Nerfing freedom of movement. (3.5)

[Rising Phoenix]

Hello everyone,

Just going through some of the 'broken' spells and trying to nerf them (Polymorph cheese is banned etc).

For most of these Pathfinder solutions are good. Web for example is still useful just not near total save or suck as is glitterdust.

Freedom of movement has not been touched however and that suprised me... Saying no to a whole of spells and melee maneuvers is just not fair so it has to be nerfed imo.

From the srd

I am fine with the spell negating the effects of difficult terrain, and allowing unhindered underwater combat. However I think that it shouldn't be an 'I say no' button to everything else such as slow, paralysis, grapple and entangle.

Thanks to your advice I've come to the following fix:

-duration, casting time etc unchanged.
- Difficult terrain (magical or natural) doesn't affect you and the spell allows you to move and attack normally while underwater for its duration.
- You gain a bonus to saves and opposed roles against effects that entangle, slow paralyze or grapple you = your CL (max 20).

Opinions appreciated.

Cheers,

R.P.

EDIT: Updated the querry. And please excuse my bad spelling and grammar, it's late at night here...

[Tyger]

Hello everyone,

Just going through some of the 'broken' spells and trying to nerf them (Polymorph cheese is banned etc).

For most of these Pathfinder solutions are good. Web for example is still useful just not near total save or suck as is glitterdust.

Freedom of movement has not been touched however and that suprised me... Saying no to a whole of spells and melee maneuvers is just not fair so it has to be nerfed imo.

So how does the following sound better?:

-duration, casting time etc unchanged.
- Difficulty terrain (magical or natural) doesn't affect you for the duration of the spell
- You gain a bonus to saves and opposed roles that entangle, trip, grapple, paralyze you etc= 1/2 (1/4?) your CL.

Opinions appreciated.

Cheers,

R.P.

What melee maneuvers, other than grapple?? Tripping and bull rushing do not "impede movement", they in fact facilitate it.

Yes, FoM is a powerful defensive spell against entangling, hold line of spells, etc. but its no where in the same category as the SoD or even the SoS spells you listed above.

[Kaeso]

Call me a n00b if you wish, but why is freedom of movement considered to be overpowered? It allows a divine caster (or bard) to ignore certain movement impeding effects but it still requires a spell slot (ie. the cleric/druid should've prepared for that situation and the bard has to sacrifice a precious spell known) while it only lasts for 10min/ level, which is usually one encounter. I could name other spells that are far more overpowered than this one.

[Rising Phoenix]

What melee maneuvers, other than grapple?? Tripping and bull rushing do not "impede movement", they in fact facilitate it.

Yes, FoM is a powerful defensive spell against entangling, hold line of spells, etc. but its no where in the same category as the SoD or even the SoS spells you listed above.

Thanks for your reply

Stunning as well (poor poor monk)... how does being prone faciliate movement?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm

It really shouldn't let you run as a humanoid at least... *adds that to houserules*

Back to FoM, yeah there certainly are more broken spells. Still, how would you nerf it?

Cheers,

R.P.

Call me a n00b if you wish, but why is freedom of movement considered to be overpowered? It allows a divine caster (or bard) to ignore certain movement impeding effects but it still requires a spell slot (ie. the cleric/druid should've prepared for that situation and the bard has to sacrifice a precious spell known) while it only lasts for 10min/ level, which is usually one encounter. I could name other spells that are far more overpowered than this one.

Hello Kaeso,

In my experience:

1) Most encounters end after 1 minute (10 rounds), 3 minutes if I drag them. At level 7, seventy minutes could last for several encounters...
2) Spell slots quickly become trivial if you know what you are doing.
3) A spell that simply says 'No' to a bunch of spells and the few melee options non spellcasting casters have is not what I would call fair.

Hope this helps,

R.P.

[Tyger]

Thanks for your reply

Stunning as well (poor poor monk)... how does being prone faciliate movement?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm

It really shouldn't let you run as a humanoid at least... *adds that to houserules*

Back to FoM, yeah there certainly are more broken spells. Still, how would you nerf it?

Cheers,

R.P.

Being prone is a consequence of being tripped, not an effect in the trip itself. By your logic, Freedom of Movement would negate the following effects as well:

1) Sleep (both the spell and the state)
2) Death (being killed prevents you from moving)
3) Having an ability score reduced to zero (can't move when you have a 0 score)
4) Blinded (move at half speed when blinded)
5) Blown away (by a wind or the like, which can knock you down)
6) Cowering (a la Fear effects, you don't get to take move (or any other) actions)
7) Dazed (again, no actions)
8) Disabled (i.e. at 0 hitpoints, can only take a single move action, at half speed)
9) Exhausted (half speed movement)
10) Fascinated (no actions)
11) Petrified (no actions)
12) Stunned (no actions)
13) Unconscious (no actions)
14) Anything that knocks the target prone (which is a list hundreds (and this time I am not exagerating) of items long.)

