Freedom of Movement houserules

[Biggus]

I've been trying to take most of the absolute effects out of the game, along similar lines to Sean K. Reynold's well-known article on the subject (which I would link to but it doesn't seem to be available currently). Most things I've come up with a suitable solution for, but I'm stuck with Freedom of Movement.

My problem is that it completely shuts down grappling as a tactic, no matter how good at it the opponent is. However, high-level monsters can get such astronomical grapple bonuses that simply giving a large bonus to avoid/escape them is completely useless for many characters.

The closest I've come to a solution is a 50% chance to automatically avoid or escape a grapple every round, but that involves a lot of extra dice rolling (especially if the creature can grapple multiple times per round, like a Kraken for example) which I'd like to avoid if possible. Does anyone have a better solution?

[AnimeTheCat]

In my opinion, most "combat maneuvers" should have their associated feats completely removed, or completely reworked. Remove Improved Grapple and change the grapple rules to not provoke attacks of opportunity on initiation. Instead have some new feat like Combat Maneuver Awareness that allows you to make attacks of opportunity against the target if they initiate any maneuver against you. If you hit, you add the damage you deal to whatever roll to resist the maneuver.

For example, say a Troll is attempting to grapple you. If you don't have Combat Maneuver Awareness you don't get to make an attack of opportunity against the grapple attempt. If you do, you may use your attack of opportunity (or one of them in the case of Combat Reflexes) to improve your chances of defending against the grapple. So, you make your attack roll and you succeed, dealing 15 damage to the troll. Now, the troll makes its grapple check and you make yours with a +15 bonus and the grapple resolves as normal.

Now that you've trimmed some fat, you can focus on feats that actually improve what grappling does. There are already some feats that do this, but they've all got improved grapple as a feat tax, so subsequently they all have Improved Unarmed Strike as a feat tax. That can mean level 6 at the earliest for some characters to even begin having more interesting grapples, which is lame. Removing those as prerequisites and having simple grappling something that everyone can just do greatly improves this, while subsequently removing bloat from the system. Now, all of this builds up to how I think you should handle Freedom of Movement. Don't touch it. Improve Grappling. Give grappling, or other combat styles obviated by Freedom of Movement, a way to overcome that (be it a feat or class feature, etc), but that requires the user to specialize in that thing. Freedom of Movement is a level 4 spell only available to (generally speaking) divine spellcasters. My preference lies in making the less powerful thing better than nerfing the more powerful thing

However, if you feel like this isn't sufficient or if you don't feel like adjusting the bloat to make various different combat styles more accessible and generally more useable, you could always just have Freedom of Movement grant a +20 untyped or circumstance bonus to checks made to free oneself from any mundane or magical binding (+20 to grapple checks to get out of grapples, +20 to Escape Artist checks to get out of shackles or Rope, +20 to Reflex Saves and Balance checks to avoid slipping on Grease, etc). It's substantial, and significant enough to stand up against pretty much anything except a specialist.

The whole idea behind this is that an individual who specializes in something should not be completely negated in their specialty by a singular ability, spell, or action. By changing either the grappling feats to be more approachable to specialize in or by changing freedom of movement to be something that can be overcome, the goal is to make it so that under "normal" circumstances, Freedom of Movement still works, but against a specialist or truly monstrous challenge, it's effectiveness is reduced by a large margin.

[Doctor Despair]

The closest I've come to a solution is a 50% chance to automatically avoid or escape a grapple every round, but that involves a lot of extra dice rolling (especially if the creature can grapple multiple times per round, like a Kraken for example) which I'd like to avoid if possible. Does anyone have a better solution?

Extra rolls? You mean the normal amount of rolls as if they didn't have FoM, right? :p So you want a chance at success/failure without a ton of rolls, eh...

How about this: remove the immunity to grapple. Allow monsters to try to grapple as normal. On the FoM'd character's turn, instead of making an opposed grapple check to escape the grapple, they make a single different check with the DC being based on the enemy's grapple check. Maybe it's 1d20 + FoM caster level + caster's casting stat? If they succeed, they can move as normal for the turn (and break the grapple if they move out of the grappler's reach).

[smetzger]

Whatever way you decide to handle it, I think FoM should still allow for auto immunity to any spell or spell like ability that has a grapple check.

[liquidformat]

In my opinion, most "combat maneuvers" should have their associated feats completely removed, or completely reworked. Remove Improved Grapple and change the grapple rules to not provoke attacks of opportunity on initiation. Instead have some new feat like Combat Maneuver Awareness that allows you to make attacks of opportunity against the target if they initiate any maneuver against you. If you hit, you add the damage you deal to whatever roll to resist the maneuver.

I can't agree with this since you are proposing nerfing combat maneuvers pretty hard, taking away improved grapple, improved, trip, and so on does little to 'trim the fat' as you said but makes those combat options worthless. The +4 to the combat maneuvers is really important to keeping players competitive compared to most monsters that are great at these combat forms by virtue of being monsters and not because they are built for it. Also there really aren't many feats being held back by the combat maneuver feat gates.

