Long drawn out set up in a combat all leads up to the following: we have a PC attempt to grapple a monster that is under the effect of freedom of movement (that we don't know about). DM has the creature "bluff" us into thinking it is grappled to lure us close, but the creature doesn't take any penalty to AC or suffer any limitations on spellcasting.
What are various people's thoughts on this? I'm not asking people to say the DM is wrong, I'm just curious as to how other DMs would interpret the ability to do something like this in their own games?
For my part I didn't really like it, since my interpretation of freedom of movement has always been that attempts at a grapple autofail, in the sense that your attempts to grab the other guy just fail outright, and that with that in mind I wouldn't let you fake being grappled while suffering no penalties using the spell.
DM said it should have been obvious that there was something wrong since it was still throwing spells at us even when "grappled", while I didn't really feel that way (assumed it was using still spell/psionics).
Anyway, thoughts?
You should have been able to tell if it was casting a spell as opposed to still spell, Sp, Psionics simply for somatic components. The concept was interesting, but I would say it still took penalties, it could just escape at any time (free action, immediate even) but that would have been obvious.
The creature makes a bluff check apposed by the party members sense motive checks with applies modifiers.
Circumstances Bluff Modifier:
The target wants to believe you +5
The lie is believable +0
The lie is unlikely –5
The lie is far-fetched –10
The lie is impossible –20
The target is drunk or impaired +5
You possess convincing proof up to +10
It all comes down to how convincing is the opponent.
The longer the fight persists the harder the bluff would be to pull off. However if all your sense motive checks suck it is plausible.
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"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 the dm pictured it different than you. instead of you not grabbing him, the dm views it as moves as normal while its happening.
I've never made it out right you cant grab them, but rather you grab them and they instantly pull free
its not a traditional description of the spell, and i'm not a fan of it being worded like that, but to each dm their own i guess. to be fair it should have ben escaping the grapple as a free action and then doing its normal thing. if you're grappeling you should know if you're no longer grappling. now if you had it pinned and it slips an arm free to cast, thats different. still not normal, but kind of understandable
and now you know whats happening when that dm describes that situation on a new monster in the future
The creature makes a bluff check apposed by the party members sense motive checks with applies modifiers.
Circumstances Bluff Modifier:
The target wants to believe you +5
The lie is believable +0
The lie is unlikely –5
The lie is far-fetched –10
The lie is impossible –20
The target is drunk or impaired +5
You possess convincing proof up to +10It all comes down to how convincing is the opponent.
The longer the fight persists the harder the bluff would be to pull off. However if all your sense motive checks suck it is plausible.
I would give the "grappler" a fairly sizable bonus on his sense motive check, since he has rater convincing proof that the bluff is false: his grip isn't actually holding onto anything. For the other party members, the +0 modified (the lie is believable) sounds about right. Of course, if the grappler makes the sense motive check, he tell the rest of the party at which point the ruse fails.cks suck it is plausible.
I've never really been able to get a picture in my mind of how freedom of movement works, so I don't think I can really comment on whether such a thing would be possible.
What I will say is that if the monster was pretending to be grappled, then I think it should have taken the penalties. The penalties represent restricted movement, so if you're not taking penalties, your movement is not restricted. And if you're not restricting your movements, then you can't be pretending to be grappled. That would be like pretending to be a mime while not taking the penalty of "not talking".