Question: Powers granting a Shift and the Slowed condition.

[Cacophonik]

If a player affected by the slowed condition uses a power granting him a Shift (taking place during his Standard attack action), is he then allowed to use his Move action to move further, or is he limited to 2 squares per turn regardless of what part of the turn they are used?

Power in question is the Barbarian's "Vault the Fallen", which grants a shift of up to 4 squares sandwiched between 2 attacks on separate targets.

After attacking target 1, shifting 2 squares ('cause of Slow) and attacking target 2, is he then allowed to use his Move action to either move two more squares or use his normal shift?

[Matthew Koelbl]

A point of clarification: being Slowed reduces your Speed to 2, but this does not mean you can only move two squares at a time. It simply menas that you can only move two squares at a time when using a form of movement based on your Speed.

So, for example, a Slowed character spending a move action to take the Walk action (PHB pg 292, the standard way of moving on the field) would move 2 squares.

If they spent a move action to take the Run action, instead, which lets them move their speed + 2 (PHB pg 291), they could instead move 4 squares.

Note that forms of movement that aren't based on the character's Speed are unaffected by slow.

So in your example, a Slowed character using Vault the Fallen could shift the entire 4 squares - and, yes, could then spend a move action to Walk 2 square or Shift 1 square.

Hope this clarifies how Slow works - it reduces your Speed to 2, but this only affects forms of movement that directly reference your Speed. Movement that sends you a certain explicit numerical distance, meanwhile, is unaffected.

[Scott Betts]

Matthew's absolutely right. He's the guy to listen to.

[Cacophonik]

Scott Betts wrote:

Matthew's absolutely right. He's the guy to listen to.

Indeed! He has proven quite encyclopedic in my DMing crises to date, for which I am greatly appreciative! :)

[Matthew Koelbl]

Cacophonik wrote:

Scott Betts wrote:

Matthew's absolutely right. He's the guy to listen to.

Indeed! He has proven quite encyclopedic in my DMing crises to date, for which I am greatly appreciative! :)

Well, glad to be of service!

Always happy to help with smoothing out random rules issues, since everyone knows a DM should be able to keep their focus on the real problems, like coming up with a good plot, or doing terrible things to their PCs. ;)

[Jason Nelson]

Of course, if you want the "slowed" condition to be a little more harsh, you are free to make it cap any kind of movement to 2 squares. Just make sure everybody knows that's the interpretation you are going to use beforehand so nobody gets surprised by it.

[Duncan & Dragons]

Matthew Koelbl wrote:

A point of clarification: being Slowed reduces your Speed to 2, but this does not mean you can only move two squares at a time. It simply menas that you can only move two squares at a time when using a form of movement based on your Speed.

Jason Nelson wrote:

Of course, if you want the "slowed" condition to be a little more harsh, you are free to make it cap any kind of movement to 2 squares. Just make sure everybody knows that's the interpretation you are going to use beforehand so nobody gets surprised by it.

Alright, I got a question about DMing style. What was the designers' intent of slow (and other conditions like it)?

I understand the rules as Matthew has summarized, but do you think that is what the game wanted to happen? I don't mind the running thing because you get negative modifiers. But should Vault the Fallen allow you to shift that much? Was the intent something like; 'You are half frozen. Any of your movement is reduced (including shifts, slides, etc.) but your buddy can slide you with his powers since your being half frozen would not matter to him moving you." Did they just write the rules that way to be concise, but they really wanted to say, "All self initiated movement is reduced, not just your speed. Ok, you can teleport normal distances, but no using loop holes to move around."

I co-Dm with another guy (He plays for 3 levels, then I play for 3 levels). I am the RAW guy and he is the Intent Of The Rules guy. I enjoy the Intent Of The Rules approach but it always causes arguments at the table. Maybe it just depends on people's personalities at the table. Ideally, as Jason said, everyone would agree before hand, but new things always come up.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

I'm not sure how we'd ever really figure out what the intent of a rule was unless the designers happen to mention it. Furthermore I find it unlikely that all the designers would necessarily agree on what the intent was.

That said I tend to be a RAW DM myself except when being very explicit about a change (essentially here I'm simply replacing RAW with my own version of RAW). I do this to cut back on the arguing and to make sure that I don't go on some kind of a power trip when I'm DMing without enough sleep or start bashing a character because a particular player is annoying me in some way. Nothing worse then a DM enraged because a player swiped the last slice of Pizza.

[Matthew Koelbl]

Yeah, had a really thoughtful response written out here, but as usual, the Paizo forums ate it. >_>

Anyway, to summarize: I don't think we can figure out what the intent of the designers was, but my guess would be that it falls in with the rules as written.

It does mean that sometimes Slow is trivialized - I remember running into an Ooze that could Shift 4 Squares as a Move Action At Will, and thus was largely immune to Slow. But to go the other way would in turn trivialize movement based powers.

In general, I don't think there would be any terrible balance issues in changing the rule so that Slow works on everything. It should be something everyone is made aware of, certainly - I recall an LFR game when a judge ruled that I couldn't Run while Slowed, and it being very frustrating to get hit by that out of the blue. But as long as every is informed and ok with it, I don't think it would break the game.

The only real issue I would see is that of complexity. Suddenly, the questions asked at the start of the thread are much harder to resolve. Does Slow reduce you to 2 squares per round, no matter what? What if you use a Move Action to move 2, then try to charge 2? What if you Action Pont to Move? You could simply state that it reduces every single instance of movement to 2 squares - but then what about a power that gives you a bunch of short bursts of movement? Should a power that lets you attack three times, shifting 1 square before each attack, give you more movement than a power than normally lets you shift 8 squares?

Thus, for my own games, I'd stick with the RAW, if only because it is very simple and easy to handle in a game. And that's a lot more important to me than avoiding the occasional unSlowable ooze, given how rare it would be for that to actually be a real issue.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

Personally, I like the idea that some characters (or monsters for that matter), by choosing particular powers or feats or somesuch, Just Can't Be Stopped. You can freeze 'em, cover them in glue, break their kneecaps, what have you, but when Steve the Barbarian gets that blood pumping, he's gonna vault the fallen no matter what. Because Steve is a Bad Ass.

So I'd probably go with RAW on this one. But that's just me.