Feats requiring Improved Grapple:
Earth Embrace (increase grapple damage)
Choke Hold (save or loose)
Might Works Mastery I (+2 dodge to AC when full attacking)
Might Works Mastery II (1d4 str damage on stunning attack)
Scorpion's Grasp (gives improved grab)

None of these feats would help someone trying to prevent themselves from being grappled, Clever Wrestler would help but it doesn't have improved grapple as a prerequisite, though removing improved unarmed strike from the clever wrestler feat would be nice. In general I think Improved Unarmed Strike should just be a martial weapon proficiency making it only a feat tax for people who don't automatically get martial weapon proficiency and aren't monks or other base classes like shaman that are proficient with IUA...

With that said I do agree with you that rather than making the default be getting an attack of opportunity by default and making the attack take a feat in order to prevent the AOO having the target take a feat to be able to make AOOs and use the damage from the AOOs to help block said attack seems like better design. And to be frank falls more inline with my experience wrestling, do mixed martial arts, and getting into fights. People who don't know how to fight rarely get a potshot in on someone who knows what they are doing, its the ones who are trained and know what they are doing you have to watch out for...

Anyways I think FoM is a bit overpowered and needs some adjustment so it doesn't auto shut done a whole fighting style. While I like Doctor Despair's idea it doesn't hold up in play unless you are really pumping your caster level at level 12 to 17 you can expect most grappling monsters to have a grapple mod of +20 to +40 whereas I would expect the bonus Doc presents to be sitting around 20-25 in that same range. I have seen in the past someone suggesting FoM giving a 20 +caster level bonus to Balance, escape artist, and other such rolls.

I think the magical immunity should also be tweaked rather than a straight up immunity to all spells and spell like abilities that involve grapple, balance, and so forth it should be based on caster level. Maybe make it act like SR specific for spells/SLAs that deal with grappling, balance, and so forth.

[Aracor]

Personally I like Freedom of Movement giving a +10 per 6 caster levels to Defensive Grapple Checks.

a 20-30 point bump should be enough to give you a chance to fight off a big grappler, but not make it guaranteed. There are still a few colossal monsters that can almost guarantee a grapple despite that, but again - this isn't supposed to be a freebie.

I suppose another option could be a smaller bonus, plus treat the creature affected by FoM as the same SIZE as the grappler. That would even things out somewhat, because the size modifiers are what really gives large creatures a massive bonus.

[AnimeTheCat]

I can't agree with this since you are proposing nerfing combat maneuvers pretty hard, taking away improved grapple, improved, trip, and so on does little to 'trim the fat' as you said but makes those combat options worthless. The +4 to the combat maneuvers is really important to keeping players competitive compared to most monsters that are great at these combat forms by virtue of being monsters and not because they are built for it. Also there really aren't many feats being held back by the combat maneuver feat gates.
The Improved X feats do 2 things. +4 to the thing and lets you do it without provoking an attack of opportunity. What I'm proposing is to not require people to get a feat and then get another feat, just to effectively do that thing. When you only get 7 feats per character (guaranteed, other classes to do get more), 2 feats is A LOT. Also, I'm not proposing that those don't get replaced in some capacity. Like I said, create new feats that improve grappling itself. Along with those, you should probably be giving an increase to you ability to do those things. Like +1 or +2 per feat. It rewards specializing and taking lots of those feats, while simultaneously expanding what you can do.


Feats requiring Improved Grapple:
Earth Embrace (increase grapple damage)
Choke Hold (save or loose)
Might Works Mastery I (+2 dodge to AC when full attacking)
Might Works Mastery II (1d4 str damage on stunning attack)
Scorpion's Grasp (gives improved grab)

None of these feats would help someone trying to prevent themselves from being grappled, Clever Wrestler would help but it doesn't have improved grapple as a prerequisite, though removing improved unarmed strike from the clever wrestler feat would be nice. In general I think Improved Unarmed Strike should just be a martial weapon proficiency making it only a feat tax for people who don't automatically get martial weapon proficiency and aren't monks or other base classes like shaman that are proficient with IUA...

I would suggest that each of those fundamentally change how you can grapple, or what you can do while grappling, while simulteously making you generally better at grappling and removing the Improved Grapple (and thus the Improved Unarmed Strike) feats from the tax. Basically, you can start specializing your method of grappling from level 1. Have something like the following:
Powerful Grappler - Add your strength modifier Twice whenever you make a grapple check (Prereq Str 13)
Nimble Grappler - Add your Dexterity Modifier instead of your Strength modifier whenever you make a grapple check. +2 circumstance bonus to all grapple checks. Can't use if denied dex. (Prereq Dex 13)
Choke Slam - Allows you to make an unarmed melee attack, if it hits you attempt to grapple, if you succeed the target is immediately pinned. +2 to all grapple checks. (Prereq Powerful Grappler and str 13)
Master Grappler - Magical affects that normally give bonuses against, or negate the effects of the grappled or pinned condition no longer do so. (prereqs Character Level 7)

You see where I'm going with this. I'm saying the end goal would be to fundamentally enhance grappling all together and create a series of feats that enhance, manipulate, or change how the player can initiate a grapple or what they can do while they are in a grapple.


With that said I do agree with you that rather than making the default be getting an attack of opportunity by default and making the attack take a feat in order to prevent the AOO having the target take a feat to be able to make AOOs and use the damage from the AOOs to help block said attack seems like better design. And to be frank falls more inline with my experience wrestling, do mixed martial arts, and getting into fights. People who don't know how to fight rarely get a potshot in on someone who knows what they are doing, its the ones who are trained and know what they are doing you have to watch out for...

