Does Freedom of Movement protect against Plant Growth?

[Merudo]

Casting Freedom of Movement on a creature means "spells and magical effects can't reduce its speed or cause it to be paralyzed or restrained".

Does this protect the creature against the effects of the Plant Growth spell?

I would assume no because although Plant Growth is a spell, it doesn't have a lingering magical effect after being cast.

[Lunali]

Casting Freedom of Movement on a creature means "spells and magical effects can't reduce its speed or cause it to be paralyzed or restrained".

Does this protect the creature against the effects of the Plant Growth spell?

I would assume no because although Plant Growth is a spell, it doesn't have a lingering magical effect after being cast.

I would say yes and no. No because I wouldn't consider it a spell or magical effect that reduces its speed. Yes because Freedom of Movement also renders a creature unaffected by difficult terrain.

[MaxWilson]

I would say yes and no. No because I wouldn't consider it a spell or magical effect that reduces its speed. Yes because Freedom of Movement also renders a creature unaffected by difficult terrain.

Plant Growth doesn't create "difficult terrain".

[Sinon]

A strict read would be no:

It has nothing to do with the fact that the plants aren’t a lingering magical effect. The dense vegetation is clearly an effect of the magic.

The issue is that “spells and other magical effects [can’t] reduce the target's speed.”

Plant Growth doesn’t reduce the target’s speed. It doesn’t affect a target directly. It affects the terrain, and though it might be considered super-dooper difficult terrain, it doesn’t use that language, so, no.

[mormon_soldier]

Plant growth says that the plants become overgrown, requiring 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot traveled. It's not inherently magical per se, but freedom of movement is phrased in such a way that suggests that it trumps all other effects.

[Merudo]

Plant Growth doesn’t reduce the target’s speed.

I had missed that part. Thanks.

[mormon_soldier]

It doesn't say 'reduces speed', but that's clearly the intention by having movement through affected territory cost more movement.

[MaxWilson]

It doesn't say 'reduces speed', but that's clearly the intention by having movement through affected territory cost more movement.

Speed is a statistic in 5E. It's your movement budget, not a velocity.

Freedom of Movement is no more effective, by the rules as written, at letting you move at full velocity in overgrown vegetation from Plant Growth than it is at letting you move at full velocity underwater or while climbing. In all cases you have to spend more than one foot of speed to purchase one foot of movement.

Arguably this is a deficiency in the RAW. Per Principle of Least Surprise, I think I'd ignore the RAW here and treat it as super-difficult terrain, so Freedom of Movement would work. That's what a player would reasonably expect to happen if they weren't a rules lawyer, and it is what should happen.

This also means that it wouldn't stack with normal difficult terrain, which IMO is quite reasonable. If you're fighting through dense jungle vegetation already, who cares any more if the footing is uneven? You're not going fast enough for that to matter.

[Willie the Duck]

It doesn't say 'reduces speed', but that's clearly the intention by having movement through affected territory cost more movement.

Or, conversely, Plant Growth specifically does not use the difficult terrain tag for the express purpose of excluding it from Freedom of Movement. Given that the designers seem to be more than happy to talk about just about anything except 'is this specific rules convergence deliberate, or did it just end up that way?,' it really comes down to your own guess. Of course, they have been pretty up front about wanting DMs to make their own rulings in corner cases.

Seems like we're come away with a convincing RAW interpretation (although I would not be surprised if someone comes by with another clause from somewhere else in the rulebook that convincingly reverses the outcome). But, no, I am not convinced that that is specifically what was intended. When magic is involved, you can't really make a lot of inarguable, 'they clearly wanted X to trump Y, because...' arguments. It barely works in physical-interaction arguments (I have a theory that quarterstaves are versatile because you originally were not going to be able to be able to perform somatic components while wielding 2H weapons, but I'll never know for sure).

[MrStabby]

I would also go RAW the FoM has no effect here. On the other hand I would say FoM is just too niche for it's level and too lacking in substance so I would be inclined to rule it in for my games.