Does Freedom of Movement defeat Rend?

[Hiro Quester]

A creature with rend can do extra damage if it hits with both claws (or both bites in two-headed creatures).

Rend "latches onto your body" to automatically do damage. For example:


A Dire Ape that hits with both claw attacks latches onto the opponent’s body and tears the flesh. This attack automatically deals an extra 2d6+9 points of damage.

This is not one of the situations explicitly listed in Freedom of Movement's description. But should you be too watery/slippery/elusive to be able to latch onto in that way, if you have FoM active?

We are going up against a two-headed dragon in this weekend's game. I expect its rend attack would be pretty nasty.

I'm thinking FoM would generally be a useful thing to have active (and cast on our party tank) in that combat, to resist grapples, ability to ignore certain BFCs, etc.

Should it also make rend attempts fail?

[Fouredged Sword]

Things don't do things they don't say they do. FOM does nothing to stop rend as rend does not prevent them from moving. That said, if you want more proof, you CAN grapple a creature who has FOM, you just can't hold them. The initial grab is a touch attack and you can make that just fine. They can just automatically pass any grapple checks needed to leave the grapple on their round and will autopass the grapple check to prevent you fron holding them and entering the grappled condition. As rend happens during a single creature's turn and involves no grapple checks it can function for long enough to deal the extra damage.

[Psyren]

Rend doesn't stop the target from moving or attacking (it's too brief) so Freedom of Movement offers no protection against it by RAW.

[Geddy2112]

As said above, rend is not defeated by freedom of movement. The description says it latches on, but it does not count as a grapple for mechanics or anything else that freedom of movement defeats.

Freedom of movement DOES defeat rake, which is a similar ability but requires the creature with rake to begin its turn grappling the creature to get the rake attacks, which can only be used against a grappled foe.

[Fouredged Sword]

Technically you can grapple a target with FOM. You need to start the grapple before they gain the effect and they can end the grapple at any time during their action with a standard action to leave the grapple VIA auto-pass grapple check, but until then you can grapple them.

In the action chain -

Your action - initiate grapple
Target action - fail to get out of grapple
Target's ally - Cast FOM on target to allow him to get out of grapple
Your second action - You still are grappling your target and can rake (FOM does not autopass ALL grapple checks, just those to prevent the start or to leave a grapple)

[Psyren]

Technically you can grapple a target with FOM. You need to start the grapple before they gain the effect and they can end the grapple at any time during their action with a standard action to leave the grapple VIA auto-pass grapple check, but until then you can grapple them.

In the action chain -

Your action - initiate grapple
Target action - fail to get out of grapple
Target's ally - Cast FOM on target to allow him to get out of grapple
Your second action - You still are grappling your target and can rake (FOM does not autopass ALL grapple checks, just those to prevent the start or to leave a grapple)

You're not actually "grappling a target with FoM" in that example though. What you're doing is grappling a normal target who then gets FoM cast on them later, and quickly raking them before they can use the buff to escape.

If instead they have FoM on them from the start, they are immune to grapple and thus rake.

[Fouredged Sword]

My point was that having FOM does not technically make you immune to rake or even to being currently grappled. It's the most corner of corner cases, but it can happen.

An other occurrence would be a creature with FOM initiating a grapple with you and thus allowing you to rake it, say under the effect of a suggestion spell or some other means to ensure your target makes sub-optimal choices. A suggestion like "You should grapple character X because you have FOM so it's risk free."

While FOM is a great defense VS grapples and rakes, it does not make you IMMUNE to grapple or rake in the way immune is used in 3.5. Someone can drag you a number of squares or any of the many other options during a grapple. You can just spend a standard action to leave the grapple without having to pass the opposed grapple check.

[Psyren]

Oh I definitely understand, but your case requires freedom of movement to be cast in combat, and for the grappler's turn to fall after the buff is cast but before the victim gets to use it. It's a plausible scenario, sure, but one that's easily preventable - especially on a 10min./level spell that also comes in ring form.

[Necroticplague]

A creature with rend can do extra damage if it hits with both claws (or both bites in two-headed creatures).
Minor pedantry: Rend doesn't require two natural attacks for it to work. It's entirely possible to have Rends that occur with just one hit, going on the description of Rend itself. I'm not sure if there are any such Rends, though.

If a creature with this special attack (extraordinary) hits with the specified natural attack, it latches onto the opponent's body and tears the flesh. A rend attack deals damage equal to the creature's natural attack + 1-1/2 times its Str modifier. The creature's descriptive text gives the exact amount. Note the bolded is singular.


Rend "latches onto your body" to automatically do damage. For example:



This is not one of the situations explicitly listed in Freedom of Movement's description. But should you be too watery/slippery/elusive to be able to latch onto in that way, if you have FoM active? No. Freedom of Movement doesn't make you too slippery to grab, it makes things unable to impede your movement. Rend doesn't impeded your movement in any way, so it's unaffected.

[Hiro Quester]

Ah well... It sounded reasonable enough to consider. Thanks, everyone.