Anyways I think FoM is a bit overpowered and needs some adjustment so it doesn't auto shut done a whole fighting style. While I like Doctor Despair's idea it doesn't hold up in play unless you are really pumping your caster level at level 12 to 17 you can expect most grappling monsters to have a grapple mod of +20 to +40 whereas I would expect the bonus Doc presents to be sitting around 20-25 in that same range. I have seen in the past someone suggesting FoM giving a 20 +caster level bonus to Balance, escape artist, and other such rolls.

I think the magical immunity should also be tweaked rather than a straight up immunity to all spells and spell like abilities that involve grapple, balance, and so forth it should be based on caster level. Maybe make it act like SR specific for spells/SLAs that deal with grappling, balance, and so forth.

I'm more or less in agreeance here too. I think I just didn't explain my thoughts as thoroughly and that left some interpretations where you basically just change the basics and leave the rest. I meant that you add a fair bit of actually useful content to the game, and not just for grappling, but for disarming, tripping, sundering, etc as well.

[Biggus]

Extra rolls? You mean the normal amount of rolls as if they didn't have FoM, right? :p So you want a chance at success/failure without a ton of rolls, eh...


I was giving them the chance to auto-escape in addition to their normal chance to escape the grapple, so they're rolling twice each round.

I'm short on time right now so I'll have to leave replying to the rest of the thread till later, but thanks for the replies.

[King of Nowhere]

i would just give +10 to avoid/escape grapple and let monsters grapple.
i mean, big monsters to little else. they are decidedly underwhelming if they can't grpple. even if they can grapple, you just have to rely on the rest of the party.

if you want to avoid those monsters shutting down a party member almost authomatically, though, you can add a clause in FoM about being able to cast spells or attack while grappled, at a mild penalty

[Doctor Despair]

i would just give +10 to avoid/escape grapple and let monsters grapple.
i mean, big monsters to little else. they are decidedly underwhelming if they can't grpple. even if they can grapple, you just have to rely on the rest of the party.

if you want to avoid those monsters shutting down a party member almost authomatically, though, you can add a clause in FoM about being able to cast spells or attack while grappled, at a mild penalty

That would be something. Remove the immunity to grapple, but instead have a highs or lows roll to be able to take any action normally that doesn't involve leaving the square. Or maybe make it a new mode tacked onto casting defensively to streamline it with other game mechanics?

[Zombimode]

My problem is that it completely shuts down grappling as a tactic, no matter how good at it the opponent is.

Why do you think this is a problem in the first place?

Having certain approaches being defeated by certain defenses is pretty common. And that is ok: it provides value for divesifying a characters abilities, and it emphazises that this is a team game.

[AnimeTheCat]

Why do you think this is a problem in the first place?

Having certain approaches being defeated by certain defenses is pretty common. And that is ok: it provides value for divesifying a characters abilities, and it emphazises that this is a team game.

Not the person you were replying with, but I think the reason is that something like Freedom of Movement is beyond just niche negating. It negates Grappling PLUS so many other potential abilities that debilitate or hinder movement on a general scale. I also think that it's strange that there's a defense to the method of fighting, but there's no higher level of that fighting that beats that defense. it's like grapplers were all like:

Grappler: "HAHA! I have you now little spellcaster!"
Spellcaster: "Not so fast! I have this spell that negates your entire method of combat!"
Grappler: "Oh ok... you win. I guess I'll just never develop any means to combat this and you'll always be able to beat me from level 7 and beyond, even in to epic levels.... I'll just stay exactly how I am and you can always beat me with that ability for now and forever more."

Like... that makes no sense to me. If your character is designed to be good at something, your character should be good at that thing, and you should have means and methods of overcoming defenses to your abilities that require further specialization. If you devote your full self to grappling, there should be very little that can meaningfully resist your ability to grapple. You've devoted yourself to something, the mechanics should reflect that. I feel the same way about Enchantment Focused Specialist Wizards. So many things are immune to mind affecting, they should get some mechanism by specializing and devoting resources to affect creatures that are immune to mind affecting effects. Basic immunities and general negations should work against all except specialists in that field.

[Vaern]

You could have it give a skill bonus to escape artist checks which could then be used to slip out of grapples, rather than full automatic immunity. Maybe bonus = caster level to let out scale with the party.

[liquidformat]

Why do you think this is a problem in the first place?

Having certain approaches being defeated by certain defenses is pretty common. And that is ok: it provides value for divesifying a characters abilities, and it emphazises that this is a team game.

I am with AnimetheCat here, this one spell shuts down massive swaths of enemy combat choices, hard stop on grappling, hard stop on a lot of battlefield control spells... Frankly I am just glad it isn't a hard stop on trippers since that also seems inline with the spell...


The Improved X feats do 2 things....

Ok gotcha, yeah that would be nice. At the same time simply taking away IUS from the prerequisites of Improved Grapple and making Improved Grapple a prerequisite for the feats you presented doesn't seem unreasonable. Improved Grapple simply giving a +4 bonus to grappling does seem like a very good choice for anyone wanting to grapple and often might be more bang for your buck than say Powerful Grappler, especially at low levels.

