Pinning someone under freedom of movement


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Freedom of movement wrote:
This spell enables you or a creature you touch to move and attack normally for the duration of the spell, even under the influence of magic that usually impedes movement, such as paralysis, solid fog, slow, and web. All combat maneuver checks made to grapple the target automatically fail. The subject automatically succeeds on any combat maneuver checks and Escape Artist checks made to escape a grapple or a pin.

So you cannot grapple a target under the effects of freedom of movement, but can you pin them?

Dirty trick allows you to apply the entangled condition, dirty trick master let's you increase that to pinned.

Freedom of movement does not make you immune to the entangled or pinned conditions it just let's you auto succeed on checks to remove pinned / grappled, and move normally while they are on you.

Now what i'm getting at is this, if you were to daze someone with dirty trick master and then were to pin them with dirty trick (not grapple checks), do they count as pinned and take all associated penalties? (Hey I can throat slicer you)

Strict reading says yes. Thoughts?


Even if you pinned them, they'd still be able to "move and attack normally for the duration of the spell." I'd argue that they are unaffected by the Daze condition because:

"Dazed: The creature is unable to act normally. A dazed creature can take no actions, but has no penalty to AC."

Which is something that Freedom of Movement prevents. While FoM doesn't specifically mention the condition, it eliminates the effect.

Personally, I don't think it's feasible for any rule to itemize everything specifically it covers when giving a blanket description should suffice. Consequently, when it says that the target can move and attack normally, this would cover any situation that would limit that. Otherwise, they'd have to list at least a dozen different specific rules covered by the spell, and then have to get an errata later on when something new were introduced.


Dazed doesn't prevent movement exactly, it prevents action.

By that logic Freedom of movement should also let you act while unconscious, asleep or dead (although the later does not actually prohibit action).


As stated in FoM, they can move and attack normally for the duration of the spell. Being entangled or pinned doesn't change this.

I would argue that being Dazed isn't negated by FoM. Dazed doesn't physically impair your movement in any way, you're just not cognitively capable of taking actions (which FoM doesn't negate).


Specifically for pinned though, FOM states you automatically succeed checks to remove the condition, implying that you must indeed remove the condition using a standard action.

Because you cannot take any action you cannot make the check so you would retain the pinned condition.

Which is my train of thought


I think it states that you automatically succeed to remove the condition in regards to characters who already were grappled or pinned before the spell was cast. Not to imply that the spell doesn't really work as it says it does.


RAW you may be right.
I'm fairly sure RAI would be FoM negating entangled in the same way as grappled (i.e. the initial entanglement fails), because being entangled is an impediment to movement.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Rub-Eta wrote:
I think it states that you automatically succeed to remove the condition in regards to characters who already were grappled or pinned before the spell was cast. Not to imply that the spell doesn't really work as it says it does.

This.

In general, this FoM mechanic discussion is another one of those cool nuggets of rules information that is actually quite likely to show up in one of my campaigns in the future. In fact, I have a group that may be using FoM in the next week or two.


From this FAQ:

Quote:
No. When a creature is pinned, it gains this more severe version of the grappled condition, and the two conditions do not stack (as described in the pinned condition). While this means that you do not take both the penalties for both the grapple and the pin, this also means that pinned supersedes the grapple condition; it does not compound it. For this reason you only need to succeed one combat maneuver or Escape Artist check to escape either a grapple or a pin.

Bolding mine. Pinned is just a more severe form of grappled. If you can't grapple them, you shouldn't be able to pin them.


It says you auto succeed on any attempt to escape a pin. It's not exactly murky there. It's quite specific and that always trumps general.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Pinning someone under freedom of movement All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.