How to Make a Ladder in Minecraft and its Uses

If you want multiple levels for your house or build, you will get to choose between ladders or stairs to go up and down. Ladders are convenient for the space they can save you. Most staircases take a whole wall or a 3×3-5×5 space for a spiral stair. Ladders are space-efficient, while they are not the most aesthetically pleasing, they can add some practicality to your home or builds. This guide will show you the materials required to make a ladder, how to make a ladder, how to get a ladder through commands, and the usage of a ladder in Minecraft.

The recipe to make a ladder is relatively simple and cheap. You will need to gather some wooden logs and convert them into planks. Use those planks to make sticks. Every 7 sticks you use to make ladders will yield 3 ladders each time you complete the recipe. In addition, you will need a crafting table to make a set of ladders.

The first step is just to gather some wood. Hit some trees to get some raw logs. The type of wood you gather does not matter, as every wooden log can be built into planks, and the resulting planks converted into sticks.

Once you have gathered enough logs, convert your logs into planks by placing them in your crafting menu. Each log will yield 4 planks.

With your planks made, all you have left is to make sticks. Craft sticks by placing two wooden planks in a column. Each time you complete this you should get 4 sticks. So do this at least twice. As long as the wooden planks are in a 2×1 arrangement you will be able to make sticks.

Once you have enough sticks, you will need to place your sticks in an “H” pattern in your crafting menu. This will give you 3 ladders.

That’s all you need to make ladders in Minecraft.

If you want to get some ladders in Minecraft through commands, use the /give command. For example, /give @p ladder #, where @p is the closest player and # is how many ladders you want. An example of giving yourself a stack of ladders is shown below.

You can use this command on any platform in Minecraft, and the syntax does not change between different versions. If you want a specific number of ladders, you can change the # in the above command with the number of ladders you need.

Ladders are pretty straightforward, but there are some quirks to be aware of. For example, you cannot place a ladder and a trapdoor on the same wall. If you want the trapdoor to be flush with the floor, your ladder just needs to be able to reach just under the block where you placed the trapdoor. You will have to jump to make it from the ladder to the top, but at least this method does not prevent you from using a ladder and a trapdoor.

Otherwise, you can essentially place ladders on any opaque block that you want to climb up.

Once you have placed your ladders, you can walk into them and look up to climb upwards. If you have a trapdoor flush with the floor, you will need to press yourself towards the ladders as you reach the top and then jump from the top ladder up to the trapdoor level.

It is possible to make a bridge of ladders that are only 1/16 blocks wide. You can also place ladders in this fashion to make a parkour section.

Like vines, ladders will slow players down when walking through them.

A player on a slab must jump up to reach a ladder, despite only being 1/2 a block down.

Animals can climb ladders, they do not do so naturally, but you can push a mob up a ladder if you wanted to.

In the Java edition of Minecraft, you can make a floating ladder by using the command /setblock ~ ~-1 ~ air. You will need to be standing on the block with the ladder to turn into a floating ladder. In the Bedrock edition of Minecraft, the block will simply be removed and the ladder will update itself and pop off.

Congratulations, you now know how to make a ladder in Minecraft. They can be useful for saving space in your builds. Especially for compact builds that have high elevations or low basements. While they lack the aesthetic look of a staircase, you can keep a mineshaft or different elevated platforms neat and compact. Ladders are a simple block that you can use to easily connect two levels of your builds, every player should know their options going into a build.