[Troacctid]

If you leave the ability to automatically escape grapples, but remove the ability to automatically avoid grapples, then you still need a standard action to get out of the grapple, which leaves the grappler with favorable action economy.

[RNightstalker]

I would think of a way to give the monster a dispel magic sla or a bbeg in the background to dispel it for the grappling monsters.

[icefractal]

I'd go with "You can still be grappled, but your escape attempts automatically succeed." The grappler can still deal damage by grabbing and waste the FoM-user's actions, but not fully lock them down.

Additionally, it could give a moderate bonus to avoid being grappled, so that it did let you ignore weak grapplers, which seems appropriate.

[Biggus]

if you want to avoid those monsters shutting down a party member almost authomatically, though, you can add a clause in FoM about being able to cast spells or attack while grappled, at a mild penalty


If you leave the ability to automatically escape grapples, but remove the ability to automatically avoid grapples, then you still need a standard action to get out of the grapple, which leaves the grappler with favorable action economy.

These are both good ideas, I will probably use one of these two, thank you.


Why do you think this is a problem in the first place?

Having certain approaches being defeated by certain defenses is pretty common. And that is ok: it provides value for divesifying a characters abilities, and it emphazises that this is a team game.

What animethecat and liquidformat said, and also:

1) as you go up levels it becomes possible to become immune to more and more things, until the number of ways to attack effectively can become quite limited, especially if there are casters on both sides

2) it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that relatively low-level abilities can make you totally and utterly immune to something, if it's a 9th level spell or a capstone ability of a class fair enough, but there are things you can get at 3rd or even 1st level which even epic opponents can't overcome

3) a single creature or character being immune to something isn't such a problem, but when you can just make the whole party immune to an entire class or creature's main attack method by casting a lowish-level spell on them, many encounters become trivial

[rel]

Scrap the terrible existing grapple rules (along with the rest of the combat maneuver rules).

[AvatarVecna]

FoM giving 2xCL to checks to resist or escape a grapple, and giving +1 per 2 CL to saves vs restrictive conditions would be fine. Let them still fight underwater normally (altho they'd also need a different spell to breathe underwater). Death Ward and Mind Blank should probably get similar treatments.

[noob]

Grappling just like stunning or dazing and other "save or lose" effects is a badly designed mechanic because it removes tons of subtlety in the combats where they are involved.
I think grappling needs a rework and not be that flowchart that reduces to a minimum the number of actions you can do.


FoM giving 2xCL to checks to resist or escape a grapple, and giving +1 per 2 CL to saves vs restrictive conditions would be fine. Let them still fight underwater normally (altho they'd also need a different spell to breathe underwater). Death Ward and Mind Blank should probably get similar treatments.

I think it should also make you immune to "no defence just stop moving" effects like solid fog.

[Biggus]

FoM giving 2xCL to checks to resist or escape a grapple, and giving +1 per 2 CL to saves vs restrictive conditions would be fine. Let them still fight underwater normally (altho they'd also need a different spell to breathe underwater). Death Ward and Mind Blank should probably get similar treatments.

I did consider 2xCL, but at high levels it's still not enough due to the insanely high grapple bonuses some monsters can get; some characters would still have little or no chance of escaping. In particular, items like the Ring of Freedom of Movement generally have a pretty low caster level and so are completely useless by the time you can afford them. I don't want to make FoM useless, I just don't want it to be a total negation of grapple as a tactic.

+1 per 2CL to saves seems too low to me; when I'm replacing immunities with save bonuses (which I often do) I want it to be high enough that characters rarely fail, unless they've been heavily debuffed or had an exceptionally low save to start with. To my mind, anything that normally gives immunity should still give a very strong protection when it's converted into a bonus.

[Harrow]

The problem you're running into is baked pretty deep into the system. It starts with the CR system balancing single enemies against a party of four adventurers. But, hit points per level don't scale nearly as fast as average party damage output per level. This means that, if you want a single enemy to survive combat, by mid levels it's going to need a lot of extra hit dice to survive the first round. But, hit dice don't just give hit points, they also give base attack bonus, which improves their grapple modifier. Then, because each member of a party gains hit points with every level, enemies need to be able to dish out more damage to stay relevant, so they're given higher strength scores. This also raises grapple. Finally, the designers treated size category as a short-hand for threat assessment. Bigger = Badder. Monstrous scorpions, spiders, and centipedes, big cats and bears, various giants, elementals, and dragons all get bigger to give the party some idea of how powerful they are. But, this gives further bonuses to grapple.

Any grapple bonus that you give that would be relevant at mid to high levels is going to just be an auto-win as much as Freedom of Movement is now. This isn't a problem with FoM, but in various ways problems with the CR system and monster design in 3.5, particularly the 4-vs-1 format where monsters aren't given class/racial features that scale as fast as 4 separate adventurers each gaining a level. If you want to fix this, you would need to basically re-do how monsters work on a fundamental level.

Ooooooor... you could just reduce the spell level of FoM by 1 or 2, give it a bonus of +1 or +2 to resist grapple per caster level, re-calculate the cost of a Ring of FoM, accept that it won't be useful at higher levels and call it a day.

