge requires no additional dependencies.

Free to use in any modpack — public or private, no permission needed.

What it does

• Place a Segment — right-click below a solid block to place a single rope segment.
• Drop a Column — sneak + right-click to instantly drop a full column of rope straight down, limited only by the rope in your inventory and free space below.
• Extend Any Column — rope can hang from another rope — extend any column segment by segment.
• Empty-Hand Retrieve — right-click a rope block with an empty main hand to pull that segment and every rope hanging under it (survival returns items; creative removes the column; adventure cannot retrieve).
• Rope Bolt — craft arrow + rope into a Rope Bolt, load it in a crossbow (or bow — it is a vanilla #arrows item), and shoot: on a valid hit the rope unrolls downward with the same hang rules as hand place.
• Scaffold Feel — uses familiar scaffold-like placement and break sounds.

Hold Jump to climb up and crouch to slide down. Unlike ladders, ropes don't need a wall to lean on, and you can walk right through them without getting stuck.

!just PRESS SPACE TO CLIMB UP

!or place by click on another rope

You can manually extend the column by right-clicking an existing rope segment to place another one directly below it.

!Shift + RMB TO auto-place rope downward

Sneak + right-click to instantly drop a full column of rope straight to the ground.

!Empty-hand RMB to retrieve rope

Right-click a rope with an empty hand to reel that segment and everything hanging under it back into items.

!Shoot Rope Bolt to drop a column

Shoot a Rope Bolt at a valid block — rope unrolls downward on its own (survival spends rope from your inventory for segments that place, up to 64).

Crafting

!Rope craft

Stick | String | Stick
Stick | String | Stick
Stick | String | Stick

Yields 3 rope per craft.

!Arrow + Rope craft Rope Bolt

Rope Bolt — shapeless: 1× minecraft:arrow + 1× rope:rope → 1× rope:rope_bolt.

Configuration

No config screen — it works as soon as you install it. Recipes and hang rules are datapack-driven for modpack overrides (recipe ids rope:rope and rope:rope_bolt).

Details

• Climbable rope block + Rope Bolt; no worldgen, no entities, no GUIs.
• Hand- and bolt-placed columns respect build permission, spawn protection, and Forge/NeoForge place events (claim mods).
• Fully translated into 10 languages: English, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, and Italian.
• No builds for Minecraft 26.1 / 26.1.1 / 26.1.2 — stay on a previous release for those, or move to 26.2.

For Modpack Creators

The mod is intentionally minimal — one rope block/item, one Rope Bolt, no worldgen, no entities, no GUIs. Recipes and tags are data-driven and can be replaced by any datapack using the same ids.

Environment	Path
Singleplayer	.minecraft/saves/<world>/datapacks/
Dedicated server	<server folder>/world/datapacks/

After adding or changing the datapack — restart the world or run /reload.

Changing the Rope recipe (rope:rope)

Legacy layout (Forge/Fabric 1.19.2–1.20.1): data/rope/recipes/rope.json (+ advancements/recipes/misc/rope.json).

Modern layout (NeoForge 1.21.1+, Fabric 1.21.11+ / 26.2): data/rope/recipe/rope.json (+ advancement/recipes/misc/rope.json).

Legacy data/rope/recipes/rope.json:

{
  "type": "minecraft:crafting_shaped",
  "category": "misc",
  "pattern": ["ABA","ABA","ABA"],
  "key": {
    "A": { "item": "minecraft:stick" },
    "B": { "item": "minecraft:string" }
  },
  "result": { "item": "rope:rope", "count": 3 }
}

Modern data/rope/recipe/rope.json:

{
  "type": "minecraft:crafting_shaped",
  "category": "misc",
  "pattern": ["ABA","ABA","ABA"],
  "key": {
    "A": { "item": "minecraft:stick" },
    "B": { "item": "minecraft:string" }
  },
  "result": { "count": 3, "id": "rope:rope" }
}

Changing the Rope Bolt recipe (rope:rope_bolt)

Same legacy vs modern folder split as above:

• Legacy: data/rope/recipes/rope_bolt.json + data/rope/advancements/recipes/misc/rope_bolt.json
• Modern: data/rope/recipe/rope_bolt.json + data/rope/advancement/recipes/misc/rope_bolt.json

Recipe-book advancement id: rope:recipes/misc/rope_bolt (unlocks when the player has rope:rope).

Legacy (1.19.2 / 1.20.1):

{
  "type": "minecraft:crafting_shapeless",
  "category": "misc",
  "ingredients": [
    { "item": "minecraft:arrow" },
    { "item": "rope:rope" }
  ],
  "result": { "item": "rope:rope_bolt", "count": 1 }
}

Modern object-ingredients (1.21.1):

{
  "type": "minecraft:crafting_shapeless",
  "category": "misc",
  "ingredients": [
    { "item": "minecraft:arrow" },
    { "item": "rope:rope" }
  ],
  "result": { "count": 1, "id": "rope:rope_bolt" }
}

Modern string-ingredients (1.21.11 / 26.2):

{
  "type": "minecraft:crafting_shapeless",
  "category": "misc",
  "ingredients": [ "minecraft:arrow", "rope:rope" ],
  "result": { "count": 1, "id": "rope:rope_bolt" }
}

#minecraft:arrows tag

The bolt is shipped in #minecraft:arrows ("replace": false, value rope:rope_bolt) so a crossbow can charge it. Override via datapack:

• Legacy: data/minecraft/tags/items/arrows.json
• Modern: data/minecraft/tags/item/arrows.json

Because it is both in #minecraft:arrows and an ArrowItem, a vanilla bow can also load and fire it on current code — not crossbow-only at the tag level.

What you can / cannot override

• Can (datapack): rope recipe, Rope Bolt recipe, matching recipe-book advancements, membership in #minecraft:arrows.
• Cannot (code): item registration ids (rope:rope, rope:rope_bolt); bolt stack size (64); bolt impact / column deploy rules (including Multishot recoverable-only); empty-hand retrieve; the fact that the fired projectile stays a Rope Bolt (ArrowItem behavior is not datapack-only).

Translations

Override via resource pack: assets/rope/lang/<locale>.json

• block.rope.rope / item.rope.rope
• item.rope.rope_bolt

Feedback

Please report any bugs, errors, or feature suggestions on Discord: https://discord.gg/HTkn94BXmA

More mods by Nikrecs: FasterLadderClimbing · PathSpeed!

My other mods that I recommend.