These are clearly not within the ambit of the spell... neither are tripping nor bull rush immunity.

The spell is not OP. If that's OP in your game, then that's fine, but I'll wager you'll find few people that will agree that a defensive spell like this is OP.

[Rising Phoenix]

Being prone is a consequence of being tripped, not an effect in the trip itself. By your logic, Freedom of Movement would negate the following effects as well:

1) Sleep (both the spell and the state)
2) Death (being killed prevents you from moving)
3) Having an ability score reduced to zero (can't move when you have a 0 score)
4) Blinded (move at half speed when blinded)
5) Blown away (by a wind or the like, which can knock you down)
6) Cowering (a la Fear effects, you don't get to take move (or any other) actions)
7) Dazed (again, no actions)
8) Disabled (i.e. at 0 hitpoints, can only take a single move action, at half speed)
9) Exhausted (half speed movement)
10) Fascinated (no actions)
11) Petrified (no actions)
12) Stunned (no actions)
13) Unconscious (no actions)
14) Anything that knocks the target prone (which is a list hundreds (and this time I am not exagerating) of items long.)

These are clearly not within the ambit of the spell... neither are tripping nor bull rush immunity.

The spell is not OP. If that's OP in your game, then that's fine, but I'll wager you'll find few people that will agree that a defensive spell like this is OP.

LOL,

Okay I should have clarified against the effects that it lists as negating/preventing.

cheers,

R.P.

[Tyger]

LOL,

Okay I should have clarified against the effects that it lists as negating/preventing.

cheers,

R.P.

So please do clarify... then maybe you can get some feedback that you find valuable. If you keep changing the terms, we can't help you.

[Rising Phoenix]

So please do clarify... then maybe you can get some feedback that you find valuable. If you keep changing the terms, we can't help you.

Check the OP please, edited. Hope its clearer now.

Thanks,

R.P.

[Tyger]

Well, those changes take it from a spell that a lot of people cast to one that almost no one would. Useless against a grappler, and (depending on the bonus type) either useless or very useful against a small set of spell conditions.

[Rising Phoenix]

Well, those changes take it from a spell that a lot of people cast to one that almost no one would. Useless against a grappler, and (depending on the bonus type) either useless or very useful against a small set of spell conditions.

hmmm... So would it be better if the bonus equaled your CL?

[Tyger]

Perhaps you could note why you think FoM is OP, as balancing the spell for your game is going to be based on what problem you are having with it.

Are you also getting rid of Protection from Evil, Mindblank, Truesight and Non-Detection? After all, those spells also eliminate or drastically nerf entire schools of magic.

[Rising Phoenix]

Perhaps you could note why you think FoM is OP, as balancing the spell for your game is going to be based on what problem you are having with it.

See below

Are you also getting rid of Protection from Evil, Mindblank, Truesight and Non-Detection? After all, those spells also eliminate or drastically nerf entire schools of magic.

Yes, well not get rid of them, just trying to make them not be a "I say no button your entire school is useless" sort of spell.

[Thrawn183]

I say just make the bonus to resist grappling be equal to your caster level. Assuming 20th level, that's about a +30 for a wizard. A 20th level fighter would stand a decent chance at that thanks to multiple attacks in a round, but neither success nor failure would be certain.

[2xMachina]

lvl 20?

I'd just Dim Door out before a Quickened X to the face.

[elonin]

If you don't like freedom of movement then you'll flip out when seeing mind blank. If you see a problem with it I'd suggest just changing the target to "you". I'm curious about the abuse you've seen in play.

[Myth]

It only bothers me vs grappling. Classes like Reaping Mauler become thoroughly uselerss, and not vs your average Batman but even vs a 6 STR Gnome Rogue who can UMD a scroll. I allow a Concentration check vs the opposed Grapple check. Reasonable still, but you can't flip off a Colossal thing with +90 to grapple because you can cast a low level spell.

[Pechvarry]

Why is Tyger being difficult about this? Of course it's not as OP as wish-chaining or even a simple Shapechange. But it shuts down any non-caster option against casters and reduces them to standard attacking your mirror images. It promotes un-fun combat and creates yet another "I win" button for mages which really don't need it.

And as for the other spells you listed, he'll probably get to them. He did say, after all, that he was going through the spell list. But they're not what this thread is about. This thread is about balancing Freedom of Movement.