[Falontani]

What if it gives you a +4 bonus on escape artist checks per size category larger than you the grappler is then you. In addition you may attempt to cast defensively with a slight penalty to your concentration check (or increase the dc) to be able to cast spells normally while grappled (not pinned). This removes the size of your opponent from the equation, but leaves in their str score vs your dex score. If you still can't escape your usually within a d20 of them, and can still cast spells.

However I personally don't think freedom of movement would block any nonmagical effect. It should only give some bonuses to help you get through mundane problems. Also, what do you guys imagine the fom character to look like as they escape from these things?

[noob]

How about "only non size modifiers to grappling that are not strength based or based on bab applies to grappling" for Freedom of movement's effect.
A fighter with grappling science will still beat more than half the time anything using freedom of movement to protect themselves.
As for swarms of mooks trying to grapple you just have to get some way to deal continuous damage around yourself to make sure they do not stay alive.

[AvatarVecna]

I did consider 2xCL, but at high levels it's still not enough due to the insanely high grapple bonuses some monsters can get; some characters would still have little or no chance of escaping. In particular, items like the Ring of Freedom of Movement generally have a pretty low caster level and so are completely useless by the time you can afford them. I don't want to make FoM useless, I just don't want it to be a total negation of grapple as a tactic.

+1 per 2CL to saves seems too low to me; when I'm replacing immunities with save bonuses (which I often do) I want it to be high enough that characters rarely fail, unless they've been heavily debuffed or had an exceptionally low save to start with. To my mind, anything that normally gives immunity should still give a very strong protection when it's converted into a bonus.

+14 to grapple and escape artist checks at lvl 7 is pretty significant, even against big grappling enemies. Assuming Str 8 Wizard 7, you're still looking at Grapple +16/Escape Artist +14 probably, while a CR 7 Hill Giant has Grapple +20. It's not enough to guarantee an escape, but it'll give you a fighting chance. Same wizard casting it at lvl 13 is looking at +31 vs a CR 13 Storm Giant's +36, which is a similar dynamic.

If you're wanting FoM to give them a serious advantage against big strong types, but not so much that they auto-win, triple CL should be plenty. Since you're thinking the save bonus is also low, increase that to +CL to saves vs such things. That has a ring of FoM giving +21 grapple/+21 escape artist/+7 saves for 40k, which is still phenomenal for most characters, and casters who can actually cast it themselves will have even bigger bonuses. Death Ward and Mind Blank apply to wider ranges of spell effects than FoM does, so just save bonus +CL should be plenty.

[martixy]

What about something simple like:
+CL to grapple checks and you can discharge the spell as an immediate action to auto-succeed on the next grapple check. Or on all grapple checks for 1 round, after which the spell ends. Like Heart of X spells.

In my mind this does many beneficial things:
Martials likely remain immune to grappling with such a large bonus. Casters receive a large bonus that gives them a fighting chance. Favouring martials here is a good thing IMO.
Being discharged means that you can still benefit for the immunity part in a pinch, it just costs a lot, which depending on the situation might be worth it.
It allows grappling to remain a valid combat style - even if someone triggers the auto-succeed/immunity effect of the spell, you've bled them of resources, while you can initiate grapples for no other cost than actions.

[noob]

What about something simple like:
+CL to grapple checks and you can discharge the spell as an immediate action to auto-succeed on the next grapple check. Or on all grapple checks for 1 round, after which the spell ends. Like Heart of X spells.

In my mind this does many beneficial things:
Martials likely remain immune to grappling with such a large bonus. Casters receive a large bonus that gives them a fighting chance. Favouring martials here is a good thing IMO.
Being discharged means that you can still benefit for the immunity part in a pinch, it just costs a lot, which depending on the situation might be worth it.
It allows grappling to remain a valid combat style - even if someone triggers the auto-succeed/immunity effect of the spell, you've bled them of resources, while you can initiate grapples for no other cost than actions.

I made the calculation and you need roughly 2 times cl for martial to be able to succeed(unless assuming the martial is specialised in grappling and have 50 str(the martial character) then a +cl allows to succeed half of the time against the tough monsters) at grappling reliably some equivalent cr monsters.
So no +CL is far too low and even +2 times CL is too low: you would need +3 times CL if you want martials that do not have 50 str and grappling specialisation to escape grapples reliably.
Monsters have far too high grappling stats for grappling to have any sense or logic.

[martixy]

Right, this thread is 3e. I've gotten used to PF numbers, where things are a bit less egregious.

Anyway, that's a problem with the monsters/grappling system that I think the spell, or its attempted fix, should be explicitly NOT be trying to address.

[Eladrinblade]

I replaced several absolute effects in my rules with a +5 bonus. Freedom of movement grants a +5 bonus on any related save or check. Endure elements gives a +5 bonus on saves vs environmental heat or cold. A ring of sustenance grants a +5 bonus on con checks vs hunger, thirst, or sleep. Etc.

[noob]

I replaced several absolute effects in my rules with a +5 bonus. Freedom of movement grants a +5 bonus on any related save or check. Endure elements gives a +5 bonus on saves vs environmental heat or cold. A ring of sustenance grants a +5 bonus on con checks vs hunger, thirst, or sleep. Etc.