On topic: our group has FoM giving a static +20 to the stuff it would normally make you immune to. That worked really well for us, but we were very high level when we started running into Freedom of Movement abuse. The idea being pretty simple: a 20 is the highest you can roll, so immunity is pretty similar to +max roll. However, moving forward, I think full Caster Level as a bonus is pretty good. Make sure to place a cap on it, though (once again, I'd suggest 20).

[Draz74]

hmmm... So would it be better if the bonus equaled your CL?

That could be ok, but I think I'd prefer if it just gave a constant bonus. +15 or +20.

[Gavinfoxx]

Reaping Mauler's suckiness has nothing to do with freedom of movement.

It has everything to do with the class actually making you worse at what it tries to make you better at, being terribly written and terribly edited...

[DragoonWraith]

Freedom of Movement and other caster "no" buttons are examples of extremely poor design, and should be changed. It's "OP" because no matter how good the one grappling you is, you escape, period.

[Tyger]

Freedom of Movement and other caster "no" buttons are examples of extremely poor design, and should be changed. It's "OP" because no matter how good the one grappling you is, you escape, period.

Granted, but there are dozens of examples of this sort of "no" that are far, far more powerful than FoM. That's my only point. On a scale of Magic Missile to Persisted Shapechange, FoM is a 3, maybe a 4 tops.

[Pechvarry]

It's a valid point, but it's out of the scope of this conversation.

Just going through some of the 'broken' spells and trying to nerf them

Just because there are worse spells doesn't mean this one doesn't need fixing. He needs to start somewhere, he ostensibly has some work done in other departments, and just wants some insight for this particular spell.

[Zhalath]

I don't particularly think the spell is overpowered. It allows you to level the playing field against enemies in water/enemies with at-will entangling stuff/enemies with grapple. I swear, half the enemies in MM have Improved Grab, and 90% of those are Large or larger. Combined with the Byzantine grapple rules, I'd encourage my players to cast freedom of movement.

[Hague]

Why not just make it so freedom of movement gives you a free saving throw or grapple check to free you from every effect every round. So if you're paralyzed, you immediately get a free saving throw on top of your original saving throw and on the next turn, you get another saving throw until the effect ends.

Essentially, this will give Freedom of Movement the ability to help you overcome any effect, but only under the power of the person using it. This means that if you get dogpiled by 3 ogres, you're unlikely to break free, making ranks in Escape Artist useful.

[Thrawn183]

I don't particularly think the spell is overpowered. It allows you to level the playing field against enemies in water/enemies with at-will entangling stuff/enemies with grapple. I swear, half the enemies in MM have Improved Grab, and 90% of those are Large or larger. Combined with the Byzantine grapple rules, I'd encourage my players to cast freedom of movement.

And what about when your party runs into a Tyrannosaurus? The thing has one attack per round. Saying no to grappling means the thing is essentially useless. Far better to have a spell that scales off of caster level and could give the melee guy a decent chance to not be swallowed whole.

Freedom of Movement shuts down way too many monsters.

[DarkEternal]

Perhaps, but it is a single person cast only. Unless you intend to waste 4-5 slots to give everyone FoM...which is sort of a risk since there are quite a few good level five spells.

Or get them all Rings of Freedom of Movement. That...on the other hand I could see as being powerful, though if they can all afford one, they are probably on levels where grapple does not play as much of a role as it did.

[John Campbell]

The thing about powerful defensive spells, like freedom of movement, protection from/magic circle against whatever, mind blank, and so on, is that a lot of the things they provide defenses against are themselves broken and anti-fun. Having the overpowered offense completely nullified by application of the correct perfect defense is seriously crappy game design (it's 3.5, what else is new?), but it's better than having uncounterable overpowered offenses.

Evard's black tentacles. (Really, getting slowly crushed to death while you fail to make impossible grapple checks... not fun.) Web. Hold person. (I've seen a player quit the game after a fight in which he got held in the first round, and so he got to do absolutely nothing for the entire evening but fail again and again his attempt to roll the 18+ he needed to break free.) If freedom of movement worked against forcecage, it'd be perfect.

On the protection from evil side, dominate person and its ilk are even worse, because they don't just make you useless, or even effectively take you out of the game... they take your character away.

[Rising Phoenix]

Thank you all for your imput!

Taking your advice into consideration I've decided to nerf Freedom of Movement in the following way:

-Casting, duration etc unchanged
-For the duration of the spell you're movement isn't affected by difficult terrain (magical or natural) and you can fight unhindered underwater.
- Against effects that would grapple, entangle, paralyze, slow etc you the spell grants a circumstance (? the type sounds right?) bonus equal to your CL (max 20) to the appropriate roll to resist these effects.

As for nerfing other offending spells. I am doing them as they come up in my games. There are way too many...

Maybe there should be another thread on these forums? Seems that there would be no lack of participation to 'fix' them.

Cheers,

D.