Endure elements is not an absolute effect.
It only increase the comfortable temperature range.
It is like having a +50 degree comfortable temperature range bounds: endure elements does provide absolutely nothing when you are outside of the indicated temperature range.
Your change to ring of sustenance boosts its use in battle since it did not actually protects against sleep before and making it protect against hunger instead of feeding you makes it less useful for survival than many cheaper magical items that actually creates food.
So at your table people just buy a magical food creating item instead of buying a ring unless they want to protect themselves against sleep spells.
With your change to freedom of movement it is 100% useless at the level where you get it since the reason you cast freedom of movement is to protect yourself against effects with no saves(like solid fog) or effects you can protect yourself against only with TO shenanigans otherwise(for example a +56 grapple modifier CR 11 monster: with only +5 even if you are super specialised in grapple you literally can not succeed at grappling back the monster).
+5 is enough only if you are level 2 or 3(unless fighting The Crab which is ridiculous in grappling for its low cr) but once you reach level 9 which is the level where you start being able to cast it is basically useless because it is completely insufficient against monsters that are meant to use grappling (because they have modifiers like +30 or more) and the martial will just get grappled to death.
So in fact your changes boosts casters over martial because only casters have alternatives to protecting themselves against all those things(there is a ring of freedom of movement but no ring of intangibility for example so the fighter is the one suffering from the nerf).

Also do not make divination protection be only a +5 because it means that scry and die becomes literally impossible to counter and will guarantee instadeath rocket tag constantly. (any plot character you introduce will die in a single day at most and the adventurers will get like 50 encounters a day)

Turning immunities in +5 means that having a +5 cloak of protection is equivalent in usefulness to immunity to everything so you have to reprice all the immunities.
And also if you remove immunities to death effects you die automatically to a lot of "no save just take way too many negative levels" and "save 99 times or die and you are bound to roll a 1"
Dnd is poorly balanced and have offence a dozen times stronger relatively to the best theoretically possible defences you can get without immunities so if you remove an immunity you have to redo the entire mechanic of the offence that you are protected from by the immunity.

[Biggus]

Also do not make divination protection be only a +5 because it means that scry and die becomes literally impossible to counter and will guarantee instadeath rocket tag constantly. (any plot character you introduce will die in a single day at most and the adventurers will get like 50 encounters a day)

Turning immunities in +5 means that having a +5 cloak of protection is equivalent in usefulness to immunity to everything so you have to reprice all the immunities.
And also if you remove immunities to death effects you die automatically to a lot of "no save just take way too many negative levels" and "save 99 times or die and you are bound to roll a 1"
Dnd is poorly balanced and have offence a dozen times stronger relatively to the best theoretically possible defences you can get without immunities so if you remove an immunity you have to redo the entire mechanic of the offence that you are protected from by the immunity.

Agreed that +5 is way too weak to replace immunity. The way I work it with saves personally is:

+10+1/2 caster level bonus

If you roll a natural 1, reroll at -20 instead of auto-failing

If something doesn't normally allow a save, you get one anyway (eg negative levels)

If for some reason a save isn't practical to implement, the effect fails automatically

If you're inherently immune to something you retain total immunity (eg mindless creatures are totally immune to mind-affecting)


It does mean some extra dice rolling, but it's worked pretty well so far. It prevents stuff like a wand of Protection from Evil for 750GP making you totally immune to mind-control from epic-level monsters.

Having said that, I don't allow the level of cheese which would force someone to make 99 saves against death at once...

[ShurikVch]

How about to just ban the Freedom of Movement, and replace it with the Freedom of Passage (Dungeon #100)?
It works just like the Freedom of Movement, plus also ignores planar restrictions (such as Forbiddance, Dimensional Lock, and Dimensional Anchor)...
But it's a 8th-level spell!
Oh, and it required a focus - githyanki silver sword

[Feldar]

Just ban persistent spell. Then the characters have to spend their gold for the ring or someone has to spend actions casting the spell. The spell is really only broken when there is no action cost to get it into place.

Oh, and don't fall for the "I have Travel domain so I'm immune to grapple" BS. Travel domain does not grant immunity to grapple.

[RNightstalker]

Just ban persistent spell. Then the characters have to spend their gold for the ring or someone has to spend actions casting the spell. The spell is really only broken when there is no action cost to get it into place.

Oh, and don't fall for the "I have Travel domain so I'm immune to grapple" BS. Travel domain does not grant immunity to grapple.

But it does grant a freedom of movement effect for a total of 1rd/cl.

[Biggus]

Just ban persistent spell. Then the characters have to spend their gold for the ring or someone has to spend actions casting the spell. The spell is really only broken when there is no action cost to get it into place.


It lasts 10 minutes per level though, at mid-high levels with a relatively cheap Rod of Extend Spell it lasts for several hours per casting.

[Rynjin]

Not the person you were replying with, but I think the reason is that something like Freedom of Movement is beyond just niche negating. It negates Grappling PLUS so many other potential abilities that debilitate or hinder movement on a general scale. I also think that it's strange that there's a defense to the method of fighting, but there's no higher level of that fighting that beats that defense. it's like grapplers were all like:

Grappler: "HAHA! I have you now little spellcaster!"
Spellcaster: "Not so fast! I have this spell that negates your entire method of combat!"
Grappler: "Oh ok... you win. I guess I'll just never develop any means to combat this and you'll always be able to beat me from level 7 and beyond, even in to epic levels.... I'll just stay exactly how I am and you can always beat me with that ability for now and forever more."

Like... that makes no sense to me. If your character is designed to be good at something, your character should be good at that thing, and you should have means and methods of overcoming defenses to your abilities that require further specialization. If you devote your full self to grappling, there should be very little that can meaningfully resist your ability to grapple. You've devoted yourself to something, the mechanics should reflect that. I feel the same way about Enchantment Focused Specialist Wizards. So many things are immune to mind affecting, they should get some mechanism by specializing and devoting resources to affect creatures that are immune to mind affecting effects. Basic immunities and general negations should work against all except specialists in that field.

Given that the OP mentioned Sean K Reynolds, I'm assuming this thread is about Pathfinder, where characters focused on Grappling have access to an ability like this:



At 9th level, a tetori can spend 1 point from his ki pool to suppress his opponents’ freedom of movement and magical bonuses to Escape Artist or on checks to escape a grapple. At 13th level, this ability also duplicates the effect of dimensional anchor. At 17th level, the tetori’s unarmed strike gains the ghost touch special ability, and an incorporeal creature that he strikes gains the grappled condition (Reflex negates, DC 10 + 1/2 the wrestler’s level + his Wisdom modifier). Inescapable grasp is a swift action and lasts until the beginning of the wrestler’s next turn.

This ability replaces abundant step, improved evasion, timeless body, and tongue of the sun and moon.

Or the Spheres of Might equivalent:



Whenever a creature attempts to magically escape a grapple with a teleportation or Warp effect, you may make a special combat maneuver check against their CMD as an immediate action. If successful, the escape fails and they provoke an attack of opportunity from you. At +10 base attack bonus, if you make a grapple attempt against a creature under the effect of a freedom of movement spell or similar effect, that effect is suppressed for the duration of the grapple.

Author's Note: This talent only applies against teleportation effects originating from the grappled target, not from any source. At 10+ base attack bonus, this talent can suppress freedom of movement and other similar effects (like the Fate sphere's Freedom (word)), regardless of their source.

If this thread is not about Pathfinder...the clear solution seems to instead be to introduce abilities like this. That way Freedom of Movement still works on "casuals", but dedicated grapplers can overcome it.

[Biggus]

Given that the OP mentioned Sean K Reynolds, I'm assuming this thread is about Pathfinder

No, it's about D&D 3E, it's tagged as such. Also SKR worked on 3.0 before PF.


If this thread is not about Pathfinder...the clear solution seems to instead be to introduce abilities like this. That way Freedom of Movement still works on "casuals", but dedicated grapplers can overcome it.

Thanks, I had been considering introducing something like this for high-CR grapple-based creatures, I hadn't seen this particular ability before though.

[icefractal]

If this thread is not about Pathfinder...the clear solution seems to instead be to introduce abilities like this. That way Freedom of Movement still works on "casuals", but dedicated grapplers can overcome it.It does seem like a good method, and I'd tie it to levels in "martial" classes (to be defined later, but probably all the full-BAB ones and selected mid-BAB ones); it'd give them a meaningful edge over "easily summoned big stupid monsters". Maybe the T-Rex has a bigger grapple bonus, but does it know how to deal with magic? Nope, it gets foiled completely. Meanwhile the Barbarian isn't slowed down much by such defenses.

The easiest integration with current systems would be abilities which have prerequisites but no cost - when you qualify you get them. For example:

Anchoring Grip
Requirement: Martial Level #, Improved Grapple
Benefit: Immunity to grappling (from spells, incorporeality, being formless, etc) only gives a +5 bonus against you.

Split-Second Reflexes
Requirement: Martial Level #, Improved Initiative or Lightning Reflexes
Benefit: When a readied action or contingent effect is triggered by your action, make an opposed Reflex save with the opponent in question. If you win, your action finishes before the trigger occurs.

[Rynjin]

Rather than defining martial vs caster so strictly, perhaps a simple "BaB from classes" (or "BaB not from Hit Dice") would suffice. With specific exceptions for classes like the Monk ("this class treats its class level as its BaB for the purpose of XYZ abilities") which are/can be maneuver based but not full BaB, and monsters which should thematically have an ability like this (eg. Barbed Devils/Hamatula; "this creature gains XYZ Martial Abilities as bonus Special Attacks" or what have you).

[Psyren]

Grappler: "HAHA! I have you now little spellcaster!"
Spellcaster: "Not so fast! I have this spell that negates your entire method of combat!"
Grappler: "Oh ok... you win. I guess I'll just never develop any means to combat this and you'll always be able to beat me from level 7 and beyond, even in to epic levels.... I'll just stay exactly how I am and you can always beat me with that ability for now and forever more."


If "I can beat your grapple" automatically means "I can beat you" then Freedom of Movement isn't actually the problem; the problem is that the attacker is a one-trick pony.

This is actually a rare situation; monsters that are good at grappling are usually also just good at melee in general and are therefore still dangerous to be in range of. Given that they are also usually Large or larger, staying out of range can still be challenging.

[RNightstalker]

Rynjin, thanks for mentioning the Inescapable Grasp stuff, I'll have to keep that in mind for later games.

[Feantar]

But it does grant a freedom of movement effect for a total of 1rd/cl.


For a total time per day of 1 round per cleric level you possess, you can act normally regardless of magical effects that impede movement as if you were affected by the spell freedom of movement.

There's the key difference. Travel domain only acts as freedom of movement only when magical effects are the impedance; not when grappled (unless grappled by a magical effect).

[Feldar]

But it does grant a freedom of movement effect for a total of 1rd/cl.

No, it grants "act normally regardless of magical effects that impede movement as though you were affected by the spell freedom of movement".

It doesn't say you receive a freedom of movement. Therefore, it does not make you immune to being grappled.

[VladtheLad]

My grapple houserules.

Freedom of movement doesn't make you immune to physical grapple attempts. It grants a bonus to any attempt to escape from a physical grapple equal to your caster level, it also cancels any bonuses from size your opponent has.
Or
It adds +20 to escape a grapple as a standard action. Maybe +10 to escape as a move action and +30 to escape as a full round action.

I would also change size grapple modifiers to 4/8/12/16 or 3/6/9/12 or 2/4/6/8 or as in pathfinder 1/2/4/8. If sth uses the -20 modifier to not count as grappling vs sth smaller it doubles it's size modifier for that purpose.

Escape artist ignores size modifiers.


As an aside for deathward, mind blank, mind affecting immunity for non mindless creatures and similar effects. I apply 50% immunity and +5 to saves or allows a save vs no save effects (like energy drain).
If you hate the extra roll as you said, remove the 50% immunity and change the bonuses to +8-10 to save and +3-5 vs effects that don't allow a save (you actually get a save against them).

[Biggus]

It adds +20 to escape a grapple as a standard action. Maybe +10 to escape as a move action and +30 to escape as a full round action.


That's an interesting idea, I hadn't thought of adding bigger bonuses the longer you take to escape. I decided to go with King of Nowhere's idea about still being able to act normally while grappled for now, but if that doesn't work out I might try this.



As an aside for deathward, mind blank, mind affecting immunity for non mindless creatures and similar effects. I apply 50% immunity and +5 to saves or allows a save vs no save effects (like energy drain).
If you hate the extra roll as you said, remove the 50% immunity and change the bonuses to +8-10 to save and +3-5 vs effects that don't allow a save (you actually get a save against them).

I do actually do something similar to that already :smallsmile:

I try to minimise the number of extra rolls because I largely eliminate absolute effects from the game, and if all them were replaced with a dice roll it'd slow play down quite a bit, especially at higher levels.

[noob]

My grapple houserules.

Freedom of movement doesn't make you immune to physical grapple attempts. It grants a bonus to any attempt to escape from a physical grapple equal to your caster level, it also cancels any bonuses from size your opponent has.
Or
It adds +20 to escape a grapple as a standard action. Maybe +10 to escape as a move action and +30 to escape as a full round action.

I would also change size grapple modifiers to 4/8/12/16 or 3/6/9/12 or 2/4/6/8 or as in pathfinder 1/2/4/8. If sth uses the -20 modifier to not count as grappling vs sth smaller it doubles it's size modifier for that purpose.

Escape artist ignores size modifiers.


As an aside for deathward, mind blank, mind affecting immunity for non mindless creatures and similar effects. I apply 50% immunity and +5 to saves or allows a save vs no save effects (like energy drain).
If you hate the extra roll as you said, remove the 50% immunity and change the bonuses to +8-10 to save and +3-5 vs effects that don't allow a save (you actually get a save against them).
One of the scary things is that when you do saves you basically need to also get a source of "rolls of 1 are not failures" or else during the first round of a battle you just lose to the bucket of save or die issue: you roll 9000 times in a row saves against sods.
It is why some of the immunity replacement suggestions included "not failing on an 1".
99% of endgame dnd is completely broken and the save or die mechanic was never a good idea.

[VladtheLad]

One of the scary things is that when you do saves you basically need to also get a source of "rolls of 1 are not failures" or else during the first round of a battle you just lose to the bucket of save or die issue: you roll 9000 times in a row saves against sods.
It is why some of the immunity replacement suggestions included "not failing on an 1".
99% of endgame dnd is completely broken and the save or die mechanic was never a good idea.

The problem is too many things are off. In my houserules no 1 or 20 is an automatic failure/success but they implode and explode respectively. Also SoD deal damage of the casters level squared or 2*caster level*ability score. This is still very lethal but not absolutely so.
Also are you talking about monster dc's? I don't remeber them being that high. Perhaps I am used to the more streamlined pathfinder monsters. 3.5 remoharz and gorgon I used in my last campaign seemed problematic to me.
I do remember some ridiculous dc's in epic level handbook though.
You also need to not die at -10 hp always. -(level+con score) works well enough.

[VladtheLad]

That's an interesting idea, I hadn't thought of adding bigger bonuses the longer you take to escape. I decided to go with King of Nowhere's idea about still being able to act normally while grappled for now, but if that doesn't work out I might try this.


Well glad you will consider it!



I do actually do something similar to that already :smallsmile:

I try to minimise the number of extra rolls because I largely eliminate absolute effects from the game, and if all them were replaced with a dice roll it'd slow play down quite a bit, especially at higher levels.

I have been testing them at levels 10 and 11 not much of a problem yet, but I certainly see your point.